#not just because i happen to like some of the movies they said were trite garbage

[mjdrawsalot]

you ever see a film critic's backlog and want to scream

do you even like movies bruh?!?

[goongiveusnothing]

so my policeman came up on my streaming service the other day and i figured it's now so far out from when it was released that i could watch it with fresh eyes and let me just say, this is a fucking terrible movie.

first thing is, everything about this movie is a tired cliche. from the opening scene where we see old people staring at younger photos of themselves, old timey music singing about nostalgia, flashback sequences, the whole thing felt like a special flashback episode of a soap opera tv series.

i remembered that the reviews had mentioned that the whole premise of harry's character getting married to corrin's while having this gay affair and that it seemed unnecessary and cliched. when reading those reviews i was a bit confused and gave the author and writers of this movie leeway because this was in the 60s so obviously gay guys were more likely to settle down with women and fake being straight while having affairs.

but having watched it i totally get what they meant, because the entire premise of this movie with harry deciding to make this a threeway relationship and get married made absolutely no sense. it would've been way more interesting for harry's character to already be married and then to catch dawson's character in the act of something and then become fascinated and obsessed with him in that way. anything to make these relationships to feel urgent and interesting. there didn't feel like any real pressure for him to do all of this. no pressure from his family, no pressure from the policing agency, nobody almost catching them forcing him to need to do this. once again, instead of creating urgency or a genuine reason to care about this dilemma, it came across forced and stupid and you just didn't care about it, because why should you.

also his whole interest in art and how they first meet feels really dumb. like i said, it would've been way more interesting for them to meet because dawson was caught with dudes or committing some type of offense. but having them sort of know each other casually because he's a cop even though his character obviously hates cops and then they start talking about art is just boring. why not have harry's character be interested in art and be pursuing it on his own and making mistakes and not really knowing what he's doing and maybe he then meets dawson and then sees him in an art class or vice versa. have this interest feel real. have harry's interest in him feel like something he's needed for a while. every piece of this story could've been made more compelling and instead we got the most trite unbelievable narrative instead.

harry styles is a terrible actor. when i saw people describe him as "just being there" in a scene i assumed they meant that he was sort of a background presence and didn't detract from the air in a scene, but he fucking punches the oxygen out of every scene we see him in. it's like he gives every scene covid oxygen depletion. i cannot believe there's anyone who gave him any positive reviews on his acting. he has zero screen presence. zero charisma. he's a vacant black hole of personality. there's no body language, no facial expressions, you will find soap opera actors who give more and feel more tempered when they're walking in the background of a scene than in this.

but the absolute worst thing about him is his voice acting. he reads scripts like the kids in class would read out shakespeare when they could barely read. it's all just chunks of dialogue and there's zero emotion, zero passion, zero nuance. he says everything in the same flat way. he is a fucking disaster of an actor. so many moments that were meant to be serious and you have to laugh because he's so fucking diabolical. that first blowjob scene between them where harry says "i don't know what's happening" just fucking hilarious. i cannot believe it's possible to say those words in a supposed passionate tense sexy encounter where we're meant to feel propelled into their chemistry and he's sounding like a child called up in class to explain quadratic equations. every romantic scene in this movie is a disaster when you can see his face and hear his voice. everything becomes hilarious. that other scene of him being drunk and yelling. it's all so fucking goofy. "don't. please". how did anyone on set just let these things keep happening?

HARRY IS A TERRIBLE KISSER. we've seen him giving three major kisses so far in public or onscreen and they're all fucking terrible. the first kiss he gives here is that weird face devouring one. it's like he thinks trying to demonstrate huge passion will create sexual chemistry and a beautiful onscreen relationship. instead he's like some alien character trying to deskin other living beings. and that would've been a way more interesting movie. the first sex scene in bed and he does his face devouring thing. he doesn't let kisses build up, he doesn't let this seem shy or timid or awkward, he doesn't know how to engage and respond and flow with the other person which we saw too with emrata, it's just full on face devouring and this rapid passionate stuff that doesn't feel like it goes with the vibes of the characters or scene. the kisses are always about him and him acting like he's trying to win some type of contest. the other person barely exists to him. it's another moment where you either cringe or laugh.

i also get why all the reviewers critiqued his queerbaiting in general in this and how it perhaps explains why he's incapable of showing any undercurrent or complexity or turmoil or second layer to his character in any of this. there's absolutely no credibility to the idea he relates to this character or to any part of this storyline. he really doesn't even pretend to struggle in this movie. you never feel any sort of complexity or yearning or undercurrent. this man just walked into the scenes every day and sat there and got paid and went home. the fact he thought and was told by so many people he could become a famous actor is symptomatic of how nothing fucking matters anymore in society. your connections and industry swagger is all that people need.

anyway, it's not a good movie. don't know why anyone even took part in it outside of the value they knew it had in queerbaiting harry's fans. i also get why none of his fans even obsesses or talks about it to this day the way people did with great movies like call me by your name or other queer tv shows. there's nothing about this movie that any normal person would ever rewatch again or feel interested or in love with these relationships or characters.

[thenightling]

This is my review, thoughts, and theories from the latest episode of Interview with The vampire. Episode 4 of season 2. I think the showrunner mistakes unnecessary twists as being clever. So here are the twists I anticipate. 1. I suspect Santiago's maker was Nicolas. We keep going back to Santiago's story. By the way, it's trite and very CW that the story of what happened to Santiago's maker, from being "killed" for breaking one of their laws, to finally revealing the law he broke was making a vampire without permission... this is very CW when plot points like that are unnecessarily drawn out. It pulls me out of the story and reminds me that this is TV writing. And yet they had the audacity to pretend it's "Soapy" to reveal that Lestat was involved with the theatre coven? 2. It's pretty clear that the visions of Lestat are NOT hallucinations like the showrunner tried to make us believe in the first episode of season 2. He's obviously astral projecting to Louis. He' been telling Louis things that Louis did not know such as how long Lestat was an actor, and what he had sewn into his suit pocket. 3. Though I really would like the reveal that Armand messed with Louis's memories, I'm starting to wonder if this lazy showrunner and writing team are keeping the soft woobified version of Armand and the one who messed with Louis's memories was Marius to sabotage the interview and protect the vampire race. This would be a major deviation since Marius was amused by Lestat's rock career in the books.

4. It looks like they're going to change why Claudia was condemned, perhaps foreshadowing that her being condemned is because she makes Madeleine into a vampire.

While I'm on the thought did anyone else go "Ah, yes! This was written by a man who knows nothing about womanly anatomy and behavior!" when Madeleine commented with surprise and apparent suspicion about Claudia's breasts still being small two years after they met. That was... weird... She might as well have said "This is unnatural! We've known each other for two years and your titties aren still small to medium sized! Why aren't they Dolly Parton sized yet?!" Claudia is played by a nineteen-year-old. A dress maker would know some people have small breasts. Also they're not THAT small! Just because you say something doesn't make it true. Claudia didn't need to give a war time explanation for her size. I haven't grown since I was thirteen. I'm five foot one and forty-two-years-old. And I didn't get my first period until I was fifteen. So Claudia being apparently sixteen and small chested should NOT be gaining attention from the dress maker. Yet again the show had a ridiculous amount of smoking. Why the Hell was hallucination / astral Lestat smoking? Madeleine talkin about the boy Yahtzee. "He paid with food and cigarettes." I think if this show runner could make the rats smoke he would. By the way, I STRONGLY suspect that Lestat may be in Paris, perhaps being held prisoner. Hmm... Have we actually ever seen the rats in the body disposal thing? That would be stupid though. Anne Rice's vampires, in the novels, don't eat. I know they did here but it would still be stupid that he wouldn't cry out to Louis "Hello! I'm here!" Now I'm imagining some idiotic "He was so starved for blood that he ate the flesh from the corpses, looking for whatever drops might remain." Yeah, they would do that... It also looks like there will be a theatre uprising and Santiago's group will be who condemn Claudia. And Armand truly won't be able to stop it. (I'm guessing the show runner missed the parts in the books and the subtle clues in the movie that Armand was actually behind it. He seems to miss a lot of what's important in the books, like he only read a poorly written wiki entry. Unless all of this is false memories? How would Louis know about the calls Santiago made while he and Claudia were not around? Who told that part?

Finally, why are the theatre vampires upset at Louis for living like a human? I thought that was the entire point of the vampires LEAVING Armand's Satanic coven under the cemetery? They used lines about Lestat for Louis here. Why? Lestat already taught Armand's followers that they can live like humans two centuries earlier. Why recycle the plot?

And why are they still following the Satanic coven rules? Sabbats? The Theatre is supposed to be secular.

[leonsrightarm]

ok i finished reading the handyman method by nick cutter and andrew sullivan.

(spoilers) the first ~30 pages are really hard to get through because trent sucks a whole fucking lot (and i complained about this immensely and immediately. oops.) but it's worth it because the novel takes a total swerve after that point and trent sucking is the fulcrum the plot revolves around. the description that came to mind while reading was 'alex jones' suburban shining' and i was totally unsurprised to find that nick cutter mentioned both of these things in the acknowledgements. the middle part was really fun due to just how bizarre it gets pretty much the moment it starts allowing itself to be weird and i think it's worth reading just for that.

but it's yet another book with an ending i didn't care that much for... i liked rita's character and i liked that she had so much autonomy, which is a subversion of the role wives usually take in domestic horror stories. however, given that one of the major themes of the novel is toxic masculinity and radicalization via the internet, it felt pretty bad that in the end women are at fault and also responsible for saving the day. the flip side of this is that the woman is the one with the power and the only one capable of saving the day (yay feminism?), but the consequence is that trent is entirely framed as the victim of his spiral rather than an active participant. which completely neuters any kind of meaningful critique of how this radicalization actually happens in real life. definitely a book deeply in conflict with itself and its own themes.

rampant speculation under the cut

on the other hand there's something buried in the implications here that i think was totally accidental (?) but is pretty great. at one point it's said that the first time this happened the house was a 'hut.' the setting is nebulously american, so we can take this to mean pre-settler times, however early that might have been. at any rate at some point the people involved would have had to have been native american. there's no mention of race at all in the novel but i think actually the total absence of race conversations and the brief themes of racism involved in trent's radicalization make it extremely likely that everyone involved is white. which means that in order for this timeline to work a native american woman (maybe more than one) had to intentionally marry and sacrifice a white settler to this thing which is hilarious and based. i say this is accidentally implied because there's a mention of people being intentionally chosen as sacrifices because they were 'criminals' and once a 'pederast' but no mention of colonialism or racism whatsoever. i am choosing to view this as subtext rather than the white whoospie/deft sidestep of having to discuss colonialism it probably actually is.

this whole thing does open up further questions about rita because clearly her ancestors could exert some free will and pick and choose their 'victims' and yet she chose Just Some Guy. not a great dude but he's literally just some random bozo. i don't think this is really a plot hole so much as a commentary on rita's character - she doesn't want to sacrifice herself by marrying someone she utterly loathes who she'll have to procreate with and she doesn't want to ultimately sacrifice her family, even though it might be the 'right' lesser of two weevils thing to do. very cabin in the woods of her. i didn't like the ending of that movie either. lol. something something white women's devotion to their shitty husbands and unwillingness to give up their 'deserved' lifestyle is also a massive part of the problem. i'm deeply uncertain whether this is the intended reading of this book or not. to be quite frank.

finally, one last petty jab: this book came out last year so there's really no excuse for the spooky youtube children's puppet. it's trite. it just does not work for me anymore and hasn't since 2011 when don't hug me i'm scared first came out. we have got to kill this gimmick dead forever.

[nitrateglow]

Favorite films discovered in 2020

Well, this year sucked. I did see some good movies though. Some even made after I was born!

Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon, 1997)

I watch a lot of thrillers and horror movies, but precious few actually unsettle me in any lasting way. This cannot be said of Perfect Blue, which gave me one of the most visceral cinematic experiences of my life. Beyond the brief flashes of bloodletting (you will never look at a screwdriver the same way again), the scariest thing about Perfect Blue might be how the protagonist has both her life and her sense of self threatened by the villains. The movie’s prescience regarding public persona is also incredibly eerie, especially in our age of social media. While anime is seen as a very niche interest (albeit one that has become more mainstream in recent years), I would highly recommend this movie to thriller fans, whether they typically watch anime or not. It’s right up there with the best of Hitchcock or De Palma.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966)

Nothing is better than when an iconic movie lives up to the hype. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef play off of one another perfectly. I was impressed by Wallach as Tuco in particular: his character initially seems like a one-dimensional greedy criminal, but the performance is packed with wonderful moments of humanity. Do I really need to say anything about the direction? Or about the wonderful storyline, which takes on an almost mythic feel in its grandeur? Or that soundtrack?

Die Niebelungen (both movies) (dir. Fritz Lang, 1924)

I did NOT expect to love these movies as much as I did. That they would be dazzlingly gorgeous I never doubted: the medieval world of the story is brought to vivid life through the geometrical mise en scene and detailed costuming. However, the plot itself is so, so riveting, never losing steam over the course of the four hours it takes to watch both movies. The first half is heroic fantasy; the second half involves a revenge plot of almost Shakespearean proportions. This might actually be my favorite silent Fritz Lang movie now.

Muppet Treasure Island (dir. Brian Henson, 1996)

I understand that people have different tastes and all, but how does this movie have such a mixed reception? It’s absolutely hilarious. How could anybody get through the scene with “THA BLACK SPOT AGGHHHHHHH” and not declare this a masterpiece of comedy? And I risk being excommunicated from the Muppet fandom for saying it, but I like this one more than The Great Muppet Caper. It’s probably now my second favorite Muppet movie.

Belle de Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1967)

I confess I’m not terribly fond of “but was it real???” movies. They tend to feel gimmicky more often than not. Belle de Jour is an exception. This is about more than a repressed housewife getting her kicks working as a daytime prostitute. The film delves into victim blaming, trauma, class, and identity-- sure, this sounds academic and dry when I put it that way, but what I’m trying to say is that these are very complicated characters and the blurring of fantasy and reality becomes thought-provoking rather than trite due to that complexity.

Secondhand Lions (dir. Tim McCanlies, 2003)

The term “family movie” is often used as a synonym for “children’s movie.” However, there is an important distinction: children’s movies only appeal to kids, while family movies retain their appeal as one grows up. Secondhand Lions is perhaps a perfect family movie, with a great deal more nuance than one might expect regarding the need for storytelling and its purpose in creating meaning for one’s life. It’s also amazingly cast: Haley Joel Osment is excellent as the juvenile lead, and Michael Caine and Robert Duvall steal the show as Osment’s eccentric uncles.

The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964)

Controversial in its day for depicting frontal nudity, The Pawnbroker shocks today for different reasons. As the top review of the film on IMDB says, we’re used to victims of great atrocities being presented as sympathetic, good people in fiction. Here, Rod Steiger’s Sol Nazerman subverts such a trope: his suffering at the hands of the Nazis has made him a hard, closed-off person, dismissive of his second wife (herself also a survivor of the Holocaust), cold to his friendly assistant, and bitter towards himself. The movie follows Nazerman’s postwar life, vividly presenting his inner pain in a way that is almost too much to bear. Gotta say, Steiger gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in a movie here: he’s so three-dimensional and complex. The emotions on his face are registered with Falconetti-level brilliance.

The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

While not the most depressing Christmas movie ever, The Apartment certainly puts a good injection of cynicism into the season. I have rarely seen a movie so adept at blending comedy, romance, and satire without feeling tone-deaf. There are a lot of things to praise about The Apartment, but I want to give a special shoutout to the dialogue. “Witty” dialogue that sounds natural is hard to come by-- so often, it just feels smart-assy and strained. Not here.

Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger, 1959)

I’m not big into courtroom dramas, but Anatomy of a Murder is a big exception. Its morally ambiguous characters elevate it from being a mere “whodunit” (or I guess in the case of this movie, “whydunit”), because if there’s something you’re not going to get with this movie, it’s a clear answer as to what happened on the night of the crime. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his least characteristic performances as the cynical lawyer, and is absolutely brilliant. 

Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-Wook, 2003)

Oldboy reminded me a great deal of John Webster’s 17th century tragedy The Duchess of Malfi. Both are gruesome, frightening, and heartbreaking works of art, straddling the line between sensationalism and intelligence, proving the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s both entertaining and difficult to watch. The thought of revisiting it terrifies me but I feel there is so much more to appreciate about the sheer craft on display.

Family Plot (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)

Family Plot is an enjoyable comedy; you guys are just mean. I know in an ideal world, Hitchcock’s swan song would be a great thriller masterpiece in the vein of Vertigo or Psycho. Family Plot is instead a silly send-up of Hitchcock’s favorite tropes, lampooning everything from the dangerous blonde archetype (with not one but two characters) to complicated MacGuffin plots. You’ll probably demand my film buff card be revoked for my opinion, but to hell with it-- this is my favorite of Hitchcock’s post-Psycho movies.

My Best Girl (dir. Sam Taylor, 1927)

Mary Pickford’s farewell to silent film also happens to be among her best movies. It’s a simple, charming romantic comedy starring her future husband, Charles “Buddy” Rogers. Pickford also gets to play an adult character here, rather than the little girl parts her public demanded she essay even well into her thirties. She and Rogers are sweet together without being diabetes-inducing, and the comedy is often laugh out loud funny. It even mocks a few tropes that anyone who watches enough old movies will recognize and probably dislike-- such as “break his heart to save him!!” (my personal most loathed 1920s/1930s trope).

Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

This feels like such a zeitgeist movie. It’s about the gap between the rich and the poor, it’s ironic,  it’s depressing, it’s unpredictable as hell. I don’t like terms like “modern classic,” because by its very definition, a classic can only be deemed as such after a long passage of time, but I have a good feeling Parasite will be considered one of the definitive films of the 2010s in the years to come.

Indiscreet (dir. Stanley Donen, 1958)

Indiscreet often gets criticized for not being Notorious more or less, which is a shame. It’s not SUPPOSED to be-- it’s cinematic souffle and both Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant elevate that light material with their perfect chemistry and comedic timing. It’s also refreshing to see a rom-com with characters over 40 as the leads-- and the movie does not try to make them seem younger or less mature, making the zany moments all the more hilarious. It’s worth seeing for Cary Grant’s jig (picture above) alone.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (dir. Joseph Sargent, 1974)

This movie embodies so much of what I love about 70s cinema: it’s gritty, irreverent, and hard-hitting. It’s both hilarious and suspenseful-- I was tense all throughout the run time. I heard there was a remake and it just seems... so, so pointless when you already have this gem perfect as it is.

