52 Pick-Up #44 – Robot Carnival (1987)

 Despite the title and framing of this movie, it's probably for the best it didn't give me an opening for a carny joke.

Cause I thought about it. I really did. It would likely not have been in good taste.

But, given what I got instead, I can afford to lose a tasteless carny joke or two.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long journey through a cinematic to do list. With October now in the rearview, and Belial shaking his puppeted fist in my direction, the home stretch is coming up fast.

It's been a weird, wild journey, and so far about the worst I've been able to say for anything is the occasionally underwhelming movie. Overall, I'm calling this a win and hoping I didn't just jinx myself right at the finish line.

In any case, this week is one I'm calling a win and another I'm surprised I put off this long – the 1987 anime anthology movie Robot Carnival.

As for the pitch? So, I'm gonna take a moment to say this movie is going to cause me to break what loose formatting this has. Just a little, but in a way I would argue is necessary given the anthology nature of this movie.

I'll start by saying the broadest pitch of this movie is a team of different directors and animators all came together for a movie of short stories all united by the singular theme of robots. These stories don't take place in a shared world, there are no recurring characters or callbacks. They were all given a fairly free hand, so long as they stuck to the theme of robots.

Given how varied this makes things, I contemplated how to approach this one in a way that properly gives every team their due.

With that in mind, I'm going to go through these story by story with a general impression.

And so...

-Opening/Ending

Pitch – The one story to feature the titular Robot Carnival – an automated entertainment apparatus bringing joy and destruction across the face of an alien world.

Impression – This story was my first introduction of this film years back while researching for a convention panel on the works of Katsuhiro Otomo. I got to it later in the run of his work and watched it independent of the rest of the movie. With that in mind, I could very quickly tell this was an Otomo short based on what I was seeing – in the two mini-segments, we get several of the writer/director's stylistic hallmarks. Incredibly detailed mechanical set designs, visually stunning set pieces that often culminate in equally stunning destruction of said set pieces, and a generous dash of gallows humor. In terms of the larger movie, does a great job for setting a tone and closing out with a cheeky note.

-Franken's Gears

Pitch – A mad scientist works to bring his creation to life.

Impression – I should take the moment now to say most of these stories are completely devoid of dialogue. The Opening/Ending is a partial, as characters speak, but it's in an alien language so we're left to get the impression from general behavior and tone rather than specifics.

I say this as Franken's Gears is one of the stories that is entirely free of dialogue. Which, honestly? Isn't a bad thing here, as this is one where dialogue might feel extraneous. This is one that justifies itself on pure atmosphere, presenting the doctor's workshop as a darkened, clutter-filled mix of Universal castle and anime-style technology. At the center of this atmosphere, the mad scientist is himself a perfect embodiment of mad genius, toiling as his weird, unwieldy creation in a rickety workshop with a zeal that drives the story. All leading up to a final beat that is darkly funny, but in keeping with the short's balancing act of dark tone and traces of humor.

-Deprive

Pitch – In the aftermath of an alien invasion, a robot sets off in search of their companion that was taken.

Impression – This was my 'oh God' moment where I realized some of my particular anime tastes were a little too keyed to this movie in that I wound up clocking the character designer (and director) of this short based on its similarity to character animation from another series. To be clear, he didn't design the cast of that other series, but he worked on character animation there, but the style was distinct enough it still carried over.

Having said that, this was a fun little action set-piece. It's not quite as memorable as some of the other shorts, but that's not really the fault of this segment. On its own, it's a brisk, engaging little action story that doesn't overstay its welcome and is a great reminder of what animators could put into an fight scene back in the heyday of the movie and OVA boom of Japan's late 80s.

-Presence

Pitch – In a somewhat futuristic world, a quiet man develops a strange attachment with a robotic girl he has been developing in secret.

Impression – So, I can't quite speak to how this landed in Japan at the time, but I can't pretend there wasn't a curious read to this watched in 2026. The unnamed protagonist introduces himself to us as the quiet husband to a high-powered executive wife. He says it doesn't bother him and he considers himself a feminist before we get the reveal of his side project. When the project is just something on his work bench he can tinker with, he is completely fine with it. Once the robot starts developing its own personality, well...you can start to see why this certainly lands a certain way in 2026.

Having said that, there was something about the way this presents the story that struck me. This doesn't really come across as romanticizing the man, nor does it go out of the way to make him overtly monstrous. The short does present the moment in question as him crossing a line, and from there it leads to a sense of guilt that haunts him for years after. The end result makes for an interesting balancing act where the man is neither redeemed nor completely despised.

