INVISIBLE MAN AND DOUBLE MUMBO-JUMBO

Spoiler alert: THE INVISIBLE MAN is one of my favorite movies of the year thus far in a year that’s been EXCEPTIONALLY strong (UNDERWATER, AFTER MIDNIGHT, GRETEL & HANSEL, motherfucking VFW, even SONIC THE HEDGEHOG have all rocked my socks off). The movie is tense, terrifying, and definitely surprising, and Elizabeth Moss turns in a brilliant performance. But that doesn’t mean the film is above criticism. While it didn’t stifle my enjoyment during the movie, only became a nit that nagged at me afterwards, there’s some double mumbo-jumbo in the movie and I think there didn’t have to be.

For those of you who haven’t read SAVE THE CAT, double mumbo-jumbo means that the script is asking the audience to accept more than one fantastical premise. The examples Blake Snyder uses aren’t great, so I’ll just create a hypothetical—imagine that in ALIENS, one of the Colonial Marines is a magic user. Single mumbo-jumbo is the Xenomorphs, but we can accept an alien like that in that world. But if you add in magic for some reason, we’re going to call bullshit.

THE INVISIBLE MAN asks us to accept the premise that a man can turn invisible, which isn’t all that far-fetched. But then it also asks us to accept the soap opera plot point of someone faking their death. Someone famous. And while occasionally people do try to fake their own death, it’s usually someone who’s not well-known who is facing some serious legal trouble—Samuel Israel III, for example. I have trouble believing that an Elon Musk-level tech celeb could get away with such a thing (and if you still think it would be easy for someone to do if they had enough money, why are mega-rich guys like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby sitting in prison when they could have faked their own deaths?).

And it’s not just that Adrian fakes his own death, he stages a suicide in a hotel room where he slits his wrists. If he’d disappeared at sea, okay, but a hotel? Think about it—the number of people who’d have to be in on the scheme is ridiculous. Adrian’s brother, sure, plus the hotel housekeeper who finds him, the EMTs, at minimum a couple uniformed officers and maybe some detectives, the coroner, the coroner’s assistant…that’s a lot of people to pay off and then trust not to tell their spouse, their priest or rabbi, or their friendly local bartender. Grand conspiracies usually fall apart under their own weight, because it’s demonstrably true that two can keep a secret when one of them is dead.

A quick fix to erase the double mumbo-jumbo would be for Adrian to be jailed, rather than fake his suicide. He could smuggle in his invisible tech, and continue to harass and stalk Cecilia. The plot point of people not believing her would work just fine, since her cop friend could even point to jailhouse CCTV footage that shows Adrian never leaving his cell. Sure, you lose the great urn gag in the brother’s office, but that’s the only thing that’s lost, and you’re not asking the audience to swallow too much fantastical stuff.

MIDSOMMAR is a Perfect Circle

Midsommar is a straightforward narrative and a morally complicated film, one that, like any good piece of art, seems to have grown far out of the intentionality that birthed it. Director Ari Aster’s called Midsommar a break-up movie, and in some ways it is. There’s definitely an argument to be made that the ritualized suicide that the Harga engage in when one reaches the ripe old age of seventy-two is a metaphor for ending a relationship that’s well past its expiration date. It’s better to end something than to let it limp along, one could say. And one could read murder/suicide as a distinct metaphor for a breakup as well, since it’s usually one person choosing to end things for both partners. But I think the movie is actually a little more complex than that. It’s ultimately about a woman turning into her sister, and how what I like to call the Mask of Exoticism prevents many viewers from actually understanding what’s going on.

Murder and suicide recur throughout the movie, and in every instance are partnered together. The film opens with a murder/suicide, the midpoint of the film is a murder/suicide, and the end of the film is a murder/suicide. But how differently do we react to the murder/suicides in the Harga village, versus that first murder/suicide in a snowbound house in Minnesota? Dictionary.com defines exoticism as “the quality of being attractive or striking through being colorful or unusual.” Each event is fundamentally the same, if you peel back what’s happening to the relevant first principles, and yet again and again I’ve heard people describe the Harga’s ritualized suicide as beautiful[1], in its own way. Why is that? Because the flower dresses and the pageantry and the breathing and singing in Swedish obscures what’s going on. The associated cultural relativism is even discussed in the movie, when Christian says “It’s - cultural. We abandon our elderly to nursing homes. I’m sure they find that disturbing.”[2]

Let’s talk about each murder/suicide, and how they might compare and contrast. First, the film opens on Terri Ardor running hoses from the exhaust pipe of a car in the garage of the Ardor home, duct-taping one to her own face and the other to the crack under her parents’ bedroom door. While we can’t know the exact circumstances, it’s assumed that Terri has made the decision to die for all three of them. Her final email to Dani reads “ i cant anymore - everything’s black - mom and dad are coming too. goodbye[3].” We’ve got a blend of willing and unwilling death, with Terri as the engineer.

