by ·Comments Off on Legend of the Mountain (1979, King Hu)

So titled because I Married a Witch was already taken. Scholar-dropout-turned-copyist Shih Chun takes a gig to copy some holy sutras, heads to a quiet place in the country where he can focus, and that plan sure does backfire. First he gets wasted at the annoying neighbor’s house while her daughter Melody plays trance-drums, then he wakes up and Melody claims they slept together, so they get married. Now he has a new wife, an annoying mother-in-law and a contradictory host, and they’re all being circled by the host’s deranged servant Old Chang who looks suspiciously like a vampire, plus a disappearing hot flautist called Cloud, and a Lama.

Movie is good for its entire 3+ hour runtime – King sure knows how to frame a shot and set up a scene. And it gets slowly weirder and more unsettling, until after two whole hours of gradual build, we’re rewarded with a dance-fight wuxia scene. This is post-Star Wars but instead of using light beams to portray the magic, he sticks with flashbangs, colored smoke, and surreal reverse-film effects. It’s belatedly explained that Melody and Cloud are rival magicians, and even more belatedly demonstrated that everybody here except Shih is a ghost.

All the ghosts get backstories via drum-induced flashback (there is a lot of aggressive spiritual hand-drumming in this). Cloud, the Lama, the host, and even Old Chang appear to be our guy’s savior and/or evil conspirators at different points. Melody is banished to hell but easily escapes for a final showdown, and when Shih (whose primary ability until now has been to run away) gets fed up of all these ghosts, he throws his prayer beads into the air and everyone burns up. All these actors are from the same year’s Raining in the Mountain except the great Sylvia Chang as Cloud, who went on to Shanghai Blues and Office.

The most suspenseful scene to me, hoping drunken Shih wouldn’t break this teapot:

I recently discovered The Chinese Cinema site, where Sean writes: “As a wuxia mystery film, it feels more in the spirit of Tsui Hark’s debut The Butterfly Murders (also from 1979),” which sounds promising, so I’m watching that next.

Shih is terrific as the scholar, dogged yet constantly befuddled, but ultimately competent (you do feel for him when he finally discovers how much he’s been manipulated and the film’s final shots wouldn’t work if we didn’t know this man so well as he stands alone against a raging river). It’s a very different character than his ultra-confident swordsman in Dragon Gate Inn or even his not-as-clever-as-he-thinks scholar in A Touch of Zen.

This is what happens when ghosts mess with prayer beads:

by ·Comments Off on The Butterfly Murders (1979, Tsui Hark)

Not sure it’s worth recounting the whole Scooby Doo story of Hark’s debut feature – there’s so much of it. Flipside of the King Hu movie, pulling off as much plot and action and as many cool compositions in under half the runtime. Sean and Jake are saying the same thing, and they’re both saying it better than I could’ve.

The initial team:

Multiple clans unite to solve the killer butterflies mystery, including Green Shadow (who’d return in We’re Going to Eat You!). They arrive at a castle, where the Lord is the dad from A Brighter Summer Day and the Lady was in the same year’s Magnificent Butcher. Soon, the Three Thunders arrive – including Magic Fire, who would be in a few Johnnie To films and The Bride With White Hair. Now Scholar Fong (villain of the Chinese Ghost Story series) knows the mysterious leather mask-man who controls the butterflies is the castle lord and gets the heck out of there, also knowing everyone is gonna kill each other.

Mouseover to unmask the mysterious armored man:
image

Ladies and gentlemen… The Magic Fire Crow:

by ·Comments Off on The Last Ten Minutes vol. 35: SHOCKtober 2026

Evil Dead Burn (2026, Sébastien Vani?ek)

Oh right, it’s the New French Extremism sequel, which is actually none of those things. Lot of severed body parts lying around as the girl kills a final zombie with a lawn tool then sets the place ablaze. Nice photography when the girl stands still and there are no CG beasties around, but any action is shot and/or edited like shit. I think her trauma is speaking to her in the form of a crumbling demonified husband who wants to get her holy dagger. The director made Infested (which has the same poster as this movie!) and the girl was a lead in Climax.

