F This Movie!

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 7 Nov 2026 02:00:00 -0600

2026 Screener Season Round-Up Part 1

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 6 Nov 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Rob DiCristino

It’s that time of year again!

November is upon us, which means it’s time for studios to make their cases to the cinematic intelligentsia for What Was Good in 2026. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be filing dispatches from under the metric fuck-ton of films being presented For My — and by extension, Your — Consideration. Some are on VOD now, some are currently in theaters, and some have release dates forthcoming. Check your local listings. Let’s get started:

Fjord (Dir. Cristian Mungiu)

Romanian New Wave auteur Cristian Mungiu’s Palm d’Or winner is the Platonic ideal of awards season fare, a layered and thought-provoking legal drama about the Gheorghius family (headed by an unrecognizable Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, who’s apparently bound by law to star in anything Scandinavian), immigrant Evangelical Christians who find themselves facing child abuse charges that may be motivated by religious intolerance. With little sympathy coming from their secular community — excepting Mia (Lisa Carlehed), a neighboring attorney who takes on their case — the Gheorghius clan forms an uneasy alliance with an extremist group that rallies international support for their plight. There’s a real elegance to the way Mungiu keeps his loyalties oblique in Fjord, rarely tipping his hand toward what’s actually motivating the state’s infringement on religious liberty. A culture-clash story sure to infuriate liberals and conservatives alike, Fjord comes to conclusions as cold and gray as the snowbound landscapes of its setting.

Fatherland (Dir. Paweł Pawlikowski)

Speaking of which, Ida and Cold War director Paweł Pawlikowski presents another ponderous, grayscale examination of Europe’s self-inflicted misery with Fatherland, a post-World War II biopic about renowned author and German expat Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his children, Erika (Sandra Hüller) and Klaus (August Diehl). The film follows Thomas on a publicity tour through capitalist West Germany and its socialist neighbor to the east, with both sides vying to claim the Goethe Prize-winner as the spiritual voice of their new nation. Shot in Pawlikowski’s usual Academy Ratio and framed with a disaffected verticality that feels either hauntingly still or insufferably pretentious — depending on your sensibilities — Fatherland parallels the Manns’ uncomfortable return to the country they had once forsaken with their desperate search for artistic, political, and existential renewal. Pawlikowski veterans may be frustrated by his familiar, “if it ain’t broke” approach, but that shouldn’t distract from the power and resonance of his work.

Never After Dark (Dir. Dave Boyle)

Here’s a fun one for those of us who aren’t yet ready to let go of #ScaryMovieMonth: What if The Shining was J-Horror? What if Ti West made Ghostbusters? What if the third act of Last Action Hero was actually good? Those are just a few — possibly insane — ways to describe Never After Dark, director Dave Boyle’s haunted house thriller about a young medium (Moeka Hoshi as Airi) who shares more kinship with the dead than with the living. Perpetually haunted by the ghost of her sister (Kurumi Inagaki, whose Miku remains an eternal tween despite being born first), Airi is hired by Gunji and Teiko (Tae Kimura and Kento Kaku) to exercise a spirit from the halls of their hotel (which, incidentally, is a dead ringer for The Overlook). When Airi discovers that it’s actually the specter of a serial killer, she’ll have to cross space, time, and dimensions to save innocent souls — including her own. Boyle’s staging is clever and confident, keeping his wild cocktail of horror tropes and traditions on rails through an exceptionally fun and bloody conclusion.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Dir. Noah Segan)

Let’s switch gears to a cozy, ‘70s-style crime caper from veteran character actor Noah Segan, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. John Turturro stars as Harry Lehman — just an outstanding movie name, by the way — an OG pickpocket struggling to support his disabled wife (Karina Arroyave) and practice his analog craft in our Information Age. Harry hasn’t lost a step in forty years, but it’s a lot harder for his fence (Steve Buscemi as Ben) to move new watches, credit cards, and cell phones now that they’re all AirTagged and password-protected. Even his longtime frenemy, Detective Warren (Turturro’s Do the Right Thing nemesis, Giancarlo Esposito), has to admit that the times, they are a-changin’. When Harry inadvertently swipes a crypto card from a cocky mob princeling (Will Price), he finds himself in an unavoidable collision between tradition and modernity. A trench coat-clad Turturro gives a stunning, elegiac performance, while Segan’s vibrant New York photography is a soothing balm for the usual overcompressed, oversaturated mainstream slop.

Carolina Caroline (Dir. Adam Carter Rehmeier)

Finally, my Spotlight Showcase pick this week is Carolina Caroline, Adam Carter Rehmeier’s Southern Gothic spin on Bonnie and Clyde. The writer/director of FTM favorite Snack Shack — as well as the underseen Dinner in America — brings his deep-fried Americana flavor to a crime thriller that finds Samara Weaving’s Caroline falling in love with a young confidence man named Oliver (Rehmeier stalwart Kyle Gallner). Caroline’s looking for a way out of dead-end Texas, and Oliver — a gentleman thief whose devil-may-care exterior masks an egalitarian sensitivity — wants to teach her all the tricks of his trade. Carolina Caroline isn’t as interested in reinventing the “lovers on the run” wheel as it is in demonstrating the magic a master chef can conjure with even the most basic ingredients. Rehmeier’s latest uses a classic premise to its advantage, luring us into a false sense of security before spinning us ‘round like one of its heroes’ unlucky marks. Rehmeier may still be on the indie fringes, but make no mistake: He’s one of our best up-and-comers.

Friday Night Double Features Vol. 72

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 5 Nov 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley

Ten new double features to ease you from Scary Movie Month into the holiday season!

Double Feature 1:

Adam: #1: One Good Cop (1991)
Patrick: #2: In the Line of Fire (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Major League, Lethal Weapon 3, Freejack
Patrick: Theme: Supporting Russos

Patrick: I know you’re starting November off watching Buddy (#ListentothePodcast), a rare lead turn from Renee Russo, but I thought I’d kick off our doubles this month with some of her supporting performances. I know I’ve seen One Good Cop, but I don’t remember it. Should I rewatch it? I was originally going to pair it with one of the movies from the trailer block but then I landed on the idea of pairing all of your 1991 picks with movies from ‘93, hence In the Line of Fire. That’s a good movie but not really one of my Clints. I do like Renee Russo in it. I know we are both big fans of her. What made you want to go all ‘91?

Adam: I’ve never seen One Good Cop but have always wanted to. I was in on anything Michael Keaton after Batman, so I really wanted to see OGC back when it was released but when I heard it wasn’t great (at least according to critics) I sort of ignored it after that. It was a real The Marrying Man situation! This would be a great double feature for me because I’ve always liked Russo as an actor (and of course had a crush on her) and really dig In the Line of Fire. It was one of the first Clints I ever saw, and I think it still holds up pretty well. I went all 1991 almost by accident. I listed a bunch of other non-'91 movies and then changed out a couple and noticed they were both '91s and then I just kinda went with it. I’ve also been in the mood lately to watch early-'90s movies because of how much I enjoyed revisiting Arachnophobia during Scary Movie Month. P.S. We’re going into 2027 and I still need to see Freejack. I can’t believe I’m gonna watch Buddy (1997) before Freejack.

Double Feature 2:

Patrick: #1: Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
Adam: #2: Dogfight (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Bullitt, Dirty Harry, The Rock, Vertigo
Adam: Theme: San Francisco

Adam: This isn’t the most obvious pairing, but I think it could work well because Mrs. Doubtfire is a good, sad-funny movie and Dogfight is a good, funny-sad movie. They both feel like hugs by the end. I love San Francisco on-screen (and it was pretty great the one time I visited) so I’m excited to see such a photogenic and unique city on the Linderground screen all night. I’m tempted to add more trailers like Basic Instinct, Pacific Heights, and The Princess Diaries and make a super long trailer block. I hope Sonia will come to this double feature. It’s kinda in her honor after all.

Patrick: I love this theme and I’m totally down for an extended trailer block, especially for those movies. I’m with you that these two would pair really well together, and I have to admit I’m happy Dogfight is second because it’s waiting for us like a reward. Mrs. Doubtfire was never really one of my movies but the older I get, the more I revisit it, the more I like it. I still don’t think I’m over the loss of Robin Williams and this is a movie that makes me feel closer to him. Does that sound weird? We should rope off seats for Sonia. I hope she likes this double.

Double Feature 3:
Adam: #1: Other People's Money (1991)
Patrick: #2: For Love or Money (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Ride Along, Cross My Heart, Good Fortune, Sabrina Carpenter “Manchild” video
Patrick: Theme: Short People

Patrick: I’ve never seen Other People’s Money but I remember Ebert liking it I think? It’s weird that Danny DeVito could headline movies at one point. This is such a stupid theme, but it gives me a chance to show everyone For Love or Money. Every movie should be at least as good as For Love or Money. That movie is so charming. Plus we get more Anwar on the big screen!

