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The Best Creepy Horror Movies

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Creepy isn’t the same as scary.

Of course horror movies can be scary simply by using loud noises and sudden movements to make their audiences jump, but creepy is harder to pull off. To be effectively creepy, a film needs to establish a certain atmosphere; it needs to draw you in and make you care. It needs to give you something to think about when you’re trying to drop off to sleep at night; to make you wonder whether that creaking noise down the hallway was just the house settling or something lurking in the shadows. Creepy stays with you. It gives you goosebumps.

Here are 85 of the best horror movies (in no particular order) to chill your bones. Enjoy the nightmares.

Us (2019)

Jordan Peele’s follow up to his award winner Get Out is another social horror. While it might not be quite as accomplished or coherent as Get Out (the end is a bit of a mess) Us is arguably scarier than Get Out as a family staying in a holiday home find themselves tormented by evil replicas of themselves. It’s a film that keeps you constantly on edge with the performances of the main cast – Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex – absolutely pitch perfect and never less than convincing as good and evil versions of themselves.

It Comes At Night (2017)

Though the marketing material was somewhat misleading, featuring the above scary-looking dude (who really isn’t a big part of the film at all), It Comes at Night, from director Trey Edward Shults is a claustrophobic slow-burner that insidiously ramps up the creep factor. Joel Edgerton plays the patriarch of a family holed up in a cabin in the woods to escape an unnamed wide spread virus. But when a man, his wife and their young child arrive seeking shelter his family life is disrupted. A coming-of-age horror with one of the bleakest endings around.

Mr. Jones (2013)

Nobody knows who Mr. Jones is. The artist is a recluse, but his bizarre sculptures have made him world famous. When a documentary maker and his girlfriend stumble across what looks like his workshop, they become obsessed with finding out the truth about Mr. Jones, but the truth isn’t particularly easy to stomach.

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One of the most stylishly shot found footage movies you’ll ever see, the makers know the rules of the genre well enough that when they break them, it adds to the story rather than detracting from it. Also, those scarecrows are petrifying.

Under the Shadow (2016)

Set in war-torn Tehran in the late 1980s, Under the Shadow sees a would-be doctor battling the forces of evil for her daughter (and her sanity) even as everyone around her flees to safer ground. The juxtaposition of earthly and unearthly threats makes this a uniquely terrifying film, and Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is a wonderfully complex and sympathetic heroine. Not many films could make a sheet of printed fabric terrifying, but Under the Shadow manages it.

Gaslight (1940)

Bella (Diana Wynyard) thinks she’s losing her mind. She keeps losing things, and the lights in her house seem to flicker, even though her husband Paul (Anton Walbrook) tells her he can’t see anything wrong. Plus there are those footsteps upstairs… Just from that description, you might think that Gaslight will turn out to be a haunted house story, but the real explanation for all the weirdness is far more sinister than that. Walbrook does sinister like no-one else.

The Babadook (2014)

A character from a terrifying kids book comes to life to haunt a single mother (Essie Davis) grieving for the loss of her husband in this beautiful, sorrowful meditation on depression and despair. Top-hatted Mr. Babadook with his horrible, terrible grin is of course creepy as all, but Noah Wiseman as her needy and uncontrollable child gives him a run for his money in creepiness.

The Clairvoyant (1934)

Maximus, King Of The Mind Readers (Claude Rains) performs amazing feats of clairvoyance on stage every night in front of adoring audiences. The problem is, it’s fake – the mind-reading is all done through a secret code Maximus has invented to communicate with his assistant wife, Rene (Fay Wray). But one night, he meets Christine (Jane Baxter), and his abilities become real. He really can predict the future. If you’ve already guessed that’ll turn out to be more of a burden than a gift, you’re right. Gorgeously shot, wonderfully acted, this is a creepy delight.

Sleep Tight (2011)

The second Jaume Balaguero film on this list is just as bleak and horrifying as the first: Sleep Tight sees a concierge secretly breaking into the homes of the people he’s supposed to serve to try to make them as miserable as he is. When Cesar (Luis Tosar) finds one tenant is harder to upset than the others, his behaviour escalates until he’s committing unimaginably grotesque crimes against the poor girl. The ending will have you shuddering in your seat.

Lake Mungo (2008)

This strange found footage film from Australia takes the format of a mockumentary focusing on the family of a dead girl who think there are supernatural goings on surround their house. It owes a debt to Twin Peaks in its odd neighborhood vibe, and the twisty plot holds many surprises, as the movie wrong foots the audience time and again. It’s creepy throughout but by the time you finally discover what’s really going on it’s not only terrifying but emotionally devastating too.

Dead of Night (1945)

Probably the best horror anthology ever made, this Ealing Studios production includes five individual stories and one wrap-around narrative. The wrap-around sees a consultant arrive at a country home only to find that he recognizes all of the guests at the house – he’s seen them all in a dream.

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Spooked, the guests start recounting their own stories of the uncanny, each more unnerving than the last. Well, except for the one about the golfers, but that one’s just there for light relief before the film hits you with the scariest ventriloquist’s dummy ever committed to film. Just excellent, all round.

Hereditary (2018)

One of the most truly harrowing movies of recent years is Hereditary, the feature debut from Ari Aster. Toni Collette stars as a mother trying to hold together her family in the aftermath of a tragedy while around her supernatural goings on begin to escalate.

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Hereditary has been called The Exorcist for a new generation, though it’s so much more than that. In fact at times, Hereditary is almost too scary, so oppressive is it’s escalating anguish and dread. This one is pure nightmare fodder.

Nina Forever (2015)

Rob (Cian Barry) can’t get over his ex-girlfriend. Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) died in a car crash, which is bad enough, but when he tentatively begins a relationship with his co-worker, Holly (Abigail Hardingham), he finds himself haunted by Nina. Literally. She materializes in his bed every time he and Holly have sex – she might be dead, but she’s not letting go.

“Creepy” doesn’t feel like a strong enough word to describe this film – “devastating” might do it. It’s a sensitive and horrifying portrayal of grief, with a sense of humour as dark as the inside of your eyelids, and some extremely upsetting gore. Brilliant, but not one for the faint-hearted.

Robin Redbreast (1970)

When she moves away from London to a tiny country cottage, Norah (Anna Cropper) expected the change to be a bit strange, but nowhere near as weird as it ultimately turns out to be. As she gets to know the locals, she finds herself being pushed towards a relationship with karate-loving Rob (Andrew Bradford), and while she’s initially game, she soon discovers that her choices are being made for her. It’s a little bit Wicker Man, a little bit Rosemary’s Baby, and a lot of creepiness.

It Follows (2014)

Inspired by a reccuring nightmare director David Robert Mitchell had in his youth,It Follows is a clever, freaky take on the slasher movie, featuring, well, a sexually transmitted ghost. Maika Monroe plays a young woman haunted by a shape shifting spectre after a sexual encounter who slowly but relentless trails her everywhere – the film plays with the audience expertly, making us guess whether background characters could really be the monster. Ultra modern and highly effective, this one will leave you jumping at shadows long after the credits roll.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

A tyrannical landowner is plagued by, well, a literal plague in Roger Corman’s adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story. Vincent Price plays the Satanic Prince Prospero, who rules over his village with an iron fist, condemning people to death for the mildest offence and abducting any woman who takes his fancy, but all of his evils come back to haunt him when he throws a masked ball and Death shows up. Fittingly, it’s got the hallucinogenic quality of a fever dream, and the various incarnations of Death are wonderfully creepy.

As Above, So Below (2014)

A group of explorers heads deep into the Paris catacombs, only to find they’ve gone a little too deep and stumbled into an alternate dimension that might actually be Hell. It’s a brilliantly over the top concept, and the way it plays out is incredibly eerie. Yes, it’s found footage, and yes, it’s a little bit on the silly side – it chucks in quotes from Dante and a few too many sad-faced ghosts – but some of the scares along the way are properly frightening. Suspend your disbelief and let it freak you out.

Oculus (2013)

Eleven years ago, Alan (Rory Cochrane) bought an antique mirror… and then died, along with his wife. According to the police, they were murdered by their 10-year-old son. According to their daughter, the mirror is haunted, and something supernatural caused their deaths. Now Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is out of prison, Kaylie (Karen Gillan) wants to prove he was innocent by conducting an experiment on the mirror… But inadvertently puts both of them in danger all over again.

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It’s chilling. The way director Mike Flanagan plays with reality, building unbearable uncertainty through camera angles and false memories, makes this film both incredibly scary and impossibly sad.

The Witch (2015)

After being cast out of a New England plantation for not interpreting scripture in the same way as the colony’s elders, a family strikes out alone, and soon discovers how inhospitable their unfamiliar new home country can really be. The Witch is a period piece, and the language is suitably archaic, but don’t let that put you off: it’s a brilliantly chilling portrayal of Puritan life, where belief can mean the difference between life and death, and horror is only ever one failed crop away.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The Amityville Horror is the haunted house story. If you were only ever going to watch one haunted house movie, it should be this one, because this is the archetypal story: a family moves into a house where horrible murders happened, and then bad things happen to them. It manages a lot of things later imitators didn’t, though, which is that it makes the Lutzes’ decision to buy the house make sense, and also builds the horror slowly, so that they almost don’t notice when the things going wrong in the house switch from annoying issues to outright horror. If you’ve moved house in recent memory, this one’ll hit you where it hurts.

The Conjuring (2013)

If you were only ever going to watch two haunted house movies, the second one should definitely be The Conjuring. James Wan’s ode to ’70s horror has plenty in common with The Amityville Horror, but it also has plenty of ideas of its own – and at least half a dozen moments that’ll make your heart leap into your mouth.

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The camerawork, the music, the cute kids stuck in the middle of epic spiritual warfare… it all adds up to a completely terrifying experience. You’ll probably need to sleep with a nightlight for a week afterwards.

The Changeling (1980)

George C. Scott stars as Dr. John Russell in this classic ghost story, which is a favorite of The Others director Alejandro Amenabár. Following the tragic demise of his wife and son, Dr. Russell moves into a rambling Victorian mansion to compose music and pick up the pieces of his life. He’s soon being woken by relentless booming sounds coming from the heating system, precisely at 6am every day… Then there’s the old “apparition in the self-filling bath” trick (actually, this may be the first time this happened onscreen, but it sure won’t be the last).

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This is one of those movies which hits up all the clichés: people go into the dark, gloomy attic to search for clues, and to the library to look up old news archives on the microfiche; they visit the graveyard, and finally, hold a séance (which is overwhelmingly creepy). The eerie soundtrack and skilful storytelling result in a film which peels back its mysterious layers slowly for a satisfying finish.

The Hallow (2015)

If you go down to the woods today, make sure you don’t steal anything or break anything, or the Hallow will get you. Tree surgeon Adam and his family move into an ancient farmhouse to start sizing up the land for developers and quickly fall afoul of the supernatural creatures lurking in the trees, which turns out to be a really bad idea. This film’s got it all: foreboding mythology, grotesque body horror, and the most amazing line of foreshadowing dialogue you’ll ever hear.

The Uninvited (1944)

A couple of Londoners holidaying in Cornwall stumble across a gorgeous abandoned house on the seafront and immediately decide they want to buy it. The owner, a grumpy old colonel, is happy to sell it to them on the spot, but his granddaughter is reluctant. Turns out the house has got secrets, and, yeah, a ghost. The dialogue in this film is incredible in a very 1940s kind of way, and the tone can occasionally be accused of jolliness, but it’s also got its moments of proper creepiness. Best enjoyed with a glass of sherry.

Saint Maud (2019)

One of the best movies of the year, Rose Glass’s feature debut is a study of a young palliative care nurse who starts to believe she’s on a mission from God to save the soul of her dying patient.

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It’s a film about conflicts between mind, body and soul, but it leans her into genre territory as Maud (Morfydd Clark) hear God talking to her directly and punishes her own body in an attempt to feel closer to her spiritual side, while the cancer riddled Amanda (Jennifer Elhe) celebrates her body as it lets her down. Shot in Scarborough everything about Saint Maud is unsettling right up to the indelible finale. An absolute must watch.

Crimson Peak (2015)

Director Guillermo del Toro insists that Crimson Peak isn’t a horror film but is, instead, a gothic romance. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t creepy as all get-out, though. When aspiring author Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) meets charming baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), she falls madly in love and agrees to move back to his ancestral home, Allerdale Hall – aka Crimson Peak. But the house is crumbling and full of ghosts, and Sir Thomas’s sister doesn’t seem terribly friendly, either…

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Del Toro’s visual flair is in full effect here, and every frame of this film (even the scary ones) are stunningly beautiful to look at. It’s a treat.

Baskin (2015)

A group of cops answers a call from the middle of nowhere and unwittingly stumble into something that can only be described as ‘a nightmare’ in this skin-crawlingly nasty Turkish horror. Abrasive, aggressive and deliberately difficult, this is the kind of film that burrows deep into your brain, only to resurface later at the worst possible time. Then again, by the time you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with only dead colleagues and Silent Hill-style monsters for company, you probably don’t need memories of a horror movie to freak you out.

His House (2020)

A Netflix movie which could make a mark come award’s season the directorial debut of Remi Weekes sees a Sudanese refugee couple seek housing in London only to find themselves haunted by ghosts of the past and present. This is proper horror and it’s creepy as hell but it also leans into the horror of the refugee situation with the two marginalized, restricted, and treated as outsiders from the start – it’s a powerful but uncomfortable watch.