–
Night Swim (2024, Bryce McGuire)

Someone is being chased by a demonified abusive family member, is this the same movie? Another girl is rescuing a kid from their ghost-filled lake-sized swimming pool. They attack Wyatt Russell with a bat and he simply barfs out his demon, then sacrificially swims back into the ghost pool to save them all. Mom was Kerry Condon from The Banshees of Inisherin, the director looks like Eli Cash in his promo shot.

–
Primate (2025, Johannes Roberts)

The latest monkey rampage movie. Girl is being beaten up by the monkey while her deaf dad arrives home, oblivious. Eventually two girls and the dad are all getting beaten up at once in their broken-glass house by the monkey, who appears to be a guy in a fursuit as often as he’s a CG beastie. Doesn’t look like there’ll be a Primate 2 unless whatever substance turned this monkey into such an asshole is still out there, somewhere. I’m not even mad about this one, it looks like a fine monkey movie. The director made the pretty good buried-alive segment of V/H/S/99, a fake Resident Evil, and a couple shark attack pictures.

–
M3GAN 2.0 (2025, Gerard Johnstone)

Allison Williams is wearing a powersuit in psychic contact with her own robot, as the new hyper-evil military robot Amelia murders tech boss Christian. The kid Katy is back, with a good bit that I thought would be a RoboCop reference but was actually a Steven Seagal joke. Gerard gets to do his signature camera-cartwheel during the robot battle, which features all the best cyber sound effects and cheesy 90s good-vs-evil cyborg stuff, before all robots are destroyed by an EMP blast. Then it ends with a congressional hearing about the future of AI, boo.

–
The Menu (2022, Mark Mylod)

Anya is tormenting gourmet chef Ralph by asking him to make a basic cheeseburger then taking it to-go and tipping a penny. I forget what this movie was about, but I assumed cannibalism was involved? It seems kinda boring. But hey, John Leguizamo is here. As Anya speedboats away, the rest of the customers and staff turn out to be a death cult, suicide-by-smore. The director worked on Da Ali G Show, which is making a comeback.

–
Perpetrator (2023, Jennifer Reeder)

I’ve seen a couple of Reeder’s shorts but I’ve heard the turn to genre features has been rocky, let’s see. Mom and kid are rehashing their traumas, whispering. Then at a school assembly, more traumas get rehashed, crying. A couple people spontaneously bleed, the whole auditorium starts swearing in unison, then the mom and kid rip some white guy’s heart out. Whatever was happening here, at least it’s a unique take.

–
Humane (2024, Caitlin Cronenberg)

Girl is badly cut and the family tries to do that movie thing of searing the wound shut with a red-hot kitchen implement, but it doesn’t work. Cops arrive to round everyone up. Head police/company guy Enrico Colantoni (Stigmata) isn’t very careful and gets captured by the medical experiment family then killed by BlackBerry inventor Jay Baruchel. I don’t mind when battered bleeding victims take bloody revenge on their tormenters at the end of a movie, but apparently that’s not what this is, and they’ve been attacking each other?

–
AGGRO DR1FT (2023, Harmony Korine)

“I smell the blood of a dead man,” growls the villain. “Let’s do this!” This movie has a plot and characters, it’s not just vibes? The dialogue and action are garbage beneath the really unique visuals, so they should’ve stuck with vibes. Watching this on mute over a mix of Zorn music would help, but not enough. The regretfully violent good guy kills the annoyingly violent bad guy, both of them over-narrating, then a dwarf machete gang plays catch with the baddie’s head. I think the repetitive and terrible dialogue might be a gag, but I haven’t seen a more tedious last ten minutes since Source Code. The hero was in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and Travis Scott fortunately went on to better things.

