Tag Archives: horror

Alien: Earth S1 E1, E2

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“Neverland”

“Mr. October”

A recent film from 2024, Alien: Romulus, reinvigorated a franchise that had seen better days. Alien and Aliens are two of the great movies of all time, but many of the films that have followed them did not build the franchise well. Some of them were even bad.

As I said, Alien: Romulus brought a new energy to the Alien franchise and, from that, we get a new series on FX/Hulu/Disney + called Alien: Earth.

Alien: Earth served as a prequel to the 1979 film Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the year 2120. It focuses on Wendy, who was a hybrid, a human child whose consciousness was transferred into a synthetic body because she was sick and dying, and her human brother CJ “Hermit” who was a soldier and medic.

A space ship, piloted by a cyborg named Babou, crashed into the planet, causing its “specimens” to be freed.

It is not just the Facehuggers and Xenomorphs involved in this show. There are some other alien species on this ship that are now free and causing chaos. These new alien creatures are really scary. There is a leech-like monster that inserts something into your neck and, apparently, drained the blood from the victim. There was another one that we met after it came out of a cat’s head, pulling the eyeball from the cat. There were giant pods hanging from the ceiling and the characters on screen would not listen to me as I yelled at them to get away from it.

The second episode was really tense. While the first episode was strong and did a decent job of setting things up, episode two had me yelling at the screen. I was tense and anxious as I watched Wendy trying to find CJ, who was desperately trying to stay alive. CJ also did not listen to me as I yelled at him to get out of there.

I don’t know what Babou’s plans are, but he was not someone I found myself rooting for. His reactions were horrible and seemed to be the reason why the ship crashed in the first place.

The Xenomorph looked frightening. It felt like the same kind of special effects you would see in a big time feature film. The show looked great.

I am excited to see where the rest of this series will go. Episode two ended in a huge cliffhanger and I hope the series continues with this level of intensity.

Dexter: Resurrection S1 E6

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“Cats and Mouse”

David Dastmalchian has an awesome twist in this episode of Dexter: Resurrection.

Dastmalchian’s serial killer, The Gemini Killer aka Gareth, showed up at Dexter’s place as the Blessing family above were having a wake for the dearly departed mother. Dexter took advantage of the situation and killed him.

However as Prater had organized a helicopter trip for the serial killer’s club, Dexter was worried that they would figure out that he was responsible as the new guy for the sudden disappearances of the group.

And then, The Gemini Killer showed up to get in the helicopter. Twins. Gemini Killers, plural.

What an awesome shock that I did not see coming.

This episode was packed full too. Mia wound up dead, hanging in her cell. It looked as if Charley had paid off a guard to take care of business. This happened coincidentally just as Batista, Wallace and Olivia had arrived at the prison to show Mia a photo of Dexter to see if she recognized him as the Bay Harbor Butcher. Of course, that would have been a big time reveal as she believed he was the Dark Passenger.

There were several great scenes here too. There were some wonderful moments with Dexter and Harrison. Harrison attended Blessing’s mother’s funeral. Harrison helped Dexter out after Dexter called his son and asked him if a hoody was proper attire for a funeral.

There was also a fantastic scene between Dexter and Blessing, who had came to apologize for being snippy about some ice. The scene was also very tense since Gareth was dead in the shower/tub.

Dexter is doing a wonderful job of being a part of Harrison’s life. Harrison told his dad that he had an image of killing the landlord, but Dexter talked him down, easing the anxiety that Harrison was clearly entertaining in his head.

I really enjoyed this episode. It felt like it was adding so many awesome moments that I kept waiting for it to end. The end with the reveal of the Gemini Killer was absolutely a masterfully campy end.

Together

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I did not know much about this movie. I knew it starred Dave Franco and Alison Brie, but that was about it. As I was watching the trailers before the movie (which were heavily horror), I thought to myself, “Is this going to be a horror movie?” Not only was it a horror movie, it was a body horror film.