Adam: Yeah, Ebert really liked Other People’s Money. He gave it 3.5 stars. I remember liking it back in 1992 when I saw it on cable but mainly because DeVito talked about Dunkin’ Donuts. It was like nutmeg to me. I probably would enjoy revisiting that movie now that I’m an adult and would understand the story and jokes better. For Love or Money is charming and you got me wanting to see something Anwar soon. Probably that diving board horse movie first.

Double Feature 4:

Patrick: #1: Extreme Justice (1993)
Adam: #2: The Perfect Weapon (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Barb Wire, Stone Cold, The Taking of Beverly Hills, Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Samples
Adam: Theme: Baskin Robbins Presents: Action Hero Taste Test Night

Adam: I could probably just look this up online, but what was the difference between Baskin Robbins and 31 Flavors? Anyways, I remember going to 31 Flavors as a kid and being able to sample any flavor you want before committing to a cone or a cup of something. Hollywood was kind of like that with action stars in the ‘90s. Here’s a night celebrating that idea with an ice cream guy in the lobby to sweeten the deal! (P.S. I tried to get Jodie Sweetin for an appearance to Sweetin the deal, but she was busy). I’ve yet to have my magic screening of Extreme Justice and The Perfect Weapon but I enjoy certain things about them (e.g. Thomas Ian Griffith is too tall to action which I never considered with anyone else in an action movie until I saw that he’s too tall to action) but watching these movies together is the exact right move to maximize the fun of both films.

Patrick: I think you’ve confused Excessive Force (Thomas Ian Griffith, too tall for sure) with Extreme Justice, which is a Mark L. Lester movie about dirty cops starring Scott Glenn and Lou Diamond Phillips. I love both movies and your theme still works!! I love an action movie sampler. Extreme Justice is pretty extreme. The cast is great and the squibs are off the charts. It’s like the movie that taught David Ayer everything, so in a way we should put this movie in jail. I’m super excited to have a sponsor at the Cinemarink although now that you told me Sweetin was almost part of the deal that now I don’t know how I’ll get through this night without her there. I guess I’m feeling Sweetin low.

Adam: This is so embarrassing. I’m glad this double feature still works now that I know I read Extreme Justice and decided it was Excessive Force.

Double Feature 5:
Adam: #1: Deceived (1991)
Patrick: #2: My Life (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Ghost, Deadly Friend, Sleeping With the Enemy
Patrick: Theme: BJR Scripts

Patrick: Ok, I admit I struggled with this one and I’m not super happy with it. Bruce Joel Rubin, best known for writing Ghost, was apparently a secret rewriter on Deceived, a movie I really wanted to see back in 1991 because I was all “Goldie does drama too!” I think I rented it but I can’t remember it. BJR’s big contribution to ‘93 was making his directorial debut with My Life, a movie I saw theatrically and have spent the rest of my life memory holing. I might go out for a smoke during the second movie. I don’t smoke but I might start so I don’t have to watch Michael Keaton make videos for his unborn kid.

Adam: I like a lot of Bruce Joel Rubin’s, credits especially Ghost and Jacob’s Ladder. This theme is good! Deceived is another 1991 movie that was a decent sized hit at the box office, but I was 9 so I didn’t go see it because it was for adults and then I just never got around to it. I’d love the opportunity to see that and My Life back-to-back since that would also be a first-time watch for me. I’ll join you for the smoke (I don’t smoke either) but am gonna go back to watch My Life so I can get ideas for the videos I plan to make in 2027 for my unborn kid. I’m not sick or anything. I just want to have the videos ready in case of surprise pregnancies. I think it was one of Coughlin’s Laws in Cocktail.

Double Feature 6:

Patrick: #1: The Dark Half (1993)
Adam: #2: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Eve of Destruction, F/X2, RoboCop 3
Adam: Theme: Orion Pictures

Adam: I love that you love The Dark Half so much. Orion was a pretty great studio at making movies for grown-ups. Their heyday was more in the '80s and they were on the outs by the mid-'90s (despite the success of movies like Dances with Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs), but I thought it would be fun to showcase that financial bankruptcy era (era) with two leafy, horror movies that I think would play well together. Plus, this is just the right kind of Halloween/Horror Hangover double feature sometimes needed in November. I’m pretty excited about the trailer block too. P.S. Orion Pictures has to be a top 5 studio logo, right?

Patrick: I thought it might be ok to program The Dark Half less for the post-Scary Movie Month horror and more for the fall vibes, which you so brilliantly seized upon and paired it with something even better. This is a really good double and takes me back to a happier time when movies were kind of better. The Orion logo automatically makes me feel 60% better.

Double Feature 7:

Adam: #1: Father of the Bride (1991)
Patrick: #2: Indian Summer (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Coldblooded, The War at Home, We Are Marshall, four-episode According to Jim block
Patrick: Theme: Kimberly Williams Tribute

Patrick: We’ve both been on a Kimberly Williams heater thanks to a shared affection for the comedy stylings of According to Jim. This whole night is really just an excuse to do four eps of AtJ on the BS (big screen). I saw Father of the Bride II before I ever saw Father of the Bride but I think I like the first one better. Have you seen Indian Summer? That movie is sneaky good. I was desperate to see it back in ‘93 because Sam Raimi acts in it and then I found it disarmingly charming. Like, Kimberly Williams-level charming.

Adam: You had me at four-episode According to Jim block. I love the first Father of the Bride (1991) and fell instantly in love with Kimberly Williams in that movie back in the day. I remember thinking she was the type of person I should end up marrying once I got older and that Kieran Culkin was trying to steal too many scenes. Part II is fine but it’s not nearly as good largely because it’s about pregnancies instead of a wedding. I still haven’t seen Indian Summer. I really need to. There are a lot of people in that cast I like (Lane, Paxton, Raimi, Perkins, Warner, Spano). The list just goes on and on.

Double Feature 8:

Patrick: #1: Kalifornia (1993)
Adam: #2: Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Airborne, Calendar Girl, Naked Lunch, Straight Out of Brooklyn
Adam: Theme: You Grossed $2M Domestic

Adam: I tried to make this a Michelle Forbes night, who after seeing her in Star Trek: The Next Generation became an all-time “I can fix her” actor for me. The problem is she didn’t have any 1991 movies, so I went to an old standby which is pairing movies based on the little box office impact they had during their respective time in theaters. I thought pairing Kalifornia with Return to the Blue Lagoon would be a) funny and b) stay on the couples theme. Do I need to see Airborne, Calendar Girl, or Straight Out of Brooklyn?

Patrick: I’ve only seen Airborne from that list and I would say you don’t need to see it but then I second guess myself and think it could be an Adam Special. The lead of that movie is this guy Shane McDermott who definitely acts in that movie like he belonged there and was going to be a huge movie star. He wasn’t. I’m a Michelle Forbes fan, too, mostly from Kalifornia, a movie I like but probably shouldn’t. Is Return to the Blue Lagoon any good? That’s Brian Krause, right? Is he a secret cat monster? I’ll watch it if he is.

Double Feature 9:
Adam: #1: Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)
Patrick: #2: National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Cop and a Half, Running Scared (1986), Collision Course
Patrick: Theme: Buddy Cops

Patrick: This is a pretty good double built around the flimsiest, most obvious theme. I like how these two will play together and I like that we have two Mark L. Lester joints playing at the ‘Rink this month. Dude is so underrated. Loaded Weapon 1 is funnier than I remember, right? I’ve maybe seen it once since 1993.

Adam: Loaded Weapon 1 is funnier than you remember. I saw it within the past 5-10 years and liked it even more because I’ve seen way more '80s/'90s action movies now than I had in 1993 when I saw LW1 in theaters. I always feel like putting on Showdown in Little Tokyo because it’s so short. I haven’t seen it that many times. I remember it being sort of Cannon sleazy more than having a Warner Bros vibe. This would be a really fun night at the movies.

Double Feature 10:

Patrick: #1: Striking Distance (1993)
Adam: #2: Oscar (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Beverly Hills Cop III, Innocent Blood, My Boyfriend’s Back, Robot Jox
Adam: Theme: Cinematography by Mac Ahlberg

Adam: Honestly, I didn’t really mean to honor Mac Ahlberg with this double feature but I didn’t want to do another double based on a location (Pittsburgh, in the case of Striking Distance) or a “weak movie” Bruce Willis double with Billy Bathgate (which is a snooze) so I got creative. Mac’s got some credits! Plus, it’s two movies starring two of the three men behind Planet Hollywood! This should be a fun double feature even if the films make little sense together.

Patrick: Amazing work. This is instantly in the running for our November show, both for the Planet Hollywood connection and because these are just two movies I feel like watching again. Mac Ahlberg was Empire Pictures’ go-to cinematographer so naturally I have a lot of affection for his work; I didn’t realize he was John Landis’ guy as well. I love the idea of a night celebrating him. Way to go!

24 Hours of Movies: Blue Wave

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 4 Nov 2026 14:24:15 -0600

by Patrick Bromley
For no reason whatsoever.

