Unlike his victims, interest in the Zodiac case refuses to die. For more than five decades, fans of true crime have been hashing and rehashing the details of the Zodiac’s crimes. Zodiac remains one of the most unique serial killers of all time, from the costume he wore to the multiple letters and cyphers he mailed to the police. One might think that after more than 50 years every theory, clue, and story had been exposed and yet every few years the case resurfaces with a new angle, whether its an attempt to have AI crack the cyphers or, in the case of This is the Zodiac Speaking, the story of a family who lived with Arthur Leigh Allen, the only man ever named as a suspect in the Zodiac murders.
The star of this 2024 three-part Netflix docuseries isn’t Allen but rather the Seawater family. Mrs. Phyllis Seawater was a mother of three kids (David, Connie, and Don). Mr. Seawater was a bad father who went to prison for molesting Connie. Before long a single Phyllis attracted the attention of Allen, a grade school teacher who liked spending time with her and really really liked spending time with children. Like, a little too much.
The series bombards viewers with first hand (but circumstantial) evidence from the Seawaters that Allen was, in fact, Zodiac. Allen took the kids on outings which they later realized were all the Zodiac’s murder sites… prior to the murders. In his classroom, Allen taught his students how to write cyphers and codes, just like the ones the Zodiac made. Allen got pulled over while speeding near one of the crime scenes and was discovered to have blood on his car seat. Once he gave an old bloody knife to one of the Seawater kids. The Seawater kids made diving suits (with hoods) for Allen that resemble the Zodiac’s outfit. Allen used was convicted of molesting Connie and, during the time he was in prison, the letters from Zoziac to the police stopped. to drug the children so he could molest them.
Oh, and during a phone call between he and David Seawater, he allegedly confessed to being the Zodiac. He also kept a bunch of Zodiac-related newspaper clippings, had a VHS tape full of full of Zodiac-related news clips, and while incarcerated, wrote dozens and dozens of letters to Phyllis referencing Zodiac.
It’s all compelling stuff and everything lines up. In fact, part of the reason everything lines up is because any evidence that goes against the documentary’s narrative is eschewed. Allen’s DNA, fingerprints, and writing samples ruled him out as a suspect. It would be one thing to refute or discuss conflicting evidence, but here it is completely avoided.
In 1992 Allen was found dead with a letter in his hand that in which, despite years of teasing, proclaimed his innocence. And, that’s where the documentary ends, with no more answers than we started with. Sometimes it seems like Allen liked people thinking he was the Zodiac, and other times not so much; likewise, it’s tough to tell if Phyllis was caught up defending a man she knew was guilty or if she just liked the attention herself. Both are dead along with David Seawater (whom Allen allegedly confessed to) so none of them are talking.
In the end This is the Zodiac Speaking isn’t a scientific study on whether or not Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac killer — it’s more about the Seawater’s experience of knowing Allen and their feeling that it was him. There’s no denying that Allen was a bad human being. Whether he was Zodiac remains to be seen.
The premise of 2024’s Will and Harper is simple. During the covid-19 lockdown, comedian Will Farrell received an email from longtime friend and former SNL head writer Andy Steele that he was transitioning into a woman. Shortly after the email was sent, Andy became Harper. Harper is a lifelong fan of cross country road trips, and at that point the documentary practically wrote itself: Will and Harper would drive across the country together, navigating America’s twisty roads as they themselves navigated their friendship.
The trailer, like I said, is simple. The issues the film deals with are a bit more complex.
Throughout the film the pair make multiple stops as they work their way across the country from east to west. Outside the comfort zones of places like the SNL offices or Harper’s sister’s home, the pair are not always welcomed with open arms. Harper’s affinity for “real America” leads the pair to dive bars adorned with anti-Biden banners and Confederate flags, stock car races, and courtside at an NBA game — all locations intended to stoke a reaction because, let’s face it, conflict makes for good viewing. On multiple occasions conflict is diffused when people recognize Will Farrell.
The film’s most awkward moment comes when the pair spot The Big Texan in Amarillo, Texas — home of the infamous 72oz steak challenge. Farrell not only accepts the challenge (in which customers must eat a 72oz steak in under an hour along with sides like a baked potato and side salad), but does so while dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Somehow the two end up on a stage with spotlights pointed at them and even Farrell admits it’s one of the more awkward moments of his life. Ferrell’s attempt at comedy backfires as Harper must sit awkwardly with an entire restaurant staring at her. The Tweets that follow are shared on screen and are as bad if not worse than you can imagine.
