pressing pause

Hi everyone! Just a heads up, there are family matters I need to attend to (yes, that rascally Urkel has done it again!) that necessitate my pressing pause on SHOCKtober here at the blog and on the podcast for the immediate future. Very sorry and hope to be back here (and at the pod) before too long. Thanks for understanding.

Day 3: AMERICAN GOTHIC (1987)

By 1987, the slasher movie heyday was dunzo and the subgenre was on its last legs--legs that would prove weirder and often more interesting than the formulaic flicks that put the glory in the glory days. Case in point: American Gothic, a wacked-out joyride that's got a real heart of darkness beneath its gingham...uh, finery. 

Cynthia (Sarah Torgov) is released from the mental hospital where she'd been treated for a breakdown caused by the accidental drowning of her baby. Her husband Jeff (Mark Erickson) is understanding and happy to have his wife back, telling her they'll have more kids and it wasn't her fault. Now look, I don't think making her feel any guiltier than she already does is the best thing for her, of course, but Cynthia left the baby unattended in the tub so it pretty much is her fault...? I am just saying.

The couple decides a little vacay is in order, so they hop in Jeff's seaplane along with two other couples. The plane soon starts a-sputterin' and a-smokin', forcing the group to land on an island that seems to be deserted. But when they go exploring, they discover that it ain't. They find a house that seems to be frozen in time, with clothing and records and decor straight outta the 1920s. The group makes themselves right at home, cranking the tunes, wearing the clothes, and Charleston-ing it up. The owners return and let me tell you, they aren't nearly as put out as I would be if I came home and found a group of strangers wearing my wigs and muumuus and listening to my Chuck Mangione records! But I guess the down-home duo of Ma (Yvonne De Carlo) and Pa (Rod Steiger) are better people than I. (Hmm, being so taken aback by their chill attitudes and Jeff's exceedingly forgiving nature, I guess I am learning a thing or two about myself. But don't worry, whatever I learn won't stick!) While Pa is a taciturn scripture-spewing buzzkill, Ma is quite genial, excited to have some new "kids" to join the Clean Plate Club at the dinner table.

Not that she doesn't have kids of her own, mind you: There's Fanny (Janet Wright), Woody (weirdo horror movie mainstay Michael J. Pollard), and Teddy (William 'Jek Porkins' Hootkins), all of whom are clearly decades older than they act or claim to be. Pa promises that help should be coming to the island soon but it's doubtful that the gang of stranded folks will survive in the company of this wackadoodle family. I mean, it's a slasher movie, after all.

In my review of this film during the inaugural SHOCKtober, I mentioned that it was a video store shelf staple but I'd never seen it and rarely heard mention of it. Twenty years later, it seems that American Gothic still has yet to find its audience, which surprises me because it's fucking weird and it's fucking fun. These religious isolationists are your classic kind of horror movie nutso family, à la the Wrong Turn gang, Leatherface's brood, the Firefly clan, and so on and so on. Those are all well and good but none of them feature Yvonne De Carlo now, do they? They do not, and it's a shame because she's having a grand ol' time here, gleefully delivering aphorisms, whipped potatoes, and a kindly menace. Rod Steiger occasionally seems to wonder what movie he's in, but delivers his Big Acting Moments with gusto (again, perhaps unaware of what movie he's in).

Director John Hough has a filmography that's a series of random peaks and valleys, ranging from the likes of The Legend of Hell House to The Watcher in the Woods to Howling IV: The Original Nightmare. While the material is often pitch black (drowning babies, mummified babies, incest, necrophilia), Hough keeps it as light as possible, leaving details and specifics off-screen and in our imaginations. I wonder if this and the general lack of explicit violence are what have kept American Gothic in the realm of the unknown and/or underseen? Hmm. Keeping the uncomfortable in the realm of implication and the killings largely off-screen aren't marks against it for me: The uncomfortable is still hella uncomfortable even if you don't see things play out, you know? And ultimately the whole thing is on the bleaker side of bonkers--exactly what I'm looking for in a late 80s slasher. Who knows, maybe other folks'll join The Clean Plate Club of Loving American Gothic some day yet!

Day 2: PHONE (2002)

Back in 2005, Phone was one of a slew of East Asian films to hit the Western market thanks to Tartan Asia Extreme DVD. While some were lauded and deemed instant classics, such as A Tale of Two Sisters, The Eye, and Ringu, many more were (fairly or not) relegated to the "eh, it's more of the same stuff" pile and left there--and unlike their more famous brethren, most have yet to earn a home release since that Tartan DVD.

