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not_funits been a bit of an october, mostly been wrestling with my blood pressure being dangerously high cuz of stress and a med that will bring it down at the cost of making my guts seize up. but ITS FUCKIN HALLOWEEN so thats means i should make a post of halloween media i rec this year.
i don't want to necessarily repeat any of my recs from years prior, but it MIGHT happen. it's not like i have a perfect memory of everything i suggest!! so without further ado...
Movies
literally anything but obsession, but if we're getting specific...
The Backrooms was great as a stand alone, but also the kind of low-key horror of the original youtube shorts is also really worth a watch if you like this liminal space alternate reality horror stuff. the film itself was able to explore more of a human element, though. the sense of being trapped or weighed down or fixed in place by your own past, and how we either begin to understand that weight and use it to protect ourselves - or we live in denial of it and allow it to hold us down. given the film is also the first time ken parsons was allowed to build a real set instead of sculpting it in blender (which, ngl, he does MASTERFULLY like could someone please have him teach the other hack directors who try to do 3d backgrounds how to do their lighting well??? thanks) and additionally the first time hes really had a chance in the backrooms series to build characters and show how the space affects each one differently. how many doors does mary open without issue? compared to clark...? its a tense and surreal thinker and i love that.
man finds tape was a found footage i thought was fun. it's got things that reminded me of my fav koji shiraishi, but it's a very americanized take on it. it touches a bit on televangilism and small town america satanic panic, and local cults of personality. i had fun with it!!
Saw X is one thats not typical for me, but goddamn, as a cancer survivor watching a franchise that was literally inspired by a cancer scare and really at its core is about 'what torture would you consent to in order to survive? how would that reorder your life priorities?' Saw as a series waxes and wans in its inspiredness, but X is about jigsaw seeking treatment for cancer only to uncover a scam and that really makes the torture feel pretty great. his actor is really good, he brings such a strange and gentle gravitas to the character, and X really puts him in the center spotlight. just, ykno, when you flinch? remind yourself it's all movie magic lmao
final destination - the original!! its old. its dated. it has no idea how high up in the air the plane is when it explodes in the front end of the film. but the best part? as a discarded x-files script picked up by a studio and expanded from 45 minutes to 90 minutes, you REALLY get a giggle when you start viewing the two FBI agents as mulder and scully in different sets of skin. it's just rube goldberg deaths, and in the FD universe apparently everything is EXTREMELY flammable/explosive/conductive which gets a little funny too - but don't bother with sequels because they get really sexist and bland and seem to get stuck in a recursive loop trying to explain to the audience that death is NOT a god or god-being or diety, but it DOES have agency and a plan and power beyond humanity and agents acting on its behalf for it on earth. personally i wouldnt have even drawn this conversation out where the audience could hear it, i woulda let them have it themselves. but hey, thats me. just dont watch final destination if you're planning a flight somewhere the next day. it sure will get those anxiety worms in your head.
Us by jordan peele. also not a NEW film, but it was the last one i watched. i... i love the allegory, the questions posed to the viewers without a word spoken. the way the shiny future pastes over the offensive past. the tiny out of place things in a sea of same. the imagery of duality and two things making one. its hard to give peele films a review that really encapsulates them without reducing them to genre nametags - if i told you this was a vacation home invasion horror, itd be selling everything about the film completely short of itself. its more like... what if your vacation home was already linked to trauma for you and uhhhh also some horrifying mirror dimension curse stuff kicks in. i guess some folks might be truly freaked out by scenes of eating rabbits.... but /are/ they rabbits? thats the shit i fucking love. cant rec this enough. art, as peele's horror films always are.
Podcasts/Audio drama
wrought of amber is fiction, crime, conspiracy, cult... presented as a sibling of a murder who is trying to work through her demons in audio format. its by the same folk who did Weeping Cedars and Samite, which are both also pretty good. Wrought of amber specifically though seems to lean more to the existential horror of loss and grief. there's also a (not free) audiobook that offers more eerie stories that raise more questions about the mystery that accompanies it - tho that is more in various third person short stories than the podcaster style format.
Rule of Nines is a short fiction horror podcast which at -first- appear to be a bunch of unconnected stories. as you listen, though, you start noticing locations and descriptions repeating. when you start picking up on that and replaying old episodes, a sort of horrifying widespread supernatural occurance comes into focus. it's ongoing and, like its name implies, slow-burn. it DOES have ads, but only a few at the start.
Silentium is a fiction podcast that takes the 'archivist' audio format, but in this case it is someone working deep underground and in deep secrecy to uncover some sort of holy language that the church wishes to understand but which only seems to occur when someone is verging on a spectacular, surreal and supernatural death. being too american i can't place his accent, but i like to think maybe it's italian? like he's supposed to be working under the vatican or something. it has that vibe. good stuff.
Out of Place is evidently a really /old/ fiction horror podcast, but i didnt come across it til this year. another that takes a sort of 'archivist' format, this is about a guy being sent items that are ALMOST normal... but usually contain one key or critical detail which marks them as something that just plain should not, could not, can not exist on our earth and timeline. As it becomes clear who is sending this to him and what their intentions are, it expands into exploring different wild concepts of ways the world might end. i was pleasently surprised by how most of them felt original and creative in their depictions? but i'm really profoundly sad that the creative crew dropped this fantastic piece of fiction all their own and instead went to read SCP entries into a mic. blegh. may as well be reading reddit posts and creepypastas.
Barren is another old fiction horror podcast - one that resonates bigtime if you have a Weird Fan who has a deep parasocial fixation on you. But also maybe has a creepy family with lots of skeletons in their closet, and farmland right out of hp lovecraft. it was dormant after its first season for many years...but it looks like the second season is beginning now! so a good time to check that out too.
s'all i got to suggest this year but hopefully someone finds something they like in the mix!! like a big bowl of treats, you might just hafta dig around a bit first.
happy halloween friends
i don't want to necessarily repeat any of my recs from years prior, but it MIGHT happen. it's not like i have a perfect memory of everything i suggest!! so without further ado...
