by ·Comments Off on Strangler vs. Strangler (1984, Slobodan Sijan)

The credits roll over a long slow zoom into the back of a conductor’s head – someone has been watching Unfaithfully Yours – and later they’ll steal the Psycho music during a shower murder. It’s a cute mass-murder/mass-media comedy from Serbia, the director’s follow-up to How I Was Systematically Destroyed by Idiots. There are elaborate flashbacks, an opera, a music video, and an intertitled talking cat.

No one will be admitted during the thrilling shower scene:

The police inspector, having a bad day:

Strangler One is Pera, a flower salesman tormented by his mother, who falls into mad amnesiac rages when women insult his flowers. Spiro is an indie rocker who claims to be in touch psychically with the strangler, and writes a hit song about it. Women are just around to be strangled, until DJ Sofia bites off a strangler’s ear during the final struggle.

by ·Comments Off on Faces of Death (2026, Daniel Goldhaber)

Watched this meta-remake because I trust the Pipeline guy, and Director Daniel did not let me down even if Writer Daniel (and his Cam co-writer) strayed increasingly into dumb-ass territory. I find his internet thrillers less compelling – let’s blow up some more pipelines.

Barbie Ferreira of Euphoria is a viral-snuff-video survivor who now reviews flagged violent videos all day for shithead boss Josh (of multiple LaKeith Stanfield movies) until she uncovers a serial killer who’s recreating scenes from Faces of Death (1978). Killer Arthur (a power ranger) takes over the second half, killing her roommate (of Cocaine Bear), as Arthur and Barbie turn the tables on each other repeatedly until his inevitable (captured on video) death.

The roommate has two copies of Independence Day on VHS:

and two of The Sixth Sense:

by ·Comments Off on Redux Redux / How to Shoot a Ghost

Redux Redux (2025, Kevin & Matthew McManus)

A great concept turned into an unfortunately bad movie with boring music. I watched on fast-forward.

The Block Island Sound directors cast their sister as a multidimensional force of vengance, hopping parallel universes in search of a world where her murdered daughter is still alive, taking out serial killer Jeremy Holm each time before moving on, until she picks up one of his survivors Stella Marcus and they get to repeatedly save each other.

with Jim Cummings of Snow Hollow as her hookup:

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How to Shoot a Ghost (2025, Charlie Kaufman)

Earned this half-hour movie with the time saved from fast-forwarding Redux. This one has some good words and some good images, making it better than the last Kaufman short I saw (from the same writer). The whole emotional journal of being a ghost in Greece doesn’t come together, but Kaufman and Jessie Buckley deserve a belated victory lap after I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

by ·Comments Off on Dangerous Animals (2025, Sean Byrne)

After Alone, why not watch another girl get kidnapped by a serial killer and try to escape her fate. This time things are more complicated – we see other victims, there’s an attempted rescue, and the maniac is a boater who feeds captured surfers to sharks while filming them on VHS.

Surfer Zephyr (of Southbound) has a lovely time with new friend Moses, then she drives to the beach, gets kidnapped by a maniac and locked on his boat with fellow victim Heather. Really Good Guy Moses keeps searching for her, connects the clues, and arrives only to be kidnapped himself, then Z chews off her own thumb to escape from the cuffs Saw-style. Byrne is two for two, now I’ve gotta catch The Loved Ones. Everyone else who watches this already knows who villain Jai Courtney is – I’ve only seen him in Edward Furlong cosplay as a lead-in to Yoga Hosers.

by ·Comments Off on Serial Mom (1994, John Waters)

Kathleen Turner and Sam Waterston and Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard are the perfect family, except mom has started making dirty anonymous phone calls to her supposed friend Mink Stole, then she escalates her naughty behavior by murdering her kid’s teacher with her car, and expands her victims list to anyone who annoys her for not rewinding videotapes, or not recycling. Turner and Waters are on top of their games here, and it’s a great movie, but if it was made as an answer to Falling Down then it might be the greatest movie.

Good Hair Scotty is Andy from Child’s Play 3:

Mom gets arrested at an L7 show:

by ·Comments Off on Drylongso (1998, Cauleen Smith)

Indie drama wih peppy editing, handheld segments, swish pans. Pica is too iconoclastic to succeed in her photography class, meets April, who dresses like a boy to avoid harassment and joins P at her night job pasting up photos after P finds her friend Malik murdered by a serial killer. It’s all cute, creative and contrived in equal measure, and gives no indication of the far-out places Smith would end up in her latest shorts.

“a tribute to the richness of what can be made with little and shared without limit” – Yasmina Price’s Criterion essay is good.

by ·Comments Off on The Lodger (1927, Alfred Hitchcock)

There’s a serial killer murdering the blondes of London, but the movie is more concerned with showing us all the media technologies of the time (telegraph, newspaper, radio, electric billboards). Meanwhile after a performance of “Golden Curls,” the few performers who weren’t wearing wigs are worried about their walk home. Good music by Neil Brand, and I love the construction paper graphics on the intertitles.

Ivor Novello arrives, pale and scarved, at a boarding house, acting like a dramatic ghost while renting a room, and is assumed to be the killer so everything he picks up is implied to be a possible murder weapon. He likes local girl Daisy, which annoys her hanger-on Joe. First the landlady then the cops go snooping through Ivor’s stuff, then the real killer is caught off-camera but not before jealous Joe gets an angry mob to beat Ivor half to death.

Killer calling card:

British people must spend 15% of their day standing in shocked silence after something mildly disagreeable happened. Novello’s legacy: he would be portrayed ninety-some years later by the guy who also played young Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia 2.

POV: Ivor Novello wants to kiss you