Reasons I Vote & Spooky Season Movie Recommendations, Together At Last!

With a likely night of harrowing terror and overwhelming chaos coming so soon after Halloween, I've been debating an earnest post about my take on voting, as well as the usual blurbiage about jump scares and gore available on TV. My taste in horror is fairly mainstream, so it's not like the suggestions are going to blow minds. And while I don't see my exact stance on political horseraces expressed often in the media, it's not like many people are looking for those novel stances in late October. After long pondering which post would be more worth my time and yours, it finally hit me: why not combine them? That way, if you already plan to vote in the upcoming election (or maybe you already have!), you might get an idea of something to stream after the kids are off your porch Thursday night. And if you’re a horror connoisseur who thinks no one on the ballot is worthy of your ink, maybe I can help you realize you’re mixing the good kind of sophomoric with the bad. All the movies below are POPCORN CLASSICS by my movie rating scale.

The Thing. Kurt Russell, Keith David and a group of understandably less badass scientists find their arctic camp under siege from an alien shapeshifter with impressive improvisational skills and a flair for the dramatic (I doubt you would have thought to grow teeth there!). I get snarky when people pine for “practical effects,” but I’ve known this movie for at least half of its forty-some years on earth, and I’ll still go WHAT THE FUCK AM I LOOKING AT?!?! at least twice every time I see it. The ASPCA gave production an all-clear…but I get why they investigated. The Thing is highly recommended if you like snow, beards, wondering what the fuck you’re looking at, collective paranoia and the rare opportunity to face a terrifying threat and near-certain doom with flamethrowers. There are going to be a lot of opportunities in the months ahead to say “what would Kurt Russell in The Thing do?” So if you haven’t seen it yet, better late than never.

Why I Vote, Reason #1: I believe in picking your employee, not waiting for a hero. America has a staggering amount of problems that seem deeply imbedded in its political framework. The distance between popular opinion and bipartisan legislation is goddamn depressing. It’s transparent to me that any real reform of foreign policy, climate policy and economic policy will require considerably more protest and public demand than we’re currently seeing. As such, I don’t see voting as picking a champion in my stead, but picking someone (out of the options provided) to protest to and make demands of. Someone's going to staff the cabinet. Someone's going to be in charge of education. Someone’s going to run FEMA. Once you accept that political office is a largely administrative, middle management role between voters and the government employees (albeit corrupted by corporate lobbyists), debate about whether someone is worthy of your vote becomes pointless. 

Doomsday. After the surprise international success of The Descent, director Neil Marshall cashed in some chips and made Doomsday, a rollicking bit of carnage set in a dystopian future where Scotland was quarantined after a viral outbreak. When the virus reappears in England, an elite team of soldiers led by Rhona Mitra must find out who’s survived in Scotland and why. I won’t reveal the "why," but - for most of the movie - the “who” are cannibals with Road Warrior fashion sensibilities and great taste in music (Adam & The Ants leads right into Siouxsie & The Banshees at their pep rally!). Some have complained that the film doesn’t add enough novelty or interesting characterization to the dystopian tropes of yore, but I’d argue that Doomsday does justice to the proud tradition of mohawked dudes shrieking atop jerry-rigged cars and swinging axes at the good guys before getting blasted in the face. And while I won’t spoil how Malcolm McDowell shows up late in the film, I’ll argue Doomsday also does justice to the proud tradition of a Malcolm McDowell supporting role in your B thriller.  

Why I Vote, Reason #2: It’s the bare minimum of civic engagement. Clear-minded, classic Libra that I am, people who treat politicians as heroes who’ve earned our trust and cheer annoy me almost as much as people who don't vote because politicians fail as heroes. They’re your employees. You don’t need to have faith that they share your values even when their actions are explicitly antithetical to them. You don’t have to defend their record, especially when you’re eventually going to tell the critical voice “well it’s them or fascist damnation!” anyway. If you’re not being paid to do PR for a politician, celebrating their wisdom and demanding fealty from others is just loafer-licking. Voting should be seen as the semi-annual task of selecting the people we interact with in regards to our society’s infrastructure. Primary season should be the goddamn Hunger Games for these guys, every time. Voting is an important freedom to take advantage of, but not a replacement for the actual making of demands and expressing of concerns.

Ju-On (The Curse). I gotta say, this 2000 movie was way creepier before I became a parent. When I first saw the film (before the release of its American remake The Grudge, I’ll have you know!), it may have been my first taste of oblique, dread-heavy J-Horror, where coherency and plot matters less than the sense of suffocating, inescapable terror. While it’s still a remarkably shot and paced film, a kid staring at me like a weirdo, the sudden appearance of a loud cat and a mom looking like she desperately needs a nap is just…life. I hated The Grudge (keeping the ghosts foreign and making their victims American is tacky), and I haven’t revisited Ju-On 2 yet, but this one still works as either proof you’re not ready for parenthood, or proof you’ve got what it takes.

