mistressofmuses

Last week we watched the first three of the V/H/S films. We had already seen the first two, though it had been a while, so didn't really remember them terribly well. (There are also a fourth, fifth, and upcoming sixth film, but unfortunately those are all Shudder exclusives. Maybe this will be the year I chuck an extra $6 per month at my TV for a couple months for more horror stuff, but I haven't yet.) We watched them out of order, but I'll review them in order, lol.

These are all anthology films, each featuring a frame story that chains the other short films together. As is fairly typical, this leads to a little bit of variable quality in the segments, but at the same time I really do like anthology films in the broad sense. There are some ideas that really ARE best expressed as short stories, and stretching them into a feature-length film makes them less punchy and more prone to filler, and it's relatively difficult to find an audience for short films outside of anthologies.

V/H/S
The frame story ("Tape 56"), directed by Adam Wingard, is... nothing to write home about, but it serves its purpose of giving the rest of it an excuse to happen.
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"Amateur Night" is pretty good. I like a lot of the feature films this director (David Bruckner) has gone on to do: The Ritual, The Night House, the new Hellraiser... he also did a segment in Southbound which is one of my favorite anthology horror films I've seen.
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This segment was expanded into a full-length film called Siren, but I haven't seen it!

"Second Honeymoon," (directed by Ti West) isn't too bad, but is probably my least favorite of the segments.
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"Tuesday the 17th," directed by Glenn McQuaid is one I enjoyed. It's got a fun "unexplained" angle in my opinion.
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Also, I like the title's reference to Friday the 13th.

"The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger", directed by Joe Swanberg, is one of the least gory, though it's the one that's most disturbing in my opinion, because despite the supernatural element to it, the "real" horror is gaslighting and abuse.
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"10/31/98", directed by the Radio Silence collective, is another one I like. It's probably in the middle of my list in terms of which ones I enjoyed the most. It's not a super complex story, but I feel like it did a simple premise well.
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V/H/S/2
I feel pretty similarly about the first and second films. I think both have some great segments that stand out pretty well, and overall I enjoyed both of them.

The frame story in V/H/S/2, "Tape 49", directed by Simon Barrett, has more of a twist to it than the frame story in the first movie, and is similarly decent in its utility as an excuse to chain the other segments together.
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It's a less subtle spooky than the first film's frame story starts out with, but it does its job!

It's a bit interesting to me that the frame story has more of a twist to it this time around, because the various segments actually rely far LESS on having twists to them as compared to the first film. In general, I feel pretty neutral about that? It was sort of a nice throughline for all the stories in the first set, though as a whole I don't think these feel like they're missing something by comparison.

"Phase I Clinical Trials", directed by Adam Wingard, feels a bit like a Black Mirror episode, and it's one that I could see being a pretty decent longer-form film. Or at least an hour-long Black Mirror episode, ha.
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"A Ride in the Park" was directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale (of The Blair Witch Project fame.) I enjoy this one for being a bit blackly funny.
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"Safe Haven", directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Evans, is another one that I would watch as a longer film, and is definitely my favorite of the segments.
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"Slumber Party Alien Abduction", directed by Jason Eisener, is by far my least favorite segment, which makes it a little sad to me that it was the one that DID get turned into a feature film.
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V/H/S:Viral
This one sucked. Lol, I did discover that was not an unpopular opinion: it is by far the worst-reviewed of any of the franchise. But yeah, I did not like it. That was a bit of a bummer, because I did enjoy the first two, and particularly found segments out of both the first two films that really stuck with me. The third one? Nah.

The frame story this time is "Various Circles", directed by Marcel Sarmiento.
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Dante the Great, directed by Gregg Bishop was... kind of mediocre.
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Parallel Monsters, directed by Nacho Vigalondo was a more interesting idea, but it came across as a bit sillier than I think may have been intended.
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Bonestorm, directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Scott Moorhead is definitely my favorite of the segments, but that's a bit of a low bar this time around.
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As a whole, I think this one lacked the at least sort of cohesive feel that the other two did. As mentioned above, the larger scale frame story felt to me like it changed the tone of the series, and not in a good way.

Well that shit got long and kept getting longer.

I would recommend the first two films, on the strength of their best segments, if nothing else. I would not recommend the third, ha. Be advised that there is absolutely a lot of gore and nudity (including multiple instances of full-frontal female nudity), definitely sometimes falling into the “gratuitous” camp.

