(BP)

One of the other things I love about it is how realistic the dialogue is for a ghost story. Every line is someone pointing out something strange or eerie, but for most of the runtime no one actually can bring themselves to say anything about the supernatural out loud. When someone even broaches it the other person ignores it and talks past them.

That’s tricky. He definitely loves booze and women the same way, but Halloween is a movie in the world of Season of the Witch.

The first time Juice said that, I thought he said pubic zirconium, and I was disappointed that it wasn’t a running bit.

It’s the closest answer to the question, “What if Val Lewton made a Scooby Doo movie?” Also

Juice going over makes booking sense, and he deserves it for sticking his neck out to execute Max’s dumbass idea a couple of weeks ago.

I watched The Fog for the first time in forever, and it was like seeing it for the first time. I could go on about it forever, but I’m preaching to the converted on here. The one observation I can’t let go of is that the relationship between Janet Leigh as the mayor and Nancy Loomis as her aide is 100% the prototype for Leslie Knope and April in Parks and Rec.

When I think of Roundtree, Seven always comes to mind, but I had no recollection of him being the Vice Principal in Brick. He had a great later career being cast in authority figure roles by people who grew up on Shaft.

Until our trip to Spirit Halloween yesterday for the kids’ costumes I hadn’t realized there was a Killer Klowns from Outer Space merchandising bonanza going on this year. Very weird to see those silly scamps now being represented as much as Freddy, Jason, Michael, and Chucky. There was also quite a bit of Mars Attacks merch.

I hope there’s a Christmas Truce supper with the Predator.

I like how Danielson is doing his random bucket list stuff while simultaneously being the stand-in for all of Tony’s leftover booking plans for Punk. It’s such a unique opportunity for him to have during his last full-time year.

DPW getting its roster pruned by WWE? Oh hell yeah. They’re a real promotion now.

Yeah, he sells Immortal Hulkamaniac THC vape pens online.

I didn’t think it was slow, but as a 90s kid I think I tend to mentally frame lucha or junior heavyweight stuff on how much I would’ve lost it seeing it as a random match thrown on an episode of Nitro. This would’ve killed on Nitro.

From a cursory read on Wikipedia, I got the sense that the production of Manhattan Baby broke Fulci’s spirit and he became disillusioned with filmmaking. The budget was halved during shooting and he never worked with the producer, whom he’d often collaborated with, again. I tried to watch New York Ripper again last year, and it was too grotesque and miserable for me. I definitely don’t have the same tolerance for that level of sleaze and violence that I did in my early 20s when I first saw it. It’s remarkable that the same person who made that directed Don’t Torture a Duckling, which is the most empathetic and earnest giallo I’ve seen. Whenever New York Ripper comes up I must mention the season 6 giallo episode of Smallville where Lana is being stalked. At this point the show was routinely doing filler episodes based loosely on movies (there’s a zombie episode around then too) and the stalker is doing the Donald Duck voice when he calls her. It’s unreal.

The landmark decision in Rowboat v. Stream clearly established that life is but a dream, hence this is a dream match.

I watched Manhattan Baby today because it’s one of Fulci’s I haven’t seen. It’s a neat curio because he leaves the corn syrup at home for the bulk of the picture and focuses on making a mostly bloodless occult suspense thriller, but it’s incomprehensible and narratively unmoored even for a Fulci movie. At the same time, he’s doing some great stuff with the camera and it’s cut together well, plus there’s some nifty location shooting in Egypt and New York. It’s a bad movie, but watching him build atmosphere out of such a rickety screenplay is fun. It also has the little boy from House by the Cemetery, and that little creep can make anything eerie.

I was unimpressed by the resolution of the mystery, but Only Murders is still very funny, and I thought the setup for next season was fantastic.

In a better world, Damon Wayans would currently be promoting Blankman Beyond, the reboot follow-up to the divisive Blankman IV: The Quest for Sheets.

TCM: The Next Generation introducing the concept that the family is acting as low-level agents for some kind of Elitist Satanic Cult was certainly a choice. It was too late for the 80s satanic panic and way too early for Pizzagate, so I’m not sure what they were even doing. I guess Halloween had gotten into that around the same time too with the Cult of Thorn. Debra McMichael is also inexplicably in it as a police officer for thirty seconds.

Big Al was just a friend of Tank’s, but he mistakenly got a rep for being his corner man because Tank let him walk out with him for his fights. I think he knew as much about MMA as he did about pro wrestling.

I think the best thing they did with The Crow property after the first movie was the tv show, Stairway to Heaven. I’m a sucker for 90s syndicated garbage, and I liked that his powers and appearance kind of worked like The Incredible Hulk. Plus, Mark Dacascos was the ideal discount Eric Draven.

It’ll never make sense to me that he was in his mid 30s when he filmed the first Rocky. Anyway, here he is being badass on The Sopranos (NSFW.)

Toni Storm is a better actress than Mrs. Wayne, but they both deserve bath bombs, perfumes, and pearl necklaces…

Creepshow season 4 is solid, maybe the most consistent. A couple of the stories felt like they could’ve been on Are You Afraid of the Dark, which isn’t really a complaint. There were also plenty of EC-inspired darkly cynical comeuppances. I caught most of Leatherface (2017) the other day. It wasn’t awful (or good), but it’s weirdly a lot closer in tone to Corman’s 70s Depression-era crime dramas than any Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. Stephen Dorff and Lili Taylor are both very good in it.

I miss Emi on Dark and all of those awesome chaotic 6-woman tags. I miss Dark.