Happy CUTTING CARDS day to all who celebrate! Lance Henriksen, Kevin Tighe and a burning desire to finger one another. It’s still my favorite episode of TALES FROM THE CRYPT.

Saw OBSESSION again last night and believe everything you’ve heard about Inde Navarrette. Talk about some multilayered nightmare fuel.

Today is her day.

Satan is ever ready to seduce us with sensual delights 🦴

First time A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE on 35mm at the Harvard Film Archive. I’m so fucking sad right now.

There’s an important lesson in tonight’s mass appreciation of SPEED RACER that the Wachowskis never fell off. It’s worth losing money in pursuit of a film that looks, sounds, moves and transforms like nothing you’ve ever seen.

It feels like a joke that Warner Bros. has relegated SPEED RACER to a scattering of showtimes rather than a full-on apology release. 2008 had no idea it held a landmark piece of cinema that would later serve as the premiere IMAX trip of 2026. I felt this movie deep in my soul.

Issuing a moratorium on the super scary demon voice. It’s really silly now

There are plenty of reasons to check out BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB (best Hammer MUMMY movie imo), but it’s really worth it for that ending. What a note to go out on.

Met John Kassir at this little horror con in Plymouth, MA. He casually walked up to folks around the venue to say hello and I remember being so starstruck it took me a second. Such a kind, sweet person. I can’t wait for a whole new generation to fall in love with the Cryptkeeper.

I love Boston because it’s the kind of place where you can go see BARRY LYNDON in 35mm on a Monday night. Feel so spoiled getting to revisit a bunch of Kubrick at the Harvard Film Archive.

I always feel like I'm on the verge of losing my mind every time I write about the SAW movies and wouldn't have it any other way. I love my gloriously convoluted horror soap operas. Desperately need a 35mm marathon of the first 7 movies 🤞

It kills me that I was mostly bored and annoyed watching READY OR NOT 2, which doesn't seem to understand what made the original so memorable. www.keenesentinel.com/elf/ready-or...

It’s kind of difficult to enjoy going out into the world when the country’s top brass have just decided they’re gonna deploy their inbred Nazi goons all over the place. They can smear you, they can kidnap you, they can murder you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

OBSESSION - You will never forget Inde Navarrette after seeing her in this. She conjures such an uncanny and ferociously upsetting presence that actually made me want to look away in fright. All-timer horror performance and I don’t say that lightly.

I’ll have more to say next week but READY OR NOT: HERE I COME is a wash. Diminishing returns in a forgettable and strangely unpleasant sequel that misunderstands what made the original so memorable. The antithesis of JW: CHAPTER 2 where the convoluted mythology bogs it down.

well

I knew I shouldn’t have signed Mr. LeBail’s book. Really hoping READY OR NOT 2 delivers.

It appears that the news has broken that Caden Mark Gardner and I have programmed a series on Trans Filmmakers for the Criterion Channel. These films will be available in April www.criterion.com/current/post...

There's so much to love about THE BRIDE! and how much Maggie Gyllenhaal revels in letting her ungovernable "monster" loose on the world. www.keenesentinel.com/elf/maggie-g...

Auditory horror is right in my wheelhouse and although there’s some eerie use of negative space, UNDERTONE is a frustratingly derivative echo that isn’t confident in itself. How else will audiences know these recordings are creepy without an overbearing score to illustrate that?

I kind of need this double feature.

And what if I said that THE BRIDE! is a way more interesting Frankenstein movie than the one up for Best Picture?

THE BRIDE! - Maggie Gyllenhaal’s rom-crime-monster flick is such an exuberant mess in all the ways that has the makings of a cult movie in the wings. It’s a gorgeous fever dream fueled by dance, cinema and femme rage. I had a total blast with Jessie Buckley just vamping it up.

I'm still buzzing over the @brattletheatre.bsky.social's Ultimate Double Feature this past weekend where we started DONNIE DARKO, stopped the film when Donnie and Gretchen go to see THE EVIL DEAD, played that film in its entirety (in 35mm!), and finished the last 40 minutes of DONNIE DARKO.