They All Laughed (dir. Peter Bogdonavich, 1981)

Bogdonavich’s lesser known homage to 1930s screwball comedy is also a weirdly autumnal movie. Among the last gasps of the New Hollywood movement, it is also marks the final time Audrey Hepburn would star in a theatrical release. The gentle comedy, excellent ensemble cast (John Ritter is the standout), and the mature but short-lived romance between Hepburn and Ben Gazarra’s characters make this a memorably bittersweet gem.

The Palm Beach Story (dir. Preston Sturges, 1942)

Absolutely hilarious. I was watching this with my parents in the room. My mom tends to like old movies while my dad doesn’t, but both of them were laughing aloud at this one. Not much else to say about it, other than I love Joel McCrea the more movies I see him in-- though it’s weird seeing him in comedies since I’m so used to him as a back-breaking man on the edge in The Most Dangerous Game!

Nothing Sacred (dir. William Wellman, 1937)

I tend to associate William Wellman with the pre-code era, so I’ve tried delving more into his post-code work. Nothing Sacred is easily my favorite of those films thus far, mainly for Carole Lombard but also because the story still feels pretty fresh due to the jabs it takes at celebrity worship and moral hypocrisy. For a satire, it’s still very warm towards its characters, even when they’re misbehaving or deluding themselves, so it’s oddly a feel-good film too.

Applause (dir. Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)

I love watching early sound movies, but my inner history nerd tends to enjoy them more than the part of me that, well, craves good, well-made movies. Most early sound films are pure awkward, but there’s always an exception and Applause is one of them. While the plot’s backstage melodrama is nothing special, the way the story is told is super sophisticated and expressive for this period of cinema history, and Helen Morgan makes the figure of the discarded burlesque queen seem truly human and tragic rather than merely sentimental.

Topaz (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1969)

Another late Hitchcock everyone but me seems to hate. After suffering through Torn Curtain, I expected Hitchcock’s other cold war thriller was going to be dull as dishwater, but instead I found an understated espionage movie standing in stark contrast to the more popular spy movies of the period. It’ll never be top Hitchcock, of course-- still it was stylish and enjoyable, with some truly haunting moments. I think it deserves more appreciation than it’s been given.

What were your favorite cinematic discoveries in 2020?

[forasecondtherewedwon]

In the Arms of the Anus

Fandom: Spider-Man, Thor Pairing: Roger Harrington/Grandmaster Rating: T Word Count: 8883

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @spiderman-homecomeme!!!

Summary: While people all over the world are finding their soulmates, Roger Harrington can barely find time to grab a sandwich. Clumsy, anxious, and stagnating in a mediocre marriage, it's a miracle that he still believes in love.

Today's the day the universe rewards that belief.

Three things about Roger Harrington: he’d just tripped on the sidewalk, he worried daily that he was developing a bald spot, and, at the age of 36, he felt he still believed in love as strongly as did the little girl in his building who’d made all the residents Valentine’s Day cards the year before.

The cards—which Roger had found endearing while his wife had been baffled to the point of annoyance—had been wedged into everyone’s mailbox sometime on the afternoon of last May 19th, and maybe that was why he thought of them today, exactly a year later.

It was helpful, he found, to consider love in markers of time passing, or just numbers. The anniversary of those Valentine’s cards would always be 271 days early, leap year or not. Roger had been married twice, longer the second time. He had zero children, and that was alright with him because he wasn’t totally sure that he did want kids and, anyway, he was too profoundly stressed about the welfare of the teenagers he taught at Midtown to comfortably imagine himself as a fulltime parent.

His wife was cool. Significantly cooler than he was. She drove out of the city to hike every other weekend (he had never joined her and hoped to never be called upon for woodsy companionship), had once performed an emergency tracheotomy on a friend at a dinner party, and had a tattoo on her hip that predated their relationship, which made it consequently, eternally, enigmatic, no matter how many times she told the objectively trite story of its acquisition. Also, she was a casual shoplifter, which made him very, very nervous in a way that he found difficult to differentiate from how he felt when he was turned on.

He was the kind of person who consistently forgot to take his glasses off before stepping into the shower. She was the kind of person who would run into and recognize a famous race car driver at Whole Foods (that had happened) or fake her own death (that had not happened—knock on wood!). Essentially, what and who his second wife was was the natural successor to his first wife (the reckless young bride to his insomniac young groom), who had in turn been the natural successor to the only other romantic encounter of his life worth mentioning: a kiss on the cheek at a birthday party on the day the Berlin Wall fell. Roger had been seven.

So his romantic history was speckled and, in two out of three cases, spoke a little too loudly of a need for legally-recognized codependence. So he didn’t feel like a man anyone would ever get a tattoo in honour of. So his wife had been a little unkind in the long pause before her negative when he’d asked her if she thought he was getting a bald spot. Roger still felt that love was going to happen for him. Hopefully sustained in his current marriage, but if not, there was always what Julius Dell had taken to (highly unscientifically) calling the Love Wave.

If Roger decided to be really delusional, he could pretend that the Love Wave was to blame for his stumble over uneven concrete on his way to grab lunch. That he was finally feeling its cosmic tug. Not that he would be the last to sense it—the inexplicable force that had lately begun guiding people the world over to their new partners—but every day that he didn’t, he feared his wife would feel it first and go careening out of their life together in a Thelma and Louise-style launch that somehow left her intact and him feeling like he’d plummeted to his death at the bottom of a canyon. Sometimes, when he thought about it, he imagined feeling that impulse to go to this destined soulmate and pictured it leading him home. Not in some metaphorical way, but literally home, to the apartment he shared with his wife, to find her arriving at the same time, the two of them matched up, the universe endorsing their marriage.

The reality was that he was a man with clumsy feet (and knees and elbows) who’d forgotten to pack himself a lunch and had just enough self-awareness (though probably not dignity) not to believe that eating in the cafeteria with his students was something he would be able to socially recover from.

He thought about a poorly-cut-out pink heart glued to a fold of red craft paper. He went to buy a sandwich.

At the deli, Roger waited in line and didn’t so much allow his mind to wander—like a dog off-leash in a dog park—as feel his mind jerk insistently away—like a dog on-leash, trying to snap a dropped slice of pizza off the sidewalk. He was violently not present as his thoughts migrated from Valentine’s Day cards to lesson plans to the anxiety he always felt over the fact of never seeming to have enough power to go with the tremendous sense of responsibility he felt for all situations in which he was even remotely involved. He would have, should have, continued to shuffle vacantly forward in line, except that the man ahead of him grumbled something that drew his focus.

What he grumbled was: “Even the Sorcerer Supreme should be able to spare a minute to decide what kind of sandwich he wants.”

Now, Roger Harrington was a man of science, but he was also a man who had previously enjoyed a close friendship with the Hulk (and if anyone challenged him on specific parameters within that assertion, Roger knew that he would cry). Aliens swarmed the sky like clouds of bees. There were compilation videos of Spider-Man nearly getting hit by city buses that could’ve been designed expressly to see how hard Roger could flinch. For a clumsy man with the unathletic, knock-kneed gait of Pippi Longstocking, Roger did his best to roll with the supernatural punches. Hey, this was how science worked too: just because there wasn’t a precedent yet didn’t mean there never would be. Just because he couldn’t explain something didn’t mean no one could. Sorcerers? Alright. There could be sorcerers.

“Sorcerers?” Roger blurted to the man, overeager to expel the word.

All other words had fled to the back of his mind, twitching in an agitated cluster, leaving just the one to be snatched frantically from the surface. Like fishing. (Roger had never been fishing. One of his greatest fears was having a live fish somehow jump into his shoe and stepping on it by accident.)

“Uhhh,” the man droned. He looked uneasy. If Roger knew how to make his eyes a little less wide in situations like these, he would’ve done it.

“No, yeah, sorcerers, sure,” Roger swiftly backpedaled. “I’m a teacher.”

As if being a teacher equaled knowledge of sorcerers. As if that were a normal unit of the high school curriculum. Roger’s understanding of sorcerers began and ended with Mickey Mouse in a blue wizard’s hat. He wondered if that was sort of the standard look.

The man did not appear reassured. Roger thrust his hand forward.

“Roger Harrington, Midtown Tech.”

Face still wary, his deli companion shook hands.

“Wong.”

“So, this sorcerer of yours didn’t pick a sandwich?” The line shuffled forward and, now in reach of the long glass case of food, Roger attempted to lean his elbow casually against it, misjudged the distance, and jerked back upright again before he could fall over.

“No… You heard that part too?”

“If I could hear the part about the sorcerer, why wouldn’t I be able to hear the rest?”

“I think most people would’ve been so fixated on the sorcerer thing that they wouldn’t really absorb the part about the sandwich.”

“Just got sandwiches on the brain, I guess,” Roger said.

God, if Wong knew a sorcerer, odds were that he was a sorcerer too. (Roger based this on being a teacher with almost exclusively teacher friends and acquaintances.) He was making it sound like he cared more about sandwiches, he knew he was. He stared silently at Wong for a few painful seconds and wondered if the man could tell that he had worked for a sandwich shop as a teenager—the role of wearing a full-body sandwich costume and standing on the sidewalk, trying to attract people into the shop.

But Wong surprised him by nodding.

“You could get one of everything,” Roger heard himself suggest.

He was not typically one to make suggestions, but rather one to panic when other people did and he was in the position of having to choose between them. He could never decide on a restaurant for he and his wife’s now few-and-far-between date nights, or provide straightforward feedback when she asked for his opinion on her clothing choices… which movie they should see… what they should buy for her friend’s sister’s housewarming gift...

Oh god, she was probably going to fake her own death and his biggest anxiety was knowing that someone would ask him to choose the casket!

“I have like…” Wong jingled his pockets and extracted a fistful of coins that, when he opened his hand, Roger saw belonged to several different currencies. “…six bucks.”

Like a mirror with a delay, Roger patted his own pockets to locate his wallet. He flipped it open to reveal something promising and terrifying: he’d forgotten to return the school credit card after the last field trip he’d chaperoned. He shouldn’t, but… sorcerer.

“I think this’ll cover it,” Roger said. “It’s for emergency expenses.”

“Like lunch?” Wong asked doubtfully.

“I could be very hungry.”

“They sell seventeen different types of sandwiches here.”

“I could be very, very hungry.”

Wong shrugged in evident acquiescence and Roger marvelled that it was so simple for him to accept this act of generosity. Roger couldn’t recall the last time someone had been as generous towards him. Wait, yes he could. The Valentine’s Day card. Well, handing over a credit card that wasn’t technically his didn’t exactly equate to presenting his ticket at the Love Wave gates (not that there were such things—not that he’d know), but he was hoping to trade this generosity up for a different magical experience in the near future.

When they reached the front of the line for service, Roger ordered a total of eighteen sandwiches. (And received an undisguised groan of complaint from the people still in line behind himself and Wong.) While they waited, Roger buzzed like the posterchild for over-caffeination, doing his best not to let his excitement translate into erratic movements.

Of course, once the sandwiches were presented and paid for, it only made sense for Roger to help Wong carry them all. His own ham-and-Swiss was stuffed into one of the three bags and they were all bulging, threatening to spill. If one of them ripped on Wong’s journey back to wherever he had to take them, who would be there to gather the sandwiches into their arms so that Wong wouldn’t have to leave them on the ground? Roger was clearly the best (only) person for the job.

And if they talked on the way? That would be natural. If Wong stared at him with abrupt, unyielding suspicion the instant Roger attempted to negotiate a visit with this ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ in exchange for buying his lunch? Yeah. Yeah that suspicion would be fair.

“Not for my sake!” Roger defended as Wong blinked back at him. “For the kids!”

“The Sorcerer Supreme isn’t a birthday party magician.”

“No, I would never imply that! These are bright kids. They’d be there to learn, respectfully. They’ve had their own traumatic encounter with Spider-Man already so there wouldn’t be any clambering to meet another person with superhuman powers!”

“What did Spider-Man do to traumatize them?”

Wong looked interested now, in an entertained sort of way. Meanwhile, Roger was having a flashback of his life flashing before his eyes inside the Washington Monument.

“Actually, he saved us,” Roger explained. “That’s not the point. It would be purely educational. You and the Sorcerer Supreme would call the shots. As long as it wasn’t anything dangerous.”

“Dangerous? We would never put children at risk!”

Roger was about to clarify that he hadn’t meant to imply that they would when he realized Wong seemed to be taking this as a reason to prove himself, or to make the other sorcerer prove what he’d just said.

“I would hope not,” Roger said carefully, “because not all of the children I’ve taken on field trips have come back alive and that haunts me.”

“Well, what haunts me is everything I’ve seen and learned from in order to become someone who could now guarantee a safe field trip environment.”

“Well, that would be great.”

“Well, good,” Wong concluded.

Roger looked down at the bag he was holding as he dug out his sandwich. His wrist twisted and he caught the time on his watch. Oh wow, oh no, his lunch break was almost over.

“Ok, deal,” he said quickly. “We’ll come by next Tuesday!”

“I’ll be out here to let you in!” Wong agreed with a parting wave.

Roger took off running in the direction of Midtown and when that got too awful, he wheezed like an asthmatic and waited at the closest bus stop.

—

Roger had expected Principal Morita to say there was no room in their budget for this trip. That they were nearing the end of the school year, that parents and guardians would be reluctant to sign another form for an excursion that Roger could only give a vague, stammering explanation of. At the very least, he’d anticipated the journey via school bus in lurching, stop-and-start traffic to take so long that the kids would revolt; Flash Thompson would lead the complaints that they could’ve walked to their destination faster than the ride took and Roger would feel the primal horror of a confrontation with a self-possessed teenager who wielded the kind of peer influence Roger could only have dreamed of when he’d been Flash’s age.

But no.

Highly improbably (Roger didn’t like to consider it miraculous), things went smoothly. The trip cleared the budget assessment on zero notice because, besides renting the single bus to transport the students, their outing didn’t actually have any costs. Permission slips came back signed. Traffic was light. And dear, dear Flash—who usually gave Roger so much anxiety—slapped the hand Roger raised to shield his eyes from the sun as his students disembarked from the bus, rewarding him with a surprise high-five for getting them out of the classroom on a Tuesday afternoon. It almost knocked Roger’s glasses off.

They were ushered inside by Wong, who was now laying the mystical solemnity on pretty thick. He certainly wasn’t talking about sandwiches or complaining about the Supreme Sorcerer under his breath.

Before Roger could feel too good about himself though, he realized he’d had time to run through his headcount of the students three times without interruption. Normally, something would happen partway through his first count and he’d be uneasy for the rest of the day, sure that one of the kids had fallen down a manhole or been stampeded by a dog-walker’s unruly canine swarm. The universe shoved teenagers into the path of bike couriers with one hand and paired up soulmates with the other. That was just how things went! However, inside this house (or, no, Sanctum, Wong had called it), the air was still and quiet.

“Do you think he’s gonna make himself appear out of thin air?” Roger heard Ned ask at a whisper. “Or out of a wardrobe, or a trapdoor, or one of those boxes people get in to get sawed in half?”

“Those are cheap tricks,” Wong said loudly. He stared unsympathetically at Roger’s motley group, hand closed around his opposite wrist to maintain a serious pose. “The man you’ll be meeting shortly has capabilities that far outstrip those of the kind of magician-for-hire you’d find in a phonebook.”

From behind him, Roger heard Peter ask Ned what a phonebook was.

“What kind of capabilities then?” Flash demanded.

Roger sighed and was turning to reprimand his student when Wong said, “Like this!”

The man faked a sneeze of horrific volume and range, doubling over and cupping his hand around his mouth and nose. When he straightened up and presented his open palm, there was a raspberry sitting in it.

Roger closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself and his teaching career played on a fast-forwarded film reel behind his lids. The Sorcerer Supreme was a no-show; all Roger had accomplished was taking the kids to a weird building to witness a man pretend to sneeze out a raspberry. Midtown Tech was going to fire him. His wife would recognize his unemployment as a reason to leave him. Depressingly, Roger was thinking about how that would almost be a relief—an end to his incessant worrying that they were really kind of a mismatch—and he was thinking it while he blankly watched Wong eat the raspberry he’d just feigned dislodging from his nasal cavity.

He was really unprepared for a different man to come sweeping down the stairs, motion with his hand, and have a red sheet come whizzing down after him to settle itself on his shoulders. Roger blinked. He heard the mixed noises of fright and appreciation from his students.

Then Flash piped up with, “That’s just a trick. It’s wires or something.”

Roger backed into the cluster of his charges and, without taking his eyes off the obvious Magical Guy in front of him, reached over and placed his hand across Flash’s mouth.

Unfortunately, his censorship seemed to be too late. The Sorcerer’s narrowed eyes zoned in on Flash.

“Oh yeah? How ’bout this? Is this just a trick?”

Fingers splayed, the man moved his hands in a precise, practiced way and a window opened up in the middle of the room. No, not a window, but Roger was having a tough time wrapping his head around it. What this non-window showed was something that wasn’t the room, that wasn’t a view of the street, that wasn’t anyplace in New York, if he had to guess.

“You can’t just do it like that,” Wong said wearily. Roger felt himself and his students look from one of the men to the other as though watching a tennis match. “There should be a little more finesse.”

“Look,” the Sorcerer told him. “You don’t get to spring this on me and then expect me to ham it up for the kids. This isn’t a David Blaine show.”

“Maybe you should watch one. You might learn something about showmanship.”

“So, it’s fake, right?” Flash checked.

Dammit, Roger had dropped his hand, distracted as he tried to make out what he was seeing through what he was becoming increasingly comfortable with calling a ‘magic portal’ in his thoughts. He scrambled to take hold of Flash’s shoulder—yanking him back would be bad, but dealing with the fallout of him pissing off somebody who could make magic portals would be much worse—but Flash dodged him, swaggering forward to inspect the Sorcerer’s work.

“What is it? Mirrors? Greenscreen? You buy your tech from Stark?”

“Stark?” the Sorcerer spat out derisively.

Overcome with the terrible feeling that he was about to find out what it looked like when a wizard put a curse on a child, Roger sprang forward. As he did, three things happened: the Sorcerer rotated his wrist slightly, the scene on the other side of the portal changed, and Flash turned to the side.

Without a student to grab onto and pull to safety, Roger’s momentum sent him hurtling through the gateway currently connecting Midtown to parts unknown.

Of all the times to trip, he thought.

—

The world was bright and fast and bad. Actually, Roger was almost positive that what he was seeing wasn’t the world at all, but he couldn’t put a name to where he was any more than he could think of better adjectives to describe it. Unless the Sorcerer Supreme owned a magical slip ’n’ slide that operated at speeds designed to train prospective astronauts for space travel, Roger was no longer in his building.

