Easier Said Than Done

Film: Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.

Gore Verbinksi has a surprisingly good track record as a director. Not many people could create an entertaining movie out of a Disney ride, after all. Verbinski’s latest, Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die, is a similar sort of project. This is a movie that shouldn’t work in a lot of ways, but does in spite of itself. It’s also a movie that you can point to when people complain that all movies are the same or that Hollywood is just producing remakes and sequels.

That said, there are certainly going to be people who will tell you that Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die is in many ways a very long episode of Black Mirror, and there are certainly times when that seems to fit. There are also moments where it is far too surreal for Black Mirror, but much of it has the same feel. It’s darkly comic like many episodes and is very much a warning against technology, AI in specific. And there are strong connections to other movies and stories. There’s a lot of 12 Monkeys here just for a start, and the opening sequence is reminiscent in many ways of Pulp Fiction.

New List, Who Dis?

Film: Predator 2
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

Just like almost every May, the They Shoot Zombies list of 1000 most highly acclaimed horror movies has been revamped and retooled. This year, the list returned six films previously cut and added another 26, many of them from the last couple of years. There were a few older brand new additions, though, including Predator 2. This seems like an odd addition. It’s much more a science fiction/action movie than a horror movie, although there are certainly some clear horror elements. Anyway, I figured this would be a good way to herald in the new version of the list.

The original Predator was released in 1987 and presumably took place in 1987. The sequel, released three years later, takes place in that far distant future for the time of 1997. In this world, Los Angeles (and presumably other parts of the country and world) has become a war zone of criminal gangs fighting each other and the police in broad daylight. Into this rides our good cop Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover). Our opening sequence will show him taking out a number of criminal thugs, not realizing that there’s also our title character in the mix.

Apex Predator

Film: Predator: Badlands
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.

The original Predator movie is a classic and the second one is at least interesting, if not that great. And from there, the franchise tanked and it stayed tanked until it was handed to Dan Trachtenberg with Prey. Since this film, the franchise is on an upswing. The animated Predator: Killer of Killers was a great addition to the series, and then came Predator” Badlands. And while it’s not quite at the level of Prey, it really feels like the third movie in the franchise in a row that really gets it.

What’s different this time is that for the first time in the franchise, the film in the main will come from the perspective of the predator (the species refers to itself as “Yautja”) rather than the hunted prey. A young Yautja named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the runt of his family, and because of this, desperate to prove himself. For his hunt to bring him fully into the clan, he decides to travel to the hell world of Genna and hunt a creature known as the Kalisk, thought to be unkillable.

Let's Make a Baby

Film: The Assessment
Format: Streaming video from Hulu on Fire!

I’ve said before that horror movies are going to be more and more about environmental issues. The same is true of science fiction. Some science fiction will be specifically about environmental issues, and then there will be films like The Assessment, where the environmental problems are tangential.

We’re looking at a world in this case where some environmental disaster has happened. The environment has collapsed and resources have become rare, which means that the powers that be have put huge restrictions on parenthood. This is not just because of the scarcity of resources but also because human life expectancy has been dramatically increased through a variety of pharmaceuticals, drugs that also prevent fertility. In this world, people who want to be parents must be assessed for fitness.

Save the Green Planet (Trade it with Friends)

Film: Bugonia
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

Of all the Best Picture nominees, Bugonia is the one that I’ve been putting off. Before you correct me and say that there’s at least one available streaming that I haven’t seen, I acknowledge that, but Bugonia has been available for a long time. The truth is that I don’t like Yorgos Lanthimos films as a rule. In fact, of the four I have seen prior to this one, The Favourite is the only one I can say I’ve actually enjoyed. Honestly, I think that’s a fair justification for why I’ve waited this long.

I also knew that this is a remake of a Korean film called Save the Green Planet! There was a part of me that thought I should watch the original before I watched the remake. But, at some point, you just need to get the work done, and what that means here is getting through Oscar films. Surprisingly (for me), this gives me 7 out of 10 for Best Picture before the ceremony starts, and it completes me on Best Adapted Screenplay. That’s got to be a record for me.

