#but that entire sequence feels like some kind of ableism to me. it just really rubbed me the wrong way

[mst3kproject]

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Happy Holidays, MSTies!  Your present is Episodes that Never Were are back!  Remember last year, when I said Elves was so bad I wished I’d watched the Star Wars Holiday Special instead?  Let’s find out what those words taste like.

The galaxy may be in the midst of a rebellion, but Chewbacca promised his family he will be back for Life Day, and god damn it, he’s gonna get there!  He and Han Solo dodge Imperial forces and asteroid fields on the way, but the real danger may be waiting for them at home, as Stormtroopers do a treehouse-to-treehouse search for rebel sympathizers.  It won’t be much of a holiday if Chewie arrives home only to be immediately arrested!

That sounds exciting, doesn’t it?  It even sounds like it could be made to mean something. There is perhaps a point here about inter-ethnic empathy – Life Day may be a Wookiee holiday, but Chewbacca’s alien friends still know how important it is to him and they’re gonna help him keep his promise.  We could also compare it to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  In that movie, the Martians want to celebrate Christmas but aren’t particularly interested in what it means.  They get all their information about it from pirated television and from children who don’t understand anything much more than ‘free stuff’.  We didn’t give Christmas to them, they literally stole it by kidnapping Santa.  In the Holiday Special, the Wookiees are sharing their cultural traditions with outsiders who have become part of their family – Leia’s speech at the ends notes the humans’ respect for this.

But none of that’s relevant, because this is just a bad 70’s variety hour in a Star Wars costume.  We don’t get to see claustrophobic scenes of our brave heroes hiding from the Storm Troopers.  We don’t get sweeping space battles or bickering robots or weird new planets… we don’t get anything we go to see Star Wars for.  Instead, we mostly watch the Wookiees sitting around their house passing the time as they wait helplessly for Chewbacca to get home.  This could have been neat in itself if Wookiees had an interesting culture, but they live in a Mod 70’s Treehouse and seem to spend most of their time watching television.  The brief opening sequence, in which Solo and Chewie outrun their pursuers in the Millennium Falcon, is just a tantalizing offer of chocolate on the tip of a giant turd.

The actual point of the show, as far as the people who produced it were concerned, was the various little musical numbers and comedy sequences along the way, some of which are more Star Wars-themed than others.  Most of these are presented as one or other of the characters watching them on some form of television, which often doesn’t make any sense.  The sequences themselves are usually not very well-presented and a lot of them are just downright boring, so let’s go through them one by one. Top up your eggnog, folks.  We may be here a while.

Our first setpiece is a holographic circus featuring jugglers and acrobats, which the adults use to distract Lumpy so he’ll stop bothering them – like parents at the mall letting their kids watch Paw Patrol on a tablet while they shop.  When you see televised circus acts, they’re usually filmed up close and at interesting angles, to heighten the sense of danger, and give you a good look at what’s going on.  The Star Wars Holiday Special presents it as tiny figures on a table, always shot from far away and looking down, which removes all the drama from the stunts.  Lumpy enlarges a figure, but it’s only the ringmaster.  The others remain tiny, all while this little Wookiee looms over them like a kaiju that will start stomping if it isn’t entertained.

Then we get Mark Hamill’s cameo (in which he looks weirdly like one of the puppets from Invaders from the Deep), followed by Malla’s attempt to cook Bantha Surprise by following the directions on a tv show.  I’m not very interested in cooking shows anyway, but I have a hard time imagining anybody being interested in a fake cooking show featuring fictional ingredients from other planets.  What we see on Malla’s screen comes across as a sort of parody, but not actually a funny one. I’m tempted to think Harvey Korman must have been making fun of some particular 70’s cooking show maven but I don’t begin to know who that might be.

The ‘humour’ of the sequence is supposed to come from Malla’s attempt to follow the directions even though the cook on the show has four arms and Malla only two.  I could pull some commentary on ableism in cooking and cooking shows out of this, but it would be a stretch, and nobody on the writing end was thinking about it that hard.  It’s just stupid, and so is Korman’s plastic wig.  Malla eventually turns it off in frustration, long after we’re tired of listening to it.

By the way, if you’re wondering whose stupid idea it was to set the whole thing on Kashyyyk (or, as a guy in the Special calls it, Kazook) and not have any subtitles to the Wookiee’s dialogue?  That was apparently 100% George Lucas.  The actual script and everything was in the hands of the television producers, but Lucas would not budge on the premise being Wookiee-centric.  At least he exorcised that particular demon here, instead of subjecting us to it on the big screen.

Anyway, next Art Carney drops by to deliver some Life Day presents, among which is the source of our next setpiece: a VR machine which reads Itchy’s mind to present a personalized fantasy!  This takes the form of Diahann Carroll in a sparkly feather wig, singing a song and saying things like “I am your fantasy, experience me!”  The song is okay, I guess, and Carroll has a lovely voice, but what we’re seeing is basically a boring music video.  She’s just standing there on a glittery black background, and we can’t forget that she’s singing to a geriatric Wookiee who is doing the Wookiee equivalent of jacking off to this (emphasized by the appearance of literal little swimmers in part of the sequence!).  The fact that it’s a personal fantasy plucked from his subconscious makes it feel like this was something we weren’t supposed to be privy to, like we’re looking through somebody else’s computer at his girlfriend’s nudes.

