As we slide into Thanksgiving -- I'm already too fat, and now I'm gonna get fatter -- I realized that I have yet to finish off my Halloween Horror series for 2025. So without further ado, and because Spooky Season is a state of mind rather than a date on a calendar, I am leaving the last of the thirty-one reviews I pledged to drop in October. I do realize Goodreads is a strange place to review movies, but in my mind the line between television, cinema and the literary world is actually fine and rather blurry at that. I'm a big believer in the idea that readers and writers both can learn a great deal about the storytelling art from the tube, or the silver screen. And hey, this is where I blog, and I blog about what I like, so here we go:

Creature (1998). This two-part miniseries screams TV MOVIE but in its own silly way it's rather enjoyable...provided you unplug most of the higher centers of your brain. Another Peter Benchley novel adapted for the screen, this one pits Craig T. Nelson, Kim Cattrall and Giancarlo Esposito against a government-engineered "landshark" that escapes its Caribbean lab and begins eating hapless locals. It's ridiculous and could probably be served with crust and tomato sauce because it's so damn cheesey, but fans of Benchley's formula storytelling and monster movies may find it a good excuse to binge on popcorn for a few hours, as the land-shark monster is actually beautifully done via practical effects.(Incidentally, it's nowhere near as good as THE BEAST, another Benchley-adapted miniseries starring William Petersen.)

Phenomena (1985). Released in the U.S. as "Creepers," this is a hugely underrated Dario Argento movie starring a young Jennifer Connolly and Donald Pleasance. I don't really care much for Argento or "giallo" movies generally -- the are so violent they numb rather than frighten -- but this film is a terrific juggle of supernatural, slasher, and, well, just plain weird. It is the story of a young woman with the ability to communicate with insects who falls afoul of a serial killer prowling the halls and grounds of her Swiss boarding school. The story is really too bizarre to explain, but the sheer weirdness of it just seems to work, and hey, any movie that also features a really (and I mean really) dedicated helper monkey is worth consideration.

The Green Inferno (2013). I recently said of Eli Roth: "He's a step above a hack, but how big that step is remains open for discussion." This movie is his riff on the infamous found-footage 70s grue movie "Cannibal Holocaust," which created the genre (no, it wasn't "The Blair Witch Project"). Basically, a group of idealistic social justice warriors, trying to save the rainforest, ends up in the hands of a cannibalistic tribe who just wants to eat them. Although filled with the usual Roth hyper-violence (torture, dismemberment, evisceration, etc.) it actually has something to say about the complexites of eco-activism and the motives of some of the people in the movement, and the ugliness does serve the story, which in my mind is the measure of whether it comprises exploitation or not.

Drag Me To Hell (2009). Woman pisses of gypsy. Gypsy curses woman. Woman desperately tries to avoid her fate. This plot is as old as the hills, I literally remember hearing Old Time Radio shows recorded in the 30s - 50s with the same basic premise, and the Stephen King movie "Thinner" did it a lot better in 1996. Sam Raimi seems caught between his trademark hyperkinetic style and a more conventional approach, with the result that I was never sure whether this flick was a horror-comedy or a comedy-horror. Plus, the protagonist kills her own kitten to try and save her skin. How do we root for a protagonist that cowardly?

Shadow of the Vampire (2000). Arthouse films can try my patience, but this one spins exhausted vampire tropes into an unrecognizable blur. "Shadow" brings a delightful conceit to the castle, to wit: the first-ever vampire movie, "Nosferatu" was actually made with a real vampire. John Malkovich does his impressive best to play a director so obsessed with his movie he doesn't care if the vampire eats the entire cast. Willem Dafoe plays the vampire as a grumpy old crank, half-sympathetic, half-revolting, and all treacherous. A horror-comedy, but one with a lot to say about obsession and human nature and the wobbly line between art and insanity, this is well worth watching.

The Hunger (1983). As noted above, the vampire story has been told so often that finding new ways to tell it is damned difficult. Tony Scott does a credible job with this stylish, erotic tale in which an ancient queen vamp (Catherine Deneuve) can turn those she favors into vampires...but only for a few centuries, whereupon they age rapidly and horribly into living mummies. A play on the whole Greek tragedy of Tithonus, who was granted eternal life but not eternal youth, our queen consorts with David Bowie, her soon-to-be-discarded lover, but has an eye for sexy Susan Sarandon, who she wants as her next vamptoy. Creepy and sexy, eschewing nearly all the tropes (the vamps don't fear sunlight or have fangs, they just want blood) and even stressing some of the practicalities of having to regularly kill human beings (read: incinerator in basement), "The Hunger" is flawed but in its own stylish way, fascinating.

The Stepfather (1987). Terry O'Quinn was a hard-working, quietly successful actor for many years before "Lost" made him famous, and "The Stepfather" is fine evidence of why casting directors keep him on speed-dial. In this modernish horror classic, O'Quinn plays Jerry, a man looking to adopt the perfect family. He goes from town to town, moving in on single mothers who he charms into marriage, and then sets up house with them. Everything is "fine and dandy like summer candy" until someone in the family disappoints Jerry and upsets his notion of, well, perfection. Then he kills everybody with the nearest hammer, carving knife or 2 x 4 and starts the whole process again somewhere else. O'Quinn shines as the killer stepdad who just wants to be Ned Flanders but ends up more like Ed Gein. On the one hand he's a complete monster who needs to be shot dead immediately, and on the other, well, you kinda feel for the guy: if he wasn't crazy, he'd be the perfect stepdad.

And with that, I retire my Halloween mask until 2026 -- which, incidentally, is when Volume II of SOMETHING EVIL, my epic horror novel, comes out. The paint isn't even dry on VOLUME I, which dropped on Halloween, and which will be on sale (90% off!) from November 26 - 28. Consider it a Halloween treat on Thanksgiving Day.

SOMETHING EVIL: VOLUME I: BOOKS 1 & 2