Host (2020)

The defining horror of 2020 – written, shot, edited and released on Shudder in just 12 week – Host is so much more than a lockdown gimmick. Following a group of friends who decide to do a seance via a Zoom chat, this ingenious movie trades on the real life friendships of the cast and crew and the absolute ubiquity of the video software during isolation. It’s seriously creepy too, utilising visions in the shadow but later some seriously impressive stunt work. Director Rob Savage and writer Jed Shepherd have signed up for a three picture deal from Blumhouse on the strength of this movie which absolutely needs to be seen.

The Haunting (1963)

Not to be confused with the remake of 1999, this retro gem not only features some classic sequences of spooky happenings, but a philosophical take on the paranormal. As John Markway says, “The preternatural is something we don’t have any natural explanation for right now but probably will have someday – the preternatural of one generation becomes the natural of the next. Scientists once laughed at the idea of magnetic attraction; they couldn’t explain it, so they refused to admit it exists.

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Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) is investigating the mysterious Hill House, whose inhabitants often die in odd circumstances. With him he has Luke (Russ Tamblyn), the cynical heir to the home, the psychic Theo (Claire Bloom, way too cool for school) and Julie Harris as Eleanor, who has some ghosts of her own but figures a free stay in a mansion is as close to a holiday as she’s going to get. Markway is pleased the ladies haven’t done any research into the bad reputation of the house “So much the better. You should be innocent and receptive.” (The old dog.) This is a great, character-driven story with a dry sense of humor, and a mysterious heroine who feels oddly at home with the supernatural.

Unfriended (2014)

A cautionary tale about the dangers of cyberbullying, Unfriended achieves the seemingly impossible and manages to make the standard sound effects of everyday computer programs terrifying. The whole story is told through one character’s desktop, so you get to watch as she Skypes with her friends, posts to Facebook, or picks something to listen to on Spotify. The details are fascinating, and it’s kind of brilliant how the filmmakers manage to express so much about a character through her browser bookmarks and the messages she types, but doesn’t send. Once the horror kicks in, though, you’ll be too scared to notice much more of the cleverness.

Shutter (2004)

Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee) is driving back from a wedding with her boyfriend Tun (Ananda Everingham) when she hits a girl – in a panic, they leave the body lying in the road and try to get on with their lives. They start feeling rattled when Tun’s photography is blighted by misty shadows and they both suffer from the odd hallucination which seems to show that their hit and run victim (Achita Sikamana) isn’t resting in peace.

Where would horror films be without photographic dark rooms? Even in the digital age, the dim red light and slowly emerging pictures remain classic tools of terror. Not to mention the room with rows of jars containing pickled animals, and the surprise homage to Psycho. This story has it all. There are also touches of dark humor throughout (the praying mantis is a recurring motif) and one of the most bone-chilling scenes has a hilarious payoff.

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Directors Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom skilfully create real characters and have the ability to communicate some of the most powerful and eloquent moments without dialogue. The mystery deepens as more sinister evidence comes to light and the climax is truly chilling. This is one which will stay with you long after Halloween.

Spider Baby (1967)

The Merrye children live out in the middle of nowhere, with only one another and their family chauffeur, Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr) for company. Which is for the best, because they’re all afflicted with the family curse – a bizarre quirk of genetics that causes members of the Merrye family to begin to de-evolve once they reach a certain age. When some distant relatives come to visit, intending to challenge the kids’ right to stay in the house, things go sour fast. It’s a horror comedy, this one, but if you’re not a little bit creeped out by Virginia (Jill Banner), the Spider Baby of the title, and her spider game, well, good luck to you.

What Lies Beneath (2000)

Robert Zemeckis directs Michelle Pfieffer and Harrison Ford in this glossy supernatural thriller, with predictably high quality results. Clare and Norman Spencer live the perfect life – especially now their daughter has left for college and they’re enjoying empty nest syndrome. But the neighbors are causing some concern – especially when the wife disappears and Claire believes she is trying to communicate with her from “the other side.”

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Zemeckis has admitted that this is his homage to Hitchcock, and true to form, the suspense builds deliciously slowly. When Claire starts seeing faces in the bathtub (where else?) she goes to talk it over with a psychiatrist. A session with a Ouija board proves that somebody is trying to contact Claire, and it’s not long before she’s stealing keepsakes from grieving parents and reading books with chapters helpfully entitled “Conjuring the Dead.”

The result is a strong movie whether you’re enjoying the ghost story or the “Yuppies in peril in a beautiful house” aspect of it (and it doesn’t hurt that Michelle looks luminously beautiful).

Cat People (1942)

Serbian immigrant Irena doesn’t have a friend in the world when she meets Oliver. He’s kind and attentive and they soon fall in love, despite Irena’s lack of physical affection. She’s convinced she’s living under a curse that will mean she’ll transform into a panther and kill any man she kisses, and despite seeing a (deeply inappropriate) psychiatrist, she can’t shake her beliefs. Oliver is initially patient but eventually finds himself falling for his much more reasonable colleague, Alice. There’s no way this love triangle can end happily and, well, it doesn’t. Cat People is sad as well as eerie, with an increasingly paranoid atmosphere enhanced by skillful shadow play.

The Nameless (1999)

Five years after her daughter Angela went missing, presumed dead, Claudia starts getting weird phone calls. A female voice claims to be Angela, and begs her mother to save her. A series of weird clues leads Claudia to investigate a weird cult… but when things slot into place too easily, it seems like someone might be luring her into a trap. Thematically, The Nameless is similar to Jaume Balaguero’s later film Darkness; there’s a similar feeling of hopelessness and despair, a creeping horror that doesn’t let up, topped off with a horribly downbeat ending. Brrrr.

Dead End (2003)

The Harrington family are driving home for Christmas when they decide to take a shortcut. Obviously, that turns out to be a bad idea. Picking up a mysterious hitchhiker is an even worse idea. Dead End isn’t a particularly original movie, and it does have a truly awful ending, but there’s something about its characters, its atmosphere, and the way it tells the well-worn story that’s really effective. And creepy, of course.

The Others (2001)

Every ghost story introduces an element of uncertainty: are these things really happening, or are they in your head? Like The Innocents, The Others is partly inspired by Henry James’ novella The Turn Of The Screw. Grace (Nicole Kidman) has turned being neurotic into a fulltime job; her children apparently suffer from a sensitivity to light, which means the gothic mansion they inhabit must be swathed in thick curtains at all times. This makes things difficult for the new servants, who have turned up in a most mysterious manner…

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Grace’s daughter has an imaginary playmate called Victor; her insistence that there are “other people” in the house vexes Grace until she begins to hear them, too. A piano playing by itself, shaking chandeliers and some truly traumatic hallucinations add to the panic as Grace questions exactly who she is sharing her home with. The tension builds to almost unbearable heights before a truly haunting ending. An intelligent script with a superb twist, quality acting and an atmospheric set (complete with graveyards, mist and autumn leaves) – what more could you want in a creepy movie?

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

“It is happening, and no one is safe.” Night of the Living Dead features some of the most brilliantly ominous radio broadcasts in all horror. When a group of strangers end up trapped in an isolated farmhouse together after the dead begin to rise, no one is in the mood for making friends, and it’s their own prejudices and stubbornness that leads to their downfall. (Well, that, and the fact that no one realized getting bitten by a ghoul would lead to death and reincarnation. Oops.)

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The zombie imagery is some of the most haunting ever committed to film, as vacant-eyed ghouls wander in and out of the shadows, chewing on dismembered body parts as they lurch around, constantly in search of fresh meat…

Candyman (1992)

Say his name five times into a mirror and the Candyman appears. Despite his sweet-sounding name, that’s not something you really want to do: Daniel Robitaille was a murdered artist, stung to death by bees in a racist attack, and so he tends not to be in a good mood when he shows up. Set in an urban tower block, this film demonstrates that horror can strike anywhere, not just in spooky old mansions in the middle of the countryside. It’s gory, grimy, and really quite disturbing.

M (1931)

A child murderer is stalking the streets of Berlin and, as the police seem unable to catch him, tensions run high. In an attempt to stop the nightly police raids, the town’s criminals decide to catch the killer themselves, and a frantic chase begins. Though there’s no actual onscreen violence, Peter Lorre is amazingly creepy as the whistling killer, and there’s a sense of corruption pervading the whole film. (Since both Lorre and Fritz Lang, the director, fled the country in fear of the Nazis soon after the film was made, it’s tempting to speculate on what M might be saying about Germany at the time, which only makes it all the creepier.)

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

An early example of the found footage genre, The Blair Witch Project has been aped and parodied by everyone and their grandma, but there’s something unsettling about it that hasn’t quite gone away. Most of the film is improvised; the actors are really filming the scenes themselves, working from a loose outline of the plot, but without prior knowledge of what half the scares were going to be. That ambiguous ending lets you make up whatever explanation you like for the events of the film, which means whatever the scariest thing you can think of is, that’s what the film is about.

The Orphanage (2007)

Laura (Belén Rueda) is returning to her childhood orphanage with her husband and son in order to open it as a care home for children with disabilities. She’s busy, but still has time to notice that seven year old Simón (Roger Príncep) has found an imaginary friend, Tomas. He might have a sack over his head, but what’s a little creepy mask between pals?

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Simón is adopted, so it’s only a little odd when a social worker shows up without an appointment. It’s slightly more odd that she’s snooping around in the shed at night. During a daytime party, Laura has an encounter of her own with a masked child, and then experiences every parent’s nightmare: Simón is missing. What follows is the story of a mother who takes the search for her son to the limits of her sanity. Geraldine Chaplin makes an appearance as the medium who conducts possibly the most spine-tingling of all onscreen séances, and there are some truly terrifying shocks during Laura’s search for the truth.

Director JA Bayona makes every shot count; the movie is visually beautiful as well as fantastically sinister. It’s a bona fide horror film but the ending might make you cry.

Ring (1998)

Ring isn’t a perfect film. It’s a bit too long and ponderous and there’s a bit too much irrelevant mysticism in there. But in terms of pure creepiness, it’s pretty damned effective. The idea of a cursed videotape was brilliant – who didn’t have zillions of unmarked VHS tapes lying around the house at the time? – and that climactic scene where the image on the screen crossed over into reality is bloodcurdling. Sneaky, too, since it managed to suggest that no one was safe. Especially not you, gentle viewer, because didn’t you just watch that cursed tape, too? An awful lot of people must have breathed a sigh of relief once their own personal seven-day window was over.

The Innocents (1961)

Based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, this film sees a young governess heading out to an isolated old house to take care of two young children who appear to be keeping secrets from her. Their previous governess died, along with another of the house’s servants, but their influence still seems to be lingering about. Or is it? Just like in the original story, it’s possible to read the ghosts either as genuine spectres or as the fevered imaginings of an over-stressed and under-sexed young woman. Either way, though, the film is terrifying.

The Skeleton Key (2005)

In a decaying house on an old plantation, an old man is dying. Caroline is hired as his carer, but although her job should be simple enough, she begins to suspect that something weird is going on – especially when she finds a secret room in the house’s attic filled with spell books and other arcane bits and bobs.

Is the old man actually under a spell? Why does he seem so terrified of his wife? And might Caroline herself be in danger? The Skeleton Key is one of those films that’s far better than it has any right to be; it slowly ratchets up the tension to a crazy finale and ends on an incredibly creepy note.

Insidious (2010)

Insidious uses just about every trick in the book to creep out its audience, and for some people, that might seem like overkill. There are lurking monsters around every corner; there’s a child in peril; there are wrong-faced nasties; and there are screeching violins every five minutes. On repeat viewings, the plot doesn’t quite hold up (halfway through, the film switches protagonists, which is baffling) and the comedy relief seems grating rather than funny. But the carnival atmosphere, the nods to silent German Expressionist films, the demon’s bizarre appearance, that dancing ghost… there’s something brilliant about it, nonetheless.

Dark Water (2002)

Part of the initial wave of soggy dead girl movies, Dark Water is occasionally very daft, but still effectively creepy. Yoshimi Matsubara is a divorcee, forced by circumstances to move into a crumbling apartment block with her young daughter, Ikuko. Their new home isn’t in the nicest of areas, but it might be alright if it weren’t for the leaky ceiling – and, um, that creepy little girl lurking in the shadows, the one who’s never there when you take a second look. Directed by Hideo Nakata and based on a book by Koji Suzuki, Dark Water might not be as terrifying as Ring, but it’s still pretty eerie.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

The effects are dated, and the sequels utterly killed Freddy Krueger’s menace, but the first A Nightmare on Elm Street film is still creepy, in its way. The premise is amazingly disturbing – a dead child molester is attacking children in their dreams – and, combined with some of the deeply weird nightmare imagery in this film, it’s more than enough to give anyone a few sleepless nights. All together now: one, two, Freddy’s coming for you…

Uzumaki (2000)

Slowly, inexplicably, a small town is taken over by spirals. Some people become obsessed; others are killed, their bodies twisted into impossible positions. Uzumaki is a live action adaptation of the manga of the same name, and it’s incredibly weird. Unspeakably weird. Visually, it’s incredible, although the green filters look less interesting than they used to due to overuse by every horror and sci-fi movie since. Still, most films don’t go to the extremes that Uzumaki does.