Princess Leia (also looking disturbingly puppet-like… are we sure the actual actors appeared in this, and not look-a-likes in heavy makeup?) and C3P0 get their cameo, and then there’s the single actually effective moment in the Special.  This is when we think Han Solo and Chewie are about to arrive home, ending our torment a full hour early, but no, it’s the Storm Troopers!  This bit isn’t fantastic, but it does work.  Then, sadly, we’re on to the next variety act.

This is a holographic music video which Carney shows to the Imperial troops as a demonstration that the device he has brought Malla for Life Day is harmless.  It’s Jefferson Starship moaning out a rock song, in which I can understand at best one word in three.  The visuals are in intense soft-focus that’s probably supposed to be artsy.  The costumes (what I can see of them) aren’t any more Star-Wars-y than anything else bands wore in the 70’s.  And the song sounds like something you’d find in the ‘easy’ setting on Rock Band.  Why does Black Helmet sit there and watch the whole thing when he’s supposed to be searching every house on Kashyyyk/Kazook for rebel sympathizers?

The version of the Special currently available on YouTube, which tragically lacks the commercials, has a lot of comments along the lines of this is what you hallucinate after buying Death Sticks from that guy on Coruscant.

To drive the point home, the next thing we see is Lumpy watching a cartoon about Han Solo and Chewbacca crash-landing on an ocean planet while searching for a mystical talisman that makes things invisible (I wish they hadn’t actually shown this object – then I could have made jokes about it being the One Ring).  This sequence is generally regarded as the best thing in the Special, and it introduced Boba Fett and provided some characterization for him.  It is definitely true that this is the only segment with a plot, and with its weird aliens and grubby outposts it feels a lot more like Star Wars than anything else going on here.

The main thing that keeps me from enjoying this segment is that it just looks weird.  The animators use exaggerated squash-and-stretch on the droids, even more so than on the living characters, which makes them look like they’re made out of jell-o. Princess Leia looks like something out of a cheap 60’s manga and Luke like he was drawn by a twelve-year-old based on an action figure that wasn’t actually of Luke Skywalker.  Luke has no pupils, which is very distressing, but not as distressing as when C3P0 blinks.  Even worse, as far as I can tell Han Solo has no eyes at all.

The design of the alien planet in this sequence is pretty cool, though.  It appears to be entirely covered in a kind of goopy ocean and the creatures that live in it are neat-looking, even if not terribly plausible.  Animation is really a great medium for fantasy and science fiction, because it levels the playing field: we’re not thinking about the special effects because everything on screen looks equally unreal.  This is something Disney, who used it to such beautiful effect in Lilo and Stitch, totally forgot at just about the same time as they acquired the rights to Star Wars.  Oh, for what could have been.

I want to note here that the average review on this blog is about as long as what you’ve read so far.  We’re only about two thirds of the way through the Special, though, and I can’t really divide a holiday review up into two weeks.  Therefore, consider this your permission to take a break and go snag another latke or whatever you’re snacking on, and then we’ll continue.

There’s one fun bit of background social commentary in the animated sequence, too: the only way for humans to survive the virus is to hang them upside-down so their brains will get enough oxygen despite their weakened hearts.  In the city there’s an advertisement for the cure – and the upside-down human pictured in the ad is, of course, a woman in her underwear.  The image isn’t detailed and it’s not the focus of the shot, so I don’t think it’s an actual piece of gratuitous cheesecake.  Apparently somebody at Nelvana Ltd was just salty about the advertising industry.

The self-contained story in the cartoon makes sense within itself. It justifies Fett’s fearsome reputation far better than anything in The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, and the characters seem to be in-character even when they’re off-model.  The problem is with it as a part of the framing story about the Imperial troops searching Chewbacca’s house!  The Special is very explicit that this is not something that’s actually happening in the real world at the same time as the other events – it is a cartoon Lumpy is watching on TV.  Why, in a galaxy controlled by the Empire, would there be cartoons using the real names of real rebel operatives and presenting them as the heroes?  If nobody’s supposed to know Boba Fett is connected with the Empire, why does the show blow his cover?

More importantly, where can I get one of those awesome giant stuffed Banthas Lumpy has in his room?  I don’t know if that’s a real toy that was available in the late 70’s, but Comic Images does make something similar and you can buy them at Wal-Mart or Toys R Us.

While cleaning up the mess the Stormtroopers made of his room, Lumpy watches an instructional video of how to put together some kind of radio. This features Harvey Korman as an android who keeps getting jammed.  Like cooking shows, instructional videos aren’t very interesting unless you’re trying to follow the directions – since we can’t follow the directions, this one is pointless to begin with.  The ‘joke’ is not funny, and lines like “every one of the ten thousand terminals on your circuit breaker module is a different colour” might be amusing when written down but they just don’t work when somebody says them aloud.  Fortunately, it doesn’t last long.

