Mod Horror Watch: Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1962)

Watched:  10/11/2026

Format:  YouTube (watch it here)

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Hill

Usually the way Halloween-time spooky-movie-watching occurs is I pitch a few movies and Jamie picks one based on how well one of them suits her mood.  But this time I said "your challenge is to pick a Halloween or horror movie without any input from me".  

Not too very much longer after, she said "Spider Baby".  And I said "beg pardon?"  For I had never heard of Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (1962).  

Jamie put on a trailer for the movie, and I groaned when I saw Lon Chaney Jr.  But, still, it wasn't Glenn Strange, so we take what we can get.  But then, Jamie said "it has an 88% critics rating on RT, and a 75% audience rating", so we fired it up.

This movie was a delight.  It made me think of JeniferSF repeatedly.  She'd enjoy this one.

It's a sort of riff on the Old Dark House motif, of a house full of weirdos living their lives in a ramshackle place, unsuspecting travelers drop in, and things get crazy.  

Horror Watch: Carnival of Souls (1962)

Watched:  10/10/2026

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Herk Harvey

I'm the guy who thinks Carnival of Souls (1962) is a great movie.  I liked it so much after the first time I saw it, I bought the disc.  I sent money to star Candace Hilligoss and got a signed picture.

For me, this is a terrific, gothic American horror story.  And (spoilers) I dig that the explanation leaves more questions than it answers.  

Hilligoss is *great*.  With a camera shoved in her face almost non-stop, she carries the film with a mix of bewilderment, iciness, and desperation.  She's not an easy heroine.  She's not likeable.  She's not a final girl.  But she's *compelling*.  

The script places Hilligoss's Mary Henry with feet in the world of the mundane and the spiritual - she's to be an organist at a church.  She declares it's just a job, it has no religious significance to her - and whether that was her stance before or after she went in the water, we don't know.  

But now she's a lost soul, slowly realizing she's a spirit among the living, her human wants and interests dissipating - knowing she should want human contact, but spinning away from even the sleazy kindness offered her, as well as the friendship of the church.

It's sort of a great novella or short story of a film.  No, the budget isn't spectacular, and you have to accept the limitations, but it's nonetheless effective.

Anyway, I know this is one that a lot of people came to thru Riff-Trax or whatever, but that's because it was out of copyright.  There are weaknesses aplenty - only Hilligoss and Sidney Berger were regular talent.  And this was Hilligoss's second time on screen.  I dunno, I find the stilted delivery of everyone around Mary to feed the vibe.  

If you tell me it's a bad movie, I'll say "it's an inexpensive movie, sure" but would defend what it's doing as what I find interesting in horror versus someone slashing kids at a summer camp.  

Horror Watch: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - Freddy's Revenge (1985) / Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2020)

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge 

Watched:  10/09/2026

Format:  HBO

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Sholder

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

Watched: 10/10/2026

Format:  YouTube (link here)

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen

My guess is that because A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) is kind of interesting and tries to do character stuff, the fans hate it. 

I'm first to confess, I really don't know the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.  I've seen the first one a few times now, and the third one once.  But I just wasn't terribly interested in horror growing up.  At the time kids are getting into it, I was like "gimme Dracula or I have no time for your tomfoolery".  And then, when I was 14 and finally rented The Exorcist and The Shining, was like "Hey, THIS is horror?  These movies are great".  

My tastes have shifted, and I've come around on some of this stuff.  

Crampton Watch: Fraternity Vacation (1985)

if the poster gives you a sinking feeling, that is the right reaction

Watched:  10/08/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  James Frawley

This movie is bad.  

You go into it knowing it's bad.  But then it's very bad, and there you are.  But you were the one who hit play on the movie, so you have to just sit with who you are and what you're doing with your life.

Fraternity Vacation (1985) is part of the horned-up young adults having wacky misadventures films of the 1980's.  But it comes along at a point where there were so many of these dumb things, there's a punchlist of things that need to happen more than there needs to be a plot.  

Crampton Watch: Dead Night (2017)

Watched:  10/07/2026

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Brad Baruh

Someday I should go to Fantastic Fest here in Austin.  JAL does it every year, and it's a whole scene.  I guess a decade ago Dead Night (2017) was included, and co-star Barbara Crampton was actually there with some of the rest of the cast.  That would be great.

