Blurbing For The Weekend 6/28/24

Something I’ve long meant to write about is the show Channel Zero, which aired on Syfy and I caught on Shudder. Each season of the show is based on a famous example of viral online horror writing (called “creepypasta”), which might seem bizarre, considering how short creepypasta can be. But that protraction is part of the show's appeal. Within an episode or two, we’ve already reached a level of surreal darkness where Rod Serling could step in and tell us to leave the Twilight Zone already. Instead, each season of Channel Zero hangs around in its nightmare world, unveiling new twists and showing how the doomed might try to escape their karmic tragedy. I enjoy all four seasons, but the best-in-show might be the third, Butcher’s Block, where two sisters trying to escape family trauma and hereditary mental illness find themselves a brisk walk from an abandoned park featuring a long, white staircase to nowhere, an evil gnome of some sort, and Rutger mf-ing Hauer dressed like Tom Wolfe. The right kind of person would be cueing the season up immediately, and is right to do so.

The entirety of Butcher’s Block was directed by Arkasha Stevenson, who’s finally made her cinematic debut six years later with The First Omen, a prequel to the original Omen movie in the worst way. Well, not the worst. This 2024 tale of an idealistic American novitiate who realizes something’s very wrong at an Italian orphanage is full of good spooks, super-Catholic chaos, and quality female body horror. Bill Nighy plays Cardinal Lawrence. It’s canny enough to get the horror sequences meant to ape and top famous sequences from the 1976 movie out of the way early, and there’s worse crimes in a horror movie than a locale that would have any rational person screaming “oh hell no” within seconds of arriving. My favorite example was the mute nun on the stairs glaring at our hero, her robes inexplicably fluttering behind her. After passing the ominous portent, the head sister apologizes for her rudeness, while noting she’s great with the kids.

Despite these charms, the “prequel” business is a grating eyeroll, right down to a photo of Gregory Peck and a whisper of “Damien” (I’m spoiling because if either of those details would give you a thrill ninety minutes into a movie, fuck you). At least it was funny when Prometheus wrapped up its goofball rumination on humanity by saying “and that’s how xenomorphs happened" in an Easter egg. The First Omen might have actually been good if it wasn’t determined to be Jon Voight’s nutsack instead of the next Angelina Jolie. Here’s hoping its relative critical and commercial success means the next Arkasha Stevenson movie comes sooner than 2030, and is free of existing IP. FOUR BAGS OF POPCORN.

There’s a wild Australian thriller on Criterion called Next Of Kin, which I think I first learned about from Quentin Tarantino on a Facebook reel. It’s an impressive slow burn, particularly after The First Omen. Where that movie practically had nuns drooling blood by the first reel, Kin - set at a retirement community in the outback (is all rural Australia called the outback? Forgive the ignorance) - keeps the supporting cast & environment pleasant enough that you can’t tell whether it’s the psyche of the troubled lead or her new home that’s the source of dread. That question is eventually resolved, though, and in an impressively bananas fashion. Another bit of ignorance on my part: I don’t know why Australian actors would need to be campily dubbed like it was an Italian giallo. Not that it hurts the mood. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

I was disappointed by It Follows relative to the hype, but it holds up OK a decade(!) later as an ooky-spooky Maika Monroe vehicle. Avoid the Quibi-serial-turned-feature The Stranger she's in that dropped on Hulu, though. Monroe's her usual fine Final Girl self, but the film is a baffling slog that requires its villain to be both a master "hacker" - though never seen "hacking" - and able to teleport. I had to fast-forward a bunch. It Follows director David Robert Mitchell also made the modern noir Under The Silver Lake, with Andrew Garfield as a hapless, though observant schmuck chasing tail and answers mostly out of boredom. I enjoyed it way more for its gratuitous L.A. exploration, but I can't promise it will hold the same appeal if you haven't spent time as a hapless, observant schmuck in Southern California as well, or if you're not willing to forgive artisanal cheesecake & objectification. Or if you're not going to "woo!" when you see David Yow from Jesus Lizard. Both Mitchell films are POPCORN CLASSICS, all the same.

A quick political note: it’s June, if only for a couple more days. No one can vote in the upcoming general election for quite a few months, so there’s really no point to debating whether one should support a compromised, decrepit party in the name of pain mitigation, or support a nihilistic, psychotic one in the name of causing pain, or if one should just fatalistically cry on the couch in pain. It’s hot out there, so as long you’re registered, there’s no worthwhile reason to sweat it before Labor Day, at least. Plenty of time for someone to forget to put down a shower mat, or get heatstroke on the golf course. So much time for the unexpected to happen, and - unless you’re aspiring to a media class that’s reduced civic engagement to a cynical horse race - there’s no trophy for claiming you expected it. 

If a friend or online acquaintance seems horrified or cynical enough to make a choice you don’t like, maybe let them feel their feelings and express sympathy for the absurd situation we find ourselves in, rather than remind them what you feel is the only right & moral thing to do after Halloween. Maybe you even know an issue that could be addressed now instead! I don’t see calls to action nearly as much as I used to, perhaps because everyone’s too busy watching embarrassing, mediocre-or-worse men whose cultural presence should have peaked in 1987 debate whether the old grey mare ain’t what she used to be. But we don’t have to!

For us hoi polloi, however verbose or opinionated, there’s kind of no point, really. It’s abundantly clear to me that, no matter what party is in the executive office, civic engagement and public protest will be required to assert our morals and values in a time of corrupt gerontocracies embracing totalitarianism and extreme capitalism. Instead of debating the importance of who is in the executive office, maybe we could just campaign for what we want in terms of policy, live the lives we think contribute to the world around us, and - if possible - carve out a day to take advantage of the opportunity to pick who we demand change from. If you’re lucky, it might only take an hour anyway! I know Obama once said, “don’t boo, vote!” But it’s a false binary that only benefits those who want you to swear allegiance to the powerful. You’re completely free to boo 364 days a year, vote for who you think is mostly likely to be influenced by you, and then get back to booing. No law against it, yet! 

My movie rating scale is explained here. All acclaim and aggravation can be sent Anthonyisright at gmail dot com, if it must.