Blog by flikmovies, 32

Already missing Halloween? Stay at home for this year’s virtual New York City Horror Film Festival (Dec. 2–9) or for this month’s streaming picks, which include mutants in love and mushrooms out for blood.
Who would have thought my pulse would race watching a guy work on his home computer during the pandemic? That’s what happened during this taut conspiracy thriller written and directed by Christian Nilsson. (Don’t confuse it with the other new horror film called “Dashcam.”)

It’s Halloween night, and Jake (an intense Eric Tabach) is a video editor working out of his New York City apartment on a local TV news story about a fatal traffic stop that involved a police officer and a former state attorney general. When Jake gets an email from the state’s press office marked “Confidential,” he opens it to find dashcam evidence suggesting that what happened on the road that night might have been an assassination.

The spooked-out Jake, who dreams of being a reporter, leaves his apartment to look for a clue he thinks is hidden in Washington Square Park. But what’s with the car idling outside his apartment?

Nilsson has cited Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” as an inspiration, and it shows. “Dashcam” is at its creepiest when just audio and video clips, and Jake’s surgical adjustments to them, steer the paranoia-driven story. Over 82 unnerving minutes, Nilsson squeezes big suspense out of seemingly throwaway moments, as when Jake just sits and listens to audio tracks. The muted underscoring that sounds like it’s coming from the next apartment adds a sinister sonic edge.

The 2019 documentary “Horror Noire” was a past-due, eye-opening look at Black Americans and their place in, and relationships to, horror movies. Using the same title, this anthology highlights Black actors, filmmakers and six macabre tales that include blood suckers, a possessed house and, as one character puts it, “Satan his damn self.”

There are two standouts. “Get Out” meets “Midsommar” in Kimani Ray Smith’s very funny horror comedy “Sundown.” Erica Ash and Tone Bell star as a couple whose political canvassing in rural West Virginia gets interrupted one night by local racist vampires.

The other is Julien Christian Lutz’s “Brand of Evil.” It’s a Faustian story about Nekani, a young gay artist (Brandon Mychal Smith) who starts getting well-paying commissions from a mystery patron. When Nekani learns his client’s designs are hate symbols, he struggles to reconcile the sinister assignments with the big money they come with. No matter: His fate has been sealed, with soul-sucking consequences.

Nov 14 '21
0 comments

Already missing Halloween? Stay at home for this year’s virtual New York City Horror Film Festival (Dec. 2–9) or for this month’s streaming picks, which include mutants in love and mushrooms out for blood.
Who would have thought my pulse would race watching a guy work on his home computer during the pandemic? That’s what happened during this taut conspiracy thriller written and directed by Christian Nilsson. (Don’t confuse it with the other new horror film called “Dashcam.”)

It’s Halloween night, and Jake (an intense Eric Tabach) is a video editor working out of his New York City apartment on a local TV news story about a fatal traffic stop that involved a police officer and a former state attorney general. When Jake gets an email from the state’s press office marked “Confidential,” he opens it to find dashcam evidence suggesting that what happened on the road that night might have been an assassination.

The spooked-out Jake, who dreams of being a reporter, leaves his apartment to look for a clue he thinks is hidden in Washington Square Park. But what’s with the car idling outside his apartment?

Nilsson has cited Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” as an inspiration, and it shows. “Dashcam” is at its creepiest when just audio and video clips, and Jake’s surgical adjustments to them, steer the paranoia-driven story. Over 82 unnerving minutes, Nilsson squeezes big suspense out of seemingly throwaway moments, as when Jake just sits and listens to audio tracks. The muted underscoring that sounds like it’s coming from the next apartment adds a sinister sonic edge.

The 2019 documentary “Horror Noire” was a past-due, eye-opening look at Black Americans and their place in, and relationships to, horror movies. Using the same title, this anthology highlights Black actors, filmmakers and six macabre tales that include blood suckers, a possessed house and, as one character puts it, “Satan his damn self.”

There are two standouts. “Get Out” meets “Midsommar” in Kimani Ray Smith’s very funny horror comedy “Sundown.” Erica Ash and Tone Bell star as a couple whose political canvassing in rural West Virginia gets interrupted one night by local racist vampires.

The other is Julien Christian Lutz’s “Brand of Evil.” It’s a Faustian story about Nekani, a young gay artist (Brandon Mychal Smith) who starts getting well-paying commissions from a mystery patron. When Nekani learns his client’s designs are hate symbols, he struggles to reconcile the sinister assignments with the big money they come with. No matter: His fate has been sealed, with soul-sucking consequences.

Nov 14 '21
0 comments

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

I don’t only watch horror movies; this year, I have made a conscious effort to watch as many movies from the big horror franchises as I can. I started with the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series (which I loved), I moved to the “Friday the 13th” series (which is fine), and I’m currently working my way through the “Halloween” series, whose primary antagonist is Michael Myers.

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Subsequent installments take the plot in different directions, but the films that involve Myers (the third movie is unrelated to the character or his mythology) share the same basic structure. There is a young woman (or young girl), a stable family, and an idyllic suburban neighborhood of white, middle-class people. The schools are safe, the police are decent and life is good for most people.

Myers, in this world, isn’t just a killer; he is an intrusion. His very presence destabilizes the existing social order. Each of his rampages makes clear that the manicured reality of suburbia provides no actual shelter or protection from the disorder of the world at large. Myers is practically unstoppable. He tears through the police with ease. In each of the Myers films, there is, somewhere, an avatar of traditional white American masculinity, usually a sheriff or another member of law enforcement. And each time, they are impotent in the face of Myers’s rage. In the fourth installment, a posse of local men gather with guns and trucks to try to confront and stop Myers. They are torn to pieces by a force that does not acknowledge their authority as “good guys with guns.”