I'm still not sure if I can say time has necessarily been kind to this or not, but it's technically quite stunning and the fact it doesn't fully seem to side with the protagonist does make it hold up a lot better than it could have otherwise.

Also, I do have to give a shout-out to this for one beat outside of the main story. There is a running joke involving a group of mischievous children and one unlucky robot character that got a chuckle out of me. One of those where it feels like it was an idea that didn't necessarily fit the story, but was probably also seen as too good not to include. In any case, I'm glad they kept it.

-Starlight Angel

The pitch – A chance encounter between a teenage girl and a young man in a robot costume at a futuristic theme park turns into a high-flying fantasia of romance and heroics.

Impression – This is probably the lightest of the stories in this collection. Like Deprive, that's honestly not a bad thing though. Part of the appeal of an anthology like this is getting to see the wide array of directions people take the premise. Also like Deprive, director Hiroyuki Kitazume has a good sense of balance in what he's doing here. The story lets you enjoy the fun, theme park trappings, but also knows to keep things moving without rushing too fast past anything.

This is actually probably the point where I should give a shout-out to the music in this movie, especially as Kitazume's piece has the look, feel, and narrative tone of a breezy, enjoyable music video already. Like the stories, the score across this varies in tones and styles in ways that help further capture each director's unique voice, and in that regard, it only feels right to give the proper credit to the work done by the two composers, Isaku Fujita and Joe Hisaishi (yes, of Studio Ghibli fame. You can even hear some of his particular stylistic beats you might recognize from Ghibli in some of these segments.)

-Cloud

The pitch – Follows a robot journeying through the history of life on the planet.

Impression - In a word, abstract. In more than one word, one of the most ambitious and beautiful segments of the movie. This was one where at first I wasn't entirely sure where this would go, as it introduces itself with a robot with a human face walking among clouds. It keeps this motif with the backgrounds changing, soon reflecting on a larger history passing by to which this robot remains unchanged.

There is a part of me that feels strange boiling this down to a quick text summary, because this is one where it feels like there is a danger in over explaining it. This is one where so much of it is just in the feelings it captures – how it evokes the passage of time, loneliness, and the baseline tragedy of the idea of immortality, just as a few ideas. I would recommend the whole movie, but this especially is one where I'd say it justifies watching it to see how it lands for you.

-Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture

The pitch – A gleefully anachronistic East Meets West tale of dueling technologies, pitting a western man and his steam-powered robot against a team of scrappy locals and their parade robot that step up to defend their town.

Impression – This is arguably the most fun of the stories here. Coming from Hiroyuki Kitakubo (probably also best known as the director of Roujin Z) this keeps with his sensibilities for comedic destruction that made him work so well with Otomo. Besides the chaos element, the cast of character Kitakubo and his team put together for this are also a lot of fun. Our heroes play out as a mix of archetypes that almost feels like a riff on a classic giant robot team, both in terms of personalities and how they operate their parade machine turned town defense robot. On the other side of the coin, the western invader is all bluster and bombast that plays in a similar vein to those rare Looney Tunes where they would let Wile E. Coyote talk, a cocky genius whose verbal preening just adds to the punchline when his plans backfire.

As you might have guessed from that, this is one of the two shorts in this to use actual dialogue. I bring it up in this case in part because this is one where I would say if you have the option to watch this in its original Japanese, I would recommend doing so in large part for this segment. One of the nice details they did with this involves the western man, whose dialogue is all in English with Japanese subtitles. This language gap is in the movie by design and even plays into some of the early encounters as his gleeful declarations of conquest and are ignored because no one understands what he's saying – all they know is he's trashing the town and that's grounds enough to stop him.

It's loud, silly, and a nice way to shake the audience back up after the thoughtful tone of Cloud without feeling atonal.

-Chicken Man and Red Neck

I'm gonna give you exactly ten seconds to get the giggles out about the name on this one, because in context, it is not at all what you think it is.

Aaaaaand done.

Pitch – One night in Tokyo sees a robotic sorcerer (the titular Red Neck) give life to all the machines of the city for a celebration. This goes unknown to most of the people of the city, save for one drunk who gets caught up in the revelries.

Impression – Two thoughts immediately came to me watching this.

First, I am not at all surprised to learn director Takashi Nakamura worked as an animator on Akira. The opening sequences of this as Red Neck summons machines to life, threading cables and piping through Tokyo like so many tentacles immediately gave flashes of some of the bigger set pieces from the back half of Otomo's classic.