Then we get on to what’s probably the second-best thing in the Special, the bit where we learn that the Mos Eisley cantina is owned by Bea Arthur.  It would be easily the most expensive thing in the Special were it not made up of b-roll footage and re-used puppets from Episode IV.  It’s also kind of got a plot, in that a guy with a baking soda volcano on top of his head (this is certainly an efficient way to get the alcohol directly to your brain) is trying to confess his love to Bea while she just wants to get on with running her business.  Eventually he gets his heart broken and leaves, and then the Empire shuts the bar down, so Bea throws everybody out with a song.

I have to admit, in The Force Awakens when Han Solo mentioned a female friend who ran a ‘watering hole’… there was a moment there when I was half-expecting it to be Bea Arthur’s character.  I’m relieved that it wasn’t, but also just the slightest bit disappointed.  We had to wait for The Mandalorian to get a proper Holiday Special callback.

This bit almost had a chance to say something with its ‘thwarted romance’ plot.  Usually such a thing in a tv show would get what the male character would consider a happy ending.  He would prove to his love interest that being cared for is important, she would realize that love is better than money, and they would metaphorically ride off into the sunset.  What it looks like we’re going to get here instead is something more like the episode of South Park where Butters fell in love with the Hooters waitress. Harvey Korman’s character (yes, he plays three different characters in this Special and this was apparently supposed to be a selling point) realizes his crush is based on a misunderstanding, and while it makes him sad, he’s not going to be an asshole about it.

Nor is Bea’s character vilified for rejecting him, which she does tactfully but firmly, as if she’s gone through this many times before. He’s just a minor annoyance in her day before she goes on to worry about bigger problems, like getting everybody to obey that Imperial curfew.  Then, however, at the last second he pops up from behind the counter after everybody has left – and that’s where the segment ends.  I think we’re supposed to assume they got together after all, but I kind of hope she just threw him out with the rest of them.  No means no, damn it.

Bea Arthur’s Go Home Song is to the tune the Cantina Band was playing in Episode IV, so it pretty much goes without saying it’s the catchiest piece in the Special.

Then, finally, it’s time to celebrate Life Day!  The Wookiees hold up some glowing Christmas balls, then dress in red robes and walk through outer space into a, uh, wormhole, I guess, that takes them to the base of the giant tree from Avatar.  There it’s time for our final setpiece, the culmination of this whole ninety-minute ordeal… Princess Leia sings!  The Life Day Carol is to the tune of the main Star Wars theme, and the lyrics sound like something from a generic Christmas album you get free if you buy three cards at Hallmark.  Carrie Fisher is a decent singer but she looks like she’s as glad this is over as we are.

Much like Howard the Duck, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a production in which they made all the worst decisions they possibly could.  Focusing on the Wookiees at home rather than following Han Solo and Chewbacca through the action killed the whole thing at the starting gate.  Then that plot is nothing but a frame on which they can hang the various variety acts, and none of those are very good.  It’s only towards the end of the sequence that what we’re seeing even has anything to do with Star Wars.  Watching it is an ordeal on the order of an un-riffed Coleman Francis film.  It’s so bad, it’s not even something people get together and watch like they do Manos or The Room.

So why do we still have it?  The Holiday Special was only broadcast once, and was met by fathomless loathing from critics, Star Wars fans, and ordinary people alike. It has never been released in any other format (Andrew Borntreger of badmovies.org has a story about how Lucas had him thrown out of a Q&A panel for asking if it were getting a DVD release), so the fact that you can find it on YouTube today is down to some nameless hero who recorded it on their newfangled VCR back in 1978.  That person then showed it to friends, apparently on the basis of oh my god, you guys, this is so bad, you have to see it, and then because misery loves company they copied it to show to their friends. What we have today is copies of copies of copies of copies, like fragments of Sappho only with VHS artefacts instead of holes in the papyrus (and without the artistic vision).

Humans like to preserve remarkable things.  Sappho we’ve preserved because it’s remarkably good, but the Star Wars Holiday Special we preserve because it’s remarkably bad.  Lucasfilm has tried very hard to stamp it out.  George Lucas himself has said that if he could he would gather up every copy that exists and smash them with a sledgehammer… but we won’t let him do it. We keep copying the Special and passing it along, in a way that’s very familiar to MSTies in particular.  We’re circulating the tapes!  Why this tape in particular?

I don’t claim to know, but my working theory is that it keeps us humble.  We are a species that can produce great things when we put our minds to it.  We landed on the moon.  We eradicated smallpox.  We built the Taj Mahal and the Sagrada Familia.  We wrote The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Einstein Field Equations and the aforementioned works of Sappho.  But for all that, we are also capable of throwing the same kind of effort into creating utter disasters – and the Star Wars Holiday Special is the rare example of an unmitigated disaster that didn’t actually hurt anybody.  It reminds us to take a step back and look at what we’re doing without getting too invested in it, but does so while being harmless and at times humorous.

Would I still rather watch this than Elves?  You bet your shaggy Wookiee ass I would.  The Star Wars Holiday Special may be longer, but it doesn’t leave nearly such a bad taste in my mouth.

I will leave you with this: the Special was, as I mentioned, only broadcast once, in 1978 – that means its signal is now forty-one light years from Earth and still going.  There are several hundred stars within that bubble, around two dozen of which are known to have planets.  Somewhere out there, aliens might be getting their first signal from humanity right now and it’s the Star Wars Holiday Special.

