Sir Patrick Stewart Merges With The Infinite

Well, I've already pushed back some tears about this one.

Sir Patrick Stewart, our captain, has passed.  He was 86.

Prepare for a few generations of people to be really broken up about losing one of the bright stars of our firmament.

I had seen Stewart in one or two things before I came to know him as Captain Picard with the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot, Encounter at Farpoint.  I was, originally, a bit thrown.  But, within a few episodes, I understood what Stewart was bringing to the screen.

By the time I left for college it was with a poster that was just Picard, and so it was that Patrick Stewart - in the form of Jean-Luc - watched over me my freshman year.    

It turned out that Sir Patrick, out of character, was an immensely interesting person, who seemed to embrace life and the world around him with more warmth with each passing year.  After Star Trek, he made a tremendously good version of A Christmas Carol, he became Professor Xavier - a character I held dear from my X-Men reading days, and helped create the comic book movie as it exists now - one that demands the material find a truth to it.  And during COVID, he read us Shakespeare.  

He was outspoken about gay rights, about equality domestic abuse and other causes, and seemed, above all, a good man.  

Among his Star Trek comrades, he truly did seem to be the Captain - the British-trained actor who expected the most out of everyone, and the love the cast showed for him on and off screen was apparent.  And I knew during that final season of Picard, we were seeing a terrific gift given to us by that cast and crew.  One final mission for a man who was aging and meant much to all of them.

If you can find it, this coming Christmas season, either find his version of A Christmas Carol on television or the audiobook he narrated of Dickens' book.

Fair sailing, Captain.  You'll be missed.

Horror Watch: Dolls (1986)

Watched:  10/25/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  I'll call it a first viewing

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Sometimes I just want to know what the story is or was about a movie more than I care about the movie.

One day I'll do a full de-brief on Stuart Gordon's From Beyond, but the movie which is the subject of our post - Dolls (1986) - and From Beyond were apparently shot back-to-back re-using some of the same locations and sets.  They certainly share some of the same producers and a Director of Photography, Mac Ahlberg.

I'm guessing Dolls was shot as a sure-fire money-maker - and it's worth noting one of the producers involved with Dolls wound up writing Puppetmaster - which has a cameo by our own Barbara Crampton, star of From Beyond.  

Noir Watch: The Woman on Pier 13 (1949)

Watched:  10/22/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Stevenson

We're still in the late 1940's with the release of The Woman on Pier 13 (1949), and there's still more of the grit in the movies that audiences felt reflected the post-war moment than we'd see five or six years later, even in noir.

A movie about the ruthlessness of American Communists and romance twisted to obsession into cruelty, the movie finds us alongside newlyweds Brad and Nan Collins (Robert Ryan and Laraine Day).  Ryan plays a guy who came up the hard way, from a San Francisco stevedore to the newly appointed Vice President of a shipping company.  

He's met Day as the decorator for his office and married her within two weeks - something that movies treated as fairly *normal* until the 1960's.*  During their honeymoon, two things occur.  

Vamp Watch: Interview with the Vampire - The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Watched:  10/22/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Neil Jordan

Credit where it's due.  We don't get the last 30 years of vampire media without, first, Anne Rice's vampire novels and probably not without Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994).  It's also hard to explain what a huge deal Anne Rice was in an era of B. Dalton book stores and a lack of access to somewhat transgressive fiction for suburban kids.  You want quasi-queer fiction you can read at the lunch table?  This was it.  And, there is a line somewhere from Anne Rice's novels to Twilight to stuff like Vampire Academy and, absolutely, the current popularity of supernatural romance.  

I should be clear - I'm more of a Bela Lugosi / Nosferatu / Sinners / Near Dark kind of vampire guy.  I've never read any of Rice's books.  And in 1994, I took a pass on the movie in the theaters, in part because I was busy with college, and in part because I thought Tom Cruise was a chode who had weaseled his way into the movie.

