This Film is Not Yet Watchable – October 2024

A couple of weeks ago, I took a nasty fall. At least, it was nasty for someone my age. While going out to get some lunch, I ran into a couple of problems. The first was that the restaurant completely flubbed my order by giving me a ton of fries I didn’t ask for. I didn’t think much of it because, you know, yay bonus fries. Driving home, I had my phone sitting in the passenger seat along with the food bag. It’s more convenient than keeping it in my pocket in case someone calls, and I didn’t have anywhere else to put it, what with my cupholder being occupied by my meal’s accompanying soda. As I made my way along the freeway, I encountered the usual dregs of Los Angeles who drive like entitled maniacs, including people who try to cross several lanes at once without signaling, people who drive in exit lanes right up to the ramp then try to wedge their way back into traffic as a means of cutting the line, and people who brake suddenly and severely to prevent themselves from ramming into these miscreants. One such hard braking forced me to extend my arm to brace the food bag so that it didn’t spill out everywhere. Unfortunately, having only one right arm, I could only save the bag, and my phone flew right into the passenger seat floor. This is severely annoying, and it happens far too often, but thankfully it wasn’t damaged.

When I got home, I parked in front of the house next door. It’s one of two construction sites on either side of my building. I described one a few days ago. In this other case, the neighbors did a total teardown of their house a year back and have been steadily rebuilding since, including a complete change in the architectural style and adding a second floor. They also were forced to remove an entire row of overgrown shrubbery and succulents along the curb that were covering the sidewalk. I got out of my car, made my way to the passenger side to fish out my phone, grabbed the food, and made my way towards the door, a mere 20 feet away.

Unfortunately, in the course of that plant removal, a small gap had been created between the curb and the sidewalk. The food bag, being heavier than usual with the extra unwanted items, upset my balance ever so slightly as I gripped it, and it started slipping out of my hand. I made a motion to fix this as I walked, and in doing so, my attention was taken away from the path in front of me, and my foot caught against the lip of the pavement. In what felt like slow motion, the soda soared out of my hands, I spun towards my left side, and down I went. I hit the ground hard, feeling a pop in my ribcage upon impact. Ever since then I’ve been dealing with soreness on my left side and some limited mobility. I’m fairly certain there’s no permanent damage, as there’s no bruising or swelling, and I’m not about to find out anytime soon, as my doctor has no availability for an examination, and I can’t afford the hundreds of dollars it would take to go to urgent care or the emergency room. Over the last fortnight, the pain has subsided little by little, but there was a solid four or five days where the simple act of bending over was a test of endurance, and finding a comfortable sleeping position is still a bit of trial and error, especially for someone like me who tosses and turns in bed.

I say all this as a sort of analogy to this month’s TFINYW column. So often in our lives, and in the movie industry, it feels like there’s a simple, straightforward routine to things, a clear-cut way to get things done that will be satisfying to all. But sadly, we get waylaid by bullshit that’s minor its own, but when you put it all together, it can wind up being disastrous, even when the finish line is in sight. If the restaurant had gotten my order right, the bag wouldn’t have started falling out of my hand. If local traffic had adhered to the basic rules of the road, my phone wouldn’t have ended up on the floor, which means I wouldn’t have had to go to the other side of my car to retrieve it, and I would have walked to my house by going completely around that section of curb.

Such is the case with this month’s slate of dubious honorees. October is, honestly, one of the easiest months of the year when it comes to the film calendar. There are essentially two types of picture guaranteed to do well if they’re made properly: horror and prestige. Being that it’s Spooky Season, this is supposed to be where we get the best entries from the genre, and being that we’re officially into Awards Season, this is where the late stage competitors are supposed to start making their respective cases for hardware.

And yet, here we are with another slew of garbage, one that comes just shy of tying the already stunning record we set two months ago. There are an utterly baffling 20 titles coming out over the next 31 days that just look terrible. And while there are plenty that passed the initial smell test, almost all of the shit we’re about to wade through demonstrates a true failure of that very basic formula for October success. We have a bunch of horror films that look lazy, tired, and not the least bit scary. We also have pretender prestige fare that is obviously fishing for awards, but nothing about them looks deserving.

