Alternately Poltergeist Prison

You know how people who are really genuinely afraid of clowns get irritated about how, some time post-It, everybody decided clowns are creepy? Maybe I just have that one territorial coulrophobe in my life,  but I think there is something to people being suggestively brainwashed into thinking they find something scary after enough repetition or reinforcement, and I say this from experience because I am pretty certain I never used to have Trypophobia (otherwise known as a fear of clusters of holes or bumps in irregular patterns). I don't remember this being a thing in my life anyway, not until I'd heard about it being a thing thanks to the internet -- then suddenly I felt myself becoming convinced it's true, that it's fucking digusting to look at clusters of holes or bumps in irregular patterns. Anyway that's the reason you're looking at the above poster for the movie Ghost in the Cell and not the official poster that's on its IMDb page, which makes me want to never stop barfing. If I couldn't stop barfing then I wouldn't be able to continue typing, and then you'd never have had read all of that blather -- and wouldn't we all be so much worse off that way? I thought so. 

Anyway I thought I'd posted about this news but I guess I just did it on social media (which happens more than it ought to) -- Joko Anwar, the modern maestro of Indonesian horror behind films like Impetigore, Satan's Slaves, Satans Slaves 2: Communion, and the upcoming Satan's Slaves 3: Origin (and that's new news of its own), has a horror movie out in theaters in Indonesia right this minute! It is indeed called Ghost in the Cell and it's about a -- god I have done this gag so many times -- you guessed it! A ghost, it's in a cell. It's a horrible specter, a ghoul, a poltergeist, and it's inside a prison, a jail, a penitentiary. Use any of those words and you too can have a movie title. Seriously though I love love love what Anwar's been cooking over the past decade -- he would wield Trypophobia for his poster, since that's so perfectly in sync with how good his movies have been at poking me in uncomfortable places. Remember the dude eating a fistful of furry caterpillars in his script for The Queen of Black Magic? I sure fucking do ughhh. There's a sweaty tactility to his movies that really worms around in your flesh, so I can't wait for a new movie from him! 

Unfortunately that's exactly what we'll be doing since who the hell knows when Ghost in the Cell is getting a U.S. release. Anwar's enough of an international name now (he had that creepy crawly anthology  series on Netflix, after all) that I know this will come here at some point, probably via Shudder or IFC or one of the small horror-tinged studios of a similar sort. It seems a safe bet. Just when remains unclear, but believe you me I'll be all up on that business when we know it. And -- if I'm not barfing -- I will share said news with you then. Here's the trailer:

From the Torture to the Grave

I have a bit of mixed feelings about this news -- on the happy side we have a new Joko Anwar movie to watch! The Indonesian horror master behind the two Satan's Slaves films and Impetigore has unleashed Grave Torture (Siksa Kubur), his new film, onto Netflix. And when I say unleashed I mean it, it's out right now! Its release only got announced yesterday! Which brings me to the less happy side -- they really should've given us some heads-up on this? Unless my head was buried in the sand (always possible) this wasn't advertised at all? Maybe I'm just a stick in the mud who doesn't like surprises (always possible) but New Joko deserves a big roll-out. He's proven himself several times over now to be one of the most exciting new voices in horror and I worry this is just being treated as feed for the content-mill, tossed into the void of Netflix to never be heard of again. Anyway I guess that's what I am trying to avoid here -- drawing attention to the damn thing. Everybody go watch the new Joko Anwar horror movie with me! Here is a teaser trailer:

Ready Your Bodies For Joko Anwar's Nightmares

One of the greatest horror directors working today is Joko Anwar, whose Satan's Slaves movies and Impetigore (plus his script for The Queen of Black Magic) have singlehandedly revitalized Indoesian Horror as a force to be reckoned with on the world stage. I'm sure I'm minimalizing the efforts of many with that staement since we only get to see so much of what's happening there here in the U.S. but his name has popped up again and again enough that it sure feels like he's heading that front to me. Anyway he's made enough of a name for himself that he's gotten his name above the title of a new Netflix series so that's certainly something -- it's called Nightmares and Daydreams and it's releasing globally on June 14th and we have ourselves a trailer! nd while there are surely scares to be had ("nightmares" is in the title after all) this is according to Anwar more of a "sci-fi supernatural" story than it is explicit horror. It's also a semi-anthology -- seven episodes telling seven stories that are set in the same world and interconnected, and which apparently all lead to a big "showdown." We'll be there on June 14th! 