Not every stop is as disastrous. Both of the pair’s stops in Oklahoma (one at a dive bar, the other at a dirt track racing event) are largely uneventful. Harper acknowledges that Farrell is her safety net, and that going into these places alone might not go as smoothly if she were navigating them alone. Even so, the pair never seem to face any direct conflict; at most they get the occasional awkward glance. Even Indiana governor Eric Holcomb (who signed a bill banning all gender-affirming health care in the state) smiles as he meets the pair courtside at a Pacers game.
As much as it is about the people they meet and the places they go, the film always returns to the pair’s relationship. Farrell asks the questions many of us are curious about, and Harper shares the pain and suffering she has endured along her journey. One of Harper’s goal is to “pass” (be identified as female), but her masculine face and build make that difficult. She is routinely misgendered by strangers and Ferrell does his best to introduce her as “Miss” Harper Steele, but when he shows up wearing a costume as the two dine in Las Vegas, it just makes it seem like she’s in one, too.
I went into Will and Harper assuming that the goal of this film was to change the way people think about transgender people. After watching the film, I don’t think that’s the case; at least, not in the way I originally thought. Harper doesn’t wanted to be treated like
It’s hard to believe that the original Beetlejuice, released in 1988, is 36 years old, even harder to believe that Michael Keaton just turned 73, and even harder than that to believe it took this long for a sequel to arrive. With any film that grosses $75 million (on a budget of $15 million) you would think a sequel would be fast and inevitable, but, save for a Saturday morning animated series, Beetlejuice simply disappeared as if someone had uttered his name three times in a row.
And yet somehow, after watching Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, this feels like the right era for the story to continue. In the sequel, which takes place in modern times, everyone has moved up a generation. Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara) is now a grandmother (and a widow); Lydia Deetz (Wynona Ryder) is also a widow and the host of her own popular paranormal television show; Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is the new gotherific teen, completing the trifecta.
(And Beetlejuice is still Beetlejuice.)
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t just have a plot, it has like four. First is the Deetz family dealing with the loss of their patriarch, Charles Deetz. (In the original film Charles was portrayed by Jeffrey Jones, who has since registered as a sex offender and retired from Hollywood, thus the absence of his character from the film.) We also have multiple storylines with Lydia, including her relationship with Rory (her business manager), and Astrid, her daughter. There’s a major plot line with Astrid who meets a boy with a dark past, and then there’s Beetlejuice, who’s being pursued by his former wife. Even in the afterlife, stalkers be stalkin’. The problem with all these storylines is that often they have the same weight. The film isn’t from any one person’s point of view — it’s from all of theirs, including Beetlejuice’s.
One thing I really liked about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is that it doesn’t feel like a reboot or a reimagining. This is a true sequel, and the film is tied both visually and sonically to the original . Danny Elfman provides a similar but new soundtrack, and the look of the world, both on earth and in the afterlife, feels the same. In a film like this it would have been easy for them to go overboard with new CGI tricks and updates, but save for one scene early on in the film, the majority of the effects are done practically. There’s some claymation stuff, and one scene that was probably done with CGI but stylized to look like it was stop motion. Save for that one long CGI scene, you could watch both films back to back and, for the most part, think they were from the same era.
Winona Ryder does a good job of capturing the spirit (no pun intended) of Lydia and Jenna Ortega, who looks like a young Winona Ryder, has no trouble pulling off the angsty teen role. Catherine O’Hara, without Jeffrey Jones working as a straight man by her side, often comes off more like Moira from Schitt’s Creek than Delia. Even at 73, Michael Keaton IS Beetlejuice. Justin Theroux plays Rory as an over the top drama queen, and there are other cameos I won’t spoil. Astrid’s boyfriend Jeremy is played by newcomer Arthur Conti, who I suspect was hired only because Finn Wolfhard was busy filming the final season of Stranger Things.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will never be the classic the original was, but it doesn’t tarnish the original, either. It’s worth revisiting some old friends for a while every now and then.