I finally watched Interview with the Vampire on VHS by myself at some point shortly after it hit the Blockbuster - but I couldn't tell you when.  All I can tell you is that I was really, really bored.  

Well, I have news about re-watching this movie in 2026.

Tom Skerritt Merges With the Infinite

Actor Tom Skerritt, fixture of five decades of film, has passed.

Skerritt was kind of amazing because you could just drop him in anywhere and he was buyable.  Running a space ship hauler?  Sure!  Someone's dad in Wyoming.  Why not?  Sometimes the stalwart, sometimes the villain, we always got the assignment.

He'll be missed.

Noir Watch: The Chicago Syndicate (1954)

Watched:  10/20/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Fred F. Sears

This was... shockingly good.  Or, at least, The Chicago Syndicate (1954) really landed for me.  Maybe I was shocked it wasn't bad, tilting into me outright enjoying the film.  

I don't rank movies by numbers or stars or whatever, but I give it... 7 Emmylous.  

just one Emmylou is quite a good thing to have

I will not be explaining this ranking system at this time.

It's perhaps because the movie has the quick pacing of nearly a modern film, or because they throw both Allison Hayes and Abbe Lane at you...  Anyway -  I dug it.  

Horror Watch: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Watched:  10/18/2026

Format:  State Theater/ Panic at the Paramount

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Robert Fuest

A couple of weeks ago, pal-CB asked if I wanted to go see The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) at Panic at the Paramount, a now-annual film series hosted between the Paramount Theatre (currently closed for remodeling) and its sister theater/ nextdoor facility, The State Theater.  

Really, it should just be a rule that when someone asks you if you want to see Dr. Phibes, you say "yes".  

A very odd comedy-horror, there are movies with similar plots, including Price's own Theatre of Blood, but nothing else feels like or even looks like The Abominable Dr. Phibes.  It's set in 1920's London with a mix of chic art deco architecture and old-school Victorian homes and offices.  Phibes himself dwells in the coolest villain layer I can think of - complete with his own Rock-a-Fire Explosion mechanical band.

Fam Watch: The Addams Family (1991)

Watched:  10/18/2026

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:   Barry Sonnenfeld

This was a Halloween watch with the niblings.  

Steanso's kids hear-tell that Unky Ry watches a lot of movies, and they kind of like movies, so there's often a bit of "you should watch a movie with the kids" which I am totally game for.  But these are 2026 kids with screens, and their relationship to movies is more like...  The Minions and Mario Bros. movie than what I watch.  

So, as smart, curious kids, they want to know what someone who watches a lot of movies likes, and I can't really say "let's talk about why everyone is wrong about Showgirls and how it's a brilliant critique of showbiz, capitalism and America..."  

As someone who grew up thinking The Addams Family was pretty keen and as a 16-year-old eagerly saw the movie opening weekend, I thought "well, I remember kids being there for this one.  It's a comedy.  Kids love Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston, right?  Right...?"

The movie went over like a lead balloon.  

It's fine.  It *is* a particular flavor of comedy they may not be ready for, and I kind of forgot how horny the movie is, which I think freaked the kids out a little.  And, apparently, the notion of things like Wednesday and Pugsley blowing each other up just off-screen did not click.

Well, maybe one day.  

Drac Watch: Dan Curtis' Dracula (1973)

Watched:  10/17/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dan Curtis

I'd heard this particular version of Dracula was pretty good, and I think that's not wrong.  I suspect it means more to British people who are familiar with the largely English cast.   It's a TV movie from the BBC, I assume, from 1973 and feels like a theatrical release, which is a reminder that TV didn't always put effort in back in the day, but when they did, it could be impressive.  

Dan Curtis's Dracula (1973) is essentially yet another version of Bram Stoker's Dracula that mixes and matches elements from the novel and other movies.  Parts of it are a wee bit more violent or gory than I expected for the primetime viewing hour, but very Dracula on-brand.  But I don't know the context of when and how it aired.