Next, near the midpoint of the film we have the ritual of  Ättestupa. In Harga culture, when someone reaches the age of seventy-two, they jump off a gigantic rock and (hopefully) smash their head open on a much smaller rock, killing themselves instantly. In one of the more unsettling and tense moments in the film, Dani watches as two village elders sing to each other, ascend the rock on litters, cut their palms open and smear blood all over a rune-etched rock, and then jump to their deaths. One can argue that the driver for this behavior is societal pressure (what’s never mentioned in the film is what would happen if a 72-year-old opted out of the ritual), and therefore the decision to die is not being made by the elders, but by younger people in the village who would presumably ostracize them or maybe finish the job themselves if the elders refused to jump. This parallels Terri’s murder of her parents, but in this case “Terri” is the entire village. The Mask of Exoticism descends, and prevents us from seeing that the seeming “choice” of the Harga elders is no choice at all. The film puts a capstone on this idea when the male elder[4], having succeeded in maiming himself but not dying during his jump, is dispatched via mallet by multiple younger villagers.

Directly after this shocking event Dani, traumatized and in tears after seeing what amounts to a reenactment of the deaths of her family, stumbles off alone while Christian shouts after her “Good idea. I’ll find you in a bit?[5]” (In the film, the line is changed to “Just take some time to yourself, okay” which is much more effective--all he gives her is time to herself). The nature of the idyllic community is revealed at the same time as the nature of her relationship with Christian is revealed to her. In the wake of her family’s death, he was only half-heartedly there for her, and now he’s abdicated any sort of responsibility completely. This reveal completely informs the final scene, and Dani’s subsequent behavior--horrific as it is to watch two people leap to their deaths she does start feeling more at home and mingling with the villagers afterwards. One could argue that’s because of Christian’s emotional abandonment, but I would argue it’s because she sees her own family in the Harga.

A few scenes later, the British couple who freaked out during the ritual and disrespected the village’s tradition in the eyes of the Harga (Simon and Connie) disappear. We later find out they’ve been murdered, making this scene in the middle of the movie a true murder/suicide. This is one of the changes from script to final film that made a lot of sense. In the script, they linger on for another twenty pages, and the ultimate confrontation between the Brits and the Harga involves a totally different ritual, the sacrifice of nine animals. More closely tying the deaths of the Brits to the ritual of Ättestupa makes a lot more sense for the narrative. One, for most people it’s more impactful, since Ättestupa involves the deaths of human beings. Two, it turns the Ättestupa ritual into more of a clear murder/suicide, effectively tying the scene to both the opening and closing scenes.   

Finally, at the end of the movie nine people are sacrificed in the Sacred House. Some of these are unwilling murder victims (all of the “new bloods” as the movie calls them--Simon, Connie, Josh, Mark, and Christian), while some are not--Ulf and Ingemar get the “honor” of sacrificing themselves, since they were the ones who whacked the various visitors who dishonored Harga traditions. Ulf and Ingemar effectively commit suicide, in the same way as the two village elders from the ritual at the midpoint of the film--in fact their suicides are directly tied to the murders of Josh, Mark, Connie and Simon, since by Harga custom by killing these “new bloods” they signed their own death warrants. Dani presides over this final murder/suicide, in the same way as her sister Terri did at the beginning. She chooses Christian, sentencing him to death just like Terri sentenced their parents to death. Here it’s cloaked in ritual, done with fire instead of carbon monoxide (although positioned in the middle of the Sacred House, it’s possible Christian dies from smoke inhalation rather than the fire itself, which more perfectly mirrors the opening deaths--either way, the source of the carbon monoxide is a combustion engine, and fire is a more primal version of that very thing), but both Dani and Terri are engaging in the same activity--deciding that someone else should die, and then taking their own lives.

But wait, Dani doesn’t kill herself at the end of the movie--she’s watching Christian die and smiling: “A SMILE finally breaks onto Dani’s face...She has lost herself completely, and she is finally free. It is horrible and it is beautiful[6].” Except, in choosing to end Christian’s life, she’s also chosen to commit suicide. Yes, perhaps it’s another forty-six years in the future, and there’s always the chance another one of life’s perils might get her, but in this moment, by choosing the Harga, by choosing to feed the problematic person in her life to the flames, she’s choosing the ritual of Ättestupa.