Now, while I do love horror, body horror is my least favorite of the subgenres of horror. So it already had that working against it.

According to IMDB, “Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country. With tensions already flaring, an encounter with an unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love and their flesh.“

After the film was over, I looked at the Rotten Tomatoes score for this and it was 90%. I have to say, that score shocked me.

Because I hated this.

Not only did I not like the body horror stuff, but the biggest thing was I thought there were so many scenes and moments that I found funny. Laugh out loud funny. I was rolling my eyes at some of the scenes because they were so ridiculous. I was trying not to actually laugh out loud in the theater in case others in the room thought it was tense.

However, with the scene at the very end (no spoilers), I could not keep from belting out a laugh. It was the most ridiculous thing I think I have seen in a long time.

The more I thought about this, the worse it became. I thought both Franco and Brie were compelling during the film, but I just was not enjoying the story the film was telling me. It made little sense and I found the stuff that was supposed to be anxiety building to be silly.

I definitely do not agree with the whole world apparently. I hated this.

1.4 stars

Monster Island

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This B-monster movie debuted on Shudder at the end of July. I came across it the other day and thought it might be some scary fun to watch it.

Set during the last days of World War II, a Japanese Hell Ship, which was transporting POWs, was sunk by an American ship. Saito, a Japanese soldier and Bronson, a British POW end up stranded together on a mysterious island. In their attempt to survive on the island despite their differences, they come across a mythological monster from Malay folklore called Orang Ikan.

Orang Ikan means “Fish Man” in Malay and this monster (played by Alan Maxson) looked like a combination of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Sleestak from Land of the Lost. This Orang Ikan then went about a Predator-like hunt with the two men, as they struggled to survive.

It was really odd with the film since Saito did not speak English and there were no subtitles on the screen. We, as audiences, were every bit as uncertain about what was happening as Bronson was. You had to watch the way Saito carried himself and his body language if you wanted to see what kind of man he was.

His actions immediately showed that Saito was someone who you could trust and, despite the language differences, would be a friend in this situation. We do find out that Saito had been on the ship and chained together initially with Bronson because he was being returned to Japan to be put to death for being a traitor to Japan.

Dean Fujioka played Saito and Callum Woodhouse played Bronson. Both did a decent job in this clearly low budget film.

The film was short and moved along briskly. I did find myself engaged by the survival attempt by the two men and I did like that the film took some time to build the relationship between them. It was more than just fighting for their lives that brought them together but a little bit of character development.

It was an okay movie that was worth a watch on Shudder. The Orang Ikan may not have been as slick as most horror movies these days in appearance, but the film’s practical effects were appreciated.

3.2 stars

Dexter: Resurrection E4, E5

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“Call Me Red”

“Murder Horny”

I was able to catch up with the new season/series of Dexter: Resurrection this morning. New episodes come out on Fridays on Showtime, so I can follow it along as the season progresses for however long it will last.

I was very excited to see episode four as I knew it had some kind of serial killer dinner party at the center of it. I did not know that the guest list would be as sparkling as it was. The party was thrown by Peter Dinklage was something that I knew. He played serial killer fan Leon Prater. He was the employer of problem-solver Charley, who is played by Uma Thurman. We had seen her before.

Having Prater show Dexter (whom he believed was the Dark Passenger) around his trophy room of serial killers was creepy. Especially when he showed Dexter the hammer of the Trinity Killer and the slides of the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Then, shocks kept coming as the rest of the guests arrived. This list included Krysten Ritter as Mia, Lady Vengeance, Eric Stonestreet as family man Al, David Dastmalchian as Gareth and Neil Patrick Harris as slimy Lowell, the tattoo killer. I did not expect such a Who’s Who of actors taking these roles, and it was even more amazing when NPH wound up on Dexter’s table at the end of the episode.