It basically bumps off Harker, which I've seen a few places and makes sense for narrative expediency depending on what you think the end should look like.

I won't get into it too much, but in this one Drac sees a picture of Lucy and she's the reincarnated ex.  When Van Helsing stakes her, everything that happens after is revenge for them taking his lady-love away.  Lucy also has only Arthur as a suitor - there is a tragic lack of a cowboy in the movie, which is bullshit.

I vaguely remember Simon Ward from something including Supergirl.  But mostly I was shocked someone cast Jack Palance as our Transylvanian Tepes.  Aside from that, none of these people meant a whole lot to me.   

Oddly, Palance is really, really good as Dracula.  It's the best I've seen him outside of Shane, and I've seen a handful of his movies (he's okay in The Big Knife).  

The thing eschews German Expressionism or even the punchy colors of early Hammer and sometimes looks like Dracula just running around someone's house, which is more or less what the book actually did.  That's not to say it looks bad - it's just not using light for mood a lot of the time. 

If I'm struggling to say much, it's because there's not much to say - but I think you can draw an interesting line from this version of the story to Coppola's version.  Both really want to mythologize Drac's origins and love for a woman across an ocean of time, etc...

Halloween Watch: Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Watched:  10/17/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Michael Dougherty

I'm always surprised you don't hear more about Trick 'r Treat (2007).  It's kind of the *ideal* Halloween horror movie, but it just seems to float around the periphery.  

It has it's own little mascot fellow, just like a Friday the 13th or, I guess, Terrifier (I haven't seen those).  It's very much *about* the season while also telling tales for the season.  It has an all-timer sequence with Dylan Baker, the most under-appreciated actor of the last forty years.  

It plays with multiple horror genres, including kids telling a story about a tragedy, a maniacal killer, girls who maybe should be in peril, and a vicious little demon.  And manages to run strong threads to pull it all together.

It's well-shot, has a black little heart, and everyone gets the assignment.  

I don't have that much to say about it at the moment.  I was positive SimonUK and I had podcasted it, but apparently that was a no-podcast hang?  Oh, yeah, it was way back in 2015.  

If I go on, I'd likely spoil the whole thing.  But if you don't want to just watch a horror movie you could watch any old time, and you want one for the spooky season?  This perfectly fits the bill.

I do remember being much more aware of who much of the cast was in 2015, but watching it now...  I remember the name Leslie Bibb, but had to look her up to remember why.  The movie was also produced by Bryan Singer, which may be why there has not been a follow up.

Crampton Watch: Stay Out Stay Alive (2019)

Watched:  10/16/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dean Yurke

Well, Barbara Crampton was not in this one enough to really justify the viewing, but I still watched it.

Stay Out Stay Alive (2019) is a spring of a short story stretched out well past the point where the coil lost all its tension.  It's borrowing from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the last ten minutes of Last Crusade, 10,000 cheap horror films, and spooooky ghost stories, I guess.

It's hard not to acknowledge that horror films are (and have been) a way for would-be filmmakers to get noticed.  Some folks stay in this lane and just keep making cheap horror movies as there's apparently an audience of eternally-hungry horror fiends who will watch just about anything if you put Barbara Crampton in it.  Oh, wait... while we pause for station self-reflection.

But, yeah, that's another cheap movie trick.  Just hire a name talent and have them show up in a supporting role.  It's not the worst trick, certainly.  

Horror Watch: House of the Long Shadows (1983)

Watched:  10/16/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Pete Walker

Like a dork, I saw who all was in this movie, got excited and hit play.  

And then the credits started with with "A Golan/ Globus Production" and I died a little inside.

House of the Long Shadows (1983) is like an aging musical super group.  Imagine you just got Jagger and Richards, paired them with Townsend and Stuart Copeland on drums, but then fronted by, like, the talentless child of Donny Osmond.*  

Anyway, the movie features my boys Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, along with John Carradine.  And then the movie stars Desi Arnaz Jr. for some reason.  It's a very Gothic, Poe-esque, Old Dark House sort of movie, which is usually a solid set-up to begin with.