I was quite taken with Phone way back in 2005, so much so that I didn't really get into specifics about it--rather, I just told folks to go watch it. While last night was the first time I watched it since that lofty "review," I'd certainly thought about it from time to time, though all I really thought about (or even remembered) was the performance of young Eun Seo-woo as Yeong-ju, a girl who gets possessed. I couldn't remember why she got possessed, or by whom or what. The circumstances, the plot, all of it washed away by time! But her acting--by turns adorable, terrified, and terrifying--remained in my brain place. And while I was taken with the entire film (I see why I recommended it in The Olde Days), Eun Seo-woo's performance is still the highlight. She's just straight-up terrific and gives some of the most delightful stank faces I've ever seen.

Thanks to the work of intrepid reporter (be still my heart!) Ji-won (Ha Ji-won), several men are charged and arrested for sex crimes involving underage girls. Soon after she receives a series of incresaingly threatening phone calls and stalking incidents, prompting her to relocate for a while to a house owned by childhood friend Ho-jeong (Kim Yu-mi) and her husband Chang-hoon (Choi Woo-jae). One evening, Ji-won's laptop goes all The Matrix-looking and a phone number appears on the screen. Ji-won starts receiving indecipherable calls and text messages from the same number. Whilst unattended, Ho-jeong's daughter Yeong-ju answers one of these calls to Ji-won's phone and begins acting very strangely--she also seems to harbor an obsessive (and way beyond inappropriate) attachment to her father Chang-hoon. 

Plot threads and time tangle and disentangle as we learn the story of the voice on the other end of the cell phone and the victims who have come before while the fates of Ji-won and her dear ones lie in the balance. There are ghostly presences, disturbing imagery, and some genuinely chilling sequences throughout a narrative that twists and turns and then twists and turns some more; As mysteries get solved and questions get answered, Phone might rely a bit too much on flashbacks to fill us in, but this is a fairly standard structure for Asian horror--particularly Korean horror--and I don't mind it a whit. As also expected from a K-horror feature, there's some high melodrama and a lot of melancholy tied to a kind of depressing inevitability to events. I ain't complainin'!

I ain't complainin' about none of it, in fact. Phone looks fantastic, with more intriguing visuals and color palettes at play than many of its (often kinda cheap-looking) DV-era contemporaries. Blessedly there's only one or two decidedly 2002 CGI shots, and they're not ghost-related. 

It's no surprise that director/co-writer Ahn Byeong-ki (Apt, Nightmare, and the Bunshinsaba series) cites Hideo Nakata's Ringu as an influence for Phone, particularly during the film's climactic sequence--and honestly, the ghost's big moment is a pretty worthy successor to Sadako emerging from the television if you ask me. And speaking of that ghost, oooh it is angry and vengeful! Not only against the ones who did it wrong, but against...kind of anyone, really, including the poor, random souls who happened upon the cell phone by happenstance. 

Phone doesn't dive as deep into the realm of "hey, what's up with this new technology and should we be afraid of it...?" as films like Pulse (aka Kairo) and One Missed Call do--here, the phone feels more akin to a Ouija board or a séance or that kind of horror movie trope of yore. But still, the cell phone was still a fairly new commonplace technology at the time, and it's fun to watch the ways Ahn uses it to inflict terror on his characters.

So yeah man, this one still holds up--not only thanks to the work of Eun Seo-woo, but because it's just some solid Korean horror, you know? Sometimes that's the only thing that hits just right, and hit just right it did. Here's hoping it eventually enters the modern media age and gets some love (beyond me posting about it every 20 years).

Day 1: ALICE, SWEET ALICE (1976)

Not only is Alice, Sweet Alice the film that kicked off my first SHOCKtober event in 2005, it also figured into SHOCKtober 2019 when I reassessed it. Now here we are, meeting again during this highest of holy seasons. I ain't complainin'!

As I've mentioned time and again, when this blog started in 2005 my focus was slasher films. Every horror blog, it seemed, had a niche regarding subgenres or gimmicks and slashers were a bit underserved. I pounced because hey, the "Final Girl" slasher trope made for a mighty name title for a blog! But mostly it was because it was the subgenre I felt I knew best. I grew up part of a horror-loving family and slashers were the stuff of my youth; But unlike Hammer films or haunted house movies or creature features or any of the other flicks I watched and loved, slashers felt like they were mine, perhaps owing to the fact that they were aimed at and featured characters who weren't adults yet. 