Second, if Nakamura wasn't at least partially inspired by the Night On Bald Mountain segment from Fantasia, I would be genuinely stunned. I'm not saying this to be derisive or suggest he's copying. In fact, I was loving the influence to the point certain little moments feel like a loving homage to the famous sequence. Besides, Nakamura and his team still do plenty to distinguish, giving the whole thing a strange phantasmagoria of robots whose appearances are as much demon as they are machine. In the middle of all of this, the human (the titular Chicken Man) becomes an odd one out and a nice dash of levity trying to survive the chaos all around him. Amid this, trading the Mussorgsky score for a suitably haunting synth score that adds a dreamy (or nightmarish, depending your tastes) vibe to the whole thing.

As an overall movie, I really enjoyed this. I went in trying not to know too much about it and got a mix that ran from the entertaining, to the contemplative, to the truly bizarre and I was never bored by it.

This is now joining that list of films from this that I am really hoping I get the chance to see in a theater, because there are visuals here that could spectacularly on a big screen.

With that, I've kept you all here long enough.

It's time to keep moving as November rolls on with next week's entry.

It's a little past for Halloween, but that's not gonna stop me from doing this anyway – it's another first here as I take on the first silent movie on the slate with F.W. Murnau's 1926 version of Faust.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up #43 – Basket Case (1981)

Ho-lee crap.

Okay, normally I don't open quite that bluntly, but this is one where I kind of needed to.

Okay. Compose yourself. Structure.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my yearlong journey through my cinematic to do list.

Also, a happy Halloween, as we are now less than 48 hours as of this going live, and oh MAN, is this gonna be a fun one to ring this in with.

So, this is gonna be a little more free form than some of my prior entries have been. I did like to give myself a little time to think and compose clear thoughts on the movies I've watched.

For a movie like Basket Case, I feel like dwelling on it does a gross disservice. I need to shoot this one from the hip and hope you'll bear with me for it.

So...the pitch.

Basket Case takes us to the wonderfully grimy cinematic side of early 80s New York that helped fuel so many insane right wing fantasies to this day. In this city, we're introduced to Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck), a shy young man who seems a fish out of water with a goal to fulfill and a basket at his side.

...okay. Screw it. There's no way I can keep this going without some spoilage, and honestly? If you don't know this part of the story already, I'm impressed.

So, what's in the basket? Oh. Nothing. Just Duane's stunted, mutant twin brother Belial. Oh, excuse me – stunted, mutant, homicidal twin brother. Belial's got some scores to settle and Duane is happy to assist.

There. That's as far as I'm willing to go into detail. There's more to how genuinely strange Belial's backstory is, but I've gotta leave some surprises to justify watching this.

Not that it would hurt to reveal that here. This is something that truly needs to be seen to be believed.

Which is where my real reflex comes in here – this movie is absolutely batshit insane.

And I loved it.

Okay. I know I should explain myself a little more here.

The insanity? Well, I feel a LITTLE bad for giving it away, but I point you to the screenshot of Belial here. Yes, Belial is a hand puppet that looks like a mound of Fluff developed sentience and the first emotion it discovered is pure, seething, bloodthirsty hatred. There's so many productions that would be embarrassed of something like this.

This movie? It goes for it. It fucking GOES for it. It goes all in. The actors who are being attacked by Belial are committing to the idea that they are being violently thrashed by this weird little puppet. Van Hentenryck plays sincerely good with his brother puppet – who he also voices, by the way. And OH does he voice him. As Belial, Van Hentrenryck offers a litany of bizarre grunts, squeals and wails on the level of Gunnar Hansen in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and he does it with such genuine energy and fury that I would love to see behind the scenes footage of him recording Belial's noises, because I have to feel like that is a full body delivery.

Plus, when Belial isn't wrestling with a surprisingly dedicated actor? That weird little mutant puppet isn't always a puppet. We also get some scenes of Belial rampaging in stop motion that are something truly special to watch. There is a particular moment of Belial singlehandedly laying waste to a hotel room that had me genuinely cackling for both how absurd and how sincerely it was done.

I've seen a lot of films of varying quality this year. I've seen some I would say are artistically stunning with a lot of high acclaim.

I can't really say Basket Case is one of them. Having said that, I will still wholeheartedly endorse it, because it is so committed to its unique brand of batshit that it becomes a delight to watch.

If you have a taste for cheese, by all means. Seek this one out if you haven't already. In fact, if you listen carefully right now, you may hear the light sound of me kicking my own ass for not having watched this sooner.

Just...give it a watch. I guess that's really what this comes down to.