A media roundup, for this week... ish!

Things I've read:

- Hmmm... Dracula Daily hit a couple long days, lol.

- Taylor and I read the novella that accompanied Spelunking Through Hell, "Sweep Up the Wood". I very much enjoyed it - the story is placed along the Buckley timeline, and covers the time in which [redacted] dies, and Alice and Thomas (finally!) get together for the first time. (This is sort of the "conclusion", I think, to the timeline that the previous novellas and short stories cover, even if there's currently still something of a gap.)
I enjoy Alice and Thomas at that point in their personal timelines, and it is satisfying to see them finally get on the same page(ish) with each other, after knowing they've spent years having their relationship thwarted.
Thomas 100% going all-in on the idea that Alice was actually a werewolf trying to hide her lycanthropy from him was A+ and quite cute actually.
As a side note, I really did enjoy reading all the short stories tracing the family prior to the main-series generation.

- I also read Be the Serpent's accompanying novella, "Such Dangerous Seas".
The Luidaeg is always my fave, so I enjoy getting to find out more of her history through the novellas, and this was definitely a big one. Hard not to get spoilery, but I still love The Luidaeg, and I still very much hate Evening by every name she goes by. Her mom ain't great, either.

- Since then I've started (if barely) a re-read of Sparrow Hill Road. Typically I try to not read THAT much by the same author in a row, unless it's a series, but this one is research on the canon!

Things I've played:

- I played Bioshock for a few hours one night, because Alex said he wanted to watch me play it, ha.
Though this time I convinced him it wouldn't really be too much for him to play if he wanted to, and while I'm glad for him to give it a go, it feels like just a slight bummer that he doesn't "need" me to play it now, haha.
Oddly, both the night I played it, and the following day when Alex did, Broccoli Cheddar Bomb got VERY talkative. Apparently he'd like to play, haha.

Things I've watched:

- Alex and I went to see Smile in the theater. I thought it was fairly decent, though I've got a few thoughts about it, and can see some of the reasons some people didn't care for it.
It was well-acted, and the production values are good. The cinematography is noticeable - there are a lot of either very long (as in duration) shots, and a few that play with perspective with shots that go upside-down or spin in some way. I liked it well enough, though I don't know that those choices accentuated anything in particular with the story, beyond a general disorientation.
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One additional warning: I didn't notice any real strobe-y effects throughout, but for SOME reason the fucking title has a really dramatic blinking strobe effect that was obnoxious to ME, and I'm not typically sensitive to that sort of thing. I genuinely do not understand why they went for that, because it was annoying and had no relevance to the themes or style of the film otherwise.

- Alex and I watched Absentia, which I enjoyed! I hadn't heard of it before, and didn't realize until after Alex picked it that it was Mike Flanagan as director, again. Apparently I do mostly enjoy his stuff. This one was a kickstarter film, I believe, so done on a pretty low budget, but even so, managed to be better than a lot of things with more money behind them.
The main plot is that one of the main characters has just reached the point where she has declared her husband, missing for years, dead in absentia. The other main character, her younger sister, is visiting her for the first time in a long while, after having done a stint in rehab. The younger sister meets a strange man (PLAYED BY DOUG JONES. FUCK YEAH, YOU WEIRD CONTORTIONIST MAN.) in a tunnel near the house, though he vanishes when she goes back to see him again. Then the day after the missing husband is declared dead... he (the husband, not Doug Jones) returns, claiming to have been held captive for years "underneath." The younger sister begins to suspect the tunnel is responsible for many disappearances over the course of decades, if not centuries.

- We watched the first few episodes of the new season of The Handmaid's Tale. I hadn't heard great things from critics who pre-screened the first several episodes, and it seems more damning that *I didn't realize any episodes had come out yet.* (Alex really likes the show, and has been excited for the next season, and we didn't realize it had started!)
I... was not terribly impressed. I haven't much loved the last couple of seasons, even as I did really think the first two were very good. This one... I guess it's been better-received than last season, but I didn't care for it much. My complaints were similar-ish to some of the critical ones I'd seen - like... can something happen, please? Stop posturing and DO SOMETHING.
But I think my issue was more... Gilead doesn't feel like Gilead? Suddenly they're taking Serena (relatively) seriously, there are handmaids-in-training talking back, wives are thanking the handmaids who gave birth to their children (if semi-reluctantly and covertly).
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- We also watched the first seven episodes of The Patient, a show about a serial killer who kidnaps his therapist in the hopes of having constant access to therapy so as to prevent himself from giving in to his homicidal urges.
This one I enjoyed reasonably well so far. Alex was binging it, so my attention was wavering (I really can't watch one thing for that long, ha.) But it's well-acted (Steve Carell in serious roles is still surprisingly good.)