[nebulawriter]

The Christmas Prince: Blind Review

Okay. So this has been in my recommendations on Netflix for a while and it always looks so strange to me. I thought I’d put it on and see what it was about for a night in. 

It started out with some classic pictures of new york with the MUSIC from Jingle Bell Rock, but with weird different lyrics pulled from other christmas songs. 

Strap in folks. We’re in for a ride.

Well this is starting out like every romantic comedy ever. But kudos to ‘Ugly Christmas Sweaters of the Stars’

Aldovia is definitely just Not-Genovia. My goodness. 

Why...is...is this junior editor at a fashion thing covering an international scandal thing? Why aren’t...you know what, nope. nope we’re just gonna ride this out. 

I mean I can already see the formula played out for this rom-com but lets see if there are any surprises

Oh my god. 

This guy is the ultimate gay friend stereotype

Okay I like the dad. 

OH MY GOD the exposition in this movie is just...so on the nose. Just. 

That was the prince, wasn’t it

Like I get that this foreign wedding isn’t the sexiest thing for an american paper...whatever this paper is...but like. I feel like they would either depend on another paper for the news or like. not send a writer at all if they didn’t have one. 

THE ACTING IN THIS MOVIE MY GOD. “More like he’s avoiding the press” *head bob*

THE EXPOSITION IN THIS MOVIE

wow this is. I mean, it’s not like ridiculously laughably bad but its just...not good. 

What are the stakes for why she can’t go home empty handed? I’d have thought she’d WANT to go home, seeing its christmas and she was reluctant to come. But its not like this is her LAST chance at the big break. And him not showing up is still news like, write about that???

THIS ENTIRE PLOT IS BASED OFF OF PURE COINCIDENCE

AAAAAAAA

Aww cute lil girl. 

OH MY GOD SHE BROKE A VASE 

IS THIS ABOUT TO TURN INTO OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB

That castle is definitely a model. 

THE STAKES HERE ARE SO LOW. And why does this level of infiltration need to be necessary for such a low level story?

This acting is going to kill me. 

This is either disability representation or disability porn and I’m leaning towards the porn. 

was that supposed to be her finding him attractive?

This is either bad acting, bad writing or both. I’m inclined to think both.

DICK JOKE

oh god. this is every goddamn romance movie except with so little romance. 

What’s the story they’re investigating? The guy said they’d be having the coronation. Like. Thats the story.

Let me guess. The evil dick cousin takes the throne if the prince abdicates oh my GOD this movie is painful. 

Alright, they’re leaning away from the porn part and moving more into the representation for disability. 

ANOTHER DICK JOKE

YOU COULDN’T HAVE FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS LINE OF SUCCESSION THING OFF GOOGLE OR SOMETHING??

Oh my god a cocky vulnerable asshole he’s literally EVERY Rom com hero oh my GOD

SHE HAS NOT SHOWN ANY SIGNS OF ATTRACTION

and how much does gay bff know about royalty?

I get it. Simon’s an asshole. 

This acting. 

New woman. The rival lover?

This movie is every rom com. Every. Single. One. I’ve never seen them so thoroughly condensed. 

BROOKLYN NINE NINES UP! MOVIE BREAK

okay back to hell

Ah yes, the love rival whom the mother approves of, but the boyfriend doesn’t love anymore. 

she’s...writing...those notes are terrible

I....do like the little girl. Still trying to figure out if they’re just using the disability for sympathy points. But like. She does have a character and I do like her, so I’ll go with it. 

Either way its still the best part of this movie. 

im so bored.

this prince. is so. boring. 

WHAT THE HELL KINDA CHRISTMAS GAME IS THAT

How did THAT reporter get so close to the princess?

Like doesn’t she have guards?

you know, come to think of it, there are probably no guards in all of Aldovia

Richard ain’t gonna show. 

Called it. 

Oh my god why are they surprised Prince Flake disappeared?

yup, he’s ACTUALLY cute and charming. Of course. 

What I want: They change the laws for Emily to inherit the throne, but the Queen rules until she turns 18. 

Yup. There is 0 security in Aldovia

Sledding is cute. 

Literally just...cut the prince out of this movie. Just completely. 

Just make it about the sister, and how there’s no direct male heir. 

I’ve seen plenty movies where the women is just a sexy lamp but honestly the guy here is so easy to remove from this romance. 

This could be such a sweet platonic sister-y movies. 

This is....cute but doesn’t provide any dramatic tension really. Like, at all. 

I hate her notes so much. Partially cause they’re like mine, but she’s a reporter she should know better. 

I mean, they’re friends now, right? Why not just ask prince (Or Emily, honestly) why he doesn’t want the throne. 

ARE THERE NO STABLE BOYS HERE IN ALDOVIA EITHER????

YOURE TRUSTING THE HORSE TO KNOW WHERE ITS GOING????

Have you ever even ridden before?

what...what is happening.

Does the prince come to her rescue.

Alright, that shot was stolen STRAIGHT from Beauty and the Beast. 

THIS WHOLE SEQUENCE IS LITERALLY JUST A SCENE LIFTED FROM BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!