Whew. This was definitely a bit more freeform than I usually do with these, but what can I say? This movie almost defies a more rigid format, and after this month, I needed something entertaining like this to close out.

Which, again, close out we must. As October comes to an end and I make my way to the final two months of this adventure.

Once again, a Happy Halloween, and I will see you all again in November, where I'll be kicking off the format with a first for this series – I'm going into an anthology movie.

See you then for Robot Carnival.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 42 – The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Hey there! Welcome back!

Don't mind me, just finishing up with this mess over here.

Okay, I'm not gonna go TOO far with this bit. That's just daring these draws to hit me with something really weird and/or really uncomfortable going forward.

Anyway, once again, welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, the ongoing year-long project to keep me at writing by taking down first impressions of 52 first time watches this year.

October is continuing to roll out and as the horrors persist, they are also proving enjoyably varied. So far that's meant Ken Russell going delightfully off the chain and a darkly comic story about the folly of burying the past. The variety continues this week, this time going into a grisly, occult vein with André Øvredal's The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

So, time for the pitch.

The movie starts us off with local police called to investigate a house. They arrive to find what looks to be a massacre that would be mysterious enough on its own. The mystery is further complicated by the presence of an unidentified corpse half-buried in the house's basement (Olwen Kelly.) On the heels of that discovery, we're introduced to father-son coroner team Tommy and Austin (Brian Cox and Emil Hirsch.) Tommy is shown to be a seasoned hand at his trade, with a keen eye to noticing the little details that can tell a lot about a corpse and how they died. Austin, for his part, is still learning the ropes, but is open to learning. The mystery corpse is brought to them, where the local sheriff is counting on Tommy's insights to help determine who this person was and how they died. What starts as a routine, if unusual autopsy becomes something more sinister as father and son find clues on and in the corpse that suggest this death was anything but routine.

This is one of those titles I have been circling for a few years before this project gave a good incentive to just go 'do it already.' I had a loose idea of the premise as far as the autopsy and there being something supernatural about the body, but was trying not to go any further past that and see where this went. As a result, there were some aspects of this that proved a pleasant surprise to me, even if there were some I was a little disappointed with along with that.

In both cases, this reaction ultimately comes down to the execution of this central premise. I'll give credit where it's due before that and start by saying the general production here is good – especially the two-man performance of Cox and Hirsch, given how much of this movie rests on their shoulders. The two play well together, and as someone who predominantly knows Cox through his more villainous or grouchy characters, it was nice to see him in more of a genuinely fatherly role in this, give or take for some elements of guilt he is wrestling with that come into play as the movie goes on.

Back to my point on how this story is executed, I'll start by saying, the marketing had me expecting this to lean into the occult horror aspects more swiftly and directly. In that regard, I was pleasantly surprised by the slower build up this employs in getting to the more unearthly details of what became of the titular corpse. That slower burn actually wound up becoming the part of this movie that wound up really hooking me. For much of the first half, the movie plays less like an out and out horror (after the prologue, anyway) and more like a sort of puzzle. Tommy and Austin working at the corpse, finding new clues stowed inside of it, some of which address previous questions, but often leave new questions in their wake. Each new step expanding the mystery and keeping this engaging in ways I didn't expect. While I did appreciate the growing supernatural elements as the movie went on – at times seeming to up the ante as each seemed a new force unlocked in the investigation – the actual autopsy was what I kept wanting to see more of.

Which is part of where the disappointment came in, unfortunately. It's the inevitable risk when you get a movie like this where so much is hanging on the mystery – eventually you'll have to make the reveal, and there's a risk the payoff won't measure up to the build-up.

In the case of this movie, I can't say feel like it doesn't measure up. At least, not entirely. On paper, there's a novel idea here, and I do like some of what the movie does with it. But the actual moment of denouement felt a bit unsatisfactory for me after how much I was enjoying the journey getting there. It's not awful, it just feels like they take so much time setting up the clues that the actual explanation feels rushed to get the ending underway.

Which, if I will be fair, I'm otherwise satisfied with. As rushed as the explanation for the corpse and its history feel, the movie does make up for it in where it goes with that knowledge, both in terms of the emotional payoff for our two leads as well as where the movie then takes things for the very end.

Overall, Øvredal has been a director that, to date, I've been in the camp of 'not bad', on. I will admit up front that I still have not seen his breakout in Trollhunter, so maybe that's the one that will do it. As it has been otherwise, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was overall decent and I will grant The Last Voyage of the Demeter had promise, even if I feel like it fumbled the ending in a big way. Of his work that I've seen, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is so far the closest to a solid hit, and it's got enough promise there that I will be seeing where else he goes from here (even factoring in that I'd heard generally mixed reception to Passenger, I'll get there one of these days.)