The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

Yup, it’s another soggy dead kid movie, but this time the kid is a boy and the action is set in civil war-era Spain. A young boy is sent to a creepy orphanage, where the other boys scare one another by telling stories about the resident ghost, Santi, who was killed when the orphanage was bombed. Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, this isn’t your average ghost story – it’s a companion piece to Pan’s Labyrinth, but it’s much more of a horror movie than its better known counterpart.

The Vanishing/Spoorloos (1988)

Saskia and Rex are on holiday when Saskia suddenly, inexplicably, disappears. Rex dedicates his time to trying to find her, but to no avail. He can’t move on, can’t live with the uncertainty, so when Saskia’s kidnapper reveals himself and offers to show Rex what happened to her, his curiosity wins out. It’s a simple yet eerie story with an utterly devastating ending.

Audition (1999)

Takashi Miike’s Audition is more often described as extremely disturbing rather than creepy, but if you can get over that ending (which, let’s be honest, most of us watched through our fingers or from behind a cushion while shouting “NO NO NO NO NO” at the screen), the rest of the film may well creep you out. It starts off slow: a middle-aged man is thinking about dating again, but rather than trying to meet women via traditional methods, he holds a series of fake auditions for a non-existent movie. He meets Asami, a shy dancer, and starts wooing her – but Asami isn’t as sweet and innocent as she seems. Pretty much every character in this movie is an awful person, and the way they treat one another is disturbing on many, many levels.

One Missed Call (2004)

Also directed by Takashi Miike, One Missed Call is a parody of the endless string of soggy dead girl movies made in Japan at the time. But somehow it’s still really creepy. The premise is that, as the title suggests, teenagers are receiving missed calls on their mobile phones. The mystery caller leaves a horrifying voicemail: the sound of the phone’s owner screaming in agony. And since the call came from the person’s own phone, and appears to come from a few days in the future, it’s clearly a sign of impending doom. Sure enough, the kids all die just as the missed call predicted. There’s a nasty little backstory about evil little girls, and a bonkers televised exorcism, and generally, it’s a great film whether you love or loathe stories about scary dead kids.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

You might’ve thought about how you’d survive the apocalypse, but have you ever stopped to consider whether it’s actually worth doing? In The Last Man On Earth, Vincent Price is the only survivor of a mysterious plague that’s turned the rest of humanity into walking corpses, hungry for his blood. Every day, he tools up and goes out to kill the bloodsuckers; every night, they surround his house and try to kill him. It’s a dismal way to live, and a depressingly eerie film. It’s based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend – so skip the Will Smith adaptation and watch this instead.

A Tale Of Two Sisters (2003)

Part melodramatic family drama, part psychological horror, A Tale Of Two Sisters is all scary all the time. When a pair of sisters return from a mental hospital, having been traumatised by their mother’s death, they find their new stepmother difficult to adjust to. The nightly visitations from a blood-dripping ghost don’t help, either. But as always in these kinds of films, nothing is what it seems – you might need a second viewing to get your head round the ending.

Night of the Hunter (1955)

Robert Mitchum might have claimed not to be interested in movies or acting, but he’s great in this. As Harry Powell, a bizarrely religious conman, he’s terrifying, whether he’s preaching about the evils of fornication or chasing the children of his latest victim across the country in an attempt to steal a stash of money he knows they’re hiding. The use of light and shadow in this movie is just stunning; the first time Powell arrives at the Harper house is a particular highlight. Robert Mitchum’s singing voice isn’t half bad, either.

Peeping Tom (1960)

Peeping Tom was so controversial when it was released that it effectively ended director Michael Powell’s career. It’s violent, voyeuristic, and since it tells a story from the villain’s point of view; it’s entirely unsavoury. And it’s wonderful. It looks great, it has an amazingly twisted (and tragic) plot, and Carl Boehm is brilliant as Mark, the awkward, mild-mannered psychopath who feels compelled to murder as a result of his father’s deranged experiments. (That’s not a spoiler, by the way – but if I told you how he killed his victims, that might be.)

Psycho (1960)

Happily, 1960’s other movie about a disturbed serial killer was less of a career-killer. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is wonderful, sodden with guilt and tension right from the opening scene. It’s a shame that so many of its twists are so well-known now, because watching this without knowing what was going to happen must have been brilliant. It’s still great – beautiful to watch, genuinely tense and frequently unnerving – but it has lost some of its shock value over the years. (Also, the bit at the end where the psychiatrist explains everything in great detail is utterly superfluous.) Anthony Perkins’ final twitchy, smirky scene is seriously creepy though.

City Of The Dead / Horror Hotel (1960)

Getting the timing of a holiday wrong can have disastrous consequences, as City Of The Dead illustrates. Nan Barlow is a history student who, under the tutelage of Christopher Lee’s Professor Driscoll, becomes fascinated with the history of witchcraft, and decides to visit the site of a famous witch trial… but she arrives in town on Candlemas Eve, probably the most important date in the witches’ calendar. Um, oops.

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City Of The Dead is often compared to Psycho, and there are enough similarities between the films that you could assume it was a cheap rip-off – but though the campy US retitling supports that assumption, this was actually made before Hitchcock’s motel-based chiller. It’s definitely creepy enough to be worth watching on its own merits.

Village Of The Damned (1960)

For no apparent reason, one day every living being in the English village of Midwich falls unconscious. For hours, no one can get near Midwich without passing out. When they wake up, every woman in the village finds herself mysteriously pregnant. Obviously, their children aren’t normal, and something has to be done about them… Based on John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos, Village Of The Damned is more of a sci-fi movie than a horror movie – but it’s super creepy nonetheless.

Dolls (1987)

Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon toned things down a bit for this creepy fairy tale, but not much. When a group of awful human beings are forced to spend the night in the home of a couple of ancient toymakers, they soon get their comeuppance at the hands of – well, the title gives that away, doesn’t it? You’ll never look at Toys R Us in the same way again.

The Woman In Black (1989)

When a reclusive old lady dies in an isolated house out in the marshes, a young lawyer is sent to sort out her estate. But there’s something weird about her house, and the townspeople aren’t keen on helping sort things out, either. The TV version of this movie is far, far creepier than the Daniel Radcliffe version; there’s one moment in particular that will etch itself on your brain and continue to creep you out for years after you see it…

The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974)

Beautifully shot with a great score, The Perfume of the Lady in Black is a dreamy, unsettling film where nothing is ever as it seems. The wonderfully named Mimsy Farmer plays Sylvia, a scientist haunted by melancholy and hallucinations. She’s never quite recovered from her mother’s suicide, and when she goes to a party where talk turns to witchcraft and human sacrifice, her sanity starts to unravel. But are her problems really all in her head, or is there something else going on? The film doesn’t reveal its secrets until the very end, when all that creepiness pays off spectacularly.

May (2002)

May was always a weird child, and unfortunately she’s grown into a weird adult, too. Unable to form any meaningful relationships with the people around her – not even a class of blind children she thinks might be kinder to her than the people who can see how strange and awkward she is – May decides she’ll need to take this “making a friend” business into her own hands. Dark and twisted and incredibly gory, May is as sad and sweet as it is creepy. A lot of that is attributable to Angela Bettis, whose performance is adorably unnerving.

Nosferatu (1922)

In this unauthorised take on Dracula, the evil Count is depicted not as a tragic or romantic anti-hero, but as a horrifying embodiment of the plague – complete with an entourage of rats. Max Schreck makes a brilliantly weird-looking vampire, all teeth, ears and fingernails; his shadow is especially unnerving. Although the ending as presented seems a little abrupt, it’s conceptually horrifying – as is the fact that, due to a copyright claim filed by Bram Stoker’s estate, all but one copy of this movie was destroyed back in the 1920s.

Vampyr (1932)

In a spooky old inn, Allan Grey is visited in the night by an old man who leaves him a gift-wrapped book, with instructions to open it only on the occasion of the man’s death. Which turns out to be soon. The book explains that the town is plagued by vampires – and, helpfully, gives instructions on how to kill them. Vampyr is an early sound film, so while there is some sound and a little dialogue, most of the silent film conventions are still in place. It has a fairly straightforward, Dracula-esque story, but the plot’s not the point. It’s a deliberately strange film, full of disembodied dancing shadows and weird dream sequences; there’s something almost otherworldly about it.

Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi is the definitive Dracula. With his eerie eyes and wonderful accent, he’s brilliantly threatening as the charming Count, but despite his iconic performance here, he’s not the creepiest thing about this film. Nope, that honor goes to Dwight Frye’s portrayal of Renfield, the lunatic spider-eater under Dracula’s control. He’s amazing, all awkward body language and hysterical laughter. Lugosi’s oddly cadenced speech has been emulated and parodied a zillion times, which takes away some of its power; Frye’s performance, on the other hand, is just downright disturbing.

White Zombie (1932)

A year after Dracula, Bela Lugosi starred as Murder Legendre, an evil voodoo master, in one of the first ever zombie movies. The zombies here aren’t flesh-eating ghouls but obedient slaves, working tirelessly in Legendre’s mill. Even when one of them tumbles into a grinder, work doesn’t stop. When the plantation owner goes to Legendre for help winning the heart of the girl he loves, he’s handed a dose of the zombie potion – and now the only way to break Legendre’s spell over the innocent girl is to kill him. Lugosi is suitably menacing, and the drone-like zombies are properly eerie.

The Cursed Medallion/The Night Child (1975)

For a few years, in 1970s Italy, Nicoletta Elmi was the go-to creepy kid. She pops up in Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood and Baron Blood, and in Dario Argento’s Deep Red, among others, but she’s never more creepy than she is in The Cursed Medallion. Here, she plays Emily, the daughter of an art historian who’s making a documentary on demons in paintings. She’s given a medallion but, as the title suggests, it’s cursed, and she ends up possessed by the spirit of a murderess. It’s atmospheric, lovingly photographed and, of course, Elmi is awesome in the lead role.

The Descent (2005)

A group of friends go off on a spelunking holiday, but get more than they bargained for when it turns out that the caves they’re exploring are dangerous in more ways than one. There’s enough time spent on character development that you really feel it when the group starts to get thinned out; there’s some incredibly painful-looking gore; and there are some amazingly freaky monsters. Watch it in a darkened room to make the most of its wonderfully claustrophobic atmosphere.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

The shine might’ve come off this movie because the Paranormal Activity franchise has become Lionsgate’s new one-every-Halloween cash cow, but there’s something deliciously creepy about this movie. Rewatching it now, even knowing when all the scares are coming, it’s still chilling. In a neat twist on the traditional haunted house story, Paranormal Activity’s entity haunts a person, not a house – so its victim can’t just pack up and move. The found footage conceit is used to great effect, making you stare intently at grainy nighttime footage of an empty room, straining your ears for distant footsteps, before making you jump out of your skin with a loud bang. (Pro tip: the movie has three different endings, so if you think you’re bored of it, try one of the others.)

Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)

So much of the effectiveness of a horror movie comes down to its sound design. A well-placed creak, groan, echo, or jangle can make the difference between something completely normal and something terrifying. New scary noises don’t come along very often, but Ju-on: The Grudge managed to come up with something unlike any other scary noise you’ve heard before. Its ghost makes a weird rattling, burping groan as she approaches; it’s kind of like a death rattle, kind of like a throttled scream, and it’s creepier than anything you’ve ever heard before. The film is relentless, light on plot and heavy on jump scares, but it’s that noise that’ll stay with you.

Julia’s Eyes (2010)

Julia and her twin sister, Sara, both suffer from the same degenerative disease – one that causes them to go blind. When Sara undergoes experimental surgery and subsequently kills herself, Julia suspects foul play – and, indeed, something weird seems to be going on, with whisperings about an invisible man lurking in the shadows. But as Julia gets closer to the truth, her own eyesight suffers more and more…The film restricts our vision almost as much as Julia’s; it’s almost unbearably claustrophobic, and ultimately heartbreaking.

The Eye (2002)

Another film about eyes and the horrors of going blind, The Eye follows Mun, a classical violinist from Hong Kong, as she undergoes an eye transplant. Although the transplant seems to be successful – Mun can see again – something isn’t right, because now she can see dead people. And most of them are terrifying. The ending is vaguely preposterous, but the rest of the film is creepy enough that it’s forgivable.

Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)

Lucio Fulci’s unofficial sequel to Dawn Of The Dead features perhaps the creepiest zombies ever committed to film. When a boat turns up in New York harbour with only a zombie on board, investigative reporter Peter West sets out to find out where the boat came from and what’s going on. He ends up on the island of Matool, where the dead are returning to life to eat the flesh of the living… and they’re really, really gross. Zombie Flesh Eaters was initially classified as a video nasty in the UK, and it’s not difficult to see why. Its atmosphere elevates it above your average exploitation movie, though; there’s something really melancholy about it.

[REC] (2007)

When a local news crew decided to tag along with the fire brigade for an evening, they probably didn’t realise they’d end up fighting from their lives in a zombie-infested tower block. Co-written and co-directed by Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero (yup, him again), [REC] is a decent enough zombie movie, until the final reel, when it reveals an even more terrifying ace up its sleeve.

