Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest’s latest miniseries, Wonder Man on Disney+, isn’t a superhero show. In fact, every time it attempts to create the illusion of being one — with a generic superpower that’s barely a plot device — diminishes the charm the series has going for it. Apart from borrowing the name and a very loose connection to the comics, Wonder Man is more of a love child of the breezy The Kominsky Method and the full-blown satire of The Studio. Skin-deep, light-hearted, and made for an audience who doesn’t want to see another calculated DC or Marvel instalment carefully placed in their respective universes.

The series follows two struggling actors, Simon (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Trevor (Ben Kingsley) — the former a committed and aspiring one who constantly gets in his own way, the latter a troubled small-time Hollywood veteran with one particular performance that brought him fame — whose paths collide for superficial reasons. It’s a proven formula that ends almost exactly as you imagine it, but that predictability never stands in the show’s way to be endearingly fun.

Simon is the kind of actor who overthinks trivia and invents backstories to fodder characters whose sole purpose is to get eaten or blown up on the screen. He’s too dedicated and thorough for the bit parts he’s getting. Trevor, on the other hand, is a seasoned and savvy fox with a concealed heart of gold, relying on spontaneity and improv, without ever thinking more than a half step ahead. At first, he only helps Simon because he made a deal with the US Damage Control Department to spy on him in exchange for not getting thrown into jail. The details as to why are where the only superhero angle lies in the series, and it’s kind of irrelevant in the big picture. You could substitute it with almost anything adjacent, and the plot would work exactly the same.

Constantly being with Simon out of necessity, Trevor begins to see the man’s painstaking process and deep-seated love for acting, as well as all the drawbacks he creates for himself. The old man recognizes a genuine potential in Simon and finds a way to ease his relentlessly lingering self-doubt one crisis at a time. So when they both get a call-back for the remake of the ’80s superhero flick Wonder Man — being directed by Zlatko Buric’s eccentric and acclaimed filmmaker, Von Kovak — the two become unlikely partners to get the job they both desire for different reasons.

The beating heart of Wonder Man is undeniably the clumsy yet strangely delightful chemistry between Abdul-Mateen and Kingsley as they become buddies in a slightly exaggerated, meta version of Hollywood. Instead of the typical hints that usually refer to other MCU projects, characters, and storylines within the same universe, the creators smartly sneak in understated title drops (like Sons of Anarchy, Igby Goes Down, or Severance) and bring on real actors (like Joe Pantoliano and Ashley Greene) playing a version of themselves to create a flimsy but comforting milieu. Sure, this is a thin veil without any real substance, yet it feels refreshing and fitting for a show that’s essentially an ode to the world of devoted thespians we never hear about before their first big break (if they’re lucky enough to get one) or ever.

But more importantly, this setting allows Kingsley and Abdul-Mateen to goof around and build a wonderful rapport between their characters that unobtrusively blossoms into an unlikely friendship. None of them sees it coming, and even as a viewer, you can’t really pinpoint the exact moment when the true emotions in the two begin to override their self-interest. It just happens organically, and no matter how many (thankfully, really not a lot) typical Marvel clichés try to ruin it toward the climax when the cat gets out of the bag, the core of that heart-warming sentiment the show rides on remains intact even in the finale.

In fact, the ending is where the show truly commits to everything it managed to build up before, without jeopardizing it with some flashy and forced cliffhanger or a totally unnecessary post-credits scene. Apart from a few unwarranted theatrics, Wonder Man is void of anything Marvel-like, which ultimately becomes its greatest and most welcome trait. Funnily enough, Marvel reached a point where the best move it could make was to get out of its own way and make a show that has virtually nothing to do with superheroes. Wonder Man is a clean slate with barely any connection to already-existing MCU characters or storylines, and a show that doesn’t need to be continued because it’s complete and potent enough to stand on its own. Who would’ve thought?

“Did Ex Machina ruin robot-turns-evil movies?” is what I’ve kept wondering while watching Drew Hancock’s Companion — a pretty decent effort in the AI-gone-bad subgenre. Alex Garland’s psycho-techno classic was so cerebral and ahead of its time that it might’ve put a constraint on anything that strived to follow in its footsteps. But then again, even before Garland’s thinker, Charlie Brooker gave us a tantalizing sci-fi fable with Be Right Back in the second season of Black Mirror. Funnily enough, those two works of science fiction, which came out over a decade ago, feel more potent and realistic than any recent feature or TV show that deals with androids and AI from a contemporary angle.

Take M3GAN, for instance — a guilty pleasure cyber horror with overly familiar genre tropes that tried to freshen up the formula by bringing high-tech robotics into the picture. It’s an amusing flick if you don't think too much about it. But even if you don't, you could feel the restraints that forced the movie into a small sandbox with not much room to play or experiment. That can be said for almost any other film from the last five years that employed and villainized AI in its central plot. Right away, Margaux and AfrAId come to mind — both incredibly underwhelming — that didn’t even attempt to defy the limitations of corrupted artificial intelligence.

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While many movie and TV lovers obsessed over the big and hot titles this year, I once again found my gems in small-scale — often underseen and underappreciated — productions that flew under most people’s radar. That perhaps is more true with cinema than television since the latter delivered astonishing and deservedly celebrated stuff throughout 2024. Whether it was a completely new original or a follow-up season to something already huge among viewers, TV and streaming once again came out a winner for me — despite the more than usual amount of second seasons that turned stale to my liking (yes, I mean Squid Game, Bad Sisters, Shrinking, and more).

Still, I wouldn’t necessarily say this year was better than the last, in fact, 2023 was overall more balanced in quality. But it really doesn’t matter. What does is that there were many films and series to love, indulge in, and be amazed by. As is always the case, I couldn’t watch everything I wanted to (Nosferatu and The Brutalist, for instance), but that didn't stop me from listing my favorites from 2024. So here they come.

Movies:

10. Marmalade

Romantic and sweet small-town noirs aren’t really a thing, but if they were, Keir O’Donnell’s directorial debut should be highlighted as one of the best of them. Camila Morrone’s vivacious, total riot of a performance elevates this underseen little flick about a thousand percent.

9. It’s What’s Inside

A simple but welcomingly fresh idea served up as a bonkers horror comedy. It's as vicious and mean as it is hilarious and out-of-the-box.

8. Heretic

M. Night Shyamalan wishes (and, as his fan, I do too) he could still make as provocative, intelligent, edge-of-your-seat suspense horrors as this one. The Hugh Grant renaissance continues.

7. His Three Daughters

Play-like somber dramas rarely pack a punch as hard as Azazel Jacob’s does, thanks to a terrific female lead trio that will peel your heart layer by layer.

6. My Old Ass

A bittersweet coming-of-age dramedy that makes you question your life choices (as the truly great ones tend to) with a pitch-perfect Aubrey Plaza and a wonderfully charming Maisy Stella in her feature debut.

5. Problemista

A beautiful harmony of quaint ideas by Julio Torres (writer, director, and star), which will have you laugh uncontrollably and cry like a baby in less than two hours. Problemista is the kind of triumph of indie cinema that we barely see anymore.

4. Strange Darling

Serial killer thriller turned upside down and inside out with slick visuals and a non-linear storytelling style that will shatter your end-game expectations. Cat-and-Mouse chase in its rawest, most brutal, and merciless form.

3. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies

The “I Dare You Not to Cry Watching This” movie of the year straight from Thailand. A reminder to give your grandparents a hug if you still can because time hurts. (My review)

2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Nine years after Fury Road, George Miller doubles down as the glorious king of adrenaline-fuelled action cinema.

1. Snack Shack

What to say that I haven’t already? Snack Shack stole my heart by reigniting my aching nostalgia for the best summers I had as a teen. Coming-of-age comedies don't get much better than this. Oh, and its soundtrack is pure 90s bliss. (My review)

Honorable mentions: Monkey Man, Longlegs, Rebel Ridge, The Last Stop in Yuma County, I Am: Celine Dion

TV Shows:

10. A Man on the Inside Season 1

Michael Schur and Ted Danson struck comedy gold again — with sprinkles of inescapable heartbreak even if you pretend to be a spy in a retirement home.

9. Monsieur Spade Season 1

Clive Owen’s criminally underused talent (as of late) is put to great use as hard-boiled icon Sam Spade in a show filled with culture, terrific dialogue, and the smoke of Gauloises you can almost smell at every corner in the small French town of Bozouls. (My review)

8. Shogun Season 1

FX’s epic is so rich with tradition, culture, and intriguing history that you come away with the feeling that you're ready to be a samurai too.

7. The Gentlemen Season 1

Guy Ritchie indulges in his favorite pastime of making horrible people and low-life criminals seem like larger-than-life spectacles. His Cockney vision, surprisingly, is even better than the first time.

6. Baby Reindeer (miniseries)

Obsession, personal trauma, and bold storytelling amount to giant waves that will wash you away whether you’re ready for it or not. Richard Gadd, I tip my hat to your artistic courage.

5. Mr. Throwback Season 1

Danny Grossman has become my new favorite loser to watch on TV. Probably the most underseen mockumentary of the year — despite being based around Steph Curry — which made me laugh the hardest in 2024. That’s no small feat. (My review)

4. A Bloody Lucky Day (miniseries)

A South Korean serial killer odyssey that does its best to catch up to genre classics like I Saw the Devil, Chaser, and Memories of Murder. It's as dastardly and unrelenting as those, even if it isn't as mesmerizingly cinematic. (My review)

3. Disclaimer (miniseries)

Alfonso Cuaron brought cinema to television in a masterfully concocted narrative puzzle dripping with sex and revenge. (My review)

2. Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos (2-part docuseries)

David Chase — the man, the myth, the legend — deconstructed through interviews and sacred memories that drove him to make TV history. Mandatory viewing for devoted The Sopranos fans. (My review)

1. The Bear Season 3

As divisive as it might be among fans, I thought that Christopher Storer fine-tuned his anxiety-ridden masterpiece into its most delicately impressive season yet.

