Kinkshaming

Film: Crash (1996)
Format: Loaned DVD on basement television

Crash, the David Cronenberg film and not the maligned 2005 Best Picture winner, is a film I have been looking for for some time. Cronenberg is the king of body horror, and his films are always at least visually interesting. Crash is based on the novel of the same name by J.G. Ballard, who is an author I like a great deal, almost despite his subject matter. I have a fondness for Ballard in no small part because I discussed his books in my comps exam for my Master’s degree. Ballard often deals with human atrocities and physical degradation, a self-destructive impulse that he seems to feel is a natural part of human nature.

Crash is absolutely in the heart of that element of Ballard’s work. Much of his writing looks at people living lives on the extreme edge of existence, barely surviving, but seeing how far they can go while still managing to be alive. Crash specifically is about people who get erotic satisfaction from car accidents, both those that they see or witness and those that they are involved in. It’s as perverse a fetish movie as Salo in some ways, the sort of film you watch with the blinds drawn (not unlike Cruising).

Blood is Thicker than Water

Film: Sinners
Format: AMC Market Square Theater (Theater 8)

I have to think that it’s not easy to try to rework a classic monster into something new. Tell people that you’re making (another) werewolf movie or (another) zombie movie and you’re likely to often get a yawn in response. That’s nowhere more the case than with vampires. Seriously, how many different versions of vampires are there? How many times have I reviewed yet another version of the basic Dracula story on this blog? (Answer—at least six that are based directly on the Bram Stoker novel). So if you can do something really new, you’ve got a chance to get an audience really interested. That’s where we are starting with Sinners.

This is a vampire story, not a Dracula-specific story, though. We’re going to get vampires here that are going to have a lot of similarities to traditional vampires (weakness to garlic, killed by sunlight or a stake to the heart), but these are more of a hive mind of vampires, and while they are certainly sexual in a lot of ways, these are not romantic in the least. These vampires are more feral, and that works to the story’s benefit.

Why You Gonna Call?

Film: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

What are we to make of the Ghostbusters franchise? The original film is still a classic and still holds up—iconic cast, iconic lines, and moments that will go down as some of the best in horror/comedy ever filmed. The sequel is a bit of a mixed bag, again having some fun moments, but not living up to the original. The female cast reboot tanked, sadly, because I think it’s a better film than its reputation. Then we got Ghostbusters: Afterlife that really wanted to carry on from the original film. It was good, and it spawned the sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and this movie doesn’t know what it wants to be, and it’s going to make that a problem for everyone watching it.

Right off the top, there’s a massive issue with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and it’s one of the biggest issues from Ghostbusters II. In both films, we have protagonists who have essentially saved the world from a massive influx of ghosts are now essentially running on a shoestring and essentially maligned by everyone. I get that heroes sometimes fall, but we’re not given that story. It’s just that suddenly the people who saved the city now have a target on their backs and they’re barely making ends meet.

Does Nazareth Get a Cut for Naming Rights?

Film: Love Hurts
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

Some people are natural action stars and some people aren’t, and it’s not always clear who works and who doesn’t. When Bruce Willis did Die Hard, it was seen as a huge misfire until people actually saw the movie. Who would have believed Bob Odenkirk as a movie badass before Nobody came out? Love Hurts attempts to do the same thing for the recently career-resurrected Ke Huy Quan, and sadly, the whole thing feels like an error. The action sequences are fun, but the movie itself is a huge miss.

It's a shame, too, because I really like Ke Huy Quan. He’s easy to like, and that’s one of the problems with Love Hurts. We’re presented with real estate agent Marvin Gable (Quan), who is evidently a very good real estate agent and who has signs up all over town. Someone is defacing those signs, though, giving him mustaches and sideburns, which seems like a harmless prank and the sort of thing that typically happens to real estate agents.

Back Through the Looking Glass

Film: Black Mirror Season 7
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

I don’t talk much about television on this blog, but as streaming services occupy more and more space in media, the dividing line between television and movie continues to blur. Black Mirror is an anthology series, but also has episodes that are essentially feature-length films. Are these short movies? Actual movies? Shows? I tend to think of them as kind of like novellas—they don’t tend to have the heft of a full novel, but they’re more involved than a short story.

The series has had its ups and downs. I didn’t hate Season 6 and it had some clear highpoints, but it also felt badly misdirected, as at least three of the five episodes were very clearly horror-themed rather than centered on ideas of technology, especially technology run amok. Season 7 feels much more on track as far as that goes, something like a return to form. If the series continues, this feels like a good place to continue it from.

All Cops are Maniac

Film: Maniac Cop
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

One of the common ideas in horror is finding something that is supposed to be trustworthy and turning it into a killer. This isn’t turning rabbits into monsters (like Night of the Lepus), but more people and things we think are safe. Consider Chucky from the Child’s Play movies, medical professionals like Dr. Giggles or The Dentist, and babies in It’s Alive. Even Santa Claus gets this treatment in a lot of movies. Maniac Cop does the same thing, obviously with the police.

Maniac Cop is a pretty typical schlocky movie from 1988 as the title suggests. Call your movie Maniac Cop and you’re not going to expect Shakespeare. Add in B-movie king Bruce Campbell and genre mainstays like Tom Atkins and Robert Z’Dar (as well as genuine badass Richard Roundtree), and what you’ve got is a B-movie that at least has the potential to be fun.

What I've Caught Up With, April 2025

It’s probably not much of a surprise that I didn’t actually watch a lot of movies or television in April. My mother’s funeral service was a week ago, and things have been hectic. Watching a movie seems less easy to do right now, but it’s time to get back into things, I think.

Television-wise, the only show I actually completed was the latest season of Reacher. I have been watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The West Wing, and The Critic, but lately, my viewing is pretty much down across the board.