10 am - The Blues Brothers (1980, dir. John Landis)

We'll kick things off with John Landis' raucous musical based on the characters Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi created on Saturday Night Live. This is one of the best movies ever born out of the sketch show -- maybe the best -- because it's not simply trying to stretch a thin premise to feature length the way so many SNL movies would end up doing. Instead, the filmmakers use the characters as an excuse to celebrate music, dance, the great city of Chicago, wanton destruction, and how much Nazis suck. I can think of no better way to open this marathon.

12:30 pm - Blue Steel (1990, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

With the celebrating out of the way, we can settle into Kathryn Bigelow's excellent neo-noir cop drama in which rookie Jamie Lee Curtis (in maybe her best performance) becomes entangled with violent obsessive Ron Silver after a shooting in a convenience store. Bigelow has always been good at mixing slick, propulsive action with honest to goodness character work, and while there may not be much that psychologically profound about Blue Steel, it remains a very gripping piece of work.

2:30 pm - Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, dir. Carl Franklin)

Another noir, this one period, starring Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins, an unemployed veteran of WWII who falls into the private eye business and goes looking for a missing woman because he needs the money. This movie and Washington's performance are so good that it should have spawned a whole franchise like it did in literary form thanks to Walter Mosely's series of books. Don Cheadle threatens to steal the whole thing in an early "holy shit, who is that??" performance as Easy's gangster friend Mouse, but this remains the Denzel show.

4:15 pm - My Blue Heaven (1990, dir. Herbert Ross)

Time for a comedy! Writer Nora Ephron's mostly-successful comedy came out the same year as Goodfellas, which is fascinating because a) both movies are based on the life of mobster-turned-informant Henry Hill and b) Ephron was married to Nicholas Pileggi at the time, on whose book Goodfellas is based. Steve Martin plays the Hill stand-in, who relocates to the suburbs with the help of federal agent Rick Moranis. I love Steve Martin but he's pretty miscast here. I like the Moranis/Joan Cusack stuff better. Especially the Joan Cusack stuff.

6 pm - Blue City (1986, dir. Michelle Manning)

If I've ever seen Florida neo-noir Blue City starring Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy, it was years ago on VHS and I don't remember any of it. A bomb at the time that has since gone on to find something of a cult following (it even got a Blu-ray courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome), the movie stars Nelson as a young hothead who returns to Florida to get revenge for his father's death. The movie is written by Walter Hill (!!) and directed by first-timer Michelle Manning, who never directed another movie.

7:30 pm - Blue Velvet (1986, dir. David Lynch)

And now, the main event, the movie around which this whole marathon is pretty much based. When I look inward, I know that Blue Velvet is not my favorite David Lynch movie. But when I'm watching Blue Velvet, I'm not so sure. This is the movie that gave us what most audiences would associate with Lynch: a compelling mystery told against a backdrop of surrealism and picturesque, sincere (not ironic) nostalgia for all that is good and wholesome about America. It's the template for Twin Peaks, basically, and it's one of several masterpieces Lynch made in his career, provided you, like me, believe it's possible for an artist to have more than one.

10 pm - Blue Ruin (2014, dir. Jeremy Saulnier)

Another great neo-noir, another movie about revenge, another movie with "blue" in the title. Jeremy Saulnier's sophomore effort casts Macon Blair as a hopelessly lost man living out of his car who finds purpose in his life when he decides to go after the recently-released man responsible for the murder of his parents. I love how Saulnier portrays Blair's revenge as something messy and clumsy: he's John Wick if John Wick were terrible at what he does. It's also a profoundly sad movie about grief and how we live with it. I know that sounds a little heavy after sitting through Blue Velvet, but the film is also very entertaining and, at times, even darkly funny. Seek this out if you haven't already. Or just come see it at the marathon.

11:30 - Deep Blue Sea (1999, dir. Renny Harlin)

Now we can get stupid. I was a big defender of Deep Blue Sea when I first saw it in 1999 because I thought that year was so good for movies that even that bad ones were good. Deep Blue Sea was, to me, incredibly well-made trash. I've been less enthusiastic about it with every subsequent viewing, and not just because a cult of irony has built around it. There's great stuff in it and it's probably Renny Harlin's last best movie (in America, anyway; you tell me, Mikko), but my affection for it has waned. At the same time, it's the perfect movie to watch in the midnight slot when our brains are officially movie-pickled and need a break.

1:30 am - Blue Monkey (1987, dir. William Fruet)

Speaking of stupid! I have no idea why this Canadian horror movie -- the only horror movie in our lineup, actually -- is called Blue Monkey. It has nothing to do with monkeys or the color blue. It's actually about a big bug monster that begins spreading a deadly infection in a hospital. The cast includes Steve Railsback, John Vernon, Don Lake, and Joe Flaherty, and the movie is pretty nuts. It's exactly what we want to be watching at this point in our sleep-deprived dementia.

3:15 am - Blue Movies (1988, dir. Ed Fitzgerald, Paul Koval)

Here's the first movie in our lineup I've never seen (unless we're counting Blue City), about a pair of friends who turn their apartment into a porn studio. Ha ha! I wish I wasn't such a sucker for stupid '80s sex comedy. I'm pretty sure it's trapped on VHS, so we'll have to do some digging to show this one.

5 am - Blue Hawaii (1961, dir. Norman Taurog)

No digging required for this one, as we already have this on a stunning 4K disc. You didn't really think I would skip out on the chance to program an Elvis musical, did you? While not one of my favorites of his movies, it's exactly the sort of thing to which I want to wake up: breezy, affable, full of gorgeous scenery, and music like the title track, "Rock-a-Hula Baby," and "Can't Help Falling in Love."

7 am - Into the Blue (2005, dir. John Stockwell)

I've been meaning to rewatch Into the Blue since the start of #ScaryMovieMonth because I showed No Country for Old Men in a class and wanted to see Josh Brolin play the bad guy here and because a recent revisit of Christine made me appreciate John Stockwell on a whole new level. It rules that his singular trope as an auteur is "beach." I just remember this movie being about hot people swimming and that it gets crazy violent in its last act. I might have originally held that stuff against a movie I assumed would be better. Now it sounds like a movie I could secretly love.

9 am - Blue Thunder (1983, dir. John Badham)

Let's keep the action vibes going and end with the best helicopter movie ever made, in which Roy Scheider does rotor blade battle with Malcolm McDowell above Los Angeles. Rewatching this one recently kind of amazed me with its helicopter stunts because it's just stuff they actually went and did. The story itself is no great shakes, but Roy Scheider rules and all the action is just so fucking incredible. I like the idea that we'll leave this marathon feeling exhilarated. Hopeful, even.

FTM 845: UNDERRATED NEO-NOIR 3

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 4 Nov 2026 05:00:00 -0600

Patrick and Rosalie return to one of their favorite subjects and name six more underrated neo noir films.

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podca sts.

Also discussed this episode: Fright Night (2011), Near Dark (1987), Night of the Creeps (1986), Hollywoodland (2006), A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972), The History of Concrete (2026)

Fifty Before '50: Scary Movie Month Wrap-Up

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 3 Nov 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by JB

This was a terrific Scary Movie Month. Before it fades into our collective memories, let’s all take a trip down this bloody memory lane and savor its ghastly delights one more time...

I achieved my personal goal of posting at least one review a day. October is such a busy month. I have often opined that “Scary Season” should encompass both September and October. I was especially thankful that I was able to see the re-release of Ken Russel’s uncut The Devils (1971) and the Fathom anniversary screening of Scream (1996) in honest-to-goodness movie theaters. Also, I was visited by the ghost of my deceased father, but that’s a story for another day.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MONTH: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein in 4K, The Birds in Patrick’s basement, the Carrie miniseries on Amazon Prime, Plan 9 From Outer Space LIVE at Largo at the Coronet, The Devils at the San Bernadino Riviera Theater, my first re-watch of Magic in 48 years, finally sitting down for the first time to enjoy the original Wicker Man from 1973, and my day trip to check out “The Horror Show” exhibit at the Academy Museum. More on that one next week.

NOT-SO-GREAT MOMENTS FROM THE MONTH: The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Night Key, and Beginning of the End.

MY SEVEN WORD REVIEWS:

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

The winner and still champion— Oh, Chic!

Dracula (1931)

“The blood… is the life, Mr. Renfield.”

The Birds (1963)

Treatise on female zeitgeist…plus bird attacks!

The Monkey (2025)

Norman Bates’ son’s take on “Monkey’s Paw.”

Pet Semetary (1989)

Better title: “Creepy, Intrusive, Alcoholic, Neighbor Guy”

Man’s Best Friend (1993)

Dog more expressive costar than Judd Nelson.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935)

Claude Rains smokes opium, sings, and KILLS!

The Blob (1988)

Surprisingly mean-spirited wad of chewed-up Bubble Yum.

Night Key (1937)

So ANYTHING with Boris Karloff is horror?

Bubba Ho Tep (2002)

Mummies in cowboy boots? Here you go!