–
Baby Invasion (2024, Harmony Korine)

This one’s in twitch livestream mode, the Burial music glitchy and low. Someone’s pissing on a boat. The babies say “let’s go” and “let’s roll” but not “let’s do this.” It’s all onscreen text in the game simulation, no spoken dialogue, so at least that’s an improvement over DR1FT. Long-take first-person camera through 3D tunnels, more Wolfenstein than Eisenstein. I think the twist is it was a game-in-a-game, and God kills the elite baby squad with his lightning hands.

–
The Toxic Avenger (2023, Macon Blair)

Toxie has a magic green murder wand, and has teamed up with a girl who keeps whacking people with a toilet. Movie keeps glitching or flashbacking mid-scene. Evil Elijah Wood is vanquished, movie has really good color, and some of the jokes land – what more could you want?

by ·Comments Off on It Ends* (2025, Alexander Ullom)

Old friends are catching up, go on a drive onto an endless* road, when they turn back they hit a dead end and people from the woods assault them, so they turn around and just drive forever*.

Military guy Tyler’s delivery of “I’m the most well-adjusted person in the vehicle” was possibly my biggest laugh of the year. He’s the first to leave the car to take his chances in the woods, years(?) before anyone else gives up. I didn’t notice until editing the screenshots that the movie goes from widescreen to 16:9 at this point – why?

“This is not real life anymore.”
“Like a drug trip or a wormhole or an ancient curse?”

As the people in the woods diminish, outside breaks can last longer. They never get hungry or tired, the car doesn’t run out of gas, the days go on until some of them give up and become the people in the woods. The time I had to stay at work overnight for a PBS Kids delivery, and I ate a Kind bar and was allergic to it, this is exactly what it felt like.

by ·Comments Off on Cult of Chucky (2017, Don Mancini)

Good sequel, tying together all previous plots, while also allowing Chucky to multiply, while also being an Elm Street 3-style psych-ward-set serial killer thriller.

Andy is back, torturing his own personal Chucky head after a cute girl from the latest Final Destination breaks up with him. Wheelchair Nika is still alive too, so is her niece (now Mike Flanagan’s Carrie) and Jennifer Tilly-as-herself and the doll version of Jennifer Tilly, and hey, why not bring back the girl from part two, it’s a party.

Andy gets himself committed by attacking a guard. They charles-lee-ray Nika. Evil wins, kills everyone and gets away with it. I would’ve been happy to watch a couple more movies like this, but apparently the followup was a three-season TV series, and I simply don’t have that many hours to devote to Chucky.

Claire, getting Very-Long-Engagemented:

In the asylum is:
Schizophrenic Multiple-Malcolm (a cop in The Long Walk)
Confrontational Claire of Cube 2: Hypercube
Mom-wannabe Madeline of House of the Dead
Angela who thinks she is a ghost (of both Violent Night and Silent Night Deadly Night Remake)
Nurse Ashley of Malcolm McDowell Silent Night
Nurse Carlos of Jessica Alba The Eye Remake
McDreamy-lookin’ Dr. Foley of The Viewing

by ·Comments Off on Nana (1926, Jean Renoir)

Everyone loves actress Nana (the Whirlpool of Fate orphan, and the director’s wife), including Count “Dr. Caligari” Muffat, horse breeder Count “Robert Macaire” Vandeuvres, and Macaire’s useless nephew Ray (The Three-Sided Mirror). Nana, in turn, likes whoever she can use to get ahead, and that’s Muffat, who gets her the starring role in a play but can’t stop her from being laughed off the stage. In the end, everyone in this movie who acted normal about anything was spared – unfortunately that’s nobody.