“Every ingredient that made the series what it is today is in perfect balance here, creating an exquisite harmony between chaos and quiet, sadness and joy. Like your favorite meal, it results in something that can entice profound emotions.” — from my review.

Honorable Mentions: Slow Horses S4, Dark Matter S1, Invincible S2, Chimp Crazy (miniseries), Mr. McMahon (docuseries)

What were your favorites this year?

This is it for 2024, ladies and gents. I can’t thank everyone enough for the support and growth my little newsletter achieved this year, but just know, every like, comment, restack, PM, and read means more than you imagine. Happy New Year! I hope you also join me in 2025.

My biggest fear of having kids is this: watching them being little and carefree would grant me a chance to partially relive the joy and freedom of my own childhood that I frequently long for. Just so it can get ripped away from me once again as they age and eventually leave the nest. I don’t know if I could bear that existential pain one more time — especially since I’d be in my 50s, likely ten times as sentimental as I am now, left with nothing but yearning for better and younger days.

There isn’t a quasi-holiday movie that articulates that bittersweet and poignant feeling better than Kirk Jones' Everybody’s Fine (the 2009 remake of Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1990 Italian original).

Watching a 60-something Robert De Niro travel the country in trains and buses to pay a surprise visit to his four children (who all bail on his invitation to come home) in a small-scale drama has a potent, empathetic simplicity. Besides its plain yet moving script, that’s mainly due to a masterfully restrained performance by De Niro — fully in control of his mannerisms — playing a universal but hard-to-convey dad that everybody recognizes but doesn't necessarily know in depth. His character, Frank, is only a stereotype until he lets us discover the many layers of his sincere emotions and complex relationship with his children.

That’s to say: If I had kids, I’d likely view them as Frank does. Though his sons and daughters (played by a terrifically picked cast) are all grown-ups now, whenever he glances at them, he always sees their younger selves first — and we do, too. It’s a simple yet affecting directorial touch that never fails to bring me to tears. We see Amy (Kate Beckinsale), Robert (Sam Rockwell), Rosie (Drew Barrymore), and David (Austin Lysy) as adults as well as innocent and animated kids (their child actor counterparts are just as fantastic). Those moments are mere glimpses into the past — in passing — conveying an inescapable sadness of how time slips through our fingers whenever we try to get a hold of it.

To Frank, every one of his children is a success story. When he talks about them to unsuspecting strangers during his trip, his eyes glow with pride and affection. But reality doesn’t necessarily coincide with the picture he built in his mind. They’re all flawed and riddled with struggles (whether personal or professional), and Frank has no clue about those because his late wife was the emotional support system who they shared them with instead of him. He was the strict, working-class father, the provider who always talked a lot but rarely listened. Now, as a widow, Frank knows this has to change and that it will take a tremendous effort on his part to facilitate it.

One of the most heartfelt aspects of Everybody’s Fine is that it doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable and heavy moments between parent and child. Those that break the veil of the former’s idealization once reality sets in within each visit. Amy's marriage is in the toilet, Robert isn't a conductor but a replaceable percussionist in the city's orchestra, Rosie hides a huge secret, and David is MIA with drug problems. Frank slowly realizes that his kids are far from the flawless, idealized versions he thought they were — but that doesn’t stop him from loving them just the same.

As an immigrant who only sees his (separated) parents once a year, I know all about those out-of-sync moments, awkward silences, and reserved surface-level conversations more than I’d like to. The emotional and social gaps between parent and child, widened by drastically different lifestyles and worldviews, which can rarely be bridged over in a single visit to rekindle the meaningful connection you had with your folks when you were young. It's a natural transition that becomes harder and harder to bear as we age — but such is life.

Frank's surprise visit isn't welcomed by his kids for various reasons. It’s not that they don’t appreciate it. They’re just so caught up in their own lives, circumstances, and harbouring a devastating secret that they don't want to deal with him on top of everything — at least not yet. Everybody’s Fine understands this nuisance and doesn’t judge its characters (or the viewer) for evading it. It’s the film’s bravura and magic that despite the initial roughness of those encounters, it manages to mine beautifully earnest flickers of happiness and affection, the kind that only occurs between parent and child. A smile, gesture, or act that incidentally captures and expresses the inherent love we feel but can't always put into words or actions.

Strictly speaking, Everybody’s Fine is only marginally a Christmas movie. The holiday takes place at the end of it in a matter of minutes, stricken by grief and wounded hearts, but it’s also infused with a hopeful warmth because Frank is finally surrounded by his kids in their childhood home, and (almost) everybody's fine. Their idyllic get-together is how Christmas should feel — and how it used to be when we were all kids, overzealous with excitement — and not like the burden of having to listen to unpleasant family members we see once a year about the never-ending cycle of politics and other loathed topics that it has become.

I can’t fathom why both critics and audiences hated it when it came out because, to me, it’s one of those all-time favorite dramas that always hits home without fail — whether it’s watched during the holidays or on a perfectly ordinary Sunday afternoon in July.

Next week, I’ll be coming with a Top 10 of my favorite movies and TV shows of 2024 (same as last year), which will be the final newsletter of The Screen in 2024. Then, in January, I’ll return with more Horror Aughts, An Hour of Peak TV, the second installment of my Bird Horror series, alongside a new column that I can’t wait to finally launch. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my readers! Thank you for sticking with me. I appreciate all of you more than you think.

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Echoing through the corridors of Oregon State Penitentiary, Jerry Brudos’ (Happy Anderson) manic and wicked cackle sounds like it was borrowed from a cartoon villain. It’s almost too deranged, frenzied, even caricaturistic in a way, to be realistic. Yet when we glance at the giant man it belongs to, it becomes spine-chillingly real. As a guard escorts the infamous Lust Killer — a necrophile who kidnapped, raped, and killed four young women between 1968-69 — to meet our mind-hunting duo, he’s talking about the boxing match in which Ken Norton broke Muhammad Ali’s jaw. He explains, “It is not an easy thing to break a human being’s jaw. Let me assure you… that takes practice.” And we instantly believe him as his overbearing body gets chained to a metal table. That’s The Entrance of a serial killer designed to make our blood run cold in a matter of seconds.

As much as it’s catered to our true crime-laden mind of how we tend to imagine a serial killer’s physique and demeanor, it’s the first time in Mindhunter when that actually rings true. Brudos is a monster from the moment we hear his voice. By the time we meet him in the flesh, we’ve already encountered Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) and Monte Rissell (Sam Strike) — the former perhaps more unsettling in the long run — but none of those two struck us immediately as threatening and intimidating as Brudos.

With his portrayal, Episode 7 sets a crucial reminder: these men were remorseless, impulsive, manipulative, and perilous people first and only interview subjects second. Though this is a somewhat inherent quality in a series about real-life murderers, Brudos stands out as a memento to take us out of the trance the show pulled us in previously to say, “Hey, remember, this was real.”

The moment Brudos learns he’s faced with the FBI (two clean-shaven agents in grey suits clearly wanting something from him), he starts demanding shit. He wants a drink and cigarettes and pizza — anything that would take an effort and isn’t from the prison. Anderson may play the character slightly heightened and exaggerated for dramatic effect, then again, we know infamous killers loved to act crazy and bizarre as long as they had eyes on them. But right before it'd become too much, he pulls it back, and Brudos agrees to "cooperate."

However, as soon as Holden (Jonathan Groff) states he killed a girl named Laura Sullivan, the mental tango begins. The convict objects, saying he didn’t kill her, they never found the body, and he was coerced to confess to it by the Portland PD, anyway. Never mind that he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder for which he’s spending three consecutive life sentences as they speak. It’s never the murderer’s fault that they found him guilty.

The scene oozes with suspense and dread, featuring top-tier acting, but what’s more fascinating is that it brings to mind an interview from the true crime documentary John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise. Throughout that Peacock series, Gacy refuses to admit to a specific murder despite all the evidence pointing to him. He lies with such confidence that you wonder whether he can actually believe and convince himself of his false innocence. As if proving he didn't kill that victim would exonerate him from all the other (multiple) murders he committed and was unequivocally convicted of.

In Mindhunter, Brudos doesn’t go that far. Once Holden and Tench (Holt McCallany) visit him a second time, he deems it pointless to deliver another looney act — instead, he puts on a different kind of show. In the follow-up interview, after some back-and-forth verbal jabbing, the agents manage to get under his skin and trigger honest answers. Due to a “bait” and some convincing, Brudos opens up and delves into his fetish with women’s shoes and how they played a pivotal part in his killings. But what the mind-hunting duo begins to finally acknowledge (first to themselves, and later to each other) is that these interviews serve as a catalyst that gradually brings out all of their bottled-up emotions and repressed frustrations.

The job — talking to insane and twisted sociopaths — eventually gets to them, even if they try their best to ignore the psychological repercussions. That crucial aspect gets addressed in this episode, and it’s where Mindhunter excels more than almost any other movie or TV show concerned with serial killers. Digging in a sick and violent mind, you can’t come away unscathed. Whatever you find in there will start to eat away at your soul sooner or later — Brudos masturbating on the shoes that Holden gifted him is just the icing on the cake.

In today’s criminal profiling, sexual fantasies and deviations are practically standard for men who commit murder. But in the late 70s and early 80s, that was far from the case. The Behavioural Science Unit has just begun to study these motives behind pre-meditated and ritualistic murders, and we see that Holden and Tench’s approach is raw and experimental. They mine their own personal (and often uncomfortable) sexual experiences to get into Brudos’ mind. As Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) sees it, after listening to the recordings with Brudos, the two men were “persecuting him about something that challenged their masculinity.” She’s not entirely wrong, but we sense a bias because of her identity as a gay woman. Regardless, Brudos’ openness in his recounting of how he developed a desire at an early age for heels that later drove him to violence captures an uncanny deviance. He says the impulse was always there, suggesting he didn’t develop this craving (or yearning) because of some event or influence but was born with it. There may have been outside factors that escalated his behavior over the years, but the seed was planted at birth.