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Both monsters eclipsed by village's wine song.

Carrie (2026)

Terrific and scary update. Flanagan is king.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Traditional horror moral: “Don’t Feed the Plants.”

Weapons (2025)

Neighbors discover glass not covered by insurance

Plan 9 from Outer Space LIVE (2027)

Deep dive into aliens and wicker furniture.

Nosferatu (1922)

Little known trivia: original title was “Cuddles.”

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Sam Peckinpah creeping around your basement? Scary!

Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

Low-budget place-setter for Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)

Gifted filmmakers make a HEATING VENT scary...

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

“I’m gonna try... not to come back.”

Mad Monster Party (1967)

Every year the same story: reliably awful.

The Devils (1971)

It’s all fun and games until... CHRIST!

Magic (1978)

Creepy Hopkins, Creepy Dummy, Creepy Catskill Mountains.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Pagan people perplex policeman; party proves piquant.

Body Bags (1993)

Carpenter hosts morgue menu: gas, hair, eyes!

WNUF Halloween Special (2013)

Found footage for audiences craving annoying stupidity.

Carrie (1976)

Can dropped metal bucket kill a man?

Beginning of the End (1957)

"You can't drop an A-bomb on Chicago!"

The Shining (1980)

Redrum Redrum Redrum Redrum Redrum Redrum Redrum.

Scream (1996)

Aaaaaargh! Aaaaaargh! They all look so young!

The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)

Sculptor loves green juice/free health care.

Daybreakers (2009)

Defoe and Hawke are Butch and Sunburn.

The Fly (1958)

“Help me... help me” = childhood nightmare fuel

AND SOME OF MY FAVORITE SEVEN-WORD REVIEWS FROM YOU, DEAR READERS AND LISTENERS:

Mike Piccoli

The Dead Zone

This isn’t at all relevant in 2026…

Sol

Nosferatu (2024)

I guess we aren't getting a Nosferathree?

Chris Ceballos

We Are Still Here (2015)

When will something start happen- - HOLY CRAP!

Jennifer

Little Shop of Horrors (1985)

Audrey II’s care requires a red thumb.

Will Benson

Midsommar (2019)

Why is this called horror... I'm Scandinavian.

Laser guns go Pugh-Pugh... I'm dumb

Mac MacIntire

Frankenstein (1931)

Universal's Tram Tour should include flaming windmill.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Universal’s newest theme park in Orlando, Epic Universe, contains a real tavern in a windmill, called the Burning Blade; every hour, it bursts into flames. Monster Kid goodness. Mac gets his wish.)

John Curvan

Cocaine Bear (2023)

Plane crash coke starts the trouble bruin.

The Sonia Show

Backrooms (2026)

Weirdest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel yet

Ross Reader

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

My toddler’s review:

“Frankenstein sad. Frankenstein drink.”

Ronan C

Backrooms (2026)

You thought shopping in IKEA was bad.

Adam Riske

The Tingler (1959)

"...and that's why our rep theater closed"

A Casual Listener

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Worst business plan I have ever heard

Jeff Quinn

Vacancy (2007)

Any vacancies in the non-murder rooms?

Jack C.

Thinner (1996)

A deeply sensitive portrayal of Romani culture.

M Archer M

Army of Darkness (1992)

"Slapdash Trash Ash" smash "Brash Ash"? Balderdash!

Mac MacIntire

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Seven-word reviews… they’re my only weakness

CrackerSnack83

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

ERR-AH, that JFK casting was mind blowing

Will Pfeifer

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Actually, they meet Frankenstein's Monster. (Smiles smugly)

Mashke

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Roasted brussels sprouts pair better with liver.

Mikko Viinikka

The Strangers (2008)

They're just friends you haven't met yet.

Chris Cooper

The End of Oak Street (2026)

Best Flintstones movie since Viva Rock Vegas

Michael Piccoli

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Price’s perilous pit perpetually punishes perfidious paramour

Rob DiCristino

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982):

OR: Coastal elites destroy thriving local business.

Mac MacIntire

The Evil Dead (1981)

The Lorax doesn’t speak for these trees.

Mikko Viinikka

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Was Vincent Gardenia cast on name alone?

M. Archer M.

Altered States (1980)

Lesson learned: naked hugging can fix anything

Reed Strickland

Pinocchio Unstrung (2026)

Lead performance was a little bit wooden.

Matt Sollenberger

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

You decide NOW to check blood pressure?!

Mike Pomaro

Psycho III (1986)

Maybe change the name of the motel?

Aaron Keith

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Frankenstein is young; the monster is hung.

JM Vargas

Tremors (1990)

Star-struck graboids just wanted Reba McEntire's autograph.

Brian Kazmierski

Midsommar (2019)

Chicago BEARS offense is also on fire!

janbottig

Wicker Man (1973)

May Day island stay! Virgin cop flambé.

Mac McEntire

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Only Best Picture winner with face ripping.

Ronan C.

Obsession (2026)

I love you more than my face.

Jack Coctober

Cape Fear (1991)

“One thumb in mouth!” - Siskel & Ebert

Adam Riske

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

This movie feels like Fantasy Costumes smells

Mac McEntire

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)

WTF is this movie supposed to be?

Sol

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Second greatest thing shot at The Dakota.

Adam B. The B Stands for Bargain

Carrie (1976)

Some say they're still spinning, even today

And finally...

Rob DiCristino

Scream 7 (2026)

Are we done? Can we be done?

Happy Scary Movie Month, everybody.

Review: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 2 Nov 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Patrick Bromley
Fuck Nazis.

When Becky was first released in 2020, it had a great hook -- angry young girl fights and violently kills a bunch of neo Nazis -- but seemed an unlikely candidate for a sequel, much less a trilogy. The movie's violent action was driven by 12-year old Becky's youthful rage over the untimely death of her mom (from cancer) and her parents divorce, and the central joke of the film was that skinheads shouldn't fuck with a kid with anger issues: Home Alone with higher stakes and some brutally comic gore. It never felt that it could be sustained beyond that movie's runtime, particularly because star Lulu Wilson would grow up and Becky would have to grow up along with her. It becomes less transgressive and the barb at the end of that particular hook would likely dull, right?

Here we are in 2026, though, and the third movie in the franchise, the excellently-titled The Last Temptation of Becky, is hitting theaters. Picking up right where 2023's The Wrath of Becky left off -- Becky has been recruited by CIA agent Kate Montana (Kate Siegel) to become the youngest member of the organization ever -- Last Temptation finds our favorite Angry Teenager traveling to Poland to take out the Fourth Reich, a group of Nazis bent on world domination led by General Wilhelm Reuss, played Neil Patrick Harris and the latest in a line of comedy actors playing racist shitbag villains in the franchise, a tradition that previously included Kevin James and Seann William Scott. Reuss, his family, and his Nazi soldiers are conducting secret blood experiments involving the key from the first film (that movie's McGuffin) to bring back...well, I won't say, but anyone with a working knowledge of exploitation and mad scientist movies probably won't be too far off.

Calling the shots this time around is Jenn Wexler, a filmmaker who get her start as a producer at Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix before making her feature directing debut with the 2018 punks-versus-psycho slasher The Ranger. Her participation in The Last Temptation of Becky is what had me most excited for the film, because I knew she could carry over some of The Ranger's anarchic spirit and bubbling rage -- the franchise is, after all, a direct response to the last 10 years of American politics, and Wexler isn't shy about taking things to their logical extreme. She mostly picks up where Wrath of Becky filmmakers Suzanne Coote and Matt Angel left off, infusing a more cartoonish, comic book style into the proceedings than the grittier first installment.

Using some of the same devices as the last film -- Becky VO, scribbled title cards -- Wexler gives her outing slightly more edge and attitude by openly acknowledging Becky as a blunt instrument of vengeful rage from the outset. There doesn't need to be an inciting incident or a kidnapped dog for her to spring into action. She acts because she hates Nazis and wants to fuck them up. That this is the first film in the Becky franchise with only one director at the helm -- a woman, no less -- is not lost on me. Last Temptation doesn't do much to get into Becky's psychology, and yet it does more to communicate her headspace and worldview than the first two entries.

Having watched and/or rewatched all three Becky movies in the span of a week, I'm comfortable saying that they live or die on few things. First, the villains. Taking a page from the Indiana Jones playbook, the filmmakers have always been clever in making the bad guys in the series racist, hateful pieces of shit. Watching them brutally taken out is so much more enjoyable that way. Sure, Neil Patrick Harris is stunt casting as the American-born leader of the Fourth Reich, but he clearly relishes making Reuss a sniveling, cartoonishly evil monster whose loyalty to the "cause" supersedes even that of his own family. If anything, Harris doesn't get enough screen time. There are simply too many Nazis to kill.