With that, it's time to close up this morgue drawer and get ready to keep moving. With one week left in October, I've still got one more horror waiting on deck.

And oh MAN, this is one I'm still surprised has eluded me all these years.

But no longer! Next week, I'm finally ticking a long time title off the to do list with Frank Henenlotter's cult classic Basket Case.

I've got a good feeling about this one.

Till then. 

 

52 Pick-Up # 41 – Demon (2015)

Hey there! Welcome back!

Pay no mind to the body in the back. In fact, just pretend I never mentioned a body back there and let's get on with a nice, orderly entry in this year long dive into a cinematic to do list.

Okay, that played a little better than the warm-up gag for Enemy, so there's that.

October rolls on with a slate of horror movies lined up for this month, and this week I'm changing gears and countries for a darkly comic slice of Polish folk horror.

So, without further ado...

Demon introduces us to Piotr (Itay Tiran), a Polish man working abroad who has returned to his home country, where he is about to marry Żaneta (Agnieszka Żulewska.) Alongside marrying into the family, Piotr is also moving into an old estate that had previously belonged to Żaneta's grandmother. While working on some renovation ahead of the wedding, Piotr makes a strange find buried in the yard.

Okay, maybe a human skeleton is more than 'strange', but at the time, he initially decides not to tell about it. Which seems like a good idea at first. Then as the wedding is underway, Piotr starts to behave strangely. What follows is one part a slow burning tale of possession, one part an absurdly black comedy of manners, and one part a story about the way the past tends to come back despite the best efforts of others to silence it.

As a horror movie, this is an odd one to classify in a few respects. There's elements of a ghost story, a possession story, a folk tale (the nature of the spirit is ties into Jewish folklore, and that's all I'll say lest I give too much away), and, yes, again, dark comedy. It never feels like it leans too especially far into any one or the other. To be honest, part of why my instinct is to put it under folk comes from my first viewing of this care of the fact my copy is part of Severin's All the Haunts Be Ours folk horror collections.

That weird classification is part of what really made an impression on me while watching this and kept me interested. While there were elements I could see were being set up, there was never a sense of being able to predict just where some elements were going. Especially with regards to the subplot involving Żaneta's father (Andrzej Grabowski) and his increasingly more harried attempts to downplay his son-in-law's growing erratic behavior, resorting to ever more outlandish ways to keep the guests distracted.

Alongside this very dark comedy, the movie has a quietly somber thread with regards to the nature of the dead body found. Again, I'm trying not to get too specific for spoilers, but in light of the country in question and the time period the deceased is placed around, there is a historical subtext that becomes hard to ignore, especially given some of the political sentiments Poland has been embracing in the past decade and change. The idea of Poland trying to downplay its past sins, unearthed by chance and a relative outsider, is a striking and surprisingly sobering theme, and it's impressive how well the movie balances it with the absurdity.

On the sobering note, there is one other thing about this movie that feels hard to not bring up, that is the death of its director, Marcin Wrona. Without going into too much detail on it, looking into the director's background, found out it was reported that he hanged himself after completing this movie, making it his final feature. While a quick search did not give any indication to the reasons for the suicide, it's a detail that makes parts of this movie land differently, particularly with regards to what becomes of Piotr as the movie unfolds. No definitive connections, but it's hard not to wonder with that knowledge.

As a horror movie, this isn't really one that will scratch the scary itch for the Halloween season. It presents an effective slow burn, but the supernatural elements more inspire thought than fear. I'm not saying this as a complaint, more a way to help adjust expectations for if anyone is interested in watching this. It's a horror, but not in the ways you'd expect.

For those who this may be disappointing to? Don't worry, next week brings us back to some more straightforward horror. I'm going into a nastier, more occult vein with a movie I've been circling for a while now in The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 40 – The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Oh, October. Easily one of my favorite months.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long self-imposed challenge to keep writing in the form of first impressions on 52 movies I have not seen before.

This week, October kicks off in suitable fashion with – you guessed it – a weighted draw for horror movies!

The first draw feeling appropriately timed given the director in question is currently back in the cinematic zeitgeist, despite having been dead for some years now.

I was tempted to fudge the schedule so I could do this later in the month to coincide with the new restoration of The Devils, but I decided to play fair, so time to kick the month off with Ken Russell's The Lair of the White Worm.

Even when not expressly designed to be one,
this movie is prettymuch exactly the Ken Russell
vampire movie I would have expected.