Is there a more frightening thought than knowing that some people are just born evil? Brudos is our collective monster in the closet. The one we are fascinated but also repulsed by — he can be our neighbor, friend, husband, and even father. He had a wife and kids. He disguised himself as normal for years. Thus he represents one of the darkest human beings we can imagine, an abomination of crazy and savage, and we can’t snap out of that notion or shrug it off because he was real. He existed — and so did the dismembered female body parts (usually breasts and feet) he kept in his garage as trophies.

Mindhunter has never been sensational or white-knuckle for pure shock value but an accurate (if admittedly stylized and scripted) dramatization of the most brutal, highly intelligent, and organized murderers in our history. The Evil we knew and the Evil we imagined — which, in the case of a serial killer like Jerry Brudos, collided. In the show’s world, even a seemingly innocent storyline, like feeding a stray cat, as Wendy does in this episode, has a bleak and sinister connotation. According to a TV line interview with the actress, Torv recounted the time when Fincher explained to her the purpose of her character repeatedly leaving food out for a stray cat in the laundry room. As per Fincher, those scenes were supposed to be a hint that there's a "kid in the building who’s going around killing cats. It’s a birth of a new sociopath that we don’t quite know about. Because that’s how it starts — with [inflicting harm on] animals.”

Episode 7’s script by Joe Penhall and Jennifer Haley is provocative and haunting, infused with layers of intriguing psychology (which is due to John Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s pioneering source material), delivered with flawless cadence and charisma by fantastic character actors. But I'd argue that one of the less detectable components to its success is Andrew Douglas’s seamless, eerily calm, and focused direction. Following the stylish, formidable, and moody tone that Fincher established early on, Douglas’s restrained approach is the bedrock that allows the writing and performances to shine through. His camera isn’t as active as Fincher’s, preferring steady shots and close-ups, but those actually highlight each tracking shot to make them feel more significant and loaded with underlying tension and anxiety. It’s more of a docu-style filmmaking, if you will, combined with slick and evocative cinematography that utilizes a cold and rigid color palette.

Ultimately, it's every ingredient in a pitch-perfect symbiosis that birthed one of the most captivating television series that Netflix has ever produced. One that delivered real nightmares into our homes with an episode like this, showing that sometimes Evil is just as repulsive, abhorrent, and terrifying as we envision it in our minds. Knowing that it was real is the scary part.

If you enjoyed this essay, please consider liking and sharing it so it can reach a wider audience. As always, thanks for reading.

More ‘An Hour of Peak TV:’

The first season of Bad Sisters was lightning in a bottle. Based on the Belgian series (Clan) hardly anyone saw, it was quirky and irreverent and profound thanks to a massive dose of sticky Irish charm that permeated the show from top to bottom. Razor-sharp humor, domestic abuse, and murder mystery rarely fit together as well as they did in Season 1. Yet what truly made Bad Sisters a hit was the compelling badass-bitch characters, the Garveys. Five unrelenting and fierce women who had to get away with murder because they had no other way out. And they provided sound reasons for us to root for them from our couch each week. Their story was complete, but more importantly, perfectly wrapped up in ten episodes without leaving any (I repeat any, none, zero, nada) loose end.

Therefore, Bad Sisters did NOT need a follow-up.

But as with many other similarly successful debut seasons of TV shows — like Big Little Lies, Bloodline, After Life, and on and on — that should’ve been mini or limited series with a single season, the Irish remake got an unnecessary continuation, too. And for about an episode and a half, it feels fun and satisfying to welcome the Dubliners into our home again after two years. Unfortunately, as soon as the first “SHOCKING” twist arrives, you can immediately tell that something stinks here.

First of all, Clan didn’t have a second season (for a reason), so writer-creator Sharon Horgan and Co. had to come up with something entirely fresh this time around. Though the writers attempted to recreate a similar thread of storylines that worked well in Season 1 (Season 2 also has a murder at its center), they kind of backed themselves into a corner. Meaning: the new setup feels contrived and cheugy from the get-go. I won’t spoil it, but I’ll say there’s an unexpected early loss that not only hurts far less than intended but also feels artificial (once you watch the double premiere, you’ll understand what I’m talking about).

It's clear that particular death is only there to serve as an excuse for a new batch of eight episodes (which were provided for review). You go along with it, hoping it’ll bring something intriguing and intense like it has before, but it never really amounts to anything riveting or worthwhile. Instead, it makes a mockery of the Garveys, who begin to make increasingly dumber and nonsensical decisions, one after another, until they stop being genuine characters and turn into their own caricatures.

In Season 1, the sisters were appealing and compelling because they all had individual problems and separate lives from each other. They struggled with relationships (both personal and professional), made poor decisions detrimental to their emotional and mental well-being, and constantly kept secrets from one another. Season 2 wants to revive that same dynamic but throws it out the window the minute it doesn’t sit well with the central mystery. Here, the Garveys solely function as real characters when they’re together as a team, as if they no longer have lives on their own.

They have quasi-struggles: Eva (Sharon Horgan) having a hard time with loneliness and hitting 50, Bibi (Sarah Greene) and her girlfriend trying to have another kid, Becka (Eve Hewson) dating a dull bloke, Ursula (Eva Birthistle) stealing drugs at work, and Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) picking and marrying another man she doesn’t know well enough. These are problems the writers quickly abandon whenever they feel like it and only bring up again if they don’t obstruct the main plotline.

This means the sisters are almost always together, helping and covering for stupid mistakes that keep landing them in trouble with the law. They never work, even though they live in luxurious and idyllic houses, and seem to exist in a universe that barely punishes them for either of the crimes they commit on a regular basis. Nothing really has a consequence regardless of how bonkers the stunts they pull (and there are many questionable ones, I assure you) since that would take away from the thrill of watching them spiral into worse and worse situations in the name of protecting “The Family.” This becomes the most ridiculous reasoning when they repeatedly claim they’re doing all this to protect Grace’s daughter, Blanaid (Saise Quinn), who we barely see even though she’s supposed to be with her aunt(s) most of the time.

Despite all these shortcomings, what still works is the smooth chemistry between the actresses. Though their banter and teasing aren't as well-rounded and balanced as before, their unequivocally Irish nature and humor deliver the much-needed silliness, vocabulary, and cultural jokes that made the series so unique and amusing in the first place. It's just a shame the material they're given now lets them down more often than not.

I need to emphasize this once again: stop making follow-ups for shows that were clearly made for one season and one season only. Otherwise, you end up with a watered-down, mediocre, and totally unnecessary installment like Bad Sisters Season 2.

The first three episodes of Bad Sisters Season 2 are streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

I’m finally back after a pretty stressful period of moving and starting a new life from scratch. Thank you for your patience. I have some new ideas that I’m still brainstorming and tinkering with, but I’m planning to announce them soon. Horror Aughts and An Hour of Peak TV will continue, too.

Last week, I also reviewed Taylor Sheridan’s latest cowboy melodrama Landman for Looper.

When we are kids, we don’t value time. We have so much of it that it feels infinite, inexhaustible. We don’t understand age yet (at least not the way that later becomes poignant), so the 40-50-year gap between us and our grandparents is virtually incomprehensible. Throughout our childhood, Grandpa and Grandma are just other adults like our parents. But when we turn from tweens into teenagers, the social chasm between us and them grows wider. The older they get, we feel, the less they understand us, can grasp our dreams and desires, and the less they can connect. Their time is passing, and ours is just beginning.

I vividly remember what my teen brother said after Dad told him that our grandfather died. “But… I’ve been meaning to go and see him for weeks," he uttered, baffled and hurt like a little child who hasn’t yet been taught what death is. When you’re a kid, time is a still pond. You can dip and float in it, thinking it will never dry out. When you’re old, it’s a rushing river. You can’t slow it down, swim against it, and you know it will drown you eventually.

Writer-director Pat Boonnitipat’s Thai surprise hit, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, not only captures time with beautiful poignancy from two far-removed perspectives but shows us that the extensive generational gap between them is bridgeable. Though his movie starts out as one of those malicious Asian social thrillers (like Parasite) that hijacked the zeitgeist of the genre in the past five years, its true intentions are as pure and heartfelt as it gets. HTMMBGD doesn’t have a mean bone in its body.

M (Putthipong Assaratanakul) is a Uni dropout who tries to make a living as a video game streamer at his mom's place. But four people watching you play online isn't quite the career he dreamed of. Though he fooled his mother once, she doesn't budge again when he asks her for money. She tells him to go and find work.

M is lazy and aimless like most dropouts and wants easy money. When he visits his cousin Mui (Tontawan Tantivejakul), she’s looking after their paternal grandfather, who's bedridden and dying. Mui explains to M that she plays the long game. When the old man bites the dust, she hopes, he’ll leave her his estate that’s worth a fortune — which he does. Naïve and ignorant as M is, he believes he can do the same to his maternal grandma, Mengju (a fantastic Usha Seamkhum). But Mengju sees through her grandson instantly. What she doesn't know is that she has cancer. Her children, M's mother, and his two uncles decide to hide the diagnosis that her doctor tells them in private. M thinks otherwise: this is his chance to earn grandma’s trust and let him take care of her while she’s doing chemo, hoping to get the same outcome as Mui did.

Even if you haven’t seen the viral videos online where viewers cry their eyes out while watching the movie, you know where this is going. By moving in and spending most of his time with Mengju, M begins to bond with her deeply and intimately. They get to know each other — feel each other out. Though M doesn't give up on his plan to inherit her home, he realizes pretty soon what he's doing is wrong. His grandma suspects something foul right away, but she lets him stay anyway because what kills old people faster than any disease is loneliness. Widows (like Mengju) instinctively sense when they aren't needed anymore, and living rapidly loses its purpose.

HTMMBGD rightfully prides itself on being “inspired by true stories found in every family” because it transcends distance, race, and culture. Even if you know nothing about Thailand, its people and traditions, you'll instantly latch onto its portrayal of family dynamics. The movie is filled with heartfelt nuances and sentiments you’ll recognize and cherish because they can potently evoke your own memories.

