Slightly gothic horror movie about witches from the 60s starring Christopher Lee…and it’s not from Hammer? Color me intrigued, and since two of the films I had slated to cover the “conspiracy or cult” requirement for the marathon turned out to be action films and not horror (sorry The Witch duology) I had to make some quick adjustments, and The City of the Dead fit the bill. Overall it’s a fine if slight movie, wooden in some place but boasts at least two sequences that were fantastic. And since I’m exhausted and getting to the end of my marathon rope (age is a fun thing, huh?) let’s just get to it.

Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – Day Of The Animals (1977)

Being Film #23 for Hooptober 2025

I’ve never been one to revel in bad movies. I know folks that do, and dedicate copious amounts of time and words to the pursuit of the bad, the cheesy, and the exploitive. I need a little more, certainly more than a shirtless Leslie Nielsen wildly fighting a bear. That’s such a bizarre scenario though, it at least got me to the door of Day Of The Animals, an incredibly dumb movie that nevertheless found a level of fun I was not expecting. And that was before Nielsen fights the bear.

ChrisOctober 13, 2025October 13, 2025Leave a comment

Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – Demon Pond (1979)

Being Film #22 for Hooptober 2025

I came away from Demon Pond with a lot of questions. Not about the plot: this is a relatively straightforward folktale about forest spirits, obligations and the ramifications of not obliging them. The film is made with an abundance of care and no small amount of visual flourish. But in the end I left asking myself “why?” Why did this need to be told? There are shades of questions around modernism encroaching on nature, the winnowing of religion as humanity shifts to more capitalistic, selfish gains, and the time-old debate about the death of one serving the many (the same thing at the heart of the new Fantastic Four reboot, which I watched the same day). But why this movie? Maybe I’m being hard, but I walked away from it with no benefit other than having chalked a film off my Hooptober list as well as my ever-increasing Criterion pile.

ChrisOctober 13, 2025Leave a comment

Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – Before I Wake (2016)

Being Film #21 for Hooptober 2025

As we roll into the last third of Hooptober 2025 the reviews are once again going to get slimmer. Horror is exhausting, y’all, and man can’t live on blood and gore alone. Thank goodness for Mike Flanagan, who is still batting 1000 after catching up with Before I Wake, his 2016 Netflix film (I did not know that) that eschews any blood or gore in favor of a more subtle film that leverages its frights in service of a story about loss and the lengths we may go to plug the pain it brings. Oh, and Thomas Jane makes some choices…

ChrisOctober 11, 2025Leave a comment

Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – The Fifth Cord (1971)

Being Film #20 for Hooptober 2025

After seeing Luigi Bazzoni’s debut film The Possessed earlier for this marathon, I was even more eager to check out The Fifth Cord, his second foray into giallo, particularly as that film straddled the line between dreamlike noir and paranoid Lynchian nightmare more than what we would come to define the genre as. But in the wake of Argento’s Bird With the Crystal Plumage Bazzoni adopts some of the same visual cues and geometric framing that would become trademarks of the movement. He also – just as Argento did in his follow-up The Cat o’ Nine Tails – emphasize the mystery and thriller aspects more than the visceral blood and horror, in the process creating a great star vehicle for his lead and capturing an often overlooked essence of the form: the spiraling madness of a situation intent on sucking you into its design.

ChrisOctober 11, 2025Leave a comment

humanist vampire header - a boy and a girl looking at each other as a record plays. the girl is a vampire

Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)

Being Film #19 for Hooptober 2025

It’s likely I went into Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (hereafter shortened to just Humanist Vampire…) in the best way possible: with nothing but that title and the poster in my head. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t something this delicate, romantic, and…funny. Maybe the trailer or the plot summary would have given away more of the tone, but that might have lessened the impact of such a delightful film that gets at the heart of the loneliness and depression young adults feel, as well as the awkward first steps of connecting with another soul.

ChrisOctober 7, 2025October 7, 2025Leave a comment

Cinema Dual (TEST SITE)

Examining a life through the media we consume. In other words, I’m reviewing all of my physical music media in alphabetical order, one day at at a time. Except when I don’t, as has been the case for the past few years. Still, we march onwards…Coffee essential, but not mandatory

Category: Reviews

Hooptober 12.0 – The City Of The Dead (1960)

Hooptober 12.0 – Day Of The Animals (1977)

Hooptober 12.0 – Demon Pond (1979)

Hooptober 12.0 – Before I Wake (2016)

Hooptober 12.0 – The Fifth Cord (1971)

Hooptober 12.0 – Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)