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.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2024

The Contenders:

Sebastian Stan: The Apprentice
Adrien Brody: The Brutalist (winner)
Timothée Chalamet: A Complete Unknown
Conclave: Ralph Fiennes
Colman Domingo: Sing Sing

Not That Kind of Bone

Film: Bone Lake
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

When I saw that there was a movie called Bone Lake, I did immediately think that it was going to be a porn parody. Perhaps of Swan Lake? It’s not, of course, but that name is certainly sounds more like erotic thriller (in a crude way) than the horror movie it is. To be fair, it is equal parts horror and erotic thriller, so the name is doing double duty. “Bone” in this case is both the actual physical bones of victims as well as the more prurient use of the word as a verb. This fact is even lampshaded in the trailer.

What is interesting to me about Bone Lake initially is that the premise is one that is obvious. There’s a twist moment here that, if you don’t see it coming, you need to get off your phone and actually watch the movie. That first twist is followed by a second one that lands solidly. It’s not one that is necessary for the movie to work, but it comes as a surprise, and it genuinely does raise the film a bit in my estimation at least.

Herbert West Returns

Film: Beyond Re-Animator
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

For horror fans, the first time you see Re-Animator is one of those pivotal moments. It either solidifies exactly why you are a horror fan or you start to question your decisions. Needless to say, as a horror fan, it’s a film that I genuinely love. It’s disgusting, disturbing, transgressive, and funny. It’s clearly a horror film that is happy to have comedic moments without really being a horror comedy. So it’s not surprising that there’s actually a Re-Animator trilogy. Most people know Bride of Re-Animator (the natural name for a sequel to a Frankenstein-esque story), but Beyond Re-Animator is far less known.

Sadly, that’s probably for a good reason. Of the three movies in the series, this is clearly the least of the three, and not merely because it’s the third film in the trilogy, which is traditionally where a series tanks. The issue here is that it deviates from some of the established rules of the franchise.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2024

The Contenders:

Mikey Madison: Anora (winner)
Karla Sofia Gascón: Emilia Pérez
Fernanda Torres: I’m Still Here
Demi Moore: The Substance
Cynthia Erivo: Wicked

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.