But as many as I'd seen, once I started Final Girl I realized how many more were waiting for me out there. Movies from before my time or more obscure titles that'd been unavailable to me or I'd missed on video store shelves. In those early days, when I wasn't writing posts or watching things I anticipated writing about, I spent most of my free time poring over reference books and a handful of dedicated websites in the hopes of finding some treasures...or, at least, films I'd never seen. Honestly, it was mostly books checked out from my local library, such as John Kenneth Muir's Horror Films of the 1970s and Adam Rockoff's Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film. It was a different internet then--a dial-up one, at that--and there certainly wasn't so much content on it. Slashers were an old world for me, but also, I discovered, an entirely new one. How exciting it was to have so many movies waiting for me to discover!

The point is that this was how Alice, Sweet Alice came into my life as something I simply had to see. What luck, then, to pick up a VHS tape for $1.50 and finally get my eyeballs on it. I gave it an 8/10--8 out of 10 catholic nutjobs, to be more precise--back in 2005 (I was rating things then, what folly), but regardless I think I found it a little disappointing because it wasn't solely the slasher film I was expecting. It's not fair to judge a film by one's expectations of it, of course, and I do think the killer's translucent mask/St Michael's Church-branded rain slicker creeped me out enough to make up for its other perceived "shortcomings."

In 2019, I'd upgraded from that $1.50 VHS tape to a caseless $0.50 DVD copy and, knowing what to expect (or not to expect) of Alice, Sweet Alice, I appreciated it much more than I did the first time, even if there was no number rating to prove my feelings. In that review, I wrote:

Alice, Sweet Alice is a deeply unpleasant film, and I'm not necessarily referring to the violence, which occurs fairly seldomly. Of course, when kill scenes do arrive, they are shocking and brutal for sure. It's more the atmosphere of the whole thing–it's all drenched in decrepitude and sleaze, and everyone is so damn loud all the time, yelling at one another and clomping up and down the stairs of the small apartment building where Alice lives with her mother (and sister, before her death).

It's a very crass and nasty kind of film in many ways--often, that's the point of it--and to be honest I think the 108 minute version on the DVD is perhaps a titch too long and the 98-minute VHS cut might be preferable. (No, I still haven't upgraded to the Blu-ray...given my history with this film, I suppose I'm waiting to find it for under $2.) Maybe I've just seen it too many times now?

Regardless, in the trashfire that is 2025 it feels more relevant than ever. The film points to the dissolution of American institutions we have always held up as aspirational, as protectors and safe havens...or more likely, it points to the fact that those institutions have always been rotten. "We're not even safe in the church!" a character laments after young Karen is brutally murdered during a Communion ceremony. Many have never been safe in the church, be they victims of abuse or sexual minorities or believers in another religion. The police in this movie are reprehensible, from the nudie pics plastered all over the walls of the detective bureau to lewdly commenting on 12-year-old Alice's body and suggesting she wants a cop to "feel her up." In the Kennedy era, when the film takes place, this rot was only known by a few--obviously, a gay man like Alice, Sweet Alice writer/director Alfred Sole was amongst those few. Now in 2025, the rot and hypocrisy are impossible to ignore.

She is nigh!

You know who I'm talking about, Willis! That's right, I'm talking about Miss SHOCKtobra herself, uh...SHOCKtober. I can't believe she is nigh and getting nigher by the moment. If you listen to my podcast Final Girl After Dark, then mayhaps you heard me announce my plans for this year already. If you don't listen to my podcast, well don't worry, I'm going to tell you my plans for this year in this post. Also if you don't listen to my podcast, I will assume you do not have ears because why else wouldn't you listen! Podcasts are all the cool rage this year, and I know you like to partake in cool rage activities (and, come Thanksgiving time, Blood Rage activities of course). 

I will have you know that I took some time mulling over whether or not to have another go at my super big mega countdown list of y'allses favorite horror movies. "It's been a couple of years since I did that," I thought, and then I actually checked and it turns out I did it last year. It felt so long ago and I was so floored that it'd only been a year! I went full slapping my cheeks Home Alone-style when I saw that it was the 2024 celebration. Honestly, I am kind of still slapping my cheeks Home Alone-style over that revelation; I am not sure if my not knowing it'd only been a year points to my brain beginning to fail me, or that time has been seriously fucked since 2020 (or 2000) or what, but regardless...YIKES.

