I know this show gets a lot of love, even with some of its shortcomings, as the overall average IMDb rating sits around 8.7 (even if the actual average is a 7.6 when taking all the individual show rankings into consideration).

When crafting narratives around the dark turns technology can have on society, it’s natural to have some really high-highs (White Christmas), and some really low-lows (Mazey Day). But I think the overall theme threading through the series is what captivates the public into returning for each new season, every other year—except in the case of season 5 to 6, there was a 4 year gap.

You can see in the graph below the rankings as listed on IMDb for each individual episode by season:

So it’s no surprise what the general consensus is regarding each episode. What I’m going to do, is give my top 10 episodes, and reasons why. Then I’ll list episodes I feel might be a tad overrated. It may not align with others’ expectations, but take whatever I say with a grain of pink himalayan salt, and let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree!

With that said, here are my top 10 episodes of Black Mirror and why:

No. 10: Shut Up and Dance (S3.E3, Rating 8.4)
The reason this episode is lower on my list (and one I also believe gets more hype than I think it should), is because even though it does deal with tech and the “stalking” element that it can facilitate, the twist at the end (while shocking) is less impactful on second watch. I believe it’s rated the way it is because of the shock twist. This isn’t an episode I return to regularly like a few of the others on this list.

No. 9: Black Museum (S4.E6, Rating 8.6)
This episode also has a twist that is less impactful on second watch, but it has more of that feeling of dread threaded throughout. The museum carries artifacts you might recognize from other episodes, but also others that the museum proprietor describes, which is the bulk of the episode. I haven’t revisited this episode in a while, so I’m going to say that I don’t have great detail as to reasons why it’s placed here, but I just feel it in my bones.

No. 8: Beyond the Sea (S6.E3, Rating 7.4)
This episode was chilling to me. It’s about two astronauts in the 1960s, who have synthetic versions of themselves back on earth that they can hack into so they can visit their families. The episode illustrates the relationships each astronaut has with their loves ones, as well as with each other. When tragedy strikes the more charismatic astronaut, he seeks to inflict the same tragedy on his partner. It’s an incredibly sad episode, and does have the technology themes in it, but it also explores the dangers of fanaticism, loneliness, and survival in wild ways.

No. 7: USS Callister (S4.E1, Rating 8.3)
I think this episode was universally loved by people that watch Black Mirror. It’s fun and campy, as well as dark. This episode follows Jesse Plemmons as Captain Robert Daly, who has recreated an entire simulation based on old school Star Trek episodes. He captains the space ship, USS Callister, and steals the DNA of his coworkers to replicate them in game to serve him. That’s the Black Mirror we love! I’m excited to see where they take part 2 of this episode in Season 7. The first ever episode to get a sequel!

No. 6: The Entire History of You (S1.E3, Rating 8.5)
There’s not a ton to say about this episode other than that it’s heart wrenching and realistic from a human behavior perspective. Rather than social media, the players here have implants that can watch and rewatch their own memories. It’s always recording them. When the main character discovers that his wife cheated on him (through watching her memory of it), it destroys their relationship and sends him on a spiral downward that he never recovers from. Very sad stuff.

No. 5: Fifteen Million Merits (S1.E2, Rating 8.0)
This is another one of those widely loved episodes, and in my opinion, the reason people continued to watch the show. As the second episode of season 1, it completely altered the trajectory of BM’s popularity after that horrific first episode debacle (which I won’t get into).
The idea of 15 Million Merits is that life is basically cycling over and over to earn “merits,” which can be used to buy very superficial things. Imagine the most lame gatcha game you can imagine. Once the main character meets a fellow cycler who dreams of being a singing star, he helps her pay for an audition, which costs 15 million merits. While she was loved on stage, the “judges” believe there are too many singers, and she would basically do much better if she worked as a porn star. She takes it, just to escape the horrible life of endless cycling, as well as (what I believe) to be an obligation to the main character who helped her.
The MC is wrecked by this, constantly tormented by his friend’s demise (it’s literally splattered all over his screens all the time), that he raises the money for his own audition, only to threaten to kill himself in front of everyone when he gets the audition. Rather than help the poor guy, the people loved his persona, and he got his very own show, gaming “skin,” and other things.
In the end, it’s hard for me to tell whether he’s happy, or still tormented even though he became famous.

No. 4: White Christmas (S2.E4, Rating 9.1)
Another episode widely loved, and there’s a reason for it. As the highest rated episode of the whole show, we are led by our narrator, Jon Hamm as Matt Trent and his coworker, Rafe Spall as Potter. Matt tells his story of how he ended up working at this wintry outpost, while Potter does the same.
It’s incredibly hard to describe all the threads in this episode, so rather than spoil it here, I encourage you to just watch it for yourself. It’s truly heartbreaking and scary as hell, as the technology described in it (called a “cookie”) is a horrifying concept that hopefully never becomes reality.

No. 3: Hang the DJ (S4.E4, Rating 8.7)
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that of all the episodes, this is the only one that has what I would consider a happy ending.
Amy and Frank meet each other in a world where dating is determined by a time clock. Each character is given a certain amount of time to date someone, whether it be years, months, or even minutes. When Amy and Frank meet, they are only given a meager amount of time (I don’t remember the number, it’s small though), but they hit it off immediately. When their time is up, both are regretful and move on, but continue to think about each other.
The episode follows them as they fight to find each other and escape the world that has been dictating their lives, and when they finally do, we realize that it’s been a simulation the entire time, where out of 1000 pairings between Amy and Frank, they come back to each other 99.8% of the time.
The episode ends with them meeting in real life, to which we can only assume to a happy ending. It was happy for me, so there.

