Every year we ask ourselves “Was BLANK a good year for movies?” But I don’t care about that. All I care about is whether BLANK was a good movie year for the FREAKS and PERVERTS. If you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, it’s whether or not it was a good year for horror and was it a good year for horny movies.
For horror we had; Abigail, The First Omen, Late Night with the Devil, Longlegs, Oddity, and Strange Darling to name a few critical hits.
For horny we had; Anora, Babygirl, Challengers, Hit Man, Love Lies Bleeding, and Queer. I’d name more but my hands are getting sweaty.
That leaves everything else. Which was good too. I wish I’d seen Nickel Boys and A Real Pain but decided on Strange Darling at the last minute because it felt like more of a John movie. Except it only made my honorable mentions so I probably should have gone the other way. I’m sure Colin will cover those other two.
Here’s a list for the freaks and perverts:
Honorable Mention
Didi
A Different Man
Strange Darling
There’s no better gift than going to the movies on Christmas Day. Crowds flock to a towering theater surrounded by shuttered storefronts—except for that one Chinese restaurant that never closes. The vibe is unmatched.
Before Nosferatu, the last Christmas movie I saw was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018. Two kids heckled the entire thing like pre-teen Statler and Waldorfs and every fifteen minutes, a huge man—presumably their dad—would stomp into the theater, yell at them, and then leave. Afterwards, we got soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung. Beautiful memory.
This year, my girlfriend and I drove out to Lynwood to see Nosferatu. I’d slept on getting good seats at our regular theaters, and there was no way I was sitting in the nosebleeds for Nosferatu. Unless I wanted to sit next to Count Orlok. You know because blood. Can you even imagine?
But I had to go. I live for holiday counterprogramming. Reminds me of how The Exorcist opened on December 26, 1973. Mmm, sacrilicious. Plus, I’m a sucker for gimmicks, so when I heard about the promotional popcorn coffin bucket, I was champing at the bit.
As we pulled into the parking garage, we saw a couple leaving with not one but two coffin buckets in hand. My girlfriend asked, “If they’re a couple, why do they need two?” Great question. Inside, I saw a nerd strolling through the lobby with another coffin and overheard him say, “I can’t believe we got the last one.” We double-checked at concessions but all they had left were buckets for Mufasa and Gladiator II. I got no concessions. Fuck Gladiator II.
The theater was half-full, and one guy spent the entire movie hacking up a lung. I guess he saw all the plague-ridden extras on screen and thought, Same.
You’d think with all these setbacks I’d walk out pissed. Instead, I left walking on air—or at least crawling on castle walls. There’s no one in horror cinema today who builds a world like Robert Eggers. Everything on screen is dark and wet and coated in dust. Everyone is pale and living in a state of perpetual fear.
And who wouldn’t be scared of a mustachioed Bill Skarsgård? Because if there’s one thing I walked away with from this film–because I certainly didn’t walk away with a coffin popcorn bucket–it’s Skarsgård’s Count Orlok performance. I’ll never forget him or his final shot.
After the movie, we ordered Chinese food and watched Seinfeld. A good day. The coffin popcorn bucket looked stupid anyway.
Boy, did I eat crow on this one. Or, dare I say, I ate “Flying Monkey.” I said the trailers looked bad, I hated that the film was a “Part 1,” and I was suspicious of Ariana Grande’s casting as a “stunt.” I was so wrong on that last one. She’s funny. I wasn’t worried about Cynthia Erivo, though. She crushed it. Crushed it like the Wicked Witch of the East under that house.
After seeing Wicked, I sat down to a bowl of chowder at Duke’s Seafood and noticed a TV in the corner of the restaurant playing a behind-the-scenes featurette of the film. Just seeing Jon Chu walk around the elaborate sets filled my heart with joy. So many movies today are filmed in green voids or on the Volume; it’s a sight for sore eyes to see real craftsmanship. The film has plenty of CGI, but all these elements work in unison instead of fighting for attention.
The songs are catchy as hell. I’m never going to forget that “Defying Gravity” climax. I felt transported, and that’s what movies are supposed to do. There’s no place like the movies.
Last year, I watched Michael Mohan’s 2021 erotic-thriller The Voyeurs, starring Sydney Sweeney and Justice Smith. The film sits at an unimpressive 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I loved it. You don’t see enough American movies these days that are sexy and perverse in the way The Voyeurs is. It’s definitely a film made by someone who loves Brian De Palma and Adrian Lyne.