I haven’t stopped thinking about IRON LUNG since I saw it last month and think its legacy is going to extend beyond showing up the studio system. www.keenesentinel.com/elf/markipli...

I had an amazing time seeing a 35mm double bill of THE WIZARD OF OZ and THE BAD SEED at the @somervilletheatre.bsky.social. Only dawned on me afterward that it was the cinematic parallel of that episode of THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY AND MANDY where Mandy does ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’

Manifesting an essay request for the inevitable blu-ray set of THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT 🔪🪓🔪

Highly recommend the TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode ("Yellow") where Kirk Douglas performs a PATHS OF GLORY riff opposite his son Eric. It's real mean and the ending culminates on the perfect note - youtu.be/IhLbwMHKLnE

PATHS OF GLORY (35MM) - It pains me how much Kubrick's anti-war masterpiece has aged like wine. There's a palpable rage cemented on Kirk Douglas' face toward the evil incompetence of the higher ups that feels so upsettingly familiar. George Macready is so detestable, my god.

Talk about a credit that hits so hard when it comes up in HANG 'EM HIGH.

CRIME 101 - Bart Layton’s 140 minute Michael Mann pastiche is the sleepiest crime thriller I’ve seen in a minute. The suffocating melancholy these characters endure by way of the broken systems they’re trapped in has no surprise, nor bite. Easily forgettable, sadly.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard me talk about the STRANGERS movies which one takes the top spot. www.looper.com/2095391/the-...

THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 3 - Renny Harlin’s captivatingly awful conclusion is both the best and worst entry of the trilogy. A grand scare-free embarrassment with the nerve to introduce ideas about the nature of violence knowing full well it never intended on unpacking them.

There’s a hilarious irony in THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (the best one) streaming for free on Tubi, while Harlin’s threequel is playing in a theater. www.slashfilm.com/1980201/the-...

We at the @postguild.bsky.social are raising money for the hundreds of journalists the Post just laid off. This goes to the people who are hurting, not the Post. Or if you'd rather, go subscribe to an independent journalist. Support is hugely appreciated. www.gofundme.com/f/standing-t...

Happy to be assured that Riley Stearns’ THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE is not only still very funny, but scarily relevant. Now streaming for free on Tubi! www.looper.com/2089542/jess...

IRON LUNG - Credit to Markiplier for pulling off an unnerving descent into cosmic horror. It’s 2hr+ runtime works in the film’s favor by creating a palpable sense of paranoia and confusion. How is there more blood in this than the Sam Raimi movie? I surprisingly loved it.

BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

Not seeing IRON LUNG until Tuesday, but it warms my heart to see a self-distributed indie horror movie make the studios look like chumps. The fact that it also demolished an expensive bribe directed by the president’s 30th favorite sex pest is a bonus.

It feels especially fitting that Vera Drew's THE PEOPLE'S JOKER is now streaming on a free platform. www.looper.com/2083606/the-...

Searchlight may not love you, but I do. Anyways, THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE now playing at the @somervilletheatre.bsky.social in glorious 70MM.

I’m all for the sick as hell eclipse renaissance courtesy of THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE and FIRE AND ASH.

You can't convince me that Lance Henriksen's character in his episode of TALES FROM THE CRYPT ("Cutting Cards") isn't the descendant of Ace Hanlon from THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.

There’s a lot to love in 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, but I was particularly taken by Chi Lewis-Parry and how his surprisingly tender performance brings a fascinating new perspective to the Rage virus. www.looper.com/2078019/28-y...

THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE (70MM) - Seeing this on large format film gave me so much clarity. Mona Fastvold invites us to get lost in the intoxicating rhapsody of inner understanding and, in turn, entrusts our salvation to a woman possessed in the incomparable Amanda Seyfried.

Just because you’re an unambitious moviegoer doesn’t mean everyone else is, Ted.

Hell yeah! Go see PRIMATE, folks.

It’s only a matter of time until the new Hays Code ensures every studio movie with any fiber of bad behavior needs to end with the director saying “I’m deeply sorry I made these characters do those terrible things. I wholeheartedly condemn their actions”