Mengju is everyone's grandmother: She's wise, faithful, tough yet loving, and she puts her children and grandkids above anything else regardless of how neglectful and ungrateful they are. You'll see that not all of them deserve her love and care equally, but that’s the thing about blood — it never turns into water.

Our grandparents are bottomless wells of affection and wisdom, containing myriads of fascinating stories and invaluable life experiences that no one can teach us as they do. If you’re young or lucky enough to still have them around, don’t let them dry up. Even if you think you can no longer connect with them like you used to when you were a child, try. Make an effort, call or visit them more, ask genuine questions, and watch how their pasts shoot up like a geyser. Because time is a cruel and ruthless thing. When it passes, when it’s gone, it hurts like a wound that’s unable to heal completely. So be kind to it since you won’t ever have anything as precious as the memories it lets you make.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is one of this year’s hidden treasures. A grounded, sincere, and gentle opus on family scars, parental love, and memories that become the emotional bedrocks of our lives. It’s a movie that doesn’t wield sentimentality and melancholy as a weapon but lets them run through us smoothly without asking how we feel. We’ll know. And, in the end, we’ll thank writer-director Boonnitipat for reminding us of what truly matters in life — through a heart-breaking yet uplifting tale about a clueless boy and his loving grandmother.

If you made it to the end and enjoyed this essay, please leave a like on it because engagement helps the post get to a larger audience. I always appreciate it.

The next few weeks will be quite chaotic since I’m moving to a different country. I’ll do my best to keep up with my usual publishing schedule (Monday/Tuesday or Thursday/Friday), but if I can’t, this is why.

What is darkness? Is it the unknown we fear? Is it the subconscious where we dump our intrusive and abhorrent thoughts we can’t tame or take hold of? Whatever it may be, one thing is certain: it’s where the monsters live — real and imagined. Beasts that conceive like nightmares do, from horrific visions, flashes of fear, and bedrocks of barbarism. Though we can’t see them, we hear their far-reaching shrieks, smell their putrid flesh as it penetrates our nasal cavities, and sense their shadows growing above us before we can see them coming. Little devils, crawling under the surface of the earth, of the mind. They are the opposite of us: inhuman, animalistic, ferocious creatures.

After numerous watches, that’s what The Descent still feels like.

In Neil Marshall’s 2005 horror masterpiece, darkness emerges as a living organism. It shifts and lurks and claws its way into our nerves, under our skin, and eventually, inside our heads. The Descent starts out as a standard trip-to-nature-gone-wrong monster flick but slowly evolves into an elemental, scuzzy hellscape fused with a lamentation on grief, betrayal, and loss. From tiny seeds of conflicts, it blossoms into a visceral, trauma-infested swamp ready to devour our flesh and soul literally and figuratively.

It’s fascinating how easily Marshall slips in layer onto layer, crafting a smoldering fireball made out of panic, guilt, and ferocity. At first, you don’t even realize that every single gesture and interaction between the all-female cast tells a story. The same story from different angles. It’s seamless and sneaky — precisely how a terrible mystery should be conveyed in a horror — brewing and growling under the cover of a creature feature.

(Though the film is nearly 20 years old, this is where I need to warn you about spoilers if you still haven’t seen it. Which you should, and then come back to continue reading).

Juno (Natalie Mendoza), the group’s leader, harbors a great secret from the beginning. Marshall’s script only hints at it in throwaway lines, carefully signaling something that can’t stay hidden for long. The crawlers’ slow emergence corresponds to what Juno is hiding. She wants to fix what she's done to Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), but the outcome turns catastrophic. Just like you can’t absolve yourself without confession, you can’t make having an affair with your best friend’s husband disappear by organizing a spelunking in an unexplored cave in the Appalachian Mountains. Or at least it’s not advisable because you might run into a bunch of cannibalistic bastards who end up killing your friends and revealing your immoral wrongdoings.

That said, I’ll slightly change course here. There’s a popular interpretation among Descent fans that poses an intriguing theory. It goes like this: the crawlers only exist in Sarah’s mind — we know that she’s on medication and that she hasn’t fully recovered mentally from losing her husband and daughter in a car crash a year ago — and in reality, she's the one who murders all of her friends one by one. Though I don’t think this is an entirely plausible hypothesis (for various plot-related reasons), it does feed into Marshall's bleak and devastating vision.

The events that take place down there (before we even see any bald weirdos in their full glory) trigger something in Sarah. Something that gradually picks at her sanity, slowly untying a feral madness in her, which eventually strips away her humanity bit by bit almost completely. You can even pinpoint when she snaps — the iconic blood bath scene — and turns into a raging, rogue Amazon. Her transformation is the manifestation of darkness consuming and depraving a human being to its primitive essence. It's not just the literal dark that surrounds Sarah but the blackness in her mind that sets in like a ubiquitous and numbing fog. Her pain, love, and fury crystallizing into one potent matter.

Through this carefully built narrative and deft, if extremely gory, execution, Marshall deconstructs man to its bare and primal fundamentals. It’s almost like he’s making a showcase of de-civilization via a survival horror, continuously taking away every facet of human affection, to demonstrate what it takes to survive, to become an animal again. As if he's saying: if we abandon light and let darkness swallow us without fighting for a way out, we might as well let go of everything that makes us human.

Yet, as depressive and forlorn as the movie’s ending is (the original, not the softened American version), I believe Marshall leaves us with a fraction of hope in our species. Sarah might've gone crazy and turned into an unhinged killing machine, but she hasn’t completely lost the core element of what made her human yet. Her love for her daughter remains intact and overtakes her mind in the final moments instead of forcing her to face the harsh reality, which ultimately offers nothing but suffering and death. Though darkness may have won, her light never went out.

Whether the monsters are real or just figments of imagination, they are there to draw a line between man and beast — and to show how easy it is to erase it.

P.S.: I considered including The Descent in my Horror Aughts series, but I believe it’s still such an often-cited and beloved (deservedly) film among horror fans and critics that I thought it wouldn't fit in there perfectly. I wrote about it, anyway. Happy Halloween!

If you made it to the end and enjoyed this essay, please leave a like on it because engagement helps the post get to a larger audience. I always appreciate it.

Flashback: I remember watching the highly-anticipated sequel — highly-anticipated by me, my ex-girlfriend, and half the world who enjoyed being terrorized by a 12-year-old girl with wet hair — The Ring 2 with my childhood friends and laughing a lot. Not the experience I had with Gore Verbinski’s classic remake three years prior, which provided nightmare fuel to my still-developing brain at 13. We were already a few drinks in before I decided to put the movie on, yes, but I doubt the outcome would’ve been any different if we were seeing it stone-cold sober. We wanted scares but settled for laughs — mostly because we couldn’t stop making fun of David Dorfman’s Aidan, the little weirdo protagonist, whose acting came across as a stressed-out middle-aged man stuck in a child’s body.

I mean, look at him (above) with his perfectly combed workday hair and piercing eyes, judging you like an angry, burnout general manager working at Target. He’s creepy and unsettling alright, but not in a ghost-horrory way.

Almost 20 years later, I can confirm that The Ring 2 wasn’t laughable only because we were tipsy. No, Aidan (the character) is one of the weirdest, least likable, and most irritating horror kids that ever graced the silver screen. He's both the hero and the villain, and you simultaneously feel uncomfortable and irked by his slimy presence. Compared to him, Samara (Kelly Stables from Superstore!), the actual ghost of the film, is a doll. That’s somewhat by design as the sequel’s plot, in a nutshell, is Samara returning and wanting her mommy — and to get her (or the next best thing, which is Naomi Watts in this case) she will possess Aidan. What an original premise!

Aidan and Rachel (Watts also reprising her role) basically spend the majority of the movie trying to outrun the weird little girl from the well, who’s now somehow more powerful, yet less mysterious, than was the first time around. Director Hideo Nakata (the man behind the Japanese original and its sequel) must have also been mesmerized, or rather bewitched, by Dorfman’s off-putting performance because he had forgotten what makes a good horror and how to direct one.

Without any palpable suspense or an eerie atmosphere, Nakata unleashes Samara on us about 15 minutes in, like she never went anywhere. Yet you can’t even call most of her recurring appearances jumpscares because that would require setups to have the thinnest chance of scaring the shit out of us. No, she mostly comes and goes without much spooky fanfare, demanding her mommy like a lost kid in a supermarket. It's like Nakata thought that simply knowing her from the first film would channel the same overwhelming dread that Verbinski created around the character. It doesn’t. In fact, Aidan constantly calling his mom Rachel (Racheeeel!) is more disturbing than any scare Samara attempts to lay on us. Sidenote: I can’t believe we didn’t think of turning his frequent shrieks into a drinking game back then, which would’ve made the whole watching experience even more hilarious.

Jokes aside, despite the inept direction and vapid atmosphere, Nakata had some good ideas. He just couldn't maximize them to exploit their full potential. Moments like the raw and intrusive deer attack (deer weren’t overused in horror yet), the bathroom scene with solid CGI, or the heart-pounding finale that brought us back to the infamous well. In 2005, these were pretty gruesome sequences, but it's unsurprising why they have faded over time. They simply lack that visceral, spine-tingling aura that Verbinski captured and capitalized on masterfully before.

Still, regardless of its evident shortcomings compared to the acclaimed first film, moviegoers ate The Ring 2 up like candy. Although the sequel wasn’t as big of a splash hit at the box office as its predecessor, it still ramped up a whopping $163 million worldwide on a $50 million budget. That's quite impressive, whether measured by the cinema standards of the 2000s or today. But I’d be lying if I said this re-watch brought me anything other than shrugs and facepalms. Unless I count my newly developed phobia of kids screaming the name Rachel.

Since it’s Spooky Season, here are some more positive “Horror Aughts” entries that satisfied my itch for nostalgia:

We entered the week of Halloween, so I’ll be bringing a surprise essay about a horror that I love to death. Stay tuned.