The show also teased a relationship between Dexter (still pretending to be Red, the Dark Passenger) and Mia. Dexter entertained the idea of working with her until he discovered that she was not exclusively killing sexual predators as the press had assumed. He framed her for the murder of the man that Harrison had killed in the hotel. That had a lot of holes to it (including Mia telling her intended victim that he would be her first kill in New York) but the media seemed to grab the idea quickly.

Batista was not as happy about the results. He had gone to see Detective Wallace with a plan to share ideas on the case that, he said, sounded similar to the bay Harbor Butcher.

The fifth episode ended with a promising connection between Dexter and Harrison, after Harrison learned that his father had taken care of the problem with his own murder. Harrison showed Dexter signs that he was not like him, which made Dexter happy.

What We Do in the Shadows Season 6

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Today I finished the final season of What We Do in the Shadows on Disney +. Season six had eleven episodes, one more than any of the other seasons. I have to say… I thought this season was the worst of the six. Not that it was bad overall, but it just did not feel like it was scattered all over the place.

These were a few of the highlights for me:

  • Laszlo’s ghost father arriving was a funny bit. His father trying to take over Laszlo’s body was a fun scene.
  • I enjoyed the Monster, created by Laszlo and Colin Robinson, but that joke ran out of steam during the season.
  • The big night for the Baron led to the vampires looking to kill the group. This felt familiar (no pun intended), but I thought it was one of the better episodes of the season.
  • I did like the concept of Nandor and Guillermo forming a crime fighting duo. I would have liked more of this during the season instead of a joke at the end.
  • The Finale. I’ll talk about that in a little while.

Low lights:

  • Jerry. Though it was funny that they forgot to awaken another vampire who used to live with them as he entered “super slumber,” the character of Jerry was hardly worth the time and turned out to be a throw away as the season progressed.
  • Guillermo working at the office. It had some funny moments, but it did not work well for me. It was lackluster.
  • They repeated a couple of beats from the series, including how Nandor was ready to go to war with the TV show filming outside.
  • Sleep hypnosis. Nandor as Richard Nixon was funny, but overall the idea was barely enough for an episode.
  • Nandor’s Army? That felt like a waste.

Let’s talk about the finale. I loved this. It was easily the best episode of season 6. It was so meta that I found it highly entertaining. The documentary filming was coming to an end and Guillermo was having trouble accepting it. They had so many fun meta lines which were referring to the documentary, but in reality were designed toward the actual show itself. My favorite was Nadja, who, when talking about how the documentary should end, mentioned how the doc should have ended last year after Guillermo was turned back to human after being a vampire. This line basically said the fifth season finale would have made a better ending to the show than anything done during season 6. She was 100% accurate.

They added some parody endings that came about when Nadja hypnotized the audience. The first one was a spoof of The Usual Suspects. The next two, which came as post credit scenes, were one like Newhart, with Nandor having a dream and telling Guillermo, who is in bed with him, about it. The third spoof was one of Rosemary’s Baby, with Nadja playing the role of Rosemary (and Colin Robinson back as a baby again). These were a lot of fun and an enjoyable way to end the series.

With the whole group (except Guillermo) singing “We’ll Meet Again” was a wonderful moment. Even better was when Laszlo exclaimed, “Now, everyone but the Guide!” because of how badly she was singing. I laughed out loud at that line, which was said off screen.

While this season would be my least favorite of the six, What We Do in the Shadows is one of my favorite comedies of all time. The stories were great. The characters were a hoot. It was very enjoyable. I do think it was time for the show to come to an end [although I would have loved more of the crime fighting Nandor (aka The Phantom…Menace) & Guillermo (aka The Cowboy Kid)].

What We Do in the Shadows Season 5

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I binged season five of What We Do in the Shadows today and it was a great season once again. This show is one of the most consistently funny shows on television.

This season had several running storylines that carried through most of the year. These included:

  • Guillermo’s slow transformation into a vampire after giving money to Derek to turn him. Little did Guillermo know how much of an insult that would be to his master.
  • A hex that had been cast over Nadja, causing terrible things to happen to her.
  • The Guide trying to fit in with the rest of the vampires.
  • Guillermo’s uncertainty over what he wanted to be.