Did they just forget to write a scene and so inserted one from another movie and then write around that?

oh my god this was so boring I almost missed the heart to heart. 

oh, emotional truths in movies are never good when it starts with “You’ll just think I’m a spoiled rich kid anyway”

well, I mean, if your father wrote your mother a riddle that you can’t figure out....I’m assuming SHE can. Right?

that almost-kiss was so forced.

We’re nearing the part where ‘everything goes wrong’

Wait a sec, this is deviating a bit

HO CRAP

How’d she get all this. 

Why tell your best friends about this whole thing? Prince was adopted. Huh. 

Again, stakes. Why do we care that her ‘career’ will be made. 

oh my god. of course. The accidental ‘saw the other girl kiss him’ moment

oh my god.I eye rolled so hard it hurt

“If you like the way you look that much, then baby you should go and love yourself”

YOUR GOING. TO EXPOSE THE STORY. THAT HE WAS ADOPTED. BECAUSE HE KISSED ANOTHER GIRL?????

I give up. 

Thank you, dispensary of fatherly advice. 

well. one thing taken care of. 

What happened to the horse who bucked her off anyway?

Ah yes. The good ole romcom trope. “There’s something that I need to tell you” Man swoops in for kiss. 

my god

Sigh. The rival and the skeevy cousin team up. 

oh no they’re going to find the adoption papers. Dickholes. 

Dammit they successfully made me hate them for hurting the good guys. Fuck. 

Him being adopted explains the GIANT AGE difference between him and his sister, though

What did he say? What...what’s happening?

yeah yeah, the son is afraid of not living up to his dad

OH MY GOD THE PALACE IS TOTALLY A MODEL

.....I do like the little girl. 

Seriously why isn’t this story just about the little girl? 

Get rid of the Prince he’s unnecessary

Make it all about ableism and sexism and blah blah and people trying to deny Emily the throne. Maybe even make HER the adopted one and talk about not-blood families and their importance.

Ah, the makeover section of the romcom has started. 

oh look, its her in an updo and a fancier dress. 

Oooh, smokey eye too. nice. 

Honestly I didn’t think the love rival was so bad at the start. but I think they just didn’t know what to do with her so decided to make her a stereotype. 

Call him Dick.

(his name is prince richard. they should call him a dick.)

I enjoy that she’s wearing sneakers under her dress, I admit. 

Does she even know how to dance?

I guess so

Or not, they clearly choreographed this right before shooting. 

everyone else in the scene is clearly professional dancers, and there the main characters are. Swaying. 

Seriously? One song in and they go to the main event?

The cousin and the rival are going to do something dramatic, aren’t they?

Is this like a marriage? I don’t think people dispute coronations during the ceremony.

Okay, but they need time to like. Verify things right? 

Like. Why does everyone suddenly believe them? and...I just...what?

WHY WOULD SHE ADMIT THAT RIGHT NOW IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY?! COME ON THIS SHOULD GO SOMEWHERE PRIVATE RIGHT? WITH LIKE? 

Oh god this is so...artificial and junk. 

‘things just got so out of hand’

i admit, it’s a PRETTY model of a palace. 

this whole thing is just. so contrived. 

Really? ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ 

Wasn’t a royal birth like....news? in this country?

Aw, mother/son seen. good. 

They got married before the coronation?

What happens if the time runs out? Like. Will they just. Not have a king anymore?

Like what kind of stupid rule?

Seriously, the dad character, his entire dialogue is just fatherly advice. 

Okay. So what I’m getting here is the king hid something in the acorn ornament he made? but. Why did he hide it?

Oh wow, there actually ARE guard in the country.

they might not have a dungeon, but they have jails, surely?

WHY DID HE PLAY WITH RIDDLES!! THE DEAD KING IS AN ASSHAT!!!

hey, there looks like some equality with gender in the quorum of kings council. but like. Its really white. 

See, Emily continues to be the only good thing in this movie. 

This whole thing is so arbitrary, why not. 

Oh look and now he can be king. Why didn’t he want to be king before? Anyway?

Seriously Sophia, make sure he’s King BEFORE you marry of him, geez. 

And he’s king. Cool. 

But where’s the girl? :O

now he has to chase after her and they kiss and then happily ever after. Right?

okay, so she made it to New York. Cool. 

Do they not like puff pieces? This is the obvious blah thing. 

Girl that is a dream job for a wanna be journalist in your 20s. Good lord. 

AHHH I HATE THIS

She has a date? oh. Setup. got it. 

These side characters have no depth at all. They are black best friend and gay best friend. 

Where is he. There he is.

THEY LET THE KING OF A COUNTRY WANDER THE STREETS OF NEW YORK WITH NO GUARDS????

oh, just skippin straight to the proposal. mkay. 

THEY MET TWO WEEKS AGO

hehehhehe my brain had a dirty thought. 

there it is

I can feel Elsa shouting “YOU CANT MARRY A MAN YOU JUST MET”

I could have sworn that ring was purple a second ago. now its blue, 

K

3 minutes left. please let most of those be credits. 

ah yes. Circle cam around this OBVIOUS STAGE SET

No new york street looks like that.

AND WE DIDNT EVEN GET TO SEE EMILY AGAIN.