And in doing so, she’s transformed fully into Terri, the nominal source of the grief that’s plagued and powered her for the past six months. The Mask of Exoticism prevents both her and most audience members from seeing this, and to be fair we experience the end of the movie with Dani while only seeing the aftermath of Terri’s actions. The tragedy lies in the fact that Dani thinks she’s found something different when she’s actually just traded one family that engages in murder and suicide for another (although due to the Harga’s size, it’s at least a bit more sustainable). In the end, Midsommar starts and ends exactly where it began--a fitting form for a movie about a recurring festival.

[1] Well, aside from the really dumb and superficial takes like “The Harga are eeeevvvvvillll.”

[2] Aster, Ari. “Midsommar.” 2018. 61. http://a24awards.com/film/midsommar/Midsommar_script.pdf

[3] Ibid, 1.

[4]Who, in the screenplay, is named “Dan”--an interesting allusion to our protagonist that I’ve not yet been able to parse.

[5] Ibid, 55..

[6] Page 115.

Top Movies of 2019, Final

I put up a list of my top 10, so far, earlier this year (well, two lists, actually), and now it’s time for the real deal, the definitive list of my favorite movies of the year. To avoid tying myself in knots over rankings, I’m eliminating the numbering (and honestly I think there’s like twelve here) and posting my favorite movies of the year in no particular order. It’s been a fantastic year for film.

THE FANATIC

If I were to tell you that Fred Durst made a horror film—wait, come back! Hear me out. I get that Fred Durst is best known for rap-rock [legends?] Limp Bizkit, and considering their improbable success it’s fair to assume that making rap-rock music is the thing he’s best at (a talent comparable to chugging beer or doing Bill Cosby impressions in 2020), but no! He’s actually a pretty talented director, and he’s put together a movie that’s way better than it has any right to be. John Travolta kills it, KILLS IT, in his best performance since FACE/OFF. The movie’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s like nothing else you’ll see this year, I guarantee it.

PARASITE

I went into PARASITE knowing absolutely nothing about it other than the title and the director, and that’s the best way to watch it. I won’t say anything specific here other than this movie is gorgeously shot, funny, compelling, heartbreaking, surprising, and incredibly well-acted. Everybody involved brought their A-game and I can’t say enough great things about this film.

BELZEBUTH

Holy fucking FUCK, that opening. And the next scene. And the next. Terrifying, unflinching, ballsy, and with a hell of a lot of heart, BELZEBUTH is a fucking knockout punch of a movie. Just when I thought you couldn’t do anything novel with demonic possession, too. Underneath the scares, the movie’s ultimately about the power of international cooperation and never becomes heavy-handed or preachy, and considering how extreme it gets I’m still amazed I ended the film on my feet, literally fucking cheering, and full of hope.

TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID

I’d been hearing great things about this film ever since my friend Alia Smith caught it at the Telluride Horror Festival last year, and let me tell you, the hype is totally justified. Issa Lopez’s camera finds beauty in devastation and gets hall of fame performances from some incredibly gifted child actors. The story flirts with the familiar monkey’s paw build but is so much more. This movie shows me things I’ve never seen, and goddamn I’m grateful to Lopez for what she’s pulled off here.

I’M JUST FUCKING WITH YOU/PILGRIM/A NASTY PIECE OF WORK

Blumhouse/Hulu lumps these all together so why can’t I? All three are terrific fun, especially the bookending entries, and PILGRIM has one of the grooviest premises I’ve seen in a long time. INTO THE DARK continually impresses me. Not every one connects, but they’re taking some serious swings, and I appreciate that.

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2 U

HDD2U joins the proud pantheon of sequels that actually justify their own existence. The first fifteen minutes brilliantly recontextualizes the end of the first film, highlights a scene-stealing minor character, and deftly sets up the rest of the film. The way the film revisits the events of HAPPY DEATH DAY, adding depth and pathos, is to be much admired. The film addresses the emotional fallout from the first movie head-on, and the fact that it doesn’t shy away from examining how one might deal with killing someone else in self-defense is fascinating. The film also balances horror and comedy well, a difficult feat. Best watched in a double-feature with the first one.