Infect Me With Your Love

Film: 28 Years Later
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

28 Days Later is not just one of my favorite horror movies; it’s one of my favorite movies. I was wildly disappointed in the sequel, 28 Weeks Later. The first 10-15 minutes are brutal and fantastic, and then it becomes a series of plot holes. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have returned to the series, though, and have inexplicably skipped having 28 Months Later, going instead for years. I was guardedly optimistic going into this one. I adore the first movie, but I’ve been burned by a sequel before.

The lore is something that definitely needs to be addressed here. The second movie ends with what seems to be the Rage virus being released on the European mainland, a fact that would quickly lead to the virus spreading across all of Europe, into the Middle East and Asia, and potentially into Africa as well. We get a snippet at the start of the virus spreading in the Scottish highlands, with a young boy named Jimmy Crystal (Rocco Haynes initially) escaping, and also watching his minister father willingly give himself over to the infected in what he believes to be something like the Rapture.

...But No Mule

Film: 40 Acres
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on gigantic television.

I’ve said a couple of times in the past that one of the subgenres we’re going to start seeing more and more of is environmental-based horror. Environmental disaster science fiction is going to be just as much a thing in coming years. 40 Acres is absolutely a film in that subgenre. While this is an action movie in a lot of respects, the entirety of the film turns on climate catastrophe and famine.

We are in the new future, and the world has experienced a massive catastrophe. A fungal blight has destroyed crops the world over, plunging the entire planet into a massive famine. While food is a prized commodity, it is arable farmland that is the true prize. Any place where actual crops can be grown is more valuable than anything else.

Let it Rot

Film: The Shrouds
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

David Cronenberg makes movies that are upsetting. He took a break from overt horror movies for a bit, but the movies he made were still upsetting in real ways (and I remain convinced that Eastern Promises is the most depressing movie with a happy ending I have ever seen). Lately, he’s slid back into horror films. The Shrouds is a film that touches on horror, but only in the sense that there are clear body horror elements to it, which is par for the course with Cronenberg. This is much more a science fiction drama with disturbing romance elements, but since it’s Cronenberg, horror is certainly going to be an element.

The Shrouds is also a film that has a suitably bizarre premise to get things going, something that Cronenberg is no stranger to. That’s not a necessity for Cronenberg, but it is pretty common. The central premise of The Shrouds is that there are people who, so distraught in grief by the loss of a loved one that they would want to be able to see the body of the body of that loved one decaying in the grave.

Ever Since I Was a Young Boy, I've Played the Silver Ball

Film: Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

The first Phantasm movie is a weird horror classic—the sort of movie that invites you into the mind of Don Coscarelli, who clearly has more ideas than he knows what to do with. The Phantasm movies are famous for the flying chrome spheres that reveal head-stabbing blades and drills that drain people of blood and for the presence of the undertaker-adjacent Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). The first movie is a fever dream of murder and aliens, as is the second. By the time we’ve reached Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Coscarelli has lost the plot in a lot of ways.

That’s the thing about the Phantasm movies: they don’t make a great deal of sense. Are they supernatural horror movies? Is the Tall Man actually connected to aliens on some distant planet? If so, why resurrect the dead? The reality is that you either buy into the insanity of the films and the series or you don’t. If you buy in, you’re going to see some things that don’t make a lot of sense but will stick with you.

Stay Tuned!

Film: The Running Man (2025)
Format: Streaming video from Paramount on Fire!

I don’t pay a lot of attention to new releases, although I do pay a little attention to them. In 2025, of all of the coming movies, the two I was the most excited about were The Long Walk and The Running Man, both based on books written by Stephen King under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman. The Long Walk made some clear changes to the book, but it kept the story generally the same, and it was generally a successful adaptation. But I was just as excited for The Running Man, which looked to be a legitimately accurate adaptation of the original book.

I need to stress this, because when I mention the book The Running Man, people get visions of Arnold Schwartzenegger and Richard Dawson. It’s a fun movie, but it’s not anything like the original story, which was transgressive, dystopian, and sweeping in a way that the first movie couldn’t approach. But sadly, The Running Man was getting lackluster reviews and didn’t stay in theaters long enough for me to see it there. I’ve seen it now, and there is a problem at the heart of it. To talk about it, though, we need to put this whole thing under a spoiler tag for both the movie and the original Bachman/King book. Consider yourself warned.