My favorite episode of the season was “Local News”, which was an episode featuring a local news reporter covering the story of a water main break on the street of the vampires’ house. They interviewed Nandor and he believed he accidentally let slip that he had lived in the house for centuries. Believing that he had given away the truth that they were vampires, the group started going crazy. It was really funny and resolved wonderfully. It also crossed over with Guillermo going to see his mom to tell her about his life choice.

Another thing I really loved was the development of the character of Guillermo over the ten episodes. He was learning a lot about himself, to the point where he realized that he was not going to be able to become a vampire. His Van Helsing blood had been fighting off the vampirism all season, keeping him from fully turning.

I loved how, when Nandor finally discovered the truth, it led to another truth. Nandor never turned Guillermo into a vampire over the years because he knew that Guillermo did not have the stomach for the killing involved. Nandor really showed that he knew Guillermo well, but also cared for his familiar/bodyguard.

I also liked how the other vampires showed some concern for Guillermo, way more than they had ever done. I would go as far as to say that they all had accepted him as part of their lives. Laszlo, Nadja, Colin Robinson and even The Guide went out of their way to try and help Guillermo. That was way different than the first season.

Cameo of the season: Patton Oswalt. He became a major component in helping Nandor get past his hurt feelings, allowing him to save his friendship with Guillermo. And he did all this before being thrown to his death.

I am also a fan of how characters from previous episodes/seasons keep showing up. It gives the show a real flavor and world that has a lived in feel to it. The Baron, Derek, The Doll, Topher, Djinn etc.

Although I could see this change a bit, here is my current list of seasons in order of my favorites:

  1. Season 1
  2. Season 4
  3. Season 5
  4. Season 2
  5. Season 3

I could see seasons 4 & 5 flipping places after more time to reflect. Season six has 11 episodes instead of 10 and it is the final season of the show.

What We Do in the Shadows Season Four

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Season four of the FX show What We Do in the Shadows was next up. I liked season three, but it felt like a step down from the previous two seasons. What would season four be like?

I loved this season.

The end of season three sent the crew off in different directions. Nadja and Guillermo went to England so Nadja could be on the major vampire council. Nandor was off on his world trip. Laszlo stayed behind to raise baby Colin Robinson, who had come out of the torso of the dead body of Colin Robinson.

The first episode of the season wrapped these arcs up immediately, bringing them all back to the house, which is in a terrible condition.

Several great season-long storylines including:

  • Colin Robinson growing as a baby to a teen and so on.
  • The house and the damages to it.
  • The Vampire Nightclub- Nadja’s.
  • Nandor’s marriage and his Djinn (yes, he found a Djinn)
  • Guillermo’s continued involvement with the crew and his wish to be relevant.

My favorite story of the year was Colin Robinson as the baby and his growth, much like baby Groot from the Guardians movies. Laszlo took on a parent role for the baby, even though he was a terrible father. Guillermo stepped in several times to make sure that the baby did not die. Colin singing and dancing on the stage at Nadja’s club, his continued anger, his pounding holes in the basement walls with a hammer… all these things contributed to a wonderful arc for Colin. Or perhaps it was more of an arc for Laszlo, since Colin Robinson wound up exactly where he was when this whole thing started.

When Colin walked out in the finale looking exactly like he always did, it was a shocking moment. He did not remember anything from the past year. What was the most amazing things was the way this clearly affected Laszlo, who, though he remained quiet about it, was very melancholic over the loss of the boy who he had been raising (however poorly) over the last year. It was a subtle and deep moment for Laszlo that truly gave me some emotional investment.

My favorite episode was the surreal “Go Flip Yourself” episode that plays like it is a home renovation show with twins Bran and Toby Daltry. Toby is immediately eaten by Nadja, but the rest was as if the episode was on that show. It had a great payoff too as Brian Daltry, who led the whole renovation (as it was) turned out to be Simon the Devious and the entire Go Flip Yourself renovation show was set up as a scam to get his hands on Laszlo’s witch-skin hat again.