11 Off My Head: Shudder's 1/2 Halloween Sale!

I'm sure without doing a search that I posted this ancient photoshoot of Ryan Kwanten when it dropped back in the day at Bello magazine, but seeing as how the sexy ass True Blood star isn't photographed the way he still oughta be photographed these days I'm going with that golden oldie above for our purposes today. And our purposes today are this -- to point you in the direction of Amazon where the horror streaming service Shudder is having a big blow-out sale called "Halfway to Halloween" on a bunch of their movies on blu-ray and DVD! You love to see a streamer embracing physical media like this, don't you? Those fine folks know that just because you have one of their movies sitting on your shelf doesn't mean you're necessarily going to get up off the couch to put it in when you can also access it via the button on your remote control. It's the "Why not both?" meme come to life! Buy physical media and pay for streamers -- at least the good ones like Shudder anyway. 

But back to the sale -- Ryan Kwanten is the star of the Lovecraftian horror movie Glorious which is a part of Shudder's sale -- you can get that blu for $9.49 right now! That movie, directed by Rebekah McKendry, is a hell of a lot of fun -- see a fun post I did about it right here. Other highlights from this sale... actually you know what? Let's do a list.

10 More Movies I Recommend From Shudder's Sale

The Beach House - buy it here -- my review here!

The Djinn -- buy it here -- my review here!

Scare Me -- buy it here! 

Hunted -- buy it here -- my review here!

Deadstream -- buy it here -- my review here!

Satan's Slaves -- buy it here!

Prevenge -- buy it here - my review here!

Caveat -- buy it here!

Violation -- buy it here -- my review here!

Anything For Jackson -- buy it here!

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These selections trot us all over the globe and hit every single tone and sub-genre of horror that you can imagine -- Shudder is the bee's knees, and it probably has a horror movie about bee's knees while it's at it. It's one of the best bangs for your buck streaming-wise that I've come across, so go support them and why not scare your pants off while you're at it?

Go Weird This Weekend

I see some sites saying that the studios aren't releasing anything right now because the Black Panther sequel next week is about to swallow everything up for a bit, but by my estimation there are four movies out today (five actually, counting streaming) that are definitely worth a look. So let's give you a run-down. First up Daniel Radcliffe stars as Weird Al in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a phony biopic that's very funny. I shared the trailer right here -- I have seen the movie and I enjoyed it but I'm not writing a review because I don't think I could string more than five sentences together on it. It's got some good laughs but I feel the entire thing slipping away less than a week on -- in ten years I imagine it'll pop back into my head randomly and I'll be like, "Oh my god, that happened" and that will be the extent of it. 

The only new movie that's out today that I have unfortunately not seen is Nocebo, the horror movie starring Eva Green that I told you about when it was announced as the Opening Night film for the Brooklyn Horror Fest last month -- the trailer can be viewed right here. Y'all oughta know by now what gigantic Eva Green stans we are around these parts, and Sara at Pajiba seemed to like the movie a lot (I only skimmed the review, since I didn't want any spoilers). This movie's only in theaters. 

Which leaves us with three movies that I have both seen and reviewed. First up we have Indonesian genius director Joko Anwar's new movie, Satan's Slaves 2: Communion, a sequel to his 2017 film, and it is on Shudder right this very second. Both of them are! Watch them back to back! I reviewed the new one right here at BHFF and said, "These movies are seat-jumping funhouses full of chaos and over-the-top terrors, and this one's as big a blast as any."

And speaking of scary the Nazi Wine Mom thriller (what a phrase) Soft & Quiet is out today and man alive talk about a terror -- here is my review of that one from earlier this week. Choice quote:

"The innocence of the American Dream is befouled, and this brave movie looks the filth of it straight in the face. It's the truest sort of horror -- the one too horrible to be anything but true."

This movie might be a lot to watch the weekend before the election honestly, but it's real good and I recommend seeking it out. I don't do "trigger warnings" because I respect y'all enough to be smart enough to know your own boundaries and whether you might be able to sit through something, but I'm not gonna lie -- this one's got some really rough fucking moments, mostly because they ring so true to the reality of our moment. 

Lastly, lightestly, but not leastly, we have Luca Guadagnino's documentary Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, which I shared the trailer for yesterday. This doc doesn't ask anything of you but it's well-done and a true comfort watch, following the original Ferragamo's creation of his brand through the earliest years of Hollywood, where he got his start making boots for Mary Pickford & Co. It's a surprisingly fascinating story! On a sidenote: I hope your foot is okay, Luca! How ironic that he attended the premiere of his documentary about shoes with a big cast boot on one of his feet!

