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The Horrors of 2023: Consecration

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Let’s make this a short one. Consecration should have been my happy place: violent nuns, folk horror, and possession. But it was only muddled and confusing. There are positives – elegant acting by leads Jena Malone, Janet Suzman and Danny Huston, and some lovely, awe inspiring scenery in Scotland. The plot weaves childhood abuse, an ancient pagan cult countered by an order of pseudo-Knights Templar, and an occult possession mystery around the suicide of Jena Malone’s priest brother. As Marya E. Gates of RogerEbert.com notes, the nods to nunsploitation weakly cue Ken Russell’s The Devils. Ultimately, there exists some sort of commentary about religion, but nothing of substance comes through.

Of all the 2023 horrors I’ve taken in to date, why did it have to be the nunsploitation one that left me unimpressed?

Now click on the image below and do your shopping on Amazon to support my blog, or it’s a rap on the knuckles….

The Horrors of 2023: Infinity Pool

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In 2020, right before the start of the pandemic, Brandon Cronenberg made me ill. Possessor, his excellent second directorial feature, bored its way into my brain as surely as the fictional device its corporate assassins used on their victims. Its protagonist un-mothered, shed her skin, and become something fully stripped of anything close to human.

Similar, if not parallel, trajectories awaited Alexander Skaarsgard’s character in Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool.

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Horrors of 2023: Knock at the Cabin

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I’ve yet to read a novel by Paul Tremblay, and that’s something I plan to correct very soon. I have however seen plenty of films by M. Night Shyamalan, and the director is no point of contention for me. I think his work is just fine. I’ve enjoyed many of his movies, disliked one or two others, and landed somewhere in the middle on a third set. 

But I will always love and appreciate his commitment to the paranormal thriller genre and his ever contentious “twists,” of which….

SPOILERS………

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Horrors of 2023: The Devil Conspiracy

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There exists on our earthly plane that slightly bizarre mutant offspring of “the devil movie” – or “satanic cinema” –  that is a bit hard to define and place in a neat box.

It’s Biblically apocalyptic but not exactly a straightforward Omen narrative involving The Antichrist.

It’s not usually as hateful as the writings of Paul Jenkins and Timothy LaHaye.  It will usually involve angels from Judeo Christian mythology, and they won’t always be benevolent. And it will most likely mutate the Book of Revelations into some bizarre convoluted paths.

Well, 2023’s The Devil Conspiracy is the mutanty mutant mutation of the mutant cousin of this horror subgenre. So mutated, it makes the X-Men look like clean-cut Young Republicans with no super powers whatsoever. But the thing to know is, this movie’s thematic ambition is A-M-B-I-T-I-O-N. And despite the messy looniness, I can only applaud and celebrate its bizarre flexes.

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Loco Parentis: M3gan

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My friend and frequent podcast collaborator once said, “never get in a car with someone who’s been in Girls.” Sage advise perhaps for the young girl who co-stars with Allison Williams in M3gan. Then again, this latest Blumhouse horror joint depends heavily on Williams’s absolute lack of desire to be a parent. It is right for the sake of this story for us to get in her car have her take us on this ride.

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Trick or Treat ’21: Another Evil

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Source: imdb By https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4185566/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63019692

Welcome to Chillerpop’s inaugural Halloween 2021 Trick or Treat! For this project I asked friends far and…well, far…to pick a movie for me to cover in a blog post.

My friend Allan was the second person to reply to my prompt, but he’s going first! “Chef Al,” as he’s known on the excellent podcast Kiss The Goat, is armed with exceptional culinary skills and a vicious wit aimed straight at the throat of nasty-ass consumerist chain restaurant food.

Chef Al would like you to listen to the podcast Decoding the Gurus, for anyone needing to navigate or vet any “guru” they’re considering following or trusting – which is a fit for the film he chose, the 2016 horror comedy Another Evil.

“If you’re not averse to going low key,” he added.

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The Conjuring: Nostalgia Made Me Do It

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2021 has been quite a year thus far for all the things that get me. Netflix aired the documentary “Sons of Sam” which leans into the satanic panic conspiracy theories espoused by Maury Terry in his book “The Ultimate Evil.” And then, the forces behind the theatrical juggernaut Conjuring-verse have resuscitated the “Devil Made Me Do It” case, which loomed large in my 80’s Connecticut-based childhood.

I’ve waxed plenty nostalgic about it here, and though I want to avoid rehashing what I’ve already said countless of times ad infinitum, I will need to revisit the trial of Arne Johnson, Gerald Brittle’s rotten book “The Devil in Connecticut,” and our sainted paladins of the paranormal, Ed and Lorraine Warren.

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REPOST: William Peter Blatty’s “Legion” to Hit the Stage!

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[NOTE: Welcome to Chillerpop’s 31 Days of Halloween 2020! As if this year needed more inconceivable horror! It doesn’t, but maybe some nostalgia and escapism will help? Yes, nostalgia for…an economic crisis. This blog, you see, began in the midst of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008.

This month, mostly because I am lazy, I will repost some blogs from my original Open Salon page. These posts will be badly written, badly edited, and extremely out of date.]

Originally published MARCH 15, 2010 11:38PM

MARCH 15, 2010 11:38PM

William Peter Blatty’s “Legion” to Hit the Stage!


Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre is adapting Willliam Peter Blatty’s novel “Legion”, the basis for his 1990 film “Exorcist III” as a stage play.  I think this is an excellent opportunity to keep a purer vision of the source material in the face of audience and studio expectations of what a horror film should be.

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Around the World in 31 Days: Mexico

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habitante

Movie poster.

Feliz Dia de los Muertos! I hope this day gives you much wonder, and that you remember – or commune with the spirits of – your loved ones beyond the veil.

Since I began my correspondence with the folks at It’s Playing, Just With Research, I’ve been obsessive about chasing down every last possession/exorcism movie out there. That’s how the terrific Mexican horror film El Habitante (The Inhabitant), came to my attention. I had a deep fear as I began this movie: that it would be as rote and derivative as 99.6% of all modern exorcism films since the release of The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I was happily wrong. Continue reading →

A Dark Song

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October 18, 2017 – This film is going to be talked about for quite some time. It’s intense, original, and defies many, many expectations. It will probably get backlash, mostly by virtue of having to be packaged and marketed alongside Saw 12, Curse of Chucky or Paranormal Activity 45. I hate to summon the dreaded “post-horror” category, but A Dark Song could be comfortably placed there. I don’t care over-much, but you can call it “horror” in the same way that a quiet ghost story like The Haunting or The Others is horror. Continue reading →