I’m going to Japan for my honeymoon this summer, so you’ll start seeing more Japanese cinema cropping up! Also will likely take a small newsletter break in July/August.
News:
Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac are starring in an LA-set ‘80’s vampire thriller from the director of Mandy. AAAAHHH!
The date has been pushed and pushed, but My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book Two will finally be available this year. The first comic features incredible drawings in pen with a lovely horror/historical fiction story.
Lost Brothers Grimm tales were recently unearthed.
Watched:
I Spit On Your Grave (1978) 3/5
Watched on Tubi
Notoriously difficult-to-stomach, but I still watched with a slice of freshly baked banana bread.1
A young woman rents a house upstate for the summer to quietly write her novel. After an intellectually-disabled man delivers her groceries, his three friends come together to violently rape her during three back-to-back occasions on his behalf.
Following a failed attempt to kill her, she physically heals and then murders the men one by one, taking advantage of their misogynist nature that convince them she liked it.
Although the assault scenes are long, I found them to be tedious in order to pad the runtime, not necessarily to continue subjecting the audience to the brutality. I also really liked how easily she was able to manipulate these men; if listening to classical music while a terrible man bleeds to death out of his balls isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.
12 Hour Shift (2020) 4/5
Watched on Hulu
Sometimes billed as a horror movie, but more of a dark comedy. Stars Angela Bettis from May!!! This idiot caper takes place over the course of one nurse’s shift, as the dead body parts continue to pile up. Fun!
Lady Snowblood (1973) 4.5/5
Rented from the Library
I rewatched Kill Bill, so it was time to check out the Tarantino flick’s biggest influence. A revenge film with incredible style including delicious cinematography, creative kills, and The Most Beautiful Color Blood, this movie absolutely fucks.
Oculus (2013) 3/5
Rented from the Library
Loserass siblings couldn’t defeat a mirror. While I understand the movie wouldn’t exist without the lead’s tenacity to avenge her parents by proving the mirror’s evil, I found it frustrating that she didn’t just let the switch kill it.
I had the same problem as I did with Smile (2022) - we already know the protagonist’s fate because of a long history of victims. When they, like all the rest, fail at stopping the horrors, I don’t find the inevitable bleak ending interesting.
Immaculate (2024) 3/5
Rented on Prime
Solid, but could’ve used one more twist. For my own sanity, I need to stop listening to people on the Internet who like to proclaim this is ‘the craziest film ever’ or ‘the most shocking ending’ for views.
Sydney Sweeney, star and producer, cements herself as a Scream Queen, but I didn’t buy her as a nun; there’s no coming back from that path, and she wasn’t particularly convincing as a steadfast devotee in the beginning, which would’ve contrasted with her later crisis of faith re: the convent’s evils.
Not a big fan of pregnancy horror.
American Mary (2012) 3/5
Rented from the Library
If you’re into hot, sadistic women, this is for you. Ending falls a bit flat, but the ideas are very fun and I loved seeing Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) in another starring role.
Next week: Twins!
xo,
the paperback in the thrift store dollar bin with the cover ripped off that seems to be about a character with your name, dear reader, and begins with how you’ve just finished reading a newsletter from chocolate syrup called The Devoured - 5.15.24 by an author named allie lembo by an author named allie lembo