I was just a kid — and more importantly, a member of the target demographic — when Star Wars was released in 1977. But a funny thing happens to franchises that stick around for decades. First, they started targeting audiences younger than me. Suddenly I noticed all of the actors were younger than me. And now, shows like The Acolyte are being made by people younger than me. Everything I have to say about this show isn’t negative — there were a few things I liked here and there — but at no point did I feel like the show was made for me. If there’s a character from Star Wars I most identify with at this point, it’s Yoda, snuggling under his blanket and waiting for Luke to shut his pie hole so I can finally get some sleep.
In the first season of The Acolyte, a group of four Jedi — Master Sol, Master Indara, Master Kelnacca, and Master Torbin — have been sent to investigate Brendok, a planet that according to them shouldn’t have life but somehow does. The only explanation the group can come up with for this anomole is that somewhere on the planet lies a “Vergence in the Force.” After nearly two months of snooping the Jedi encounter Mae and Osha, a pair of Force-sensitive 8-year-old twin girls who are being raised by a coven of witches. The Jedi demand the girls be tested and things escalate quickly between the two groups which leads to a conflict in which the coven is destroyed. Amidst the chaos, Mae and Osha are separated, leaving each twin thinking they are the lone survivor.
In the current timeline (which takes place fifteen years after that inciting event) we learn Mae and Osha are diametrically opposite. Osha, the “good twin,” trained with the Jedi but ultimately left before becoming a Jedi. Mae, the “evil” twin, has been training with what equates to a Sith Lord, focusing her skills, powers, and energy to kill the four Jedi who destroyed her home all those years ago.
In the first episode, Mae sets her revenge plot in motion by tracking down and murders Master Indara. Work quickly reaches the Jedi who incorrectly identify Osha as their suspect. When a second murder takes place while Osha is in custody, the Jedi realize there’s trouble in them there Brendok woods.
By the end of the first episode of The Acolyte, viewers have a good idea of what the show did right, and where it falls apart. The choreography in the fight between Mae and Master Indara features Matrix-esque action (ironic, as Indara is played by Carrie Anne-Moss, aka “Trinity”), but Indara’s choices throughout the battle are laughable poor and it seems inconceivable that a Jedi Master could be so easily out fought and outsmarted by such a young adversary.
And the Jedi’s incompetence doesn’t stop there — in fact, it doesn’t stop throughout the entire series. Based on an eyewitness to the battle, the Jedi zoom across the galaxy to arrest Osha, who is working on a Trade Federation ship as a repair mechanic. At a minimum, wouldn’t there be security cameras on the ship, showing that Osha was there? Did the Jedi happen to watch Attack of the Clones, in which Obi-Wan and Anakin encountered a shapeshifting alien assassin? The entire season plays out this way, with the Jedi making continually dumber decisions. It would be different if the show were attempting to make the Jedi look like bumbling idiots, but it doesn’t. By the end of the eight seasons, every single character has made multiple head-scratching out-of-character decisions solely to move the plot forward. The Jedi even manage to fall for the ol’ “twin swithceroo” trick, something that normally only works in children’s sitcoms.
There’s an old problem in Star Wars that I refer to as “R2’s Rockets.” In Revenge of the Sith R2-D2 uses built-in rocket boosters to fly, a skill that would have come in handy many times in the original trilogy but which he inexplicably never uses. The “R2 Rocket” problem is on full display in The Acolyte. The Sith Lord the Jedi seek wears a helmet made of cortosis, a metal that is impenetrable by the Force and even shorts out lightsabers when they hit it. When wearing it, Jedi cannot peer into the baddie’s mind or thoughts. Cool, cool. But in a POV shot from inside the helmet we can clearly see there are eye slits and the thing is obviously not air tight, which begs the question… can the Force not go through cracks? And much like the old “why don’t they make airplanes out of the same material they make the black boxes out of,” why isn’t everyone running around in suits made of cortosis? Another problem is how the Jedi are able to sense people using the force. Jedi are always sensing disturbances in the force, and yet the skill only seems to come up when it’s convenient. Back in the witches’ fortress, one of them randomly senses the presence of the Jedi. But later, the Jedi come in direct contact with the Sith Lord while he’s dressed as his alter-ego, a shopkeeper named Qimir, and despite having a relatively long conversation, none of them suspect a thing. Force powers are weird. In another scene, we learn Qimir has “mindwiping” ability that exceeds anything we saw in the Men in Black films. In one episode he wipes someone’s mind, removing all their memories of another character and also removing all memories back to a certain date. Is mindwiping a skill only the Sith possess? Is it something only Qimir can do? Why don’t the Jedi wipe the minds of everyone who’s about to attack them? Who knows!