So what to do then? Well, as 2025 is indeed a big year 'round these parts, seeing as it's the 20th anniversary of this blog and all, I thought it might be fun to go back to where the annual Miss SHOCKtobra Pageant began: the very first SHOCKtober of 2005. I watched and reviewed a movie every day during October 2005, and this year I'm going to be watching and reviewing all those same films again. (There are exceptions, which I'll get to in a moment!) Some of them I literally have not seen or even thought much about since I watched them in 2005. Others have become favorites, or simply movies I've seen a few times over the past 20 years. Here is the list, in case you want to watch along:

1. Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
2. Phone (2002)
3. American Gothic (1987)
4. He Knows You're Alone (1980)
5. Body Bags (1993)
6. The Brood (1979)
7. Toolbox Murders (2004)
8. Dead & Buried (1981)
9. Graduation Day (1981)
10. Opera (1987)
11. The House on Sorority Row (1982)
12. The Sentinel (1977)
13. Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy (1989)
14. Fade to Black (1980)
15. On this day in 2005 I did a marathon of the Friday the 13th franchise...I am not sure yet what I'll be doing on this day this year, but I can tell you I will not be doing a marathon of the Friday the 13th franchise!
16. The Ring Two (2005)
17. Of Unknown Origin (1983)
18. The Boogey Man (1980)
19. Raw Meat (aka Death Line) (1972)
20. Night School (1981)
21. The Prowler (1981)
22. The Final Terror (1983)
23. Girls Nite Out (1982)
24. Hide and Go Shriek (1988)
25. Frightmare (1974)
26. Night of the Living Dead (1990)
27. Pumpkinhead (1988)
28. On this day I watched a very bad movie called Miner's Massacre (it had Karen Black in it, okay!!) but that movie doesn't seem to be readily available anymore and I'm not about to go searching too hard or spending any money on a copy. I think we will all be okay without a revisit to Miner's Massacre! In its place, I've asked Final Mom to choose the movie I review. I don't know what that is yet, but I'm willing to bet it will be better than Miner's Massacre! (Sorry to all the Miner's Massacre fans out there.) (And to Karen Black.) (RIP.) (You know what, I bet she would agree with my stance re: Miner's Massacre.)
29. On this day in 2005 I did a marathon of the Halloween franchise...I am not sure yet what I'll be doing on this day this year, but I can tell you I will not be doing a marathon of the Halloween franchise!
30. Demons (1985)
31. Alone in the Dark (1982)

So there you have it! What a month, eh? Ah, I remember how pumped I was all those years ago as I geared up for this. I bought a bunch of random shitty VHS tapes of stuff, lined up my Netflix DVD queue, and made several trips to the video store. What a different time it was! Watching all the films pile up, ready to be watched--the majority of them for the first time--and say something about them on The Internet! It felt like such a monumental endeavor and it was honestly very exciting.

And I'm excited for this go-round. Just...the joy of talking about horror movies, you know? We could all use some of that, I think. Things are pretty dire out there and The Internet is really just an eternal Two Minutes Hate machine nowadays, so I'm really looking forward to lighting this place up like it's 2005 all over again. And of course there will also be new episodes of Final Girl After Dark every Wednesday--to celebrate SHOCKtober, I'll be talking about a horror movie starring a Real Housewife each week. Now That's What I Call Exciting, Volume Podcast!

Some of these movies I've talked about so many times in so many places (I'm looking at you, The Sentinel) that I'm honestly not sure how much I'll have to say about 'em when it's their turn to shine, but we'll see. I'm curious if my feelings will change one way or another about films I haven't seen since 2005 (I'm looking at you, Toolbox Murders) (And you, The Boogey Man.). I can't wait for Stepfather II and Of Unknown Origin! Also wow, the list is so slasher-heavy...but when I started this blog it was solely about slasher flicks so I guess it makes sense, doesn't it? Lawd, I can't believe I did two 24-hour franchise marathons amongst everything else. Again what a different time it was!

I said it all the way back in 2005 and I'll say it again now:

Lock your doors...bolt your windows...pull up your pants...it's time for...

SHOCKtober!

Hooray!

Ah can you believe it? Today is Final Girl's birthday, she is now 20 years old! Time sure does fly when you're writin' about horror movies. At some point I suppose I'll have to change the name of this place to Final Ma'am or Final Crone or what have you, but that's the future. This is the now, and in this here now she is still supple and sprightly. Effervescent!

Wow, rude as ever. Some things never change.