It shouldn’t be this hard. The path to victory is fairly straight and easy to follow. And somehow we end up with the second-highest total of trash so far this year, thanks to what honestly look to be easily avoidable mistakes and reliance on clichés. It boggles the mind that studios and production companies spend so much money and resources on these projects, only for them to turn out so dismally, to the point that a good number are dumped onto streaming services rather than getting theatrical releases. Like a clumsy middle-aged man tripping over the sidewalk 20 feet from his house, these entries continue to demonstrate how even the simplest of tasks can be fucked up to the point where you fall flat on your ass right at the finish line.

This is the October 2024 edition of “This Film is Not Yet Watchable!”

Another Happy Day – October 1

Technically this came out yesterday, but it went straight to VOD and will soon be on Apple, so I don’t really care about being a day late.

Anyway, Lauren Lapkus plays a mom who, it turns out, has a bit of a rough time being a mom. Apparently, motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Babies cry, husbands aren’t as attentive as they should be, sleep goes by the wayside, and body changes happen that you didn’t expect. I mean, this is some groundbreaking shit right here! I’ve never seen a story like this before!

You know, except for Tully…

And Juno…

And The Kids are All Right…

And 20th Century Women…

And Room…

And Bad Moms…

And What to Expect When You’re Expecting…

And Motherhood…

So yeah, totally original there. Look, I’m a big fan of Lapkus and Carrie Coon (who also stars and produces), and postpartum depression is a serious subject, but nothing in this appears to give the viewer anything but cheap jokes and entry-level tautologies about parenthood without any actual insight. There’s a reason this isn’t in theatres, because people aren’t going to pay $20 for a story they’ve literally seen dozens of times. Just because the people involved in this film likely experienced the very scenarios depicted here and elsewhere doesn’t make them anything new. If you’re going to keep going back to a dry well, you have to give the audience a reason to come along, and “I felt this too” isn’t enough.

Salem’s Lot – October 3

Another year, another Stephen King remake. This one is relegated to HBO/Max. You already know all you need to know. Just watch the original miniseries.

House of Spoils – October 3

I know shows like The Bear are really popular these days, but honestly, I couldn’t give a fuck about chefs. We all know that working in a kitchen is stressful, no matter what level it is. My first job was at a Burger King when I was 17, and after I left, it was a full year before I could eat there again because of how much I hated it. I have several small spots on my arms that look like freckles but are actually miniature grease burns from the broiler. It sucks. I used to watch Hell’s Kitchen all the time, until a) I found out how much the show is rigged, and b) I actually went to a “dinner service” taping and got fucked with by the producers for the sake of “drama” that never even made the episode.

After that, I’ve all but completely soured on the idea of “fine dining.” I like a good meal as much as the next guy, probably even more so, but I just don’t care about the highfalutin nonsense where people can convince themselves that something you will eventually shit out is worth hundreds of dollars just because someone wears a white jacket and talks about “mouthfeel.”

There are some exceptions to this when it comes to movies, like The Menu and Pig in recent years, but those were films that offered “cuisine” as a backdrop for something more. In the former, we got an absolutely delicious performance from Ralph Fiennes and a living set that was its own death trap. In the latter, Nicolas Cage made one of the finest turns of his career in a pure character study where the best scene was his calm, empathetic takedown of one of these very people who cook for buzzwords and social media attention rather than taste or passion.

This flick doesn’t appear to have any of that. It’s just Ariana DeBose playing an “I’m gonna be the greatest” chef, finding out how stressful it all is, and then seeing creepy-looking rotten food everywhere. So either there’s some demonic force at play (there’s talk about the previous owner of the restaurant being a witch or some such nonsense) or she’s just going insane. Either way, who cares? What about her compels anyone to pay even perfunctory attention? The answer is nothing.