Let Me In (2010)

Although remakes are usually terrible, Matt Reeves’ take on this unusual vampire story was both respectful of and different from the original and, for my money, it’s creepier. Lonely tween Owen doesn’t have any friends until the equally strange Abby moves in next door. They embark on an odd friendship/proto-romance, but Abby has a secret: she’s a vampire. The use of a candy jingle is, against all odds, really eerie, and by paring the story down to its most essential elements (and getting rid of that daft cat scene) Let Me In makes for a scarier watch than Let The Right One In.

Carnival Of Souls (1962)

After a traumatic accident, weird things start happening to Mary. A strange man seems to be stalking her, though no one else can see him, and she feels irresistibly drawn to an abandoned pavilion out in the middle of nowhere. Once upon a time, the pavilion housed a carnival, but now it’s just an empty building… or is it? There’s nothing surprising about the plot of this movie to a modern audience – you’ll have the whole film worked out within about five minutes – but it is gloriously creepy. The climactic scenes at the carnival are pure nightmare fuel.

The Shining (1980)

Probably the most effective of all the Stephen King adaptations, The Shining plonks Jack Nicholson down in the middle of a creepy hotel and lets him do his thing. Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a struggling writer who gets a winter job as caretaker of The Overlook Hotel, where the isolation and/or ghosts send him out of his mind. There are so many creepy images in this film: the twin girls who just want to play, the woman in room 237, the lift full of blood, and, oh, lots more.

The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari (1920)

Appropriately, watching The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari feels like slipping into a nightmare. Caligari’s cabinet holds Cesare, the sleepwalker – a catatonic oracle able to answer questions of life and death with eerie accuracy. Is Caligari a hypnotist, a murderer, or both? It’s a strange story, made stranger with a twist ending, and rendered impossibly creepy by the Expressionist production design. The weird, distorted hand-painted sets give the film a crude, unreal beauty and, if anything, the passage of time has increased the film’s creepiness, because it’s so utterly unlike modern films.

The Exorcist (1973)

An obvious choice, but The Exorcist is genuinely scary. It’s deceptively simple: the filming style is realistic, the locations are ordinary-looking and, by comparison to more modern horror movies, there aren’t many elaborate effects or stunts. But the film makes every scary moment count. It’s atmosphere is oppressive, claustrophobic – there’s an ever-present sense of dread throughout. It ought to feel more dated than it does, but even now, the demonic makeup and scratchy voice of the possessed Regan gives me goosebumps.

The Omen (1976)

Damien is probably the ultimate creepy child. Adopted by the Thorns when their own newborn dies, it doesn’t take long for his dark side to emerge: Damien is the Antichrist.

There are so many iconic moments in this film, so many things that have shaped both the horror genre and our culture’s idea of evil; something about this film really struck a chord, and even now it’s pretty effective. Every death scene in this movie is memorable, but the suicide of Damien’s nanny at his birthday party particularly stands out.

Ghostwatch (1992)

Originally shown on UK TV at Halloween, Ghostwatch scared a whole generation shitless. It’s presented as a live broadcast, starring familiar BBC faces: Michael Parkinson plays host, while Sarah Green and Craig Charles report from the scene as a normal family recount their experiences with the terrifying ghost they’ve dubbed “Pipes”. The shadowy figure of a man is glimpsed several times throughout the show, some appearances more obvious than others, and as viewers call in to share their own stories, things get weirder and weirder…Okay, this isn’t technically a film, but it is so amazingly creepy and brilliant that it couldn’t be left off the list.

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Wicker Man is a wonderful mishmash of genres: it’s got humour, horror, singing and sex. It frequently teeters on the edge of absurdity. But at heart, it’s deeply creepy. When devout Christian Sgt Howie visits the isolated community of Summerisle, he thinks he’s investigating the abduction of a little girl – and the villagers certainly do seem to be acting suspiciously. But as his investigation continues, it becomes clear that something entirely different is going on. Howie runs headlong to his doom, and its final scene is downright spine-chilling.

Suspiria (1977)

Suspiria is Dario Argento’s finest hour. It’s eyeball-meltingly beautiful to look at, all unnatural neon lighting and ridiculously lavish set design; the music is cacophonous, a never-ending wall of sound that doesn’t let up; and the plot is, well, it’s functional enough.

Suzy, an American ballet dancer, flies to an exclusive dance school in Germany only to find herself in the midst of a murder investigation – and something weird is definitely going on with the teachers. If you haven’t seen Suspiria in a while, treat yourself to the Blu-ray. There’s nothing restrained about this movie, nothing ordinary; it sneaks up on you and worms its way into your brain. It’s brilliant.

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bifacialler · 5 years ago

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So I went to see Frozen 2 with the fam

And let me put it into context, I thought the first one was... massively overrated.

[Disclaimer: all of this is my personal opinion and you may not agree with it. There is a very high chance you will not agree with it. Also, I watched it with Russian dub, so maybe some finesse was lost on me.]

Like okaaay, it’s a sister-tale and it was okay in terms of story and engagement, and yeah, we all laughed about Elsa’s ghost braid and the one-face syndrome of the female cast, but the animation quality was good, and Hans plot twist WAS unexpected. It just didn’t blow me way narratively. Maybe because Snow Queen was important to me as a child and the old soviet cartoon will forever be my go-to reference.

So when I went to watch the Sequel, I a) had next to no idea what it was going to be about and b) seeing the trailer, I was sure the animation would have upgraded, and I hoped they would take on the misgivings of the first film and improve upon them.

Frozen 2 (as it turned out to be) was not the film I expected to see.

I’m going to make this (try to make this) a spoiler-free review. This is mostly for me to spill acid in the wake of Oscar Nominations that thought to include this sequel and fucking Live-Action Animation movie we are not going to name, and not KLAUS.

Which is the best animation made this year.

You can fight me outside if you don’t agree.

[Missing Link was okay, though not as emotionally thoughtful as any other Laika work. Toy Story 4 was alright-ish, but still underwhelming in comparison to TS3. The only film I have no questions about is HTTYD 3 - it was very good, but this is not what this post is about.]

So anyway, Frozen 2 is a total mess.

Visually it’s wonderful, and the sisters look different (slightly), and parents have some sort of personalities, which still makes their Else-related decision strange and shitty parenting. We all agreed it was after the first film, but I’m going to return to this pint later.

There are two major themes going to through the plot, the first one just bashing you head-first from the very beginning, while the other follows... two minutes later. The thing with these two themes is: the first one is the most foreseeable plot twist of all time, especially if you consider this film as a product of our current social climate, while the second one, while kinda the continuation of Elsa’s “Let it go” character arc, takes this arc to some very very far-fetched OP level, that at some point you really have to sit back and force yourself to suspend the disbelief of “Elsa, the most Magical Girl of them all”.

It’s honestly a shame. Because these core themes are not the worst. There are a lot of element to them that the film introduces that are good, and could work, EXCEPT the film either does nothing with them, or tries to underplay them as something mysterious and strange which... they kinda don’t feel like.

All of these problems stream from one massive misgiving the film has, and it’s that the film doesn’t clearly know who it is for. It tries to play the card of “kids who watched the first movie will come to see this one, so this film is for them”, but what was supposed to be a step forward, somehow became two steps back. The theme A will not engage adults, because adults will see through it in 5 seconds and the final outcome of it will be the only thing acceptable as an outcome (within the current cultural climate, as I mentioned before), while at the same time it will not work for kids, because they will, quite frankly, not give single fuck about it. They will giggle at Olaf and his questionable shenanigans, that will pop up at random times during the film, kinda stalling the plot - no, let me correct myself. Kids will engage with Olaf’s slap-stick, and... nothing else. I wish I could not say that, but I sat in the movie theatre packed with kids, and this is what I saw and heard. When the kid on the seat before me (6-7 yo) during one of the most emotional parts of the film replied to Anna’s “what am I going to do now?” with “nothing”, it dawned upon me that the message did not connect.

I personally had to pause myself several times during the showing, just to ask myself: What the actual hell am I watching?

And then we come to theme B. I heard in one of the reviews that this film would have been a much better, more engaging film if the creators made it Just Elsa’s Story. Both themes could have been included, but the emphasis wold have been solidly of theme B and Elsa, and how we, as audience, would experience this whole process with her, and I agree. Not that it would have been completely awesome for younger kids, because the concept of it flies a bit over their age group, but it would have been interesting for Elsa stans, and as a general themes of the movie.

But this universe is not just about Elsa. It has Anna as well. And this movie does Anna a huge disservice. I’m not even going to talk about Kristoff. That was just... sad. So very sad, and pointless, and every time their interactions came on screen I had to stuff down my second-hand embarassment and marvel at how this relationship is not ready for what the film wants it to be and how can you mess up the intriguing chemistry that they started to in the first film. (Also, if you actually like the whole Kristoff in the Woods music video, but somehow ever said anything bad about Strange Magic, you are on my problematic list. I’m not fucking around.) But Anna - she was a decent character, and humanly believable, and now she is... in this movie. This is Elsa Movie and Anna is... also in it. (Unlike Kristoff.) Wow.

But the strangest thing about this movie is that with both themes A and B combined, we encounter a dilemma that overruns both of them, and in many ways, renders them null. It came to my attention when some young dad behind me muttered half-way “Can you believe these two run a kingdom?”, and I had a revelation. They DO run a kingdom. And the narrative “call to action” is kingdom-related, except it’s not, because it’s Elsa related. And Theme B is kingdom-related, except it’s not, it’s past related. It’s a question of responsibility, except somehow all of this responsibility is not about the Now. The characters feel the need to fix what was done before them, to discover what was before them, while literally abandoning the present for the past. The one time when the stakes are actually raised, ONE TIME in the whole movie when you have to actually worry, I was seriously more concerned about how the whole of the kingdom is.... I can’t explain it without spoilers, but when the ruler has to chose between the mistakes of the past and the preservation of the current, I’m honestly fucking worried about the kingdom and the people living in it, and maybe Anna and Elsa should not be fucking rulers. I’m just saying.

But even that is, this one stake... is flushed down the drain. The resolution of the film feels rushed and jumbled, and most importantly, Nothing is Lost. I had to sit and watch in awe at how Zero Sacrifices were made. The characters make a right moral choice therefore there will be no bad consequences. What the actual fuck. For a film that makes us wonder about who we are and now we make major decisions, it offers no serious outcomes to these decisions. And this is why it’s two steps back.

First movie made it clear that Letting it Go is not just about your personal freedom, but also about stepping out of comfort zone to embrace who you are and what is important. It made it clear that personal relationships are not straight forward, and take time and work and communication.

And it feels like this sequel kinda spit in the face of all these ideas. The characters now do whatever they want, and in the way, especially in application to Anna and Elsa, repeat the very same mistakes their parents did, except it’s now somehow a good thing. Because everything works out in the end because magic.

Oh, fuck off.

#long post #tldr Frozen 2 is not very good #except for animation quality #it was very pretty #not much else

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maurasto · 6 years ago

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113 potential Easter eggs in the ME! Music video:

One eyed (pink) snake (hopefully not like THAT)

Eye reference Kaylor Reputation picture

Multi colored cobble stones

The snake almost bit me, but I took back the narrative and turned it into something beautiful (Reputation)

The snake turned out to be just a kaleidoscope of butterflies

Rainbow butterflies

Butterflies can’t reach into the glass closet

Staged fighting with a love interest

Speaking French

Christmas tree/christmas reference

The ladies/daughters/cats

Cat looking at door in paintings

Perfect house that doesn’t feel like home (?)

Flowers on dress

Dixie chicks

Several cook chicks

Pictures in frames

Cartier books

Love interest wearing suspenders (and a tie)

You are so dramatic / Je suis CALME! (Her reputation)

Red doors

Stepping out from the glass closet

Walking towards the daylight/coming out

Palm trees

Silhouettes

Shadows

Jumping over hurdles

Numbers 7 and 13

Feeling all kinds of things, but putting on a smile and pretending everything’s all right

Being dramatic (uh!) is an act

Clouds in my coffee reference (?) or the clouds representing all the rainstorms she had to walk through before feeling clean

Feeling alone with her monsters

Feeling like she’s getting eaten up by the trouble, but realizing she’s stronger for it

Past lurking in the shadows

Deciding to not pick up the phone for just anyone

There are so many stairways leading up and back to the closet, but she’s headed out the front door (not hiding or letting herself be derailed anymore)

One stepping out (coming out) before the other. Being left behind in the closet, wondering if the other cool chicks would be as good.

Being in control of your own narrative

Leaving the doors open for others to come out

Being a boss (Kloss) and in control, but still soft

Surrounding yourself with smart people (women)

Leading other cool chicks to be themselves

Briefcases must mean something

White and yellow striped pavement (rays of sun?)

Note the side entrance that’s more private

I may fall, but you pick me up and support me

Pastels – colors has to be a theme

Rainbows

Metamorphosis and crystalis

Lamp posts

Cute litte town far away where she feels at home

The (noise of) the big city is far behind

Panther in the glass closet still

Time on clock signaling the next coming out?

Yellow flowers signaling what exactly?

Looking at the rainbow people and wanting to join them (Karlie)

Wink – referencing Gorgeous – giving her the all clear to join her

Jumping out from the glass closet (Karlie) Mary Poppins style

Colorful guys (exes?)