In making the pitch for this, I'm going to issue one of two disclaimers for this entry. This first being that, as of the time of this writing, I have not read the Bram Stoker novel this was adapted from. I am now adding it to the to do list as I am interested in seeing just how it compares (being Russell, and that this adaptation is in modern times, I'm not anticipating a painstakingly faithful take), but at this point, I can only speak to this movie on its own terms.

With that now settled, as stated above, The Lair of the White Worm is a modernized adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel of the same name. The contemporary set film centers around an archaeological dig for a convent in a remote British town. Angus, the archaeologist (Peter Capaldi) believes his findings may hold clues to a local myth of a beast known as the D'Ampton Worm that was said to have plagued the countryside. On further excavation, Angus starts finding strange signs connecting the dig to recent disappearances that lead him to suspect that not only might the stories be true, there may still be a Worm terrorizing the lands.

Now, in terms of my response to this movie, we come to my second disclaimer. As Ken Russell goes, I'm something of a neophyte. I have had some good impressions with a few of his works over the years: I don't remember Tommy as well, but what I remember I respect for its ambitions, I enjoyed Altered States, and I have a lot of love for The Devils. I say this for some context as far as my impressions of Russell going into this, both in terms of quality and subject matter. With that said, my general impression of this lands somewhere in the middle. I found it an altogether watchable, bizarre piece of 80s British horror with a number of entertaining elements going for it, even if some may not have been intended the way they landed.

At the same time, of the Russell I have seen, this is probably trailing behind the others. Which, again, isn't a direct knock on this movie. So far, even a weak Russell has still been a good watch for me, and I'm going to be curious to see if that tracks the further I dig into his work. Part of the problem in this case is that, even before reading up on the production of this movie, I was struck by the fact it felt a bit more constrained than other Russell movies I've seen. Part of this was because him doing a horror movie was a condition of a deal he had with the studio at the time in order to get another project approved. This isn't to say he isn't trying on this movie, because I'm not sure it's possible for Ken Russell to go on cruise control, but this also doesn't have quite the same feeling of mad ambition of a Tommy or The Devils behind it.

Which is not to say the ambition isn't there,
because oh, lordy, is it ever. It's just limited by
the kind of money Vestron can put behind it.

Incidentally, this was the scene where I remembered
my wife telling me how she almost saw this movie as
child by virtue of an accidentally misplaced rental tape.
Props to her mother for pumping the brakes on that.

With this in mind, this certainly does have some of his signature touches to it. Most notably, and somewhat infamously, this movie has that unique brand of strange, artistic, horniness that has become somewhat synonymous with Russell's name over the years. In this case, embodied by the aesthetics of the antagonistic snake-centered cult that worships the titular worm (and yes, that thing you're thinking is factored into the movie too.) While the cult isn't framed itself as explicitly sexual, the trappings are all over them – from the nightmarish visions characters receive of the cult and its past (which are a little undercut by the VHS-caliber video quality, but still get into some truly strange 'seeing is believing' visuals as the movie unfolds) to the final ritual sporting what I can only best describe as a ceremonial strap-on, used both suggestively and in one case ultra-literally for impalement.

Which, no, I will not be posting a screenshot of. This movie is streaming for free on Tubi at the time of this post, you can go look it up yourself if you don't believe me.

Beyond the cult, there is one other sequence I have to point out, simply because it was one that had me genuinely laughing to watch how hard Russell leaned into the skid. Without going into too much detail, should you watch this, keep an eye out for a dream sequence involving Hugh Grant and a red pen. You'll know when you get there in pretty short order and at that point it's just a matter of watching the movie go for the most obvious joke in such a way that it loops around to be entertaining rather than groan-inducing.

I'm gonna circle back to the cult for one more thing. I want to close out on a good note, and this comes to what is, in all honesty, the single best selling point for this movie. That being the performance by Amanda Donohoe as the cult's high priestess, Sylvia. 

I'll be fair and say the rest of the cast are doing overall good work here first. The supporting cast has a nice slate of character actors, and as leads go, Capaldi is surprisingly game for a reluctant hero role, while Grant's relative inability to decide if he's in a serious movie or a comedy, rather than hurting the movie, seems to fit right in.

Donohoe, meanwhile, is completely locked in on this movie. If she didn't have a sense of what Russell was going for, she sure as Hell fooled me. As horror villains go, she is figuratively, and in some cases literally, devouring every scene of this movie she is in and for all appearances having an absolute ball as she does so. Even if the rest of this movie went completely off the rails, I would argue her performance on its own is worth at least considering for this one. 