The colour of the tunnel of light surrounding him turned from something like the intestinal track of a unicorn who ate lightning and nebulas to a dangerous, broiling red. Roger kept waiting for his skin to bubble, his face to melt off. Maybe he was the fabled frog in the pot of boiling water and had failed to notice the heat steadily increasing. Because he didn’t feel hot. He couldn’t tell whether or not he felt cold either and before he could work it out, he finally landed.

It was rough.

He curled his arms up around his head, protecting his face. He hit and tumbled, hit and tumbled, banging his shins and elbows, setting off a series of metallic clangs and thwumps like his body was playing drums made of the contents of somebody’s recycling bin. Roger could see—once, shaking, he was able to lower his arms and open his eyes—that his imagination hadn’t been far from the mark: he was lying in a heap of trash.

Trembling like a baby deer, he got to his feet and assessed his surroundings. There were piles everywhere. Piles of stuff. Roger could identify some of the battered objects, but most were utterly alien to him. This was like the time he’d found his wife’s sex toys all over again.

“Hello?” he called out, because he seemed to be alone. “Hel—”

His throat closed off abruptly when he swiveled in place and noticed the sky. His mouth fell open. Was that what he had just come through? That furious-looking, billowing, volcanic, enormous… disturbance? Weather pattern? Entrance to hell, if hell were a mountain of trash?

Oh man. Where was Spider-Man this time? Roger didn’t know which would come first, but if something distinctly reassuring didn’t happen in the next 30 seconds, he was going to either burst into tears or pee his pants. His cool wife was going to be so bummed to have to declare him dead instead of faking her own death. And his students would be traumatized, having just witnessed their teacher disappear before their eyes. He spent a frantic 17 of his 30 seconds wondering if this were Jumanji and he’d started a game without realizing it; being sucked into a board game was another of his greatest fears, ever since he’d watched the chilling horror film Jumanji in his teens.

“Hello?” Roger croaked a final time.

Some other scientist—a Tony Stark type—would thrive in this scenario, Roger knew. They would scavenge the surrounding mounds of metal, collecting and assembling pieces into some sort of technology that would either get them home or enable communication with a rescue team. Would there be a rescue team for Roger Harrington? Would anyone even try to get him back?

The cry/pee conundrum was looking more like cry with each passing second until suddenly, amongst the broken things Roger was aggrieved to consider the lone sentinels of his demise, some kind of spacecraft touched down. Based on his recent luck, whoever was at the helm was likely here to kill him, but he immediately elected to throw himself on their mercy, whether that meant rescue or just a swifter snuffing out of his life than he would otherwise experience on this sad island of garbage as he died from dehydration, starvation, and exposure to that infernal gateway in the sky.

He mouthed the word “help” more than said it as he staggered forward on legs he could hardly feel. A door in the side of the spacecraft slid smoothly open and party music blared out. Roger flinched back as though he had not heard the sounds of civilization in years.

A woman exited the craft. She wore an expression about as kind as the murderous upside-down mushroom cloud in the sky and when their eyes met, she barked, “Back!”

Roger executed an awkward reverse lunge, pleading hands raised. Ok, now that his time had come, he didn’t want a quick death. Put out of his misery? No, he would learn to live with his misery, the way he’d learned to live with his college roommates, or his wife’s collection of handmade bowls! With food and water to sustain him, he was suddenly confident that he could be successfully miserable for years if this intimidating woman would just leave him to his own pathetic devices.

But then, like a visitation from a tan, eye-liner-wearing angel of indeterminate age, a man in gold robes emerged from the vessel. He beamed like he had always been beaming, and always would be.

Just like that, Roger Harrington got it. He got what Hot Chocolate meant when they sang that they believed in miracles. He got the meaning of Kylie Jenner’s year of realizing stuff. He got why a child would send out Valentine’s Day cards in May and why his wife was so dedicated to her hiking group and why he was here.

“Now, what did I say about that before we left?” the angel seemed to be asking his companion, though he’d locked his eyes on Roger. “Did I say to harass our visitor or did I say to be nice?”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Roger, which he felt more than saw; it was possible that he was crying after all. Tears of joy.

“Harass,” she answered flatly.

The angel chuckled.

“You know, I do like having you around. Before you, I said to myself, ‘Next time, get an enforcer with a sense of humour.’” He sighed as his laughter dwindled. “But you can, uh, skedaddle back onto the ship now. That’ll be all.”

“What if you want to melt him?” she queried.

That was enough to tear Roger’s gaze away from the man and send it zipping nervously to the threatening almost-smile the woman was now directing his way. He’d preferred the murder face.

“Melt him!” the angel said, in a tone that implied her suggestion had been ridiculous. (Roger relaxed. A little.) “Topaz, don’t you realize who this is? Don’t you know?”

She shrugged.

“Trash.”

“No, he’s not trash! Do you think I would’ve left the Grand Arena to retrieve a new gladiator by hand? All those Scrappers don’t do my bidding just so I can dig through the garbage looking for fresh challengers for my champion! I wouldn’t even assign Scrapper 142 this task, and you know she’s my favourite!”

When the woman only grumbled, the man pressed, “You have an unbelievable poker face. Do you really not know why I flew all the way out here for this guy?”

“I’m his soulmate,” Roger blurted, because that was the one thing he did know.

He had no idea what a Scrapper was, or whether the man in front of him was more or less important than the ‘champion’ he’d mentioned, or how his homicidal sidekick planned to melt Roger, but he understood what was happening here. Forget the Love Wave—what had come for him had yanked him violently across solar systems, maybe galaxies. He’d been sucked under by the Love Riptide.

The angel pointed at him and proudly proclaimed, “Correctamundo!”

Then he strode forward and folded Roger into a hug. Roger thought this must be what it was like to be a piece of antique furniture, tenderly wrapped in gold leaf.

“I’m the Grandmaster,” he said.

“Roger Harrington,” Roger offered, feeling that his life was entirely surreal as he cautiously returned the hug.

“As soon as I felt you land on my humble little planet here, I came looking. My orgy guests were disappointed, naturally, but I had to put my interests first. What was I, elected? If they wanted a leader who would pretend to care about everyone equally, they should have organized themselves into a viable political party capable of rivalling my dictatorship, am I right?” He drew back slightly and laughed. “You should see your face! I’m kidding. I would’ve had anyone involved in such a thing put to death. Don’t you worry, Hairball.”

Roger cleared his throat. He’d learned so much in the last few sentences alone. Death. Dictator. Orgy. Any one of those things was a lot to confront and yet… he was calmed by the Grandmaster’s presence. He was alive and unmelted. He’d managed to find his soulmate—a man he’d been almost certain to never meet as things stood with Earth’s individually-impressive but cosmically-insignificant progress with space travel. At long last, the universe had smiled on Roger Harrington.

“Just Roger is good,” he said. If last names ever came up again, he would tactfully correct his soulmate, but with a name like ‘the Grandmaster,’ he doubted they ever would.

“Roger. Anything you say.” Gripping Roger’s shoulders, the Grandmaster leaned in and planted a sound kiss on his forehead with a loud, “Mmmwah!”

He asked Roger if he would like to go aboard his ship, apologizing that it wasn’t the one where he’d just been having the orgy and appearing to check Roger’s face for disappointment. Roger didn’t know what the Grandmaster saw in his expression, but he knew it wasn’t that.

Inside the spaceship, Roger looked around with huge eyes. He hadn’t felt this kind of wonder in a room jammed with so much beyond his understanding since the first time his mom had taken him to the New York Hall of Science as a kid. Everything was bright and white and immaculately clean, and Roger could concentrate on all of it because the Grandmaster had Topaz drop the volume of his party playlist until it was just a low pulse of background noise. Seemingly amused by his awe, the Grandmaster allowed him a peek at the controls before gently herding him into a chamber with seating arranged for socializing. A pneumatic hiss sealed them safely inside and away from the woman’s scowl.

“I really just wanna sit here and, uh, just look atcha, but that look on your face tells me you’ve got about a million questions.”

The Grandmaster settled back into the bench seating, resting his long arms along the top of the seat. Across from him, Roger fidgeted, experiencing sensory overload. Soulmate. Spaceship. Alien planet. He found it hard to decide what to ask first. Was that even polite? Was the Grandmaster just saying that Roger could ask questions when he really wanted Roger to say or do something else? There was an awfully flirtatious look in his eye, the likes of which Roger hadn’t seen directed towards himself in several years.

“What is this place?” Roger asked before he could stop himself. “Where am I?”

“Oh! This is Sakaar! Are you saying you didn’t come here on purpose? I figured you weren’t aiming for a pile of trash, but you really didn’t know where you were going at all?”

Roger shook his head so hard that he had to nudge his slipping glasses back up his nose.

“It was an accident. I fell through a wizard’s—uh, I mean, a sorcerer’s—magic portal. That kind of clumsiness must sound pretty farfetched to someone who’s so obviously…” Roger motioned spastically towards his soulmate, the dictator, with both hands. “…in control of their life.”

The Grandmaster laughed, transparently pleased and preening.

“Oh, Roger, you flatter me.”

He stretched out his leg to playfully tap his shoe (gold) against Roger’s (plain, brown, frayed shoelace). Roger jumped, giddy from an alteration in sea level, possibly, plus life-changing events.

“But it really isn’t so uncommon for people, beings, things… to end up here without meaning to,” the Grandmaster went on. “A lot of junk passes through the Anus. Not that you’re junk, obviously.”

With a winning smile, Roger’s soulmate leaned forward and patted him on the knee. He was a touchy-feely guy, it seemed, and it made Roger cognizant of how very lonely he’d been in his marriage, in the last year especially. How skittish around strangers, how unaffectionate with his friends. This was what he needed, and the universe had understood that.

It took his brain a few seconds to catch up with what his soulmate had said, distracted by the comfort he was taking in his easy warmth.

“The Anus?” Roger asked in a choked voice.

“The Devil’s Anus, to be exact. That enormous, horrifying wormhole out there in the sky!” the Grandmaster explained, gleeful. “Best I can guess, it acts as a funnel for accidental travelers, like yourself. And boy, are we ever grateful for that thing. I’ve never had to post any ‘Help Wanted’ flyers, I’ll tell ya that. We need more people serving drinks? Boom. More entertainers? Boom. More lubricators for the orgies? Boom, the Anus provides, baby.”

Roger didn’t inquire what the duties of a person with the job title ‘orgy lubricator’ entailed; it seemed sleazily self-explanatory. He just nodded.

“And now,” his perfect, golden match continued, “the portal brings me my soulmate. I love that thing. It’s really somethin’, huh?”

“It’s really something,” Roger agreed. “Really, really something.”

“You’re looking just a little stunned there, Rodge. Can I offer you something to eat? A drink? I promise, I’m usually a much better host. I feel like I’m positively, uh, bumbling right now.” He beamed.

This man was so many things at once—possibly too many—but bumbling was so far from being one of them that Roger actually laughed weaky in his state of happy, semi-delirium. He accepted the cold glass that was pressed into his hand, the brush of the Grandmaster’s warm palm across his forehead. He had moved to sit right next to Roger.

“You can get used to this place at your own pace, within reason.” His soulmate chuckled. “Heck, we can stay right here a day or two. My plans are cancelled, and when I stop, the world stops. That’s how it is, being the Grandmaster, and that’s how it’s gonna be for you too. You can give all your worries a big, wet kiss goodbye, my love. You’re living a life of luxury now. A court of sycophants, fights to the death in the evening, orgies on a lazy afternoon. I’m talkin’ a life of pure class—”

“Class!”

“Yeah, baby, that’s what I said.” The Grandmaster was wearing a languid smile as he traced the back of his fingers along Roger’s jaw.

But Roger was suddenly too alert to be lulled by welcome caresses and delicious, exotic beverages.

“I was teaching a class before I fell through the portal,” he said. “I’m a teacher. My students are probably terrified. Some of them might be messed up for life after watching me disappear right in front of them. What have I done…”

“So you gave them a cool story to tell their friends! You don’t need to think about that anymore. Now that you’re living here—”

“I can’t live here!” Roger said, seizing the Grandmaster’s hands in his as he tried desperately to explain. “I have responsibilities as an educator! Jesus Christ, I’m married!”

“Roger. Rodge. Rodge. Hey,” his soulmate said, finally disrupting Roger’s spiral of panic. “That’s all in the past. Do you know how many creatures from just, uh, every darn corner of the universe I’ve made slaughter each other for my entertainment? Thousands, Roger, ok? Thousands. And it’s taught me oodles about life. What I’ve learned is that love is the only thing that matters. What all of those poor bastards scream for in the end is their mom, their partner, their best friend. Now, that doesn’t help them, but it helps us. It helps us understand that we’ve done it—we’ve achieved the one thing in our lives that was worth a damn to achieve. I’m not gonna, gonna now be parted from you, sweetheart. You are the point of me.”

Roger felt himself growing teary at the speech. Yes, this had been a whirlwind—they’d met no more than 15 minutes ago—but he was feeling something just as deep as the love the Grandmaster described. It was a fantasy in the best way, the life his soulmate pictured for them (most of it… maybe not the part about slaughter). But it was a fantasy in the worst way too, something so impossible that Roger felt sick for getting as attached to this man as he already had.

“I can’t,” he said softly. He let his head hang down, solaced when the Grandmaster guided it onto his shoulder and wrapped a protective arm around him.

“Can’t you? For me? Roger, if I put you on a ship and send you back through the Anus, we may never meet again.”

Roger squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to be selfish, but there were people he couldn’t leave in the lurch. People who maybe didn’t care about him in a way that was equal to how he cared about them, but that was how any kind of relationship was, apart from soulmates. There were imbalances. He knew he might not be the most brilliant scientist, the most inspirational teacher, the husband a woman would prefer over the outdoorsy hunk in her hiking group, but he knew who he was: he was someone who couldn’t just walk away.

“We’ll be together again,” Roger said, clutching the Grandmaster’s robes. “After.”

Though he didn’t yet know what ‘after’ would mean.

—

It wasn’t as unexpected as it could have been—Roger had always had a feeling he’d die on a school bus.

The difference between his fears and reality was that he wasn’t departing this world in a fiery crash or zooming out of control between the steel trusses and into the East River. There was confusion, there was chaos, there were screams and the violent honking of horns, but there were elements he couldn’t have predicted. Primarily, the giant alien spacecraft hovering over the city. The ship immediately moved into first place of the most ominous rings in his life (he and his wife were not in a good place). Since its sighting, things had quickly spiraled out of control. Julius had radioed Roger from the other bus of students they were chaperoning to MoMA to report that Ned Leeds had ‘flipped his shit’ and Peter Parker was currently missing. Roger had nearly passed out. The only thing that had kept him conscious was his jittery concern for the rest of his students.

At Midtown Tech, they had drills for almost every eventuality. As of 2012, hostile outer space invasion was actually part of their repertoire, but it had always been assumed they would be at school when it happened, not out on a field trip. The most Roger had been able to think to do was get the kids to a secure location. Which meant getting the buses to a secure location. But the buses were on the bridge, and all over the bridge drivers were panicking, mindlessly stomping on the gas and attempting to swerve around the rest of the vehicles. Above the blood rushing in his ears, he’d heard crash after crash, until their bus was hemmed in and, through the smoking, crumpled hoods of their fellow commuters, the alien ship hung stationary in the sky. Disturbingly tranquil as New York City went to pieces to the tune of apocalyptic dissonance just below.

In the end, the spaceship hadn’t stayed put, but Roger had. The lanes around them were crowded with smashed cars. Glass from shattered windshields glittered on the pavement. Still, more vehicles surged forward as drivers attempted to use the bridge to flee the city; this wasn’t NYC’s first alien rodeo. He hadn’t attempted to force any of his students to remain on the bus—they were some of the smartest and the best of their generation, and he trusted their survival instincts far more than his own—but he did direct the ones who fled to first climb up onto the roof of the bus instead of dropping directly down onto the street and risking injury. Yes, he worried about minor cuts and bruises. Even now.

He thought that Flash was staying with him, and was touched. But then he realized Flash was just gripping his shoulder for leverage as he jumped and grabbed for the emergency roof hatch with his free hand. Roger knew the boy was somewhat neglected by his parents, and so, for the first time, he was happy go hear ‘Hotline Bling.’ It was Flash’s ringtone and it played incessantly as his phone rang and rang until the song, and the sound of Flash running, faded into the distance. Somebody wanted to see that he was safe. Somebody cared about him.

Alone, Roger hunkered down between the seats, knees bent in front of him. He scraped one hand anxiously through his hair and gripped his phone in the other.

He should call his wife. He knew he should. Only, he was afraid that she either wouldn’t pick up or she’d answer and be with the guy from her hiking group. Roger wasn’t even upset; he was glad she had someone, if this was it.

Ever since he’d returned from Sakaar, he’d been different, he was aware that he had. In the past, his wife had been largely responsible for the sundering of their marriage, but Roger knew that he was now pulling away too. It had begun inside him—the tear. He wanted to be with two people for two different reasons. In two places, on two worlds. Commitment clashed with longing. Logical rightness fought emotional rightness. He’d been weak, persuading himself daily to tough it out with his wife (even as he slept on the couch every night because lying beside her made him unhappy), when, for once in his damn life, he wanted to be fulfilled. Somewhere out in the stars, there was a man with blue eyeliner and an entire planet at his capricious command and he was the person for Roger.

If only, he thought, picturing the face he shouldn’t have been able to recall so clearly for the brevity of their encounter months ago. Roger shut his eyes to better remember the Grandmaster, and so he wouldn’t have to see his phone clatter to the bus’s dirty floor when the hand that held it turned to dust.

—

As with his life on regular, non-apocalypse days, not much happened to Roger. Despite his paralyzing breakdown on a school bus, he wasn’t among the billions scattered to the wind like sentient dandruff. He picked himself up and went home. Sure, he was shivering almost out of his skin from the shock, but he didn’t collapse into wracking, snotty sobs until he was safely in his living room, listening to his neighbours’ wails through the condo’s walls.

Roger’s wife wasn’t there, didn’t answer when he called her, and, three weeks later, still hadn’t made contact. It took another two months to hold her wake; the funeral business was booming. Never had so many words been spoken over so many vacant graves. Some members of his wife’s hiking group attended, some had even helped him select the right music and flowers beforehand. They knew her preferences. It felt surreal to be burying a person he couldn’t prove—in any meaningful way—that he’d really known.

With a queasy sense of being very lucky, he accepted that, apart from his marital status, his life hadn’t been upended. His windows weren’t broken, his car wasn’t stolen, the few family members he was out of touch with anyway had also survived. He went back to work before anybody called him in. There weren’t any students at first, just the echo of Roger’s clumsy footsteps tripping over the rug in the staffroom, half-solved equations on the whiteboards in the math classrooms, and the unholy stench of unwashed pinnies when he poked his head into the gym storage room to see if Coach Wilson was around. One day, Roger tipped back in the chair at the front of his own empty classroom and spotted a gigantic cobweb in the corner of the ceiling. It made him think of Spider-Man. He guessed that guy was gone too.