Naturally, I was excited for Immaculate, and even though it’s not sexy (Sydney Sweeney still wears a see-through gown), it’s just as perverse and scary. It might even be the scariest movie I saw last year (along with my number 6). What could be so scary? Catholics. Of course, Catholics.
Sydney Sweeney stars as Sister Cecilia, an American novice who is invited to join a convent in Italy that tends to dying nuns. Spooky shit is afoot, but the story takes a real turn when Cecilia discovers she is pregnant—an “immaculate conception,” if you will. Only, she doesn’t want to be the next Virgin Mary. So, Cecilia investigates the convent and indeed finds even more spooky shit.
Immaculate had the misfortune of releasing around the same time as The First Omen, another Christploitation film about pregnant nuns that received better reviews, but I prefer Immaculate. Mohan has twisted ideas, and Sydney Sweeney is game for anything. A big win for the freaks and the perverts.
I felt pretty cool slotting this in my “Most Anticipated of 2024” list last January considering how much of a critical darling the film has become. Then again, it wasn’t that much of a gamble considering how consistent Sean Baker has been his whole career. Few filmmakers capture the struggle of everyday people like he does. Even in a film with a totally ridiculous scenario, Baker never fails to capture the authenticity of human interactions.
Why is he so good at this? Casting. It’s that combination of using skilled character actors and non-actors that give all of Baker’s films that realness. Baker is savvy when it comes to casting. Like, who would have known that up and comer Mikey Madison could be such a powerhouse?
Madison handles the drama, the humor, even all the sexy stuff! It’s a career-defining performance that should catapult her into super stardom. Should. I don’t know if it will. We’ll see come Oscar night what kind of legacy this film will have. Hopefully, a shiny, glittery, gold one.
I first heard about In a Violent Nature from my brother. He said, “It’s like a slasher movie filmed entirely over the killer’s shoulder as he walks through the woods and kills everybody.” SOLD. It’s the kind of idea every horror fan has probably thought about at some point: “What’s Jason doing between all those kills?”
Walking. Jason is walking. Except in this case, it’s not Jason—it’s Johnny. Johnny pursues a group of hot, young people after they accidentally steal his locket. Rising from the grave, Johnny begins his slow, relentless pursuit, picking them off one by one in the Canadian wilderness. Imagine if Terrence Malick directed a slasher film, and you’re getting close.
But this film isn’t just a nature walk. It’s also a BRUTAL slasher movie. Some of the most sadistic kills I’ve ever seen on screen are in this film. One scene, in particular, stood out: Johnny paralyzes a park ranger, then dismembers him with a log splitter. I was watching this scene high, with my dog in my lap, and I had to squeeze him for emotional support.
What really solidified the film for me was the ending. I doubt anyone who reads this blog will care about spoilers, so here’s what happens: We get down to our final girl. As she flees from Johnny, she makes it to a road and hitches a ride with a helpful stranger. The woman pulls over to make a tourniquet for the girl’s injuries, and the camera lingers on in the woods, waiting for Johnny to reappear.
But he never does.
There’s no final battle in this film. Instead, we’re left with the final girl’s lingering fear—Johnny could reappear at any time. He’s out there. Maybe he won’t come for her today, or tomorrow, or even next year. But eventually, he could.
As long as he gets his steps in.
I wanted to write off The Brutalist on day one. “Brady Corbet? That guy who directed Vox Lux, the movie nobody cared about? And what A-listers did he get? Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, and Felicity Jones? When’s the last time any of them did anything memorable? And it’s HOW LONG?!?”
And yet… The Brutalist is great. It’s the American dream. It’s the obsession of an artist and the people who both champion and shame him. Even with that unruly three-hour runtime, the film never feels like it’s running out of ideas—or stunning images to assault our senses.
Sean and I saw this at the Cinerama—excuse me, the SIFF Downtown (it’ll always be the Cinerama to me)—and we couldn’t believe how fast time flew when we reached the intermission.
I’ve heard some moviegoers criticize The Brutalist for its brash sense of self-importance. But I love that it’s so unabashed in declaring: “This is CINEMA! We filmed this in VISTAVISION! It’s THREE HOURS long!” I appreciate the confidence because the film delivers on all fronts.