MIDSOMMAR

Ari Aster is the greatest music video director of all time. The guy knows how to craft a compelling visual, that’s for sure, and the music is top-notch. Despite the legion of dipshits in my theater that laughed at literally everything, I found the movie to be almost unbearably tense (in a good way), disturbing, and consistently fascinating. Narratively there’s almost nothing going on, and if you’ve ever seen a pagan cult movie there are zero surprises. Every character that’s not Florence Pugh or her boyfriend feels like an NPC, and maybe that’s by design, but I can’t get behind that approach. The execution is brilliant but expected—while it’s a sterling example of what it is, I’ve seen this movie before. For a new twist on the pagan cult movie, check out Gareth Evans’ Apostle. I’m not saying that’s a better movie than Midsommar, but narratively I found it the superior movie of the two.

THE LIGHTHOUSE

I really loved THE VVITCH (yeah, I put the V’s in there, what?), and couldn’t wait to check out Robert Eggers’ follow-up. Like MIDSOMMAR, the movie turns more on performances, cinematography, and set design than plot—while the craftsmanship here is stellar, I can’t say the movie ever really surprised me. Like Aster’s sophomore effort, Eggers’ chugs ahead to a conclusion that’s inevitable but still hurts to watch. Similarly, both movies are packed with such depth that they merit repeat watchings.

VELVET BUZZSAW

Nightcrawler is one of my favorite movies EVER, and getting the band back together was a fantastic idea. I had a hell of a lot of fun with this movie. Incredibly compelling, I never felt the urge to check my phone which is my measuring stick for how good a movie on NetFlix is (regardless of how bored I am in a theater, I’m not pulling out my fucking phone like an asshole). If the movie had just been about pretentious art douchebags trying to out-douche each other over Henry Darger’s Gold, I would have liked the movie even more. The supernatural horror element felt tacked on and unnecessary, and this movie is the ultimate example of an all-time great title having fuck-all to do with the story. Still, I loved the hell out of this thing despite its flaws.

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE

USL was a fun, captivating joy ride through hipster Hollywood (both past and present). Yes, Andrew Garfield is kind of a mopecore asshole creep and no, I wouldn’t want to be friends with him, but I also don’t need a likeable protag to enjoy a movie. Not all of the elements come together in a satisfying way in the end, but the individual scenes are well-executed and some deliriously-haunting imagery has stuck with me the past week. The scene with the Songwriter is truly terrifying on an existential level, and the mystery of whether Topher Grace’s unnamed “Bar Buddy” character is actually supposed to BE Topher Grace still has me intrigued. If you go into this movie with expectations, you're probably going to hate it, but if you let the movie do it’s thing it’s a wild bit of what-the-fuck.

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

There’s fifty-six years of movie-loving and movie-making in every last frame of this thing. I can see this sliding up in my rankings over the next couple months for sure. Full disclosure, I just watched this last night but the movie’s managed to grow on me even more in those few hours. Part love letter to a bygone area of cinema, part bold challenge to anyone working in the true crime genre, OUTH asks and answers some pretty interesting questions while simultaneously telling a couple small, touching, human stories. After watching this I half-suspect QT hasn’t actually been making movies for the past twenty-five years; he’s been weaving a spell on a global scale, and when his tenth film is finished the circle will be complete and we’ll all be sucked into a new reality where everybody’s got a handy quip and a Red Apple cigarette between their lips.

KNIFE+HEART

A contemporary, ‘70s-set take on the giallo. Moreso than last year’s Suspiria, I thought Knife perfectly nailed the atmosphere and look of the ‘70s. Everybody looks kind of sweaty and gross. I found myself forgetting all the characters were speaking French because I was so invested in the story. Anne Pareze is such a fascinating, morally-questionable creation. Her creation of a pornographic film to both exploit and cope with the tragedy surrounding her is jaw-dropping, both in how some scenes are played for painful laughs but also in what it says about her as a person—insight and indictment in equal measure. Is she trying to make a buck off the deaths of her friends, looking for catharsis in all the wrong places, or a little bit of both? Either way, watch this fucking movie, it’s amazing.

THE BANANA SPLITS

Pure. Fucking. Joy. Taking the Banana Splits and making a legit horror movie is tough to pull off, and yet Danishka Esterhazy absolutely rose to the challenge. The jokes land, the gore is on point, the child actors aren’t annoying and the adult actors nail the shit out of their roles. Perhaps it’s not high art, but it’s a perfect example of a well-crafted, batshit-insane horror flick. The care and attention to detail is evident throughout (ex. and SPOILER the way one Split is taken out mirrors their first kill almost exactly). It’s a shame this movie is consigned to VOD/Blu-ray, because it’s the perfect flick to tie one on with your friends and go see on the big screen. Hoping it hits the midnight movie circuit one of these days. Goddamn incredible and I can’t see anything topping it this year.