Further, the trailer itself demonstrates some of the major problems with how we make and advertise movies. The first bit of onscreen text is to say that the picture is put out by Blumhouse. For fans of actual horror, this is an immediate red flag. Then it cuts to text saying that they were the “Producers of M3GAN.” This is completely meaningless. That movie was an unexpected hit, but all Blumhouse did was cut a check and distribute it. They didn’t actually make it. And further, M3GAN was a horror comedy, with emphasis on the back half of that phrase. This is trying to sell itself as being legitimately scary, so the two have nothing in common. And even if they were similar pieces, M3GAN came out almost two years ago. How much longer does Blumhouse plan on coasting on its achievement?

This then extends to DeBose herself, as she’s fonted as “Academy Award Winner.” This is an accurate statement, as she won Supporting Actress for the West Side Story remake, but again, that performance has nothing to do with this one on any level, as we’re talking about two completely separate genres of film. It’s also not like winning an Oscar makes you automatically good. Mel Gibson has an Oscar (we’ll get to him shortly), but he’s still an antisemitic piece of shit. And if you’re like me and read between the lines on Academy trends, you know her win has something of an asterisk because regardless of her talent, there was a big push to give her the award just so there’d be an openly queer winner. The Academy engages in virtue signaling like that all the time, for good and bad reasons. It doesn’t mean that DeBose isn’t a decent actress, but it’s one more reason to question why this particular piece of media feels the need to try to piggyback off of her success to get you to pay to see it (or in this case, pay for Amazon Prime; again, if it goes straight to streaming, that’s usually a strong indicator of its lack of quality).

So all of the marketing tricks are pointless, but even the clips we get offer no enticement. In particular, this preview – and presumably the film by extension – leans heavily into two horror tropes that I absolutely despise. The first is jump scares, and the second is the “bone-crack” sound effect. I’ve talked a little about the latter as recently as last month, but it really is annoying. And here, it’s horribly misplaced. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, but the sound cue is used while DeBose is cutting and chewing on leafy greens in the kitchen. Are you serious? That’s about as lame as when the Yogi Bear movie had its title character do the Wilhelm Scream.

If I accomplish nothing else with this column and this blog writ large, I want to be able to help you guys see and hear the underhanded means by which studios and streamers try to sell you on stuff that isn’t worth your time or money. Critical thought can only take you so far. You have to be able to spot these patterns for yourself and be vigilant against getting duped by it. This movie is a prime example (pun not intended) of everything wrong with cinematic marketing, and you’d do well to keep that in mind.

Hold Your Breath – October 3

You’ve seen demons. You’ve seen aliens. You’ve seen psychotic serial killers. You’ve seen blobs, tomatoes, clowns, vampires, werewolves, and monsters of all shapes and sizes. Now, feast your eyes on the newest and most terrifying specter coming to end your life and enslave your soul…

Dust.

Are you fucking kidding me? What, were the trees too busy avoiding Shyamalan?

Joker: Folie à Deux – October 4

I just don’t know what to make of this. I really liked the first Joker film. Joaquin Phoenix was brilliant, well deserving of his Oscar. Todd Phillips created not only an excellent origin story (borrowing some elements from The Killing Joke) for Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, but also used him as a microcosm of the failings of our society when it comes to empathy, mental healthcare, social services, and media consumption. The references to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy felt organic rather than contrived. And while the film was controversial (The A.V. Club notably named it among its 20 best and 20 worst films of the year), it leaned into its own polarizing nature and narrative.

This sequel, which was never needed, just looks like a mess. Phillips has somehow made this into a musical but keeps waffling on calling it that. Why else would you cast Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn? I like her fine, but in no universe is she ever cast for her acting ability (just look at House of Gucci). She’s first and foremost a singer and musician, and she’s spectacular at it. So why are we being coy about this?

