This month was fairly quiet because my movie-watching friend was in Texas for two weeks. We wound up focusing a bit on horror.

Killer Joe, 2012.  A young adult who is in big trouble with bookies concocts a scheme: hire a hitman to knock off his mother whom everyone hates, then use the insurance money to pay off the hitman and the bookies. Genius! Except that the hitman refuses to work on spec, and insists on the guy’s sister as a ‘retainer’. The bookie-plagued lad has just been beaten up and goes along with it for a few days before changing his mind, but whoopsie! The killer already has mama in the trunk. Compelling acting from Matthew McCounaghey, There are multiple interesting elements — the bookie is the quintessential amiable villain, the sister is a little ‘off’ like River Tam — but it’s the ending I’ll remember. I figured things would go poorly, but I didn’t see them going poorly the way they went. Definitely want to see more of Juno Temple.

The Sixth Sense, 1999. A kid is psychologically disturbed: Bruce Willis tries to help. Unfortunately, this movie was spoiled for me years ago, and I couldn’t experience it the way a first-time viewer should:  as you may or may not know, it has a twist equivalent to the one in Fight Club.   Solid acting and music, and easily the sweetest horror movie I’ve ever seen. (…not that it has any competition…)  I mentioned to a horror-loving friend that I was watching this, and he replied “I can’t wait for you to review Avengers Endgame in 25 years .” I’ve watched exactly one Avengers movie (Avengers) and that was enough. Joke’s on him.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God. 1972. Pizarro hears of a city of Gold and sends a few troops to investigate. They are led by Aguirre, who proves to be insane. We spend 1.5 hours watching a crew of Spaniards and their enslaved native servants being picked off by the hostile tribes of the Amazonian interior. I had some doubts, historically (there is no way Spain would send two women in a military expedition like this!), but it made for interesting drama and cinematography. My first Werner Herzog film. I spent most of the first hour trying to get over “Spanish” people speaking German, which got especially weird after Aguirre appointed some noblemen as the new Kaiser after announcing that the Hapsburgs were dethroned. Klaus Kinski is…an interesting actor. Evidently he has a reputation. Favorite scene is when a native starts playing a flute and Kinski just stands with an obvious “The hell did I sign up for?” expression on his face.

A Coffee in Berlin, 2012. We follow a young man as he lives a day in Berlin. He tries to slip out on his girlfriend, is invited to lunch by his father who tells him he is a disappointment who will no longer be supported financially, encounters a girl in high school he used to bully but who is now kind of cute, goes to see her in a play, and closes the evening in a bar with a man who remembers living in 1930s Germany and witnessing the Night of Broken Glass — a man who moved away with his family and returned after sixty years, only to find his homeland unrecognizable. The man collapses and dies and the young fellow finally has the cup of coffee he’s been trying to have all day. Interesting movie but hard to precis.

Basketcase, 1982. A horror film that’s…slightly comic at this point, while not losing its disturbing nature. It’s comic because of the practical effects, which I’m sure were most impressive at the time. What’s in the basket? You really don’t want to know.

Late Night with the Devil, 2024. Creepy and interesting film that’s set in Halloween 1977: the host of a late-night show called Night Owls hopes to combat faltering ratings by having on his show — on Halloween Night — a teenager who was the only survivor of a satanic cult’s mass suicide. The panel’s guests include a Uri Gellar standin, a James Randi standin who is impressive in his accuracy (he even has a CSICOP-like organization & the same half-million prize for someone who can prove paranormal activity in controlled conditions), and the aforementioned posessed girl and her guardian/psychologist. The film is presented as the aired episode of the show — with titles, cutaways, and the like — and is even letterboxed, not wide screen. It goes into Exorcist territory, though not all the way, and has some backstory that touches on Bohemian Grove. Iinteresting but disturbing. I was amused by the Randi caricature’s details. A mix of live broadcast and found-foootage.

Laserblast, a 1979 SF film about……
Well, the movie opens with some dude running around the desert with a special ray-gun. He sees some aliens, tries to shoot them, fails, and is killed. Later, a teenager discovers the dude’s ray-gun and the necklace that goes along with it, and begins playing around with it. Turns out the necklace has some One Ring properties and takes over the user. Meanwhile, some small-town cops and a Mysterious Government G-Man are snooping around. There’s lots of explosions, a nice pool scene, and the movie ends. There’s more exposition in the trailer than in the actual movie.

Rosemary’s Baby, 1968.    A young couple moves into a run-down hotel. He wants to move up in his career; she wants babies. Soon, they’re both getting what they want, but the woman (Rosemary) has an unusual pregnancy and her neighbors and husband are acting very strange.  Maybe she’s been abused by a Satanic cult…..?