Nov 14 '21
0 comments

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

I don’t only watch horror movies; this year, I have made a conscious effort to watch as many movies from the big horror franchises as I can. I started with the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series (which I loved), I moved to the “Friday the 13th” series (which is fine), and I’m currently working my way through the “Halloween” series, whose primary antagonist is Michael Myers.

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Subsequent installments take the plot in different directions, but the films that involve Myers (the third movie is unrelated to the character or his mythology) share the same basic structure. There is a young woman (or young girl), a stable family, and an idyllic suburban neighborhood of white, middle-class people. The schools are safe, the police are decent and life is good for most people.

Myers, in this world, isn’t just a killer; he is an intrusion. His very presence destabilizes the existing social order. Each of his rampages makes clear that the manicured reality of suburbia provides no actual shelter or protection from the disorder of the world at large. Myers is practically unstoppable. He tears through the police with ease. In each of the Myers films, there is, somewhere, an avatar of traditional white American masculinity, usually a sheriff or another member of law enforcement. And each time, they are impotent in the face of Myers’s rage. In the fourth installment, a posse of local men gather with guns and trucks to try to confront and stop Myers. They are torn to pieces by a force that does not acknowledge their authority as “good guys with guns.”

Nov 14 '21
0 comments

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

I don’t only watch horror movies; this year, I have made a conscious effort to watch as many movies from the big horror franchises as I can. I started with the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series (which I loved), I moved to the “Friday the 13th” series (which is fine), and I’m currently working my way through the “Halloween” series, whose primary antagonist is Michael Myers.

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Subsequent installments take the plot in different directions, but the films that involve Myers (the third movie is unrelated to the character or his mythology) share the same basic structure. There is a young woman (or young girl), a stable family, and an idyllic suburban neighborhood of white, middle-class people. The schools are safe, the police are decent and life is good for most people.

Myers, in this world, isn’t just a killer; he is an intrusion. His very presence destabilizes the existing social order. Each of his rampages makes clear that the manicured reality of suburbia provides no actual shelter or protection from the disorder of the world at large. Myers is practically unstoppable. He tears through the police with ease. In each of the Myers films, there is, somewhere, an avatar of traditional white American masculinity, usually a sheriff or another member of law enforcement. And each time, they are impotent in the face of Myers’s rage. In the fourth installment, a posse of local men gather with guns and trucks to try to confront and stop Myers. They are torn to pieces by a force that does not acknowledge their authority as “good guys with guns.”

In the same way that I watched the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies as parables about the way the world is indifferent to children and their safety, I find that I am watching the “Halloween” movies as stories about the failure of white flight to actually assuage the fears of middle-class white Americans. Fear of crime, fear of violence, fear of some evil, lurking in the dark, with their children — and especially their daughters — in the cross hairs. It is not for nothing that the fictional town in which these films take place, Haddonfield, Ill., is a suburb of Chicago.

Nov 14 '21
0 comments

I don’t only watch horror movies; this year, I have made a conscious effort to watch as many movies from the big horror franchises as I can. I started with the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series (which I loved), I moved to the “Friday the 13th” series (which is fine), and I’m currently working my way through the “Halloween” series, whose primary antagonist is Michael Myers.

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Subsequent installments take the plot in different directions, but the films that involve Myers (the third movie is unrelated to the character or his mythology) share the same basic structure. There is a young woman (or young girl), a stable family, and an idyllic suburban neighborhood of white, middle-class people. The schools are safe, the police are decent and life is good for most people.

Myers, in this world, isn’t just a killer; he is an intrusion. His very presence destabilizes the existing social order. Each of his rampages makes clear that the manicured reality of suburbia provides no actual shelter or protection from the disorder of the world at large. Myers is practically unstoppable. He tears through the police with ease. In each of the Myers films, there is, somewhere, an avatar of traditional white American masculinity, usually a sheriff or another member of law enforcement. And each time, they are impotent in the face of Myers’s rage. In the fourth installment, a posse of local men gather with guns and trucks to try to confront and stop Myers. They are torn to pieces by a force that does not acknowledge their authority as “good guys with guns.”

In the same way that I watched the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies as parables about the way the world is indifferent to children and their safety, I find that I am watching the “Halloween” movies as stories about the failure of white flight to actually assuage the fears of middle-class white Americans. Fear of crime, fear of violence, fear of some evil, lurking in the dark, with their children — and especially their daughters — in the cross hairs. It is not for nothing that the fictional town in which these films take place, Haddonfield, Ill., is a suburb of Chicago.

Nov 14 '21
0 comments

Nov 13 '21
0 comments

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Nov 13 '21
0 comments

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Nov 13 '21
0 comments

The “Halloween” movies, if you’ve never seen them, are pretty straightforward. In the first, directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Michael Myers is introduced as a young boy who has, inexplicably, killed his older sister. Fast forward to 1978, and the adult Myers has escaped from a sanitarium to terrorize his hometown and, specifically, a group of teenagers (including a young Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode) who live in Myers’s former neighborhood. Myers kills several teens before turning his attention to Strode, stalking her and the children she’s babysitting through their home, before he’s vanquished (although not killed) by his doctor, Sam Loomis, played by the always-wonderful Donald Pleasence.

Nov 13 '21
0 comments

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flikmovies's blog

Five Horror Movies to Stream Now

Five Horror Movies to Stream Now

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

What the ‘Halloween’ Movies Mean

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Fried Barry 2020 - Full English Movie

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