Second is the violence, as there is something joyously cathartic about watching evil racists get splattered around like bags of blood at the hands of a teenage girl. Because Wexler's background is in horror, she knows how to stage a gore gag for maximum impact, sometimes even letting it go longer than our movie clocks might dictate in order to really drive home a satisfying kill.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the performance of Lulu Wilson as the titular Becky. While the title of the film and its premise suggest this is Wilson's No Time to Die, it's neither a mournful elegy nor victory lap. Yes, the scale and scope are considerably bigger and Last Temptation builds on everything that came before -- those entering the franchise with the third installment may find themselves lost when it comes to certain plot or character details -- but it's really another opportunity to watch Wilson absolutely eat up the chance to be an angry action hero. Becky may be the role with which we most associate Wilson for a long time to come, such is her commitment to the character. In short, she rules. I was nervous that having Becky join the CIA would neuter her, sanding off her rough edges (she's all rough edges), but Wexler and Wilson wisely wield the character's new position as a means of better access, not conformity. She can simply go after bigger and badder villains now, usually by way of Plan C.

I can't recommend The Last Temptation of Becky as an entry point into the unlikely Becky franchise, but if you've been a fan of these movies as I have, there's lots to love in this third and latest installment. Critics may complain that it offers more of the same, while fans of the series like myself will champion the fact that it offers more of the same. Lulu Wilson hasn't missed a step as America's favorite Homicidal Teen and Jenn Wexler fits right into the franchise, demonstrating she can do bigger and bloodier action than she's previously done on screen. If this truly is the last Becky movie, it's a fitting conclusion. If there are more to be made, I'll be there opening day.

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 31

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: WILD HORSE NINE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

Goodbye, #ScaryMovieMonth! Hello, Awards Season!

Kane Parsons’ Backrooms may have codified “liminal spaces” as 2026’s buzziest internet term — replacing “aesthetic” and “lore” from recent years — but perhaps no filmmaker understands the true psycho-spiritual weight of liminal spaces like Irish auteur Martin McDonagh, whose work often explores the existential purgatory between the sins of our past and the uncertainties of our future. Completing a loose “Sad Boys in Beautiful Places” trilogy that began with In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin, McDonagh elevates this tried-and-true formula by setting his newest film, Wild Horse Nine, against the CIA-backed military coup that took place in Chile in the fall of 1973. When Agency chief MJ (Steve Buscemi) sends veteran operatives Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich) and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell) to oversee the removal of Marxist Salvador Allende, he has no idea that their celebratory jaunt to nearby Easter Island is actually the last stop in Chris’ retirement tour: He has terminal cancer, we learn, and he’s running out of time to atone for his sins.

Played with Malkovich’s characteristic blend of beleaguered exasperation and pig-in-shit glee, Chris has spent the better part of his career engineering the twentieth century’s greatest atrocities: Long before he conspired to depose Allende, he watched the execution of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and — though he’d rather not talk too much about this in mixed company — may have been somewhere in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963. Despite these and countless other unspeakable acts on his ledger, though, Chris isn’t the nationalist attack dog his behavior would suggest. Rather, he treats the political chaos he’s created as a fait accompli, the inevitable byproduct of interactions between flawed, selfish, misguided human beings. There’s a jaded banality to the war stories he tells Lee — his longtime partner-turned-end-of-life caregiver — a foul air, more than anything else, of disappointment. In the end, Chris laments, toppling even the greatest civilizations really requires little more than handing some guy a rifle and watching while he pulls the trigger.

This is all trying news for Lee, a middle-aged buttonman teetering on the edge of divorce (from Parker Posey’s Marge) and desperate to handle his job with a degree of inalienable emotional distance. Chris’ plan to commit suicide — which MJ tasks Lee with delaying until they’re positive Chris hasn’t squirreled away any incriminating artifacts from Dallas — complicates Lee’s ability to keep that distance, to remain detached from the political fervor of leftist activists like Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailín Salas), whom Chris advises to get the hell out of Santiago before the shit hits the fan. Drop the idealism, he tells the awestruck young women; abandon your principles and think for yourself. It may sound like easy cynicism, but it’s not that simple. No, in classic McDonagh fashion, Chris’ frustration with his fellow man has evolved into a dogged insistence on a higher authority. It’s not quite religion — McDonagh isn’t so cruel as to moralize like that — but a newfound focus on the simple things: Good cheese, for example, and the “big heads” of Easter Island.

Longtime McDonagh loyalists will feel right at home with this sort of absurdist fixation on left-handed thoughts — “Will there be dinosaurs in heaven? Because they’re not all bad, right? Didn’t they have vegetarian dinosaurs?” — and while it’s easy to dismiss these musings as Sorkin-esque crutches that prevent a writer from reaching their full potential (not to mention the fact that it’s all a little lighthearted in the face of real-world events; Chris isn’t some jamoke assassin, after all; he’s personally responsible for thousands of deaths and the moral corruption of the greatest democracy in the history of the world), there’s an argument to be made that Wild Horse Nine’s generally tossed-off sensibilities actually underline the profundity of Chris’ worldview. He and Lee kill people for a living. They destabilize governments and destroy the grand designs of men and women who’ve devoted themselves to causes they can neither understand nor appreciate. Who but they should be forced to fixate on all the essential nuts and bolts of our pointless existence?

Wild Horse Nine’s plottier second half will undercut some of these lofty thoughts — Marge’s kidnapping, MJ’s hunt for the Dallas rifle; it feels a little perfunctory when we know that the end goal is to let Chris die in peace — and McDonagh offers few solutions to the impossible contradictions of our society on which he asks us to ruminate. What matters, though, as in In Bruges and Banshees of Inisherin, is that we’re ruminating on them together. What matters is that Malkovich and Rockwell give career-best performances and that McDonagh sets them against some of the most striking locales we’ve seen this year short of The Odyssey. It may be true that Wild Horse Nine asks us to sympathize with vicious, immoral instruments of an unfeeling state. But after watching it twice, it mostly just reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut and his envelope: The American author once went out to buy a single envelope. He didn’t need to, but he wanted to see the babies. And the fire trucks. He wanted to fart around. Despite our self-aggrandizing aspirations, that’s all we’re really here for: To fart around.

Wild Horse Nine hits select U.S. theaters on Friday, November 6th.

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 30

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Scary Movie Month Weekend Marathon

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske

My thoughts on The Leopard Man, The Fly (1958), Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and more!

Like pretty much every year, I had a ticket to the Music Box of Horrors marathon at the Music Box Theatre this past weekend, but I opted not to go and did my own Scary Movie Month marathon from the comforts of home. The Music Box does a great job with their annual marathons, but in the past couple of years I’m becoming more of a homebody as to where I prefer to watch movies. I like not being cramped, being able to pause and put on subtitles, take long breaks, etc. The Music Box of Horrors is the ultimate horror party, but after the month I’ve been having so far, I needed something more chill.

I programmed an entire 24-hour marathon that would run from Saturday at 11am to Sunday at 11am knowing full well I wouldn’t make it the entire time, but part of the fun was just programming it and seeing how far I could get. I planned a lineup of 13 movies and made it through five of them on Saturday and picked up another two on Sunday. But first, here are the ones on the list that I didn’t get to: The Sixth Sense, The Crow (1994), The Fury (which would’ve been a first-time watch, I’ll get to it before October ends), Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror (another first-time watch), Hannibal, and An American Werewolf in London.

Here’s what I watched - in order of my least favorite to favorite:

7) Hideaway

• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 1.5 stars. This movie’s become a running joke for me over the years, which is too bad because it makes me forget how boring it is until it’s too late and I’m rewatching it again. It also has one of the silliest post-credits scenes ever.
• 7 Word Review: We all remember when Hatch battled Vassago

6) Pet Sematary Two
• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 2 stars. It’s not bad, exactly, but it’s so unpleasant and nihilistic even by horror movie standards.
• 7 Word Review: Apparently haven’t outgrown my Jared Rushton phobia

5) Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (First-Time Watch)

• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 3 stars. I definitely needed to read about the movie after watching it (i.e. I didn’t totally get it) so that kept me slightly at a distance, but it was very well-made and had some memorable sequences.
• 7 Word Review: Brb gotta order Counting Crows Greatest Hits

4) The Leopard Man (First-Time Watch)

• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 3.5 Stars. It’s impressive how good this movie is considering how most of the characters are complete dolts. One of my favorite Val Lewton movies.
• 7 Word Review: Why I’ll stop late night cornmeal runs

3) Spider Baby

• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 3.5 stars. Fun, weird, Addams Family/Munsters/House of 1000 Corpses type mash-up. Great opening credits song and performances.
• 7 Word Review: Gold medal qualifier in “Still Would!” Olympics

2) Ghostbusters II

• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 4 stars. It might just be kid nostalgia, but I love this movie. It’s not as good as the original, of course, but it’s so entertaining and looks better and better with every newer, lamer modern era Ghostbusters movie.
• 7 Word Review: I dunno this movie makes me happy

1) The Fly (1958) (First-Time Watch)

• Letterboxd Rating and Review: 4 stars. It’s pretty awesome. Great looking, an always terrific Vincent Price, silly and fun but also a little creepy towards the end, and pretty weird for something from the late '50s. Both this and the 1986 remake kick ass.
• 7 Word Review: Why can’t all movies look this good?