No. 2: Playtest (S3.E2, Rating 8.0)
I just finished watching this episode again, and it’s still holds this position. Wyatt Russell (yep, Kurt Russell’s boy) plays Cooper, who is shown leaving his house hesitantly before going backpacking abroad. Along the way, he’s consistently getting calls from his mom, which he ignores. In the UK, he meets Sonja and has a decent connection with her before attempting to head back to the US. He goes to the ATM for some funds, but realizes he doesn’t have enough and resorts to an “odd-job” app to help him get some money to get back.
He finds (with Sonja’s help) an odd job to help play test an upcoming VR video game by some famous dude in the BM universe. Sonja wants details on their inner workings and asks for pictures. So, when Cooper gets there, he signs his life away and goes to the room where gets the implant. The organizer, Katie, turns his phone off and leaves the room for a moment where he turns it on to get some pictures. He doesn’t turn it back off, but during the upload procedure, his mom calls. Katie grabs the phone and turns it off.
Cooper gets to try out the VR in a horror-themed game, which goes off the rails (I won’t go into great detail), and when he wants out, he’s deceived by Katie on the other end, claiming to be stealing his memories. Poor Cooper stops remembering who he is, which was the same fate his father went through with early stage Alzheimer’s before he passed away.
We follow Cooper leaving the facility, angry as hell, and go home to his mom. She looks straight at him, telling him she has to call Cooper. He tries to scream out to her, but we are then pulled back to the moment his phone rang during the upload process. The phone disrupted the signal, throwing his brain into overload, and killing him after 0.04 seconds. So basically, the whole adventure through the game and returning home was an extended “last moment” of his life.

Honorable Mention: Loch Henry (S6.E2., rating 7.3)
I’m giving this one an honorable mention because while the episode itself isn’t very “Black Mirror,” it still has that feeling of dread behind it, and it’s a serious case study in the phrase “the devil you know.”

And my number 1 pick for the best Black Mirror episode is….

Nosedive (S3.E1, Rating 8.3)

I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this one, but I chose it because out of all the episodes, this one makes me the most uncomfortable. It’s heart wrenching and real, and not far from where we are as a society.

Bryce Dallas Howard nails it as Lacie, a woman living in a society where your social score dictates how you live and what benefits you receive. She begins the story with a fake laugh into the mirror, and it appears that she has these contacts in her eyes that give her social insight on the world around her. She lives with her brother in what she considers a cave (I think it’s nice), and wants to live in Pelican Cove, where you get a discount on the rent if you are a 4.5 or higher. Lacie sits at just sub-4.3, and works to improve that so she can get that discount.

In comes her old school friend, Naomi, who sees one of Lacie’s posts on an old doll they made together as kids and invites her to be her maid of honor at her wedding in a month. Naomi is a 4.8, and all her guests will be high 4’s as well, which would give Lacie the boost she needs to get that 4.5.

However, her trip to the airport starts with a fight with her brother, a down-rating from her driver as well as her brother, and a flight cancellation that has her panicking. Now, she can get a ticket on the overnight flight, but alas, her rating has gone down to a 4.188 (from driver and brother), which is just below the 4.2 required to get a ticket. She gets reasonably upset about this, and the guests in line start downvoting her before “security” comes to penalize her with a full point reduction for 24 hours and double damage for down votes. Ouch! And they do all of this with fake plastic smiles. It’s rather infuriating.

So, Lacie gets a rental car, but her poor rating (now at a 2.8) only allows her to get a crappy old model that doesn’t even speak her language. When she has to stop to charge it, there’s no adapter to fit her model, so she starts to hitchhike. It’s here she meets a truck driver, Susan (Cherry Jones), who has a 1.4 rating. While hesitant at first, Lacie warms up to her and Susan shares the reason why she doesn’t buy into the social rating system. It’s a sad story, but definitely tracks with that society.

After Susan drops her off 30 miles from her destination, Lacie overhears some people in the bathroom discussing their trip to a convention in the exact city she needs to get to, so she pretends to be a fan of the convention to hitch a ride. During the ride, she gets a call from Naomi, telling her not to come because her rating is too low and she doesn’t want her there. They argue about whether their exchange was nothing but a numbers game before Naomi hangs up.

Angry, Lacie tells off the convention goers, and they drop her off in a random spot where she finds a dirt biker willing enough to let her take his bike. Off she goes to the wedding, where she lands in a mud puddle in her bridesmaid’s gown, then hoofs it to the reception.

During her downward spiral, the little chime used to indicate a down rating plays on repeat in the background, adding to that uncomfortable feeling. When she gets to the venue, she’s a MESS. She steals the microphone and tries to give her fake maid of honor speech, but as they try to subdue her, she gets more and more real. It’s then we realize that their friendship was pretty much one sided the entire time, and Naomi was actually a pretty crappy friend (having been referenced as to “f*cking Greg,” whom I assume was someone important to Lacie).

She’s dragged away screaming “I love you, Nay-Nay!” and it’s so hard to watch. She ends up in a holding cell after they take the contacts out of her eyes. She reflects on the dust motes in the air, having not seen them in a long time—it’s kind of a beautiful moment, that is interrupted by the man in the cell across from her. He’s staring at her, and she tries to down vote him, but doesn’t have her phone. They start insulting each other in the most ridiculous fun ways until the episode ends with them screaming at each other with smiles on their faces.

***

This one hits hard on so many levels. The technology that completely stifles real human behavior for “likes” and “clicks” (can we relate to that? hmmmm), the credit rating that exacerbates that, and destroyed relationships because of that system—Lacie with her brother, then Naomi… Susan with her husband… there’s a lot to unpack. I also think so much of Lacie’s downfall could have been prevented if she had just relaxed and found a better friend circle.

But, with all things, this one may have just resonated with me personally more than you all, so I’d like to hear what connected with you if you’re a Black Mirror fan!

Episodes I think are overrated:

1. San Junipero: I barely remember this episode because it didn’t do anything for me when I watched it. I think the concept behind it is solid for Black Mirror, but I honestly have never revisited it, nor care to. There are better shows that explore the same theme, and if you’re inclined, check out the show “Upload” on Amazon Prime.

2. White Bear: While the theme for WB is also very Black Mirror, it’s also something that I don’t think lies in wait for us.

3. Hated in the Nation: This is another episode I barely remember. Even if I find robotic murder bees terrifying, it’s just another faceless episode that I couldn’t get into.

Again, please feel free to share your picks in the comments, and that’s it from me! If you liked this post, subscribe to the newsletter for free!

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This analysis contains spoilers. You have been warned ;)

I came out of this movie on the day after Christmas thinking, “Boy, that movie was juicy.” Then I thought: I think this movie could have a deeper meaning than just surface-level horror.