Wearing daisies?!

Could all the other people with umbrellas represent different coming out methods and how they’re all flawed? (Taylor is also falling with umbrella)

Or that once you shatter the glass closet, a lot of people risk falling out with you? (Ex lovers etc. – boys and girls)

Cool chicks and lame guys – are you lesbian or bi?

The lame guys trying to win her over to no avail

London

(Pink) Water fall

Cotton candy dress

Sitting alone on her stone unicorn searching for a Lover

Blue eyed unicorn lookin for love?

The lover in the foyer doesn’t even know you reference

Some guys lurking in the distance (Calvin, Tom, Joe + two more, is one Josh?)

Then comes her true love interest (Karlie, here in Brendon’s figure) and everyone else fade away

Your true love knows you well enough to really give you what you want and need, not just what «girls usually like»

Cats reference (or pussy)

Living in winter, I am your summer = I’ll keep you warm (passion never dies)

Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats = Boys and boys and girls and girls + New York. Remember how I told you about lesbians in New York while I was holding hands with Karlie people!?

The depth of my love (layers of hearts)

But we were dancing like we’re made of starlight (putting on a show, keeping up the facade)

Taylor with her band feeling safe

Surrounded by angels (Karlie’s in angel)

Celebrating the joy of dancing silly

Honoring the fans

60’s reference (Beatle mania, collaboration with Paul McCartney?)

Standing out in a crowd

Spelling it out for people

I in team (Taking one for the team, Karlie’s team being rubbish and not placing her first?)

Holding each other up and let them shine

Glitter (she’s obsessed, it must mean something)

Ripples on water in the rap scene

The two of us aren’t like the others (the rest of the world was black and white, but we were in screaming color)

Scene layout in front of the rainbow tower

Prisms (diamonds) in the rainbow

Disco meets country

Country boots = musical roots

Bi colors in the disco tunnel

Video game like (?)

Secret hand shake

Tapping the shoes

Day’s over but we’re still throwing rainbows

In the dead of night we’ve got this town to ourselves

We can be as obvious we want, nobody’s around to see it anyway

Lights from the city in the background

We made a mess, but it’s our mess

Melting away the wax figure of myself to reveal my true colors

The clouds (past) is still behind the open doors – to visit when we want, but we’ll never close that door ever again

Umbrella = shielding/protecting each other from the harsh reality

Bikes in the background with the cute little houses – thinking about a more rural life, Taylor?

Stepping out of the spotlight with the love of your life

Leaving behind a sea of pastels – a new wave of coming outs?

Heading back inside the glass closet? But together? (Telling us she’s been going in and out of it for a long time already?)

Hearts, obviously. Taylor: Did you count all of the 113 hearts in the music video (I didn’t)

Pink hair, blue hair (bi flag?)

All the musical theatre references – hint to her having a new song on the Cats soundtrack?

Keeping this for when Taylor start’s revealing more from the different tiers.

#ME!#taylor swift #easter eggs

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themostrandomfandom · 7 years ago

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Hi! How would you personally rank the seasons of glee from your favourite to your least favourite & why?

Hey, @sitandsingtoyou!

Since I watch Glee almost exclusively for the Brittana, it’s probably no surprise that their narrative treatment is the single biggest factor that determines how I feel about any given season.

If Brittana have a prominent, well-wrought arc from season premiere to season finale, then chances are I’ll like said season no matter what shenanigans are going on with other characters or storylines.

The same is also true in reverse.

That said, for the purpose of answering this ask, I also considered factors like the overall storytelling (beyond the Brittana of it all), the music, the presence of any standout episodes, general cohesion, etc., when making my rankings.

The final list appears after the cut.

WARNING: Here be strong feelings about Glee and more than a little bit of negativity about its writing and production. Note that the views expressed in this post are the author’s personal opinions based on her preferences, and they may very much differ from your own.

___________

In order from favorite to least favorite:

S6: As I discussed in this post, in addition to providing our girls with the happy ending they always deserved, S6 offers much of the best-written, most fully-developed, adorable, emotional, poignant, and narratively-satisfying Brittana we get throughout the series. We’re talking fanfic quality stuff, and not just in bits and pieces here and there but basically across the board in every episode in which Brittany and Santana feature. While there are a few things I’d change, on a whole, I can’t think of a more enjoyable canonical culmination to Brittana’s journey. As for the non-Brittana stuff, while there are, admittedly, some really low lows—many of the middling episodes of the season are an affront to screenwriting—there are also some suprisingly pleasant turns. Don’t tell anybody, but I actually love most of the New New New Directions and find the storylines that focus on them (as opposed to the adults of Lima and alumni advisers) kind of delightful. While the series finale itself somewhat underwhelms me, the flashback sequence at the end of episode 6x11 totally makes me cry. A lot of this season is about getting back to what made Glee fun and likeable in the beginning: good tunes, camp gags, and stories about a ragtag group of underdogs overcoming adversity through love and music. In general, I feel like S6 does a nice job tying up the loose ends for glee club members old and new and fulfilling the main thesis of the show (“Something is special because you are a part of it”).

S2: Brittana’s S2 storyline is one long, amazing roller coaster ride of emotion. It’s hard to describe exactly what it felt like watching it all play out for the first time as the episodes were originally airing; I hate to use the word “special” because it sounds so quaint, but it’s kind of the only term that really fits. Because the “Sex is not dating” line in episode 1x13 was initially treated like a one-and-done deal, going into S2, no one in the fandom really expected to see a fully developed Brittana romantic storyline—and yet that’s exactly what the Back Six gave us, and each successive Locker scene brought elation, heartache, fear, hope, and continued anticipation. Nothing beats S2 Brittana angst, and especially not the Hurt Locker, which is far and away the ship’s pièce de résistance. Then beyond the Brittana, the rest of the season is generally high quality, at least as far as Glee goes. There’s some nice tongue-in-cheek comedy, iconic scenes, and heartfelt character development, plus episode 2x19 is one of the show’s musical high points overall. As always with Glee, some pitchy moments sneak their ways in and a few episodes beg to be forgotten, but for the most part S2 is Glee in its stride, and it’s held up well over time.

S1: Since Brittana are not yet main characters, they don’t have a main text S1 storyline, per se. Still, when you fill in the gaps, there’s a lot going on with them on a subtextual level, enough so that rewatching S1 knowing what will eventually happen in later seasons will provide a strenuous cardio workout for any serious Brittana shipper. There’s plenty of excellent Heya improv to go around, and the classic “Brittana on the back row” can’t be beat. Plus, Brittana’s mini-arc with Finn between episodes 1x14 and 1x15 is heartbreaking. Still, the reason why I rank this season so highly has less to do with Brittana in particular than it does with overall quality: Simply put, I think that Glee had a better idea of what it was about during the first thirteen episodes of S1 than it did throughout much of the rest of the series. While later on the show would struggle to balance comedy and drama, realism and camp, trying and failing to be all things to all people, in the beginning, it was just an earnest, theatrical little show about nerdy choir kids trying to find their places in the world, and it didn’t take itself too seriously. Though many of the S1 storylines were schlocky—hello, fake Schuester pregnancy!—there were more than enough heartfelt performances and excellent character moments to balance them out. For instance, for as much as I generally dislike Finn, the “I’ll Stand by You” scene in episode 1x10 is so well done on every level. Whatever Glee became in its later seasons, in S1 it was at its core still good. It hadn’t forgotten what it was all about yet.

S3: Now we’re getting to the bottom of the barrel. I rank S3 fourth on my list not because I really enjoy it all that much but because it’s less terrible than S5 and S4, at least imo. The season’s biggest issue is that it’s all over the place in terms of quality. Sugar was a blessing, but Rory not so much. Likewise, on the Brittana side of things, there are some really high highs—our girls officially start dating! they share their first on screen kiss! they have a fabulous time at their senior prom together!—but there is also the giant bugbear that is Santana’s “coming out” arc, which is awful on so many levels. The writing and characterization for Brittany and Santana vacillates wildly throughout the season. In some episodes, like 3x04 and 3x13, it’s really great. In others, like 3x16, it’s utterly headache-inducing. And it’s not just our girls who suffer from spotty writing throughout the season; Quinn’s storyline is a complete mess, and Sue is an unbelievable Yosemite Sam caricature of herself whose exploits are so exaggerated that they make it virtually impossible to suspend one’s disbelief enough to enjoy her scenes. While the Troubletones are a musical highlight for the whole series—and the “Rumour Has It/Someone Like You” mashup is the best musical performance in all of Glee, hands down—a good soundtrack doesn’t make up for some of the season’s more glaring deficiences, and especially not the way Santana’s storyline was treated both inside and outside the universe of the show. Though there are a handful of S3 episodes I will rewatch for my own personal enjoyment, there are many that I’d prefer not to recall. S3 was the first season of Glee to bring in new regular writing staff beyond RIB, and with all its inconsistencies and the disuniform quality of the episodes, unfortunately, the inexperience really shows.

S5: With the exception of episodes 5x12 and 5x13, I hate almost everything about S5—and, yes, that includes the majority of Santana’s NYC episodes. I get that Heather Morris was largely off the show during this season, so it’s not that I blame TPTB for pairing Santana with Dani or making her Hummelberry’s sidekick. It’s just that it breaks my heart watching Santana repeatedly throw herself against a brick wall as she tries over and over again to win Kurt and Rachel’s friendship and trust, always to no avail (see here and here). In theory, Hummelpezberry could have been a really fun brot3—god knows that myriad fanfic authors have been able to pull it off to great effect—but in canon it never really worked, largely because the writers were reluctant to stop using Santana as a convenient heavy whenever they needed to generate synthetic conflict in an episode, even though she had long since ceased to function as an antagonist in terms of her narrative arc. While there were plenty of zingers and jaunty musical numbers in the Loft, I could never really enjoy them because the happy times never lasted. Santana was made to feel like an outcast in her own home, and for someone who loves that character as much as I do, it hurt to see her feeling so lonely and ostracized. Once she ran off into the sunset with Brittany, things took a turn for the better. Still, there were really only a handful of bright spots overall. Anyone who’s read TKTD knows that my second favorite ship on Glee is Samcedes, and I did truly enjoy the cute little romcom that was their 5B storyline. I also loved the Sancedes and later Brittanacedes friendship moments on the tail end of the season. But in general, everything felt strained and disjointed, and my ultimate sense is that the tragic early loss of Cory Monteith proved an insurmountable hurdle for the season’s creativity and writing direction on a whole.

S4: I liked the production of Grease, but otherwise this season was one long fail from start to finish, and there is not a single episode out of the twenty-two that I at all care to revisit. Though I’ve been able to rationalize and justify and meta my way through the Brittana arc, doing so is just more intellectual and emotional trouble than it’s worth. Throughout S4, the depiction of every established character including our girls seems OOC, some to an incredibly noticeable degree. Sam Evans, whom I loved in S2 and S3, absolutely gets trashed, going from a goofy, lovable dork to idiot Finn Hudson Version 2.0. Episode 4x04 represents one of the worst and most misguided writing decisions I’ve ever seen made on a primetime TV show. That a group of professional screenwriters would sit down and say, “Let’s break up three of our flagship couples not for any good or compelling narrative reason but simply because we want to ‘spice things up’ and see how our heavily-invested, emotionally vulnerable, primarily teenaged and young adult audience reacts!” boggles the mind, as does the fact that they were then surprised when their viewership numbers dropped off dramatically thereafter. I do want to say that I liked Marley Rose, Unique Adams, and Kitty Wilde, though I otherwise found the New New Directions kind of meh. Overall, this season is the one that seems to stray the farthest from Glee’s original premises and spirit. There isn’t much that’s fun, triumphant, or satisfying. There’s just a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, cultural insensitivity, bad writing, and miserable story arcs in scads.

Thanks for the question!