Nana with her Count:

Somehow Nana is even worse as a courtesan, needing to ham up every interaction as if she’s still onstage. If you watched this and The Odyssey back-to-back, you’d have to conclude from the crowds of suitors that all men except Matt Damon are pathetic. Nana’s three suitors are in a desperation spiral, and it’s tough to keep track – you tell yourself at the beginning “the Count is the guy with the preposterous mustache,” but there are multiple Counts and a preponderance of bad mustaches. The horse breeder tries to throw a race to gain enough cash to win the girl. When that fails he drinks poison then falls down, starting a fire that burns up his horses. The nephew is overwhelmed by how pathetic this all is and unalives himself with Nana’s scissors. Muffat’s wife left him long ago, is now depressed about her life with an annoying playwright. Finally Nana gets smallpox and I lost track of whether she took the count with her.

Nana with Horse Guy:

Based on a Zola novel that gets remade every decade or so. The Silent Film Music Shuffle Mix was played, and Dirty Three’s Ocean Songs came out the winner.

Nana with the annoying nephew:

by ·Comments Off on Three Extremes (2004, Miike & Park & Chan)

Dumplings (Fruit Chan)

Bai Ling of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is abortionist-chef Aunt Mei, and her latest rich customer is from Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2. I once watched the feature-length version of this on bootleg DVD, which defeats the point of bathing in all the lovely green shades brought out by Christopher Doyle, shooting a WKW movie without the blurry slow-mo. The movie’s other point is to gross you out with all the baby-eating, which evokes Monty Python’s crunchy frog sketch. Customer wants to look youthful forever so her bigshot husband Tony 2 will keep liking her, and maybe eating babies is the answer? Nice peek into early-century medicine, doctor handing out mood-altering pills to pregnant women.

–
Cut (Park Chan-wook)

Opening long-take of a vampire film-in-the-film, the camera doing that post-Fight Club thing where it has to float through objects. Later, the vampire film’s director (the No Other Choice guy) has been tied up on the same set, while an extra from his films explains his class resentment while chopping off fingers from the director’s pianist wife (the chef/daughter of Oldboy). The extra has got an overcomplicated revenge plot (and a nice dance routine), and everyone ends up confessing too many things until the wife gets close enough to bite her kidnapper’s neck off, then the director strangles her while she’s still immobile.

–
Box (Takashi Miike)

Writer dreams of a man burying a box, then has a long, slow conversation with her agent. Writer is near-catatonic, flashbacks reveal she was half of a contortionist circus act whose act involved two sisters who could fold themselves into two small boxes. One night she locked her sister in the box and attacked their keeper with a dart, then the place burned down. Sorry to make the movie sound exciting – it’s mostly her moving very slowly while feeling trauma, reliving the fire again and again, until her dreams/visions allow her to apologize to the dead sister in the box after being berated by the circusmaster.

by ·Comments Off on The Iron Rose (1973, Jean Rollin)

Couple meets at a wedding and chase each other around giggling, then have a nice time nude in a crypt. When they return to the surface, the cemetery is closed and deserted and their attempts to leave end up in loops, until he gets shitty, starts slapping her around and trashing graves. They make up, and get busy on a pile of bones. I still don’t love these vibes-only Rollin movies but don’t mind rollin’ with one every couple of years. The actress would go on to almost produce a Tara Reid movie, while he would star in City of Pirates and Tale of Springtime.

by ·Comments Off on Accident (2009, Soi Cheang)

Sourfaced Louis Koo leads a hitman squad, staging deaths as accidents, along with older Uncle, female Woman, and Lam Suet. They pull off their latest job – electrocution via kite string – but Uncle is losing his marbles, then an out-of-control bus plows into Lam Suet. Louis starts tailing people involved with the job, convinced his team is being taken out by a rival. He thinks Woman is against him so he kills her, then their final client falls from a window. Gorman: “Master of the surveillance state goes crazy when the apparatus is turned against him, then has an epiphany about the cruel vicissitudes of pure chance.”

Koo between the Election movies and Breaking/Romancing. Woman was Anthony Wong’s wife in Motorway. Lam Suet was Lam Suet. Uncle was a Sammo/Jackie Lucky Star who died last Halloween. Next year we should have a Devil’s Vendetta / Ghost Snatchers double-feature in his honor.