There’s nothing wrong with talking the talk if you can walk the walk, and The Brutalist doesn’t just walk—it runs. This movie is Usain Bolt eating 100 chicken nuggets before winning the 100m sprint in the Olympic finals.
When I stumbled across Jane Schoenbrun’s debut film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair one night on HBO MAX, I was stunned. It’s such an intimate, small-scale film that so perfectly explores how we build separate lives and realities online. Who knows what’s real behind that black screen?
In I Saw the TV Glow, Schoenbrun shifts focus to a different kind of screen: the TV screen. Most of us are raised by television, but using it as a metaphor for the trans experience is something I’ve never seen before. Even though I can’t personally relate to that part of the story, I do connect with how we respond to certain kinds of media as kids.
When you find a book, movie, or—in this case—a show that you love, it’s like joining a secret club. You spend countless hours thinking about it, building your own world within it. That world feels as real as your own.
After I watched I Saw the TV Glow, I spent weeks revisiting old Nickelodeon shows, trying to recapture that feeling we all had as kids. But, much like the movie illustrates, many of those shows seem silly and juvenile now. What did we see in them? Maybe it wasn’t the shows themselves. Maybe it was how we used them as reflections of ourselves.
There are going to be some kickass essays written about this film.
The Substance was last October’s Halloween movie for me and my girlfriend. I wanted to check it out in theaters since I’m a fan of Coralie Fargeat’s first film, Revenge. But the film’s runtime and rumors of Nickelodeon-levels of slime made it feel like a better fit for the safe confines of our living room.
WOW. This is the grossest movie I’ve ever seen, and yet it’s so poignant. Everyone talks about the scenes of blood-spraying and pus-spewing, but you know what the best scene in this movie is? It’s the one where Demi Moore goes to all this trouble to get ready for a date, only to feel insecure and unattractive and decide to stay home. That’s so sad!
The beauty standards we have in popular culture are insane, and I love that Coralie Fargeat tackles the issue by turning it into a monster movie. Somewhere, the ghost of Stuart Gordon is smiling.
I put this movie on my most anticipated list before we knew anything about it. Back then, all we knew was that it was a tennis “romance” with Zendaya. I might as well have put Wimbledon on my list. This is not Wimbledon. This is horny as hell.
There was a lot unproven going into Challengers. Are Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist competent leading men? Is the guy who wrote the viral “Potion Seller” YouTube video a good screenwriter? All I knew was that this was a Luca Guadagnino movie, and he never fails to be provocative. Oh, and it’s got Zendaya. She’s got good taste.
Also, I’d like to address the fact that it’s bullshit Zendaya isn’t a serious contender for awards this year. Talk about a boss bitch. She makes these two tennis simps do whatever she wants, especially if it means igniting their passions for tennis.
This is a movie with essentially three characters, their love triangle, and tennis. Why can’t more movies be this hyper-focused? This is what life is like: lust, excitement, failure, and triumph, all set to pulsating synth beats courtesy of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
It was going to be my number one, until I saw…
My girlfriend and I saw Love Lies Bleeding at the independent Ark Lodge Theater in South Seattle. Just a 15-minute walk from my girlfriend’s apartment, we had to ask ourselves, “Why don’t we come here more often?” Then we found out. The Ark Lodge manager is a bit of an eccentric. Never have I seen someone so vigilant about ensuring moviegoers didn’t sneak in food. It was like going through the TSA.
The theater itself has a cozy, old-school charm. There were maybe twenty or so people clumped in the middle of the auditorium—a good crowd. The lights dimmed, and we were treated to Rose Glass’ neon-soaked, neo-noir thriller about a depressed gym owner (Kristen Stewart) and an aspiring bodybuilder (Katy O’Bryan) falling in love and tumbling into a crime story that would make the Coen Brothers proud.
What I love about Love Lies Bleeding is that it’s sexy and surprising—two elements sadly getting harder to find in modern movies. I never knew where the story was going, who was going to die, or what kind of trippy bullshit would pop up next. It was more fun than taking a bite out of a big ol’ beetle. Oops, spoiler, sorry.
When we emerged from the Ark Lodge, a street market had broken out. We grabbed some Chinese noodles and then got drunk at a rum bar. Now that’s a day, and that’s a list.
Thanks for reading all you freaks and/or perverts!