The Sopranos is ever-green. I mean that both as a long-time fan and as a TV critic. To this day, dozens of articles come out discussing different aspects and themes of the series, and thousands of conversations take place between those who have watched it (whether for the first or the 20^th time). I bet you right now, someone somewhere is talking about Tony Soprano at this very moment. So this new documentary about the game-changing man and his ground-breaking creation inevitably takes us on a retrospective ride to make you relive its sublime power once again.

In its little less than three-hour runtime across two feature-length episodes, we embrace many of our beloved The Sopranos people (behind and before the camera), sharing anecdotes, observations, behind-the-scenes moments, and most of all, feelings. And those feelings always get me.

Starting with the mandatory biopic stuff that Wise Guy opens with regarding its subject’s life, background, and work drives home a poignant point that many of us already knew: David Chase’s career was pretty uninteresting before and after The Sopranos. I don’t mean that as a meanspirited or belittling comment — I love the man to death with all of his quirks and prickly attitude. Chase grew up an everyday guy with a messy Italian family, leading an average life until he got a chance to make a creatively rich and pioneering masterpiece. The first half of Part I shows us that in detail like many similar docs do, but the real good stuff begins with the raw auditions by actors who didn't get the role they went for.

James Gandolfini’s isn’t among them for a reason. Instead, we watch many of his co-stars who tried for his role to highlight the immense difference he made as the final and only Tony Soprano. Naively, I didn’t expect to get emotional (even though I balled my eyes out on the tribute documentary to Gandolfini at least ten times before), but when he became the anchor of the picture — for being the humble, beloved, kind man he was — I turned into a goddamn wreck.

After 25 years, there’s still an inexplicable appeal in watching this gentle teddy bear of a man who was capable of playing such a vile and brutal gangster on screen. I guess this differs with every fan, but you need to understand that seeing him in The Sopranos for the first time as a teenager in the aughts, we (meaning my childhood friends and I) thought he was the perfect embodiment of masculinity, respect, and vulnerability. To us, he was cool and tough and funny and scary, but also someone with a heart — a conscience, as Chase points out at one point.

There were a million ways to connect with him on an emotional level. That had a lot to do with how Chase wrote the character, but Gandolfini’s nuanced, layered portrayal of him was what really sealed the deal. It felt like we knew Tony even if we barely had anything in common with him (growing up in a small town in Hungary was as far from the New Jersey gangsters as possible). I haven’t entirely understood why was that the case at such a young age, but the older I got and the more I watched the show, the clearer it’s become.

Many of us were Tony in some way. Sometimes, we embraced his worldview, kindness, nostalgic sentimentality, and other times shared his rage, selfishness, and neuroticism. For me, there was a personal component that played into it as well: Gandolfini’s earnest grin and sad eyes resembled my late grandfather. He was a huge, spitfire of a man, too, and when he smiled at you (which wasn't often), it cut to your core. He loved me immensely but didn’t always know how to express it — something that Tony struggled with frequently as well.

In the documentary James Gandolfini: Tribute to a Friend, Michael Imperioli (who played Christopher Moltisanti) said that shooting The Sopranos was like hanging out with your best friends every day. The show mirrored that feeling. The romanticized view of being a mobster — which we were already familiar with after Goodfellas and Casino — was essentially wishful freedom that many men longed for. Just hanging with your buddies all the time, not a care in the world, joking, teasing, having a blast. Doesn’t that sound like a happy childhood? You know, with the exception that you occasionally have to beat up, threaten, blackmail, and kill a few people. Tools of the trade, I guess. Documentarian/director Alex Gibney captures that bond between the cast flawlessly but doesn't shy away from asking the uncomfortable questions that shine a light on the difficult times that came with making a hit like The Sopranos.

That’s where the HBO documentary provides more insight than what we’ve seen before. One of the most poignant ones is how the show's success affected Gandolfini in reality. Through interviews with co-stars, writers, and HBO representatives, Gibney delves into the toxic, dark side of what playing the patriarch meant to the actor. That it often drove him mad to the point where he developed a drinking and drug problem. That he walked out of his own intervention or that he shoved and attacked disrespectful paparazzis. These instances are all the more absorbing because he wasn't like Tony in real life at all, but ended up embodying harmful characteristics as the role grew bigger with him each year.

Wise Guy also lets us in on the creative process (from the writers' and directors' perspective besides the actors’), which emphasizes that Chase wasn’t easy to work with. He doesn’t have a problem admitting that here. Yet the true gem of the extensive interview with him comes from his willingness to reflect on mistakes and explain why he was so strict with writers when it came to introducing fresh ideas (which he often borrowed from his crew’s lives). At 79, he’s still the same disgruntled and neurotic guy he’s always been, incapable of enjoying the moment no matter how great it is, but now he seems to have found closure and peace within himself in a way that wasn’t apparent before.

The best gift of the documentary, above anything else, is how it encapsulates the show’s cultural relevance and legacy in one intimate moment. Besides highlighting The Sopranos' influence and how it propelled television into a new era, we get to see Chase give a eulogy at Gandolfini’s funeral and talk about his heritage as an Italian-American. In his speech, he mentions a specific scene they shot during a humid and hot summer in New Jersey. As he describes the sequence with Gandolfini (which Gibney shows us simultaneously), he reminisces about his family memories and suddenly breaks down crying. It’s not a pivotal scene but one filled with a quiet, familial sentiment that clearly meant a lot to Chase on a personal level. It made him proud of who he was and reassured him that he was in the right place doing exactly what he was supposed to do.

It's rare when a TV show can evoke such a profound, deeply private memory. I believe The Sopranos did that to millions of people repeatedly (regardless of class, race, or gender) all over the world. There are dozens of reasons it’s regarded as one of the best television series ever made, but if I had to pick out one to justify why it holds up tremendously to this day, I’d say it’s because it made us feel and relive something we thought will never happen again. Wise Guy manages to break down why that is and how it all came together — and how The Sopranos became ever-green.

If you made it to the end and enjoyed this essay, please leave a like on it because engagement helps the post get to a larger audience. I always appreciate it.

Since it’s spooky month, last week I reviewed Peacock’s fun teen horror series, Hysteria!, for Den of Geek.

I stopped doing drugs a long time ago because I hated not having control over my body and mind. Blackouts are scary. Memory loss from any drug, including alcohol, put me in a weird place of uncertainty, helplessness, and insecurity. I had wild night-outs where I didn’t remember half of what happened. Once I even watched back a video of it, recorded by a friend, which showed me doing something awkward and stupid that I couldn’t recall at all — even after seeing it with my own eyes. It only happened a few times over many years, but the last one kind of freaked me out, so I made a pledge to myself: never give up control over yourself.

When I began watching Zoe Kravitz’s directorial feature debut, Blink Twice, a few days ago, I had a specific issue with it right at the beginning. You guessed it, it’s about control — and to talk about it in detail, I will spoil some essential plot points of the film, so consider this your spoiler warning.

Every review I’ve read so far of the movie seems to brush off an early key plot point that feels blatantly stupid and impetuous to me. Here it goes: Our two female protagonists, Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat), accept an invitation to a sketchy tech billionaire’s (Channing Tatum) private island, whom they literally just met, without hesitation.

Yeah, sure, they’re a little drunk but still aware that there are numerous allegations about this guy doing heinous, abusive things to people, and he can't seem to stop fake-apologizing on every social media platform. They go with him anyway, to a piece of land in the middle of the freakin’ ocean (where, by the way, phones aren’t allowed) and see what happens. It might be a great time. Or they might get raped. Whatever — shaka shaka. (The movie opens with a trigger warning that tells us upfront we’ll be seeing some sexual assault at one point, so there’s little doubt of what will take place in hell’s paradise).

After the omnipotent #MeToo movement, rampant cancel culture, and several films and TV shows elaborately portraying various sexual exploitations of women by rich men, this plot detail seems… bad? Unrealistic, preposterous, ignorant? I mean, we could argue till dawn about the circumstances and where and how this occurs, but I think it wouldn’t change the outcome. At best, this is a negligible hiccup in the script. You go along with it to see how the whole fiasco unfolds. At worst, it's a vital and consequential choice that hugely impacts the rest of the film by making the female protagonists slightly unlikable and near-impossible to root for.

It’s 2024, not 20 years ago. Today, women are cognizant, smart, and particularly cautious around men with power (and in general). Because if they aren’t, if they’re so desperate and hungry for success, wealth, and the attention of a billionaire that they’re willing to submit control and put their lives at risk, they inevitably have to face the ramifications of their actions. Frida and Jess give up control freely and voluntarily when they say yes to Tatum’s charming yet empty forest-green eyes. They get on a private plane with affluent men they don't know to fly to a remote place they've never been to or heard of before. Whatever happens after that — every single horrific thing they don’t consent to — stems from that one pivotal choice they made earlier.

For argument’s sake, let’s flip this premise. What if two poor, young, hot guys had followed a mysterious, sexy, and high-powered woman to a private place owned and ruled by her and her people because they can’t resist pussy, free drugs, and luxury. Would you feel sorry for them if they’d get tortured and perhaps killed for the entertainment of a few bored and psycho women? No, you'd think, "These dudes had it coming." But in the opposite scenario we see in Blink Twice, Frida, Jess and all the other women become victims. And they are victims — but not only victims of the preying, narcissistic pricks that secretly (and then openly) drug them to make them forget about the raping they suffer every night, but of their own carelessness and irresponsibility.

There’s a scene halfway through where Frida and her newly-found ally Sarah (Adria Arjona) figure out what’s happening — why they seem to be forgetting all the violent desecrations that take place when the sun goes down. Sarah says, “What’s crazy is that we got onto a plane with a bunch of dudes we don’t know. What the fuck were we thinking?” It’s the first time Kravitz (who co-wrote the script) forces her characters to reckon with their own dubious choices.