Deadbeat Dad

Film: Frankenstein (2025)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

I am not shy about my love of the work of Guillermo del Toro on this blog. I don’t often go to the theater, but Frankenstein is the first live-action del Toro film in a bit that I haven’t seen on its release. GdT has a reputation of loving his monsters. He’s also someone who, if you go through his films carefully, always makes humans worse than the monsters he shows us (or makes the standard vampires worse than the mutant vampires in Blade II). This is a running theme for him, so Frankenstein was an inevitability.

The running wisdom of the original Mary Shelley novel is that smart people realize that Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster; wise people realize that Dr. Frankenstein is the monster. Del Toro is going to stay true to this. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is absolutely the villain of this story, while the creature (Jacob Elordi), while monstrous in appearance and sometimes in action, is clearly being depicted as an innocent.

Maybe Androids Dream of Murder

Film: Companion
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on massive television.

I can’t say that Black Mirror has ruined science fiction, but it has certainly changed the perception of it a great deal. Modern science fiction that touches on themes of the dangers of technology and near-future cyberpunk feels like a Black Mirror episode. That’s definitely the case with Companion. This is a near-future story that is absolutely about AI and promised technology and exactly how it can go wrong.

This is also a case where some of the major plot points are clearly revealed in the trailer. Josh (Jack Quaid) and his girlfriend Iris (Sophie Thatcher) go for a weekend get-together with friends. Included are couple Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage), Josh’s friend Kat (Megan Suri), and Kat’s boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend). It’s clear that Kat is not a fan of Iris, and also that Sergey is someone who doesn’t treat her very well. Sergey hints that he has connections to some dark and unsavory people; the amount of money he clearly has backs this up.

Ten Days of Terror!: Antiviral

Film: Antiviral
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

In the documentary Trekkies, there’s a moment where someone who works at conventions talks about the time that he sold a class of the “Q virus,” a glass of water that actor John de Lancie drank from on a panel while he was extremely sick. Someone in the crowd bought the glass and immediately drank the water, knowing that it was likely he would catch whatever illness de Lancie had at the time. That kind of thinking is at the heart of Antiviral, a movie made by Brandon Cronenberg but that could have easily been made by his father David.

The basic conceit behind Antiviral is that in the future, the idea of celebrity worship has metastasized into something far more obsessive and destructive. One of the main ways in which this is expressed is in the dealing of viruses and pathogens that infect celebrities. So, it’s not just that you can get COVID just like Tom Hanks did. You can be injected with the exact strain of the virus that he had, harvested from his cells. You’re not just getting the same thing; it’s like he’s infected you himself.

Ten Days of Terror!: Altered

Film: Altered
Format: Internet video on Fire!

One of the constant problems of watching movies based on a list is that some of the movies will be incredibly difficult to find. I only got through the 1001 Movies list thanks to the fact that NetFlix was still sending out discs in the mail at the time, the catalogs of multiple local libraries, and the assistance of other people working on the same list of movies. While there are more streaming outlets these days, there are fewer other options. And, to be fair, a lot of movies would be easier to find if I was willing to pay to stream them. So, when I find something free on YouTube or DailyMotion, I’m going to watch. In this case, alien science fiction/horror movie Altered showed up on YouTube, so I took the opportunity to cross it off the list.

Altered has some real connection to any film that features any sort of alien attacker, but to me, it felt a great deal like Fire in the Sky. This isn’t aliens invading, as in Signs, but people dealing with abduction and a significant amount of body horror. This is far more a horror movie than it is a science fiction movie. There wouldn’t be a huge difference in how this film works if you turned the alien into a werewolf.

Ten Days of Terror!: Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Film: Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on basement television.

There is a part of me that is fascinated with the career of Paul W.S. Anderson. He’s certainly earnest in what he does; he’s just not very good at it that often. Then again, our boy Paul has managed to stay married to Milla Jovovich for 16 years, starting after he directed her in Resident Evil. He took a break from directing in that film series, but he wrote pretty much the entire series. So, while he’s not on the hook for everything in the first sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, he’s certainly on the hook for some of it.