The most important thing for keeping sane was establishing a regimen. Work was a big part of that, but Roger also traveled daily into Manhattan to visit the Sorcerer’s place. It became a kind of pilgrimage. Early on, Wong would come out to say hello, but it was eventually less about commiseration and more of a perfunctory thing. Roger knew (assumed, hoped) that if the Sorcerer ever did return, Wong would let him know and welcome him inside. And then… a portal? And then the Grandmaster? He tried not to think about it too hard. Yearning took up a lot of energy and, when his students began to come back to school in distressingly low numbers, Roger needed to reserve that energy for teaching.

Everything was the same, every day, until it wasn’t.

For a reason he couldn’t rationally explain, Roger knocked on the Sorcerer’s door. While he was waiting—just a few seconds, he planned—a man materialized on the sidewalk right next to him. He tottered and Roger reflexively said, “Whoa!” and grabbed his shoulder to keep him on his feet. Before Roger could hypothesize or ask the man any questions, a teenage girl returned to existence a few feet away. Then a woman holding a toddler tightly in her arms. A little boy. A man with a dog. A bicycle-less bike cop, still wearing his helmet. Releasing the man, Roger spun and pounded against the door with his fist.

Still, no one answered.

Fighting the urge to show up at Midtown Tech, Roger made himself stay put, right there on the Sorcerer’s doorstep.

He waited a long time. As the sun set, New York City rose around him. He watched people hugging, running home down the middle of the street. He fielded unfinished questions as the newly returned began to ask him what had happened, what time it was, what year, before jogging away, more purposeful with every step they took. Roger’s foot began to bounce on the sidewalk and his clammy hands twisted fretfully. It was still another 12 hours before the door opened.

Roger fell backwards into Wong’s shins, delirious from the sickening seesaw between urgency and exhaustion. Everywhere, people were reconnecting. He scrambled to his feet because he wanted to be one of them.

“Is he here?” Roger demanded.

Wong narrowed his eyes slightly, holding the door so it couldn’t be pushed open further.

“Might I remind you that it’s me you’ve been seeing here the last five years.”

“Yeah,” Roger agreed, trying to see past.

“I thought we had developed a rapport.”

Finally, Roger met Wong’s eyes, his own pleading.

“No, yes, you’re right, we have,” he babbled.

“We’re friends.”

“Yes, of course, we are friends. Definitely.”

“So when is my birthday?”

Roger’s mouth hung open as he searched his brain for a piece of information he knew wasn’t in there. A few seconds later, Wong turned mirthful.

“Did you spend the Blip hiding under a rock where there are no jokes? Come inside. We just got back.”

None of the thousands of times he’d come to the door mattered—Roger hadn’t been inside the Sanctum since that first time. He hoped the Sorcerer remembered him.

When he saw the man, Roger’s steps stuttered. The Sorcerer appeared grim and wiped out. He was dirty and he looked older, though Wong whispered to Roger that the Sorcerer had been among the Snapped. Roger understood that, for something to go right and bring everyone back to life, something else had gone wrong. He could dwell on that and awkwardly bow his way back out of there, or he could convince himself that things had gone wrong for him too, and that he’d like them to be righted. He remembered that his soulmate was a dictator and tried to channel that sense of entitlement.

“What do you know about the Anus?”

The Sorcerer blinked.

“What.” The word came out perfectly flat.

“The Anus.”

“I wasn’t that kind of doctor.”

Roger strode eagerly towards him, hands gesturing before his words caught up.

“When I was here about, um, five and a half years ago, I fell through your magic portal—”

The Sorcerer snapped his fingers in recognition and turned to Wong.

“Oh, that’s who this is. I always wondered what happened to that guy.” He looked at Roger again. “How did you get back to Earth?”

Roger hadn’t been prepared to answer this question, just make his demands, and he began to explain what had happened to him, all out of order. The words ‘orgy ship’ had barely left his mouth when the Sorcerer was waving him into silence. His expression told Roger he was sorry he’d asked.

“So you went through the portal…” he prompted instead.

“That’s right! And for a while, I was just falling. I don’t know where I was.”

The Sorcerer stroked his chin.

“The connection must’ve been unstable. I know—one of your students distracted me.”

“That’d be Flash,” Roger said.

“Jesus. This is why I prefer not to be a field trip destination. Normally, the portal would allow you to pass cleanly through one place and into another.”

“And instead he passed cleanly through the Anus,” Wong summarized.

“…Yeah.”

Roger glanced from one man to the other.

“So,” he said, “could you do it again?”

The Sorcerer stared at him.

“The short answer is no. The long answer is also no, but it contains a great deal of vernacular to do with the Mystic Arts, so I’ll save us both some time.”

The last time Roger had defended his intellect and qualifications had been years ago, and he was out of practice. Anyway, he didn’t want a lengthy debate.

“Can’t you just open a portal and shove me through?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a lot going on today. I’ve only entertained you this long because you and Wong seem to be friends. I’m not just going to mess around to humour you.”

“What if you had to do it?” Roger asked quickly, beginning to feel desperate and preparing to metaphorically jam one of his clumsy feet into the closing window of opportunity.

“Uh, let me think about that,” the Sorcerer droned disinterestedly. “No.”

“What if I attacked you and you opened a portal in self-defence?”

The Sorcerer squinted at him in disbelief and befuddlement.

“What?”

But Roger was already gracelessly throwing his weight into a wild, uncoordinated punch.

For once, he didn’t think critically of himself; he told himself that the Sorcerer’s portal sparked up between them because he was intimidated by Roger’s tenacity. And that it didn’t show a clear destination because the Sorcerer’s reaction speed was no match for Roger using the element of surprise. And that he dove purposely through the portal—on a mission for love and science and the unknown—instead of tumbling into it sideways because the momentum of his unpracticed punch had gotten the better of his balance. It didn’t matter. His feet went out from under him and he was on his way.

Roger had forgotten how intense the trip was, but he completely recalled the rough landing, bouncing down through a stack of the universe’s lost garbage. He shut his eyes to the whooshing and the brightness and braced himself (probably too early, but he didn’t think he could be too careful on this reckless endeavor).

He felt his body hit open air and gasped as he fell, trying to keep his limbs tucked in. The hat he’d been wearing was torn from his head. Didn’t matter; it wouldn’t have offered much protection anyway. At any moment, his poor elbows and knees would be battered by space junk. Between his velocity and his fear of the coming impact, Roger could hardly breathe.

Music. A familiar voice singing, It’s my soulmate! made his eyes fly open. Right in time to land on his back. Whatever was beneath Roger was soft, but he’d still had the wind knocked out of him and was struggling to fill his lungs. His eyes clamped shut as he began to cough.

“I have no idea how you survived that thing twice, but I sure am glad I caught ya.”

Finally sucking in a stronger breath, Roger opened his eyes and looked up. His glasses were askew. Above him was the opening in the ceiling of a hovering spacecraft, but closer than that, leaning over him, was the face of the Grandmaster. He was beaming.

“Any trouble with the Anus?” he asked.

Roger grabbed for the hand his soulmate had rested on his shoulder and moved it to his chest, right over his heart.

“The asshole who got me here will probably be thrilled to never see me again, but the Anus treated me just fine.”

“Ha!” the Grandmaster barked. His free hand lovingly patted Roger’s windblown hair back into place. “Welcome home.”

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Retrospective: The Gift and the Curse

Brendan Fraser has seen a resurgence lately and i love every bit of that. Dude has been one of my favorite actors for decades. I’m an Eighties kid who grew up during the Nineties so i was right there when he came onto the scene. I was a massive fan f all of his early work; Bedazzled, George of the Jungle, Encino Man, Airheads, Blast from the Past, and even Monkeybone. Dude hit his stride right around the Aughts and then completely disappeared. We found out later it was because of some really f*cked up sh*t but he made it through and proved he still had with Robot Man on Doom Patrol. I’m so glad this guy got another shot at this movie star sh*t but i wanted to revisit the franchise that put him on the map: The Mummy.

The Mummy

I love this campy ass flick, man. I saw this one in the theaters because, at the time, i was super into CG. It had only been a few years since Jurassic Park blew that sh*t out the water and only a few months after The Matrix made everyone sh*t the bed. The Mummy just missed that window but it was still incredibly enjoyable. This was my Indiana Jones because i didn’t care about Indy for a long time. It’s not that they were bad movies, i was just too young to appreciate them. The Mummy came out right at the time i started to really understand why i liked cinema, what a good permanence truly was, and how beautiful a film could be. The Mummy covered almost all of those bases. Fraser did an excellent job as Rick O’Connor and Rachel Weisz stunned as Evelyn Carnahan. F*cking Evie, man. I was already a fan of Fraser but this movie made me really pay attention to Weisz and she became one of my favorite actresses. It helps tremendously that she is f*cking gorgeous! Rounding out the cast is John Hannah as Evie’s brother, Johnathan and Arnold Vosloo as the titular mummy, Imhotep. Also, i can’t not mention the scummiest of scumbags, Benny, portrayed so effortlessly by Kevin J. O'Connor.

I absolutely adore this film. It’s a not the best example of Nineties cinema, how can it be, and it’s a terrible remake of the original Universal Mummy but it does what it wants to do very well. I love the ideas and the world they built with this campy clusterf*ck. It shouldn’t work, it should be terrible, but it’s one of the funnest films i have ever seen. It has it’s issues, absolutely, but they are minor compared the non-stop action, the incredible cinematography, the dated but ambitious CG effects ,and solid performances from every principal actor. They really let Fraser do his thing and that energy carried over to the rest of the cast. Evie is every bit the bad ass as Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley but is still a very girly-girl; Something that seems to be frowned upon nowadays. Imhotep id an unrelenting, vicious antagonist who controls powers from long ago, literally willing the seven plagues of Egypt into modern times. This movie is all over the f*cking place but it worse so well and every time i see it, i have as much fun as i did way back when i was a ripened fourteen years old.

The Mummy Returns

Boy, this one suffers terrible from Sequelitis. It does nothing new and is an almost exact retread of the first film but we have new characters and a new villain in the guise of... The Scorpion King! Yes, this is the first film that titular Arachno-Monarch makes his first appearance portrayed by a very young, very beefy, and later, very poorly rendered, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson! That’s right, long before he was Franchise Viagra, way before he was punching out Dom into a stalemate in them god awful Fast flicks, The Rock got his start here, in the sequel to The Mummy and he’s f*cking terrible! Oh my god, is he bad but it works. His awful, awful, performance fits right in with the utter camp of this ridiculous franchise ans, to no one’s surprise, i loved every second of it. Now, as much as i love The Rock in this thing, i have to absolutely give it to Patricia Velasquez as Meela Nais, the physical reincarnation of Imhotep’s regicide partner and f*ck-buddy, Anck-Su-Namun. I didn’t talk about her much in the entry about The Mummy but that as mostly because she was more a plot device rather than a character. She isn’t much else in this one either but at least we got to actually see her for more than ten minutes. Plus, that fight between her and Nefertiri was f*cking glorious. Sixteen year old Smokey appreciated the f*ck out of that.

The returning cast hits their points perfectly. That chemistry never falters. Fraser, Weisz, and Hannah are exceptional together and Vosloo is, somehow, both far more menacing and hilarious at the same time. There’s this scene toward the end where he is utterly defeated and it’s the funniest sh*t i have ever seen. I also really enjoy both Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay far more in this one than the last because he gets to do sh*t finally. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was also a welcome surprise as  the muscle, Lock-Nah. Dude just kinds of stands around and i think he gets into a fight with Fehr that was pretty cool but a little trite. Obviously, as a film from the early Aughts, it has it;s problems. There’s a ton of culturally insensitive sh*t that Zoomers would probably be upset about but, you know, f*ck em. It’s like a sense f humor is illegal nowadays. That said, having Rachel Weisz, as gorgeous and half-naked as she is and was, portray an Egyptian is a little much nowadays. At least Patricia Velasquez is a type of Brown? An attempt was made. This thing is a mess and i enjoy every second of it. The Mummy Returns is substantially worse that the first but, at the same time, just so batsh*t that it is equally as entertaining. But f*ck that kid, though. Every time he’s onscreen all of the good times are thrown right out the goddamn window!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I gave this one the hard pass for years. It looked like trash. Like straight up dog sh*t. This thing came out seven years after Returns and i just didn’t care. I was one hundred percent in my hipster film snob era and couldn’t be bothered. For a full f*cking decade and some change. Seriously, i just watched this thing the day before yesterday. For the first time. It was the inspiration for this retrospective because, after seeing this train wreck, i went back to check out the first two just to get the taste of dogsh*t out of my mouth. There are several changes made to the formula that immediately take me out of this film. First, and most egregiously, no more Rachel Weisz! She didn’t come back for the third. The reason behind her absence has run the gambit from vanity, to scheduling conflicts, to literally never getting a script. I don;t really care why, all i know is that her absence was felt. Maria Bello did her best but she isn’t MY Evie. Another “choice” was to age up that awful f*cking kid into an awful f*cking adult. That’s right, this is a “passing of the torch flick” and Luke Ford’s Alex O'Connell was supposed to take over the franchise going forward. That didn’t happen because this is Rick’s franchise. The Mummy would be nothing without Fraser and the at was proven when this thing tanked. It wasn’t all bad though. I really liked the new mummy, Han. They did some really fin things with his abilities and Jet Li never once phoned in an action scene. Unfortunately, even with the strength of the brand and outstanding lead performances, this thing still sucks.

I had a time with Tomb but it wasn’t like the time i had with it’s predecessors. I don’t know if it’s because I'm so much older and hardened by life but all i see is the flaws in this one. It doesn’t have the nostalgia goggles like the first two so i can’t enjoy it like i enjoy those. I just see plot holes instead of camp. Bad CG instead of rustic attempt. Poor set pieces instead of Nineties jank. Bad character writing instead of unfortunately hilarious dialogue. Tomb isn’t terrible but it ain’t good wither. It;s mediocre and i know the first two aren’t great but they’re better than whatever this wanted to be. It’s weird to see because there are a lot of great ideas here. I can see the vision that lays outside the margins and it’s frustrating. Fraser does is in his element as Rick and Li’s Han is a physical powerhouse but that’s not enough. As awesome as this movie gets when those two are on screen, literally everything around them is dismissible and i don’t understand how or why. I think a lot of the chemistry was lost when the focus was shifted to Alex from Rick and the recasting of Eve really didn’t do this film any favors. However, even with all of my frustrations, i can’t say i had a terrible time with this thing. It was entertaining, if a little bogus.

[hoodoo12]

Costume

This month’s prompt on our discord server? “Costume”, for Hallowe’en, of course! SFW, Beetlejuice/gender neutral reader.

@beetlewise-and-pennyjuice @thewolfisapartofmysoul @janitor-boy @turtlepated @angelicspaceprince

Enjoy! `

You’d never have expected being invited to a Halloween costume party would be such a problem.

A problem shaped like a pestering, jealous ghost-demon named Beetlejuice. “I wanna go! Why can’t I go! You’re leaving me for a whole evening to have fun and I have to sit here and twiddle my thumbs?! You’re going to leave me in the dark in an empty house and I never get to do anything!” His whining was amazing, and not in the good way. “You could take me! We can do a couple’s costume! Like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, or you can be a brick, and I can go as a brick layer!”

You couldn’t help but snort in laughter at his suggestions, as raunchy as the second one had been. “Or, or--you know those horse costumes? We could do that! I could be the back half, because I like holding onto your butt--” “And also because you’re an ass?”

The specter grinned broadly at your jab, thinking that if you were joining in on the idea, his battle was mostly won. “Beej, sweetheart,” you said, patting his cheek, “the answer is no. No one’ll be able to see you, so a couple’s costume just isn’t going to work. I’m sorry.” His expressive face fell. You were pretty sure that if he could control not just the color of his hair but how much it stuck up, it would have drooped in a dramatic, cartoonish way as well. 

“Fine,” he muttered sadly. “I mean, people could see me if you just, I don’t know, said my name a few times or whatever, but it’s okay, I’ll just stay here with the dust and spiders and wait in the dark for you to come back . . .” He turned to go, shoulders sloping dejectedly, and shook off your hand when you tried to take his wrist to attempt to make him feel better. 

⁂

You actually had no idea what to dress as. Everything was too cutesy or overdone or trite. When watching those Bly Manor and Truth Seekers shows on streaming, however, something clicked into place. You could go as a plague doctor! And not only that, since Beetlejuice bragged about living through the Black Plague, he’d have firsthand knowledge of it and them and could assist making it authentic!

Excitedly, you told him your idea. Although he was still a bit crestfallen, he of course preened a little when you asked for his help and promised to give you all the details he could to make it the best plague doctor around. He went so far as to bring you an authentic beaked mask from . . . somewhere, which he proudly tried to thrust into your hands. Gingerly you accepted it, but tried to keep only the very tips of your fingers in contact with the leather. The clear glass for its eyes made it look more than slightly creepy. 

“I’m not going to . . . catch anything from this, right? You didn’t get it out of a festering plague pit . . . ?” “Nah,” he replied dismissively. “I mean, yeah, it’s from a grave, but it’s super old so anything infectious should be gone, I’m pretty sure.”

One thing he’d never claimed to be was a doctor or infectious disease expert, so although you accepted his suspect contribution, you cleaned it inside and out with bleach. And tossed it in the microwave to nuke any possibly remaining microbes, for good measure. 

You procured a black coat and hat on your own. Beetlejuice also dug up a black cane--telling you that the doctors used them to poke at people so they could examine them without getting too close--with a silver wolf’s head as a handle. You joked that that was a prop for the Wolfman but accepted it anyway.   He also gleefully shoved so many aromatics into the beak it made your eyes water when you finally tried it on. “Thanks, Beej,” you praised as you tried to breathe through your mouth. “Wow. There’s a lot in here, huh? What is that, pine needles?” “Juniper, cloves, and camphor! Some mint too.”

“Uh-huh,” you croaked. You were going to have to grab some tissues to wipe your running nose and watery eyes during this party. “Okay, I’ll see you later.” “Have a good time!” he called after you, and you were glad he’d gotten over his disappointment. 

⁂

You knew the people who’d invited you to the party tended to go all out for Halloween, and this year was no exception. It wasn’t Martha Stewart, but it wasn’t professional haunted attraction either. They’d filled their house with lots of skeletons and spiders, pictures that changed based on which angle you looked at them, a soundtrack that low enough to not impede conversations but was filled with creaks, moans, and shrieks, and a buffet spread filled with treats made to look gory. 

