From the Desk of…
What a week, huh? I ran some polling about the class stereotypes of monsters this week. Vampires: rich. I think we all knew that. Werewolves: poor. This aligns with monster sociology per my studies. Ghosts… ghosts, people said were neither rich nor poor. A secret third thing, perhaps. That’s just some of the great taxpayer-funded work coming out of the Meow Institute this week. In other news, Republicans are blocking any replacement for Sen. Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee, since they’re perfectly happy to leave those judges unsat during this administration. To use an old expression, I’m shocked by the craven hypocrisy of these politicians. Ohio’s gonna start marketing itself differently on account of how everyone with brains and means is fleeing the state. Maybe some more billboards talking trash about other states will do the trick. A grand jury did not indict any of the eight officers involved in the death of Jayland Walker. Interestingly, whoever at the state attorney general’s office did a very poor job of redacting the released documents. More to come on that, I feel. A young man having his life taken from him and being shot 46 times across eight officers isn’t sitting well with many people, myself included. When the village’s Barney Fife emptied his gun in pursuit of a bank robber, shattering the windows of a restaurant on the main drag, the compromise with the angry mob that turned up at the mayor’s office had him start carrying exactly one bullet in his pocket. At least, that was the story my grandmother told me. She may have just been conflating actual Mayberry with real Mayberry, or perhaps she was doing a bit against me. I’ll never know. Come to think of it, was that the same deputy who ended up robbing that bank himself?
This dude runs a cinema in the back room of his east London shop, and it’s very legal and very cool.
The Brain Dump
just got approved to open the latest business derived from Meow Institute research: a one-stop shop for copying, printing, and preserving your memories called Kinko's Biloba
[walking back to the car from the Spaghetti Warehouse as the sun sets] what a horrible night to have a curse [enemies double in number] oh boy
confusing the hell out of my HVAC by flipping between heating and cooling without changing the set temperature
imagining what life would be like if there were a streaming service dedicated to quick bites of entertainment
what a wonderful night I'm having at the opera. i would be mad as hell if this night were ruined by some sort of ghoul, fiend, or specter.
Very funny parking discourse this week from suburbanites who are upset that the Spaghetti Warehouse is (temporarily?) relocating to a more central location and won’t have an enormous parking lot in front of it for them to rest their weary SUVs after the long adventure. Combination of car brains and fear responses to the word “downtown.”
At the Movies
Had an opportunity to catch Mulholland Drive with a pre-show performance by Rebekah Del Rio, and it was fabulous.
The Watcher in the Woods (1980), dir. John Hough ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I bet if Disney ever felt comfortable releasing the original Hough cut, this would be a five star flick. It has haunted me for decades now, just inimitable in its dark vibes. Even the happier reshot non-Hough ending is very and abruptly reminiscent of an Italian horror movie, and the original ending is... I mean, this is like if Lois Duncan wrote a Ramsey Campbell story.
I should read the book.
The Loved Ones (2009), dir. Sean Byrne ⭐⭐⭐
uhhhhhhhhh I guess somewhere along the way I forgot what this was because this was neither what I expected nor my cup of tea
it was well done for what it was and almost smart enough to have a point, but... not for me, thanks
Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva (2023), dir. Dutch Marich ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
Do I wish it had been narratively buttoned up at the end? Sure. The simple fact is that it managed to spook me with all the lights on, and any horror effort that pulls that off is going to get five.
Stay tuned for at least one new release review next week… stay tuned…
One Picture
An attempt to capture the immaculate vibes of that Del Rio performance.
In closing,
If you haven’t started Spring Cleaning, well, it’s time you begun.