Overall, this is a film I would call a VERY conditional recommend. I know a lot of people where I can already tell them 'maybe not this time' (if you're curious and not sure if you'd be one of these people, reach out to me, I can get a little more in-depth if this will be your bag or not.) At the same time, there's already some people I know where I have a good feeling if they haven't seen this one, I can tell them, 'yeah, this is gonna be a fun 90 minutes for you.'

Not too bad a start for the month.

With that said, next week I'll be changing gears for horror. It's a little slower, a little quieter, a lot less horny, and definitely more somber, but hey, horror loves variety. Next week, it's a piece of Polish folk horror with the 2015 movie, Demon.

Until then.

52 Pick-Up #39 – The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long project to keep at writing with 52 first time movie watches as a jumping off point.

I considered making this more of a joke entry, but too many of these either went into spoilers or got surprisingly dark, even for me. In many cases both (if you've already seen this one, you can probably guess specifically which scene I have in mind.)

As this goes live, September is coming to a close with mere hours to go. It's been an interesting spread of movies, which several notable directors I've been keeping an eye on getting stray titles taken care of from their lists.

In that informal theme, I'm closing out with one of the gaps from director Yorgos Lanthimos. It's one of his darker works, and fitting with October around the corner, this might be the closest he's come to making a horror movie. So technically, I can count The Killing of a Sacred Deer as pregaming, much like last week.

But first, the pitch.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer introduces us to Steven (Colin Farrell), a heart surgeon living an overall normal life with his family, wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and children Kim and Bob (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic.) Steven also has a friendship that might be seen as slightly less normal – he has been in touch with young Martin (Barry Keoghan) whose father died some years earlier. While his family initially is unaware, Steven invites Martin to come over and meet them. Martin makes a good impression on the family, particularly with Kim, and he then invites Steven to his own home. After these two meetings, strange occurrences begin to happen as Bob is struck with a mystery medical condition. As Steven tries to determine the cause, Martin informs him of what is causing it – and the horrific action he'll have to take to make it stop.

Like many of Lanthimos's movies, there is something fascinating in how this seems to both fit certain genres while also bucking against them. At its core, the central idea of this movie (itself taken from Greek mythology) is very much a horror where this family finds themselves at the mercy of forces beyond their control and that will only be assuaged with the fulfillment of a grim task. That idea of the unknown is probably where the horror runs the strongest and makes for one of the more interesting parts of how this story is presented as there are so many 'why's of the movie that will never be resolved.  

By extension, this is also part of what makes Martin such a standout part of this movie. There's versions of this where the character could or would be framed as much more openly malevolent, especially in light of the casting of Keoghan (and credit where it's due, I can see why this was part of what caused him to break out as an actor.) While not in that mold, the movie does still find ways to maintain an antagonistic framing – he is presented as off-putting in many respects, at times manipulative if not outright creepy. Even with those touches, where the actual mystery is concerned, there is a sense he may be just as powerless as Steven and his family are in the face of what is happening. Yes, Martin is aware of what is happening and is the one to explain the rules (such as they are) of what is happening and will happen and how to stop it, but even as he has the advantage of that knowledge, there is also a sense he has no real control over it. As the illness progresses, and the family members each in their own way to try to plead, reason, or threaten Martin, his attitude isn't one of power or villainy – he can only shrug as the movie conveys the sense he has no more control than they do. The way he talks about it to Steven gives the sense this wasn't something he set into motion. Rather, something that he was aware of and just had to be the one to deliver the news given his role in the inciting incident.

As much as the movie makes a horror of that sense of the unknown, there are other elements that make it feel different from more 'traditional' horror. In keeping with much of Lanthimos's body of work, there is much here that would place it in the vein of dark comedy. Several of the family interactions, for example, play with a certain deadpan absurdity, both in general and moreso as tensions rise with the growing problems around them. I am trying my hardest not to spoil what this all entails as a general courtesy, but I can't pretend it isn't difficult with this one, as many of the things I want to go into do give parts of the movie away. I preface with that in that I hope you will forgive me one VERY slight tip of the hand now as far as this movie's dark humor – for much of the movie it's played in lighter doses, becoming more pronounced as the stakes rise. Finally, this leads to the moment when Steven has to make an uncomfortable decision – and the scene in question is arguably one of the funniest moments I have seen in an Lanthimos movie to date, thanks in part to how it balances something so horrifying with such an openly absurd presentation.