On a more substantive front, it’s confounding that we’re sort of presenting this as some kind of star-crossed romance between Joker and Harley, when nearly every interpretation of their dynamic since her creation for Batman: The Animated Series has depicted a one-sided, abusive relationship where Harley suffers from toxic codependency until she extricates herself. Her journey is one of the reasons why she’s my favorite member of the Rogues’ Gallery. Here it basically looks like Phillips is making her a star fucker and Joker into a lovesick puppy, and that just feels regressive on a lot of levels.

Most importantly, though, the reason we didn’t need a follow-up is because we already know what Joker does once he’s Joker. The point of the last film was to show us how he became Joker. There’s no more new ground to cover here. No matter how many different teasers they put out (and there have been a LOT; I get a rotation of at least five interrupting me when I watch YouTube videos), this just looks like a story where Joker does some Joker shit.

I’m not saying this can’t be good, but I’m super duper cautious. If nothing else, look to Rotten Tomatoes. After its run in some festivals and early screenings, it had a passable grade of about 66%. Not great, but maybe it’d strike a chord with you. Tonight, however, less than 48 hours before general release, with the rest of the reviews no longer embargoed, it’s down to 51%. I’m worried.

Also, the title is stupid and pretentious. “Folie à deux” is a rare condition where a mental illness is shared by two people in close proximity. So why not just called it “Shared Delusion” or “Crazy for You”? Or better yet, just call it Joker 2, because that’s all anyone else will ever say.

White Bird – October 4

You might remember this one. I included it in this space two years ago. It’s a spinoff of Wonder where the boy who bullied Jacob Tremblay’s character gets rewarded for his behavior by being expelled from public school and instead enrolled in a private prep school. Then his grandmother (Helen Mirren) tells him a story about people who were mean to Jewish people during World War II. Inspiring!

Yeah, well, it never actually got released. Shortly before its October 2022 debut (already a push from its original September date), it got pulled from the calendar for reasons that were never fully explained, but I’m going to go with, it was shit. So it was rescheduled for August of last year, on my birthday to be precise. Then it got pulled again, ostensibly due to the SAG strike. That didn’t stop a bunch of other movies from coming out, and it’s not like anyone other than Mirren could have been trotted out to plug the picture, so that feels disingenuous.

So now it’s finally coming out. Except that it kind of already did. It was released in Europe back in January, but somehow it got held for nine more months for the States. Why? Honestly, I can think of only one reason – to finally and once and for all bury it. Lionsgate did the usual embargo release of criticism (it has an 86% rating based on a “whopping” 14 reviews), but it’s clear they have no faith in the project anymore, because they’re at long last putting it out against Joker, which is certain to dominate the weekend box office regardless of its merits. Once that’s done they can pretend to bemoan its failure and label it as an “underappreciated gem” or some other bullshit, and we’ll all move on with our lives.

In one more weird development, the film removed the subtitle of A Wonder Story, but somehow leans even more heavily into the branding by devoting almost 30 seconds to clips from the first movie, even though the original cast aside from Bryce Gheisar has no involvement. They also decided to tack on some Kingdom Story Company idiocy (because what is a Holocaust movie without Jesus?) by reminding you of the religious propaganda movies that get put out every year, as if that’s an incentive. I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just too much of a heathen.

It’s What’s Inside – October 4

I tell ya, I love a good Game Night. I also loved Game Night. It’s fun to get together and play around in a good-mannered way, with a degree of competition and cooperation, and a ton of laughs.

You know what isn’t fun? Hooking yourself up to electrodes and letting your friend experiment on you.

Yes, this is somehow the premise of It’s What’s Inside, a Netflix debacle you can see from space. A bunch of people gather for a night of well-meaning frivolity, and one just happens to bring along a machine of sorts. He convinces everyone to connect themselves to it, then he switches it on, and everyone goes inside everyone else’s brains for some kind of mindfuck horror scenario.

I’m sorry, what?

This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off in movies. I’m so sick of stories that rely on people to be extremely stupid in order to happen. Do you know what the Darwin Awards are? They’re sarcastic “honors” for people who die or otherwise remove themselves from the gene pool through incredibly moronic means. This concept is a Darwin Award laid bare. If someone, even a close friend, comes to your house and asks you to voluntarily subject yourself to a science experiment that only he controls, with no upfront explanation as to what’s about to happen, you deserve to die.

