I Do Movies Badly

After a long and edifying journey, Jim (again) says goodbye to I Do Movies Badly and the friends he made along the way.

Alonso Duralde, podcaster extraordinaire and author of "Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas," returns to IDMB for the annual tradition of Christmas recommendations - this time with a bloody twist. On brand for 2020, Alonso's recommendations for this year are Christmas horror films and they're not the ones you'd expect: Curtis Harrington's Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972), Lewis Jackson's Christmas Evil (1980), and Chris Peckover's Better Watch Out (2016).

In the pantheon of IDMB movies that have befuddled me, there's Igmar Bergman's Person, Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror, Kim Ki-duk's The Isles, and now, there's Andrzej Zulawski's Possession.

House is uh...an indescribable film. Avant-garde haunted house horror-comedy, Obayashi's absurdist answer to Jaws is technically innovative, off the wall ridiculous, and a seeming deconstruction of horror archetypes. Also, boring and exhausting (unless you're Chuck Stephens)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a darkly comic tale of moral and social rigidity in which an unseen act brings out the inherent darkness in its protagonist. The balance that Lanthimos strikes between absurdity and horror is superb, but does our protagonist deserve what befalls him? Here's where you can find The Killing of a Sacred Deer review from RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico

Benny Krown returns to I Do Movies Badly for the November (and a little bit of December) theme of Highbrow Horror! The guest whose last appearance to talk about Abbas Kiarostami has equal pretensions on his mind, discussing his relationship with the horror genre, what it means to be highbrow/arthouse/pretentious, and recommending three horror films that exist well outside the mainstream consciousness: Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Dear (2017), Nobuhiko Obayashi's House (1977), and Andrzej Zulawski's Possession (1981).

Ma is neither great nor terrible, though its quality would certainly lean more towards the latter if not for the casting of and rewriting for Octavia Spencer, whose portrayal of a character not written to be African-American lends a subtext of tokenism and how victimization perpetuates victimization.  After a discussion of the film, some news on the direction of the podcast for the remainder of the year (SPOILERS: it's horror).

What can be said about a film that in just 3 years has already been canonized as a classic and has inspired classes in academia? All I can really add to the conversation about Get Out are the reasons that I think it's an excellent horror film along with why it's a fucking absurd critique to say "if the protagonist was white, we wouldn't be talking about it."

First and foremost, thanks to everyone who contributed in some way - big or small - in helping me surpass 100,000 downloads!  Second and..er...secondmost(?), Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs is clunky at times and strange all the time, but is an excellent social satire, depicting the real life horrors of gentrification and systemic racism in an over-the-top way that made Craven's biting social commentary more entertaining for a mass audience. The article that I quoted extensively is Daily Dead's "Retrospective: Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs" written by Patrick Bromley.

If you've ever been to BlackHorrorMovies.com or watched the fabulous documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, then you may recognize my October guest. To help celebrate the Halloween season, Mark H. Harris joins I Do Movies Badly to talk about racial reckoning in horror films! Mark talks about how he fell in love with horror, the elements and history of black horror films and racial reckoning, and recommends 3 films that each focus on a different aspect of racism and white people getting their comeuppance: Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs (1991), Get Out (2017), and Ma (2019).

The Prophecy has a really cool premise - angels seeking an edge over other angels to win the second war in Heaven! - and some enjoyable campy performances, but is a badly disjointed film (whether that's because of its first-time director or meddling from the Weinsteins is something maybe only God knows).

Unlike some films (here's looking at you, The Usual Suspects), Frailty holds up very well on a second viewing, probably because there's more to it than just the twist, like the honest depiction of emotional abuse and the culmination of the film's cynical journey towards its gut punch reveal.

Almost 50 years after its release, why is The Exorcist such an enduring, powerful horror film? I am obviously the first to ever ask this question about this cinematic classic, so allow me to answer: the time it takes to layout what's at stake and Owen Roizman's objective, documentary approach to the cinematography.

Chelsea Bennington and Rick Guzman, who started the Spooky Doings improv group that in turn inspired the titular podcast, join I Do Movies Badly to talk about the advent of their horror-themed improv comedy, how their religious upbringings have influenced their moviegoing, and share some religious horror films to watch.  Full disclosure: the recommendations are based around Judeo-Christian themes and iconography. This approach was not taken to be dismissive of or discriminatory against other religions, but because it happens to be the formative religion for all of them: Rick (a devout atheist raised Catholic), Chelsea (spiritual, but not religious), and Jim (devout Christian).  Recommendations: William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973), Frailty (2001), and The Prophecy (1995). Keep up with Spooky Doings on Facebook Listen to the Spooky Doings Podcast (specifically, if so interested, Jim's guest episode talking about Bram Stoker's Dracula)

The journey for the perfect metaphor ends with Near Dark, a wonderfully directed film that subverts the expectations of the Western genre, but that also signals that the "Others" are vile, bloodthirsty creatures whose influence can only be overcome by blood transfusion. Read the summary of the essay, "Vampires, Indians, and the Queer Fantastic: Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark" from The Glorious and the Grotesque

When Joel Schumacher took over directing The Lost Boys, he made some big changes to the initial idea including making the vampires older, making them sexier, and, by extension, making our heteronormative, boring suburban family protagonists the "others." Read Alcy Leyva's "30 Years Ago, The Lost Boys Introduced Me to Queer Cinema."

Happy 200th Episode to and from I Do Movies Badly! But enough mushy stuff - let's talk about the original Fright Night, a film that seems to be find its queer coded vampire character infinitely more fascinating than the other characters, but one that also casts him as a corrupter of youth and a sexual deviant. Or maybe that's just the POV of its main character, who hates the feelings that his next door neighbor has awoken in him...

Terry Mesnard of Gayly Dreadful brings some new blood (pardon the pun) to I Do Movies Badly to discuss films of the Queer Vampire Cycle. Terry talks about how his love for horror started with A Nightmare on Elm Street and its drag villain, explores how queer coded characters emerged out of a film industry and American society that didn't want to acknowledge homosexuality, and wades in on whether a director's intent matters as much as audience interpretation (SPOILERS: it does not). No matter what the directors may or may not have intended, Terry explores the queer subtext of the following three films: Tom Holland's Fright Night (1985), Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (1987), and Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987).   Follow Terry on Twitter @gaylydreadful Check out his podcast, Scarred for Life And follow it on Twitter as well @ScarredPodcast

Did Mark L. Lester, the man behind Commando, intend us to take Class of 1984 to be a satire of the overblown panic about violence in schools or a gravely serious warning about what he deemed an apathetic, dangerous next generation? Either way, it's an abject failure even if it does typify Canuxploitation. (Also, he definitely intended us to take it seriously)

There does seem at first to be something clever and subversive about setting a slasher film on Valentine's Day...until you remember that Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday and My Bloody Valentine bungles the execution of what could have been an interesting mystery.