It goes on and on. The amount of suspension of belief required to endure this show is immeasurable. It is explained that one of the original quartet of Jedi, a Wookiee Jedi Master Kelnacca, has retreated to a planet and lives a life of solitude, hiding in a forest. No one has been able to find him. And then in the course of a day, three separate parties — a group of Jedi, Mae, and Qimir — all descend on the planet and are able to find him pretty easily. For the record, Qimir has tasked Mae to kill a Jedi without using a weapon. It’s part of her training, although the reasons are foggy. Qimir tasks Mae with killing the Wookiee… and then inexplicably parts ways with her to try and do it on his own, completely undermining her training. In case you’re wondering, Wookiees wield lightsabers exactly how you might imagine, like a cross between a baseball bat and a battle axe.
Later int he show we discover another Jedi, Master Venestra, refuses to report any of this to the Jedi Council, and has directly lied to them about all of their findings. She claims all of this will make the Council look bad to the Senate, but doesn’t a Sith Lord on the loose and a teenager murdering Jedi make them look just as bad?
In possibly the most baffling and frustrating aspect of the entire show is that the inciting event, the death of the girls’ mother, sorta-kinda seemed like an accident? At worst, a Jedi was defending himself against what seemed to be an offensive move. This is the event the four Jedi have been hiding for a decade and a half. Buuuuut… don’t Jedi kill people all the time? I seem to recall Luke Force-choking Gamorrean guards in Jabba’s Palace and slicing a bunch of Jabba’s skiff guards in half when, in retrospect, it seems like he probably could have just Force-pushed them off the skiff into the sand. Not for nothin’, but Luke killed two million people when he blew up the Death Star, and at least a hundred more when he destroyed Jabba’s sail barge, so stabbing a random witch who looked like she was about to attack you doesn’t seem like an act worth of decades of secrecy and regret.
While the series tries hard to not use established characters as a crutch, it does feature a few cameos. In one brief scene cone-headed Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mund makes an appearance, a cameo that will excite absolutely no one, but slightly more interesting is a glimpse of Darth Plagueis, the Sith Lord Palpatine told Anakin was so powerful that he could use the Force to create life. This seems to explain the existence of the twins, who were born of the Force. There’s a third cameo at the end of the final episode that mostly serves as fan service.
Not to beat a dead Jedi, but my biggest problem with The Acolyte is that it makes Jedi as a whole look unorganized, incompetent, and for the most part, pretty dumb. They can’t solve a murder mystery, they can’t handle a simple cover-up, and they are constantly and embarrassingly being outwitted by seemingly everyone they come in contact with. Most of them are barely likeable.
Based on the number of unanswered plot points by the end of Season One it is obvious that Disney was planning for at least a second season of The Acolyte, but an estimated budget of $250 million per season combined with a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating hovering around 50% makes that seem unlikely. Of all the questions left hanging, and there are many, the biggest one I had was why in the Phantom Menace are the Jedi completely blindsided by the existence of a Sith Lord in the form of Darth Maul. In that film the Jedi Council act as though no one has seen a Sith Lord. One member of the council is Ki-Adi-Mund, who is in the series and definitely knows there’s a Sith Lord running around! Maybe somebody mindwiped him, too. Does mindwiping someone with a giant conehead take longer than normal? I digress.
Season One of The Acolyte is available for streaming on Disney+ and who knows, if you’re under the age of 30, you’ll probably like it. Come for the action, stay for the plot holes.
Mick Mars, former guitarist and co-founder of Motley Crue, is the last of the band’s original members to release a solo album. If the previous solo projects from vocalist Vince Neil, drummer Tommy Lee, and bassist/songwriter Nikki Sixx taught us anything, it’s that the Motley Crue always has and always will be greater than the sum of its parts. Nothing the band’s members have done on their own comes close to matching the Crue when they’re firing on all four cylinders, and sadly, the same goes for Mars’ debut solo album, The Other Side of Mars.