Let me explain.

The movie opens with Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) calling, “Come to me,” from her window at night with tears in her eyes. You would recognize this scene from the trailer. She makes a plea for comfort and is led to another room with the curtain billowing inward with the shadow of the creature hidden there (such as the image above—it’s a really cool shot).

This scene is basically the catalyst for the events of the movie. As Jeremy Jahns put it in his top movies of the year video, she “slid into the DMs of the wrong guy.”

I can’t go into great detail about the step-by-step plot of the movie without doing it a great disservice, so let me just explain to you why I believe Nosferatu could be a greater allegory for depression.

Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) wants to provide for his new wife, Ellen. He does this by selling off a piece of property to a wealthy buyer, Count Orlok, under the condition that he deliver the paperwork in person. While everyone around him thinks this is a fantastic opportunity and “adventure,” his wife desperately urges him not to go, as she has a terrible feeling about the whole thing. It is heavily implied that Ellen has suffered with melancholy in the past, and the same people praising the opportunity claim she feels this way because she will miss Thomas while he’s gone.

I mean, yeah, but what about the demon thingy?

So while he’s away, she stays with some friends, Friedrich and Anna Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin, respectively), who have two daughters and a boy on the way. Thomas and Friedrich mention Ellen’s melancholy, and Thomas asks him to take good care of her.

What follows is a crisscross between the classic Nosferatu and Dracula. Plot-wise, Thomas is taken captive by Count Orlok (like Johnathan Harker) and left for dead as the vampire travels by boat, killing the crew with his plague (similar to classic Dracula). Bloody massacres ensue, and bada-bing bada-boom, Ellen sacrifices herself to save the city.

Obviously, there are way more things that happen than I’m describing here, but I didn’t want this to be a step by step rundown of the film.

Basically, there are many points where Ellen herself describes the “darkness within” herself, and the horrific dreams that she has. In one particularly descriptive account, she tells Thomas about the dream of her wedding to Death and how happy it made her. Thomas tells her not to speak of that, but I felt like something deeper was happening here.

As Count Orlok becomes obsessed with her and tracks her down, he is referred to as “the darkness,” and he brings much destruction in his wake as he manifests as demonic possession in Ellen and eventually tears through Friedrich’s family. To me, this is a great illustration of how depression, when a fully developed in a person, can wreak havoc on the people around them. In Ellen’s case, so many people cared for her, but her “melancholy” ultimately destroyed them. We see the struggle Friedrich’s family goes through when she’s in their care, even enlisting a special professional to take a look at her. This would be Willem Dafoe’s character, Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz.

There’s even a point where Ellen confronts her own husband to tell him that he can’t satisfy her like he (Orlok) can. I really hate to say this, and I wouldn’t say it unless I’ve witnessed this myself, but sometimes a person can be “in love” with their depression. I say this in the sense that they are almost addicted to it (hence the comparison).

I believe that the more Ellen becomes addicted to her own depression, the more tragedy falls on the world around her and her episodes increase. Ultimately, it is Albin who implores Ellen to “search the darkness within” herself and face the evil to save the city.

While Thomas fights for her in the best way he knows how (going after Orlok’s tomb), Ellen is calling to Orlok (her darkness) to end it by herself. She is recognizing, and embracing that darkness to confront it. By doing so, it ultimately ends her. Sadly, if you take this allegory like I did, it would look like she purposely ended her life to save the person she loved. In other words, she spared him from herself.

The whole purpose of the beginning of the film where she calls out for comfort (in my opinion) was her attempting to find some form of meaning, or comfort in her melancholy (which was repeatedly confirmed throughout the movie that she has suffered with). Her pleas summoned a deeper darkness, almost as if no matter how hard she prayed, her condition worsened.

At any rate, from the moment she described her dream to her husband, that’s when I started watching the film through the lens of, “is this a take on real melancholy?” I’d like to rewatch it with the same bias, just to see if it holds up on second viewing, even though that scene happens pretty early on.

Fun fact: there are many cats in this movie. According to some folklore, cats are the guardians of dreams, and I think the movie was trying to portray this. In that context, their presence in certain scenes completely makes sense. No cats are hurt in the story, but one poor pigeon is. Just a fair warning for animal lovers out there.

The End.

That’s it! I recommend this movie. It’s one of the best ones of the year, next to The Substance in my opinion. Granted, even though it is a retelling, it has a lot of great elements to it, and my interpretation of the relationship between Ellen and Orlok make it that much deeper for me. You may feel differently, so give it a watch and let me know what you think!

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*** First things first. This movie was kinda great. ***

I’m going to start off by saying that my theatre experience was weird, and it affects how I write the synopsis here (it’s going to be very slim, but you’ll get the idea).

At the end of the movie, the theatre was just silent. SILENCE. It was such an interesting experience considering the room was packed.

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• Directed by Caroline Lindy and starring Melissa Barrera

The premise of Your Monster is a little vague. After watching the trailer, I was just thinking it would be a quirky little rom-com retelling of Beauty & the Beast involving the monster from your closet. I was wrong.

Please do NOT read ahead if you don’t want spoilers— you have been warned! :)

The movie starts by putting you straight into the drama. We aren’t spoon-fed what happened, but it’s clear by the imagery and emotions of the characters, that the leading actress’ character, Laura (Melissa Barrera) was diagnosed with cancer and her boyfriend, Jacob (Edmund Donovan) breaks up with her.

We aren’t told what kind of cancer she has, but a short montage shows her in the hospital getting surgery, and her boyfriend crying about how he can’t be her caretaker like the weenie he is. She is wheeled from the hospital by her friend, Mazie (Kayla Foster), who tries to console her.

Right off the bat, you get the idea that Mazie isn’t really the greatest friend. She claims to “love” Laura, but then always has something she has to go do. If you love your friend, who just got treated for cancer, then I’m sure your activities can wait. Am I wrong on that?

We learn that Laura is an actress. She sings and auditions, and so does her friend, Mazie. Through their conversation we also learn that the ex-boyfriend, Jacob has written a play, but didn’t invite Laura to audition, even though he wrote the part for her.