This is gerbil territory, people! Scientists literally test animals in situations like this, exposing them to various pokes and prods to see how and when they learn to avoid dangerous situations. Where is their survival instinct, and can it be manipulated? Hell, Lisa Simpson did a similar trial on her own brother. When the red flags are raised, you’re meant to stay the fuck away. There’s an actual game out there called “Lightning Reaction.” It’s technically classified as a board game, but there’s no board. It’s an electronic base with four joystick handles attached, meaning up to four can play. Each participant grabs a handle, and when someone activates the device, a red light turns on, accompanied by suspenseful music. When the light turns green, everyone is meant to push a button on their joystick. The last one to do so gets a small shock. I played this once with my current roommate over a decade ago. I lost, got the shock, threw the joystick down, and decided I’d never play again. Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to this?

If I can outwit a rodent and stay away from such a device, why should I give a shit about a bunch of “hottie” 20-somethings failing to do that to their own peril? Dumb.

Monster Summer – October 4

Ah, there’s old Mel! Yup, if I’m being hunted by various unseen creatures, the man I want protecting me is Mel Gibson! Nothing says “I’m in good hands” like the guy who called a cop “Sugar Tits” and said that Jews were the reason for all the world’s wars. I feel safer already.

Also, this movie is clearly just a half-assed Stranger Things knockoff, right down to using a bygone 80s pop song (Tiffany’s cover of “I Think We’re Alone Now”) and Gibson’s character being given the Scooby-Doo name of “Old Man Caruthers.” I’d say we can do better, but we’ve still got 12 more of these to get through.

The Forest Hills – October 4

You’ll never guess where this film takes place.

This is just your average, run-of-the-mill, ultraviolent creature feature. It would be completely irrelevant if not for one distinguishing bit of casting. This is the final film for the late great Shelley Duvall, who came out of a 20-year retirement to appear in it. It’s somewhat fitting that one of cinema’s greatest scream queens (though of course her career was so much more than The Shining) goes out on a genre entry, but otherwise there’s nothing notable about this. It’s just a low-budget splatterfest. Enjoy it on that base level if you so choose.

Little Bites – October 4

Similarly, this is another bit of gore that would be totally ignored save for the casting, as the legendary Heather Langenkamp of A Nightmare on Elm Street returns to mainstream horror. If that doesn’t get your butt in the seat, nothing else will. Certainly not the fact that fucking CHER is an executive producer, nor the foley effects of people being eaten where it sounds like the editing team just sat in mayonnaise and put a microphone by it, and definitely not the story about a mother sacrificing human lives to protect her child from a monster in the basement. Gee, motherhood sure is hard. I wonder if there’s ever been a movie about that!

I gotta tell you, I was really worried by the time I got to this trailer in the screening process. For whatever reason, studios and streamers decided October should be front-loaded as fuck, releasing films on three separate days in this first “weekend” alone. And when it was all said and done, all but TWO of them made this list. I don’t think I’ve ever dunked on an entire weekend slate before, at least not one this huge, but thankfully Things Will Be Different just barely got over the line, and The Trouble with People looks legitimately funny. But still, given that there are 20 trailers in this column (I decided not to divide it into two parts this time since I feel fine despite the knock to my ribs), the fact that HALF of them are in the first week alone is both daunting and dispiriting, not to mention exhausting. Thankfully, we can finally move on to the remaining 75% of the month now.

Caddo Lake – October 10

A story about a missing child can be quite compelling, especially if you have strong leads and a good, mysterious setting. This film has both of those in the forms of Dylan O’Brien and Eliza Scanlen, as well as a vast wetland area that makes for some pretty great cinematography, which you can tell even from the trailer.