Though it's a moment of realization that's short-lived and quickly dismissed — just like that acceptance of the invitation at the start — it's a crucial acknowledgment of recklessness from Kravitz. She's aware of how this looks from the viewer's chair and momentarily highlights that her feature may serve as a cautionary tale of how to avoid a dangerous situation rather than tell you what to do when you find yourself in it. This isn’t the main focus of the movie at all, but the fact that Kravitz addresses it in her satirical, creepy-funny way reassures us of her competence and confidence as a conscientious storyteller.

There are snippets of this awareness throughout the film, carefully tucked into its stylish visual grandeur, but if you blink too fast (or twice, sorry) you might miss them. For better or worse, Kravitz opts to go in a more sensational and thrill-oriented direction, following the well-trodden path that films like Promising Young Woman, The Menu, and Triangle of Sadness carved out in recent years. Blink Twice works as efficiently as any of those (and it’s a lot of vicious fun) — turning female empowerment and alliance into a razor-sharp feminist satire — but because of that, it misses out on the opportunity to provide a fresh and more profound message.

And even though the bonkers bloodbath of its finale is all about taking revenge on perverted scumbags, most of the women can’t get to escape the consequence of their wrong decisions. I’m unsure of how much of this was a conscious choice on Kravitz’s part, and how much was in service of ramping up the gore, but it oddly feels fair and justifiable that there are casualties on both sides. There are no innocents here or victorious heroes. In the end, whoever fights the hardest (and smartest) to take back control and never let it go again wins. Whether you'll still like them or not by then, that’s a different question.

Last week, I reviewed Netflix’s new animated series, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, which failed to capture why many of us fell in love with games. Also, since Halloween is right around the corner, I’ll be reviewing Peacock’s upcoming teen horror show, Hysteria, on Den of Geek soon. Horror Aughts will also continue, I promise.

As always, thanks for reading The Screen — and please share it if you can:

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There’s a moral lesson in J.C. Lee’s Bad Genius (the 2024 American remake of the celebrated 2017 Thai original) that could be interpreted in multiple ways. The most prevalent one is that as an immigrant in America, or in any country, you have two options to make it. (1), You can work yourself to death, and sacrifice your own health and dreams in order to provide for you and your family. (2), You can hustle, use your smarts to take advantage of others, and exploit wealth and capitalism for your benefit.

As a heist movie, Bad Genius focuses mostly on the latter for obvious reasons but also makes an interesting case for how the lines between right and wrong blur when you have the gift of a super brain.

Lynn (Callina Liang) is an academic high school prodigy. She’s top of her class, a state crossword puzzle champion, and a math genius. All of this is emphasized by her working-class father (Benedict Wong) when he talks to a prestigious private school’s principal early on. Lynn is well aware that they can't afford tuition. But to their surprise, the principal lady offers them a scholarship that she happily accepts. The first sign of trouble arrives in the form of a rich White girl (doesn’t it always?) called Grace (Taylor Hickson), who needs help crossing her exams. And by help I mean someone she can use to cheat.

At first, Lynn feels hesitant about the idea but eventually gives in. It’s not the worst way to make friends at a new school, not to mention getting in the good graces of Grace and her clique. Lynn just wants to belong — plus the adrenaline rush she gets a taste of is also exciting (many of us, including me, know that feeling better than we’d like to admit). From then on, things escalate quickly once Grace introduces Lynn to her well-to-do jock boyfriend Pat (Samuel Braun), who immediately sees an opportunity there. His social circle is full of wealthy students who'd pay some serious cash to pass exams easily. Lynn buys into the idea and develops a system of hand signals (based on her excellent piano knowledge) with which she can communicate the right answers during tests.

It’s a success, so her “clientele” grows as much as her popularity. But we know, since the movie tells us early on, it’s only a matter of time until she gets caught. When she does, it leaves her with two choices: go back to being a good girl or refine the cheating scheme and confront the snitch who turned her in.

Despite its relatively low stakes, Bad Genius is pretty clever about delivering its thrills. Like any good heist movie, it offers a fascinating and detailed deconstruction of its central scheme and how Lynn and her accomplices bring it to fruition through hard work and practice. Think of the usual fast-paced montages and sharp edits, mandatory plot twists (betrayals!), and intense interrogation scenes. They are all here, functioning as well as they’re supposed to while the emotional beats of the script make sure you also care about the main characters and invest in what happens to them throughout.

Where Bad Genius eventually falters and loses some of its credibility is the final and biggest stunt Lynn and Co. attempt to pull off with mixed results. On the one hand, it’s an impressive and highly elaborate third act, real edge-of-your-seat stuff, that we see them plan, execute, and improvise upon when things go wrong (and they do, catastrophically). On the other, it makes you wonder if these kids had put the same level of effort into studying as they did into cheating, they might as well just passed the test naturally. Then, of course, there would be no film to watch.

But what works, regardless of whether or not you turn on the suspension-of-disbelief button in your head, is the movie’s portrayal of class differences, wealth and poverty, and the moral conclusions it leaves you with. In the end, the corruption of power, affluence, and those who wield it will still look as ugly and sickening as it always does because that's how the world and society function. The rich exploit the poor because they can. But sometimes the poor deftly outmaneuver and defeat the rich without losing their moral integrity and freedom. And that will always make for a satisfying watch.

Bad Genius premieres in the U.S. on October 11th and will be available to stream on Paramount+ and Mubi from October 17th.

As some of you might’ve noticed, on The Screen’s website, there’s a new tab on the navigation bar called “Premium Posts.” It’s an ever-growing library of my new and old work that’s exclusively available for paid subscribers. Take a peek and consider upgrading if you can afford to support my work. Thank you.

When we are introduced to one of Disclaimer’s most memorable protagonists, Steven Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), early on in Chapter I, we can sense a sort of inner decay manifesting. It's not clear what it is yet, or where it comes from, but we can almost see how this miserable man’s soul is rotting and dying inside. The clues speak for themselves: he’s a listless and resigned private school teacher who goes home to an empty apartment in London every day. A place that used to be a happy one, but now it only breathes grief and loneliness since Brigstocke first lost his beloved son, and then, as a consequence, his wife many years ago. Now, he’s giving Nancy’s (Lesley Manville) clothes to charity and the painful memories of a long-ago life are rushing back to him. He’s got a story to tell that you’ll never forget.

This is one of several perspectives in Alfonso Cuaron’s latest psychological thriller, based on Renee Knight’s novel of the same name, a non-linear puzzle of interconnected stories broken into small segments that keep crossing each other. It’s a seemingly odd and confusing storytelling approach at first, but by the end of the first episode, we can piece together a narrative rooted in a tragedy that had a long and devastating effect on everyone involved.

The adversary to Kline’s Brigstocke is Cate Blanchett’s Catherine Ravenscroft, a prestigious documentary journalist with a loving husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and a troubled twentysomething son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Catherine’s idyllic life is upended by a novel she receives in the mail that uncannily recounts a horrible event that happened to her on an Italian vacation decades ago. The book might seem like a work of fiction, but she knows it’s not — it’s about her, and not in a good way. She buried that memory and kept it secret from everyone for so long because if the truth came out, she’s convinced, it could ruin her professional and personal life. What happens in the book is told through flashbacks from a young British man’s point of view, which mysteriously coincides with Catherine’s haunting past.

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I always had a problem with Jeepers Creepers. I’ve only seen it once, sometime in the mid-aughts, and it stayed with me as an “all bark, no bite” teen horror — a mild but memorable disappointment. Being 14-15 at the time, I had no concept of what low-budget horror really meant, or that building suspense and creating an eerie atmosphere with unique production design were more vital in making or breaking a scary movie than simple tools like jump scares and gore.

Having already seen trendsetting torture-porn milestones like the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saw and nerve-wracking PG-13 masterpieces like The Ring and The Others, JC was too tame and basic to truly shock me back then. But I’m here to admit that I was wrong. For what it wanted to be at the time, Victor Salva's cult flick accomplished most of its goals — even if I thought it was an overrated teen horror until now. I’ll tell you why it’s not.

Despite working on a relatively low $10 million budget, with a group of actors who were nowhere near A-list stars (JC has basically kickstarted Justin Long’s career), Salva was uncharacteristically ambitious for a 43-year-old filmmaker. This might've had something to do with his personal life, doing prison time in his 30s, but we’ll come back to that later. At that point in the director’s career, he’d made four features (none particularly outstanding but two commercial successes), and only two of them were horrors. His track record didn't indicate he was going to burst onto the teen horror landscape with something like Jeepers Creepers, but he clearly knew what he was doing.

Everything in how the movie's plot unfolds suggests that Salva had a rock-solid plan to execute, aware of the limitations he had to overcome (using minimal CGI and a ton of practical effects) while working on a tight budget. In essence, JC runs on well-placed teen horror signposts, using traditional clichés to smoothly push the protagonists in the direction they’re supposed to go.

We follow Darry (Long) and Trish (Gina Philips), two obnoxious and bickering siblings, on a road trip together in a battered Chevy Impala when a menacing pick-up truck nearly runs them off the road. They freak out, naturally, but when they later see the truck’s creepy driver unloading what looks like dead bodies wrapped in sheets into a metal pipe leading underground, their curiosity gets the better of them. They have to check out what the deal is with that pipe.

Now, this is where most people shit on JC, saying that no person in real life (and in their right mind) would ever do that, which I completely agree with. It’s a dumb move, but I believe Salva did that intentionally, using the characters’ stupidity as a core element often seen in most teen horrors. It's no coincidence the genre is generally looked down upon and criticized heavily. Yet looking back now and considering what comes after the pipe fiasco, I think the film’s dumbness has become part of its charm. From that scene on, it’s evident that Salva's script has no intention to be smart or realistic. He’s deliberately aiming to play into all the nonsensical behavior. It's all camp, baby. Strap in and enjoy the ride.