Everyone was in costume, of course, from those same generic ones available at Halloween stores to homemade cosplay of movie slashers. A hush rippled out like a stone thrown into water when you walked through the front door, even as you called hello to your friends. The party-goers turned to gawk at you.

Gradually people returned to their conversations, and some people returned greetings. You grinned behind your mask; it was good to make an unexpected first impression. 

Wandering through the party, you slowly became aware that few people sought you out, and when you tried to engage with others, they were polite but seemed anxious to get away. More than once you caught people glancing over their shoulders at you as they left you. It also became apparent that people gave you a berth as you walked through the house, even at the table spread with food and drink. At first it was kind of cool, like you were this mysterious being, but then it devolved into being a little weird. It had to be because of the aromatics Beetlejuice had stuffed to the brim inside the beak. “I’m sorry about the smell,” you apologized to anyone who would listen. “I just went a little overboard on it being authentic.”

You followed that apology with a little self-depreciating chuckle. 

It didn’t make people seem more comfortable around you. 

Unable to mingle, feeling like a bit of an outcast--maybe like a real plague doctor--you didn’t stay at the party long. Walking home along streetlight lit sidewalks, you had the same effect on anyone else out: veering to give you room, furtive glances back at you once they were passed. 

There was no way you stunk that bad.

Sighing, you slowed down a little. Although there was a chill in the air, you were getting this hat and mask off your face. Maybe you could dump the herbs and whatnot in a garbage can, and reduce the stench. Your nose could use some fresh air anyway. 

You happened to stop in front of a closed store’s window. As you grabbed your hat to yank it off your head, you glanced at your reflection and yelped in surprise. 

It was you in a plague doctor’s costume, but nightmarishly extreme. Your coat--just a cheap plain coat you found at a thrift store, was smeared along the sleeves and hem with something that looked tacky and black, like old blood. Like your coat had been dragging along the floor of a slaughterhouse, and like you’d been wrist deep in something gory. The rest of the fabric looked moldy and stained and threadbare on the elbows. As if that wasn’t bad enough, your mask--

It was authentic, obviously, but the leather seemed to have molded smoothly to your face. The glass in the eyeholes didn’t show your eyes at all; instead, pinpricks of light, the reflection of an animal’s eyes, shone out. 

Everything that looked back at you in the glass looked evil, depraved, and unsettling. The effect was overtly chilling, even as you knew you were looking at yourself. 

You ran the rest of the way to your place. “Beetlejuice!” you shouted, throwing open the door so had it bounced back at you from the wall it hit. He sauntered in from the kitchen. “Heya babes! How’d the party go? I was just here, making rice krispie treats--the kitchen’s a bit of a war zone right now--is marshmallow difficult to get off the ceiling?”

“What did you do?!”

“I told you--I was making rice krispie treats--” “I mean what did you do to my costume!”

The specter stopped, and grinned. “Did you like it? Did everyone like it? I think the pièce de résistance was that faint whiff of rot. You really have to concentrate to smell it, but once you do, you can’t unsmell it--”

You gaped at that disgusting revelation and resisted the urge to grab him by the sharp labels of his striped coat and shake him; he’d see that as playtime. Through gritted teeth, you repeated, “What did you do to my costume?!”

“I made it authentic. Just like you asked,” he shrugged innocently.

Squeezing your eyes closed, you counted to ten, actually making it only to four. Your jaw hurt from clenching it so hard, but you didn’t loosen it much to say sarcastically, “And the way my eyes look? Is that authentic? Did plague doctors have creepy shiny eyes?”

He laughed. “Oh. That. Yeah, that was some artistic license. Just to give it some flair.”

A worn coat splattered with unnameable gore, the stench of random herbs plus decay, a mask that was already unsettling and silver eyes for some “flair” . . . this time you did make it to a count of ten, and released the tension in your jaw this time. He was only trying to help. He had provided the expertise you asked for, and he just took it too far because he was nothing if not over the top.

“We should’ve just done the horse costume,” Beetlejuice advised. “Want a rice krispie?”

You glared at him, but couldn’t stay too mad too long. Shrugging out of the coat, you said, “Yes. Take this costume out and bury it or burn it or something. You tricked, and I’ll have a treat.”

“That’s my babe,” he grinned, and took the disgusting outfit off your hands.  

fin!

[thankskenpenders]

So, about the movie...

At long last, a week after it came out, I was finally able to see the Sonic movie. The Daytona 500 being held across the street from my favorite theater and conflicting work schedules had been keeping me away, but now I’ve finally seen it. And it was...

Decent!

Which is way, way, way, way, way better than a movie with this awful premise has any right being. That’s for damn sure. I enjoyed my time at the theater. I don’t know how they did it, but they did it. If you like Sonic and haven’t already seen it, you will probably get a kick out of this film. If you don’t like Sonic (or Jim Carrey), there is very little in this movie for you

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to break that whole movie down. This will contain full spoilers for the Sonic movie

This movie kinda gave me deja vu because it’s set up so similarly to the Bumblebee movie. Both open with a slavishly faithful CGI sequence on another planet to ensure long time fans that the creative team gives a shit, but a conflict sends the title character to Earth. There, they form an emotional bond with the human lead as they’re pursued by the bad guys, who are working with the US government and tracking the energy signature of the title character. This setup worked extremely well for Bumblebee, because it’s so similar to the usual plot of Transformers. For Sonic, it was... a mixed bag. But it worked better than I expected

(This shot does not happen in the movie.)

That opening though, huh? Green Hill Zone looked great, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they did, in fact, use the Hyper Potions track from Sonic Mania in the actual film. (The piano rendition of the Green Hill theme used later was also lovely.) Longclaw was also interesting. I’ve seen one person bring up all the bird-themed ruins in Sonic 1 and 2 as a possible source of inspiration for the character, and I think that’s a valid take. And man, the echidnas! I wasn’t expecting that AT ALL. I guess that was probably the Knuckles Clan or something? I would never, ever picture them being alive during Sonic’s lifetime, but like... I guess Knuckles had to come from somewhere, right? If they do another movie with Knuckles, will the rest of his kind have died out?

Sadly, though, this sequence felt like it was over in a heartbeat. We barely see Sonic’s life on his home planet, and we’re expected to feel emotional over Longclaw’s sacrifice when she only gets like three lines before Sonic is sent to Earth. This is a common theme with the film--it goes for these big emotional beats that it just does not earn with its rapid fire pacing

Anyway, then we fast forward and Sonic’s a teen. This is actually kind of an interesting one if you’re constantly neck deep in Sonic Character Analysis like me, because it’s a pretty different take on the character. It’s hard to give them credit for doing something somewhat fresh with the character, though, because like... how much of that was intentional, and how much was just Hollywood writers trying to squeeze a generic action-adventure movie out of Sonic? (Honestly, it’s probably mostly the latter.)

The closest other piece of Sonic media to the movie would probably be Sonic X, a story in which Sonic isn’t really the protagonist. The Sonic of the anime is fairly emotionally distant. He cares deeply about his friends, and does nice things for them, but he’s totally fine with running off on his own for extended lengths of time, and he doesn’t really talk about his feelings. He’s not the character the audience is meant to sympathize with, but is instead this cool older kid who Chris wants to impress. This is pretty much in line with how Sega likes to depict the character. He cares about his friends, but he’s also cool with being a loner. It feels like he only runs into them incidentally, usually when Eggman is causing trouble, and then when the crisis of the week is taken care of he’s back to going on his own adventures. There’s a reason why one of his catchphrases is “long time no see”

The Sonic of the movie is the polar opposite. His main conflict is that he’s lonely and desperately seeks friendship. He’s also an overly-eager, extremely earnest goober. He literally flosses twice. (Which I loved.) I’ve seen him compared to Silver, and honestly, that’s not a bad comparison. I did like it, though! I don’t mind Sonic being a more emotionally open character, like he was in a lot of older Western media. I mean, he cried in like the second or third episode of SatAM

It’s just that, like many things in the movie, it feels less like a deliberate creative choice and more like a logical string of decisions to make when writing a generic action-adventure film for general audiences. Sonic’s the only one of his kind on Earth, so of course he’d be lonely. He has to have some sort of arc for audiences to connect with him, and if he’s gotta be accompanied by James Marsden for the whole movie, well, his arc’s gotta be about them becoming friends

I’ve gotta say, though: Ben Schwartz is great as Sonic. As much as I like Roger Craig Smith, I wouldn’t complain if he became the new main voice of the character. And thanks to the redesign, he looked great. I can’t imagine how nightmarish this movie would’ve been if Sonic wasn’t cute

My main fear with this movie, though, was that Sonic wouldn’t really be the protagonist. As a fan of Transformers, I know all too well that the cost of doing a full CGI character usually means that said character can’t really be the star of the film. Optimus and Bumblebee aren’t the stars of the Transformers movies--they’re supporting characters who are primarily present for the sake of the action scenes. The humans are the real stars in those movies, and the robots are barely even characters. I was terrified that Sonic would be the same, with the actual character I paid to see taking a backseat to James Marsden The Cop

I’m not quite sure if they struck the right balance there, but they did better than I worried they would. Sonic is central enough to the film and gets enough screentime that you can easily say he’s the protagonist. BUT there is absolutely too much of Tom and his family. The human cast is fine, the performances are fine, and there were a few good jokes, but every time the movie tried to get me to care about Tom’s life I was bored out of my mind. It’s just so trite and passionless. The other characters barely felt fleshed out at all, including Tom’s girlfriend (wife?) and Agent Stone. The little girl who gives Sonic the shoes had some cute moments, though

I do, however, love the part in which James Marsden is walking around in a San Francisco t-shirt, to remind us that he’s planning on moving to San Francisco... which then becomes the excuse for Sonic to think about San Francisco and accidentally send his warp rings there, which becomes the excuse for the buddy road trip aspect of the film. And as much as that was a focus of the marketing, the actual road trip part is like... maybe 20 minutes of the movie? There’s like three scenes with Sonic and Tom on the road and then they’re in San Francisco for act 3. The movie tries to act like they’ve formed this deep bond and I just did not give a shit. I don’t care about the cop. All Cops Are Bastards, and that absolutely includes Tom, whose dream in life is to join the extremely corrupt San Francisco PD

The whole excuse for Sonic having to sit in the passenger seat of a car going the speed limit for a good chunk of the movie is also, just. Stupid. If he doesn’t know where San Francisco is and time is of the essence, just... give him a map?

And then there’s Jim Carrey. I was worried about this one. The previews tended to highlight his most Jim Carrey Being Wacky moments, and as fond as I am of movies like The Truman Show and Bruce Almighty, that’s just. That’s not Robotnik. I was pleasantly surprised by the actual movie, though! I thought he was pretty good. I’m not sure what incarnation of Eggman I’d most compare him to, but like... it was close enough, and he was entertaining enough. I’d pay to go see another movie with him as Robotnik. Sure. (Especially with how he was looking at the end of the film.)

There were some other little interesting tidbits here with Eggman, although again, a lot of that is less “let’s do a new take on Eggman” and more “let’s do a marketable movie with Eggman in it, which requires us to explain some stuff.” Like him straight up just being a normal human from Earth, with none of the confusion present in the current “two worlds” canon of the games. Or him apparently being an orphan who was bullied in school, and who trusts machines more than other humans. It’s a safe way to depict the character in a Hollywood movie, but I thought it worked

The way they got to his nickname was kind of funny, though. Like, obviously they didn’t put Jim Carrey in a fat suit, and thank god for that. So instead of mocking his weight, the nickname is derived from the egg-shaped robots he uses. Which made sense, I guess. It at least felt logical for this incarnation of Sonic, who had annoyingly been calling Tom “Donut Lord” the whole movie, to make up the nickname “Eggman.” (Said robots, by the way, were a weak point of the movie to me. They just didn’t have that Eggman whimsy and felt very safe and very Hollywood. Honestly, though, if they had just made Robotnik’s ship grey and slapped some hazard stripes on it, it’d probably be fine.)

As a whole, I thought the humor of the movie was... okay. Sonic had a lot of good moments thanks to Schwartz’s great performance, as did Robotnik. There were just so many weird lines, like James Marsden telling Robotnik that he was breast fed, or the agonizingly long child trafficking joke with Sonic in the duffel bag. Stuff like that

The action was great, though. They definitely owe a lot to the Quicksilver scene in that one X-men movie (I forget the one), but they had a lot of fun with Sonic’s powers and it felt extremely true to the character. Seeing him do one of his Smash poses during the San Francisco fight was great. The action scenes were an absolute delight

And then the ending. Oh, that ending

So, I had already heard that Tails shows up in the stinger before I saw the film. And when I heard that, I expected it to be like, the classic Tails origin story. Maybe Sonic would return to his planet, and run into this precocious kid who decides to follow him around... but no! Not at all! Tails is already the Tails we know and love. He’s already an inventor, he’s already tracking down Sonic. I’m shocked that Sonic actually stayed with Tom instead of running off to have new adventures, but hopefully this is a sign that more characters will be brought into the fray if they make a sequel

And boy, they better make that damn sequel. This movie had a great opening weekend and a positive reception. They have no excuse not to. GIVE US SONIC AND TAILS GOING ON AN ADVENTURE

Other stray thoughts

Holy shit they put Sanic in the movie

The Sega logo animation meant that Kiryu from Yakuza was in this movie for a few seconds

The pixel art credits sequence, which featured both the Sonic 2 special stage and Get Blue Spheres as well as the Eggman logo screens from the Studiopolis Zone boss, was cute

The Saturn logo could be seen on the diagram of the other habitable planets

Robotnik had a label for “Badniks” on his circuit breaker. I wonder if the drones in the movie are intended to be Badniks, or if we’ll see actual ones if a sequel gets made

Also, was it implied that Robotnik committed war crimes for the US government

One of the government guys who I think only got one line was played by Garry Chalk and as such sounded exactly like Optimus Primal

I can’t tell if Sonic getting a red race car bed was an intentional shout out to the Archie comics or if it’s just a coincidence, but I loved it

A dude about my age wearing a Sonic Mania t-shirt literally stood up and clutched his head in shock when Tails showed up

After the movie a very excited kid got his mom to take his photo with the Sonic display in the lobby. Afterwards he was so excited that he flossed

I can’t believe they talked about Olive Garden so much

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Grisly, Grim and a Fucking Delight: Feedback Review

TRIGGER WARNING: Torture, rape, daytime radio DJs. Don’t blame me, that’s just what’s in the movie.

Wow. Wow and a half. Wow and a half between two slices of thick white whoa. What a fucking movie. I’d say something like ‘they don’t make ‘em like that any more’, but they clearly do, because Feedback only came out a few years ago. I am astonished that I didn’t hear about it until tonight. You see, I was looking for an epic, slow-burn thriller to watch with my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, and I came across this little British movie about a radio talk-show host getting trapped in his studio when a bunch of masked psychos invade the premises. “Neat!” I thought upon reading the synopsis and watching the advert. “It’s Diehard but without schlubby, sarcastic Brits instead of overblown yanks.” As it turns out, I was wrong. Feedback is not an enjoyable but ultimately inconsequential gas pocket of a movie: it’s actually one of the most tense, conceptually horrifying and incendiary pieces of cinema- nay, Cinema with a capital C- that I’ve ever had the good fortune to witness. The more I think about it, the more impressed and enamoured I become. Unfortunately, in order to explain why, I’m going to have to spoil the whole freaking thing. For those of you who actually watch movies based on my recommendations (which would be, maybe, like two of you?) I’ll give you a nice non-spoilery recommendation right now: the acting is on-point, the plot is serpentine but not in a pretentious way, every prop and narrative element is used to maximum effect, the atmosphere gets tenser and tenser without ever letting you catch your breath and it’s exactly as long as it needs to be: there’s nothing missing and not an ounce of spare meat on it. It’s a lean, nasty predator of a movie and, if you let it, it will pin you down and rip out your jugular. I’ve only ever described one other movie as ‘transcendent’- a little psychological horror called The Perfection. Well, Feedback gets that exact same sticker but for completely different reasons. If you’re going to watch it- and you should- stop reading this review right now and go do it. It’s amazing.

And now for the spoilers. Consider this more of an analysis than a review. You see, the film reveals early on that the masked psychos invading the studio aren’t just randos with a political or philosophical axe to grind. They have beef with the radio host (whose name is Jarvis, incidentally. You don’t see enough Jarvises, either in real life or in movies. It’s a fun name and grossly underused, but I digress). You see, they think Jarvis’s friend raped a woman, killed another woman and beat the shit out of her boyfriend… and they think Jarvis knows all about it and may even have been involved. They force Jarvis to extract a confession from his friend early on and then kill him live on air, meaning that the rest of the film is devoted to a battle of wills between them and Jarvis as they try to force him to admit complicity, again live on air. Along the way, it’s also revealed that they aren’t just crusaders: they’re survivors of the incident and relatives thereof. Now, from the moment all these pieces were in place, I watched with an expectation of being disappointed. You see, I thought I knew what I was watching: Jarvis is visually and linguistically coded as am older slightly privileged but spiky elitist, so in most movies made after 2010 he’d automatically have been the bad guy (fuck me but do ageing white movie directors love to pretend they’re ‘woke’), while the people attacking him are visually and linguistically coded as youngish (except in one case) and victims, meaning that, in most movies, they would automatically be the good guys (hey, everyone loves an underdog, right?). I assumed I was watching one of those films. You know the ones I mean. One of those oh-so-clever ones that gets you to connect with and root for a character then reveals that he’s a shit-bag and punishes him and- by extension- you the viewer for taking his side. That was clever once, but I’ve now seen it on at least eight separate occasions, and it’s become trite. It’s particularly irksome because the victim-coded characters always get a free pass for their own shenanigans: they can murder, torture, brutalise and dehumanise but it’s always okay because something bad once happened to them. Frankly, I thought that’s what I was in for. Luckily. I was super wrong. That’s like regular wrong, only sexier and with sharper graphics.

You see, Feedback is way too smart to go for a black-and-white good-victims-versus-evil-central-character narrative. Instead, it’s a film about dehumanisation… or is it? You’ll see what I mean. In order to force Jarvis to admit complicity, his assailants don’t just fuck with him and his friend: they straight-up murder an innocent bystander and threaten to murder someone close to the protagonist. They hurt and do terrible things to Jarvis and the people around him, using torture methods that would make fucking ISIS throw up its hands and go ‘steady on, bruv’. They have a version of events that they’re convinced of but have only one unreliable character’s word for and Jarvis has a version of events that they refuse, point-blank, to believe. Jarvis’s story does begin to alter, but it’s never really apparent if he’s actually done something or if he’s just saying he has in order to keep the people around him (and himself) alive. Meanwhile, the ringleader of the little troop trying to extract a confession from Jarvis might be victim, but it also becomes apparent that she’s an unhinged psychopath intent on spilling as much blood as possible for her own personal sense of satisfaction and has as much interest in justice as a black hole has in the history of the stars it swallows up. Hooray! Some fucking moral ambiguity in a movie! I thought the entire industry had just forgotten how to fucking do that!