- Grizzly Rage, a SyFy original about a very un-sci-fi bear taking revenge on a car full of college kids who hit and killed her cub, was very bad. Even from the "I love revenge, go fuck 'em up!" perspective it was bad. Bad effects, bad acting (and worse writing.) Felt like a first draft.

Early day out of the way, though now it's 9:00 and I'm ready to go to sleep. I slept very poorly last night, as usual for when I know I have to get up earlier than usual. I'm always paranoid about not waking up in time, so it turns out I just... don't sleep.

Tomorrow is the mystery training day: we'll see what that's about.

Today's managers' meeting didn't yield MUCH info on our missing new owner, but what it did provide was... not encouraging. Apparently the board of the investment company that he was representing suspended him. No one said for what, or if it was/is a suspension with a defined length of time, or what that means for the company as a whole. What shady shit was going on that caused the suspension? Is he coming back at all? If not, does that mean we'll now be owned by this mysterious "board" of people that none of us have ever met or spoken to? If he does come back, what shady shit happened and how do we trust stuff going forward?

Though our center won the award for fastest-growing center, so that's good?

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Yesterday we went to see Firestarter. I actually really enjoyed it, and was surprised when I looked it up after and discovered that is a very unpopular opinion! It's rated really low, and I'm... not sure why? Most of the criticism I've seen I just don't agree with, I guess. I've seen complaints that it had no character arc, but I don't really agree. The arc isn't ENORMOUS, but it does HAPPEN. I think it actually had a very satisfying narrative arc (though not entirely character-driven), but it was a *satisfying* climax, which I feel like doesn't happen as often as I want. Kind of an iddy "aren't you tired of being nice? don't you just want to go apeshit?" arc, which is absolutely zero surprise, but I still enjoyed immensely.

The acting was good. The score was great, thank you John Carpenter (and others).

There are some differences from the source material. To be fair, I don't think that most of the criticism has been that they didn't like that it *was* changed, they just didn't like *how* it was changed.
But... I did? *shrug*

I like that we join up with the family in hiding, but pre-discovery, rather than post-discovery.

I especially liked the ways in which Rainbird's character was changed. He's less the overarching antagonist so much as a tool of the antagonists that's also gotten fucked over, and moving him to being another test subject instead of "just" an assassin made his character far more interesting, and made the government's likely intentions for Charlie feel very present. (Also gets rid of the kind of Unfortunate Implication of "this Native character is obsessed with the protagonist and befriends her and wins her trust with the sole aim of eventually killing her".) (Also also the first adaptation to have a Native actor play the character.)

And the ending as portrayed in the book and 80s film - where they decide to go to the unbiased media, so they can share the story with the world and ensure the government never gets away with this again! - would have honestly just felt... naive, imo, so I'm not mad that they dropped that.

I saw one person in a comments section complain that "a movie called Firestarter should actually have some fire happen at some point" to a chorus of "omg yeah, so boring! no special effects!" and... uh... blatantly untrue?

IDK. Usually I'm pretty predictable - I like a lot of generally well-received horror, and dislike a lot of stuff that a lot of other people also dislike.

But I'd watch this ten more times before I'd watch "Malignant" again, which was one everyone except me loved, apparently.

We went to see Malignant yesterday, since it seems likely that this will be the last week it's in theater. (Alex and I were the only two in the theater for the mid-afternoon showing.)

I stayed away from any in-depth reviews of it, but was told that it was really original and creative and had a great twist. I watch and enjoy a lot of horror, so I had high-ish hopes that I would at least like it fairly well.

I... did not like it.

I'm not doing a real review*, more just a list of my thoughts on it, but I'll cut it before any big spoilers. (And I WILL spoil the big twist, so don't click if you want to see it and be surprised!) If you want to avoid even minor spoilers, skip the whole thing.