I mean, if you’re a horror lover (and a Millennial), you’re pretty much aware that JC doesn’t really want to frighten or disturb as much as deliver D-U-M-B fun to entertain through a familiar set of horror tropes. Darry and Trish do check out the pipe, manage to fall into it, and discover a cave plastered with manually sewn-together corpses. We know, it’s only a matter of time until the Big Bad Creeper comes after them and an old psychic lady turns up to tell them (and us) all about the backstory of this inhuman creature. Even in 2001, this was a well-trodden path and Salva chose it for a reason. He tweaked a few things, came up with his own lore, and gave us a mostly original villain, but he was undoubtedly following an established and proven formula.

Where he deserves extra credit, though, is creating a suspenseful, lived-in atmosphere through skillful direction. His use of lighting, attention to detail in vital frames, and the gradually intensifying pace are all crucial to making JC effective and fluid. Still, I'd argue the best features that made it a popular flick were Steven Legler’s deliciously nasty production design and the makeup department’s triumphant effort to assemble a viscerally captivating monster. Jonathan Brack’s Creeper is a morbid and perverted weirdo — every bit as funny as chilling — who totally steals the second half once he’s given more screen time to fool around. I mean, his tongue action with decapitated heads, Jackie Chan-like spins in the air, and heart-ripping “magic tricks” are the most hysterical moments in the movie by far.

Now, given that Salva is a registered sex offender who served 19 months for child molestation in the late 80s, grooming and then having sex with a boy who starred in his first feature (which is appalling and gross, but I’ll have to try to separate the artist from the art) it’s difficult to genuinely praise anything made by him. And for the record, let’s make it clear that Jeepers Creepers was (and is) no masterpiece by any standards. It’s an enjoyable yet not-outstanding-in-any-way early aughts horror that found an audience loyal enough to go on and spawn two sequels (in 2003 and 2017) with varying results. Still, you can’t take away the franchise-starter’s impressive box office numbers, garnering over $59 million worldwide, and how it wrote itself into horror history. Plus, due to its practical effects, makeup, and twisted humor, I have to say that Jeepers Creepers stood the test of time, and even changed how I felt about it for 20 years.

From now on, I’ll try to stick to a publishing schedule so you can expect posts on Monday/Tuesday or Friday/Saturday. One (and occasionally two) newsletter a week, tops.

You can find every entry of the Horror Aughts column here. As always, thanks for reading and supporting The Screen.

From next month, I'll be unemployed. I wish I had better news to kick off this post with, but it’s the stone-cold truth. I'm losing my part-time job which made roughly 50 percent of my monthly income. On top of that, I was told a few days ago that a magazine I regularly write for is shutting down its TV section completely (another loss of revenue). It sucks, but it is what it is. I have a plan in motion to survive until the end of the year and not bleed too much money while I'm out of employment. Also, there's probably a life-altering change on the horizon for me as I've been thinking about leaving the UK for quite a while. This is my not-ideal but opportune chance to finally take that step — even if it seems terrifying. There are a lot of details I need to work out to make it happen, and I won't bore you with them.

But I’d like to turn this unfavorable situation into something positive, too. What that means for The Screen is that I'll start creating some content only for paid subscribers. I'm aware that this is less-than-ideal at this point, and I wanted to keep my newsletter entirely free as long as possible but time and circumstance forced me into making this decision. It'll be a slow transition, and 90 percent of my posts will remain free and available to everyone.

I’ll begin with one paid-sub-only piece per month, which is going to be randomly chosen by me. Sometimes, it will be an exclusive review of a TV show or movie before the release, other times, it will be a personal essay like this one or an entry in a regular column like my Horror Aughts series. And maybe, occasionally, a podcast episode. I want my readers to still have access to all types of writing that I publish here, so you’ll always get a taste of the kind of stuff that I write.

I also need you to know that every penny I make from this newsletter literally goes to paying rent, buying food, and surviving in general. Just to not find my ass out on the street one day. So whether you become a paid member for a month or a year, it'll always be an immense help for me, regardless. Whatever you can afford will be my lifeline — and if you can’t, I understand that, too.

Bringing this to an end, as soon as this post goes live, yearly subscriptions will be on sale at $30 by the end of December. Monthly membership remains at $5, as always. The first paywalled post comes in October. Here’s the option to upgrade to become a paid member:

Thank you for supporting and reading The Screen. It means the world to me.

About five years ago, I went to a private gastroenterologist after months of suffering from constant, discomforting stomach pains. Following a thorough examination and bloodwork, the results were inconclusive, rather speculative, and the pills I got prescribed were a different version of a medication that I’ve taken before with no solution. Ultimately, the doctor said that there was nothing really wrong with me. “But I’m still in pain,” I said. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she responded on the phone after discussing all of my test results, “you’re having bad symptoms from a generally harmless disease that 9 out of 10 people never experience.” She was the third professional who couldn’t offer any help in treating what I had.

When I explained this to my dad on the phone, he became angry. “I should’ve been there to tell her that isn’t good enough.” As we talked more, both of us vexed and disappointed, about what could be done next, he was suddenly overcome with emotion. Something I rarely witnessed in 30 years. His deep and masculine voice started trembling. It was the first time in my life that I heard him verbally express worry about my physical well-being. There was a long pause on his end of the line. He couldn't talk because he was crying. Then he said quietly, "I don't know what I would do if you got worse."

It took every cell in my body not to choke up and break down balling. I had to console my father about my agony and reassure him that I wouldn't give up until I found a remedy — or someone who could actually diagnose and treat what I had, even though I sought help in two separate countries at that point. It was one of those rare occasions when my dad managed to articulate his love for me.

The reason I’m telling you this is because watching Robert Redford’s 1980 Oscar-winning feature Ordinary People — a blind spot of mine that I haven’t seen until now and likely couldn’t have appreciated as much seeing it younger — kept reminding me of that conversation. Of what pure parental love means on the giving and receiving end. I found it astonishing how a straightforward movie from nearly 45 years ago sustained its emotional resonance and remained potent and relatable through several generations.

Redford's film has a universal way to suck you into its melancholy, autumnal drama even if you have virtually nothing in common with its protagonists, the Jarretts, a well-to-do suburban American family. That’s partly due to Donald Sutherland’s tremendously moving performance as Calvin Jarrett, a good husband and caring dad of his son Conrad (played by a sensitive Timothy Hutton), who attempted suicide after losing his brother in a boat accident. The aftermath of the tragedy they’re going through immediately hits home because its portrayal is earnest, empathetic, and, most of all, devastating to every human being.

They all react to death very differently. Conrad blames himself, believing he could’ve prevented it somehow. Calvin's grief turns him into an extra tender and overprotective parent of the only child he has left. The mother, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore superbly tackling the most ungrateful role of the film), pretends she’s already dealt with it and carries on by building the image of a perfect, happy family. To some extent, they’re all lying to themselves to avoid facing the reality of how this tragedy inevitably changes them as a family unit.

As the movie starts, none of them knows how to articulate or even acknowledge their harboring emotions. Conrad is the only one willing to change that by seeing a therapist (Judd Hirsch). He doesn’t want to be there and hates every excruciating moment talking about what happened and how he feels about it. Yet he keeps going because he knows his dad wants him to and because the constant nightmares and haunting trauma he has to deal with every day are overwhelming and unbearable. The shift he desperately longs for comes slowly — through understanding and learning, figuring out how to communicate the feelings of guilt that weigh him down — and inadvertently affects his parents, too. By seeing what he’s going through, Calvin and Beth reluctantly realize their family can no longer function the way it used to. Not without identifying and treating the problems in their own complicated relationship. The question is whether their marriage can survive the truth if they expose their feelings about each other.

My parents and I have never been an “I love you” family. What I mean by this is that we don’t feel the urge to say those words out loud every time we hang up the phone or part ways, let alone in the middle of a mundane conversation. I can't even think of a standard scenario that justified blurting that phrase out. By default, we collectively believe that our actions and behavior around each other should express the love we feel. For some reason, we’ve always found it pretentious and inconvenient to verbally articulate affirmations (our native tongue is Hungarian, which may have something to do with it).

I can't pinpoint when it began, but lately, my father started saying "I love you" on the phone every time we said goodbye. At first, I didn't respond to it. It felt weird and uncomfortable because I'd never done it before — at least not to my family. I had no idea how to react to it. I don’t know if he started it because he’s getting older or something in particular happened to him, but he still does it today.

So, after a while, I gave it a shot. I repeated it back to him, even if it was strange. I thought, "How could it be wrong to reciprocate my love for my own father by articulating it, especially if he initiated it?” Then I wondered what a cold and weirdo nation we are that we can’t even feel comfortable giving the simplest form of affirmation to the people we love the most. It’s the foundation of every healthy relationship: The very base of developing a connection and trust to later be able to confide in a person about the heaviest and most difficult things we can feel as human beings. I love you, too, dad. How can something so simple and easy be so hard? It's not. Say it. See? A few words that can mean a world as much to you as to the person you’re saying it to.

The Jarretts (especially Beth) think their love for each other is implied. Always present. There’s no need to express it verbally because it’s constantly there, hidden in all the everyday conversations, and assumed at any given moment. But it’s dangerous to assume a feeling that hasn’t been exquisitely communicated in a long time, if ever. Love can fade and weaken and turn into something else over time, particularly if not nurtured repeatedly. You need reassurance: a hug, a smile, a kiss on the cheek. But even so, none of those is as clear as a warm and heartfelt confession in your own words.

There's a scene in the film's second act where Calvin visits Conrad's psychiatrist, even though he doesn't believe in therapy. He's nervous and can’t seem to find an explanation for being there. Words let him down. But there’s a reason, he just doesn’t know what it is yet. He respects the doctor-patient confidentiality and doesn’t pry by asking the man how his son is doing. It takes him a few minutes, but Calvin slowly realizes he’s there to talk about himself. To figure out his own complex emotions and, almost accidentally, he starts talking about his marriage and his wife’s inability to show tenderness for their son. Conrad knows this already, but it's the first time Calvin actually admits the sad truth to himself. After that, he opens up like he’s never done before and finds a harrowing but crucial revelation: his wife is emotionally closed off in a way that might be unchangeable.

