Octoberween Twelve: Finally, Some Good News*
Octoberween: When you’re here, it’s Octoberween. Enjoy.
/horror gets back to its roots with ‘Starve Acre’ (2024)
An oak tree lurks beneath the grounds of the old farm, having been cut down sometime in the past but momentous enough to warrant its own mythology. They choose to show it as interstitials of dark, deep underground shots. Roots and veins and arteries, throbbing and pulsing and wet.
Rooster Illusion: ‘Mars Express’
Time to dust off those critical thinking caps, mes amis. Film criticism isn’t just for October anymore. Now it’s for some other times as well, such as shortly after I have watched this specific French film. Zut alors! Mars Express (2023): The Plot: In the 23rd century, private eye Aline Ruby (Léa Drucker) and her…
Octoberween: ‘Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’
Another Octoberween draws to a close. Ah, the passage of time. Makes ya think. As always, we had a blast getting in that holiday spirit. Second Breakfast re-visited Van Helsing, a bangin’ good time if there ever was one, and also the movie that taught me Frankenstein’s Monster could speak. Go figure. Sarah returned with…
Octoberween: ‘The Wolf Man’
Ah, Halloween. One of the great adult drinking holidays, yet also a powerful source of nostalgia for a simpler, gentler time. There’s only one thing I can think of that could better represent these contradictions at the heart of the human condition: The werewolf. Whether they’re running amok in Kent or setting a precedent for…
/horror runs to the theater for ‘Dark Harvest’ (2023)
My favorite thing about Dark Harvest is how masterfully Slade uses chiaroscuro. It’s evident in 30 Days of Night as well as his “‘Hannibal” episodes, but the man is just really really good at it.
Second Breakfast Octoberween: ‘Van Helsing’ Slays (Get It?)
Octoberween X. We’re all feeling very old and learned, looking back on reviews we posted and opinions we had a decade ago and wondering why we had them. As I scroll through the Rooster Illusion backlog and time and memory dreg up ponderous questions about this and that, one in particular confounds me: how, in…
Rooster Illusion 