BHFF 22: "Satan's Slaves 2: Communion"

Don't go into the woods alone, they said. Don't go anywhere alone, they said! What is the first thing that we always make fun of horror movie characters for doing? Going to investigate a noise by themselves -- the infamous "I'll be right back" thing. Or going to a second more remote location with a sketchy character (like say for example Jena Malone). There is safety in numbers, we've long been taught -- hell that's basically the entire credo of civilization itself. And Indonesian genre king Joko Anwar's delightfully deranged Satan's Salaves 2: Communion, which just played the Brooklyn Horror Fest and which is premiering on Shudder here in the States on November 4th (after raking in blockbuster bucks in his home country), just shredded that whole damn idea to ribbons.

Anwar's first Satan's Slaves film from 2017 (itself a remake of the 1980 Indonesian classic from director Sisworo Gautama Putra) introduced us to a rural family of Mawarni (Ayu Laksmi) and her husband Bahri (Bront Palarae) along with their four children -- the eldest and most responsible Rini (Tara Basro), the teenager Tony (Endy Arfian), the pre-teen Bondi (Nasar Annuz), and the youngest, Ian (M. Adhiyat), who was deaf. By that film's end Mom was dead and little Ian had been whisked away by a Satanic cult and the family had high-tailed it out of the nowheresville village they lived in to the safety of the city... or so they thought!!!! And yes you should insert a thunder clap there, in case those exclamation points didn't make that perfectly clear.

Several years on and the family has settled into their little corner of a massive brutalist high-rise building that's stuffed to the gills with the blessings of other people. It might not be luxury accommodations -- it's really a bit of a run-down slum -- but the kids all have tons of friends and there's comfort to be had in numbers. Especially when the isolation of the first movie turned out so poorly for everybody involved. Sure, the fact that the elevator sputters and creaks when it gets overloaded with all of these blessed people is a bit unnerving, but the alternative... well that's how your little kid kidnapped by satanists, am I right? 

As Anwar proved with the two horror films he made in between these Satan's Slaves films -- Impetigore (which he wrote and directed) and especially The Queen of Black Magic (which he only scripted) -- he's an ace at juggling a pile of characters, and Communion finds him at the top of his game with this. Besides the entire family at our film's center there are reams of new people to get to know here, and he does so with astonishing ease -- by the time the lights go out and the horrors begin piling up up up as high as the high-rise goes we feel like we know all of these folks, at least enough to be scared for them anyway.

Because, as the title makes clear, this movie isn't gonna be community gardens and bake-offs. It turns out there's no slipping through the crowd from a curse -- that darned curse is gonna curse up everybody you try to stack in its way. And there's also the fact that with this many neighbors you can't get to know everybody -- indeed who knows, knock out one brick between you and the couple next door and who knows what you might find. Photos of your dead mother, maybe. Wouldn't that be weird...?

Basic gist: if you're not keeping up with the horror movies of Joko Anwar and the folks he's working with then you're missing out on one of the great treats of our time, and his Satan's Slaves sequel only further cements that status. As the major vibes of U.S. horror slip away from the artiness of so-called "Elevated Horror" into an embrace of sloppier, goofier, splashier stuff -- even though I wasn't a fan James Wan's over-the-top Malignant is a harbinger of where we're headed, I think -- we can just glance over the ocean to somebody who's been acing that vibe for half a decade now. These movies are seat-jumping funhouses full of chaos and over-the-top terrors, and this one's as big a blast as any.

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Satan's Slaves 2 screened at Brooklyn Horror 2022.

Check out their ongoing line-up over here!

The Monsters Are Taking Brooklyn Again!

First things first -- that might be the most gorgeous artwork for the Brooklyn Horror Fest to date? Totally gorgeous. Anyway this fest, one of my faves, is up to its seventh year now, and yes I have been covering it all seven. And today they announced the first round of titles for their 2022 spectacular -- you can see them all right here but the things that leapt right out at me (beside the fact that the fest has been officially taken over by Shudder, which is not a surprise in the slightest) are this. One, they are doing a retrospective of Lucio Fulci movies! It's eight films long and it will include the new 4K restoration of The Beyond that the master musician Fabio Frizzi created an entirely new score for. 

And two -- the Opening Night movie stars Eva Green! Called Nocebo it's from director Lorcan Finnegan (who made Vivarium) and it has Eva playing a woman plagued by a mysterious illness, who starts taking folk remedies that a Filipino caretaker (who just...shows up one day... dun dun dun), which leads to a rift with her husband (played by Mark Strong). I am sure this will all work out well for everybody involved! Anyway I'm intrigued (slash nervous) to see how the racial aspects play out here, but Eva Green anything is always welcome.

And third -- they've got Joko Anwar's new movie! The Indonesian master has made a sequel to his 2017 film Satan's Slaves and it's been out in his home country for several weeks now and I have watched in absolute raw jealousy as raves for it over there have passed by my eyes -- I wasn't sure when we'd get to see it here in the US, so this is welcome news indeed! 