Based on that, you might think that Caddo Lake would be a winner, but then two very ominous things happen. The first is that you see a producer credit for M. Night Shyamalan, so you know whatever the story is, it’s going to be filled with pseudoscientific, occult, mystical, or religious bullshit. It’s actually weird to see his name here, as using a celebrity as a producer is meant to get more attention on a theatrical project that they didn’t actually make (the actual writer/director team is Celine Held and Logan George, who made the 2020 thriller Topside), which makes it even more puzzling/damning that it’s going straight to streaming. The second is seeing O’Brien take a step in the marsh and basically go into a shimmer dimension. From there, it’s just a bunch of stupid jump cuts, shoddy glass transition effects, and for some reason, CGI wolves.

I’m sorry, does ANYONE know how to do suspense or horror anymore? Can we PLEASE stop with all these retreads? This could have been something akin to Winter’s Bone. Instead it looks like Where the Crawdads Sing by way of Annihilation. Hard pass.

Lonely Planet – October 11

Lonely Planet is a media company that makes guides and other information for those enthusiastic about world travel. They’re quite well known, even to someone like me who hardly ever gets to venture outside the city (my vacation to Las Vegas for my birthday this year was my first in nearly 12 years). After seeing this trailer, I think reading a lengthy travel guide for a country I’ll never visit sounds so much more entertaining than the movie, Lonely Planet, another waste of Netflix’s bandwidth that doesn’t appear to have any solid connection to the travel company.

Laura Dern plays a frustrated writer who goes on a writing retreat. So relatable! There, she has an affair with Liam Hemsworth doing a terrible American accent. Oh, and in doing all this, Hemsworth is actively cheating on his girlfriend who is at the same retreat!

I’m so rooting for these people… to drown in a bathtub!

The Silent Hour – October 11

A few years ago, Sound of Metal told one of the most groundbreaking stories of the decade so far, taking audiences inside the life of a musician who suddenly loses his hearing. It was filled with compelling characters, empathetic perspectives about the deaf community, a long overdue recognition of Riz Ahmed and Paul Raci’s acting talents, and innovative sound design that helped the hearing viewer immerse themselves in the experience.

But you know what was really missing from that cinematic triumph? Corrupt cops and a murder plot.

Yes, The Silent Hour takes a subject that was getting some really nuanced attention in recent years, and turns it into a straight up shlocky police action thriller. Joel Kinnaman plays a detective who loses most of his hearing in an accident, so naturally he and his partner (Mark Strong) are tasked with protecting a deaf witness (Sandra Mae Frank) who is being hunted by a compromised officer (Mekhi Phifer) trying to kill her before she can testify.

Not only is this a lame premise, even the trailer shows that it’ll be shoddily executed. Kinnaman continues to perform with all the charisma of a brick wall, half of his attempts to understand the witness and signal to her just feel like the sign language equivalent of “This is Katana. She’s got my back,” and I’m sorry, if you can’t already tell that Mark Strong is most likely the inside man orchestrating the whole conspiracy (because he has no other reason to be here), you just don’t know movies. I will happily eat my words if I’m wrong.

This could almost work if there was a clever way to incorporate sound – or the lack thereof – into the action, but the preview shows none of that. Oh sure, the video cuts the sound out on occasion, but it’s just to set up scenes where Kinnaman doesn’t hear someone approaching to put a gun to his head. There’s nothing that indicates any kind of smart usage of sound to trick the baddies or turn the tables, just an overall mix that cuts in and out, so why bother?

Bad Genius – October 11

You know what sucks? A social and economic structure that filters into our education system, especially private education, so that the rich and privileged can essentially sidestep the rest of us who work our asses off, getting into the best schools for meaningless degrees, and then being placed in top-level corporate positions, continuing the cycle of insular wealth. We literally saw how this institution gets corrupted thanks to the likes of Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman’s involvement in the “Varsity Blues” scandal.

