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Hooptober 10.0 – V/H/S/85 (2023)

Being Film #28 for Hooptober 2023

Oh V/H/S franchise…after so many entries have you finally gotten to the point where there’s nothing left to say? The rapidly diminishing returns of the shorts, the frayed ends of commitment to the format…all of that caused me to drop out after the initial run of film that ended in 2014. I don’t know what it was about V/H/S/85 that brought me back for another look, but I will say that like almost every other entry in the increasingly frustrating series it’s a mixed bag, albeit a bag where the lows and high are much closer together. Make of that what you will.

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Hooptober 10.0 – Bay of Blood (1971)

Being Film #27 for Hooptober 2023

NOTE: Using this opportunity to revisit a review I wrote for this film fifteen years ago, slightly cleaned up and reflecting my recent re-watch of this classic.

Although now armed with with experience of many of the Master’s films, prior to my first viewing of Bay of Blood, aka the much better titled Twitch of the Death Nerve, most of what I know about Mario Bava came from reading: the grandfather of Italian Horror, a founding father of giallo as a film genre and a prime influence on generations of filmmakers, notably Dario Argento (and now Sergio Martino), who would go on to refine and bring the genre to legions of fans across the globe. But my practical film experience with Bava was limited to Black Sunday, a terrific film with tons of mood, but not indicative of what I would later come to see in his colors films, or in the proto-slasher mayhem he would unleash in this nasty piece of work.

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They/Them (2022)

Right now, there’s a bit of slasher revival happening. There’s been enough time since the end of the last slasher cycle that folks can come back to the genre with new eyes. It also allows for new perspectives. The feature debut of screenwriter John Logan (Skyfall, Alien: Covenant), They/Them brings a queer perspective to a more traditional slasher. Now, queerness isn’t unique to this film. … Continue reading They/Them (2022)