Much to my delight, Feedback doesn’t stop there. Merely by forcing the audience to make up their own minds about what they think happened and who’s actions are most justified, Feedback is already introducing a level of sophistication alien to modern cinema. But then it goes one step further by also subverting narrative expectations. You see, in a bleak, introspective, what-monsters-are-we-all flick like this, you expect the antagonists’ plan to succeed: you expect the last shot to be of the protagonist broken by the moral blankness of his reality, sitting in the wreckage of his life, unsure of whether he deserves what has happened to him or not. And that would have been a perfectly acceptable way to end this movie. But it doesn’t end like that. Because Jarvis is that rarest of things: a competent and determined dude. He’s not a superhuman. He doesn’t have special training. The flick doesn’t turn into an action movie or anything ridiculous. Jarvis just refuses to accept the bullshit happening to him and systematically works through every possible strategy to extricate himself without caving and admitting culpability that he doesn’t feel. He tries reasoned negotiation. He tries subduing one of the assailants temporarily and using them as a bargaining chip (the minimum necessary force approach), he tries escape and, finally, when all else fails, he uses a combination of psychology, surprise and familiarity with his environment to fight back with lethal force. It’s a considered, intelligent approach and, because his assailants aren’t organised terrorists just ordinary people who may (or may not) have a legit grievance with him, it succeeds and- to cut a long story short- he kills all of them in incredibly satisfying ways. There’s a bit involving a smug, I-can-be-as-evil-as-I-like-because-I’m-a-victim character getting skewered with a pair of scissors that instantly outranks anything in the Saw or Friday the 13th franchises as one of my all-time favourite movie kills (outright all-time favourite still goes to that bit in John Wick 3 with the really creative use of a library book, but that’s off topic).

During the climatic scenes of the movie, Jarvis screams his confession, but- as I said- it might only be a tool to distract his attackers and gain the upper hand while preserving the lives of the people he cares about. Equally, though, it might not. There’s a coldness to the character at the end of the film that wasn’t there at the beginning. Has he just been changed by the trauma of recent events, or are we seeing the facade drop away to reveal the true face of ruthless monster? And here lies the film’s final genius: not only doesn’t it answer this question (ambiguity for the win!) it also seems to suggest that the answer might not matter. Jarvis didn’t prevail because he was innocent- though he might be. His attackers didn’t fail because they became as bad as the thing they sought to fight (though they did). Victory and defeat aren’t defined by moral superiority. The film doesn’t assign winners and loser based on ethical or philosophical standpoint. Jarvis wins because he knows what the fuck he’s doing and his attackers are a bunch of overemotional quarter-wits with a half-baked plan that they can’t even stick to because they get too worked up. Survival, Feedback reminds us, has everything to do with being good at things, and fuck all to do with just being good. At every turn, the film tries to convince us that it has a moral point to make. Characters talk endlessly about truth and lies, justice and injustice… but in the end, it’s all smoke and mirrors. The film doesn’t have a central moral thesis (or, if it does, it’s a profoundly nihilistic one). Its real subjects are survival and will. It’s a study of what happens when two packets of brutal, remorseless determination meet eachother coming in opposite directions. It’s a dissection of the self-preservation instinct and its only real moral is ‘don’t fuck with a smart, grimly determined guy on his home turf if all you have to bring to the table is a short fuse and a big hammer’. Maybe that shouldn’t be refreshing, but in a cinematic landscape where every movie is determined to plant its flag on one side or the other of the political or ethical spectrum, it really fucking is. The fact that it gets you to think about ethical issues and who you believe on route elevates it, but the core of the film- the thing that makes it solid- is that refreshing element of nihilism. Breathe it in, folks: we don’t get many movies like this very often.

[ponett]

i was finally able to see the bad star war that everyone said was bad. as it turns out, it was bad. here’s a read more post with my thoughts on it so that i don’t spam my twitter with spoiler tweets

for a baseline: i like the original trilogy, but i don’t think any of those movies are perfect. i think the prequels had some good ideas but i were mostly terrible. i love the clone wars (both versions) and rebels. while i admit that tfa was extremely similar to a new hope, i thought it was executed great and had a wonderful new cast that showed a ton of promise. i liked rogue one, although i found its first act really sloppy. and i have some quibbles about tlj, but it had an incredibly strong vision and actual themes, and i’d consider it my favorite in the series

i’m exactly the kind of person who was always going to hate the rise of skywalker, because it’s basically a bad fanfic written by someone who didn’t like tlj and wanted to “fix” the story. like that bizarre story treatment jenny nicholson read for this movie. the bad one. it was like that

it wasn’t all bad i guess. here are the small things i liked:

some of the new environments were cool. there was cool imagery and practical effects work

i appreciated that the moon of endor where the death star wreckage was wasn’t just the one with the ewoks, and thought the vibe there was cool

zorii bliss’s armor was really cool

the image of the fleet of star destroyers all lined up was striking

i liked that the ghost showed up for the final battle

i liked that ahsoka was one of the jedi voices rey heard, even though that kind of implies that ahsoka is, uh... dead?

while extremely fucking trite and dumb, i’ll admit the closing scene on tatooine got me. yeah, rey has no real connection to this place and it’s just a nostalgic throwback, but i’m a sucker for full circle endings like that

uh. that’s about it

this movie kicks off in the middle of an action scene and just kind of keeps jumping to new setpieces nonstop until it’s over. new characters and locations get introduced and then moved past in the blink of an eye. there’s no time to let any of it sink in. it feels like abrams crammed two movies worth of shit into this one to make up for the the fact that some people didn’t like tlj, and as a result none of it resonates. i just felt so empty throughout most of the film. events were happening on screen and none of it mattered

thoughts about individual elements:

LEIA

putting the scenes with the recycled footage of carrie fisher at the beginning of the film completely took me out of it. it was so obvious that she wasn’t really responding to what was being said, and the conversations had just been built around the limited leia lines they could use

the dialogue scenes with leia felt like a space ghost interview

C-3PO

was in this movie a lot for some reason? i guess abrams wanted to make up for how little c-3po there was in the last two movies. they tried to have that emotional moment where his memory is wiped, but then they just turned his memory loss into a big joke?? and then he got most of his memories back anyway

in general, the movie is afraid to let the audience be uncomfortable for long. 3po’s memory loss. the supposed deaths of chewbacca and babu frik, that sort of thing. you’re not allowed to be sad. after tlj so effectively built tension throughout the film and really pushed the heroes to the brink, this is a disappointment

LANDO

is here because he needed to show up, and because it’s a throwback to have him pilot the falcon again. he’s just kind of there with little to do and no arc

FINN, POE, AND ROSE

before the movie came out, i had low expectations. all i really wanted was to get one last fun adventure with the new characters. when i started to hear about the spoilers, my expectations sank even lower. but maybe i would still get this

nah! rose gets like two minutes of screentime because redditors hated her, and finn and poe are barely even characters. they don’t have arcs in this film, they’re just sidekicks on rey’s journey

finn really hurts. prior to tfa’s release, finn was framed as the new star. this was, of course, a bait and switch, as rey was really the new jedi. (finn apparently IS force sensitive according to this one, but hey! we can only have one big jedi hero, so like leia before him, i guess we’ve gotta wait for some EU novel to give finn a lightsaber)

but finn was still a central character in the last two films, and he had so much potential. he was a stormtrooper who defected! that’s something new! that’s interesting! it complicates the black and white morality of the series. but no. that’s been all but abandoned at this point

many have complained about how tfa establishes that basically all the stormtroopers are people who were kidnapped as children and brainwashed by the first order... but then they still have no qualms about gleefully killing them. in the first two movies i was like “yeah, it sucks that they have to kill those guys, but if it’s to prevent genocide, it’s understandable. that’s just war. maybe they’ll touch on it in the last movie.” so in this one, they kept reminding the audience that the stormtroopers were enslaved as children. jannah is even introduced as another stormtrooper who defected like finn. but then... it goes nowhere. finn doesn’t get any first order troops to defect. they don’t care about the other stormtroopers. how many hundreds of thousands of enslaved soldiers did they kill when they blew up those star destroyers

it was nice to see finn and poe take the charge as leaders in the end, but it also feels like they didn’t take the lessons from tlj to heart. the whole point of that story was that one-in-a-million shot heroic suicide missions aren’t worth it, and that they’re more useful to the resistance alive than they are as martyrs. but then in the climax of this film they take like 30 ships to go fight a fleet of a hundred fucking star destroyers

on the subject of that final battle: i thought that the ending of tlj was so powerful. the resistance was decimated, but they still had hope, because they knew there were others out there who could help. people like rey, or the broom boy, who came from nothing but had good hearts. in this one, though, they say that apparently nobody responded to the leia’s call for help in the entire year since the last film. everyone only shows up during the climax after lando’s like “no, but for real guys, we need help”

and i did think that that sequence was cool. and i did like seeing the ghost among the ships. it was fun. the message that fascists like the first order rule by making people feel isolated, and that they’re defeated by realizing that good people are never alone? that was good. i thought that was a strong message. but it’s such a minor footnote on a movie that’s so bad in so many other ways

oh and they made the latino dude a drug dealer. okay. thanks for that

KYLO REN

i hate that they redeemed kylo and i hate the way they did it

yes, him being coerced to turn to the dark side by snoke (who was apparently just a puppet controlled by palpatine all along (UGH)) as a kid was tragic. but that doesn’t excuse his actions. kylo was given infinite second chances throughout the trilogy, and every time he responded with violence. he killed so many people himself, and willingly took part in a fascist regime that killed billions. yes, his story is sad, but he’s not some poor little boy, he’s thirty fucking years old and he vents his trauma by slaughtering innocent people

literally the entire main trio of the original trilogy died because of this asshole. han tried to talk to him in the first movie, and got stabbed and dropped into a pit. luke died astral projecting to face him in tlj. and now leia just kind of arbitrarily died to flip the switch in his brain from bad to good from across the galaxy. it’s literally as simple as that. he doesn’t have a personal journey here. he just stops being evil because his mom made him through the force

like, again. all those enslaved stormtrooper grunts who had been brainwashed since they were kids? gunned down. but giving kylo endless second chances is the most important thing in the world

and then they end the movie by having this creepy abusive stalker genocidal asshole sadboy kiss rey, retroactively framing their dynamic as a romantic one. just, gross as hell. even in this one, for most of the film, all he does is threaten rey and boss her around

i dunno. i thought the first order were interesting as antagonists. yeah, they were just the empire 2.0. but i thought it was appropriate! the idea was that just because palpatine was dead and gone didn’t mean that fascism was gone. there were still hateful people who wanted to rule the galaxy via genocide. like how we still have nazis in the 21st century. except, oops! palpatine was actually alive and pulling the strings the entire time, so now that theme’s out the window. we just have to kill him again FOR REAL this time and now the galaxy will actually be safe

people wondered where the first order would go after snoke died in tlj. but it was so obvious to me? kylo was in charge. kylo was always the most interesting bad guy. just let him call the shots and be the final adversary. but no. that wasn’t good enough. we had to bring back palpatine as the jrpg final boss to have an epic conclusion

REY

oh, poor rey. youtube critics got mad that a girl could be a strong jedi without being related to some other powerful force user from the old movies, so now she’s stuck being a palpatine forever

i will admit, the protagonist of the new movies being related to palpatine but still being a good person in spite of her heritage... that could have been something. but it’s so clearly not what they had in mind from the start, and it spits in the face of the last movie’s themes. it turns out greatness CAN’T come from anywhere. it has to come from one of these select few Special Bloodlines

oh! and this ALSO reframes rey’s parents abandoning her and selling her into slavery as an act of kindness, because they had to hide her from her spooky evil grandpa. so THAT’S fun. (edit: OH! and luke and leia knew about rey the whole time!!! and didn’t go out and look for her!!!!)

it’s just. it’s so bad what they did to rey. i don’t know if i even have much to elaborate on there, everyone’s already said how stupid it is

---

overall, i still wouldn’t say it’s the WORST star wars movie. it’s more watchable than the phantom menace, that’s for damn sure. the actors put in effort. the sets and practical effects are nice. it’s just so... empty

tros possibly feels the closest to how i imagined the new trilogy would be when it was first announced, but in a bad way. a movie built entirely on established ideas of What Star Wars Is with nothing new to bring to the table. it’s like a bad eu novel. just recycled imagery, cameos from characters we already know, palpatine coming back from the dead, that sort of thing. it’s a movie made by committee to appease reddit. it’s nothing

now i gotta use that free trial of disney plus to watch the mandalorian and wash the taste out of my mouth i guess

[thenightling]

My scatter-brained review of Wonder Woman 1984 (written partly while watching and then revised afterward)

I finally got curious enough to watch Wonder Woman 1984.  

Warning: There ARE spoilers here! 

I was reluctant to watch it because I knew the plot would deal with wishes coming true “But at a price” and Wonder Woman’s love coming back as a result of this plot Magoffin. This is something I have seen many times before.   And frankly I was bored with it years ago. 

 The predictable plot beats being a “Be careful what you wish for” theme.  The Monkey’s Paw (and all adaptations of the story) and variations like The Twisted Claw in “Are you Afraid of the Dark?” It was obvious to me that such a wish would bring Steve back and he would eventually “have to “ return to being dead. Frankly, I’m tired of that.  I think a great twist would be if the person didn’t have to return to being dead for once.  I’ve seen this plot done too often in comics, TV, and film.

Now for the good.  I LOVE the early 80s aesthetic.  I even got a bit of Legend of Billie Jean vibes.  It’s very accurate to the look and feel of a 1980s film.  It felt authentic, not just “Hey, remember this!”    

Nineteen minutes in and I saw the ham-handed tell-tale signs that Diana would have to learn to love again, to trust and open her heart, and to invite others in again.  And to heal she would have to “learn to let go” of Steve.  But as I said, I’m tired of these grief messages. Especially now, especially in 2020.  I want a new twist . I want the lost loved one to come back, I want the happily ever after with the formerly dead loved one.  I’m tired of this trope.

They even out-right compare it to “The Monkey’s Paw” story in the film.  Acknowledging that something is a cliché doesn’t make it any less of a cliché. You’re just trying to lampshade it by pointing it out in story and it just didn’t really work for me.

The “Dreamstone” in this does not look like Morpheus’ ruby amulet but instead it resembles the “ruby” (this one is a citrine) from Justice League Dark (the animated movie).  And no, the God mentioned is NOT Morpheus.  The God in question is a “trickster and a liar.”  Gee, I wonder who that could be?   I suspect the “true name” wasn’t given because they were afraid of confusion with Marvel’s depiction of the same character.  A lot of people don’t realize Loki is in the public domain.  Even Joanne Harris (author of Gospel of Loki) thinks her book can’t be adapted into film because Marvel / Disney owns Loki but that’s not true.  The character is as public as Snow White or Robin Hood.  Anyone can use him. 

There’s some subtle hints of Diana’s bisexuality.   I’m glad for this, I still come across fans who refuse to accept she’s bi and insist word of author (Gail Simone) don’t count because she didn’t “create” Wonder Woman.  The same people should REALLY look up the behind the scenes life of the man who did.  Anyway, I almost thought Diana lean in and kiss Barbara after the rescue in the park but she didn’t.

Maxwell Lord offers Diana a nineteen inch TV.  Note to kids: that is NOT big even by 80s standards.  We did have large screen TVs back then. My grandfather had a very big one back in the 80s.

I also really like the soundtrack.   

When the camera spun around Diana and Steve’s reunion it made me dizzy.   I don’t like that effect.   It’s so common with romantic scenes but I found it dizzying.  Flashbacks of the film Legend of Hercules from 2014... 

The dreamstone in this appears to have been made of sand all along so maybe it is one of Dream of The Endless’ dreamstones after all.  But that’s the only hint to even suggest this.

When Steve shows up, it’s like the writers forgot modern history.  He shouldn’t be THAT impressed with an escalator or a a subway.  Subways were already in existence when he died! The New York City subway, for example, opened in 1904.  And he knows what trash cans are!  I know that was meant to be funny but that’s stupid.  He’s from the early twentieth century, not five-hundred-years-ago.

How did Maxwell Lord know Steve Trevor was inhabiting someone else’s body but didn’t know for certain Barbara had made a wish?  Does he just know everything the stone touched or does he sense the desires of others?  How did he know to suggest “Don’t you want to be a real boy?” with Steve?

Steve’s fate was painfully predictable, so much so that I felt nothing when she had to let him go.   See, these “realistic” / “have to stay” dead plots they’re shoe-horning into comic stories are now done so often that they are trite.  You know what’s coming.  You know what they want you to feel and you (or I, at least) went numb instead.  I think I would have felt more if she somehow got to keep him . But the fact that he wasn’t even in his own body was the first clue that my prediction was right.

Finally, I actually really like how they resolved the Maxwell Lord (Trump-esque) plot and his character arc.   It was very late in the story that they decided to show a sympathetic side to him, and flashbacks of his upbringing and I feel it should have been done earlier in the film but it still worked.  I like that love for his son is what saved everyone.  I am a sucker for a redemption story.  

  I like the themes of love and hope even though I still resent the predictability of what happened with Steve Trevor and the hamhanded “She needed to learn to move on” part.

The Steve plot was the weakest part of the story, in my opinion.   But as far as superhero movies go this was decent . It wasn’t boring and the morals weren’t too preachy.  Sure, it had some corny and predicable moments (Not just with Steve Trevor) but in general it was enjoyable to watch.   

I don’t think it was as good as the first Wonder Woman movie but I do like it more than most of the Marvel sequels so that says something.   I’d like it a lot more if the Steve Trevor plot wasn’t even in there or had a new and interesting twist rather than the “You have to learn to let me go.”  As I said, I’m tired of death.  I’m tired of grief plots.  And I’m tired of how predictable this new obsession with perma-deaths in comic book-inspired stories has become.  

I’d say the film is a seventy nine out of a hundred for me, maybe three and a half out of five stars.  Not the best superhero film and definitely not as good as the first Wonder Woman movie but still better than many other superhero movie sequels.   

Also a certain outfit was added to the movie shamelessly to sell a new action figure.  Even kids know the trick.  A superhero movie gets a sequel, that means the hero has to get some new costume, or their look has to change in some way, just to sell a new action figure distinctly from this movie and not the first.  Marvel did this all the time. Loki went through three distinct outfits for three films.  