#Crazy Brittanalyst answers #sitandsingtoyou #I also have another ask from you plus ones from deleteee and tryingtoohardddd #which I'm working on slowly but surely #though it may take me a while since this week is a busy one for me outside of the internet

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whifferdills · 8 years ago

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“Extremis” quick takes:

Bill and Penny and i love this not just because my girl gets to go on a well-deserved (if simulated and also poorly-ended) date but because Bill's in the mentor role after being set up as the Dr's mentee and all the best companions are the Doctor at least a little bit

that whole scene with Missy and the Dr and that mix of genuine emotion and manipulation and i'm

P r y d o n i a n

i really do love the narrative technique of intercutting a past event with the current action and each of them informing you about the other and i'm sure people are going 'THIS MAKES NO SENSE' in either a 'fuck Moffat' or a 'whee such crazy excitement' way but tbh this is one of the most coherent stories Moffat has written. it all makes sense according to the rules it sets out, and while there's rules we don't know the details about yet it's not hugely confusing. a mystery, sure, but it's not jumbled or intentionally WTF (Legion is my current barometer for a show aiming for WTF, for comparison)

Nardole is both a badass and a squeaky easily-alarmed mess of a robo man and i love him ok

and i love his dynamic with Bill here - if i think about it too hard, there's not much of a progression from his initial disdain for her and the Whatever they have now but i'm willing to suspend my disbelief in order to make this episode work.

the Widget to turn the metaphysical sight into literal sight is extraordinarily close to how i envisioned the Widget to manage sleeper-cell spy personas in my Fanfictional "A Country of Smaller Wars" and i'm happy that Moff (and the props department) agree with me in re: how Gallifreyan brain-fucking devices should look and operate

(and if i follow that train of thought: if that is CIA design, was it Missy or the Dr who recreated it? Or did one of them steal it?)

but yeah we in some deep alchemical gnostic shit here. the heretical library, the word-as-world, secret texts and enlightenment and shit dudes this is my JAM

i spent a while going 'text to speech my dude' so i'm happy the Dr figured that one out

i am a terrible pervert and bleeding fucked-up Dr Who is just, yknow, i liked that part

anyone made the comparison to "Curse of Fenric" yet? i'm sure there's some meta to be had about how 7's faith was in their companions, and 12's faith is in the role they've sworn to perform

12's first move being to call Bill like 'ok shit is going down so go for broke on that girl you like' (and learning from the mistake of barging in, or, not so much that, but the automatic 'if your average actions were turned into a bot, what would that bot do' being different from what 12 actually does. like their first impulse is still bad, but now they pause and do the right thing instead and my baby boy has grown so much)

consider Bill and Nardole playing GTA. consider 12 playing Super Mario: they are absolutely a speedrunner exploiting glitches, they've got videos on Youtube, no one understands them but everyone is suitably impressed

did i mention the 12/Missy because 12/Missy and i'ma need all the fanfic now pls & thank

that pleasant, leisurely pace of a three-parter that actually spreads the action out evenly. nothing really happened, everything happened, everything is yet to happen. this really works for me in a way that a lot of the first parts of the two-parters in s9 didn't

the first and the last, the honored and the hated, the saint and the whore. (bruh idk abt u but i am about to go hard in the paint here pls come @ me with your gnostic theories and conspiracies let’s go Foucalt’s Pendulum on this bitch)

actually jokes aside this is...like Moffat does Who while listening to input from Umberto Eco, all that creaky nostalgic oldschool mysticism and simulation/simulacra postmodernism and cultural references and how people, how lovers navigate that, are affected and shaped by that. the individual’s willingness to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, or for themselves, even if it doesn’t ‘matter’ because it does matter, on some level, because that’s what they have to do in order to play out their part in the narrative. Simulated!12 is Casaubon in the museum watching the pendulum swing back and forth, understanding his fate.

straight up tho was this episode written just for me or

anyway i fuckin loved it

#dw spoilers

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kinetic-elaboration · 8 years ago

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April 27: Thoughts on 4x09 DNR

[spoiler alert: I didn’t like it and most of what follows is me ripping it to shreds]

Okay, just finished watching 4x09 DNR. And I’ve basically come to the conclusion that I cannot be pleased by this show anymore. I’m sorry, but S4 had a good start that has now devolved into…I’m not going to say worse than or on the level of season 3 but basically into one big nonsense mess. That’s what this episode was, imo, a big old mess.

One thing—and I am being completely literal, this is the ONLY thing I liked in this episode—Miller/Jackson is going to happen and I am on board. I love Miller/Bryan and I always will, and in a way I’m bummed because I’m pretty sure this spells the end of Briller but I can’t be upset because I started writing a Miller/Jackson piece weeks ago and I thought it was a crackship and now I’m like well wow Jackson is definitely queer and he and Miller are gonna hook up it’s completely inevitable COMPLETELY. (If this were an m/f couple I’d say it was out of nowhere and random I admit that but the rules are different for minor character same-sex couples and anyway this was just the initial seed being planted, we’ll see how it goes but so far I’m all in.)

Now for how much I think everything else sucked:

Clarke and Polis

What to say besides I thought this was boring and stupid? First of all, war is boring. War has always been kinda boring but at least in season 1 it was new. But it’s been so fucking constant in every single season and I just cannot care. I have far surpassed the outer limits of fucks I give about martial story lines of any sort. I am not one of those people who has whole shelves of books about WWII in my library okay (and, frankly—are most of the people watching this show that sort of person? I would guess not but what do I know about the cw core audience?). And war story lines are even more dumb now when, much as I disagree with her a lot, you have Clarke there literally spelling it out in great big shiny colorful letters for everyone to see that the radiation is coming in less than a week dumbnuts, put aside the squabbling for like five seconds for the love of all things!!!!!!! I mean she’s not wrong. At one point I just thought, hey, how about everyone who thinks war is a good idea just goes out and fucking slaughters each other—try to get it done in like 2-3 days please, tops—and then everyone who’s smart enough to not want to slaughter each other can live in the bunker. Win-win.

Speaking of Clarke, though, I’ve said it before that I have a supremely complicated relationship with her character but she is at Peak Insufferable Levels when she gets all up her own ass about how she’s the only one to be able to solve everyone’s problems. This was something Lxa cultivated in her—not that I blame L entirely because I think we see the seeds in S1, I mean there was something to cultivate in the first place—and she’s gotten a bit better over S3-S4 but every now and then that side of her that once said “you’re the Chancellor but I’m in charge,” to her own mother, at the ripe old age of barely-18, rears its ugly face and this was one of those episodes. I get that smart-girl frustration of seeing everyone else being So Fucking Dumb and just wanting to knock some heads together until the sense floats up to the top but still the outstanding hubris of her wanting to become the Commander I mean !!!!!!!!!!!!! Which she like apparently off-screen convinced Gaia to go along with because it was only Roan that stopped the whole thing? Oh Roan. You’re often quite boring and your voice annoys me but every now and then you have your moments.

I will say, I did like the way Abby said “WITH SCIENCE!” though.

I wouldn’t say the fight to the death is the worst idea anyone’s ever had but four complaints:

1. The radiation is coming in literally 6 days MUST WE WASTE TIME WITH THIS SHIT?

2. Obviously there are counter-arguments to this and I’m necessarily biased but imo Arkadians researched the bunker (Jaha), found the bunker (Jaha et. al.), and figured out how to open the bunker (Monty) so, like—shouldn’t they automatically get some of the spots? They can’t possibly have many people left after the multiple massacres their original 2k population has taken over the last year or so--the clans can have their 12-way brawl for the rest of the space after Arkadia has taken what’s already theirs.

3. Next episode is going to be so boring I already want to weep,

4. Is this the fucking Hunger Games now? Just like I didn’t sing up to watch Game of Thrones, I didn’t sing up for the Hunger Games either. JFC

Raven, Murphy, and Emori

I liked Murphy and Emori both in this episode. I thought Murphy had some good lines and there was a lot to like in his last scene with Raven. And I liked that Emori’s story in this ep was about learning to trust the Sky People. That was a nice little narrative flourish.

But the rest…I don’t know. I just don’t know. I liked how Raven’s story line was thematically consistent with the DNR kids’ story line, how she is, in fact, another person who is literally saying Do Not Resuscitate, except that her case is more…it’s closer to how these issues really play out in real life because she is, personally, because of something in her actual physical body, not outside of herself, going to die, and now she’s preparing to do it on her own terms. I mean it was a little on the nose but they earned that because they’ve been building this Raven story for a while.

I couldn’t really get into it, though. I can’t explain why I couldn’t. Maybe it’s that Becca’s lab has been so off-putting to me this entire season. Maybe it’s because I have such a deep hatred of all of this going into space bullshit even if I’m a little more open to the possibility of just blasting off the rocket the one time for a suicide mission. (It’s a little less totally-out-of-left-field-versus-previous-seasons utterly-batshit-implausible and more along the lines of within-suspendable-disbelief ranges.) Maybe it’s just bad luck on my part that it’s not resonating with me even though there’s nothing wrong with it. I want to like the concept of a fucked up code getting into someone’s brain and setting up a home there and messing with them, but something that I can’t pinpoint in the execution is just off for me, like a barrier between something I feel I would enjoy and my actual enjoyment.

DNR

THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CENTURY. Heavens me this was the MOST SHALLOW TREATMENT OF SOMETHING I’M INTERESTED IN THAT I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS. I demand my fucking money back. (IDK what money in particular...my internet bill I guess? My law school tuition? The monetary equivalent of all the time I’ve spent thinking about The 100 or at least this story line? Something.) I probably put more effort into my rambly Jasper meta than they writers did in writing this episode or possibly this entire arc. If I ever need evidence for my contention that this show is shallow af and the PTB don’t know how to write philosophical or even meaningful discussions lasting more than a dozen lines, I’m going to point to this episode.

First, it bothered me that no one thought to ask themselves or each other: hey, why do we want to take these people with us? Like hear me out because maybe it is or should be obvious, but I think this is the time to ask that question. Why do we want to force people to live? Because we do, we force people to live all the time. You can be very simple about it and just say “because all life is good and all death is bad and suicide in particular is bad and our moral obligation as people/the state’s moral obligation as the guardian of the people is to ensure that everyone stays alive even against their own will absolutely no matter what.” I mean that’s a legit position, even if I think it’s a bit simplistic.

You could say that you want them to live because it’s all hands on deck to keep humanity itself alive—which is the argument Jaha hints at initially in his conversation with Jasper, and exactly the type of argument the DNR group could most easily and most fairly reject. I’m always 10000000% on board for discussion of the Ark or comparisons of the current situation to the Ark but we get only a tiny itty bitty hint at this, instead of a long discussion. (TALKING’S BORING RIGHT WHERE ARE THE SWORDS.) (I’m sorry to anyone who actually reads this; I just can’t contain my bitterness.)

You could say that a desire to kill oneself is generally a symptom, not a disease, and a general, moral, human compassion obligates us to interrogate that suicidal urge when we see it in others, and would especially so obligate us if we saw that urge in a large group of people such as the DNR group. Which is pretty much my position but if that’s the position anyone on the outside of the door were taking they’d probably not want to solve the problem by blowing up the door and taking everyone prisoner so.

That Jasper is literally using the phrase DNR—which generally applies when the person in question can only be saved by some kind of extreme and immediate measure—should have prompted some sort of discussion. Another term for DNR is “allow natural death.” To use that phrase is, first, to say that the bunker is a life-saving measure akin to CPR, something that you do at the last moment to stave off what would otherwise be your (natural) time to die; second, it is to say that Jasper and his followers view the bunker as, in some sense, unnatural (not a way to live, as Jasper puts it); and third, it is to say that they consider themselves right on the verge of death--as in, this is an emergency situation. I just…I’m so frustrated that they used that phrase, they made it the title of the episode, they put it forefront in the trailer, and then it’s like…never dealt with!!!!! There’s so much material there!!!! Whoops sorry guess we gotta budget in about ½ the running time for fight scenes and talk of war lol. Wherever are my priorities???

All we really got was a knee-jerk “life is good, survival is good, you kids are bad” from Jaha and friends.

Second—it only gets worse from there because then, as soon as Bellamy says, “Hey, um, maybe it’s kinda understandable what they’re doing??” everyone just throws up their hands and goes “Hey, you’re right. I guess we’ll just let them die.” Like what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There aren’t enough exclamation marks in the fucking universe. I’m sorry but that’s literally just straight up immoral. THESE CHILDREN ARE SUICIDAL. Does that not fucking bother you, any of you??? I’m disgusted. I’m even more disgusted that the narrative seemed to stand with the death squad, like it allowed only the rational arguments to stand without interrogating at all the bitter pain beneath them.

Third, and this is a smaller point but… Bellamy’s the male lead, and he was definitely flirting with Jasper’s philosophy a mere episode ago. Now he’s all back on the survival train. Just like that. I know we don’t have time to go deep into everyone’s head here but Bellamy’s in such an interesting place—I think he’s one of the few people who is really, honestly torn between Team Survival and Team Fuck It—and not only is he a character with a unique vantage point but there is literally only one character even arguably more important than him so if we’re going to give a few extra minutes to ANYONE shouldn’t it be him? Does he not deserve that? He got like 2 lines and 3 minutes of screen time this week and that was pathetic.

Also—not be shallow—but—I’m gonna indulge in a bit of supremely bitter ranting here. As I’ve said repeatedly, I hate (TRULY TRULY HATE) Monty/Harper. So the fact that 80% of Monty’s story was about Harper and maybe 20% if I’m super generous, was about Jasper pisses me off. Monty being all “Harper you’re the only thing more beautiful than the hydroponic farms” made me want to vomit. Monty’s “I love you” made me literally scream NO YOU DON’T YOU CHILD at the screen. Look, I’ve started a relationship with a random hook up in real life, and it’s a sham, I can speak from deeply personal experience, this relationship is a sham. And that Monty’s emotion is all being shoved into this Random Het Nonsense with the minorest of minor delinquents who has pretty much no personality and has only had the screen time she’s had this season because she had the good luck to be shoved into a ““““““romance”””””” with a main while actual main character since the fucking pilot Jasper has been shafted at LITERALLY EVERY TURN is just SO MADDENING I MIGHT LITERALLY SCREAM. (Yes I consider Harper and Jasper to be zero sum. It’s one or the other for screen time and Monty’s heart and I know where my allegiances lie.)