Mars’ debut effort comes on the heels of his ugly slit from the band he played guitar with for more than 40 years. Public sentiments have been on Mars’ side, and legions of rock fans have been eagerly awaiting this long-teased album which seems to have been recorded at a pace befitting any 72-year-old man.
After writing “I don’t know what I was expecting from [i[The Other Side of Mars,” I quickly realized I did. I was expecting more of what put Mick Mars on the cover of all those guitar magazines over the years. I was looking for ripping riffs and blazing solos. Every second of this album should should have been two middle fingers pointed at his former bandmates. This album should have opened with a guitar-soaked instrumental letting fans, critics, and the remaining members of Motley Crue know who the Hell they had let go.
But… it doesn’t. The album opens with “Loyal to the Lie,” which it built around some heavyish chords that drop out almost as quickly as they appear. By the time the verses roll around, the guitars are completely gone — recruited vocalist Jacob Bunton is left to screamo vocals over bass and drums only. In the liner notes, Bunton is also credited for “violins,” something literally nobody asked for on a Mick Mars album.
After two mid-tempo and mostly generic rockers we get “Alone,” a power ballad destined to blow up proms everywhere. Two songs later we get “Memories,” a piano-based ballad. This is not the other side of Mick Mars I wanted. I wanted the other, other side. The side that played “Red Hot,” and “Too Fast for Love,” and “Kickstart My Heart.” “Kickstart My Heart” isn’t even one of my favorite Motley songs and it blows the pipes off of anything here.
Some of the album’s songs like “Killing Breed” and “Ain’t Going Back” are harder than others, but the majority of the songs feel like background music at a Monster Energy Drink Fest. They’re every generic metal song you’ve ever heard. The band throws out every trick in the book (three of the songs end with them being digitally slowed down and altered) and still, nothing sticks. Every song sounds like something you might hear in the background of a UFC pay-per-view.
And then there’s “LA Noir.” The album’s tenth and final track is an instrumental straight from the brains of Mick Mars. It’s a nearly four-minute bluesy rocker with Mars’ guitar giving Bunton a break from vocals. Save for a few boring solos, it’s the first time we really get to “hear” Mick. Why it’s buried at the end of the album, I have no idea. It should have been the first track. Maybe it should have been the only track. This is the other side of Mick we deserved to hear more of.
The Other Side of Mars isn’t a bad album, but it definitely isn’t great and even saying it’s good is pushing it. For the most part, it passes for aggressive background music. Mick Mars spent four decades standing in the shadows and it’s a shame he didn’t feel comfortable stepping out of them for his own solo record.
Quiz Lady is a light-hearted film starring Awkwafina as Anne Yum, a meek 33-year-old woman doing her best not to make waves in life. Anne is reunited with her aloof older sister Jenny (Sandra Oh) after their mother wandered away from her retirement home. The sisters are complete opposites; Anne’s sole joy comes from watching a nightly television game show with her dog, Linguini, which Jenny aspires to be an actor, appears to be living in her car, and is suing Chi-Chi’s after choking on a fishbone in her fish.
The sisters are forced to work together after a bookie informs them their mother has run up $80,000 in debt, and things escalate after the bookie’s cronies kidnap Linguini. Anne forms a plan to sell her car and pay the debt off over many years, but the impulsive Jenny comes up with a better plan — kidnap her trivia-loving sister and drive her to the QuiZ Show audition in hopes of getting her on the show and winning enough cash and prizes to pay off the bookie and rescuse Anne’s dog.
The film deals with identities, childhood trauma, and identity issues as the sisters hash out grievances from the past. For once, Awkwafina plays someone other than the typical loud, foul-mouthed characters she’s known for. It’s a comedy and a road trip film and a coming of age story.
Supporting cast includes Will Farrell essentially doing a subdued version of his Alex Trebek impersonation he perfected on Saturday Night Live, and Steve Carrell Jason Schwartzman as an obnoxious returning champion who apologizes to incoming contestants for arriving during his run.
Quiz Lady doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel and offers plenty of jokes along the way.