“Private School” was another awesome episode as they tried to get Young Colin into a private school. Nadja constantly hypnotizing the school headmaster to change their story was some comedic gold.

Other highlights included a face off with the Jersey Devil, Guillermo in a vampire fight club where he winds up fighting Nandor, Guillermo coming out as gay to his family in the most wild way possible, Guillermo’s boyfriend Freddie who Nandor developed a crush on and used one of his wishes from the Djinn to turn his wife, Marwa, into a duplicate of Freddie in every way. Then, having Freddie and Marwa-Freddie get together and cheat on Guillermo was horrible.

The finale feels as if season five may finally be the season of Guillermo as he took a bagful of money (that he had embezzled from the club) to Derek, the former vampire hunter club kid who was now a vampire, and asked him to turn him into a vampire. Is it finally going to happen? I do hope Guillermo gets what he wants because he has been such an MVP for the vampire house and he is always getting stomped upon.

Season five is next.

What We Do in the Shadows S3

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So I dove into the third season of What We Do in the Shadows this morning, planning another binge watch of the ten episodes. I do like this model of taking some time and binging this series. I pulled it up on Disney +.

Overall, I have to say that I think season three was not as entertaining as season two, which has been my favorite so far. However, season two was more of a bunch of individual episodes whereas season three has a running throughline of the season. Although you may not know about it at the start, it does all pay off in spades by the end.

I was finding myself liking Colin Robinson more each episode this year, so the death of this character was tough. Seeing him as a Colin-faced baby at the end of episode 10 was rough too. I did enjoy how Laszlo was bonding with Colin Robinson through the season, with the knowledge that at 100 years old, energy vampires die.

Nandor’s eternal-life crisis was another storyline that progressed through the season, and came to a head at the end. He tried to join a cult, take the Super Slumber and, eventually, choosing to take a trip across the world. It was a sad ending for him too as he expected Guillermo to accompany him on the trip and he promised the familiar/bodyguard that he would turn him into a vampire at the end. Of course. Guillermo would face yet another trouble.

Poor Guillermo had a tough season as well, as he felt rejected and afraid of winding up alone. As the vampires all were ready to make their away out of the house and on adventures, Guillermo did not know what he was to do. Of course, his skills as a vampire killer was shown off several times during the season, including a cool final battle with Nandor. I was shocked when Laszlo, who was preparing for Nadja and his trip to England, flipped Guillermo into the coffin that was meant to be for Laszlo and sent him in his place. It was all because Laszlo needed to stay behind and look after baby Colin Robinson.

Even though I may not have considered this my favorite of the seasons, it continued to be extremely funny, even if some of the situations turn out to be silly. It is consistently one of the funniest shows on TV.

The X-Files S11 E10

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“My Struggle IV”

Today marks the end of a journey that I started here at EYG in September 2023. I had just finished watching the five seasons of Twilight Zone and I needed something new to do as a rewatch. Despite being a little intimidated by eleven seasons of episodes, I decided to watch The X-Files, which was one of my favorite shows when it was on TV. Now with just about two months away from two years since starting, I watched the final episode of the series.

The finale was the fourth piece of an over-arching storyline about the Cigarette Smoking Man trying to release an alien virus and cause a planet-wide pandemic. It was a pandemic that we all lived through in the finale of season 10. We started season 11 with taking the results of that episode and having it be a vision Scully saw of the future and part of the idea was this was a chance to stop it. In order to stop it, they needed to find William.

We met William earlier in the season, setting up his powers. We also learn that William is not Mulder’s son, but was created by CSM in a lab. This was a horrible truth that everyone hated.

We are back to trying to find William in the finale and I wonder why Mulder and Scully spent this whole season ignoring this arc and doing all those individual episodes instead.

This episode was basically Mulder chasing after William, trying to catch up with him. There was a lot of running, some driving and so on. Then, Mulder and Scully was too far apart for most of the movie. I liked this much more when they got back together at the end.