So Laura goes home and plays the piano, singing the song she helped him write, having memories of happier times. It’s really kinda sad. Just as she starts spiraling into depression, she hears noises upstairs.

Monster (Tommy Dewey) is in her closet making all that ruckus. His name is literally Monster, so that’s how I’ll refer to him. From here, they have a back-and-forth where Monster gives her 2 weeks to get out of the house.

She agrees (why??? haha) and decides to go to Jacob’s play audition. She’s able to get in front of the powers that be, but keeps messing up the song—the one she helped Jacob write—mainly because he’s in the audience and she’s rightfully flustered.

The part goes to a woman named Jackie (Meghann Fahy), who we don’t really know how important she is, but everyone gushes over her, so it’s implied she’s the hot new thing. And as such a generous “favor” to Laura, Jacob offers her the role of understudy to Jackie since she knows the part already.

Like a big ol’ slap in the mug

As Laura continues to live her life, going back and forth between home and rehearsal for the next two weeks, she and Monster grow to like and appreciate each other. Because of that, Monster asks her to stay.

When the cast schedules a Halloween party, Laura invites Monster to go with her. He tells her no. She’s a little upset about it, but goes anyway, dressed like a cross between Liza Minelli and the Bride of Frankenstein. Don’t know if that’s what they were going for, but I think it worked.

She drinks and socializes, not having the best of times, until she sees Monster came to the party after all. They dance, and she starts to feel better until she goes to use the restroom and finds Jacob having “relations” with who she thinks is Jackie, the new hotness.

Laura is understandably upset, venting at Monster about it. He tells her that what Jacob did to her was NOT OKAY, sending her into a rage-filled rant, repeating that it’s not okay!

What follows is the one of my more uncomfortable viewings of a bedroom scene between Laura and Monster…

…while I was crammed between two boomers breathing heavily.

After hairy fun time, Laura begins to gain more confidence. At the next rehearsal, Jackie is informed about Laura and Jacob’s prior relationship, which gets her off her game. She starts messing up the song, because she feels bad about the situation. Jacob lays into her about how horrible her performance is when Laura steps in and gives him the chewing of the century.

Later, her and Jacob talk about what happened when Laura tells him that she still loves him. He comes on to her and they sleep together in his… office? closet? I don’t know where they are. Right after zipping up his pants he tells her she can’t be in the show because she’s a liability.

I mean, this dude…

So Laura goes home, feeling guilty that she “cheated” on Monster. They fight and he leaves for what Laura thinks is permanently.

The following day, she’s walking somewhere outside when Jackie finds her and tries to tell her that she’s sorry for everything. Laura confronts her about how she knows Jackie and Jacob were sleeping together, but Jackie was shocked at the allegation, revealing that she never slept with him.

They scheme behind Jacob’s back for Laura to step in during the show instead of Jackie. While getting ready, she finds Jacob doing the dirty in a stairwell, and it turns out that it was her friend Mazie all along.

It makes things super awkward during the performance, but Laura kills it. Literally!

She performs the part while Jacob seethes. When the curtain falls (I guess at intermission?) Jacob confronts her behind stage and we see her break a meter stick, threatening to rip his throat out. She sees Monster again and is overjoyed by his arrival to the show.

The movie ends with Jacob lying on the floor with his throat torn out and Laura covered in his blood.

Monster is nowhere to be seen, and the audience is a mixture of confused and dumbstruck. Roll credits.

The End.

That’s it! Why four stars? I don’t know. There were some parts that were a bit slow and awkward, but I think overall it’s a breath of fresh air in today’s Hollywood climate.

Basically, just like “The Substance,” the theme is pretty on-the-nose. It was Laura embracing her inner anger the whole time.

Do I blame her? Nope.

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This was a fun book.

Sounds generic, I know, but honestly, it was a breath of fresh air. It was different and well written.

I usually employ my skimming skills to read super fast, but I took my time and read every word of this one just because I wanted to. Not to say that the books I skim aren’t worth my time, because I’ve read some bangers that I’ve skimmed.

Looking at you, The Hunger.

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Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

This is my original review on Goodreads:

“There's a quote on the copy that I have that proclaims Piranesi as destined to be a classic piece of fantasy. While I wholly disagree with this statement, I fully loved this book.

Piranesi as a character, is written as a very logical, organized, and child-like curator of a massive "house" full of infinite rooms that occasionally flood due to the ocean trapped inside of it. It's such a fascinating world to explore with Piranesi's unique way of cataloging time, taking notes, and memorizing the labyrinthian halls of the house. Not to mention, his cryptic meetings with "The Other" left me wanting to keep reading and learn more about this puzzle.

I read it so fast I'm almost sad it's over.”

Please do NOT read ahead if you don’t want spoilers— you have been warned! :)

This book is written in epistolary format, with the titular character, Piranesi, recording his days in a journal. It makes sense in this world, as we are immediately shown that Piranesi is relatively alone in this world, and has time to document his days when not caring for the infinite rooms.

Each entry is named after his own numbering system, which he admits he created when he thought it didn’t make sense anymore to label the dates as we know them. For example, each “chapter” (journal entry) is named something like “Entry for the eighth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the South-Western halls.”

There is an ocean trapped inside the “house” (where the infinite rooms reside), and Piranesi knows when it will come and where. He remembers everything about every room and the details of every statue. There are also mysterious skeletons throughout the house that he cares for. If I recall, there are 13 skeletons, himself, and The Other, which Piranesi counts as a population of 15.

His knowledge of the “house” is impressive to the one known as The Other… a man who visits twice a week. In fact, Piranesi is the name The Other gave to him, and he claims not to know what his name is but knows that it’s not Piranesi.

The two meet for “research purposes” during these times, but it seems as though the output of said research is most beneficial to The Other. He is also described as older, handsome, clean, and well-put-together. All of these clues are interesting, which made me suspect the man from the start.

For a good chunk of the book, Piranesi talks about daily living, including fishing, taking care of the skeletons, and meeting with The Other. During one particularly suspicious meeting, The Other tells Piranesi that there is another person in the house and not to ever talk to them because the person wants to hurt The Other.

This bit of information intrigues Piranesi, and he starts referring to the stranger as “number 16.”