There’s an entire generation of kids who first discovered Motley Crue through their 2019 Netflix biopic, The Dirt. These new fans are more familiar with the band’s off stage antics than their back catalog, and I can’t blame anyone who has only recently discovered the band for wondering… what was the big deal? Vince Neil’s vocal performances have been notoriously awful for at least a decade, the band heavily leans on backing tracks in concert, and it’s public knowledge that every member of the band hates the other three. Throughout the band’s wild history, drummer Tommy Lee quit (he later returned), vocalist Vince Neil quit and/or was fired (he also returned), and most recently guitarist Mick Mars quit and/or was fired in 2023. The only member who never quit the band is bassist Nikki Sixx, although he did temporarily die from a heroin overdose for a few minutes so technically he was out of the band while dead. The best decision the band ever made was to retire from touring while before turned into a nostalgic act… and then they returned to touring as a nostalgic act.
While I can understand younger fans seeing Motley Crue as a bunch of washed up has-beens, that wasn’t always the case. In 1983, the members of Motley Crue were lean and mean. They looked like demonic extras from a Mad Max film, filled their stage with pentagrams and fire, and blew away every other band on the Hollywood Strip. The band divided their time equally between rocking, fighting, drinking, and screwing. They were the baddest, dirtiest, sleaziest band around — no stage, hotel, or female fan was safe from their antics. They were Motley Crue.
Shout at the Devil was the band’s second album and if not their best work, certainly their most consistent. Every song on the album was tailor made to represent (if not sculpt) the band’s image. Every song is related to one the band’s pastimes (mostly fighting and screwing), with the occasional dip into family-friendly (read: marketable) Satanism. The album’s two singles, “Looks That Kill” and “Too Young to Fall in Love” made their way into MTV rotation and introduced an army of teenagers (including myself) to their torch-waving, leather-wearing image.
In addition to the album’s original 11 tracks, the 40th anniversary release contains five additional remastered demos. Three are demo versions of songs from this same album (“Shout at the Devil”, “Looks that Kill”, and “Too Young to Fall in Love”). We also get “Hotter than Hell” (which eventually morphed into “Louder than Hell” and appeared on Theater of Pain) and “Black Widow,” an unreleased track. All five of these tracks have appeared on previous releases, with the first four demos appearing on the 20th anniversary release of Shout at the Devil and “Black Widow” appearing on the the greatest hits compilation Red, White, and Crue. Motley Crue is well known for including new cover tunes and unreleased tracks on their greatest hits and re-released albums, and it’s unfortunate that this one contains no new material.
Inside the limited edition are enough collectibles and bonus items to convince your friends you’ve been collecting Motley Crue merchandise since the early days. There’s a paper Ouija board and a metal Motley Crue planchette, some art prints, a set of tarot cards featuring the members of the band, a devilish ceramic candle holder, the album on vinyl, a second vinyl album containing all the demos (which features additional demos for “Knock ’em Dead Kid” and “I Will Survive”, both of which have also been previously released), two 7″ singles wrapped in a red banana that says “Shout at the Devil” in Latin, the album on cassette, and the album on CD. There’s a lot of stuff in the box and fans of the band and album won’t be disappointed. How many of your friends have polished metal Motley Crue planchettes?
The mix on the CD is brand new, and this is quite possibly the best these songs have ever sounded. Songs on the CD are slightly louder than the 2003 20th Anniversary release, and miles above the original CD release. When alternating between the 2003 and 2023 releases you can tell the guitars are slightly brighter and the bass is a little more pronounced, but the difference is very slight.
Look, I get it. Mick Mars, who just semi-retired from the band, is in his 70s. The other members of the band are in the 60s. They’re not “in their prime.” But there was a time when they were, and it during the Shout at the Devil era. If you want to hear the best version of arguably the band’s best album, this is it.
V/H/S is a series of horror anthology films that consist mostly of found footage style short stories. The latest (sixth) in the series, V/H/S/85, contains stories that take place in the mid-80s, thus the name. Consistent with the film’s theme, all the footage is of VHS-quality.
Like lots of these anthology-style films, the stories in V/H/S/85 are short stories, all of which contain some sort of “twist.” Unfortunately, it seems like so much time and effort has been put into making the segments look as though they were filmed in the 80s that many of the segments seem so light on content that some of them feel half baked. Each segment was created by different writers and directors so everything feels disjointed — it’s as if they’re all from the 1985, but different versions of 1985. V/H/S/85 is a direct-to-Shudder (streaming) release and so even though several of the directors involved in the project are established, the segments are less about taking artistic chances and more about concept ideas that aren’t completely fleshed out.