Movies
literally anything but obsession, but if we're getting specific...
The Backrooms was great as a stand alone, but also the kind of low-key horror of the original youtube shorts is also really worth a watch if you like this liminal space alternate reality horror stuff. the film itself was able to explore more of a human element, though. the sense of being trapped or weighed down or fixed in place by your own past, and how we either begin to understand that weight and use it to protect ourselves - or we live in denial of it and allow it to hold us down. given the film is also the first time ken parsons was allowed to build a real set instead of sculpting it in blender (which, ngl, he does MASTERFULLY like could someone please have him teach the other hack directors who try to do 3d backgrounds how to do their lighting well??? thanks) and additionally the first time hes really had a chance in the backrooms series to build characters and show how the space affects each one differently. how many doors does mary open without issue? compared to clark...? its a tense and surreal thinker and i love that.
man finds tape was a found footage i thought was fun. it's got things that reminded me of my fav koji shiraishi, but it's a very americanized take on it. it touches a bit on televangilism and small town america satanic panic, and local cults of personality. i had fun with it!!
Saw X is one thats not typical for me, but goddamn, as a cancer survivor watching a franchise that was literally inspired by a cancer scare and really at its core is about 'what torture would you consent to in order to survive? how would that reorder your life priorities?' Saw as a series waxes and wans in its inspiredness, but X is about jigsaw seeking treatment for cancer only to uncover a scam and that really makes the torture feel pretty great. his actor is really good, he brings such a strange and gentle gravitas to the character, and X really puts him in the center spotlight. just, ykno, when you flinch? remind yourself it's all movie magic lmao
final destination - the original!! its old. its dated. it has no idea how high up in the air the plane is when it explodes in the front end of the film. but the best part? as a discarded x-files script picked up by a studio and expanded from 45 minutes to 90 minutes, you REALLY get a giggle when you start viewing the two FBI agents as mulder and scully in different sets of skin. it's just rube goldberg deaths, and in the FD universe apparently everything is EXTREMELY flammable/explosive/conductive which gets a little funny too - but don't bother with sequels because they get really sexist and bland and seem to get stuck in a recursive loop trying to explain to the audience that death is NOT a god or god-being or diety, but it DOES have agency and a plan and power beyond humanity and agents acting on its behalf for it on earth. personally i wouldnt have even drawn this conversation out where the audience could hear it, i woulda let them have it themselves. but hey, thats me. just dont watch final destination if you're planning a flight somewhere the next day. it sure will get those anxiety worms in your head.
Us by jordan peele. also not a NEW film, but it was the last one i watched. i... i love the allegory, the questions posed to the viewers without a word spoken. the way the shiny future pastes over the offensive past. the tiny out of place things in a sea of same. the imagery of duality and two things making one. its hard to give peele films a review that really encapsulates them without reducing them to genre nametags - if i told you this was a vacation home invasion horror, itd be selling everything about the film completely short of itself. its more like... what if your vacation home was already linked to trauma for you and uhhhh also some horrifying mirror dimension curse stuff kicks in. i guess some folks might be truly freaked out by scenes of eating rabbits.... but /are/ they rabbits? thats the shit i fucking love. cant rec this enough. art, as peele's horror films always are.
Podcasts/Audio drama
wrought of amber is fiction, crime, conspiracy, cult... presented as a sibling of a murder who is trying to work through her demons in audio format. its by the same folk who did Weeping Cedars and Samite, which are both also pretty good. Wrought of amber specifically though seems to lean more to the existential horror of loss and grief. there's also a (not free) audiobook that offers more eerie stories that raise more questions about the mystery that accompanies it - tho that is more in various third person short stories than the podcaster style format.
Rule of Nines is a short fiction horror podcast which at -first- appear to be a bunch of unconnected stories. as you listen, though, you start noticing locations and descriptions repeating. when you start picking up on that and replaying old episodes, a sort of horrifying widespread supernatural occurance comes into focus. it's ongoing and, like its name implies, slow-burn. it DOES have ads, but only a few at the start.
Silentium is a fiction podcast that takes the 'archivist' audio format, but in this case it is someone working deep underground and in deep secrecy to uncover some sort of holy language that the church wishes to understand but which only seems to occur when someone is verging on a spectacular, surreal and supernatural death. being too american i can't place his accent, but i like to think maybe it's italian? like he's supposed to be working under the vatican or something. it has that vibe. good stuff.
Out of Place is evidently a really /old/ fiction horror podcast, but i didnt come across it til this year. another that takes a sort of 'archivist' format, this is about a guy being sent items that are ALMOST normal... but usually contain one key or critical detail which marks them as something that just plain should not, could not, can not exist on our earth and timeline. As it becomes clear who is sending this to him and what their intentions are, it expands into exploring different wild concepts of ways the world might end. i was pleasently surprised by how most of them felt original and creative in their depictions? but i'm really profoundly sad that the creative crew dropped this fantastic piece of fiction all their own and instead went to read SCP entries into a mic. blegh. may as well be reading reddit posts and creepypastas.
Barren is another old fiction horror podcast - one that resonates bigtime if you have a Weird Fan who has a deep parasocial fixation on you. But also maybe has a creepy family with lots of skeletons in their closet, and farmland right out of hp lovecraft. it was dormant after its first season for many years...but it looks like the second season is beginning now! so a good time to check that out too.
s'all i got to suggest this year but hopefully someone finds something they like in the mix!! like a big bowl of treats, you might just hafta dig around a bit first.
happy halloween friends