But some other things do. And in case you missed the post I made on "social" "media," let me hip you to a change: There is now a companion podcast to this here blog! It's called Final Girl After Dark, and it's available wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also listen at FinalGirlAfterDark.com. 

I gotta tell ya, I'm super excited. I hope that it feels like Final Girl, except you're listening instead of reading. We'll see! Once in a while I might have a guest, but mostly it'll be just me. Look for it in the "old woman with microphone" category of your local podcast directory. I posted a little introduction yesterday--well, "little" is relative. Usually those sorts of things are 1 or 2 minutes long but this one was 10, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read this site. As we all know I can spend 600 words talking about whatever before I remotely get to some kind of a point or the name of the movie I mean to address. But you know what? That's power of the BLOG, baby, I won't be tied to some notion of "concise writing" or "staying on topic." 

So, it'll be like that. New episodes will be posted on Wednesdays, and the first full episode went up today. I'm celebrating the launch of the pod and FG's bday by talking about FEARDOTCOM (2002), which is certainly a choice.

Part of the celebration also takes place over at The Evolution of Horror's Patreon, wherein I chat with Mike Muncer about this blog and The Old Days and I answer a slew of questions from listeners. I had a good time, so I hope it's also a good time to listen to.

I probably should have come up with some grander way to mark this milestone, you know, a look back on my favorite posts or something, but honestly that Q&A filled up my Being Perceived Meter enough for a while. So I will just give a heartspacefelt THANK YOU for hanging out! It's truly flattering that anyone wants to read what I write (or hear what I have to say) about horror movies or anything else, and I know some of you have been around for close to--if not all of--these past 20 years. It blows my mind! And I'm really grateful. I know there are many things vying for our attention 24/7, so thanks for making time for the ol' FG.

Some stuff from lately!

Hello! Whilst I am enjoying yet another in a long string of cold and rainy days, I thought I would take to the wires to deliver some of the hottest stuff that's been on the radar lately here in stately Final Girl Manor.

First of all, let's get the promo out of the way:

We are on the HOME STRETCH over at The Detective and the Log Lady, the Twin Peaks podcast I'm doing with Mike Muncer of The Evolution of Horror. Can you believe it? Only a wee handful of episodes remaining in The Return and then some wrap-ups and then...I don't even want to think about "and then." Although I will not lie to you, The Return is often rather trying. It's on the upswing for sure, but also I don't want to get my hopes up about any of it. What a journey! Hear all about it at that link or, of course, wherever you get your podcasts.

In other podcastin' news, I recently made a return appearance on The Monday Afternoon Movie with the inimitable Sam Pancake. We dished on the 1970 made-for-TV film Ritual of Evil, starring Louis Jourdan and Anne Baxter, and the entire affair was a delight. Check it out at the link or, you know.

Now then, on to Franchises of the Heart! In which I ask: have you set a course for the Jason Universe? Pardon me, I mean the JASON UN1V3RSE?? 

Whatever that is. Apparently the lawsuit that I never really understood that blocked all sorts of new Friday the 13th things from happening has been settled, and so now all sorts of new Friday the 13th things will happen? The first of which is the launching of the JASON UN1V3RSE, which comprises one photo of a Greg Nicotero-designed Jason Voorhees. Is it actually a photo? Is it AI? I can't even tell anymore. Regardless, tell your eyes to BLAST OFF into the stars and take a peep:

I have seen many people lamenting his "regular dude" stature and bemoaning the lack of a "Kane Hodder" stature, but as a regular dude Jason enthusiast I think it's just fine. Nothing to really get excited about, nor anything to get all bent about. Call me when he moves!

Speaking of teaching an old slasher new tricks, there is another new Halloween iteration coming!!

Well, this is what I can only assume after noticing the pattern established by my handy "Halloweens per Pope" charts. I initially made this to reap some sweet sweet SEO rewards (don't ask me how I'll benefit or what that even means, really), but I thought of it too late and now Pope Fever seems to be dying down. However! I was shocked--SHOCKED--by these charts and at the risk of sounding like Laurie Strode of Arc or something, obviously it has been ordained by the great Haddonfield in the sky that a New Pope means a new era for Michael Myers. To wit:

HALLOWEENS PER POPE

SEE??! It's practically a guarantee. So at some point in the near future when everyone is arguing over the look of the new AI Michael Myers and saying "MORE Halloween? I thought David Gordon Green killed that shit off!", remember that you heard it here first.