Bordering on unwatchable is “God of Death,” a short in which a Mexican news broadcast is interrupted by an earthquake. As cameras continue to roll and rescue personnel work to free those who have been trapped, we learn that the news station sits atop ancient Aztec ruins, which were in turn home to ancient (and now hungry) Aztec monsters. It’s the type of plot that anyone who has ever read a horror story, has heard of H.P. Lovecraft, or frankly has been to Mexico could come up with in about 30 seconds. If you’re looking for deeper meaning here, you’ll find none. An earthquake freed some monsters and now they’re gonna getcha. The end. If this segment weren’t bad enough, it’s shot with handheld footage and is presented completely in Spanish, which means you’ll be trying to read subtitles over shaky-cam footage. No gracias.
Equally as bad but in all new ways is “TKNOGD,” featuring a female performance artist who leverages the latest technology (a virtual reality headset) to perform some sort of Satanic ritual. Things go wrong by going right and a virtual demon appears in her headset to give her the business. The crowd of dozens mistakes her suffering as part of the performance, and she receives a standing ovation as she lays dead on the stage. People being killed on stage and having the audience think it’s part of a performance is not a new idea, neither is virtual reality things harming people in real life. The best thing about this one is that it’s short.
Then there’s “No Wake” and “Ambrosia”, two parts to the same story. In “No Wake,” a group of college kids go swimming in a lake (big sign, “no swimming”) and are ultimately mowed down by a sniper’s bullets. There’s no motive and 80% of this short is scene setting (“gosh, you’ve never heard of Pet Sematary?”). The story ends abruptly with a vow by the remaining kids to get revenge. An hour later that comes in the form of “Ambrosia,” in which we get to see the killer’s point of view, first hand. The story ends two minutes too early, leaving viewers to wonder what’s happening and what will happen. Like most of the anthology’s stories, not enough is explained.
While most of the stories feel undercooked, “Dreamkill” feels like a week-long meal crammed into a TV dinner-sized container. The story begins with detectives receiving a VHS tape in the mail that contains footage of a particularly gruesome (think “Saw”) murder dated three days in the future. This story is less horror than it is an extremely gory detective short story featuring a pair of detectives and one really out of place looking goth kid. Were people dressing like Marilyn Manson in 1985? Not in Oklahoma, they weren’t! This one actually has some good twists and turns and was the only story I wished were longer.
There’s a wrap around story about a shapeshifting alien named Rory that’s interspliced between the other segments. It’s part The Thing and part Alien, presented in the style of an analog horror documentary tape. Again, it’s like 49% of the time was spent on the aesthetic, 49% was spent on special effects, and 2% was spent on the plot. Shapeshifting alien looks human and kills people? Seen it.
There’s a way that people speak in movies about the 80s that does not reflect how people spoke in the 80s. Do you remember anyone geeking out about beta over VHS in 1985? It happens two or three times in this movie. In one scene, a guy asks some girl what brand of “VCR deck” she has. Nobody in 1985 cared what brand of VCR you owned. I’m not even sure I knew! It’s not all, but enough of the dialog is that “oh WOW is that a Rubik’s brand Rubik’s cube puzzle!?” type of nonsense that nobody ever said and makes it feel less like something from the 80s and more like an 80s tribute from someone who probably didn’t live through it.
V/H/S/85 was a direct-to-Shudder release and is being touted as one of the better entries in the V/H/S series, which doesn’t speak well of the others.
You ever have one of those days, maybe a road trip or a vacation, where nothing went right?
In The Descent, six spelunking women head out on an adventure to explore a system of caves located in North Carolina. The girls are all expert climbers, and have done their homework prior to entering the cave. They’ve brought all the equipment necessary to get them into and out of the cave, made sure that the cave has three exits in case anything goes wrong, and even brought a map of the cave in case they get lost.
But when it rains, it pours. A cave in blocks the path the original entrance to the cave, and in the following scene another girl admits that they’ve actually entered an unmapped, unexplored cave (she was hoping they would name it after them). The group finds themselves stuck underground with no known exit, a finite amount of light, and no extended source of food or water. This day couldn’t get any worse!