As he continues his life as usual, he encounters random messages from the mystery person. With these encounters, he questions whether he should interact with them, going back and forth, deleting messages, trying to piece them together again while the Other gets increasingly agitated.

Eventually, Piranesi runs into number 16, and it turns out that her name is Sarah Raphael, and she is a police officer looking for Matthew Rose Sorenson. The name stirs a memory in Piranesi of a former life as a journalist, who happened to visit the Other (Dr. Ketterley) for an interview that ultimately landed him in this house.

The house is an alternate universe. Dr. Ketterley had been working on the theories of how to access this universe and to traverse it as he pleased. Piranesi, or Matthew Rose Sorenson, was one of his victims, whom he trapped inside during the above mentioned interview.

All of this comes to light as Matthew and Sarah Raphael evade a rampaging Dr. Ketterley within the house during a substantial ocean flood. They are able to climb the statues, while Dr. Ketterley is swept away by the tide. Matthew finds his broken body, and commits to taking care of it, just like the other skeletons in that universe.

The book concludes with Matthew as Piranesi in the real world, unable to relate to his family. He takes a former victim back to the house, but now that he knows how to go in and out, he agrees to feed the former victim and let him stay in the house. Ultimately, Matthew is a changed man, and he has become Piranesi, unable to break away from the house himself.

I’ll now address the first statement I made in the Goodreads review:

The reason I disagree with the statement is that I wouldn’t classify this as a true work of fantasy. While there are fantasy elements in it, the story is ultimately a case of kidnapping and transportation to another reality. The alternate reality is the fantasy portion of the book alone, as there is a “real world” tied to it.

Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or fiction like these are true works of fantasy (in my opinion) because the entirety of the world is 100% fictional.

The End.

That’s it! I recommend this book as a breezy read if you’re looking for some unique entertainment. I haven’t read this author’s other works, but ultimately, I’ve heard this is her best.

In my opinion, if you’re a fan of fantasy and the strange, do give Piranesi a try!

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This is the debut film for the daughter of the one hit wonder, M. Night Shyamalan. Okay, the Sixth Sense wasn’t his only good movie, but it was his peak. To prove this, I made a chart of the movies and shows he’s written in order from oldest to newest:

But this isn’t about M. Night. This is about his daughter, Ishana.

I just think it’s funny that just because M. Night wrote a cultural banger once, he’s got this undeserved “arthouse snobbery” that allows him to continue to feed the mediocre entertainment machine.

And because people continue to hope that his next movie will be the next Sixth Sense, the masses continue to hand him money. He has 3 movies that rank over a 7 rating. So if we do the math, he’s written 20 stories, 3 of which are considered “good.” This maths out to a 15% chance that he might put out something just as good for his next project. It took 16 years (2000-2016) between Unbreakable and Split, so here’s to another 8 years!

All that to say, he has the money to feed his heir’s pet projects, no matter how stupid. And stupid this movie is.

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• Directed by Ishana Shyamalan (following in daddy’s footsteps. And produced, i.e. funded, by daddy.)

The premise of The Watchers is intriguing: a young woman suffers from some past trauma gets lost in the Irish countryside where she finds herself trapped by a group of malevolent creatures known as The Watchers.

I love a good creature feature, as long as they’re done right. I think most would agree that as long as you don’t see the creature too often, and it’s designed as something to fear, then that’s the bare minimum. But a creature is nothing without story.

Please do NOT read ahead if you don’t want spoilers— you have been warned! :)

The movie begins with a man frantically running through the woods and seeing a sign with a number and “point of no return” written on it. Well, he moves past the sign and as it gets darker, there’s movement in the woods. He runs for it.

The beginning is interesting and is meant to get the viewer excited for what’s to come. I did like this, and I wanted to know more, so I continued to watch. Well, the guy eventually gets caught by the unknown entity and is dragged away.

The scene switches to Dakota Fanning as Mina working at a pet store. We see her sketching a customer, while appearing to be sad/bored.

Anyway, her boss tasks her with transporting a golden conure (it’s a yellow parrot) to a special client in the country. Mina seems not to mind, and off she goes.

The moment any animal is involved in a “horror” movie (you’ll see me use quotes a lot), I immediately fear for the creature. This was no different, but I’m happy to report the conure is safe and sound.

The next scene is her telling the conure to “try not to die” as she goes out for the evening, which it learns and repeats throughout the movie. I honestly don’t understand the purpose of this next scene because she apparently likes to dress up like someone else and meet men in bars, telling them lies about who she is. Okay.

With conure in tow, she talks to the little bird about how she likes to “play dress up” sometimes… it’s just something she does. Which, I *think* I understand why the hack writer put this in, but it doesn’t make it good, and it’s never mentioned again. She also reveals to the bird that her mom died… 15 years ago.

As she drives, she continually listens to a voicemail from her sister about her mom’s memorial service (they still hold those after 15 years? Let the dead rest, man!). Her vehicle randomly breaks down, and she takes the bird and looks for help. When she walks back to the car, oh no! The car is gone. OKAY.

If she left the bird in the car, would the bird have also disappeared?

So now she’s trapped in the woods and happens to come across a bunker of sorts right as the sun sets, and an old woman tells her to hurry inside.

Inside, Mina meets Danny and Ciara, while the old woman who let her inside is Madeline. Madeline tells her to face the mirror and that they’re being watched. There’s a rising noise that Madeline tells her is “applause” because Mina is new and the watchers are happy. oKaY.

Ciara tells her that she has a husband, who went for help a while ago and didn’t come back—it’s easy to spot that this was the man from the beginning.

“Character building” happens (notice the quotes), where after learning the rules, Mina bucks the system and wants to go down into one of the burrows that the watchers retreat into during the day. Danny protests, but agrees to help her. She finds a camera, a flashlight, and some other junk in the hole and brings it back up. She did have a brush with one of the watchers, but it burned in the light and slinked away.

They hook up the camera to the outside to see if they can see a watcher, since no one had at that point. What we get is someone standing there, knocking at the door. He says it’s John (Ciara’s husband) wanting in. We, as the viewers, know he’s dead. It’s up to the characters to help Ciara realize that it’s not him.