Welp. Can’t say I didn’t know what I was getting into. 

[emeraldembers]

Looloo’s Horror Rec List!

Tagging @eatingcroutons​, @monstermonstre​ as requested <3.

SO. I apologise for how long this list took, but as it turns out, I have watched a slightly silly number of horror movies, and with it being such a varied genre, I didn’t want to accidentally rec a bunch of things people would end up hating or spoil the heck out of them during the reccing process, so. But it’s finished now, and I intend to try and keep it up to date as time goes by and I encounter more horror flicks worth watching. I’m also going to stick a little italicised bit after any movies I remember having potentially squicky/triggery stuff in for people who are okay with horror but not That Kind Of Horror.

Behind a cut because this is Quite A Lot Of Movies My Dudes.

- - -

Movies I’m reccing because they actually scared me:

* Alien

Yo, it’s a classic for a reason, and if I’m doing a rec list of horror movies, I’m determined to address all the movies I’d rec, regardless of the likelihood of everyone having seen it already. Fantastic characters who behave believably, the cold cruelty of both monsters and capitalism, slow builds that pay off, it’s just - it’s so dang good, from start to finish, and all the spoofs and parodies and homages in the world will never fully diminish its success as a genuinely scary movie. CW: Soooooo much imagery suggesting sexual violence.

* The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Brian Cox is a frigging awesome actor, and he and Emile Hirsch absolutely and 100% sell you on the affectionate but strained relationship between father and son in this brilliant little flick that makes you root for the leads so hard. It’s claustrophobic and creepy and made by how the leads actually use common sense for the majority of the movie, and while I will admit the ending wasn’t my favourite, that by no means spoiled the film for me. CW: Animal death, references to human trafficking and sexual violence.

* Hereditary

Oh man. This film is absolutely brutal emotionally, one of the most intense (and imho, accurate) depictions of the pain of mourning I’ve ever seen on screen, and the horror happening around all this pain is just... torture. It’s almost unbearable to watch, but I can’t deny how incredibly well-acted it is, or how frightening it is. For quite a few people the ending doesn’t stick - people feel it over-explains itself - but I personally felt it worked. CW: graphic child death, graphic animal death.

* Jacob’s Ladder

This is such a weird and wonderful creation and I am so, so happy that I found it during the height of my Silent Hill fangirling days. It’s like watching a dream - sometimes quiet and comforting, sometimes loud and terrifying, and the movie just has this magnificent atmosphere of paranoia. It’s unlike any other horror movie I’ve seen in terms of it successfully pulling off the nightmare effect (controversial but true, I’m not a fan of Suspiria, though I appreciate several of the works it inspired). CW: Some imagery suggesting sexual violence.

* Kill List

Please, pretty please watch this without spoilers if you can. The less you know about it going in, the better. It’s a slow build, with the first half of the film playing out more or less like a kitchen sink drama with occasional bursts of explicit violence, but the payoff is worth it imho. CW: Mentions of paedophilia, violence against children.

* The Orphanage

This Spanish language flick is tragic, beautiful, and absolutely bloody terrifying on a first watch. It’s the only film that’s ever made me scream in fright, and is without a doubt the scariest movie I have watched to date: CW: Jaw trauma, child deaths.

* The Thing (1982)

God, I cannot describe how much I loved finally sitting down and watching this movie and realising that for all that I had seen the majority of the transformation and body horror sequences in it, it was still scary. Thanks to the sense of paranoia, and how many times you’re left waiting for something to happen, knowing something is about to happen, on a first watch it’s got some truly chilling moments and it deserves its status as a known classic.

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Movies I’m reccing because they may not have scared me but they sure left a lingering something behind:

* Kairo (also known as Pulse)

Pretend there was never a remake because jfc the ball on that one got dropped harder than Vin Diesel’s voice during puberty. Kairo is utterly and completely bleak and depressing but the bleak and depressing nature of it is what makes the horror in it work. Watching the world in Kairo go quieter and emptier over time is distressing in the strangest of ways, and - fun fact - this film gave me one of the weirdest fears of all time, because now I have nightmares about windows and doors surrounded by red tape. As you do. CW: Suicide depicted explicitly and frequently.

* Lake Mungo

This flick and the Marble Hornets series on youtube are the only things I’ve seen using the found footage format that I felt really got its potential. Plenty of movies have had fun with it, and I’m grateful to The Blair Witch Project for popularising it, but a lot of the time it feels like long periods of nothing then suddenly All Of The Things. This one is a lot subtler about building an increasing sense of dread, and handling the subject matter in a way that feels very, very real for once. It’s fab.

* Let the Right One In

The English language remake, Let Me In, is apparently pretty good? But I haven’t seen it, so I’m going off the original here. And it’s a flaming beautiful film. It’s discomforting and its balance of achingly sweet and tender moments with brutally violent moments is perfect. There’s a bleakness to it that might put some people off, but it’s just gorgeous in my eyes, and I’m very, very fond. CW: Strongly implied paedophilia.

