The Neck Bone's Connected to...

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

So much of old-school horror is a collection of Gothic tales. You have to think that at some point, part of the fun of making horror movies wasn’t specifically trying to scare people but getting to dress up in fancy costumes. The Skull is a film that takes place in the present of when it was made, but has some fun flashbacks to the past. We’re also going to be dealing with people who have a good deal of money, which means many of the trappings of Gothic style and a lot of Peter Cushing walking around in a smoking jacket.

The Skull is also a film in the long subgenre of “cursed item” horror. In this case, that cursed item is the skull of the Marquis de Sade, the guy for whom the term “sadism” was coined. The conceit of the movie is that de Sade was possessed during his lifetime and that this possession has carried on after his death, the skull being the focus. Essentially, everyone who comes into possession of the skull (at least most of the time) will end up themselves possessed by it.

Smash the Mirror

Film: The Boogey Man
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

Ask someone who the worst film director is of all time, and you’re going to get some pretty standard answers in a lot of cases. Names like Michael Bay, Uwe Boll, Ed Wood, and Tommy Wiseau are going to be high on the list. You have to actually know something to come up with the name Ulli Lommel. A trip through Lommel’s filmography is going to show you a collection of films with titles intended to shock and to capitalize on the worst of human experience. Lommel’s films include things like Black Dahlia, Zodiac Killer, BTK Killer, Green River Killer and plenty more of that same ilk. Lommel’s best-known film is 1980’s The Boogey Man, which doesn’t have a lot of new ideas but does have at least a few interesting shots.

We start in the past, with young Willy and Lacey (Jay Wright and Natasha Schiano) witness their mother (Gillian Gordon) engaging in some kinky pre-sex play with her boyfriend (Howard Grant). When she spots them, she gets angry, and the boyfriend sends Lacey to her room, but ties Willy to his bed. Lacey lets her brother out and Willy grabs a knife and kills the boyfriend, something Lacey witnesses reflected in the mirror in her mother’s bedroom.

Crowded House

Film: Inside Out 2
Format: Streaming video from Disney Plus on multiple players.

I wasn’t surprised when Disney decided to produce Inside Out 2. The first movie received a ton of acclaim, including an Oscar, and there were certainly going to be more stories to tell here. And with sequels, the idea is always going to be bigger, better, faster, more. We had five emotions in the first movie, let’s ramp that up. Just like the first superhero movie in a series gives us one villain to fight, the sequels bring in more bad guys. Inside Out 2 does the same by handing us four new emotions to gum up the works.

If you don’t remember the first movie, much of the action takes place in a sort of stylized control center in the brain of a young girl named Riley (Kensington Tallman). Our five initial emotions are Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (new voice Liza Lapira), and Fear (another new voice in Tony Hale). As the film begins, things are normal—Riley is hanging out with friends and playing hockey, just like the first film. And then all becomes chaos as puberty hits. A new control panel is installed and four new emotions arrive to help take control: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos).

Blood In, (Lots of) Blood Out

Film: The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (Blade of the Ripper, Next!, The Next Victim, Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh)
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

You know you’re in for a treat when a movie has a half dozen or so release titles. That’s the case with The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, released as Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh in its native giallo-friendly Italian and as Blade of the Ripper, Next!, and The Next Victim in the U.S. Honestly, the first title is probably the best one, because it’s going to call up all of the prurient joys of Italian horror films, which rarely skimp on the nudity or the blood.

And, not to drop a spoiler above the fold, but that strange vice in the title is, in fact, blood. This vice—she is both repelled by and excited by blood—doesn’t really figure into the plot at all. Essentially, it’s there as a way for director Sergio Martino to show sex and nudity. If your title character has a blood fetish and it’s hinted at in the name of the film, you’d better show it. I’m bringing this up as a minor spoiler because the only way to talk about The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is to dive head-first into spoilers. Consider the rest of this review under a spoiler tag—you’ve been warned.

At Some Point, You Should Just Leave

Film: The Tunnel
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on various players.

Found footage is a very specific type of film, and it’s one that I’m not always that happy to watch, all things considered. The Tunnel is an Australian found footage film that doubles as a pseudo-documentary. What this means is that while a large part of the film is shown to us as found footage, there’s also a considerable amount that is people in the found footage being interviewed. We’re going to go back and forth between the two things, and sometimes we’ll see the footage with voiceover explaining what is happening.

We’re going to get frequent reminders that The Tunnel is set up as a documentary, and nowhere is this going to be more the case than in the opening moments. We learn that during a serious drought in New South Wales, the local government has decided to recycle millions of liters of water currently trapped underground in abandoned train tunnels beneath Sydney. Millions of Australian dollars are earmarked for getting the water and purifying it for human use and then suddenly the plan to reclaim the water is no longer talked about and the government no longer talks about it. At the same time, there are reports that the homeless people in Sydney who are living in the tunnels are going missing.

A Movie so Nice, They Named it Twice

Film: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Format: Streaming video from HBO Max on massive television.

When a sequel comes out a really long time after the original movie, it feels like a crap shoot. Sometimes, you get something like Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie for the ages. Sometimes you get Psycho II, which is far better than it deserves to be. And sometimes, you get Coming 2 America, which should never have been greenlit. So I went into Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, coming 36 years after the original film, with hope, but with my expectations guarded.

It's also worth noting that we have upgraded our downstairs television. It’s hard to say no to a giant-ass screen when the price drops on it so much that it costs about half of a car payment. I was planning on christening the TV with something like the new Frankenstein film, but this was more my wife’s speed, and so we went with this instead.

What I've Caught Up With, October 2025 Part 2

On the television front, I’ve been pushing toward getting through the MCU shows more out of a sense of completeness than anything else. The biggest of these is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which I just wrapped up. I also watched Channel Zero as my workout show for October. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s sort of the Hydrox-not-Oreo version of American Horror Story. The seasons are shorter (six episodes each), and a lot more focused. While it doesn’t have the star power, the stories are pretty good, with season 2 being the highlight.