To keep my energy up between movies I made some phone calls, went out on my balcony (and saw some ladybugs, which is both good luck but also not the best because it meant I had to keep my screen door closed so they didn’t get inside), took a couple of walks, and had a lot of marathon-appropriate food like fun-size Kit Kat and Hershey bars and Reese’s Pieces, popcorn, pizza, water, etc.

I also watched a lot of horror trailers courtesy of a 35mm Horror Trailers playlist I found on YouTube which I set on shuffle. The trailers that played were – Deadly Friend, Aliens, Final Destination 3, The Amityville Horror (2005), Jaws, Halloween (1978), Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Vamp, The Fly II, Creepshow, The Thing (1982), Friday the 13th-Part V: A New Beginning, Terror-Vision, Audrey Rose, Misery, Evil Dead II, Jaws: The Revenge, Child’s Play 2, Christine, Friday the 13th Part II, Motel Hell, Altered States, Friday the 13th-Part VI: Jason Lives, The Return of the Living Dead, Pet Sematary (1989), My Bloody Valentine, Alligator, The Village, Nightmare, Nightbreed, The Guardian (1990), and Jacob’s Ladder (1990).

It was a fun experience and I’m hoping one day I’ll figure out how to crack the full 24-hours at home. For this year, though, I’m happy with myself for tapping out when I felt like it and not ruin my Sunday and early workweek just to grind out the marathon.

How about you? Do you do 24-hour marathons at home during Scary Movie Month? How do you pick out what you want to watch and where to schedule it? Any tips for how to stay awake and keep your energy up? What’s your opinion of the movies I watched?

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 29

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

FTM 844: THE PSYCHO FRANCHISE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

It's the annual franchise show and Patrick and Mike go a little mad sometimes.

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Also discussed this episode: Body Snatchers (1993), Evil Dead Burn (2026), The Exorcist (1973), Open Water (2000), Doppelganger (1993), Dark Hollow (2026), The Cycle (2026)

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 28

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Fifty Before ’50: Ten Movies I Will NOT Be Watching This SMM

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by JB

With hundreds of films at my fingertips, which ones will not make the cut this October?

With any luck at all, you, gentle readers, are now thoroughly enmeshed in Scary Movie Month. Oh, look! We can see the finish line of Halloween Night just peeking out from under the horizon. As I survey my Goober Domain from the vaunted viewpoint of my IKEA desk, I notice horror movies on the shelf that sit ignored year after year. WHY do I never get around to watching them? WHEN will I finally get around to watching them? HOW is it that feature films can be actually watched in the home?

WHAT is reality?

I Drink Your Blood (1971)

I can still remember being semi-obsessed with this title when I first read about it in the seminal Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film in 1983. Michael Weldon wrote that book and also published the zine Psychotronic Video; he managed to put out 41 issues of that one-of-a-kind wonder in 18 years. Between Weldon’s zine, Tim Lucas’s mega-magazine Video Watchdog, and Danny Peary’s Cult Movies books, genre films were suddenly getting a lot of attention and “respect.”

I cannot remember where I purchased this Special Edition DVD of the film or the circumstances of that purchase. It is from boutique video label Box Office Spectaculars. It is a numbered limited edition (427/500) that was released in 2002. It contains a postcard signed by co-star Lynn Lowry and a reversible sleeve signed by Lowry, director David Dunston, and co-stars Jack Damon and noted character actor Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, who plays Horace Bones.

Hmmmm...

Why am I never in the mood to watch this? According to the Wikipedia machine, it involves “reports of an incident in a mountain village in Iran in which a pack of rabid wolves attacked a schoolhouse, infecting people with rabies. Further inspiration came from coverage of the trial of the Manson family.” Sounds like a Scary Movie Month no-brainer. Perhaps it’s my life-long, near-pathological fear of rabies? I will say this film inspired one of my favorite Halloween songs, “I Drink Your Blood, I Eat Your Skin” by the Exotic Ones. (I Drink Your Blood was often paired with Del Tenny’s 1971 I Eat Your Skin on theatrical double bills.) Listen for yourselves:

All The President’s Men (1976)

Not a conventional horror film.

Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

Like many horror and horror-adjacent films, this is a better idea for a movie than a movie. James Cagney stars in this biopic of Lon Chaney and, as tantalizing a notion as that might seem, there are two big problems: the producers deemed Chaney’s real story “not movie friendly,” so they made up a bunch of hooey about Chaney’s first wife. This is NOT what I come to “The Lon Chaney Story" for: warmed-over, mediocre soap opera.

Second, Cagney and Chaney HAD DIFFERENT FACES. (Chaney’s was an elongated oval, Cagney’s a perfect circle.) The filmmakers needed to modify all of Chaney’s famous make-ups for Cagney’s face; they wind up looking like dime-store masks. This is a big problem in a movie about a man famous for his unique and amazing make-up designs. Boo. (That same year, Paramount did the same thing to Buster Keaton with the movie The Buster Keaton Story.)

Masque of the Red Death (1964)

I first saw this during the Music Box Massacre 24-hour horror marathon at the happiest place on Earth. (TRIVIA NOTE: As I write these words, this year’s Massacre, now called “The Music Box of Horrors,” has just ended in Chicago. Hundreds of scary movie lovers are currently heading home, tired and smelly.)

True, Masque of the Red Death is one of the best of the Corman/Poe cycle, BUT... my beloved son saw this just last Friday at the Vista Theater in Hollywood... and I don’t want to be accused of being a copycat.

The Mole People (1956)

I love Universal Horror Films more than anyone else on Earth—but by God, this late entry in the cycle is hard to sit through. We are faced with weak leads John Agar and Hugh Beaumont, back when the Beaver was just a twinkle in his eye; a monster that’s a half-step above a rubber mask; an uninspired script by Laszlo Goric; and pedestrian direction by Virgil Vogel. By this time in the 1950s at Universal, the parade had gone by. Creature from the Black Lagoon had been released a loooooooong three years earlier. NOTE: The Universal disc also includes the MST3K version; maybe I’ll waste 78 minutes on that...

Orgy of the Dead (1965)

Famous nudie-cutie written by Ed Wood on an off day, this film has everything: television psychic Criswell as narrator, Bob and Shirley (William Bates and Pat Barrington) arguing all the way to a cemetery, strippers used to teach moral lessons, plus a Wolf Man and a Mummy! The script is so confusing and the direction is so listless that this is the rare nudie film that 1) turns nudity into something you really don’t want to see and 2) might convince some heterosexuals that they have made the wrong choice in life. Your mileage may vary. My Blu-ray disc from Vinegar Syndrome came with a slipcase!

The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960)

I purchased this at Son of Monsterpalooza a few years back, and though I have always been a fan of what the disc sleeve calls “erotically-minded Italian gothic horror” (also the theme of my wedding day), the disc sits on my shelf gathering erotically-charged dust. Maybe next year...

Screaming Skull (1958)

I remember being perpetually frustrated with this title. Because it was never officially registered for copyright, it fell into the public domain and film fans were treated to physical media versions of the film that were little more than washed-out, cut-up, near-bootleg garbage, sourced from 16mm and transferred to VHS by cinephile squirrels in a hollow tree. It was the worst. Then, Shout Factory put out a dandy-looking Blu-ray in 2017. Problem solved!

Not quite. Because I had suffered for more than twenty years trying to watch this film, the bad juju associated with its former iterations gave me a case of Screaming Skull-o-phobia. I simply could not bring myself to spin the new disc. I was afraid. I was very afraid.

Turns out, I should have been more afraid of the film itself. According to the Wikipedias, the critics rave: “Erick Harper of DVD Verdict [said] the film was ‘of questionable value’ and opined it was ‘a truly awful example of drive-in cinema.’ He believed that the film was not ‘worth the time to watch.’ Leonard Maltin gave the film one and a half stars, calling it ‘dreary.’ [....] Film historian Steven H. Scheuer graded the film one and a half stars, writing ‘Wife is terrorized by unexplainable happenings. Or is it inexplicable? Both describe the film.’ Actress Peggy Webber, who appears in the film, did not like it, stating, ‘it didn't impress me’ and she ‘wanted to throw up’ after watching it."

The Searchers (1956)

Again, NOT a conventional horror film. Why do you keep suggesting it?

The Terror (1963)

A quickie low-budget Roger Corman film that stars Boris Karloff and a young Jack Nicholson. Should be a no-brainer, and yet it sits unwatched. What fateful catalyst will release this disc from its plastic tomb? No living man knows.

What are YOUR "meh, not this year" SMM films? Comment below!

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 27:

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

FTM Rewind: FRIDAY THE 13th Party!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Patrick Bromley

With Crystal Lake taking over the horror conversation these days, here's everything you need to celebrate the life and death of a very special boy, as well as the occasional paramedic.