I loved Lynda Carter’s cameo in the end credits bonus scene for her.  That was the perfect role to her and very respectful to her legacy as having been the 1970s Wonder Woman.   That was one of the nicest and most respectful “original actor” cameos I had ever seen. 

Something else, I kind of wish the films would reveal the Greek Gods aren’t dead.  It really bugs me that they have implied since the first Wonder Woman movie that all the Greek Gods are dead / gone.   Then why do things imbued with their power still work?   I wish Hollywood would be more respectful to the old lore and polytheistic beliefs that many people (such as Neo pagans) still have.

Anyway, good.  Not great.   But still god and better than a lot of other superhero sequels and still better than more than half of DC’s other films of the last ten years.    

[sasskarian]

Fanfic Masterpost ... sort of

In honor of Fanfic Appreciation, I put together a list of my fics for anyone who’d like to look 

Under the cut, because length

Dragon Age:

After the Glitter Fades (Glitterverse):  Hawke x Fenris, modern AU. (Long fic, WIP) Hawke and Fenris are movie stars in a torrid love affair. Fenris has a mysterious past. Also Cassandra is investigating a murder mystery? Varric, as ever, is a delight. (*this is borrowed from @nug-juggler‘s excellent and shorter summary!)

Memorable quote:   Fenris observed candidly was something sacred. For a moment, Hawke fiercely wished she were an artist. The scene in front of her was too… every word she could think of— beautiful, elegant, breathtaking— was trite, a pale description of perfection. 

In the Heart of the Woods: Lavellan x Fairbanks rarepair. (WIP) Inquisitor Lavellan’s heart is broken by a certain Commander, Fairbanks has an appreciation for her, and a love story blooms like elfroot in the Emerald Graves.

Memorable quote:   This kiss, she thinks, two mouths moving in perfect unison, is a spell of its own. Not quite love, not yet, but close enough she can pretend it is. Hope wells up, a solid thrum beating in counterpoint to her heart, and for one perfect moment, the world just bows down and… stands still. All that exists, all that ever has existed or ever will exist is wrapped up right here, right now, in Fairbanks’ lips on hers. Motes of dust turn golden in the sunbeams splashing through the roof, and a touch— his thumb, her cheek— says a million more words than words ever could.

Yesterdays: Surana x Zevran, mild Surana x Alistair pining. Post Origins, complete. A Warden’s sacrifice means something only as long as someone remembers it. A king looks back, balancing regrets with happiness.

Memorable quote:   With a half-sob, he realizes he’s forgotten the sound of her voice. Oh, he remembers how it made him feel, all those years ago, all the glorious, shining moments where happiness dwells still. But what she truly sounded like, what sounds she made as she buried herself in books, the snap of her magic, the low buzz of her and Zevran whispering in their tent, all of that is gone. He knows it happened, but the memory is lit dimly in his mind, a torch burned too low to be flame but not low enough for embers yet.

If You Ever Did Believe (for my sake):  Lavellan x Cullen. (On temporary hiatus) A wary Commander. A lost Dalish mage. Two hearts beating alone and exhausted on a battlefield, their only rest coming from each other.

Memorable quote:   “Does your Maker hate us so much?” Isera asked bitterly, and for a moment, Cullen felt as though years had rippled, bringing his past self— still clanking through the halls of Kinloch Hold in Templar plate— and his current together. He’d asked Ser Greagoir the same question once, after a Harrowing went wrong and the body of a former apprentice lay at their feet. So much potential wasted, so much fear in the mages’ eyes after that. For once, Greagoir had shown a hint of emotion, clapping Cullen’s shoulder briefly before walking away, but hadn’t answered.

Voiceverse:  Lavellan x Solas/Dread Wolf. (WIP) Building off of the great works of @khirsahle and @athreehundredthirtythree. All mages are born with a soulmate--a voice they hear in the darkness of the Fade all their lives. The lucky ones find their soulmates and forge a bond strong enough to threaten the very foundations of the Chantry. At least, that's what they claim. So what happens when a Dalish mage hears the voice of their most reviled and feared god shaping her dreams? 

Memorable quote:   Accompanying the thundering voice, great fissures ruptured around her hiding spot, green light streaking upward as they gathered into a roiling cloud. A wave of raw sound— howls, cries, pleas— rolled over her, forcing her to her knees. Iveani clapped her hands over her ears, losing her own scream among the agony thundering through the Fade. All caution, all her hard-won lessons about walking the Fade, vanished into the back of her mind under the need to simply ride out the explosion and survive.

Mass Effect:

Home is Where You Are: Ryder x Jaal (WIP). Ryder didn’t cross two galaxies and 600 years in search of love. But damn if she didn’t find it anyway.

Memorable quote:   “I should take a shower,” he mumbled, as the same time as Sara said, “Would you like to stay?” Both of them broke off, staring at the other, and she laughed nervously. That feeling was back, the one from the tech lab, fragility and strength and affection turned fierce and bright tumbling over and over one other.

A Song of Sea and Stars: Garrus x Shepard x Thane (WIP). Our favorite turian badboy sees right through the mask the galaxy’s most famous Commander projects. Neither of them expected to fall in love on a host of impossible missions. And both are taken by surprise by a pious Drell who steals both their hearts.

Memorable quote:   (He opens his eyes, shocked how it feels to look into her face, intimate and hungry. He hazily notices that up close, her eyes are thulium-gray. There's a hot, tight knot in his chest and she's pressed so close, he thinks he could count each faint freckle on her face.) (They look like tiny stars.) (…there are twenty-eight on her right cheek. Thirty on her left. And fourteen, right across the bridge of her nose.) (Those are his favorite. They remind him of his own markings.)

the sound of shattering glass: Generic Shepard, post-Tuchanka, pre-Citadel II. The Shroud explodes, taking a beloved friend with it. Shepard only has herself to blame.

Memorable quote:   “Damn Reapers,” he said, striving for nonchalance. “Always throwing us around.” “Banged us up pretty good,” she agreed, and he knew she wasn’t talking about their bumps and bruises. “So what do we do about them?” “Get back on our feet. Keep fighting.” Garrus hummed as she shifted closer, pressed her forehead against his neck. “Maybe find a way to use some really big canons I spend half my time adjusting.”

Star Wars:

He Might Like That: Mandalorian x Cara Dune pining. So they argue. So they took down Gideon, and have a magic green frog baby older than both of them. That doesn’t make them a thing. Does it?

Memorable quote:   He tunes back into the not-so-friendly argument in time to hear Greef splutter. “You trash talked while holding hands! If that’s not flirting, I’m a kowakian monkey lizard.” “It was arm wrestling, not holding hands,” Din points out mildly. 

Star by Star:  Post TRoS. Ben x Rey pining, Finn x Rey x Poe. Can three hopeless idiots in love fill a wound as deep as the death of a dyad? Maybe not, but they’re out to try anyway.

Memorable quote:   “You know,” Poe whispers, a glint of mischief in his eyes, “if we ever did tell him we loved him, he’d probably sleep right through it.” Rey touches her fingers to his lips, tracing the shape of his questioning smile. It’s an invitation to play, that smile. A careful offer of love, of comfort. And though she’s not sure if he can really understand when even she doesn’t, she’s finally ready to try a little. 

Counting The Days (Since Exegol): Finn x Rey x Poe, Ben x Rey. Its been 42 days since Palpatine’s death. 42 long days since she felt the surge of light in Ben Solo. And in her dreams, something whispers on the edge of the Force. But she’s shut it down too tightly to hear it. 

Memorable quote:   True to form, Poe can’t resist the urge to kiss away Finn’s troubles whenever possible, and Rey looks away to give them a moment. Some love stories work out, yes, and she loves Finn and Poe more than almost anything else. But that doesn’t stop the way bitterness floods her mouth as the memory of Ben surfaces, and it isn’t until Poe gently squeezes her knee (and she throttles back the near-instinctive urge to break his fingers from a lifetime of fending off handsy scavengers on Jakku) that she comes back to the moment. His brow furrows and she reaches for him, smoothing out the lines of his frown with her thumb. “I’m okay,” she says, answering his unspoken question. It’s mostly a lie, but she has to say it. Most days, she’s okay enough.

A Language Made for Lovers: SWTOR (NSFW). Torian Cadera x Bounty Hunter, gender neutral. Reflections on love and marriage under the glow of hyperspace.

Memorable quote:   He murmurs in your ear, words that should sound harsh in that still-new tongue scalding your mouth, molding you from aruetii to mandalorian. But the love in his voice softens them, steeps them in warmth and adoration. Still the language of a hunter, of those brave souls willing to be reforged, but with a gentle side, a language reserved for lovers. Words like cyare and riduur, words that mean I love you and forever and home.

Malicious Compliance: SWTOR (NSFW). Malavai Quinn x Sith Warrior, gender neutral. Far away, in an apartment no one knows about, a Sith Lord plays dire games of control... and trust.

Memorable quote:   It takes a man with the courage of an entire fleet of Mandalorians to love a Sith, and oh, how he loves you. Like you hung the moons and the stars and all the spaces between. Like you are his other half, like loving you is his sole purpose in life, does Malavai Quinn love you. Your old masters spoke nothing of this, of this enraging hunger gnawing at your bones and curling into the hollows of your rib cage. ... Is it really even love if you don’t want to devour him just a little?

Misc:

Tumblr Prompts: Grab bag of every fandom and series listed above. Prompts filled originally here on tumblr.

Visual Files: Collections of art and commissions from talented friends and artists here on tumblr.

Every Beautiful Thing: Crimson Peak. Thomas x Edith, Edith x Alan. Edith learned, in the dark halls of Allerdale, not to take ghosts lightly. But still she waits, every year, for a chance to see Thomas again. Until the night their son tells her he can see him too.

Memorable quote:   Snow heralds nothing but pain in Edith’s world: first her mother’s funeral, smothered in fat white flakes wet on her lashes like tears, then her father’s. Smaller ones, then, rain slowly freezing and scattering on the ground; the ones that night at Allerdale were the smallest yet, more ice pellet than snow. Jagged, hateful things scraping at her with a cold that burned through skin and encased bone.…God, how she has come to hate the snow.

Where I Can’t Follow: Co-authored by @suspendnodisbelief. show!Witcher, mild Geralt x Jaskier. (Temporary hiatus) Drawing from a variety of inspiration, including greek mythos. Geralt takes a blow meant for Jaskier, finally granted the death by battle he expects Witchers to end by. And Jaskier is not having it, at all. It’s his turn to save Geralt, even if he has to walk the entire bloody underworld to do it.

Memorable quote: “Geralt, get up. Come on, open your eyes. You’re going to upset Roach if you keep this up, and she’ll bite me. You know you aren’t allowed to be dead, because Yennefer didn’t give you permission, and neither did the Princess, and I’m pretty sure they both outrank you.”  

[iheardarumorxxx]

Midnight Sun, Chapter Ten - Theory

Alright, time to jump back in. Took a couple of days off, refreshed my brain, now I think I can handle more of this asshole.

instead of answering my demand

See that? See how Eddie just goes ahead and tells us that he’s being a demanding little shithead? More shades of that controlling tendency that he has all throughout the series, outright stated. This is literally the first sentence of the chapter, and he’s not even pretending to be subtle about it.

describe it so that she would understand.

Yes, because ‘I can read minds, but only if they’re relatively nearby, and it gets easier to pick out voices as I become familiar with them’ isn’t clear in the slightest. See that, Eddie? I just explained for you with 23 words, instead of going off on some dumbass tangent metaphorthat takes up an entire paragraph  like you do here because you think that the human mind is so small and weak that it can’t possibly comprehend cut and dry explanations.

The fact that Eddie thinks he needs to explain things in analogy for Bella because she won’t get it if he doesn’t really goes against this supposed idea he has about her being smarter and so above the other pitiful hooman folk. Either she’s too human to understand like everyone else, or she’s smarter and more rational and would get it without the metaphor. Pick one, Eddie.

I will say, one thing that I took from the Twilight series that still sticks with me is the phrase ‘Holy crow’. I do, in fact, use it unironically. It’s absolutely stupid, but I like the way it flows off the tongue.

Anyway, Bella just shouted it because Eddie is bending the car to his vampire physics again and going 100MPH, which, I would like to point out, she would have absolutely realized before now if she wasn’t so blatantly unobservent. She would have felt it, it wouldn’t have taken looking at the spedomoter to realize it.

“We’re not going to crash.”

Eddie is absolutely certain of this fact, and I am too only because SM would never let anything like that happen to her little woobie vampire and her SI Mary Sue. However, let’s apply real world logic to this for a sec. Just a sec because this story can’t handle real world logic for too long, but. They are presumably on a highway, going 100MPH at let’s say 930 to 10ish PM. I’ve never lived in Washington, but I’m going to make the presumption that there probably isn’t too much traffic this late, though, perhaps a bit more if it’s a Friday or Saturday night. Perhaps Eddie can keep perfect control of his own car, even going that fast, while most likely paying little to no attention to the road because he is constantly looking over at Bella in the passenger seat. He has his mind-reading power, which he probably uses to help him drive, and maybe there isn’t another car directly behind him based on how fast he’s going. 

He’s still not taking the other drivers on the road into account. What if the car in front of you that you are rapidly coming up on because you’re going so fast sees a turtle or a deer or some other kind of animal in the road and swerves to avoid it. Since this is real world logic, even if you see it coming with your mind reading power, you can’t make your car stop on a dime going 100MPH. You’re going to crash, and since you are going so fast, it’s gonna be a pretty nasty one. Your vampire body can handle that, because you’re a marble adonis god, but Bella over there is squishy and human. You slam those breaks, seatbelt aside, she’s gonna end up through the windshield or strangled to death by that seatbelt. 

He’s assuming that his vampire magic strength and perfectness is gonna be enough to protect him from literally everything. It will, because this book is not realistic in the slightest, but he’s still a dick for not taking into account the other drivers on the road. And not taking into account the fact that Bella is clearly upset and terrified that he’s going so fast.

Two and a half paragraph rant over one line. Check.

Bella spills about how Jacob told her the old story about the Cullens being sparkley, evil vampires who aren’t allowed at La Push because the wolves will eat them. And I have to say, because this story is the entire basis for Bella knowing that Eddie and his ilk are vamps, how the hell does it take her so long to figure out that Jacob is a werewolf in New Moon? Like, I know it’s because she’s stupid, but since she’s supposed to be wise beyond her years and smart and shit, why did it not click that both sides of the story must be true.

Rant for a different book, but.

I supposed this meant I was now free to slaughter a small, defenseless tribe on the coastline, were I so inclined. Ephraim and his pack of protectors were long dead.

This is it. This is the line I’ve been waiting for. I knew it was coming and it STILL pisses me off so damn much reading it. Do you see that? Do you see it? Eddie is talking about straight up genocide. He is literally talking about killing hundreds of people just because some teenage kid told an old folktale to a girl he thinks is cute to try and impress her. I would like to remind you of that line that Alice said earlier: “It helps if you think of them as people.” IT HELPS IF YOU THINK OF THEM AS PEOPLE, EDWARD!!! These people have done literally nothing to you! If you wanted to go, say, beat up Jacob Black for spilling your secret, that’s one thing (A terrible thing that is bullshit, even if Jacob gets a jerkass makeover in a few months) but you are literally la de fucking da over the idea of going down to the reservation and murdering every man, woman, and child there because of some bullshit technicality broken treaty. HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE THINK THIS GUY IS THE HERO? HOW DOES ANYTHING SEE HIM AS A GOOD LOVE INTEREST? HOW IS HE A PROTAGONIST? HE’S A FUCKING MURDERER, PLAIN AND SIMPLE SPELLED OUT RIGHT THE FUCK THERE! It was spelled out pretty damn well in that first classroom scene, but here we are reinforcing it, and this is the guy that SM said she was willing to leave her husband for. THIS GUY. 

I hate it. I hate him. I’m not a happy camper.

And I’m gonna move on before I burst a blood vessel from how mad it makes me.

Bella goes on to tell Eddie that she flirted the story out of Jacob, and that she doesn’t care. He replies with “HOW CAN YOU NOT CARE! I’M A MONSTAH!” and she just shrugs and pops her gum. Eddie is just absolutely shocked by this because how could she not care? He even wonders if there’s something wrong with her. The answer is yes, she’s clearly a hybristophile, but that’s beside the point. 

The ‘how old are you’ ‘17′ ‘how long have you been 17′ ‘a while’ exchange is actually kind of cute, on it’s own. Had it been in a better book, it might have made me smile a little. But in Twilight it just felt like forced comedy, and here with Eddie being all Emo about being a monstah and also being condescending and clearly angry about Bella knowing his secret, it comes off a lot darker in tone. It could have come off as a playful exchange between people getting to know one another, and instead, it’s a darker tone and it’s almost uncomfortable. The movie had this problem, too, where they made it all dark and angsty instead of just being a cute little exchange that it should have been.

“I can’t sleep.”

This is more of that thrown away world building that SM does. First it was the Vampires never Change thing and now the can’t sleep thing. It could have been so fascinating to explore what not being able to sleep does to the psyche of these Pires. How different vampires get used to that sensation over different periods of time. Did it unsettle Eddie at first when he was turned and just couldn’t sleep anymore? Was Jasper already a night owl who barely slept, so it wasn’t much of a change for him anyway? What do they do to fill their time? If their hobbies and interests never change, it seems like they wouldn’t be using all that newly acquired time to learn new skills and hobbies, even if that particular ‘never change’ plot point isn’t explored either and never actually seems relevant to them. Has a Pire ever tried to sleep anyway? Just lay down and closed their eyes and waited for eight hours to pass, hoping they would drift off? This is interesting lore. It’s something that could have given depth to the vampires instead of being a throwaway plot point so Eddie could watch Bella sleep at night. I’m disappointed. I want a good idea to actually be used well.

Edward calls Bella observant and to that I can only say ‘Ha.’ 

Eddie finally realizes that Bella has the hots for him too and it’s so UWU and trite, but he has to go and bring up that stupid Hades and Persephone metaphor again and piss me off in the process.

The get to Bella’s house and take forever with their goodbyes, and right at the end Eddie goes on about how he’s got this new hunger in him just looking at Bella and feeling how warm she is and shit and it’s just him being horny again, but nothing happens and Bella heads inside. But don’t worry, Eddie assures us that he’ll be in his usual perch in the rocking chair later that night to stalk her and watch her sleep, so everything is well.