Mulder FINALLY shot the CSM. He did not shoot him in the head though. How much of the pain would have been prevented had Mulder just shot him in the head when he first had a chance? CSM was shot in this manner to allow him to pull another “I’m not dead” moment had the show returned. It was finally CSM’s shooting of William (in the head, btw) that pushed Mulder past the point.

Oh, and… did Skinner die? He got run over by CSM? What a bitch way to go out for one of our longest running characters. Jump up on that hood of the other car, Skinner. Skinner did shoot Monica in the head, which I truly appreciated. I never liked that character.

I did enjoy the final scene with Mulder and Scully where she told him that she was pregnant. However, Scully did not seem to react to William’s death in the way that she would have. I know she learned about William’s origin but would that have affected the way she perceived this boy for all of these years? It is nice to have Mulder and Scully together with a possible happy ending.

William returning to life out of the water was a tag that felt like they wanted to continue, but the series needed to be done.

I feel like this is an accomplishment finishing the series after such a long time. I do love David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson because of these characters and this show.

I want to believe.

The X-Files S11 E5, E6, E7

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I watched three more X-Files from season 11, leaving me with just three left to complete the entire series.

“Ghouli”

Episode 5 was a wild ride with Scully receiving a vision in a dream that led her to a case of two girls who seemingly did not know each other who had stabbed each other viciously.

The girls shared the same dream as Scully did, down to the last detail so Mulder and Scully were involved. Turned out that the only connection between the two girls was that they both were girlfriends for a boy named Jackson Van De Kamp.

When Scully and Mulder tried to find the boy, they arrived too late. They found the boy’s parents dead and the boy in his room, an apparent murder-suicide.

Van De Kamp was a name given to Scully a few episodes ago as a possible name used by William, her son. Scully was afraid that the boy who had killed himself was William and she tearfully spoke to his body before setting up a DNA test.

When the body was left alone, it unzipped the body bag and escaped from the morgue.

Turned out this was indeed William and he had some mental powers, specifically mental illusions that allow him to make people see things he wanted, such as himself dead on the floor.

The DOD was in pursuit of both Mulder and Scully and the boy as well. Mulder and Scully tried to find William, protecting him from a group of men trying to capture him. William used his abilities to escape.

The whole Jackson/William thread here created some strong scenes, but I did wonder why Scully thought this was her son. Maybe it was the connection to the visions that he had. She had talked to Jackson’s therapist and she confirmed that Jackson had seen the whole story from the end of season 10, with the virus and the collapse of the earth. Maybe it is just that mother’s feel.

The episode ended with William getting away, but he had approached Scully at a gas station making her see the form of Dr. Pierre Chang from LOST. Just kidding, the actor who played that role was in the episode.

This was a nice episode that left Mulder and Scully with the knowledge that there son was alive.

“Kitten”

We got an episode featuring Skinner, looking back at a time in his youth as he was in Vietnam.

In his platoon, a soldier nicknamed Kitten was accidentally exposed to a mysterious gas and it caused him to murder civilians.

Other members of Skinner’s troupe were being killed off too and Skinner disappeared. Kersh called for Mulder and Scully, expecting them to know what was going on with Skinner. When they did not, they started to investigate what was going on.

This episode featured Haley Joel Osment as the son of Kitten, Osment ended up being the killer as he had set several traps for the other veterans, including his own father.

People were having their teeth falling out in this town too. It is implied that this was because these people were also exposed to the gas. Perhaps in a small dose than what sent Kitten into a murderous rage.

Mulder and Scully seemed to be back on the trust train with Skinner, but he technically never told them about his current situation with CSM, so can they truly trust him?

“Rm9sbG93ZXJz”

What a bizarre episode this was.

The X-Files has had several episodes where they were involved with technology, such as artificial intelligence and typically those have been some of the worst of the episodes. This one is better than some of the other ones, but it all felt really odd.