*This proved to be a lie; I apparently had lots to say, and it's very close to an actual review, except it's a lot more rambly and disjointed. Dammit. Maybe I'll fix it up and dust off the horror review blog, but no promises.

Okay, the parts I did enjoy:

- the room-melty effects (which are on display in the trailer) are real cool. Similar-ish to the Silent Hill movie's transition from foggy world to otherworld, though less stylized, but still visually neat.

- there are also some good practical effects with the "creature". Also good physical body-motion by the actress portraying the monster, including an unsettling "why does it seem to be moving backward? That's creepy" motion that is later explained, but was clearly visible before the reveal.

- it pretty much launches into the full horror pretty quick, without any real fake-out ramp-up moments, which I can appreciate.

- the initial mystery that's presented is interesting, and I enjoyed it at the beginning. Unfortunately, I liked it less and less as it continued and more was explained.

- the cast was fine.

- there were some neat creepy setpieces (abandoned hospital, Seattle underground tunnels), though I'm not sure they were used to their full potential.

- the opening credits had some neat design things, where duplicate letters in people's names did a cell-division type motion. It was a really little thing, but it was neat and memorable and thematically fitting.

- I guess I'm glad the twist wasn't just "ooh, she was just ~crazy~ all along".

BUT AS FOR HOW I REALLY FEEL:

( Cut for major plot spoilers and length. Slight tw for mention of miscarriage and domestic violence. )

I wanted to go *do* something today, because it's a bit cooler, and it's been a while since we really did much. I'd hoped to hit Hudson Gardens again, and see if their roses are still blooming, or maybe a short hike. Unfortunately, the air quality is EXTREMELY bad. I'm usually lucky in that I don't deal with a lot of allergy issues, but even my sinuses and eyes have been bothering me for several days. Alex's have been extra bad.

So instead we watched the show jumping portion of the Olympic eventing event on a terribly hitchy stream.

Maybe it was for the best, because we both crashed hard for several hours, haha.

Had several dreams during the course of the nap!

One was a very realistic and vivid dream that when I woke up Alex told me that our county was requiring masks indoors again. Then he told me it wasn't taking effect until Friday, but we decided we'd start right away, so I dug out the rest of my masks to wash them. When I woke up, I thought this one had actually happened.
I'm sure this came about because there was a state report today that said that most counties SHOULD be requiring masks again due to transmission levels, but so far none are. Some businesses are, and state agencies have started floating vaccine mandates to employees. I hope we get a mask mandate back, tbh. Because without one, my company will only require them for classroom students. Individual drivers can require them in cars, and we're allowed to wear them if we want, but we are not allowed to require them in the office OR ask people to wait outside, so...

I had another dream that Starbucks decided to have pumpkin spice lattes early this year. Lol

And then I had a long, very involved dream that involved trying to find out what had happened to a missing girl who it turned out had been murdered. I didn't know the other people in the dream, but they'd all been friends/family/coworkers of this girl, and almost all of them were involved in covering up her death in some way.
We wound up with a video that showed part of what had happened, though it still wasn't completely clear... and it eventually appeared there was some supernatural component to her death.
And then we wound up targeted by some... ghost... demon... thing that was either what had killed her or was somehow seeking vengeance over it. It was stalking us around a house, and was basically unstoppable. It looked like a bluish corpse-like man, though with lots of subtly inhuman proportions. There was one bit where it hid in the ceiling and dropped its tongue down several feet to attack someone. It was a pretty visceral feeling when I tried to cut the tongue itself off to save her, and it just grew back.

That was the dream that was interrupted when I woke up, so I assume we all ultimately died horrible deaths, lol.

Review of Episode 3.

Sorry I got so behind again.

I may temporarily go to a M/W/F schedule for posting. I'm watching both Bates Motel and Hannibal, and if I want to review both while keeping a twice-weekly update, then I'm a) never going to catch up to current episodes, and b) won't be able to review anything else while both seasons are in progress. After one of the shows ends its season, I'll probably go back to a Tuesday/Friday posting schedule.

This is still assuming I can keep to ANY kind of schedule. So... HA.

So A&E has a new show called "Bates Motel," which is a contemporary prequel to Psycho. It's... okay so far.

I meant to post yesterday, but forgot. :P

Kind of mixed feelings about this one...

I actually thought this one was pretty good.

This wasn't a BAD movie, but it wasn't a GOOD movie either. Short review here.