She couldn’t love me the way I loved her

GET IT? BECAUSE VAMPIRES ARE BETTER THAN YOU(tm) AT EVERYTHING INCLUDING HOW HARD THEY LOVE? Seriously, so damn sick of this idea that the vampires in this universe just do everything and see everything and smell everything and feel everything just so much more intensely than the pitiful hoomans. I still have a rant about it. It’s still coming. Don’t worry.

A casual throwaway mention of the Voltouri here, AKA the vampire Mafia that make and enforce the rules. They don’t actually matter or have any real power in this series, and they suck, but nice little nod to the audience as a reminder that there is supposed to be a governing body in the vampire world.

Carlisie and Eddie boy are off to take care of the rapist who almost got Bella, and the entire fucking drive, Carlisle is just sitting there thinking about how wonderful Eddie is and how he deserves happiness and it’s such bullshit for him to be thinking that way when he KNOWS that Eddie can read his thoughts. He’s literally just showering him in compliments for the sake of it just so that Eddie can hear them and puff up his ego. I don’t buy that it’s just passive thoughts. He wants Eddie to hear them.

We all know who Carlisle and Esme’s favorite child is.

We end the chapter with Eddie going back to Bella’s house to watch her sleep, deciding to take it upon himself to wander around her house uninvited, and the rambling on about how Bella clearly doesn’t have a guardian angel because she crossed his path and no guardian angel would allow that. Then he makes some crack about being her guardian vampire, talks about how, oh, it’s actually a good thing that he took it upon himself to break into her house to watch her sleep because he got her another blanket because she seemed cold, and smiles to himself when she mumbles his name in her sleep. 

That’s it, chapter done, I’m tired. I’m gonna try to crank out another one (maybe two) tonight, but no promises because this one really took a lot out of me. These characters just suck. Anyway, as always, feel free to message me or DM me to talk about the book, recommend future projects, etc. And you can always buy me a snack using the CashApp tag in my bio. Until next chapter, good damn bye.

[ericsonclan]

Happy Birthday, Louis!

Summary: Everybody at Ericson's Diner celebrates Louis' birthday <3

Read on A03: 

It was a fairly normal morning for Louis as he got ready to head to work. A thoughtful text from Clementine, a quirky e-card from Marlon and a brief text from Violet were the only things that distinguished this morning from all the others as being special. It was his birthday; he was 23 now. As he drove toward Ericson’s Diner, Liszt’s Transcendental Études playing in the background, he wondered if anything special would happen at work. Violet and Clementine would likely have some sort of small presents to give him and the rest of the staff would congratulate him. Maybe Omar would bake a cake that they could leave in the break room for the staff to enjoy whenever they had a moment. Then he’d probably do some sort of movie night at Violet and Prisha’s place or go out to dinner with Clementine. They were sure to have fun.

A ding came from Louis’ phone, causing him to glance over to where it lay on the passenger seat. His father had wired $500 to his bank account. It was his go-to every year at Louis’ birthday. When Louis was younger his father would give him whatever the latest trending piece of technology was. Looking back, Louis’ figured he assigned an office grunt to find an appropriate gift each year, though Louis had been too young to realize it at the time. The parties his parents threw had always been elaborate, but after their divorce things changed greatly. The parties were still thrown, but it was clear to Louis that his father simply used the festivities as an alternate venue for his business deals. Perhaps that had always been the case, but without his mother around to attend to the actual celebrations after the first few birthdays she flew out for, Louis noticed it all the more. Eventually he told his father he had no more interest in birthday parties and simply wanted to celebrate in his own way with his friends. After that the automatic money transfers began. A gift from his mother arrived at his doorstep each year, always something expensive with a trite greeting card attached to it.

Louis shook his head roughly, trying to banish the gloomier thoughts he had somehow slipped into. This day wasn’t about his parents or any lingering desire for their approval he somehow still clung to. It was about his friends, the ones who’d always stuck by his side. Growing up that had been Violet, Marlon and Mitch. Now there were so many more he held dear. With two years as the co-owner of Ericson’s Diner under his belt, Louis felt that this year finally felt like one worth celebrating.

Approaching the restaurant, Louis was surprised to see a notice taped to the front entrance door. He paused to read. It said: Today is the birthday of the founder of Ericson’s Diner, Louis Mason! Because of this, the restaurant’s hours have been changed today in order to give our staff time to celebrate. Our hours of operation will be 12 PM to 12 AM. Thank you. Who had put this up? He hadn’t been notified of any schedule change. Did that mean… was there going to be a party? Louis leaned over to try to peek through the windows, but all the blinds were still closed. It looked dark in there. It was probably just Omar and Ruby here so far, doing kitchen prep in the back. Louis tried the front door. Still locked. He was the first here to open up the front of the diner. Turning the key in the lock, Louis stepped inside and turned on the lights.

“SURPRISE!” The room literally exploded as confetti poppers went off all around the restaurant. Staff members jumped out from every hiding place imaginable: behind the bar, underneath the tables, inside the supply closet. Louis took a staggered step back in surprise, unable to believe his eyes. Every member of the staff was here, even people that didn’t have shifts that day. Who had put this all together? His eyes caught Clementine’s. She had hopped over the bar to stand in front of it, a warm, proud smile on her face. Stepping forward, she gave him a quick kiss.

“Happy birthday, Louis,”

“Clem, did you do all this?” Louis’ eyes scanned the restaurant, realizing just how much work had gone into this surprise. Every inch of Ericson’s Diner was decked out in balloons, banners, streamers and all sorts of other birthday paraphernalia. “Guys, wow… this is amazing!”

“Vi and I did most of the coordinating,” Clementine motioned to Violet who was leaning against the closet door, a subtle smirk on her face. “But everyone helped with setup. We actually did most of it last night, decorating after you went home,”

“Last night? But I didn’t head out till after midnight. How long did you guys stay up doing this?”

“Nothing’s too good for my best friend,” Marlon declared, walking forward and wrapping Louis in a tight hug. The two patted each other on the back before separating. “Had to make sure we made it the best birthday possible. You deserve it, Lou,”

Louis felt himself getting a little misty-eyed at the sentiment.

“So,” Prisha said from the back of the bar, “What do you want to start with first? Presents? Toasts? Cake?”

Willy, AJ and Tenn began bouncing with excitement atop one of the booths at the prospect of dessert first. “Cake! Cake! Cake!”

“You heard the boys!” Louis said with a chuckle, lifting a hand dramatically. “Bring on the cake!”

The decision made, Omar and Ruby hurried back to the kitchen to retrieve the cake. Instead of returning with the tin that Louis expected, Omar emerged with a giant pizza pan in his hands. He laid down his creation with a proud smile. “I decided to go in a different direction for your ‘cake’ this year. I know how much you like pizza buffets, so I thought I’d adapt a classic and make you a dessert pizza,”

“Oh my god,” Louis looked at the delicacy in awe. Chunks of cinnamon sugar covered a crust swirled in endless layers of icing. He had never seen such a massive dessert pizza pie. It looked delicious. “This is amazing!”

“Go ahead and dig in, y’all!” Ruby declared, bringing forth a pizza pan of her own. “We made plenty!”

Everyone eagerly tucked in, eating slice after slice of the sweet, melt-in-your-mouth goodness of the dessert pizzas. Ruby and Omar kept bringing more and more out, enabling no one to feel guilty as they indulged in slice after slice of the delicious pizza. Louis couldn’t believe how good it was: warm and gooey with a depth of flavor that kept him coming back for more. Before he even realized it he’d eaten four slices.

“Alright, guys!” Clementine waved her arms to get everyone’s attention. “Before we all get too stuffed to do anything else, let’s move on to the games. First off, the piñata!”

“Piñata?” Louis asked in surprise.

Mitch and Prisha shared a look. Reaching below the counter, Prisha lifted up the piñata, clearly already chockfull of candy. “Mitch and I made it out of papier-mâché ourselves so if you spot any white flecks in our hair, that’s flour,”

Louis squinted at the piñata. It was a pale yellow with green spackled all across it. “Wait a minute. Is that-”

“A cantaloupe,” Mitch interrupted, a mischievous grin on his face. “Figured there’s nothing you’d enjoy smashing to oblivion more,”

“That’s brilliant. Let’s do this!”

Once the piñata was set up in the middle of the room, Louis was given the honor of whacking it first. Having been blindfolded and spun around three times, he wandered in confusion for a moment, guided back by the cheered encouragement of his friends to give the cantaloupe a mighty hit. It didn’t break yet though. Prisha and Mitch had put plenty of layers onto the piñata to ensure everyone got a turn. The results of people’s swings varied. Clementine seemed unfazed by the spinning, making a beeline to the piñata that had some doubting the blindfold’s efficacy. Violet on the other hand ended up whacking Mitch in the gut with the bat, an action she swore was an innocent mistake. When the piñata finally cracked thanks to a particularly hard hit from Minnie, everyone rushed forward to grab as much candy as possible, stuffing their pockets and faces with as much as they could hold.

Clem and Violet had planned tons of party games. Musical Chairs came next, a heated match that saw Louis and Aasim vying for the final spot. In the end Louis fell just short of the final chair, sitting on Aasim’s lap instead to everyone’s amusement. Sophie and Tenn had drawn their own version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, titled instead Pin the Louis on the Piano. The blindfold came back out and everyone was about as successful with it as they’d been with the piñata. Willy ended up totally lost, pinning the doodle of Louis to Marlon’s leg instead. In the end Prisha got the closest with mini Louis sitting almost perfectly atop the piano bench. Pass the Parcel was next on the agenda. Marlon and Aasim had worked on this one together, wrapping the package in countless layers of newspaper. As each layer was unfolded and mini prizes discovered, it was obvious who had done each layer. Aasim’s were tidy and refined while Marlon’s looked like he’d mashed the newspaper around till it fit. Either way the system worked. Brody was the final winner, opening the box at the center of the parcel which contained the grand prize: two movie tickets. She was flustered and ecstatic at the fact that she’d actually won.

The games all wrapped up, it was time for the presents, or rather, the present. Louis was dying of curiosity as the giant box was placed before him, decorated in cheery birthday wrapping paper and a myriad of ribbons. Clementine explained that the entire staff had chipped in for this gift: something they all hoped he would love. It took a pair of scissors and some elbow grease to fully open and unbox what was inside.

Once the gift was fully uncovered, Louis couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a miniature piano, fully functional and just as detailed as his grand piano at home. It was just like the piano that Schroeder played the Peanuts theme song too in the comics. Louis hadn’t even known such a thing really existed. Placing the piano on the ground, he sat crisscross before it and began to improv the Peanuts tune. Everybody applauded, as excited as he was to see the piano in use.

This time Louis wasn’t just misty-eyed. Actual tears were coming out. Brody ran into the back office to get him some tissues. After Louis had dried his eyes, he turned to his staff, feeling practically speechless. He still sat before the piano as all of them stood round him, their eyes bright and happy at witnessing his joy. “Wow, guys… this is more than I ever could have imagined. The decorations, the pizza, the games, you guys bought me a piano for crying out loud!” Louis wrapped his arms around the instrument in a hug, rocking back and forth giddily for a moment before setting it back down. “Seriously, I couldn’t ask for a better staff. You guys are the thing that makes Ericson’s Diner so great. I’m so thankful for each and every one of you. Here’s to another year of great memories,”

“Hear, hear!” Marlon exclaimed, stepping forward and placing a hand on Louis’ shoulder. “Let’s have three cheers for Louis! Hip hip!”

“Hooray!”

“Hip hip!”

“Hooray!

“Hip hip!”

“HOORAY!” The room burst into cheers, everyone applauding excitedly. It took a few minutes before things calmed down enough for Aasim to take the floor.

“Alright, everybody, that was a great party, but now it’s time to clean up! We’ve got one hour till we open. Let’s get to work!”

Everyone scattered, moving to take down decorations and prep for the opening. Louis was about to pitch in when he felt a hand tugging his shoulder. He turned to see Clementine smiling at him. “I have a gift for you of my own,” She held out her present. Louis quickly unwrapped it. He felt his heart leap as he saw what lay inside. It was a picture frame, piano themed with detailed keys and musical notes running all along the edges. Truly beautiful. The accompanying picture was one of him and Clementine at the diner. It was one Louis didn’t recognize. The two of them were talking beside the door that led to the kitchen. Both of them were smiling, seemingly unaware that a photo was being taken.

“Brody took that,” Clementine explained. “It was taken on her phone and in secret so that’s why it’s a bit blurry. It was actually before we started dating, back when we were both sweet on each other but didn’t realize. She showed it to me once to prove that I was lying to myself if I thought you didn’t feel the same way. I figured it was a picture that deserved to be framed,”

“Definitely. Clem…” Louis felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest as he looked at his girlfriend. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have you by my side,” “The feeling’s mutual,” Clementine grinned before going up on her tiptoes for a kiss. Louis could still taste the sugar on her lips from the dessert pizzas. They pulled apart slowly, savoring the moment. Clementine rocked back onto the balls of her feet happily. “Marlon had to run make a delivery, but he told me to let you know that his gift to you is gonna be a paintball day so we all have that to look forward to. Violet has a gift for you too. I think she’s waiting in the break room,”

“Alright,” Louis took Clementine’s hand in his, squeezing it softly. “I love you,”

“Love you too,” They met for another kiss before Clementine playfully pushed him back. “Now go! You don’t want to keep Violet waiting,”

“Alright, alright!” Louis hurried over to the break room.

He found Violet inside, standing beside the table. A large scrapbook lay atop it. “Sorry I forgot to wrap it,” Violet said, motioning toward the scrapbook. “I got all caught up in organizing the party and shit and by the time I remembered it was too late to go buy any wrapping paper,”

“That’s fine. Should I?” Louis motioned toward a nearby chair.

“Yeah, go ahead. Sit down and read it. Not all of it, but… you get what I mean,” Violet grabbed her arm self-consciously, looking away. Louis sat down and opened up the scrapbook. On the first page was a letter dated 2004. It was one he had written to Violet.

Dear Violet, I hope you’re enjoying being back home. Some days I sort of miss the school and you and Mitch. Do you have any summer plans? We should meet up! Your friend, Louis

On the following page was the letter Violet had written him in response.

Hi Louis, Home sucks. The school was better. I have no summer plans. It would be fun to hang out. - Violet

Louis remembered receiving that letter in the mail. He’d been worried that once he and Violet left the school that they’d fall completely out of touch. Sending that first letter felt like throwing a message into the void; he wasn’t sure if she’d even respond. But Violet had written back and continued to write back to each and every letter he wrote. The scrapbook’s pages were full of all the letters they’d ever sent back and forth to each other from that day onward, organized chronologically from start to finish.

“They’re copies, not the originals,” Violet explained. “I had all the ones you sent me and Clem helped me figure out where you kept the ones I sent you. I made photocopies of all of them so that way you could hold onto your letters and… I could hold onto mine,” Her voice grew soft at that last part.

“Viiiii,” Louis looked up at his best friend, his eyes watery once more. “This is beautiful. I can’t believe you did all this!”

Violet shrugged. “I just wanted to say thanks, I guess, for always sticking by me. I’m where I am today ‘cause of you. So… thanks,”

Louis couldn’t think of anything else to say. Instead he settled for enveloping Violet in a hug, wrapping his arms tightly round her despite her half-hearted protests. When Violet’s arms came round his back, he knew she was happy with the hug too. The two stood in silence for a few moments, enjoying the hug. “Thank you, Vi,” Louis whispered, “For making this the best birthday ever,” He could just make out the smallest smile upon Violet’s face at his words.

“Happy birthday, Louis,”

[garbagegrimoire]

the doll (2016)

Rounding out this week of cursed movies about cursed objects is The Doll.

First, I’m just going to say — I’m so glad this week is behind me. Due to scheduling issues we ended up watching all seven movies in three days (typically I actually have five days). On my own volition, I may watch a couple movies a month, & maybe fall asleep during one... So, it’s been a challenge.

Now we’ve already recorded the segment on this movie as I write this & I have Stef’s opinions floating around in my brain & I definitely get her objections to the movie... It apparently borrowed a lot from other contemporary horror movies that were not my jam.

That said, after all the garbage I watched this week, this movie had the most complete story, best lore, & best character development.

Anyway, this doll is cursed by the vengeful spirit of a murdered child that lives in a tree. The main story revolves around a couple who have just started to move up in the world, the husband, Daniel, works construction & encounters the doll on site when his workers refuse to cut the tree down claiming it will bring a curse down on the whole neighborhood.

Afraid of being fired & losing the new, stable life he so desperately wants for his family (he grew up in poverty & had a tragic & violent family life as a result) — he, of course, sees to the tree being cut down which apparently leads to the doll attaching itself to him.

His wife, Anya, happens to be a dollmaker & takes it into her workshop & weird things start to happen.

The movie is an hour and 44 minutes. & while I like a lot about it, it was too fucking long. The feeling was especially strong after having to marathon everything (at least half of the movies had a note whining about how long they were).

Anyway, after a really long time passes, they pull in the same exorcist that had faced the doll before & some monks get eaten by bats & then we find out that Daniel is actually the girl’s murderer.

This is actually a very compelling story. This man who endured unimaginable trauma as a child as a result of his family going without, struggling through poverty, committed an absolutely heinous, unforgivably act, killing an entire family for their money.

At the same time, when you watch the scene, the other man (the girl’s dad) was also willing to die & further endanger his family for that stack of cash. Not to say it justifies anything, it doesn’t. It’s just that the stakes are so high & so much is risked for money.

& this is not a surface-level, trite argument that things can be replaced & people can’t. This to me reads as people being so traumatized by the struggle for survival that they are driven to do absolutely heinous things because the system that they exist under is utterly broken.

If anyone who works could support a family on their earnings, then the violence would be unnecessary... But again, I’m not going to go off on Marxist analysis of horror movies because I’m already boring enough.

Let’s end with something stupid & entirely unserious. There is a scene when Daniel & Anya walk by the doll on a shelf & she starts complaining that his farts are real gross & the doll just sits there looking ominous & very guilty in the background.

Podcast notes

We will be discussing Heidi with the rest of the cursed toys week picks on the second episode of the podcast due out by Monday morning, Oct. 19. Subscribe by searching for Sage Cigarettes Presents: A Ghost in the Magazine or by following this link to Spotify.

Cursed toys week ranking

Dolls

The Doll

Child’s Play

Dollman vs. Cursed Toys

Puppet Master III

Heidi

Trilogy of Terror

Overall ranking

Train to Busan

Interview with the Vampire

Nosferatu

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Vampire’s Kiss

Re-Animator

Fright Night

Dolls

The Doll

Child’s Play

John Carpenter’s Vampires

Dracula (2007)

Dead Birds

Dollman vs. Cursed Toys

Puppet Master III

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Heidi

Trilogy of Terror