Monthly Archives: October 2025

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Leave a reply

It’s been weeks. I don’t even a little bit remember what the podcast random dice were. Probably one of them was anthology, maybe? Regardless, the movie they watched four years ago and therefore I am watching today is the movie version of Tales from the Darkside, a show I never really watched back in the day. I hope it was better than this movie was, though? Someone called it (the movie I mean) a secret version of Creepshow 3, which never got made for whatever reason, but wow are the Creepshows better.

So, there are four stories. In the first one, a kid gets kidnapped by a witch and has to Scheherazade his way out of getting cooked for a dinner party, but for some reason using the witch’s own book of scary stories, all of which she should have read before? Did not make a lick of sense. This story, via the book, provides the frame for the other three.

Then in the second one, Christian Slater and Steve Buscemi have a Re-Animator relationship sort of, only it’s a mummy and a sister thing instead of dead bodies and a girlfriend thing. It was fine as far as it went, but the twist at the end did not make the slightest bit of sense to me.

In the third, someone adapted a Stephen King story about a hitman assassinating a cat, which truly did have a Creepshow vibe, but without the comic book stills and the crypt keeper, it felt cheesy instead of delightfully over the top. Which is too bad, as it might otherwise have been the best of the bunch.

Finally, in the actual best of the bunch, James Remar plays a starving artist with a dark secret who unexpectedly finds love and success, except for, you know, “dark secret”. The sad thing was when the witch from the connective story even knew it was the best story they told the whole time. Like, you should not admit which child is your favorite, yo. It’s not kosher!

I’m not mad I saw the movie, exactly, but I’m mad it took me this long to see it, as by rights I should have moved on to better stuff long since.

Halloween Ends

Leave a reply

I saw Halloween Kills four years ago, and when the final entry in the trilogy[1] had not yet been released. It was released the next year, and yet here I am four years later and only finally watching it. Kids, I think, is the only answer worth mentioning.

Unlike Halloween Kills, I am disappointed to report, the next movie is not a direct continuation of its predecessor. Instead, three or four years have passed. Also unlike its predecessors, Halloween Ends is not a Halloween movie. Set in the Halloween universe, I think? But at least two thirds a different kind of movie entirely. I think I liked it for what it was, but it took a while to adjust away my expectations from what it was not.

What it is: a new character that we’ve never seen before experiences an intensely personal accidental tragedy, and then a few years later becomes entangled with Laurie Strode via her granddaughter Allyson. Also, Michael Myers is still unaccounted for, which has short and long term consequences to the plot’s development. And, look, I’m being too coy to call this an actual review, but at the same time, if you can stomach the idea of a movie that is mostly “in the Halloween universe” instead of an actual third movie in a trilogy[1], I’d hate to spoil it for you. Especially when it is a very spoilable movie.

Two things of note though: there’s a Darcy the Mail Girl cameo, and also the series ends on an emotionally satisfying note. By which I mean, it’s up to you how happy or unhappy you are with the ending, but you cannot say they did not provide an ending.

[1] sort of a trilogy

Kolskaya sverhglubokaya

Leave a reply

Back in the late ’90s and then ongoing for the next twenty or so years, off and on when he did not consider himself retired, I spent a lot of time listening to the Art Bell Show. Hell, I still listen to reruns, it’s a great soundtrack for falling asleep. One of the things I remember hearing about, back in those days, was the massively deep hole in Russia from which recording equipment heard screams and moans, like seven miles down, and had they found hell?! Other than the recording itself, which okay was a little disquieting but could have been produced by anyone from anywhere, I do not recall any compelling evidence being provided. But that’s kind of the point of Art Bell. He gives you cool hypotheticals and lets you feel spoopy, as the kids used to say, and then at the end of the episode the world is still pretty regular, no aliens or ghosts or bigfeet or nothin’.

I never did really hear anything else about that Superdeep hole. Until now, sort of?

Set just before the fall of the Soviet Union, a lady scientist with a dark past and a whole bunch of military dudes are sent to a miles-deep research facility in Siberia to figure out why things have gotten weird. It’s almost exclusively from her point of view, which results in really solid tension building as people head off to deal with this or that mysterious occurrence, and you might hear screaming or gunfire, but you don’t know what actually happened, and what they report back isn’t as useful as it could be at explaining things.