We see this over and over again: Beth is afraid to talk about her feelings — whether they are about his beloved dead son or Conrad, who she never loved as much — because she's terrified of what she might find. Or the complete lack of profound emotions. By the end of Ordinary People, Calvin learns that his wife is no longer the woman and mother he’s been loving for 21 years. Their son’s death changed everything, and Beth can’t adjust to a new reality in which her family is broken and incomplete. She can’t give anymore because all of her love has been buried along with her child.

In the penultimate scene, Calvin finally confronts Beth and asks if she really loves him. She replies, “I feel the way I’ve always felt about you.” He knows there and then that their marriage is probably over. Even in such a vulnerable and desperate moment, watching her husband crying alone in the dark, Beth is unable to say the words Calvin needs to hear. She doesn't have it in her, and it's heartbreaking because Sutherland gives everything he has in his repertoire to the scene, and you feel every ounce of his character's pain — it fills his teary, sorrowful eyes.

The following morning, Conrad finds his dad in the backyard, staring into nothing. He knows something's wrong, and when he asks him, he gets visibly upset. Calvin tells him the truth about his mom leaving, and the two connect in an intimate way they never have before. Father and son finally find the words that matter most, charged with truth and honesty, and they aren't afraid to say them. From his child, Calvin gets what his wife couldn't give him just a few hours ago: a genuine expression of love.

Over four decades in, Ordinary People is still compelling and remarkable because it conveys a delicate emotional intelligence that rings true regardless of race, class, ethnicity, or gender. It speaks a language that everyone knows but only a few use regularly. And by doing so, it reminds us how important it is to stay fluent in articulating what we feel about the people we care about the most. That speaking up is always worth it, even if it hurts like hell the first time.

Last week, I reviewed Max’s The Penguin, a full-blown gangster drama in the DC universe, for Looper. I also wrote about the latest entry in the American Story franchise, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, for Paste. The former has already turned into unmissable appointment TV, while the latter is kind of destined to be discovered over time.

As always, thanks for reading and supporting The Screen.

You never forget your first Alexandre Aja horror. Mine was the mean and appallingly brutal Haute Tension (unnecessarily retitled Switchblade Romance) at a time when I had no clue that French horror auteurs were freaking insane. I wasn’t familiar with New Extremity Films (or the Splat Pack), and Aja’s ruthless slasher was a shocking introduction to the subgenre. The arousing, uncompromising, and over-the-top brutality felt new and bold in a way that immediately touched my gore-loving heart, and I wanted to see more of the same.

Mirrors followed Aja’s best work, the merciless remake of The Hills Have Eyes, and by then, I was already a fan. Though his second remake (based on the South Korean Into the Mirror) might be the weakest of the three he made, it’s another unapologetically vicious and characteristic vision of the writer-director, which aged far better than one would expect. There are just not many horrors today that open with a man slitting his own throat in front of a mirror, committing to a raw ultra-violence right from the bat that instantly defines the approach of a story that you’re about to see unfold. Aja was never one to mislead or bait his audience.

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“Hey, man, I haven’t done anything wrong,” says Terry (Aaron Pierre stepping up his game as lead), a Black man sitting inside of a Louisiana police car, to two White officers searching his belongings. Just moments earlier, he was on his way riding a bike to post bail for his cousin in detainment, in Shelby Springs, when a police vehicle crashed into him from behind for no reason. Then they cuffed him, emptied his backpack, and decided to take the $36, 000 he had there in the name of a legal framework called Civil Asset Forfeiture. Cops can do that on an assumption that this money comes from, or is somehow involved in a criminal activity. No proof required. It's wrong, ridiculous, and infuriating but nevertheless legit — and they’re the law.

This is how Jeremy Saulnier’s new Netflix action thriller Rebel Ridge kicks off — an unmistakable homage to First Blood — with the intent to elicit the same reaction from every viewer: anger. Saulnier wants you to feel the rage that rises inside Terry rapidly coursing through your veins like snake venom. In this day and age, no matter who you are and what country you live in, witnessing police brutality and abusing their power will put you on tilt immediately. There’s nothing more enraging than injustice and undue treatment of an innocent person. Saulnier is an expert at pushing the right buttons to gain maximum suspense from such a situation — a foundation that every one of his previous films was built on.

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From its very first scene, Osgood Perkins's third horror feature, Longlegs, heavily relies on our knowledge of serial killers — both real and fictional. The writer-director aims to evoke our memories and fandom of genre favorites like Seven, Zodiac, and The Silence of the Lambs since they all play a role in setting up a narrative that tricks us into thinking we know the type of film we’re watching. We don’t. Every familiar plot element — the obsessed FBI agent, the obscure messages left by the killer, the hidden clues — helps fabricate a disguise that Longlegs dons like a slick cape of dread and terror until its final chapter. It’s all a façade. A masterfully executed pastiche that deludes our senses and prevents us from figuring out where all this twisted nightmare is going before the time is right.

When we learn early on who Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) is, he’s already a fully formed monster. He’s been doing what he’s doing for over 30 years. His MO is established: he kills without killing, a slight resemblance (dare I say “homage”) to Charles Manson. The hunt to catch him is well underway when we join Maika Monroe’s intuitive Agent Harker in the investigation. Regardless, Longlegs is still an unsolved puzzle — thanks to Cage’s unhinged and berserk performance — but there’s something palpably off about his possible motive, identity, and the belief that drives him. Something just doesn’t feel natural in the way that we are used to stories unfolding about deranged murderers.

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James Wong’s Final Destination was always a go-to-movie among Millennials in the aughts. A perfect intersection to connect with other horror buffs you just met because everybody saw it and knew it. It was one of those films — not the scariest, goriest, or most disturbing of anything but wildly popular — you had to see at least once to cross it off your list. To be able to say: “Of course I’ve seen it.” That was no feat but a simple proclamation that you knew your stuff and were up to date with contemporary/trendy horrors. For a brief moment (emphasis on brief), FD was somewhat like the Scream of the ‘00s. Though we all knew it was mid-tier at best, a sort of gateway drug to the real fucked-up stuff that came after it, we always appreciated the fun and game-y aspect it brought to the Movie Nights you hosted for friends when your parents weren’t around.

No doubt, 24 years later, Final Destination is still an outrageously dumb splatter but one that hasn't lost its dark sense of humor. You can’t not laugh at its artificial drama, sweating bullets to find something solid to grab onto during the first 30 minutes. The plot’s in-your-face omens couldn't get more obvious otherwise they'd gauge your eyes out. That said, the build-up to the ominous plane crash and its aftermath is still a fitting and surprisingly effective intro for a horror of its kind.

Everything happens in motion: the characters say or do something immature and stupid so we can immediately clock what stereotype they’re representing (the macho, the hot girl, the idiot, the weirdo, the slightly sensitive hero, etc.), while the upcoming catastrophe inches a little closer with every scene. The dialogue and the acting may be atrocious at times, but you can’t accuse FD of not having a reliable structure and sticking to it all the way. And once you get through the mandatory setup that establishes the rules of Death’s Design (and lays down the foundation of the franchise for many sequels to follow), that’s when the dumb fun truly kicks off.

I could give you a detailed plot description here, but I feel like it'd be redundant at this point. Everyone knows the gist: Death is after a handful of characters, mostly teenagers, to kill them with freak and outlandish "accidents" once they miraculously avoid getting whacked the first time they were meant to die. As Tony Todd’s iconic Death Xpert™ tells us in his show-stealing cameo, “In death, there are no accidents. We’re all just a mouse that a cat has by the tail.” So our hero, Alex (Devon Sawa aka Stan from Eminem's famous song and music video), and some of his classmates he “saved” spend the rest of the movie trying to outsmart Death with marginal success — and we are the beneficiaries of every failed attempt.

What I certainly give Final Destination credit for as one of its greatest strengths is how naturally it evokes a suspension of disbelief in the viewer. We instantly go along with the bonkers and highly implausible kills because they aren’t just part of the game but the reason this feature turns into a helluva thrill ride. Constantly guessing where the Grim Reaper’s proverbial scythe will blast down from has such an intense entertainment factor that I’m hardly shocked they made five of these films with the same premise — and the first one isn't even the best entry. Wong fills the finest moments of his flick with the kind of self-aware suspense that you know is contrived and insincere but can’t wait to see how it builds to a grisly and blood-soaked climax.

In essence, Final Destination preys on our curiosity and inability to turn away from the most horrific and harrowing accidents that sometimes happen in front of our eyes IRL. But here, the violence and excessive gore are all part of the design, and the script runs with them as far as possible. It does so with some deliciously vile, and at times low-key creative, instances where heads and arteries pop off like overgrown pimples ready to burst. Kitchen knives, buses, and bathtubs become unlikely killing machines. Yet one of the most nail-biting scenes in FD happens to be the most predictable one: the car parked on the railroad tracks. You’ve seen it a hundred times elsewhere, but Wong somehow ramps up the tension so ridiculously high and past its boiling point that the eventual beheading becomes a stone-cold killer (literally).

If there's one thing to complain about from today's perspective, it's that FD doesn’t offer enough wacky death scenes to watch unfold — which the following installments definitely tried fixing by upping their kill counts. Instead, there’s a lot of filler and some dim drama with characters that have no depth to portray genuinely complex feelings other than being terrified and paranoid about their potentially lethal surroundings.

Despite its glaring flaws, however, Final Destination remains solid, if admittedly schlocky, entertainment as an early aughts horror that blew up the box office (making over $112 million on a $23 million budget) over two decades ago. That couldn't happen today for various reasons, but there's no debate about whether the movie earned its place among the most popular and talked about horrors during the 2000s. (And what do you know, its sixth sequel is already in the works to premiere in 2025.) As for me, I can't deny I had a great time revisiting this piece of history and, if you were into it back then, too, I'd imagine you’d have a similar experience. So, have at it!

You can find the first entry of the Horror Aughts column here. As always, thanks for reading and supporting The Screen.