This morning I deleted the original Youtube channel which started this “brand” name. I go over a few points about why I did.
This movie about a young couple in a spooky mansion is a video-game adaptation that deeply embraces its source material, making some bold choices. Some work. Some don’t. Its unique style helps to stand up compared to others, though.
Bullied students start returning to schools wearing masks. As the fad spreads, and increasing numbers of people wear masks, there are outbreaks of violence mixed with admiration of the bold fashion statement which allows people to be their true self. At the center of the story is a mystery about a supposed suicide, a murder of another student, and a strange young mask-maker with a troubled past. A spectacle of a movie which leans strange, but I find it worth a watch and am confused why it has been so forgotten.
Hokum is an dream-like nightmare about guilt and encountering the other world. Damian McCarthy continues to craft well-built puzzle boxes and again the enjoyment you get from it is likely tied to how well you feel like solving it. But how doesn’t like Adam Scott playing an absolute ass of a character?
Sokolov’s (et al) 2026 They Will Kill You does not really make sense but it is joyously bloody, flashy, and stylish in its madness. I could have gone either way with it but at the end I feel mostly satisfied. It was a good time.
This found footage movie is very well worth a watch if you can deal with the pretty traumatic central theme of youth suicide and do not expect to play too much by standard horror tropes. Much less sensationalist than other movies that have tried to turn Aokigahara into a massive haunted house, the thoughtfulness of the interviews and carefulness of the direction (not to mention fairly strong performances by our leads) gives it a wholly different disquieting feeling than you might expect.
We come at least the final story, about a caving expedition that goes wrong and the personal impact of it. Rounding out the collection is the Epilogue which fills in one gap while reminding us the themes of the collection.
Two post-docs at the end of their school days journey into Hell to try and bring back the soul of their mentor, Professor Jacob Grimes. Along the way, they discuss paradoxes, depictions of Hell, the many sufferings of grad school, their personal failings, and the many different ways great people can have failed legacies. It works best when it is smart and funny (and alas Kuang abandons this combination for a fair chunk of the novel’s center) and seems a quite important book, just one as flawed as the book’s characters.
A small acting troupe is launching a play in an old disco hall. Dripping water sends one of the crew up to investigate where he discovers something otherworldly. The most meta of the stories, and one of my favorites though the ending might irk some.