* The Mist

This is a perfect example of how you don’t necessarily have to have the best CGI if you have a great cast. I could never watch it again because it left me so shaken and upset at the end, but some of the imagery in it is just astonishingly haunting, like the best entries of SCP brought to life, and I have to commend it for being one of the classiest adaptations of Stephen King’s work to date. CW: Assisted suicides.

* Session 9

This is a bit of a weird one to put down on a rec list because I personally didn’t enjoy it, but I can’t say that it didn’t leave a lasting impression. There’s a sense of discomfort and wrongness that permeates the film, and it leaves a sort of... almost a slimy coating of creepiness all over you by the time it’s finished. CW: ~Creepy mental hospital~ setting, ableism ahoy.

* The Vvitch

I will admit that in retrospect, I do think this is a little overrated, but only a little, aaaaaand also I may as well admit that there is something about Kate Dickie’s acting that I hate. I have nothing against her as a person! I just don’t personally think she’s a good actress. That being said, everyone else in this movie, especially the children, did a brilliant job. It’s an uneasy watch from the start and only gets more uneasy as it goes on, and I love how straight it played its central concept. What elevates it for me in particular though is the ending, which I openly admit I did not see coming, and was delighted with. CW: Child deaths, strongly implied paedophilia.

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Movies I’m reccing because they were just dang good and didn’t fit into the above categories:

* 28 Days Later

Not to be crude but I wish I could turn this film into body butter just so I could smear it all over me. Flawless cast, an adrenaline rush of a movie that I could watch a hundred times and never tire of, and the climax of the movie is straight up one of my favourite endings ever for its heart in throat intensity. CW: Suicides, threats of sexual violence.

* The Babadook

All Netflix categorisation jokes aside, I genuinely adored this movie. The leads are so well acted and I love their characterisation; it also has one of the best depictions of mental illness in childhood I’ve ever seen (second only to the little girl in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark 2010, whose portrayal of childhood depression resonated with me so strongly I couldn’t finish watching the movie). Also, for frigging once, the portrayal of mental illness is sympathetic, and people suffering from it get shown at their best, not just their worst.

* Coraline

To be honest, a lot of children’s movies are more successful at getting a reaction out of me than “grown-up” movies - All Dogs Go To Heaven’s hell sequence still unsettles me to this day - and Coraline is one of the rarities that plays out almost entirely as straight horror from start to finish. As per all things Laika it’s gorgeously animated, and the progression from eerie to nightmarish as the movie progresses is fantastic. CW: References to children’s deaths.

* Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps

It might seem an odd choice to pair these two up, but I couldn’t rec one without the other because to me they’re two sides of the same coin - violent werewolf movies with a wicked sense of humour, one focused on the relationships between men, the other on the relationships between women - and because of both the tone and the subject matter, I think Ginger Snaps makes a better pairing with Dog Soldiers than The Descent.

* Get Out

There’s very little I can say about this film that hasn’t been said already; it’s a film that uses humour like a knife, it’s a masterpiece in building discomfort and tension, and every single actor in it is top notch. It’s impossible not to root for the main character, and if you’re not cheering him on at the end, you may want to get your pulse checked.

* IT (2017)

Now this definitely terrified some of the people I saw this in the cinema with - one man peed himself, a woman fled the viewing, and I overheard people talking about smelling poop in the back of the cinema - but for me it wasn’t particularly scary. What it was, however, was moving, and funny, and had fantastic acting from all of the children involved. I was cheering the kids on constantly, and you could really believe their fear of Pennywise. I loved this so, so much. CW: Child deaths including on screen violence against children, depiction of bullying, heavily implied sexual abuse via parent/child incest.

* Pitch Black

It was a toss-up for a while whether putting this on here would be miscategorising it - is it more of a sci-fi action flick, or a sci-fi survival horror? - but based on the majority of the characters not being Riddick I’m going for survival horror. This is the perfect execution of a simple, brilliant concept, and it’s a delight. Plus, it has sympathetic Muslims in space, and I can’t ignore an excuse to cheer for that.

* [Rec]

This is another movie where I’ve heard good things about the English language adaptation but have only watched the original, and oh man, it’s fun. It’s not a film I consider particularly scary, but it has my hands down favourite protagonists of any found footage horror movie, and I love that the constant use of cameras makes sense in this one because it does start out as a documentary gone wrong. Also, the ending is a classic <3.

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Movies I’m reccing but fully acknowledge their flaws:

* Candyman

Tony Todd is the man, dude, and it wouldn’t be right to make a horror movie rec list without having an absolute classic of his up on it. It’s wonderfully dreamy, packed full of that lovely late 80s/early 90s washed out aesthetic, and has one of the handsomest movie villains out there. 

* The Crazies (2010)

Virus outbreak movies are a dime a dozen, but for all that there’s little new here, it’s still one of the better ones, helped by a good cast playing the core group of survivors. Worth seeing if you’re a Timothy Olyphant and/or Radha Mitchell fan, and I love them both to bits, so.

* Event Horizon

A cult favourite with a ridiculously awesome cast (Sean Pertwee? Jason Isaacs? Laurence Fishburne? And more?), this does go over the top at points, but it is such a fun ride. You can see where games like Dead Space drew their inspiration from; it’s visually stunning, and the main characters are frequently (alas, not always) sensible. Also, regarding who dies/doesn’t die, if you haven’t seen it before, I think you’ll be quite pleasantly surprised? I know I was. CW: Explicit depiction of suicide, brief but explicit glimpses of sexual violence, references to child death.