When Ciara tests him by asking him what book she’s reading, he fails… but she’s not ready to admit it’s not him. He looks into the camera (yup, guy from beginning), and pleas for her to help, then is dragged away. Madeline claims they broke the rules too much and now the watchers are mad. While in their rage, the watchers crack the glass a little, but then leave them be the rest of the night. In the morning, Mina returns the stuff she took from the burrow.

Flashback: Mina is young in the car with her mom and sister. She’s being a stupid brat, and her mom crashes and dies. Her sister is banged up, but Mina walks away unscathed. The only takeaway from this moment is that Mina “doesn’t follow the rules” and it got her mom killed.

OKAY.

So, time passes, and Mina finds Danny arguing with Madeline. Apparently, he felt they shouldn’t trust Madeline and ties her up, running to the bunker and leaving M&M out in the woods after sunset. They hide in a rotting tree stump to “hide their smell”. Dumb. So they get to see watchers in the shadows. Yes, they’re eerie in the shadows. I can get behind that.

After not seeing M&M in the room, the watchers run off to find them in the woods. M&M take advantage of the situation and plead with Danny to let them in. Mina uses a flimsy reasoning technique that I don’t even want to repeat here because it’s honestly LAME.

And now, for the info dump.

So the watchers are Changelings, or Fairies, or whatever the hell. Madeline was some professor of mythology and “willingly came out there” to study them in the wild. As she tells her story, the watchers return, more mad than ever, and set to breaking the glass. Just when they thought all was lost, they find a door in the floor.

They get in just in time and there’s another load of info dumping. The bunker’s bunker had an archive of video diaries from “the professor” who built the human menagerie. Mina watches a few of them, sees one video where he “befriends” a watcher, then she goes to the final video where he instructs them on how to get out, and to follow the birds.

Ooohh kaaayyy

So after some cheese-fueled dancing between Ciara and Danny, they set out the next morning to find the professor’s boat, while using the conure bird to help guide them. They find the boat just in the nick of time, but Danny sees “John” in the woods and goes to help him.

Stupid, dumb, stupid, dummer!

So “John” carves a nonsense symbol in Danny’s forehead before killing him by raking claws through his throat. A bunch of Changelings that look like John emerge, completely naked with their balls covered in misty forest censorship.

They escape, and Mina sets out to destroy the professor’s work at the university (he asked someone to do this in one of the video diaries). More info dumping ensues about how they were fairies and had children with humans, which led to the changelings, and the professor was all, “this power is awesome,” la de daaaa. There’s a tapestry depicting this on the wall and it’s supposed to be all meaningful and emotional, but it was reminiscent of the cringy cave painting scene with Jon and Dany in Game of Thrones. If you know, you know.

Anyway, Mina finds some pictures, her face changes, then the scene cuts to her at Ciara’s house to show them to her. Turns out, Madeline was the professor’s wife, and she was long dead.

Dun dun DUNNNNN!

The real Ciara comes up the driveway, and “Madeline” does changeling crap and knocks Ciara out after she comes inside. “Madeline” was the changeling that the professor befriended in the video. Oh no! She chases Mina around, morphing into everyone from the movie, then comes back to the house looking like Mina. Madeline tells her she’s always been different, is a “day walker” and couldn’t wait to leave the forest. okAy.

I mean, couldn’t you always leave the forest? Or is this plot convenience?

Madeline tries to kill Mina by slowly slicing her wrist with the sharpest gangly fingernails known to man, before Mina “reasons” with her about stupidity.

And it’s stupid.

Here’s part of the reasoning (there’s probably more to it, but at this point I was checked out): Madeline is half human, because some depraved sex addict had children WITH. THE. CHANGELINGS. That’s right, if horny enough, even the greasiest of incels would hit that.

So in an attempt to make Madeline “special,” the sophistication of Ishana’s “writing” pours out in such beautiful depraved “you-don’t-get-it-because-you’re-not-smart-like-me” way. Madeline bursts through the window after sprouting wings for some reason, looking like gollum on a rooftop.

Sniff them farts, daughter of M. Night. I bet they taste like vanilla beans too.

The movie ends with Mina reconnecting with her twin sister, and the directing cuts between them are atrocious. I guess daddy ran out of money to have Fanning appear twice on screen. The conure floats to the window where we see they’re being watched by Madeline disguised as a soulless redhead.

The End.

That’s it. If after reading this you still want to watch it, you might be entertained by it… who knows? I’m not here to begrudge anyone of having a little fun.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with the actual directing (except at the end), but the story is a ball of stinking rot that spoils everything. The creatures weren’t terrible… most of the shots were dark, leaving things up to the viewers imagination, which is good. The transitioning effect of the changelings also wasn’t terrible, but like I said earlier, a good creature feature also has a story.

And honestly? I’m tired of changelings and fairies and that type of folklore. And I’m Irish(-ish).

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To say this was an experience would be the most accurate description. You don’t just watch this movie. You experience it.

This story follows Demi Moore’s character, Elisabeth Sparkle, as she navigates aging in Hollywood. I don’t want to say too much about this before the spoiler section because you really need to go into this movie somewhat blind to get the most out of it.

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• Directed and Written by Coralie Fargeat

  • Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and the amazing Dennis Quaid

I went into this movie only knowing 2 facts: it’s a horror about a black market drug, and it’s one of Demi Moore’s best performances. If you are interested in this movie, I recommend you save this review for later and go watch it first, or you’ll do yourself a disservice. Don’t worry, this review will be here when you get back! Watch the trailer if you like, but if you don’t, that would be even better.

It goes without saying that it IS a horror, so if you don’t like horror, just don’t. And if you won’t, feel free to read the spoilers.

With that out of the way, the following is my **SPOILER** synopsis and review of The Substance.

Please do NOT read ahead if you don’t want spoilers— you have been warned! :)

The movie opens with someone injecting a raw egg yolk with a green solution. After a few seconds, the egg yolk divides, creating a second yolk along with the first, swimming in the same whites. Then it cuts to the creation of a star on the walk of fame for Demi Moore’s character Elisabeth Sparkle. It starts with the fresh concrete pour and care for its formation to years of use and abuse by people walking by, spilling on it, the weather, etc.