The problems with this film are legion, and we can start with the name. This is the second film in the franchise and we’re already at the Apocalypse stage? In another medium, this is where I would cue the “That escalated quickly” meme from Anchorman. It would certainly feel like there should be something in between. Instead, the title really goes to the biggest issue with the film.

Ten Days of Terror!: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Film: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

I’m always a little suspicious of remakes. Sure, there are a number of remakes that are better than the original film (the version of The Maltese Falcon that everyone knows is the third version of that story, for instance). I’m still wary, though, because even when the remake is good, it’s usually not as good as the first one. I like the idea of filmmakers doing remakes of movies that were bad but had good ideas rather than remaking classics. This is especially true of formative films in a genre. All of this is to say that I watched the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, and I have some things to say about it.

The basic premise of this remake is essentially the same as the original film. A family on vacation is driving through the American southwest, specifically through the desert around where the nuclear tests were done and find themselves stranded and attacked by a family of mutants who have been affected terribly by the radiation from the bomb tests around Alamogordo.

Ten Days of Terror!: Not of This Earth

Film: Not of This Earth
Format: Streaming video from Mometu on Fire!

Say what you will about Roger Corman, there were a few things that he did really well. He had an eye for talent (check out the number of directors he discovered), and he could tell a story efficiently, if not always well. Not of This Earth is one of those mid-‘50s sci-fi potboilers that always appeared on a double bill. The goal of the movie is to give the audience a weird tale, a scare or two, and a shock, even if it doesn’t make a great deal of sense, and it does that pretty well.

One of the things I love about science fiction and horror from this era is exactly that sense of nuttiness. Writers and directors could make the science as bizarre and nonsensical as they wanted if it allowed them to give the audience a fright. And let’s be honest here—the audience for pictures like Not of This Earth were not Mom and Dad, but teens who probably spent more time making out than watching what was on the screen. And so, Not of This Earth will give us a few Roger Corman regulars, some bad science, and aliens with inexplicable powers and anatomy. What more could you want?

It's Mr. Stay-Puft!

Film: Marshmallow
Format: Streaming video from Hoopla on Fire!

I can’t honestly say that I’ve been getting more and more into obscure movies lately since there’s definitely a part of me that has a sort of hipster mindset with film. Years ago, when I was a lot more involved in music than I am now, I liked looking for little-know bands and artists simply because I got bored with a lot of what was out in the mass market. I love a lot of pop films (Sinners remains a favorite from 2025, for instance), but I love uncovering a gem that most people don’t know. Such is the case with Marshmallow, which is honestly better than its current reviews on sites like Letterboxd (Rotten Tomatoes has it more accurately).

Marshmallow is set up like a classic slasher movie, at least after the first couple of minutes. We’re going to start by being introduced to Morgan (Kue Lawrence), who witnesses his grandfather (Corbin Bernsen) have something like a stroke. Soon after, Morgan is sent away to summer camp, something he’s not very excited about. Morgan is a shy kid and doesn’t look like much of an outdoorsy kid. He’s also plagued with nightmares and has a desperate fear of drowning.

ChatGPT

Film: The Artifice Girl
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

I like science fiction and I always have. Sci-fi and fantasy were more or less my introductory genres to reading beyond children’s books. I got Ray Bradbury collections for Christmas when I was 8 and I was hooked. One of the reasons I love science fiction is that the best of it asks a great existential question that really isn’t answered by other genres: what makes us human? The advent of AI has given us this theme more and more, and The Artifice Girl explores it in a way that is interesting and worth the time to consider.

This is a question that has been asked for a long time. It’s come up regarding aliens (The Man Who Fell to Earth, for instance, or Spock’s funeral in Wrath of Khan where Kirk says that Spock was truly human), but it comes up more commonly with robots, androids, and artificial intelligence. Sometimes those intelligences are benign (Her), amoral (Ex Machina), or actively evil (Upgrade), but the question is best asked by presenting us with an intelligence that seems to walk that tightrope between human intelligence and uncanny valley. If we start with the premise that the AI in question can pass the Turing test, then the question of its humanity becomes a real one.

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.