It's no secret that I love the Friday the 13th series. It's my series of choice as horror franchises go because it's the most consistent -- unlike the Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, Friday the 13th wasn't very good to begin with and had nowhere to go but up. I could watch these movies any day, any time, so it's great to have a day like today that doesn't just allow for that -- it demands it. And because I enjoy talking about these movies, there's been a good deal of coverage about them here at F This Movie!. Here are some of the pieces we've published on the franchise. Enjoy!

So Why Friday the 13th?

A reader and journalist by the name of Dylan Scott once asked that I explain my love for the Friday the 13th franchise. This was my long-winded, rambling, incoherent answer. It's as close as I've ever gotten to codifying what these movies mean to me.

Podcast: The Friday the 13th Franchise

In 2013, Mike and I ended Scary Movie Month with our annual horror franchise podcast covering all of the Friday the 13th movies. This is one of my favorite shows we've ever recorded, mostly because I love talking about these movies with Mike, who loves and appreciates them as much as I do. I also love it because this is the show where you can pretty much hear me fall in love with A New Beginning, an affection that has only grown in the years since we recorded this episode. Most importantly, this is the episode in which Mike unequivocally states that Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is his favorite entry in the franchise, a claim he has denied making ever since. Listen for yourself. He says that shit for sure.

Revisiting the Friday the 13th Franchise

Mike and I revisited the series for our annual franchise podcast during the COVID outbreak of 2020, shortly after it was released as one massive, all-encompassing Blu-ray set by Scream Factory. Our rankings changed but our general feelings toward the series had only grown warmer in the years between the two shows.

Podcast: Friday the 13th Part 3 Commentary (in 3D!)

Our second annual SMM commentary! We watched the movie in 3D, which is why you'll hear us regularly scream at something flying out of the screen. I love this movie and I loved doing this commentary. If this is the Friday you revisit this month, please enjoy it with us talking over everything. The dialogue's not that important anyway. It's worth listening alone for Doug's impression of Jason as Frankenstein's Monster.

13 Great Moments from the Friday the 13th Franchise

Mike gave me the idea for this list during #Junesploitation, and I'm glad he did. Some of these picks are legit highlights of the series; others are moments that I love on a personal level. RIP Joey.

Shitting on the Classics: Friday the 13th

Early in the days of F This Movie!, JB wrote a weekly column in which he took a respected or beloved movie and explained why it's actually bad. Few movies were treated with more distaste or venom than the original Friday, which JB continues to detest to this day. The column is scathing and very funny.

Take Two: Jason X

For a time, this was one of my least favorite entries in the series. I was wrong about that. Most Take Two columns have only served to reaffirm my positions on movies in the past, but this is one of the few in which I do a real turnaround, appreciating the movie for what it ends up being (goofy and fun) instead of what I thought it should have been when it opened in the post-Scream early 2000s. No, it's not the movie Todd Farmer wanted made, but I still can have a good time with it.

2K Replay: Jason X

Adam Riske says it better than I ever could. What was once one of his favorite entries in the franchise ceases to be upon later viewing.

My Favorite Friday the 13th Characters

Back in 2018, I put the spotlight on some of my favorite characters from the series. I know "characters" and Friday the 13th seems like a contradiction, but I swear there are people and performances from this franchise for which I have a lot of affection. It's a big part of what makes the movies so rewatchable.

Great Horror Performances: Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees

We used to run a series highlighting some of our favorite performances in the horror genre. In 2014, Heath Holland picked Kane Hodder's run as masked slasher Jason Voorhees, pointing out not just that Hodder played Jason the most times but that his size and physicality came to define what we picture when we think of Jason. Kane Hodder is Jason.

Heath Holland On...My Heroes Have Always Been Slashers

Heath Holland wrote a great piece about his love of the slasher genre back in 2013. It's good to remember why the genre matters.

How I Learned to Love the Slasher

Heath's article obviously made such an impact on me that I unwittingly wrote pretty much the same piece a year later. After you read why he loves slasher movies, you can read why I do. Or you can read his twice.

My Favorite Final Girls

Yes, Friday the 13th Part 2's Ginny makes an appearance. I'm not a monster.

Growing Up Nerdy: Mike and Adam Go to Camp

Back when Mike and Adam Thas were writing their weekly Growing Up Nerdy advice column (RIP), they wrote this in-depth description of what it would be like attending Camp F This Movie! to celebrate Friday the 13th during #Junesploitation 2014. I like it because they make fun of me constantly. I can take a joke. You'll notice the column no longer runs.

Tommy Jarvis and Great Monster Kids in Movies

Only a monster kid can kill Jason.

Break out the strip Monopoly, magic underwear, and chocolate bars and celebrate #ScaryMovieMonth in style.

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 26

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 25

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 24

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: CLAYFACE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

His whole body is clay, actually. Claydude? Clayman? Let’s keep working on it!

Look, I’m not going to waste your time with an extended prologue detailing the origin and history of Clayface, the comic book villain known to audiences of all ages as a core member of Batman’s rogues’ gallery. It would be completely pointless for me to delve into the character’s myriad backstories — over a dozen people have used the moniker of “Clayface” since his first Detective Comics appearance in 1940 — or go beat by beat through his metahuman powers and abilities, which include temporary shapeshifting, mimicry, a generally amorphous physiology, and (if I’m reading Wikipedia correctly) the ability to dissolve his enemies simply by making eye contact with them. Again, that would be an egregious waste of column inches because, like The Dark Knight, The Man of Steel, and our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Clayface has been a firm fixture in our shared popular culture for generations. Frankly, you’d have to be living under a rock to not be primed for the third film in the revived DC Studios cinematic universe: Clayface.

I’m just fucking with you. Who the hell is Clayface? Apparently, he’s up-and-coming Hollywood heartthrob Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), who’s returned home to Gotham City to celebrate an Academy Award nomination for a smash performance. After a night out on the town with his best friend, Corey (Joshua James), Matt wakes up in bed with the beautiful Mia (Joana Ribeiro) who — in a stroke of the world’s worst luck — is actually the paramour of underworld heavyweight Markos Szabo (David Dencik). Szabo takes his revenge Mason Verger-style, slicing Matt’s famous face to shreds and dooming his career just as it was getting started. Bankrupted by several unsuccessful surgeries, Matt turns to Dr. Caitlyn Carr (Naomi Ackie), whose experimental AI-powered cellular regeneration techniques restore his hunkiness at a cost: His skin is now melty and pliable — clay-like, if you will — a complication that Matt will have to manage as he challenges Szabo, his mobbed-up lawyer (Eddie Marsan), and the corrupt justice system that supports them.

Helmed by journeyman James Watkins (2012’s The Woman in Black, 2024’s Speak No Evil) and co-written by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, Clayface represents the first earnest attempt at a horror-leaning superhero blockbuster since the beginning of the MCU — which has infamously fumbled the bag on its own Blade reboot — and a clear sign that uber-producer James Gunn intends to take big swings with his revamped DC Universe. In its strongest moments, the film blends elements of David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, and Sam Raimi’s Darkman with a general Phantom of the Opera vibe that will feel familiar to monster heads and four-quadrant general audiences alike. Punctuated by a handful of gunky, goopy body horror setpieces — including a meeting between bonded eyelid skin and a pair of scissors that will have you squirming in your theater seat — and a clever body-swapping sequence in the third act, Clayface has flashes of craft and style that pay heartfelt homage to a bygone golden era (era) of horror cinema.

Unfortunately, those moments of inspiration hang on a narrative skeleton that struggles to support their weight. Mixing the disastrous dialogue of Madame Web — in a tense moment, one character shouts, “Call one of your mob doctors!” — with the haphazard editing of Supergirl — including reams of awkward voice-over exposition clearly inserted to patch plot holes — Clayface bounces wildly between tones and themes that, pun absolutely intended, never congeal into anything solid. At times, the film wants to parallel Matt’s acting career with his identity-swapping powers (“Who is the real Matt Hagen?” asks a smirking late-night host). Other times, it wants to pit Matt against Detective John Borrelli (an ever-exasperated Max Minghella) in a battle for Caitlyn’s affections. More jumbled scenes deal with the nature of justice, the cut-throat world of celebrity, and the ethics of scientific experimentation. In short, what may have begun life as an affecting horror tragedy — written by Flanagan, I expect — is shredded worse than Hagen’s face.

To his credit, Tom Rhys Harries makes every effort to give his muscle-bound Elephant Man sufficient texture and charm that we’ll root for him even when — let me check my notes — he’s using his magnetic blood to rip his enemies’ skulls open from the inside. Harries may lack the star power to stand out among the Powells and Elordis, but his wide-set features have a manic quality that exaggerates the abuse they endure here, and they’ll contrast nicely with the chiseled David Corenswet in a showdown with Superman. Clayface deserves credit on that score, actually, as Watkins resists intrusive cameos and cheeky references to the universe his film is — at the pleasure of his new Skydance overlords, anyway — helping to build. Like most late-stage superhero cinema, though, Clayface is stuck in that impossible middle ground: Idiosyncratic above-the-line talent wants to make something offbeat and watchable, but the punishing machinery of IP filmmaking grinds that weirdness into an amorphous ball of bland, shapeless — yes, I’m going for it — clay.