This was my immediate indication that the movie’s theme is not subtle. And I love that.

Elisabeth Sparkle is a famous Hollywood fitness personality, with a TV show reminiscent of Jane Fonda from the 80s.

After a recording session, Elisabeth runs to the bathroom, but finds the girls room out of service, so she runs into the men’s. While in the stall, Dennis Quaid’s character, “Harvey” (like I said, not subtle), bursts in while on the phone, talking about how old and gross Elisabeth has become and needs to be replaced. She hears the whole exchange in secret… but I don’t think she saw him NOT WASH HIS HANDS.

Later on, the two of them are at dinner, where the most misophonic sounds to assault the ears happens with closeups of Harvey eating shrimp with cream sauce. It was disgusting, but completely on point.

While these shots are technically “gross”, the film is shot in such an artistic and memorable way, with the use of color and sound.

As Elisabeth drives home, she’s distracted by one of her billboards being torn off—right over the face, of course—when she’s struck by another car. By a miracle, she makes it out of it completely unscathed, and the doctor tells her she’s good to go. As he tries to tell her happy birthday, she begins to cry so he leaves the room.

The male nurse stays behind and feels her spine (weird) and tells her she’d be a “good candidate.” Elisabeth also finds this weird, noticing the bright red birthmark on his wrist, then she leaves the hospital.

I can’t remember if this happens when she leaves either the set or the hospital, but she runs into an old friend who was in class with her in high school. He tells her that she’s still the most beautiful woman on the planet, and gives her his number (which falls into a puddle of dirty water).

At home, there is a large bouquet of roses with a note that tells her: You were great.

Elisabeth feels something in her pocket, and it is a thumb drive with “The Substance” labeled on it. She plays the video and it goes through a pitch asking if the viewer ever wanted a better, more perfect version of themself… then demonstrates with two yellow balls of clay how the drug can create this experience. The narrator ends by reminding the viewer to remember that you are still the same person, and claps the two yellow balls together.

Elisabeth waffles a bit, but then decides to request The Substance. She is sent a card with the number “503” on it, and directions to go to an address in an alley. The alley is narrow and sketchy, full of trash and graffiti, with a small card reader on the wall with the logo for the substance (it looks like two yellow “D’s”). An aluminum door scrolls up halfway, forcing her to duck under it to get to the hall inside, which is equally filthy, until the very end.

At the end, there is a pristine white room with a handful of lockers, one of which is the one labeled “503.” She gets her package and goes home.

Inside the box are 4 vacuum-sealed bags with large cards containing instructions.

1. Activate once

2. Stabilize daily

3. Switch every 7 days without exception

4. Remember you are one.

She goes to the bathroom and stands naked in the mirror for a while before extracting the activator (which is the green substance). It’s very clear on the label to discard after use. She injects herself, with a very closeup shot of needle poking skin, then convulses on the floor.

The Substance creates a clone of her that bursts from her back. This is Margaret Qualley’s entrance into the movie. Once Elisabeth’s clone comes out, she passes out, and the clone stitches her up (more needles and skin). This is the image you see on the poster. There are some very prolonged nude shots from here on out while she examines herself in the mirror, and later on.

The clone leaves Elisabeth on the bathroom floor with a slow drip of a week’s worth of milky looking food source. She also has to do a spinal tap on Elisabeth to extract 7 days worth of spinal fluid to inject every day (stabilize). She figures this out when she starts bleeding from the nose and starts to feel terrible. After stabilizing herself, she declares her name to be “Sue.”

So Sue finds an ad for the role to replace Elisabeth, and immediately applies and gets the part. What follows is an insane fever dream of twerking, air humping, and undulating in the name of “exercise.”

Again, the movie is not subtle.

ANYWAY, to keep this succinct, the rules are for the women to switch every 7 days. One particular day, Sue takes an extra day and ends up aging Elisabeth’s finger. Elisabeth is furious, and goes out for coffee, running into an old man with the same bright red birth mark on his wrist as the male nurse that gave her the video. He asks her if “she’s taken more time from you” and waxes on about how she still matters. It flusters Elisabeth and she bolts from the cafe.

At home, she finds the phone number from her old friend and decides to meet up with him. Ultimately she stands him up because she can’t look at herself in the mirror without comparing herself to the huge billboard of Sue right outside her window. This is despite the fact that the man still finds her beautiful. This was so sad for me to see.

Elisabeth spends her 7 days being a couch potato, which frustrates Sue, who takes more and more time from Elisabeth, aging her. She gets to a point where she resembles an 80 year old, which infuriates her, causing her to trash the house. She calls the owner of the substance, who keeps reminding her there is no “you” and “her,” and that they are one and the same.

When Sue “wakes up” to see the mess, she withdraws so much spinal fluid from Elisabeth to last her for 3 months. During this time, she gets the spot to host the New Year’s Eve event, gets a boyfriend, and loses track of time. She also calls the owner of the substance to complain, who tells her the same thing he tells Elisabeth.

It’s interesting commentary to think that each version of herself is at war with the other, not understanding that they are the same person.

Sue doesn’t have enough fluid to get her through the New Year’s event, so her only option is to switch so the fluid can regenerate. Elisabeth is now hunched-over and haggard, completely aged. She calls the substance number and requests termination. He asks if she is sure, because what has been taken can’t be returned. Elisabeth agrees and gets the termination package.

All it contains is a big syringe full of dark black liquid that she begins to inject into Sue. Elisabeth stops midway, wanting to save the part of her that “everyone still loves.” She attempts to bring her back by switching, and Sue wakes up midway, with Elisabeth also still awake.

Sue attacks Elisabeth, and there is a long fight between them that Sue wins, leaving Elisabeth dead on the floor.

Sue gets ready for her event with her fancy blue dress. When she gets there, she starts losing teeth and other body parts, because she can not exist without Elisabeth. Sue rushes back home, getting out the EXPIRED activator to create a better clone of herself.

Out comes a Cronenberg nightmare. If you’ve ever seen the episode of Rick and Morty with the Love potion, that’s pretty much what we get.

The “Elisa-Sue” monstrosity is a creeping mess of random body parts, eyeballs, and Elisabeth’s face screaming on it’s back. It gets the blue dress on, which is pretty hilarious since the dress doesn’t fit—there are boobs poking out of it all over.