Thinking this over in the days since I've watched it, it's landed in a curious spot for me. In terms of what Lanthimos movies I've seen, there's several I would put over it (I still have a few gaps to fill, but if you put me on the spot right now, my first instinct answer would a dead heat between The Lobster and The Favourite). Even with this on the lower end, I have a genuine respect for the finished film here. Yes, Lanthimos doing dark comedy isn't a new thing in itself, but pivoting it into something closer to horror here is a swing I can get behind and I'm still overall satisfied with seeing how well it worked out.

Also, speaking of this and The Lobster – I hope Colin Farrell comes back to work with him again at some point. I have been loving Farrell's post-Hollywood leading man era where he has just been banking more and more into odd roles and their two collaborations have been high points in that run.

Granted, last had heard, Lanthimos was taking some time off, so whatever happens, happens. Until then, 2026 rolls on, and next week puts us into October.

Oh yeah, chances are you all figured it out – I weighted the scales for horror and the month is kicking off in a suitably weird fashion, and one that feels somewhat apropos with the upcoming remaster of The Devils coming to theaters. I'm kicking off October with another Ken Russell horror outing in his 1988 take on Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm.

Until then. 

52 Pick-Up # 38 – Enemy (2013)

Oh. Hey there.

What do you mean what am I doing? I'm working on this week's write up.

No, I didn't post it already. How could I post it already if I'm still working on it?

You saw me post the link? Okay, that's just not possible. Again, how could I link it if I'm still working on--

Okay, I'd be tempted to see how much further I could take this joke, but I feel like it would start becoming convoluted quickly and eventually lead to me making two different posts for this movie that would try to intersect and mostly just turn into a mess.

Was at least worth the set-up.

With that said, welcome back to 52 Pick Up. For those just joining in, this makes month 9 of a year long project to get in 52 first time watches and logging initial impressions of them as a way to keep up writing.

For this week, I'm continuing to dovetail off of two points from last week's entry. The first of these being that this is another title that was chosen as part of an intention to fill the gaps in a particular director's filmography. In this case, this makes a second gap filled in the work of Denis Villeneuve with his 2013 psychological thriller, Enemy.

As a pitch goes, this feels a bit more straightforward than the previous Villeneuve movie, which is funny given the actual execution is more elaborate, but I digress. Enemy starts by introducing us to Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal, in one of two roles), a history professor in a fairly routine life. One day, a colleague making small talk recommends a movie to him. Despite saying he's not normally one for movies, Adam takes up the suggestion. As he watches, he becomes struck by the fact that one of the supporting actors looks like him. Exactly like him. What starts as a curiosity soon becomes an obsession as Adam soon finds himself trying to first find, then meet the actor (Anthony, again, also played by Gyllenhall.) Anthony is initially confused and repulsed by Adam, until he finally meets him face to face and the uncanny resemblance becomes too much to deny. Especially as the two seem to start feeling as though their existences may be overlapping.

Okay, maybe not AS straightforward as I was saying, but a doppleganger reveal is easier to sum up without giving too much way than the events of Incendies.

So, some of you may now be wondering what the other point mentioned above was for dovetailing off of last time. In this case, I'm now two for two on movies I've come away from feeling like I may need more time than the allotted week or so to really work out how I felt on this one. Just as a first impression goes, there's a lot I liked here: Villeneuve has a good sense of tone here, a strong cast (especially, again, Gyllenhaal on double duty), and there's a number of stylistic flourishes I respected from a presentation standpoint. I think part of what I'm still mulling over/unpacking with this goes to the ambiguity on display in the movie. 

Going off of the above mentioned style flourishes, there's a fair amount about this that is left unsaid. There are multiple ways one could read, for example, the mystery of Adam/Anthony, two individuals so physically similar as to even share certain scars. Further, there's a question of if there are truly two individuals or the single man living a double life. Adding to this is some of the striking visuals the movie employs with spiders and spider-like imagery around these two men (or possibly one man) lending some further food for thought that, I have to admit, I'm still turning over. In general, I rather like the fact the movie doesn't spell this out and leaves it as something to turn over. But, as I said, it also means I'm still gonna be thinking on this one for a bit past this general first impression.

As it is now, it's not the best I've seen from Villeneuve, but hey, in general I haven't seen him miss so far, so that's still not a bad place to be.

But, even as I let this one keep rolling in my brain, the project goes on. With one week left, September has one more title on deck, and once again, I'm addressing a gap in a director's work. This time, I'm addressing a loose end of Yorgos Lanthimos as I close out September with The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

From all reports, this also will help serve as a lead-in to October, and having rolled that one up? Ooooh, this has potential to be a fun month.

But, let's not get too far ahead.

Till next time with The Killing of a Sacred Deer.