Dead Night seems like a movie that made sense on paper, and would work great as a horror comic book.  As a movie, it has some structural issues that maybe keep it from knocking it out of the park, because it's well acted, had a good location/set, and - in the end - the overall concept is something I liked.

But I didn't think much of the movie for maybe the first thirty minutes.  As we made the turn into the last ten minutes or so I thought "well, that was kind of clever".  It didn't knock my socks off, but I was impressed with the notion of the movie.  

Signal Watch Reads: Caves of Steel (1953)

I have a few books I return to every once in a while.  Frankenstein.  Fahrenheit 451.  The Hunter.  Red Harvest.  

But in this century, I haven't come back to Caves of Steel, a book I read first in Sixth grade and probably last looked at in 11th grade.  Which is odd. If you asked me if I liked it, I'd have given you a definite thumbs-up.

At the time, I was aware I was reading something published more than thirty years prior - but that wasn't entirely new to me.  I'd read kids fiction and non-fiction books written in the fifties.  I was aware of the 1950's and 60's belief in atomic energy, which had fallen apart in the wake of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.  As a young child, I'd read speculative non-fiction about where we were headed - and firmly believed that humanity's future would be one of robotic pals, cybernetics and star-faring pioneering.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Eva Marie Saint Merges With The Infinite

Actor Eva Marie Saint has passed at 102.

I primarily know her from North by Northwest, Superman Returns and On the Waterfront.  

Hell of a career and a heck of a life.

DCU TV Watch: Lanterns

After Episode 1 of DC Studios' Lanterns, I wrote a post with some early general impressions and my Green Lantern commenting credentials.  Enjoy.  

I didn't want to do episode-by-episode coverage because, frankly, all you're left to do each week is say "remember the part where he did the thing?  That was cool" and then speculate a whole lot.  

But, as one can expect, the internet reaction to the show has been wild.

A whole lot of people are furious at the lack of tights on the show.  People are surprised that an 8-episode TV show - that has offered up production stills and ads for months, clearly showing our two Lanterns on Earth, with tag lines about them looking into a crime in small-town America - did not pull a switcheroo and become Power Rangers. 

People gotta weigh in.  We don't get a sense of ownership over the thing we like if we aren't there to comment early and often.  

Horror Watch: Backrooms (2026)

Watched:  10/04/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kane Parsons

During lockdown, I went down a lot of YouTube holes.  One of the ways I wasted my hours was watching "urban exploration" - videos of people going into facilities and structures which have been abandoned.  

These videos cover everything from empty hospitals with equipment collecting dust to prisons with rotting bars to defunct mega-construction projects in China.  Some folks hit old forts and underground military bunkers left over from the Cold War.  And houses - often mansions, that have simply been left to rot.

The videos are always marginally disturbing.  Buildings are *designed*.  They have purpose where form meets function.   You can see the massive expense for these places, from the labor needed to build them to the equipment and furnishings.  And then... something happened and everyone went away.

The buildings, tunnels, etc.. are left to decay.  America's former malls are a wild thing to behold.  Nature reclaims what it can, rain comes through ceilings, vines and mold grow in odd places.  a layer of dust a half inch thick may have formed in the older examples.

Sci-FI Watch: Project Hail Mary (2026)

Watched:  10/03/2026

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Lord & Miller

I've already seen Project Hail Mary (2026) once in the theater this year.

The book and movie are favorites here at League HQ, especially with Jamie.  She wanted to pick a movie, it had been six months since we'd seen this one, so I was in agreement.  

I will say, as much as I enjoyed this movie again, it was one I'd say should have been seen on the big screen.  It's a sensory experience from the elaborate visuals to the sound to the score.  It's good at home, but it was something else in an auditorium.  

I have heard the social media chatter around this movie is very weird, with edge lords who are mad that our lead character is a relatable human being instead of a gritty kick-ass guy, and then the folks who can only relate to media by turning it into wank material frustrated that there's no one to "ship" Grace with other than a rock.*

Sigh.

Anyway...  I am not going to write up a movie again that I liked perfectly well, already discussed, as well as discussing the book.

*apparently a kick-ass, brilliant woman (with a lovely shade of hair) who gets shit done is not an option