I was reminded a lot of that oil rig game I played last year, but with a serial numbers filed off Russian cast of Aliens. Effectively creepy, high stakes, and intense. Can recommend.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Leave a reply

Rarely has an episode of my podcast hit the nail so squarely on the head, and rarely has a movie title so succinctly summed up its contents. The scare die was clowns or dolls, and the style die was cheesy. And so I have finally watched[1] Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

This is basically one of those teenage screwball comedies with a recognizable face as the annoyed authority figure and a lot of unrecognizable faces as the various teens getting themselves into screwball situations to annoy the authority figure. Only instead of trying to save the ski lodge from the evil yuppie developer, or trying to keep their frat house from being shut down by the dean, they’re trying to save the town from an alien invasion of clowns with a circus tent spaceship, cotton candy body containers, popcorn guns, and balloon animal minions.

This movie is exactly what it sounds like, exactly as good as it sounds like, and has not only a line of dialogue but also a theme song that name-drops the title. The script was not so much written as it was recorded during a late night dorm room weed session and then just filmed straight from the recording, with no notes, no editing, no rewrites, nothing. Whatever you think of, it’s what they thought of too.

I’m not going to turn around and say it’s good now. I’m not even going to say I’m being unfair.  But I will say that you have to truly admire the dedication to the bit. This is the kind of movie that proudly proclaims, “You think you can make a movie? All you need is a rich dentist and a time machine to get you back to the 1970s or ’80s. Because if we made this, you can too!” (For all I know, you don’t even need the time machine.)

Also, though, the klown kostuming is pretty legit.

[1] How have I not seen this before? I was expecting to be all, “oh yeah,” but nope. First time.

This Is How You Lose the Time War

Leave a reply

Supposing you were on one side or the other of a war being fought throughout the whole of time, with realities popping into existence and being ruthlessly erased, each side trying to bend reality to their preferred outcome for humanity. And supposing you were a time spy… agent… enforcer… thing, tasked with carrying out those small missions that turn into large effects, pushing things in your direction and away from your opponent’s. And supposing further that a different agent, not on your side, had made themselves known to you, by talent and results, and you likewise had made yourself known to them.

And supposing they decided to start a correspondence. This, I think, is how you might lose the time war.

They’re calling it a novella, which probably has a precise publishing definition, but it seems to me more like a short book. It’s romantic and eloquent and thrilling, and honestly it’s only the third of those that falls a little flat for me. I wish I had a better understanding of, well, the time war itself. But doing that would have made for a much longer book that would have ultimately outweighed the eloquence and romance of the central relationship. So I get it. But I wish I could, I don’t know, have the authors’ knowledge of all the underlying backstory just downloaded into my brain, as I think following along better could only have enriched the experience.

Still and all, recommended. I can understand how it won a Hugo, five years ago.[1]

[1] Don’t let that number fool you; this is probably one of the most recent science fiction books I’ve read in ages. Go, um, me.

Superman (2025)

Leave a reply

Leaving aside the actual movie for a moment, but it’s nice to be on the ground floor of some DC thing that’s actually good. I’m sorry, but Zack Snyder was pretty miserable, in the sense of nothing being actually fun. (Exception: the only Aquaman movie I saw. Which I’m sure wasn’t actually by him.) So I’ve seen The Suicide Squad, which predates James Gunn taking over but which is definitely included, and I’ve seen the first season of Peacemaker, which ditto, and I’ve also [very recently] seen Creature Commandos, which is in his official era, and half of Peacemaker season 2, the most recent thing that is still airing. Also the most unfortunate of them, because unlike the rest, it had spoilers for the newest Superman movie. I think if I’d known it would drop on HBO halfway through the season, I might have waited. Either way, right now I’m 100% caught up on the new DC Cinematic Universe.

So the thing about James Gunn is, he gets what makes Superman, well, super. And it’s not his powers, and it for sure is not how intensely conflicted he is. …okay, the powers help. But what is his actual deal is, is he’s nice. He wants the best for people, all people, and he believes in people, again all people. Even the ones who might transiently piss him off. He’s a lot like Jesus before Christians got a hold of him, you know? Well, okay, probably very few people know that. (Gandhi did, I hear.)

So anyway, this is a movie in which Superman faces atypical challenges, by virtue of living in a world where doing the right thing is often controversial, or at the very least not politically expedient. Also, obviously, Lex Luthor. But you don’t really care about any of that, because you either like Superman or you do not. All I’m really here to say is, this one is a nice guy who wants to do the right thing, and also it comes naturally to him. So if that’s the guy you like, he’s back.