So, what’s an underprivileged child of immigrants to do when she gets a chance to make something of herself and strive for social mobility? Why help those same brats cheat so she can be popular, of course! Oh, and so she can make some cash and make out with a cute boy! Oh, also, in a totally not racist way, that boy is the only black kid in the school and she’s Asian, so naturally the only non-whites have to end up together! Oh oh oh oh oh oh, and also also in a way that’s so definitely not racist at all, no sir, this Asian kid happens to be really good at standardized tests and the piano, which she uses to help these fuckwits cheat! I’M SO HAPPY AT HOW MUCH WE’RE LEARNING!

“The only way to beat a rigged game is to outmaneuver it,” says the main character, played by Callina Liang in an attempt to sound profound while actually sounding really stupid. Uh, no, you can’t outmaneuver the game itself. The game is just a construct, a staging ground. It doesn’t participate. You win the rigged game by outmaneuvering the players and those who are rigging it, exposing their malfeasance. That’s how you get justice. Because guess what? As the one doing the cheating, as the one profiting off of it, and oh yeah, as the poor minority student in a prep school full of blue-bloods, the moment the game is up, YOU’RE THE ONE WHO TAKES THE FALL! Even if there’s some stupid heist movie twist where she’s able to pin things on someone else or get away clean, part of the rigging of this game is a system that allows any of those other white kids to fail upwards for the rest of their lives. You, on the other hand, have your life and reputation destroyed if you get caught. You can’t outmaneuver reality!

The only “worse” genius than Bad Genius is the man who calls himself a “very stable genius,” who just happens to be a lifelong beneficiary of this very system.

9 Windows – October 15

First things first, a note to all future filmmakers. Stop making scenes where parents are talking to their kid in the back seat of the car. In nearly every case it means that there’s going to be an accident that kills the parents. From M3GAN to Dark Phoenix to Shazam!, we’ve all learned to see this coming, unlike the vehicles in the opposite lanes that these idiotic victims all seem to miss. You’re not shocking us. You’re not giving us character development or pathos. No one cares how many times the car flips over after the wreck. All you’re doing is creating an artificial pretense to leave a young character without any guidance in their lives so they can make even more stupid mistakes and blame it on trauma. It’s cheap and overused, and I’m fucking sick of it.

As for the rest of 9 Windows, it’s literally just Rear Window with screens. I’m sure our focus group-molded heroine will even triumphantly get out of her wheelchair to save the man in peril after the police gaslight her about what she saw, because feminism or whatever.

DO SOMETHING NEW, ASSHOLES!

Smile 2 – October 18

I featured the trailer for the first Smile in this space two years ago, but to its credit, the film wound up being a surprise hit. It made over $200 million at the box office and hovers around 80% on RT. Maybe I missed out on something, to the point where it might be worth giving this sequel a try.

Nope. Sorry.

First of all, between this and Trap, we somehow have two horror movies that take place at pop concerts. It weirdly reminds me of the “Torch Song” episode of Batman, and the less I think about that episode (and its accompanying song) the better. Second, spare a thought for the poor girl who has to play “creepy braces fan” at a signing event. I hope she goes to a school where she won’t be taunted mercilessly, or one where all her classmates are too young to see the movie.

But most importantly, this feels like a hastily-made sequel that exists solely to cash in on the unexpected success of its predecessor. While I didn’t see the first one, I know basically what it’s about, including the explorations of suicide and mental health. This just feels like gratuitous shock play, without anything that really grounds it. To hear someone say, “You witnessed a death, and now it’s latched onto you” and try to process anything logical from it is just an exercise in futility.

Based on the last movie’s performance, this should do well, as it’ll have no real competition at the box office apart from Cannes winner Anora, but I see little in the way of substance to convert me over to its side.

Goodrich – October 18

I liked Mr. Mom just fine in the 80s. I don’t need another version of it with an older Michael Keaton. And I certainly don’t need shoehorned generational trauma with Mila Kunis. I love both actors, but this just feels lame and uninspired.

Canary Black – October 24

I was really hoping this was going to be a movie about the cool character from DC Comics. But that’s Black Canary. Canary Black is just Kate Beckinsale phoning in a SALT/Atomic Blonde second-rate action flick, making her the latest actor over 50 to do a middle-aged espionage thriller. At least she has her experience from the Underworld series to lend a little bit of credibility to the idea of her kicking some tail, but still, I have no interest.