I don’t feel much of anything about Monty staying behind. Like… I probably should, but by that point in the story I was just exhausted with disappointment and counting down the minutes until it was over. On the one hand, what other choice did he really have, narratively? Like he wasn’t going to leave the most important people in his life behind. But then on the other hand, I can’t help but think it was sort of dumb of him. This is just about as high stakes as it gets. And he’s going to die for what, like, to make a point? To be nice? Hmmmm, suspicious. Further, and to go along with my rant above, I was pretty pissed off that all of his emotion in his last scene was reserved for Harper and he and Jasper just got a bro moment LIKE WHAT THE FUCK. I guess on the upside, if Miller/Bryan is any indication, we’re probably supposed to take from that that they’re in love (get it? Because Miller and Bryan bro-hugged in S3? I’m still not over that btw).

Finally, and more seriously… I don’t believe that Monty has really engaged with his friends’ arguments. Am I supposed to think he somehow did off screen and that’s why he’s there? I think not, first because Monty is SO HARDCORE on Team Survival that that would be a massive mental undertaking and one we should really see at least part of on screen, and second, and more importantly, because he literally says he’s just there to help them out when they change their minds, lol. He’s loyal but he hasn’t learned anything.

I did like the Bellamy/Jasper hug. I was waiting for it, I was literally saying “hug him, hug him, Jasper loves hugs, he’ll love this so much” the entire time they were talking. And then they did hug and Jasper DID obviously love it so much and it was sweet. Unrequited Bellamy/Jasper hero-worship-crush (head) canon (further) confirmed.

A few other little things I did like: the call back to Mt. Weather (especially because it came in the form of Monty pointing out that Jasper’s good at this barricading himself in shit, but also because it invited the viewer to remember the Mt. Weather situation and maybe do what I’m not doing right now and dig deeper into the comparison); the shot of Wells in the door that Jaha sees. Both of these things were examples of this show’s occasional ability to be Deep but tbh these moments of depth are always just moments and the general shallowness of everything surrounding them almost makes me think they just luck into these gems.

Octavia

Oh yeah and Octavia was in this too. Almost forgot. I still don’t buy her and Ilian for a hot second. I did have a literal second of thinking Ilian COULD have been interesting, but heavy emphasis on could: if he’d been introduced as a farmer and we got some good farm-society world-building, it would have been nice as something actually different in Grounder society for once. But…first Ilian was too boring at the beginning and between that, and the completely unforgivable burning of Arkadia, I’m never going to like him. And second, he’s apparently a warrior too, quelle surprise, so I guess that “oh look something different” thing I was talking about is actually a no-go.

Similarly, I��d like to see Octavia try out a farmer identity. But for more than two scenes lol. She could have been interesting. She could have had an interesting arc. But it’s all just too little too late for me at this point. They clearly don’t know what to do with her. TBH if we’re going to continue insisting that main/important characters need to die to give the story weight (lol this story’s problems are way bigger than “not enough deaths” I mean…. That’s so ludicrous I can’t even find the words)…maybe it’s her time to go. Just a suggestion.

#the 100 #the 100 spoilers #s4 reactions #s4 negativity #the year 2017 #2017: fandom thoughts #2017: the 100 s4

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rockcandyrebels · 5 years ago

Conversation

Missing (Intro to Elyon)

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

hey though like

Remember when I told you I would freak you out one day with a narrative? About these two? And it would be kinda random?

Random as in the time I would give you it

Well, now is the time

Its short and taken a lot of creative liberties so take it with a grain of salt, but like...I think you might enjoy it.

Memphis-Rex:

(eye emoji)

(open hands emoji)

Gimme.

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

Weeks. It's been weeks since he's even spoken to Aaliyah. They both have their own lives to take care of, yes, both have their own jobs in with their stupid angel systems in their stupid own worlds, but it was uncommon for them not to text for even a few hours. And yes, she did tell him this time that she would be away for a few days, but even during those kind of jobs she was still consistent in her messages towards her boyfriend, texting him, sending him selfies or silly memes or the like. But for two weeks...there would be silence from her end. Loud, deafening silence.

Kysme must have texted a hundred times, called her a dozen, at least. Still, no answer, no response. Nobody could blame him if he was worried, it would be out of place and irresponsible for him not to be.

And finally seeing the name "Diamond" flash on his phone screen, no doubt the pink angel would answer it with an immediate press of the screen. But in that case, he would find that it was not the voice of his lover, melodic and distinct and accented, instead it was a deeper, slightly nasally voice, low and flighty and unfamiliar.

It was the voice of a man.

"Uh. Hi." An awkward start, the sound of a relieved sigh and muffled phone ringing could also be heard through the phone. "This is...uh...Kiss-me, right? Keez-mey? Kaism? Your name on Aaliyah's phone was only 'Pink Dumbass' with a heart so I, uh...filled in the blanks."

The person on the phone continued to speak. "My name is Elyon. I'm a friend of Aaliyah's...You've been blasting her phone so I thought that I should tell you what's been going on..." There was a pause, heavy and too long for comfort.

"Actually..." The stranger would finally come to say, his voice hitched, as if he was speaking away from the phone. "Maybe you should come here and see for yourself."

Annddd fin

Memphis-Rex:

Wh-

//stunned silence

...

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

It's Elyon

Holy shit

I also laughed when he said Kiss-me.

BUT

#worstcliffhangerever

My heart almost fucking stopped.

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

LMAO YOU MEAN "best cliffhanger ever"

But yes! Elyon! I found it a little interesting that liyah probably hasnt mentioned him yet to kysme while on the flip side she is super chill with Eden, so I was like,

"What better way to bring the two men most important in her life together than with a tragedy?"

Or a mystery

However you interpreted the cliffhanger

(Also yeah had to add the kissme joke lol)

Memphis-Rex:

I like to interpret it as Aaliyah made a huge fucking mess (with someone included in the mess), turned tail and ran for it, and now these two guys, ALSO GREATLY DIFFERENT IN PERSONALITIES, will have to work out where tf she disappeared to.

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

THATS

THATS BASICALLY IT

thats the idea!

The premise is that aaliyah goes missing after being sent off world for some routine diplomatic duties (herself being the bodyguard of said diplomat) and the people of the party like...disappear! Into thin air!

And yes, these two opposites end up having to team up a bit. (Hilarious how fucking different they are hoo boy will then not get along)

Memphis-Rex:

----- Because you used present tense. So I could tell. This mess, it's still rolling. (sent delayed bc waiting for you to finish typing lmao)

BUT HOO BOY INDEED.

Ely is going to wonder wtf Liyah ever saw in Kysme beyond his pretty face when he shows up on the scene----

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

Ah yes, yes! Sorry about that lmao-

OH YEAH THOUGH

El, after meeting kysme for a whole 2 minutes; "Liyah why do you always go for the assholes"

"Like he's literally the worst I feel like im talking to my training school bully"

Memphis-Rex:

LMAO-

his best friend has, in his eyes, really questionable tastes in partners---

"why does he have to swear so much"

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

BASICALLY YEAH

Memphis-Rex:

I HOPE AT THAT TIME HE ALREADY HAS A BF TO THINK ABOUT. AN ANCHOR OF COMFORT TO THINK OF WHILE IN THE PRESENCE

OF THIS PINK

MENACE

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

OH YEAH

he is dating one of (friend's) characters!

(Memphis-Rex pinned a message to this channel. See all the pins.08/30/2017)

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

First of all im glad you liked it enough to pin it

But secondly yeah that's probably why liyah doesn't talk about el much because he's off in Eden (leenie's world) with his monster boyfriend smoking weed and being all domestic

Which is fine and lovely, but they havent seen each other in a while so its not an immediate thing to talk about

I'm sure kysme also thinks about el like "who is this nerd"

"Who still tucks their shirt in their pants"

"A pocket protector? Wtf?"

Memphis-Rex:

SMOKING WEED AND BEING DOMESTIC

sounds like quite the life-

He definitely can smell the NERD ESSENCE reeking off of El.

Lowkey judges his outfit-

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

NERD ESSENCE IM GONNA

though true...

At least he has sparkly arms too, it distracts from the suspenders and the khakis- (I gotta redraw him proper god)

Memphis-Rex:

Yeah-

AT LEAST THERE'S ONE (1) REDEEMING FEATURE

though it probably doesn't make Kysme happy

because it makes him miss his gf even more

Her arms had all the right colors

OG arms.

Ducking Fool, Absolute Buffoon:

OG ARMS

but god yeah...I would figure that too. Kysme is just grumpy because he misses his gf badly,,,dont take it personal el

And he doesn't but he still doesnt like the dude...

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smokeybrand · 6 years ago

Text

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Riddikulus

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a paradox. It’s a complex hodge-podge of beauty, brilliance, potential, and butt. Like, it’s so much better than the first but, at the same time, SO much worse. This is the first time i can definitive point to one thing derailing an entire film but that definitely shouldn’t be the case because it’s the goddamn script. This thing is written BY J.K. Rowling! These are HER characters! This is HER world! How is she f*cking this sh*t up so bad? It’s wild to see but, before this becomes a rant instead of a review, let me get into the detail proper.

The Good

Goddamn, this movie is beautiful. The sets, the cinematography, the pageantry and costumes, the fantastic beasts; Everything in this movie is leveled up from the first and it shows. I was very impressed by the level of comfort exhibited by this crew and cast. They’ve kind of found their look and they’re effortlessly transcribing that from the first.

The costumes, in particular, are exquisite this time around. The Wizarding World always has the best costumes but i knew this would be something special because of the period in which these events take place. I was not wrong. also, it’s Paris. There’s a scene where cats have to get to a circus by entering under the skirt of this beautiful statue and the way that scene i framed? The juxtaposition of the statue in front of the modern, bustling, Paris? Simply breathtaking.

I really liked the casting in this flick. I think the addition of Depp and Law was a stroke of genius. These two cats were easily one the best things about this movie. It’s just a f*cking shame they weren’t given enough to do. That’s actually a continuing theme throughout this mess of a movie; No one ever has enough to do.

Dan Fogler is probably the best thing about this movie, really. But, like literally everyone and everything else in this thing, his Jacob Kowalski felt underused and underdeveloped. Dude did great with what he was given, everyone did, but what he was given, wasn’t much. That’s what this movie is, though, in a nutshell; Not much.

Eddy Redmayne did his thing. I’m pretty sure Newt is on the Spectrum and i think Rowling is trying to subtly hint at that, but she’s just a bit off. Newt comes across as dick most of the time, not some guy with difficulty reading and maneuvering social situations. I really like his take on Scamander but i can totally see how people find him unsympathetic and rude.

I liked the casting of Zoe Kravitz as Lita Lestrange. I think she was a bright spot in this film. I thick she could have shone brilliantly,though, if she has something to f*cking do! Like, the chemistry between her and Redmayne was palpable. I believed that they loved each other. It’s a goddamn shame we didn’t get to see that properly displayed.

This, young world Rowling is showing us, is absolutely stunning. Witnessing her magic set in a such a bygone time, is really something. I am thoroughly enjoying our current trip through the Wizarding World!

The Bad

The timeline is mad f*cked up in here. There are certain scenes and certain characters that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t even f*cking exist just yet. There is one in particular that, by the time Potter proper is a thing, should be LONG dead but nope! Because it’s cool i guess? I dunno, man, it’s all just frustrating from a writer’s standpoint. Sh*t should be tighter. It’s not.

There are plot holes here that are infuriating. Common sense sh*t like, you know, not doing a thing or maybe opening your mouth. Aside from the contradiction of certain events occurring that have not occurred or the appearance of certain characters that are established to not have been until an entire decade after these events, characters make heel turns that are outright ridiculous and objectively adverse to everything they are. Or at least, have been built up to be in the one movie we have before this one. I watched my favorite character, take a path that would be abhorrent to everything they are, because they were talked to kind of nice? I get that. The most dangerous villain is the one that talks sense to you. Lucifer. Hitler. Trump. I get that. I can see Grindlewald having that charisma, too. It’s why you cats Johnny Depp. He oozes that sh*t! But it only works if you establish that Grindlewald has that gift of gab, that essential charisma to turn even the staunchest of non-believers but...

You never get the necessary time with him to even believably establish that Grindlewald has that ability! When said turn comes from my favorite, it just comes across as forced conflict instead of misplaced belief. They weren’t convinced, they were throwing a tantrum. For a film with his name in it, Grindlewald is wildly underdeveloped and he’s not the only one. There are, at least, four characters intricate to the plot, that have NO development. None. They are there as plot devices and that’s it. There’s one, in particular, that find themselves standing against Grindlewald but will end up standing WITH Voldemort! These motherf*ckers preach the same goddamn thing! The f*ck?? It’s Nagini. Nagini chooses not to follow Grindlewald but becomes a f*cking Horcrux for Voldemort. The f*ck, dude? Why? You don’t f*cking know, because none of her motivations or anything were ever f*cking explored! And those are just the underdeveloped.

There are some characters, one of the four main characters of the entire f*cking franchise so far, that have NO development! You can literally remove them from this film, and there would be no consequence. Seriously, why was Tina even in this f*cking thing? Why was she here? Why even try with her character? She’s exactly the same person,now, that she was, then! It’s Ludicrous! But she’s not the only one! and that’s the paradox; Core characters, essential to the plot, are wholly interchangeable. They be outright removed and this narrative would chug along fine, probably better, with just the slightest of tweaks. it’s f*cking insane to see.

The climax was underwhelming.