* The Girl With All the Gifts

If you haven’t played or watched someone play The Last Of Us, this is well worth a watch. With the rise of zombies in recent media, no pun intended, it was inevitable there would also be a rise in how many showed the results of a zombie cure, or of intelligence in zombies. Cordyceps based zombies are rarer in media, and The Last Of Us used them brilliantly, but this is a good, solid film, bleak in some ways but hopeful in others, and I loved it. Also, Gemma Arterton is in it (as is Glenn Close, who is fab as always) and there are very few things I would not do for that woman.

* Grave Encounters

This isn’t a particularly good movie, but it is so much fun to play “spot the gif” with; there’s hardly a scene in it, once the ghostly shenanigans kick off, that hasn’t been put into gif format for use alongside creepypastas and the like all over the net. Girl turning around and face melting into blackness? Masses of hands pushing out through a wall suddenly? It’s just fun to spot them. Not to mention that, once in a while, it is fun to see a movie where the main characters are unironically Those White People In A Horror Movie and as such deserve pretty much everything that happens to them. CW: Ableism, ~scary mental hospital~ trope.

* Let Us Prey

This is a flawed film that could have been a great movie if it had been handled with a subtler touch. Some flashback sequences in it are more gratuitous than they need to be, and the end villain is just bizarrely over the top, but overall I love that it’s almost like a British-Irish take on Silent Hill? Liam Cunningham and Pollyanna McIntosh in particular, as the leads, are wonderful in it and bring a touch of class to something that could otherwise have just been a straight up hot mess. CW: References to child death, references to and flashbacks to sexual violence. Also, going to throw homophobia on here, because god knows I’m tired of the Evil Predatory Gay trope.

* Mandy

Placing this one anywhere on the list feels strange because it’s... this odd mixture of extremely beautiful and dreamlike, but also cult-classic over the top to the point of clearly being deliberately funny about it in places. I don’t quite know how it leaves me feeling on the whole, but I do know I absolutely love it. CW: Description of animal death, drugging, sexual harrassment.

* Silent Hill

This isn’t by any means a good movie, but I’d be lying through my teeth if I claimed it wasn’t one of my favourites regardless. It’s just ridiculously pretty, the music (courtesy of Akira Yamaoka being a genius) is amazing, and I will ship Cybil and Rose to the end of my days. Also, Pyramid Head, guys. Pyramid Head.

* Switchblade Romance (also known as Haute Tension or High Tension)

This French language flick is one of my favourite guilty pleasures. Most extreme horror bores me or leaves me cold, but there was something about this one I enjoyed despite it having plot holes you could drive a truck through; the lead actresses are fantastic, and it has some of my favourite uses of music in a modern horror movie. Please be warned though, this one has some very violent sequences, even in the cut version. CW: Child death, home invasion, continuous threat of sexual violence.

* We Are What We Are

This was a very unevenly paced movie, slow in parts and then jarringly fast in others, and some of the exposition felt clunky, but it’s overall a beautifully made movie and I was so drawn to the love between the siblings in this. I really felt like they were a real family, and was rooting for them so hard. CW: Cannibalism, threat of violence against children.

* The Wicker Man (1973, unless you want to watch the remake for so-bad-it’s-funny shenanigans. I won’t judge)

This is up there with Alien in terms of “even if you haven’t watched this movie, you have watched this movie” courtesy of pop culture referencing it every which way but loose, but it’s so worth a watch. I can’t recommend a particular cut because I’ve seen so many I wouldn’t know where to begin! It’s also kind of fun to enjoy it as a musical in its own way - there are so many songs in it that it’s hard not to sing along after a few viewings - and for all that the ending isn’t a shocker these days, it’s still so much fun to watch.

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And a horror-comedy rec list to wrap things up:

* He Never Died

This is a great example of how you can do great things with a threadbare budget if you have a good idea and the confidence to commit to a concept. It is so, so funny, its humour sometimes dry, sometimes black as tar, and I just adored the main character’s absolute exhaustion with the world. I’m trying to sell this one without spoilers, because it’s another one where going in with as little info as possible is a good idea <3.

* Shaun of the Dead

It’s pretty much just the best ode to zombie movies and their inherent silliness that exists, and Simon Pegg is an adorable mess in it.

* Trick R Treat

My favourite horror anthology film by miles. It’s just fun. Aaaaaand the werewolf girls are hot af, soooooo. This also lets Brian Cox join Laurie Holden and Radha Mitchell on the list of people who managed to show up more than once in recced movies!

* Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Aside from a few tonal missteps - references to sexual violence in the middle of a horror comedy, even if those references weren’t there as a joke, aren’t ever going to sit well - this film is hilarious, and frequently adorable too. Not to mention, it’s always nice to see a big guy get to be a hero.

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Movies I need to update this list with:

The Lighthouse. CW: Explicit animal death, eye trauma.

Us. CW: Description of animal death, child deaths and self-mutilation.

The Endless. CW: Graphic suicide.

Midsommar. CW: Graphic suicide.