Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 47

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #13

Enthusiastic Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard, and Heather Donahue on the first day of shooting. "Heather was probably one of the two or three best students that I have had the pleasure of teaching," offered film professor Michael DeCoto of Montgomery College. "She was committed, she was energetic, she was very, very creative. She was looking to develop and find her voice (as a filmmaker)."

Three Filmmakers
 

A Bucket of Blood (1959) / [Attack of] The Giant Leeches (1959)

San Francisco Examiner - February 4, 1960

"Be a nose. Be a nose!"

Roger Corman's black comedy classic A Bucket of Blood provided yet another memorable Saturday afternoon viewing experience for me. While the overt comedy went over my child brain, what lodged and cemented the film in both memory and heart was the character of Walter Paisley (brought to life by the legendary character actor Dick Miller).

The second half of this double feature is a mid-tier monster movie that still managed to scare and gross me out as a child. As an adult the most interesting thing about it, for me, is that its director, Bernard L. Kowalski, also helmed the 1973 snake-themed thriller Sssssss. 

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - Soundtrack Collection

Brian Tyler and Danny Elfman joined forces to score the mega-sequel to the mega-hit that was The Avengers. The results were a serviceable, albeit unmemorable, film score. So it goes.

While I liked certain aspects and moments in Age of Ultron, it fell short of providing the first film's eye popping sugar rush of fun. But that kind of lightning in a bottle is oft times more the result of dumb luck and serendipitous timing, not corporate planning and oversight by production committee.

Nonetheless, Avengers: Age of Ultron would be better than some of the dire mediocrities to come.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #10

Brave and inquisitive, Kane is the kind of fair-minded senior officer most workers in deep space dream of serving under.

New Year's Evil (1980)

Oakland Tribune - January 30, 1981
Happy New Year! 

Uzumaki by Junji Ito - Manga Review

I came to awareness of Uzumaki via the coverage its live-action feature film adaptation received in Fangoria magazine. This coverage was in issue 212, dated May 2002.
A factoid that I was surprised to learn, as the live-action film was released in Japan in the year 2000. That meant there was, at the very least, a two year delay before the film's release in the United States. Memory itself is a spiral of sorts, I suppose. So it goes.

Going in I knew that the film would be indifferent to narrative structure and characterization. Because, in the article, the director pleaded for viewers to just enjoy the bizarre and disturbing imagery and not try to understand or over think it.
Yeah, good luck with that.
There was one thing about the film that both fascinated and repulsed me. The snail people. Because I suffer from mulloscophobia, you see. So I wondered and worried about just how traumatizing a viewing of Uzumaki might turn out to be for me.
Not very, as it turned out. The movie was okay and there were a few images that lodged in my memory, but overall I shrugged it off and moved on to other things.
But the name Junji Ito and the title Uzumaki stuck with me. So much so that, when I finally got around to cracking open manga and giving it a try, reading Junji Ito's work was at the top of my "I Really Need To Check This Out" list.
I am glad I did. Because Uzumaki offers up some truly unsettling and discomforting images and concepts across its six hundred or so pages.
The first half is a tad fragmented, more of an anthology and less of a long form storyline. But, as the narrative begins spiraling towards its nightmarish conclusion, characters and events are soon pulled together and funneled toward something as inescapable as it is unsettling. Something akin to the ending of an H.P. Lovecraft yarn.
It is my understanding that the live-action film version of Uzumaki was made before the manga itself had been finished, so the film's ending is quite different. To be fair, I do not even remember how it ended.
But I doubt I will forget the ending of the manga. Nor will I ever be able to shake some of its disturbing imagery. From the snail people to the pregnant women to the row houses to... well, just about everything.
Uzumaki was a fascinating and unnerving reading experience that got under my skin in the best of ways. I loved it.

The Avengers (2012) - Soundtrack Collection

Listening to this soundtrack oft times makes my heart starting doing a little dance. Because it brings back the joyous memory of what it was like to see The Avengers for the very first time, on its opening weekend.
I miss that feeling. That energy. That excitement. Because, more and more, my reaction to a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, post-Endgame, has shriveled down to... "Meh. Maybe I'll go see it. Maybe."
But Silvestri's rousing action score and fist-pumping Avengers Theme brings it all back. Reminds me of a time when these movies were something I looked forward to seeing, rather than something I might to catch up with at a later time of convenience. If there is nothing else to watch, that is...

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #12

Joshua Leonard shows up, slightly late as usual, for Day One of Heather Donahue's film/video project. "My documentary will tell the story of the Blair Witch, trying to separate the known facts from the legend that has grown up around them," stated Donahue in her 1994 proposal. "The heart of my film will be a weekend journey into the Black Hills Forest, the physical location for many of the legend's most famous incidents."

First Day

7 Doors of Death [The Beyond (1981)] / Superstition (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - November 14, 1985
How on earth did I miss out on catching this banger of a "Cursed House" double feature? 
If I had gone to see this, then I would have been able to have seen at least one Lucio Fulci movie on the big screen. Granted, this would have been in a somewhat edited version, but still.  It would have been a Lucio Fulci movie, on the big screen. Come on.
Superstition is also a whole lot of fun and well worth checking out.

Nosferatu (2024) - Movie Review

The very moment I heard that Robert Eggers was remaking Nosferatu, I knew I had to see it. Even though I have yet to see anything he has made. Yes, this is true. I, lifelong horror fan that I am, have not seen The Witch, The Lighthouse, or The Northman. So it goes.

Want to know what is worse than that? I have not seen the original silent film, nor have I seen Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of it. I have only seen images and snippets from both.

Yet I still knew that this version of Nosferatu was going to be my kind of thing.

At least that was my expectation and, let us be honest, expectations can and are dashed and disappointed a great many times. This is just the way of the world.

But, I am glad to share, this was not one of those times. My expectations were, for the most part, met and I walked out of the Christmas Day matinee screening I attended both satisfied and happy with what I had just seen. Nosferatu had, in fact, been my kind of movie. I loved most of it.

The part I did not love, but still liked, was the film's middle section. After being sucked in, pun intended, by the glorious atmospherics and being kept on the edge of my seat, awaiting the reveal of the dreaded Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), the middle section seemed to drag. It did not lose me, but I did find myself thinking, "Man, they need to pick up the pace here."

I can forgive it that, because the film's final act and conclusion delivered some ghoulish delights and gruesome jolts. It delivered the kind of movie that I had wanted, expected, Bram Stoker's Dracula to be. A viewing experience that was atmospheric, unsettling, and actually scary. 

Nosferatu is one of this year's best horror films. Highly recommended.