Also, given how many spy films we have out there, you’d figure people would get wise to this being a bunch of crap, right? I mean, if anything happened like they did in these movies, there would literally be millions of dead people lining the streets just from the sheer number of goons and minions who get killed in these things.

Amityville: Where the Echo Lives – October 29

We’re almost done, folks, I swear. The main slate of this month column concludes with an easy one. Lionsgate (red flag) has given us yet another sequel (red flag) to a tired horror franchise (red flag) that’s been bogged down with remakes, reboots, and spinoffs for decades since the one good original entry (red flag).

This particular installment has someone pretending to be a “paranormal investigator,” a “sign” in the form of a piece of paper caught in an updraft, a bad impersonation of the late Dan LaFontaine’s signature trailer voice, tarot cards, and what looks like the girl from The Ring. As the narrator spits out the utterly asinine “Nothing echoes louder than fear” (uh, no, nothing echoes louder than sound bouncing off a surface), you’re already too bored to care. There’s a reason this is coming out on a random Tuesday at the end of the month.

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Phew. That was a marathon. But the finish line is in sight. I just have to make sure not to trip again. This month’s “winner” of the title of “The Worst Trailer in the World” is a two-fer, in that it’s two trailers for the same movie combined into one video. After a terrible first outing for everyone’s favorite antiheroic alien symbiote, and an only marginally better sequel that I didn’t even bother to watch, it appears that Sony is finally ready to let go of at least on of its 10 bazillion Spider-Man spinoffs. Now if they’d just give up the license entirely we could be done with this malarky.

Venom: The Last Dance – October 25

The people who made this do know that if a giant alien monster was on top of a commercial airliner, the sheer weight of it would drop the plane out of the sky, right? Oh wait, I’m asking Sony to rub two brain cells together. What was I thinking? Can you believe this is the same studio that makes Jeopardy!?

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Finally, at long last, we come to the end with the monthly “Redemption Reel.” October looks to be a really rough month, especially for fans of good horror. Thankfully, there seems to be one movie coming out this month that understood the assignment.

Terrifier 3 – October 11

I confess, I haven’t seen either of the first two Terrifier movies, but I’m certainly intrigued, especially when you hear stories of controversial kill scenes and violence so graphic that it made some viewers vomit. Art the Clown has quickly become a slasher icon on the same level as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, and it appears that his bloody exploits have only gotten better, with the original Terrifier from 2016 holding only a 55% rating but succeeding on a cult following, and the 2022 sequel earning an 86% score. Early reviews from this latest installment stand at 93%, but like White Bird, take it with the requisite salt, as there are only 14 critiques so far.

And honestly, what’s not to love? It’s an ultraviolent slasher where the killer is a demonic clown dressed as Santa Claus, targeting anyone who gets in the way of his murder spree. If you’re a fan of this stuff, it’s kind of perfect. And if you’re like me and hate Christmas intruding on the autumn months, the idea of a systematic bloodbath feels weirdly giddy, to the point that you might honestly root for Art. That’ll learn ya ta stay in December where you belong!

At this point, I kind of want to see what I’ve been missing. So if I’m going to check this out, I have to do it right by watching the previous two films. That may be a tall order, as I have a ton of International Feature submissions and festival fare to get through this month, but I’ll try my best. In a month where so many genre installments look subpar at best, it’s oddly comforting to know there’s at least someone out there who understands that this is when the best of the slaughter is supposed to come out.

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That’s all for this month, folks. I apologize for the length, but that’s just how it goes these days. I honestly may have to rethink how I decide what to include and what not to. Until I do, though, as always, I genuinely hope you enjoy yourselves at the cinema, no matter what you go see. Make sure to take care of one another. Also, send me Twix bars.

Join the conversation in the comments below! Do you plan on seeing any of these films? Was I too hard on any of them? Where do you think Art the Clown ranks among the best horror stars? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!