There are certain revelations that’s suppose to make the audience gasp but, if you’re into the lore of Potter, they’re an impossibility. It’s just terrible. Like, mid-career Shyamalanian levels of sh*tty twists. Just, knowing what i know about Potter, the disbelief necessary to suspend in order to accept this sudden turn is impossible. It’s insulting, really. It’s as messed up as that whole Aliens-hate-Water thing from Signs. It’s really that bad.

All of the controversy with this movie is kind of stupid. The Depp and Heard stuff is kind of ridiculous to me because,at the time of his casting, that sh*t had been resolved for several months. The whole Dumbledore and Grindlewald being gay for each other in a family film was also stupid. I mean, did you expect them to just make out in the middle of the movie Really? you think middle America is going to come to this thing with their f*cking kids to see that? But this sh*t with Nagini, though? That sh*t is a reach and a half! At best, she’s an ill conceived addition to an ill conceived narrative. At worst, she’s a poorly executed narrative trope. What she ain’t is a racist caricature of an Asian person. What it isn’t is some long standing accusation of feminism, peered through the lend of toxic masculinity, or whatever other buzzwords we’re using today. All of this sh*t is forced and stupid, and legitimately distract from everything else wrong with what’s going on in this move.

The Worst

The writing in this movie is just terrible. Like, it’s written well. For a book. I can see the connections and understand where Rowling wants to take this but the detail she needs to build this story, she’s not getting within the confines of a script for film. She has all of these fantastic ideas, and they are fantastic, but the execution is just the worst! It CRIPPLES everything involved with what this movie is trying to do. I can see it, though, and that’s what really, really, hurts. I can see the forest through the trees and it’s a goddamn marvel! but the person in charge of caring for the forest, can’t. Not within the confines of cinematic narrative.

The Verdict

Fantastic Beasts 2 is kind of a quandary. Everything in it that makes up a movie, is mildly excellent. Everything. Except the goddamn script. Rowling is a brilliant book writer but has no idea how to right a film. At all. The entire time I'm watching this thing, all I can think is how dope this would be if it were book three in an anthology. Beasts 2 is just too much, too soon. There is so much going on; So many factions, so many distractions, so many happenings, so many actions, that you lose yourself in the whirlwind of circumstance. Half of which are unnecessary! Don’t misunderstand, i liked this movie but i liked it because i love the world Rowling created. I like seeing Grindelwald. I like experiencing the different Magic Ministries and the youthful versions of characters i love. But not everyone is going into this thing wanting any of that. A lot of cats are going into this flick to see, you know, a movie, and that’s where this thing fails. There is a great amount of potential that goes unfulfilled in here because this needed room to breathe; room a 2 hour run time does not allot.

Overall, it's fun but mad disappointing. There is a great deal of awesome here and the world, itself, is rich with stories. It’s like Star Wars. And, like Star Wars, these new films are kind of f*cking up the legacy a little bit. Again, i really want to stress this fact, i liked this movie but not for the reasons i should. I like the idea of an expanded Wizarding world. I like Harry Potter. I like the cast and core heroes. I like the idea of these prequels. I do not like how Rowling is telling their story.

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placetobenation · 7 years ago

Link

**I was born in 1990 and became a wrestling fan in 1996. Shawn Michaels was my first favorite wrestler, and I watched every minute of the Attitude Era religiously. Needless to say, 90s WWF is my wrestling foundation. I have heard about the mythic era of the NWA and the territories, (and of course I’ve seen bits and pieces) but never truly steeped myself in all its glory. Follow my fresh/ignorant breakdown of classic wrestling!**

Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling—October 17, 1981

Bob and Davy preview the show, which features the usual cast of characters, aside from one new face–Jimmy Valiant. According to Davy’s wonderfully Southern phrasing, Mid-Atlantic just “keeps getting on better and better!” The WWE Network has a gap in episodes, so we have skipped a few weeks ahead.

Jake Roberts, who seems to switch partners weekly, is now chasing the tag titles with Jay Youngblood. Jake calls out Ole over the fact that the NWA Tag Team Championship has not been defended in 60 days, (30 days overdue) so he will either have to get Gene out of retirement or find a new partner to give them a fair shot.

He throws it to Youngblood, who gives a complete mess of a promo. His bloodshot eyes suggest he may have just smoked a joint. He stumbles on his words, and at one point, completely turns his back to the camera. Jake even seems to be snickering at him in the background. (Maybe Jake just likes to pick partners that humor him.) They just send guys out there and let them do what they do on the mic, for better or for worse. I can respect that.

Piper walks up to Youngblood and just tears into him, going on a breathless tirade about how he will fight Youngblood and his entire “squaw” family. He says they could fight have a deathmatch, until each literally cannot fight any longer and looks as if he might spontaneously combust at any second. In an unexpected turn, David steps in to tell Piper that the stipulation has already been made for this match, and his partner, Abdullah the Butcher, has been suspended, so he better just accept it. As David explains, it’s just a “regular match.” Youngblood comes back to fire back at Piper with the line, “you better not mess with any Indians…or any of these fans.” Yeah I’m pretty sure he’s stoned.

Youngblood cannot even come close to matching Piper’s intensity and really looks weak here. He has to have, of all people, David squeak something out to defend him against Piper’s ranting. Still, you get a face and heel confrontation to set up a good match later in the program, and Piper raving like a lunatic about deathmatches is fantastic.

Before we get to any matches, David and Bob are excited to show us some footage of Jimmy Valiant, and it might be the greatest montage ever spliced together at a TV studio in North Carolina.

Here are the highlights:

a.) The same clip of Handsome Jimmy strutting around ringside in a glittery hat with a cigar in his mouth. This clip appears about three times total from what I counted.

b.) Some short clips of him in ring punching people in a tiny tv studio illuminated with various colors of the rainbow. Also, the ring doesn’t even have a damn apron and looks to be on the verge on imploding with every step the wrestlers take. Really, I have seen better rings in backyard wrestling.

c.) Jimmy rocking out, though not necessarily singing, with his band in a foggy haze.

d.) Jimmy emerges from a limousine wearing a blazer with no shirt at what appears to be a smoky jazz bar.

e.) Jimmy beats up a man dressed in blue tights and diaper.

As Bob tells us, we now know “a few of the things Jimmy Valiant can do.”

Jimmy Valiant vs Jim Nelson The match consists mainly of Valiant bopping around the ring and landing the occasional strike or toss on Nelson. There really isn’t much else to add.

Match Notes The match basically served as an introduction to the entertaining Valiant and his mannerisms, including the way he constantly bounces from side to side. He’s a pretty cool character. If Santa Claus joined the Doobie Brothers, he would look like Jimmy Valiant. I’m looking forward to some Handsome Jimmy promos.

Winner: Jimmy Valiant via pin Rating: ½*

Roddy Piper vs Jay Youngblood The match broke down into three distinct segments that all made sense. In the early going, the two tie up, and Youngblood wins nearly every exchange, managing to toss Piper out or work him into a hold. Piper heads outside after each of these exchanges to regroup and do some quality pissing and moaning. Eventually, Piper takes control, works the back, and gets the sleeper locked in, only for Youngblood to get the ropes. Piper continues to work Jay over, but makes a crucial mistake of hitting his own head on a vertical suplex. When the two regain their strength, they trade big strikes back and forth until time expires. The pace ebbed and flowed nicely, and the narrative was rock solid.

Match Notes There were so many great little elements that made this awesome. I loved how they used Piper’s earlier comments about wanting a deathmatch to build heat on him. He wanted this brutal deathmatch, yet complains every that Youngblood’s every move is cheating. By turning into a normal match, it allowed the two to build to a time limit draw through an awesome last sequence where both guys were groggy and just nailing each other until time expired. Youngblood’s chops (one in the early going especially) were just lethal. The pace was super quick early, but slowed as both guys wore down, building to the dramatic punchdrunk finish.

I love the use of the “critical mistake” as a storytelling device in many of these matches, and the guys really do a great job of executing it. When Piper hits his head on the suplex, it completely changes the momentum of the match and allows Youngblood to get back in it. It helps to transition between different sections of the match.

Finally, it was a little uncomfortable to hear Bob call Youngblood “this Indian” so many times. “This Indian can really fight, David!” Piper proceeds to beat Youngblood down after the match until officials pull him off. Amazing that as legendary as Piper would become, some lucky folks in the Carolinas got to see him work great matches like this in a tiny venue for 80 people.

Winner: Draw via Time Limit (10 minute) Rating: ***½

After the break, we cut to a completely different studio for a promo from Blackjack Mulligan Jr. (a super young Barry Windham), Johnny Weaver, and Paul Jones. Junior has an issue with Kevin Sullivan, while Jones and Weaver will face the Russians (along with their manager Lord Alfred!) and it might end up in the parking lot. This promo came out of nowhere, but regardless, you can check out all the action at the National Guard Armory in Ronceverte, WV. All I could focus on was Weaver’s gaping mouth through the entire promo.

The Great Kubuki vs Charlie Fulton After some lengthy histrionics and unmasking, Kubuki nails Fulton with a stiff chop, a kick, another chop, and then pins him. That’s it.

Match Notes Illustrated that by their fears that he may use a samurai sword in the match, Bob and David are completely befuddled by Kubuki.

(Kabuki unmasks)David: OH GAA

Bob: (Deadpan) Heck, I still don’t know who he is.

Even though there wasn’t much to the actual match, I can’t completely thrash it because Kabuki did grab my attention and his theatrics at the start built some suspense around what he would actually do. He’s fully into the character, so I can appreciate that. Also, that first chop was vicious. Lots of quality chops on this show. Between Kubuki and Handsome Jimmy, more and more colorful characters are being introduced that I would have expected.

Winner: Great Kubuki via pin Rating: *

Next up, the promo carousel! Wahoo Mcdaniel is up first to run down Piper. In a nice touch, Wahoo’s forehead still looks purple from the slaughter by Abdullah a month ago. Jake steps up next to once again call out Ole for not defending the tag straps. Both of these guys have a more reserved promo styles that really draws you in.

Bad Bad Leroy Brown and Jake Roberts vs Rick Harris and Ali Bey Despite his power, Leroy finds himself in his opponents’ corner until he manages to escape and tag Jake. Jake starts fast and furious, but eventually finds himself in peril. He finds a way to sneak to his corner to tag Leroy, who then rams Harris into his stomach a few times, then hits the big splash for the win. Solid, logical, and nothing spectacular.

Match Notes On the surface it seems like an odd pairing, but Jake and Leroy make a pretty cohesive team. Jake can use his quick fiery offense and be face in peril, then Leroy can clean up with his big power moves.

Winner: Leroy Brown and Jake Roberts via pin Rating: *1/2

Announcer Aside This might be the first time on these shows that the announcers all but ignore the action in the ring to discuss other wrestlers and angles. They still can’t get over Kubuki’s alleged purple tongue or the dastardly actions of Roddy Piper.

I’m starting to see that the focus remains on the in ring competition, but they still like to bring in wild characters and personalities. Still, even the odd characters are presented in a fairly serious way.

We get some more promos for the Armory show. Young Kevin Sullivan looks like a total stud (or a jacked up Owen Wilson) and will take on Blackjack Mulligan Jr. Also, cool moment as we get to see a glimpse of Lord Al playing a smug British heel managing the Russians. A great one too, turning his nose to the cretins of Roncerverte who “quaff beer.” He is an entirely different character, far from yucking it up on TNT, and I can only hope for more Evil Al. Many of the older guys from the territory days can just transition seamlessly from face to heel.

US Heavyweight Champion Sgt. Slaughter vs Frank Monte Monte tries to stave off Slaughter with some desperation blows. However, that does absolutely nothing, and Sarge beats on his midsection and lower back relentlessly, then locks in the cobra clutch for the win.

Match Notes Slaughter deserves this championship because he has been nothing short of great on these shows. Like Piper, he fills the gaps with so many great heel moves, like screaming the Marines’ Hymn while Monte loses consciousness. He also delivers the third brutal chop of the show.

Winner: Sgt. Slaughter via submission Rating: *

We close with more interviews. Slaughter goes on a wild tirade about how he is best, and in the process, calls out Leroy Brown, Jim Crockett, the cameraman, the tape, and, of course, that blonde haired maggot whose the World Champion. Slaughter kills it here as always and has even more gusto after winning the US title.

Ivan Koloff shows up for the first time in a while, and Bob looks sincerely afraid that Koloff might bite him. He calls out Steamboat and then does some other general growling.

Finally, Ole vehemently denies making excuses and says he will defend the title when he gets a partner. Ole always does a good job of showing that he really does see himself as a reasonable, respectable guy, when we all know he’s nothing of the sort.

The credits roll over a shot of Slaughter murdering Frank Monte.

End of Show Notes

MVP: Roddy Piper Piper always brings the goods with his promos, but on this show he brought it in the ring as well, in the best match on these Mid-Atlantic shows so far. Go out of your way to watch this match.

If You Only Watch One Match: Roddy Piper vs Jay Youngblood

Best Nonwrestling Segment: “Handsome” Jimmy Valiant montage

Overall Impression: This was a strong show down in the Carolinas. You have the excellent Piper/Youngblood match, the fun Jimmy Valiant montage, and solid performances from Jake and Slaughter. Anytime you get a match between two featured guys, you savor it. And least we forget about the mysterious Great Kubuki. I’d call this the best so far.

Rating: 8/10

So long for now!

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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