(Ten minutes later, a series of mole-like humanoid creatures arrive intent on eating the girls’ faces.)
It’s been a long time since I sat through a movie as tense as The Descent, a film that is constantly tightening the screws of tension. While I’m not particularly claustrophobic, I think almost anyone would squirm if they were crawling through a crevice barely large enough to fit through when the sound of rocks breaking surrounded them. Everything in the movie is a ticking clock — lights, food, water, air, and ultimately, the relationships. No one has a cell phone, no one is sure which passage leads to the surface, and every time the group stops to gather their wits, “crawlers” arrive to attack. At first it’s one, then it’s more than one, and before long it’s a lot more than one. Imagine if in Jaws the protagonists were scuba divers running out of air and trapped under ice.
Final spoiler warning.
Sarah, the film’s main protagonist, suffers more tragedies than the rest of the group. In the beginning of the film, her husband and daughter are killed in a head on collision, and her best friend, Juno, abandons her. Inside the cave, Sarah learns that Juno had an affair with Sarah’s husband, which weighs into her decision to abandon Juno and let the crawlers feast upon her face. At the end of the film, Sarah finds the exit and makes her escape as the sole survivor of the group.
That is, if you watched the American version. In the UK release, which is roughly a minute longer, Sarah’s escape turns out to be a hallucination. After a quick jump scare, the film cuts back to Sarah in the cave, about to meet the latest wave of crawlers. Survivor count, zero.
In 2023’s Gran Turismo, Jann (“Yan”) Mardenborough — one of the world’s best players of the video game Gran Turismo — is one of ten gamers selected to join a new racing team headed by Nissan. Nissan’s “GT Academy” team, led by marketing genius Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom), brings in retired racer Jack Salter (David Harbour) to put these Gran Turismo experts through their paces in real cars on a real track, with the ultimate goal of turning the winner of GT Academy into a very real race car driver.
Gran Turismo is based on a true story. Well, Danny Moore isn’t a real person, and neither is Jack Salter. Also, Jann didn’t win the first GT Academy; he competed in the third. The film also leaves out the four months of training the gamers received before driving real cars. But, for what it’s worth, Jann Mardenborough is a real guy, and he really did win a Gran Turismo tournament, and he did eventually become a real race car driver. I suppose Gran Turismo was indeed based on a true story, heavy on the “based on.” If you want to be perfectly honest, the credits should actually read “based on The Last Starfighter,” but I digress.
Jann overcomes a few struggles along his journey, but not that many. His dad wants his son to go back to college, or come to work with him, or start playing soccer, or really just do anything except play Gran Turismo on his PlayStation all day. Every single person in the racing world, including a lot of Nissan executives, think the program is a bad idea, but… eh. They let ’em race anyway. Several drivers (some on his own team, some on the circuit) give Jann a hard time for being a videogame player, but they stop pretty quick. It’s not as if Jann doesn’t run into conflict along the way, it’s that each one just kind of fades away on its own. Even when Jann is involved in a serious accident, mentor Salter says “that sucked bro you gotta race some more” and Jann says “okay” and vroom vroom, off he goes.
Fans of videogames, or racing, or especially rans of racing videogames will enjoy this film. The cinematography during the racing scenes is amazing, and while I’m quite sure much of it is digital, it’s difficult to spot the difference. Cameras zoom in, around, and even through cars, occasionally peeking inside engines to show us, you know, mechanical thingies on the brink of self-destruction churning away. There are plenty of commentators, in-ear chatter, and pop-up information to ensure audiences are always (literally and figuratively) in the loop.
Viewers are reminded multiple times that Jann honed his skills by playing Gran Turismo on his PlayStation. When a part of his car fails, he know why because of the game. Jann even knows how to drive faster, better, and which lines to take thanks to the game. The only thing missing from this film is a QR code at the end to purchase Gran Turismo.
Gran Turismo requires a little suspension of belief, the least of which comes from the fact that the world’s greatest ten Gran Turismo players are all beautiful and thin, but the dream of being appreciated in real life for being good at playing videogames is likely to help teenage boys overcome that hurdle. If you like movies where kids get to give the whole world the middle finger while standing on the winner’s podium, this is the film for you. It’s the feel good hit of 2023. Well, not that part where a guy gets killed, but the rest of it, sure — feel good!