The automation of all the technology of the episode made me think I was in a Ray Bradbury sci-fi story. I really pictured “April 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains.”

Everything started to go to hell after Mulder did not tip at a fully automated sushi restaurant. Apparently, the technology took this poorly. When Mulder finally tipped on his phone, all the chaos ended.

This episode was told with the minimal amount of dialogue. Both Mulder and Scully had very few lines and only spoke when absolutely needed. It helped create quite the mood of the episode.

It was an episode that spoke to putting aside one’s phones at times and, I guess, to make sure to tip your waitresses (although Mulder finally only tipped 10%).

The X-Files S11 E4

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“The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”

The fourth episode of season eleven of The X-Files brought another excellent, comedic show that loosed its venom on itself.

What I mean is that this is clearly a parody of the X-Files as a TV program, poking fun at a lot of the tropes of the series.

Our new informant was named Reggie and the episode featured the Mandela Effect (or as Reggie would put it, the Mengele Effect). According to Wikipedia, the Mandela Effect is when “specific false memories can sometimes be shared by a large group of people.”

Besides the parody of the show, the episode also had some pointed comments about both the use of disinformation and Donald Trump. One of the conspiratorial characters, Dr. They, told Mulder that the days of hiding the truth were gone because the truth can be told and nobody will believe it.

There was an alien that Mulder, Scully and Reggie (who claimed that he had been their partner on the X-Files for years- which included a theme song for the show including his picture) met at the end. This alien spoke lines directly from Trump, talking about building a beautiful wall (invisible), around the galaxy because earth was not sending its best people into space. The Trump effect was in full swing with this episode.

There were clips from previous episodes of The X-Files with Reggie superimposed in them to illustrate his point. Episodes included “Home,” “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” and “Small Potatoes” to name a few.

The whole parallel universe argument that Mulder was making was really funny, as was Mulder’s own frustration on how silly the parallel universe argument was. When Mulder threw his pencil across the room in a fit of frustration, it was just hilarious.

The X-Files could do silly as well as any show and this was a very good example of that.

What We Do in the Shadows Season Two

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I decided that, since the show What We Do in the Shadow had ten episodes each around 24 minutes, it would be a good idea to go ahead and binge these seasons instead of spreading it out. I will be finishing the X-Files soon and my goal is to run through this total series before school starts again.

So I started the season two this morning and went through it. I think the second season was tremendous, and I think I liked it even more than I did season one.

There were some awesome guest stars/cameos during the season. This included an amazing performance from Mark Hammil, plus Benedict Wong, Haley Joel Osment, Craig Robinson, Greta Lee, James Frain, and Lucy Punch.

Some of the fish out of water things that the show threw Laszlo, Nadja and Nandor into some of the oddest situations. They had to attend a “Superb Owl” party at a neighbor’s house which was actually a Super Bowl party. They had to figure out their own laundry after Guillermo left them. The email curse, which everyone knows is BS, caused them massive concern. Colin Robinson’ promotion which led to his great power.

The show brought us a zombie (Haley Joel Osment who is killed by Guillermo accidentally), witches, ghosts (in a very clever episode), Black Peter- a talking goat and, of course, other vampires. There were vampire slayers too, or at least, a group of vampire slayer-wannabees, who get crushed by a house of vampires.

The story of Guillermo being a descendent of Van Helsing is a major driving force of story this year, as is Guillermo’s desire to be appreciated by his master. We see how vital Guillermo is to this group, even if they still do not necessarily see it. Even when Guillermo saved them from the Vampire Council by killing all of them, all Nandor could think of what his laundry.

Mark Hamill’s appearance as Jim the Vampire was so great and led to a solo story for Laszlo, who ran away from Jim the Vampire and hid out in Pennsylvania as a bartender named Jackie Daytona. Laszlo is able to hide his identity by having a toothpick in his mouth. This was a hilarious episode and one of the standout episodes of the season.

