The latest subject of Make Me Watch It is The Christmas Chronicles (2018), directed by Clay Kaytis. The updated and maintained list of options for “Make Me Watch It” can be found here. You can name up to ten movies you’d like me to cover here. The series can also be found on Stitcher, on iTunes, or in a direct RSS feed.
Category Archives: Movies
Avengers 4 Trailer
There’s not much here, but at least one missing character returns.
Rumblings in the Marvel TV/Cinematic Universe
Luke Cage. Iron Fist and Daredevil have been cancelled, despite the huge success of the most recent DD season. Jessica Jones and The Punisher likely have one more go-round, if only because they’re already in production.
However, Daredevil (and the others?) “will live on in future projects for Marvel,” according to a spokesperson.
Disney’s own streaming service will be continuing Marvel-Television, with its Scarlet Witch and Vision series, and a Loki series, both announced back in September.
Will Disney’s move mean greater interplay between Marvel’s movie and TV characters?
What do we want to see? What will we see?
Memorial Review: Don’t Look Now (1973)
Nicholas Roeg has passed away at the age of 90.
The influential British filmmaker first made his name as a cinematographer, working on such classics as Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and Fahrenheit 451. He got his directorial career off to a rocking start with the controversial Performance (1970) starring Mick Jagger. Roeg was no stranger to genre; his films include The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and The Witches (1990).1 Many people remember him for the movie we’re reviewing as a memorial, Don’t Look Now (1973). The cryptic cult classic combines Hitchcockian style and psychological horror with twists supernatural (or science-fictional, I suppose, depending on your interpretation of the film).
Rest in Peace.
It’s questionable whether the characters in this film can.
“Psycho II” (1983) – Make Me Watch It 23
The latest subject of Make Me Watch It is Psycho II (1983), directed by Richard Franklin. The podcast about the original I mentioned here and guest starred on can be found here. (Look for episode 60.) The updated and maintained list of options for “Make Me Watch It” can be found here. You can name up to ten movies you’d like me to cover here. The series can also be found on Stitcher, on iTunes, or in a direct RSS feed.
October Countdown: Halloween (2018)
The original Halloween1 launched a genre, numerous sequels, and a couple of remakes. None match the purity or the quality of the original. Forty years after Mike Myers first stalked onto the screen, we have this sequel, which ignores everything in between. Myers has been incarcerated since ’78 and Laurie Strode (not his sister in this version) has become disturbed herself, an eccentric survivalist whose life has been defined and shaped by that long-ago night. Her estranged daughter has a teenage daughter, and they all live in and around Haddonfield.
Then, in the least-surprising development since the time that couple who didn’t get on fell in love by the end of the Rom-Com, the Shape escapes.
October Countdown: Return of the Living Dead (1985)
“Frankly Burt, I think you acted precipitously in cutting up the corpse.”
–Ernie
“Zombie butterflies are, like, the worst.”
–acquaintance’s reaction to a certain scene in this film
This cult film from 1985 turned the zombie craze upside down and inside out, long before it really existed. It also invented (certainly, it mainstreamed) the notion that zombies crave, specifically, human brains.
It’s also frequently hilarious.
They’re back from the grave and they’re ready to party!
–Original tagline
October Countdown: Alone in the Dark (1982)
We’re reviewing neither the horror videogame franchise nor the poorly-received twenty-first films based on it. No, this Alone in the Dark appeared in 19821, an initially-overlooked offering in the slasher genre. Its name cast, relative intelligence, and style gradually earned its reputation. If you like horror, it’s worth seeking out, probably the best of the Halloween-derived horrors, prior to A Nightmare on Elm Street, and certainly better than Friday the 13th.
It also features some very odd intertextuality with these movies.
October Countdown: A Quiet Place (2018)
October Countdown: Eye of the Devil (1966)
“Tell me, do you believe in magic?”
— Sharon Tate, giving the creepiest delivery of this line in history.
Hammer Studios turned out a few predecessor films before making The Wicker Man, which has an understanding of its premise the earlier versions do not, and a willingness to push its implications. Hammer was not alone; Filmways Productions and MGM released Eye of the Devil in 1966, an occult thriller which has more than a little in common with The Wicker Man. It’s not the best of the genre, but it gives us David Niven in an atypical role, Donald Pleasance in one of his first horror appearances, and Sharon Tate in her debut.