Why I Vote, Reason #3: I don’t believe refusing to vote registers as protest, or that voting makes one more complicit in America’s crimes. I hate the phrase “lesser evil” so much. It suggests the need to accept evil from those we vote for, and that not voting is abjuring participation in evil. Do you realize how many people choose not to vote each year? How do we discern which ones have been disenfranchised and how? Are those who simply can’t be bothered equally innocent of America’s crimes as those who pointedly don’t bother? And doesn’t paying taxes turn refusing to vote into mere pique? “You can force me to contribute financially to the war machine, but you can’t make me voice an opinion on who should run it?” Muhammad Ali refusing the draft? That’s protest. Wesley Snipes refusing to pay taxes? That’s protest. You not voting? That’s nothing. No one’s going to threaten you with legal consequences. At worst, if you shout your choice to the hills, you'll get mockery of your vanity in the replies.

Dashcam. A former indie rocker turned livestreaming MAGA troll goes to the UK to avoid COVID lockdown only to learn the UK is even more serious about it, and her chaotic, vagabond ways lead her to accidentally cross paths with a demon. This movie is extremely close to a guilty pleasure, as it’s not clear just how “heightened” Annie Hardy of Giant Drag is making this “fictionalized” version of herself. But director Rob Savage (who also made the fantastic film Host, about a ladies’ lockdown zoom night gone horribly wrong) forces the viewer to co-exist with a transparently troubled, toxic person as they vacillate between victim and victimizer, the increasing surreality of her experience never cleanly becoming earned consequence or acceptable metaphor. Even joined with quality horror effects, hearing someone shriek about the evils of masking between puerile sex raps is understandably not everyone’s cup of tea. But, from my sheltered perspective, Dashcam is a fascinating experiment in creating the most “imperfect victim” of a final girl I’ve ever seen.

Why I Vote, Reason #4: The worst people are trying to make it harder. If you believe voting is a farce, then why do you think so much effort goes towards gerrymandering, voter ID laws and Jim Crow 2.0 shit? Wouldn’t wanna-be despots and hatemongers just laugh at the futility of it all rather than install psycho pawns in positions that would allow them to potentially circumvent the electoral process? Do you think they’re not as hip to the situation as you are?

30 Days Of Night. Josh Hartnett, in an early bit of evidence that the one-time pretty boy is pretty cool, plays the head constable of an Alaskan town gearing up for a month of darkness. Ben Foster starts fucking shit up in Screen-Eating Ham mode (nobody does it better), setting the stage for a gaggle of People-Eating vampires excited by the polar possibilities. Basically a quality Carpenter film with a little less metaphorical weight and a lot of cool footage of grody vampires hopping around in the snow before something explodes. Makes a nice double bill with The Thing when you're enjoying the cold, or just wishing it was colder.

Why I Vote, Reason #5: I can’t think of a logical reason not to, only emotional ones (which are still valid). If someone is too depressed, too overwhelmed by grief, or too angry to engage with the electoral process, I can’t say they’re wrong. We’re in a truly grotesque situation. We're being asked to choose between a murderous status quo that doesn’t do enough to avoid apocalypse, a death cult that’s downright horny for apocalypse, and some low-level grifters who’ll probably be selling essential oils on Newsmax or RT next year. If someone is willing to admit the emotional state behind their indifference to the election, it’s cool. There’s a difference between feeling like the election doesn’t matter because you’re fine either way, and feeling like it doesn’t matter because you’re fucked either way. I’m not going to shit on the latter to dunk on the former. 

If you plan to fill out your ballot in full, but you’re so grossed out by our current administration that you’d actually rather engage with one of the grifters who at least expresses respect for your belief in human rights, it’s cool. While I’m pragmatically voting for Harris for the obvious reasons, I know there’s a lot of people who deserve blame for the 2000 election before Nader voters. Those openly hurting and those sincerely outraged by inhumanity are not the problem with our country, and do not deserve contempt. My issue is with people who think they’re playing 4D chess or deserve a pat on the back for trumpeting their plans to stay mute the rare time the government explicitly welcomes their opinion. Being cynical about the power of electoral politics isn’t a reason to abandon it.

I don't want to have a debate about politics or whether Doomsday is a pale shadow of George Miller, but, ASSUMING YOU'RE COOL, I can be contacted at anthonyisright at gmail dot com.