This was a great way to watch this season and I will continue to pick days to binge the remainder of the seasons of this show over the next six weeks or so before school. I have seasons 3 – 6 remaining, each season (except 6) have ten episodes.

Until Dawn

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June 26

I have been waiting for this movie to drop price on Fandango at Home before I purchased it. Then, just before the June Swoon is getting read to conclude (four days remaining) Until Dawn went on sale.

After watching it, Until Dawn was not on sale enough.

Based on a 2015 video game, Until Dawn is a survival horror film with a million jump scares and a bunch of horror tropes and cliches.

According to IMDB, “One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.“

I couldn’t care any less about these characters. Because I couldn’t care less about them, I was bored as the jeopardy surrounded them. The film was chocked full of jump scares but none of them were anything but your typical jump scare. There as little thought behind them.

The concept itself had some possibility, but it also removed most of the drama, since we knew they would basically return at the end of the night. How did this work? No idea.

And the biggest crime here is that the killings were so dull, I am having trouble remembering any of them. Maybe the film just never grabbed my attention.

I did not like this one and I am glad I did not go to the theater to see it.

2 stars

28 Years Later

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I recently rewatched 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, the two other films in this franchise in preparation for this new film, 28 Years Later, which reunited Danny Boyle as director and Alex Garland as a writer (they worked together on 28 Days Later). After watching 28 Years Later, I realized that I really did not need to do that homework.

28 Years Later does pick up the story of the Rage Virus, with England now being a fully isolated and quarantined. It started off with an action set featuring boy named Jimmy. After we see this, the film is set in a village on the island of Lindisfarne, where we meet Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his sickly wife Isla (Jodie Comer). They have a son named Spike (Alfie Williams) and Jamie is preparing to take Spike to the mainland on his first infected kill, a right of passage for the young boy.

The father-son had some harrowing adventures on the mainland and had to struggle to avoid an Alpha infected (zombie?) to make their way home.

Spike is very concerned with his mother’s mysterious illness and he takes her on a journey to the mainland in search of help for her.

This movie feel like two parts. The first part is the father-son adventure of Jamie and Spike and the second part is Spike’s adventure with his mom. Spike is 100% the main character and Aaron Taylor-Johnson disappears in the second part of the movie. Alfie Williams does an exceptional job as the main protagonist and we see Spike mature throughout the movie as he faces more and more dangers in the world. Alfie Williams has to carry way more of this film on his back than I ever thought possible and the young actor does a remarkable job of it.

Ralph Fiennes showed up eventually in a great role, but what would you expect? Ralph Fiennes is one of our greatest working actors.

The film has an old timey feel to it, which I believe is in the manner in which Danny Boyle shot the film. It was reported that he shot much of the film using iPhones and you could see the way that made the film appear. However, this film had several strange and experimental type shots that did not work as well for me. There were many film footage spliced in with the movie, which, at times, felt out of place. In particular, shots of a group of, what seemed to be knights shooting arrows in medieval times were used and I did not like that. They also inserted several flashes of infected just out of nowhere, in an attempt to make the shot feel more dreamlike. Many of these interludes felt out of place for me as well.

Without spoiling it, I was not a fan of the ending of the movie. I had not known that there was a sequel to this movie already done filming. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is scheduled to come out January 2026 and the ending of this movie is so much of a set up for the next movie that it is kind of irritating.

This is very much a different film than either of the first two that I think there may be some viewers who find it annoying and not what they were after. I did feel the length of the film at times and the distinctly different parts of the film did feel weird. You could almost call this an artistic vision of a zombie movie and not be too far off.

There were a lot of tense moments, but, if I am being sincere, I felt more tense watching the trailers for this movie than I did during the actual film. There were some solid emotional moments and there were some frightening scenes too, but those trailers were really good and built up a tone that the film did not sustain throughout.

Overall, I liked this movie a lot, even if I had some questions about some choices made, both in the story and in the presentation. Alfie Williams is a star in the making and he stands out here among some great actors.

3.9 stars