Clayface hits U.S. theaters on Friday, October 23rd.

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 23

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

24 Hours of Movies: '90s Horror!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Patrick Bromley
Let's party like it's 1990-1999.

It's #ScaryMovieMonth and I've been elbow-deep in '90s horror for reasons, so I thought it might be fun to do a whole marathon celebrating an underrated decade for the genre. I'm right about this!

10 am - The Frighteners (1996, dir. Peter Jackson)

We'll start off with a bang. While I still haven't had my magic screening of The Frighteners in which every single element works, it has more "bang" than most of the horror movies of the decade. Peter Jackson directs his first studio effort like he has something to prove, resulting in an extremely high-energy ghost story in which Michael J. Fox is a con man who can actually see spirits. Jeffrey Combs steals the movie (depending on your taste) as a lunatic FBI agent, but everyone is good in this manic movie that demonstrates early on just how gifted Jackson is at working with digital effects. To think, this was almost a Tales from the Crypt production.

12 pm - Tremors (1990, dir. Ron Underwood)

It's still early so let's keep things fun. I can still remember being a young kid in 1990 and being so sure that on paper Tremors should not work. Instead it works like gangbusters. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward give two of their most likable performances (which is saying a lot) as a pair of small timers who find themselves up against giant subterranean monsters. Director Ron Underwood does such a good job capturing the spirit of a 1950s drive-in movie but updates it all for the '90s. Before some dodgy CG entered in the picture in the back half of the decade, the '90s were a great time for practical effects. Tremors bears that out.

2 pm - Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993, dir. Brian Yuzna, Christophe Gans, Shusuke Kuneko)

Ok, now we can get a little more fucked up. This little-seen anthology (it's never even received a US Blu-ray) combines three H.P. Lovecraft stories and gives each to a different director; like any anthology, the results are mixed but more consistent than most. What really makes this one stand out is the incredible effects work from the likes of Screaming Mad George (RIP), John Carl Buechler (RIP), and Christopher Nelson. The imagery these wizards dream up is wild and nightmarish and so, so cool, elevating some stories that are just ok into something truly strange and original. Part of me wanted to program this into the overnight slot so that anyone who falls asleep will wake up to something super fucked up (which is how I was first exposed to the movie when it ran on HBO in the late '90s), but because not enough people have seen it I thought it better to slot it early.

3:45 pm - Habit (1997, dir. Larry Fessenden)

While most of this marathon consists of '90s studio horror, I want to at least spotlight some of the cool indie stuff produced during the decade and Larry Fessenden's New York vampire art film Habit is just about as good as '90s indie horror gets. A remake of his feature from the early ’80s, it stars Fessenden himself as Sam, a New York hipster who has just lost both his father and his relationship with his girlfriend. He meets a mysterious woman named Anna (Meredith Snaider), to whom he is immediately drawn. As their relationship intensifies, Sam begins to suspect that Anna is more than she seems to be. Despite its genre trappings, it feels intensely personal, not just because Fessenden himself plays the lead but also because of the specific details he includes both about the protagonist’s life and the ’90s New York “scene” he captures. The movie feels lived in, its relationships feel authentic, and Fessenden makes for an unusual, utterly compelling protagonist. Habit works both as a straight horror movie and as a movie about addiction and self-destruction. It’s territory that has been mined elsewhere in the vampire genre (The Addiction, Thirst), but Fessenden’s take has its own pulse, its own energy. It’s great.

5:45 pm - Body Parts (1991, dir. Eric Red)

There's no way I'm going to program a '90s horror marathon and no include this, one of my very favorite of all '90s horror movies. Jeff Fahey tries his hand at leading man status playing a psychiatrist who has his arm replaced with the arm of a serial killer after a brutal car accident. Before long, the arm has a mind of its own. I love the batshit intensity of Eric Red's movie, the way it gear shifts from a body horror movie into a mad scientist movie without looking back. I wish the Scream Factory Blu-ray had included the original uncut version (some of the footage of which is available to see on YouTube) because it goes even harder. That's the version I'd want to show.

7:30 - Audition (1999, dir. Takashi Miike)

The reason I decided to write this marathon in the first place was so I could rewatch Audition even though I just saw it a few days ago for our podcast. I know it's a weird choice for the Primetime Pizza slot -- it's slow and meditative and eventually a little tough to stomach, especially when we're eating -- but I want to be sure we're all able to give our full attention to what I'm now convinced is director Takashi Miike's masterpiece. This is such a haunting horror movie, one that refuses to leave me in the best way.

9:30 pm - Tales from the Hood (1995, dir. Rusty Cundieff)

After the sadness of Audition, we're going to need a palate cleanser. Tales from the Hood is just that sorbet. Spike Lee produces, Darren Scott writes, and Rusty Cundieff directs a collection of shorts all centered on race and the Black experience in 1990s America. I've been a fan of this one since the 1990s but Adam Riske really deserves the credit for beating the drum as hard as he has.

11 pm - I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998, dir. Danny Cannon)

I can't believe we're this late into the marathon and I haven't programmed any slashers yet. I guess that speaks to how the subgenre had fallen off since its heyday in the '80s -- at least until Scream helped revive it in 1996. I'm trying to stay from programming any Screams so instead I'll go with its closest descendent, the I Still Know What You Did Last Summer franchise. I'm programming the follow-up instead of the OG because, well, I think it's better and like it more. It's better directed, has better kills, leans into its own stupid trashiness more, and the tropical locale gives it some amount of novelty. This is also Jeffrey Combs' third appearance in our marathon!

12:45 am - The Washing Machine (1993, dir. Ruggero Deodato)

There was a fair amount of great Italian horror made during the 1990s. This is not one of those. Instead, I've decided to give the late night Italian horror slot to Ruggero Deodato's insane giallo that also serves as the horniest movie the director ever made. Maybe that's not saying much -- we're not talking about Joe D'Amato here -- but this is a fun one for advanced students of Italian horror.

2:15 am - Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight (1995, dir. Ernest Dickerson)

I mentioned on this month's Bordello of Blood commentary that I think Demon Knight belongs in the Top 10 of all '90s horror and I stand by that statement. It's got great effects, a great ensemble, a really clever script that's funny without ever becoming silly or diminishing its own stakes, and great direction from the great Ernest Dickerson. This might be a case in which the Tales from the Crypt branding actually hurts the movie, since it really doesn't feel like the show and might have kept people away. Then again, maybe it got some other people to see it who wouldn't have seen it otherwise, so what do I know?

3:45 am - Cure (1997, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosama)

The first movie in our marathon that I've never seen. Actual J-horror is something of a blind spot for me (seeing so many of the American remakes might have put me off the originals), as is the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. This and Pulse are the ones most frequently recommended to me, so I thought it might be cool to include one in the overnight section when we are sleep deprived and the slow-burn creepiness can really work its magic on us.

5:45 am - The Rage: Carrie II (1999, dir. Katt Shea)

These early morning movies need to go down easy, and Katt Shea's extremely '90s sequel/remake to Brian De Palma's classic Carrie should do the job. Emily Bergl stands in for Sissy Spacek as a bullied goth girl out to get revenge for a friend's death; that revenge is worth the cost of admission and far more satisfying than anything you'll see in the new Mike Flanagan Carrie (though bloodlust is not on his mind, to be fair). I wish there was less connective tissue between this and the original, actually, because the presence of Amy Irving's Sue Snell is unwelcome and her fate unworthy of the character. This is a better remake of Carrie than most of the remakes of Carrie.

7:45 am - Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993, dir. Adam Marcus)

The only other slasher in our lineup is barely even a slasher, seeing as Jason barely factors into it and it's more of a body horror movie about an evil spirit that jumps from host to host. One of the most hated in the Friday franchise has always been, for me, one of the most underrated. If we can accept a Halloween movie without Michael Myers, why aren't we able to accept this oddball one-off as well? Especially when it features a sly sense of humor, some really fun practical effects, and a couple of gnarly kills? (The sex tent one remains an all-timer.) Yes, we will definitely be watching the Unrated cut.

9:30 am - From Dusk Til Dawn (1996, dir. Robert Rodriguez)

I'm such a cornball to end with this one, but I've attended 24-hour marathons that close out with From Dusk Til Dawn and trust me when I say that shit plays.

2026 Scary Movie Challenge Day 22

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0500

FTM 843: WARLOCK

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Patrick and Adam put pennies in their mouths.

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Also discussed this episode: The Wolf Man (1941), Doppelganger (1993), Buddy (2026), Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025), The Tingler (1959), Arachnophobia (1990), Under Wraps (1997), The Black Phone 2 (2025), Stage Fright (2014), Bats (1999), Christine (1983)