Declaring Your Major

Film: Thesis (Tesis)
Format: Streaming video from AMC+ through Amazon Prime on Fire!

There seem to really be only two things required to make a good thriller film. You need to put your character or characters in legitimate danger, and you need to make sure that what that character or characters need to do to survive isn’t obvious. A part of the danger has to be that we don’t know who to trust—that anyone could end up being dangerous or the cause of the terror. Thesis (or Tesis in the original Spanish) is a master class in creating this kind of tension. That it happens to be the debut feature-length film from Alejandro Amenábar makes it only that much more impressive.

A large part of the tension in Thesis comes from not just the way the film is set up, but the subject of the film itself. Thesis is very much a film that dives head-first into the idea of snuff films, following from Mute Witness from the previous year and followed by 8MM a few years later. It’s a subject that has always been of some dark fascination for many horror fans—films that touch on the subject feel dangerous, and Thesis, while it never feels at all like a snuff film, definitely does feel dangerous.

Step Right Up

Film: The Funhouse
Format: Internet video on Fire!

Like any genre, horror movies have evolved over time. One of the ways in which they have evolved is in how the protagonists encounter and deal with the danger. These days, most of our protagonists are pulled into something through accident, bad luck, or a poor but understandable decision. We don’t fault the couple in The Strangers for being home, for instance. Early horror films, though, especially those of the 1970s and ‘80s, feature teens who make really stupid decisions and essentially set themselves up as a buffet for the killer. Such is the case with 1981’s The Funhouse, a film where it genuinely feels like our endangered teens don’t really deserve to remain in the gene pool.

As the name of this film implies, we’re going to be spending some time with a carnival, and a lot of that time is clearly going to be spent in the carnival’s funhouse. This is because of a monumentally stupid decision made by our endangered teens, one of whom is the cause of all o the problems that happen to them. Seriously, if you have a friend like this guy, you should rethink the relationship.

Everything is Political

Film: September 5
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

My kids get mad at me when I tell them that virtually everything they do has political ramifications. It’s true, though. Spend money at Chick-Fil-A, and you’re helping to finance a company that happily gives money to anti-LGBTQIA+ organizations. Buy something at Wal-Mart, and you’re enriching a company that has thousands of employees on food stamps and other forms of welfare. Make a movie about a group of Palestinians killing Israeli athletes, and you’re making a comment on the current situation in Gaza, even if that wasn’t your intent. That makes September 5 a movie that is a lot more politically charged now than it might have been a few years ago.

To be fair, the events of the Munich 1972 Olympics are a compelling story, and that is enough to warrant a movie. It does seem oddly timed, though, as Israel undertakes what certainly looks like genocide and the eradication of the Palestinian people in Israel. A story that clearly has Israelis as victims and Palestinians as terrorists certainly feels politically motivated, regardless of intent or the viability of the actual historical events.

Kill or Be Killed

Film: Predator: Killer of Killers
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on Fire!

I went into Predator: Killer of Killers completely cold. How cold, you ask? I didn’t realize it was an animated movie for the first few moments of it. The film opens with a shot of the Earth from the point of view of the Predator and for a moment I thought, “Wow, the CGI on this is really terrible.” And then it became clear that this is an animated film, and I felt a little more prepared for what was going to happen.

There is definitely a sense of fan service of a sort in this film. Ever since the release of Prey, people have talked about the different possibilities of Predator films. How would a Predator fare against a samurai? How would a group of Predators fare against a Roman legion? Predator: Killer of Killers starts to answer some of those questions for us, but by no means all of them.

What I've Caught Up With, May 2025

I'm slowly getting back into watching movies again, although I'm still hip-deep in dealing with my mom's estate. Just when I thought I'd gotten all of the pictures sorted, I was given a couple of thousand slides to go through as well. It feels never ending. Television-wise, I finished The Critic (don't watch the 10 season 3 webisodes--seriously) and caught up on the current series of Black Mirror. I'm in the middle of season 6 of the West Wing now. Sadly, my workout show (Battlestar Galactica) stopped streaming, so I've had to switch to The Expanse.

Trigger Warning

Film: The Entity
Format: Internet video on Fire!

When I started this blog all the way back at the tail end of 2009 (Jesus…2009. I was young-ish once), one of the decisions I made was that any reviews I posted would come from watching the film, even in cases where I had seen the film a bunch of times. I didn’t want to rely on memory of a film, but address how I approach it in the moment of watching it anew. Opinions change, after all, and some movies don’t hold up--Stripes was a classic comedy film when I was much younger, and the last time I watched it, I barely got through it. There are times when this strategy pays off, though. Such a case is The Entity.

I was not a fan the first time I watched this. I think my problem with it was simple—it purports itself to be based on a true story and it deals with, essentially, a sexually active poltergeist. As someone who has no actual spiritual beliefs, the “based on a true story” angle for films like this frustrates me. It’s the kind of thing that dupes the credulous and makes them vulnerable to scamming. So, I had a bit of a grudge against it, and I held it against the film. It was a mistake; this is a better movie than I thought it was.

Glitz and Glam

Film: The Last Showgirl
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on various players.

Years ago, I worked with a guy who used to joke that he watched Baywatch for the articles. The joke was that back in the day, it’s what a certain type of guy liked to say about Playboy—you got it for the articles, not the nudity. Baywatch, if you’re too young to remember those heady days of 35 or so years ago, was softcore television porn that featured a lot of slow-motion shots of Pamela Anderson running on the beach. It probably wasn’t too fair to her, but the show made her a sort of cultural punchline, someone desperate to be the new Marilyn Monroe. Well, she’s back, and The Last Showgirl is a clear attempt for respectability.

And let me say this so that I don’t come across as crass: Pamela Anderson deserves that respectability. The problem with the fake-breasted, blonde-haired bubblehead stereotype is that it is a stereotype. Like Marilyn before her (and like Judy Holliday as well), Pam Anderson is a hell of a lot smarter than anyone gave her credit for being. The Last Showgirl feels like something incredibly personal to her, and it shows in every frame.