HONORABLE MENTION: MASKED MUTILATOR

Holy fucking fuck. FUCK. If you’re a Troma fan, go check this thing out. Started in the ‘90s, finished last year and starring my man Brick Bronsky of CLASS OF NUKE’EM HIGH 2 and 3 fame, it’s about a wrestler who accidentally kills an opponent in the ring and then is somehow allowed to run a home for troubled youth. When said troubled youth start getting bumped off one-by-one, the newest deliquent must harness the power of karate and his sweet ‘90s bowl cut to save the day. I can’t say enough good things about this movie. It’s a fucking gift.

Movies That Just Missed This List: READY OR NOT, MA, CHILD’S PLAY, THE HEAD HUNTER, NEKROTRONIC, AVENGERS: ENDGAME, SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, THE IRISHMAN, GIRL ON THE THIRD FLOOR, DANIEL ISN’T REAL, HAUNT, GAGS THE CLOWN, WOUNDS (holy fuckballs there were a lot of great movies this year, and I’m sure I missed a few).

Movies I Missed and Need to Catch Up On: DOCTOR SLEEP, CRAWL, SATANIC PANIC, DEPRAVED, SWEETHEART

Best Movies That Came Out Last Year That I Didn’t Watch Until This Year: APOSTLE, MONSTER PARTY, SUSPIRIA

Top Movies of 2019 (So Far)

Man, it’s been a weird year for movies. Some of my most-anticipated flicks ended up being bitter disappointments, while other films that looked terrible punched WELL above their weight. Since we’re halfway(ish) through the year, I thought I’d do a top ten list now, mostly to make my year-end list easier to compile. But it’ll also be fun to see how the list changes in the back half of the year.

Okay, without further ado, let’s do this.

10. The Head Hunter

Controlling for budget, this might be in my top three. Made for a mere $30,000, the movie does a hell of a lot with what it has, and is consistently moving and compelling. Christopher Rygh does amazing work in a nearly-silent role. The set design is beautiful, and some of the devices used (the horns summoning Rygh’s monster hunter, for example) are pretty neat, working well to create anticipation and dread. Unfortunately a movie about a guy who fights monsters needs some actually monster-fighting, and the micro-budget forced them to show only the before and after of the battles. Give these guys a few more bucks and I bet they’ll do something really fucking cool.

9. Brightburn

A bunch of fun kills and some fairly tense scenes, but ultimately the idea of an evil Superman is a whole lot more novel to the average Joe or Sally Popcorn Bucket who hasn’t seen the idea done over and over again in the comics (for my money, Garth Ennis’ Homelander is a way more fun riff on the concept). Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half, but the movie was utterly predictable. I wasn’t surprised once. I think the flick would have been a little more fun with some ambiguity as to whether or not Brandon was the one murdering everyone.

8. Mega Time Squad

There’s only one thing I hate more than time travel, and that’s dream sequences. Mega Time Squad had the deck stacked against it in this respect, but its creators wisely (and unsurprisingly, being responsible for the ass-kickingly hilarious Deathgasm) chose to make a comedy about time travel, which is the one genre where it works for me. If you’re playing time travel straight, it makes my head hurt too much, thinking about all the paradoxes. In a comedy though, especially one where the time travel is conducted via magic, I’m into it. Mega Time Squad is also really Mega Clone Squad, and great fun.

7. Ma

Earlier I mentioned movies that punch way above their weight class, and Ma is the first of them. I saw the trailer in front of probably three or four movies and immediately wrote it off, but after hearing some good word-of-mouth I decided to check it out for myself. WOW. The trailer didn’t do the movie justice (it did spoil a really fucking awesome scene, though). Ma’s less a horror movie than a meditation on disconnection and loneliness. By the end I was so emotionally invested in all of the characters, I just wanted everyone to work shit out and get along.

6. Child’s Play

One more movie I was primed to hate but end up enjoying quite a bit. Just like everyone else on the internet, I wasn’t looking forward to a Child’s Play remake. At least until I saw the Wondercon panel. I’ll probably do my definitive Child’s Play rankings at some point and believe it or not the remake slots in around number three. The movie plays a whole lot like the 1990 classic Hardware, complete with sweaty, pervy neighbor, and they’ve solved the jackass internet tough guy objection to Chucky (“Dude, I’d just like punt that fucker out the window”) in a creative way that makes the franchise relevant AND scary.