Anyway there are several more titles of note in this, just the first announcement -- they've got the new V/H/S anthology film, they've got Benson & Moorehead's latest, they've got a doc about Stephen King movies and they've got Kyle Gallner and they've got the very fine movie The Harbinger, which I reviewed at Fantasia last month right here. The fest runs from October 13th through 20th and you can buy your fest badges right now at this link. Click on over and check it all out! Or else...

Yes, Queen

Heads-up on a creepy-crawly horror flick coming your way (as long as you've got Shudder, and you really should have Shudder) -- on January 28th y'all can see The Queen of Black Magic, the latest wowza coming out of Indonesia, a country that's really been bringing it to the genre over the past few years. And the biggest name in Indonesian horror is attached to this one to boot -- Joko Anwar, whose flick Impetigore (written on previously here) is Indonesia's submission for the Oscars this year, wrote its script. 

The flick was directed by Kimo Stamboel, who previously was one-half of The Mo Brothers, a horror directing duo. I reviewed The Queen of Black Magic last fall when it screened as part of the Nightstream Festival -- you can read it here -- although maybe just watch the movie, then read my review. Same goes for the trailer, seen below -- as with all horror movies it's better to just go in blind, says me! You decide!

Icy Fingers Up & Down My Spine

Centipedes. Why did it have to be centipedes? Okay so that's not exactly what Indiana Jones says -- although he should have said that in Temple of Doom when it is indeed centipedes -- but it's what I sure as fuck said as so many centipedes skittered this way and that with their thousands of utterly repulsive legs in the new Indonesian horror flick The Queen of Black Magic, which is streaming as part of the Nightstream festival and which will be hitting Shudder soon. I just can't with the centipedes, man! 

Out of the many fears inflicted upon the horror movie watching community there are only a couple that really truly get to me, and The Queen of Black Magic has the two main worst ones -- bugs and self-mutilation -- crammed up her diabolical lady sleeves. Quite literally, as the flick revels in making its characters self-mutilate because they have centipedes up their fucking sleeves. See how this movie has me using foul language in a movie review? That's how emphatic I am about how truly grossed out this movie made me. And I loved every goddamn minute.

I suppose I should set it all up. Director Kimo Stamboel, with a story by director-writer Joko Anwar (who himself just gave us the terrific gem Impetigore earlier this year), invites us to meet four men and their families who are all converging on the same orphanage in the middle of nowhere where they all grew up. Well three of the men are converging and one's already there at the orphanage, where he still lives and works as an adults -- Maman and his wife Siti have invited his old friends Hanif, Jefri, and Anton to come see their old care-giver Mr. Bandi, who's on the verge of death.

Slowly, shit unravels. Well slowly at first, and then real fucking fast all at once. There are, as there always are in these movies, most terrible secrets buried beneath the floorboards (or in this case the cement), and the vengeance of the done-wrong is coming for all parties involved. And Stamboel's film feels in its way like a substantial summation, an all-but-the-kitchen-sink re-telling, of creaky old tales that came before, in the same way that Poltergeist reimagined the Haunted House story for the Suburban Generation -- The Queen of Black Magic is riding on a wave of real good Indonesian Horror and it feels like a statement piece. A "here's everything we got coming at you, packaged up big and loud and scary."

And it is all of those things! It's a hoot and a holler and it made all of my nerve-endings twitch. I was scratching at the balls of my feet and literally covering my eyes. Closing the windows. Pulling the blankets up over my damned fool head. It's not really anything you haven't seen before, but it's everything you have seen before strapped ass-first onto a top-notch rollercoaster from hell and you're coming along for the horror. The creepy-crawlies have got your number and are knocking on the door with this one, my friends.

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The Queen of Black Magic, like most of the films I've reviewed over the past few days, is still streaming online as part the Nightstream Festival -- you can check the list here! Everything is still available through the 14th, so quick run and hurry, see what you can before they vanish. This one will be on Shudder at some point in the near future -- I don't have an exact date but I'll make sure to share when it's available cuz man is this movie some fun.

My Best Friend's Nightmare

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I'm going to have to assume that most of you have not yet seen Shudder's latest Indonesian horror flick Impetigore, since it's only been available there on that streaming service for a few days now. But I think you should seek it out, and I wrote up some of the reason why over at The Film Experience today for this week's edition of "Great Moments in Horror Actressing." So click on over and check that shit, yo. I'm definitely going to have to go watch Joko Anwar's previous film called Satan's Slaves next, which I'd also heard good stuff about. Impetigore surprised me! Real solid and spooky.

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