Dracula Watch: The Horror of Dracula (1958)

Watched:  10/13/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Terence Fisher

Part of the Hammer horror explosion, The Horror of Dracula (1958) may be a horrendous adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, but it is a banger of a movie.  And as Hammer knew immediately, Peter Cushing could flip the evil intensity he'd shown as Victor Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein the year prior and create a bonafide horror hero out of Van Helsing, while Christopher Lee looked at Bela Lugosi and said "hold my beer".  

This Dracula is not some smooth bastard here to make off with your virgins, this is the first in a series of movies where Dracula is a straight up menace who is not going to do a bunch of magic tricks to scare you - he's just going to murder you with his bare hands and scary eyeballs.

It has bits of the book, but feels like someone forced to tell the story of Dracula who saw the 1931 movie once while blitzed and is cobbling pieces together as they go.  I have to accept that that's fine as I do like the movie for what it is - an earnestly told story with the actors leaning into it.

Storywise, subsequent installments would build out what an absolute bastard this Dracula is, and Cushing would delight as the iron-willed Van Helsing.  The follow up doesn't even have a proper Dracula - it's a different vampire.  

Anyway, if you're looking for a bit of Dracula that isn't all cheesy melodrama, this is your choice.  No romantic subplots here, no oceans of time.  Just vampiric dickery and a Dracula who loves making a dramatic entrance.

I may just feel compelled to watch these Draculas again.

Noir Watch: Loophole (1954)

Watched:  10/12/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Harold D. Schuster

I dunno.  

I hate to speak ill of a movie with Dorothy Malone and Charles McGraw in it.  But Loophole (1954) didn't make a lot of sense.

Our set up:  Barry Sullivan plays a bank teller.  Clean as a whistle.  A war vet. 

One morning, the bank is visited by a fleet of bank examiners - 10 arrive at one time to perform a surprise exam.  But a clever fellow, Tate (Don Beddoe), slips in behind them as if he's part of the group.  He manages to blend in and while his accomplice (Mary Beth Hughes) distracts Sullivan, our crook snags almost $50K from Barry Sullivan's drawer - roughly $621,000 in today's dollars.

To make the movie happen, our hero doesn't tell anyone.  He just goes home for the weekend, like that money is going to just show up.  

I don't buy it.  If you saw that money was missing, it clearly has legal implications and will cost you your job.  You're telling your boss, or calling them at home and absolutely not leaving the bank.  You are removing any hint of suspicion.

Then, Charles McGraw is assigned the case - and he's a hard nosed detective for the bond company.  He thinks Sullivan did it, and even after it's clear Sullivan didn't do it - months later - he still thinks he did, and is trying to cost Sullivan every opportunity for work by telling employers Sullivan is a crook.  It's *clearly* slander, opening McGraw and the bond company up for a lawsuit.  I mean, I've seen real life detectives refuse to believe they're wrong no matter what evidence is there, but McGraw is a private detective, not a cop.  He's got no coverage.

Dorothy Malone plays Sullivans very, very, very supportive wife.

The last 1/4 is just as messy as Sullivan tracks down Beddoe and makes horrible choice after horrible choice.  Like I said, I just didn't think this movie made much sense.  The best part of that section of the movie is Hughes turning on Beddoe and trying to take control.  She's an absolute gem here.

As Noir Alley host Eddie Muller pointed out - the highlight here is really the two women in the movie who kind of keep it going.  I've seen Sullivan in several movies now, and he's... fine.  He's just never my favorite.  But he is a good choice here - his height working as a defense against McGraw's intensity.

I've seen worse, it's just not a movie that is so bad it's memorable or good enough to think about by the end of the week.

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.  

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.