Plus, the fucking bear. Oh my god I want a spin-off.

5. Avengers: Endgame

I don’t think I have anything fascinating to say about this movie. It’s an Avengers movie, it did everything it was supposed to do and kicked ass and tugged heart strings and brought the first ten years of the MCU to a respectable conclusion. Good stuff.

4. Midsommar

Ari Aster is the greatest music video director of all time. The guy knows how to craft a compelling visual, that’s for sure, and the music is top-notch. Despite the legion of dipshits in my theater that laughed at literally everything, I found the movie to be almost unbearably tense (in a good way), disturbing, and consistently fascinating. Narratively there’s almost nothing going on, and if you’ve ever seen a pagan cult movie there are zero surprises. Every character that’s not Florence Pugh or her boyfriend feels like an NPC, and maybe that’s by design, but I can’t get behind that approach. The execution is brilliant but expected—while it’s a sterling example of what it is, I’ve seen this movie before. For a new twist on the pagan cult movie, check out Gareth Evans’ Apostle. I’m not saying that’s a better movie than Midsommar, but narratively I found it the superior movie of the two.

3. Velvet Buzzsaw

Nightcrawler is one of my favorite movies EVER, and getting the band back together was a fantastic idea. I had a hell of a lot of fun with this movie. Incredibly compelling, I never felt the urge to check my phone which is my measuring stick for how good a movie on NetFlix is (regardless of how bored I am in a theater, I’m not pulling out my fucking phone like an asshole). If the movie had just been about pretentious art douchebags trying to out-douche each other over Henry Darger’s Gold, I would have liked the movie even more. The supernatural horror element felt tacked on and unnecessary, and this movie is the ultimate example of an all-time great title having fuck-all to do with the story. Still, I loved the hell out of this thing despite its flaws.

2. Knife+Heart

A contemporary, ‘70s-set take on the giallo. Moreso than last year’s Suspiria, I thought Knife perfectly nailed the atmosphere and look of the ‘70s. Everybody looks kind of sweaty and gross. I found myself forgetting all the characters were speaking French because I was so invested in the story. Anne Pareze is such a fascinating, morally-questionable creation. Her creation of a pornographic film to both exploit and cope with the tragedy surrounding her is jaw-dropping, both in how some scenes are played for painful laughs but also in what it says about her as a person—insight and indictment in equal measure. Is she trying to make a buck off the deaths of her friends, looking for catharsis in all the wrong places, or a little bit of both? Either way, watch this fucking movie, it’s amazing.

1. The Banana Splits

Pure. Fucking. Joy. Taking the Banana Splits and making a legit horror movie is tough to pull off, and yet Danishka Esterhazy absolutely rose to the challenge. The jokes land, the gore is on point, the child actors aren’t annoying and the adult actors nail the shit out of their roles. Perhaps it’s not high art, but it’s a perfect example of a well-crafted, batshit-insane horror flick. The care and attention to detail is evident throughout (ex. and SPOILER the way one Split is taken out mirrors their first kill almost exactly). It’s a shame this movie is consigned to VOD/Blu-ray, because it’s the perfect flick to tie one on with your friends and go see on the big screen. Hoping it hits the midnight movie circuit one of these days. Goddamn incredible and I can’t see anything topping it this year.

Best Movies That Came Out Last Year That I Didn’t Watch Until This Year: Apostle, Monster Party, Suspiria.

UPDATE 24-JUL-2019: So of course I post this on the same day I finally get around to watching Under the Silver Lake (that 2.5 hour run time intimidated the fuck out of me) and HOLY SHIT WAS THAT AWESOME. It’s on the list, probably between Child’s Play and Ma. Not a perfect movie by any means, there were a few threads that didn’t quite come together.

One more SPOILER WARNING.

I mostly loved the experience of watching the movie, it’s beautifully and weird and haunting and that one scene of him walking up to the stone house felt like something out of Mandy, BUT there were too many threads that didn’t come together at the end—the pirate guy’s absence being the most minor, but still noted. Mostly I was very disappointed that the grocery store trapdoor didn’t factor in, nor did the Vanna White eye-code. I expected Sarah to use that to signal to Sam that she really wanted him to come get her, for him to use the trap door, and to have some sort of confrontation. The ending of the movie mostly worked for me, just seemed odd those elements didn’t go anywhere.