It takes the picture of Elisabeth, cuts out the face, and sticks it on like a mask, putting lipstick on the mouth of the picture before going back to the event.

When arriving to the event, it gets on stage, pleading with the crowd that it’s “still her” when she vomits up a boob. A member of the crowd screams, putting everyone in panic. A man hits her with a bludgeon, exploding her top half, which regenerates.

The next 5 minutes are her spraying blood from her body like a firehose into the crowd as everyone screams. The monster rushes outside and disintegrates, leaving only the disembodied and screaming Elisabeth face to slither over her star on the walk of fame and look into the sky with a deranged smile. She melts away and is swept up the next day by a street sweeper.

The End.

And that folks, is The Substance. It was weird, it was wild, and it was art. If you can believe it, I left a lot out due to the sheer length of the movie (about 2.5 hours). If you haven’t seen this and still chose to read this far, you should really go see the movie. There’s only so much I can type up in a Substack review.

Until next time!

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So, to say I was excited for the sequel is an understatement!

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• Directed by Tim Burton.

  Music by Danny Elfman (my favorite front man from Oingo Boingo)

Please do NOT read ahead if you don’t want spoilers— you have been warned! :)

Beetlejuice part deux is a fun response to the original. While schlocky in a lot of parts, I find the world building to be unique and nostalgic to where I can be pretty forgiving.

If you are a fan of the original, you will immediately notice the similarity of the intro credits, where the infamous Beetlejuice theme by Danny Elfman plays over fading actor names while traveling through the town model. The song has been jazzed up a bit, but stays very true to the song we all know and love.

We’re introduced to Lydia Deetz as an adult working as a medium of sorts on a TV show. She’s dressed similarly to Elvira (in my opinion), so it gives a lot of those vibes. She’s interrupted by a vision of Beetlejuice in the crowd and a frantic series of texts from her step-mother, Delia Deetz.

She leaves her show to meet with Delia at her art gallery (apparently she has made it as an “artist”) to learn that her father has died.

Anyway, we learn Lydia has a daughter who barely talks to her. However, she finds a way to let her know that her grandfather passed, and they all return to the original home in Winter River from the first movie to have his funeral.

Jenna Ortega plays Lydia’s daughter, Astrid, and is just as angsty as Lydia was in the original. Delia points this out to Lydia a lot, ribbing her for giving Delia such a hard time when she was young (I liked this little detail). As a side note, I did really like Jenna Ortega in this role - she makes facial expressions that are so uniquely her, but also fit well with her character.

I won’t get all the details in order, just FYI.

We get a scene of the underworld where a dead janitor cleans up. This is a funny cameo by Danny DeVito. He knocks over a bunch of boxes containing the parts of Monica Bellucci’s character, Dolores, that come to life and proceed to staple her together to a disco tune. We learn she is a soul sucker, taking out the janitor’s soul (a’la The True Knot in Doctor Sleep). She drops his rubbery husk and goes on her mission to find Beetlejuice.

Back in Winter River, Lydia’s manager, Rory (played by Justin Theroux), tags along and finds her in the attic where the model of the town still sat. She finds a Beetlejuice flyer and her phone goes crazy with Beetlejuice ads. Rory challenges her story about Beetlejuice and calls his name 3 times.

They’re transported to the model and fall into “couple’s therapy” with the man himself.

Definitely pleased to see Lydia, Beetlejuice performs his usual gross scare tactics, with one particularly nasty scene of Lydia rapidly growing pregnant with a demon Beetlejuice baby bursting from her belly. After having enough of his shenanigans, she calls out, “Home! Home! Home!” similar to the way Barbara did in the first movie. It transports them back into the living world.

Rory shrugs the whole thing off as a dream. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe plays Wolf Jackson, a former movie star who had a mishap with a real grenade. He’s the detective on the case, following Dolores’ path of soul sucking destruction. This puts Beetlejuice on his radar.

The funeral for Charles commences, and Rory “tactfully” proposes to Lydia, putting her on the spot. She reluctantly agrees, which sends Astrid off and away to bike through town. She gets into an accident and runs into the treehouse of a boy named Jeremy.

Astrid and Jeremy hit it off and he invites her to hang out with him before Lydia’s wedding on Halloween. She goes to be with Jeremy and as they kiss, Astrid sees that they’re floating and freaks out. Surprise! Jeremy is a ghost, and tells her that he broke his neck when he fell from his treehouse. (there were a few hints here: he happened to have a Handbook for the Recently Deceased, and his parents were acting weird).

Jeremy convinces Astrid to go to the other side with him to help him come back to life. As all this is happening, Lydia learns from the realtor, Jane (daughter of Jane the first from the original), that Jeremy’s house won’t sell because he murdered his parents and he died trying to escape the law. Lydia races to save Astrid while she and Jeremy create the door to the otherworld and knock three times. Lydia gets there in time to see the door slam shut—and this is where she enlists the help of Beetlejuice to get her daughter back.

Lydia learns that Astrid recited an incantation that would actually swap her life for Jeremy’s, and she’s hauled off to a “customs” sort of area. As they’re dragging Astrid off to the soul train, Lydia finds and saves her. They also run into Lydia’s dead husband, Richard. While all this is happening, Delia dies from asp bites to the neck in some weird ritual to honor Charles. She also calls on Beetlejuice in the afterlife to help her.

Delia finds Charles and they board the soul train together and move on.

Beetlejuice does as promised and gets rid of Jeremy, sending him to hell. Then, he collects on Lydia’s promise and forces her to marry him… again!

There’s an interesting musical scene here reminiscent of the dinner scene in the original, where Beetlejuice forces everyone to sing and dance while they have confused expressions on their faces. Dolores crashes the wedding, but Astrid still has the death handbook and finds a way to draw a door to sandworm territory.

A sandworm bursts out and Beetlejuice corrals it like a bull, where it chomps down on Dolores and Rory, taking them to Jupiter’s moon. I’m not entirely sure how Lydia did this, but she was able to explode Beetlejuice by saying his name three times.

The film then goes through a series of events set to background songs where they visit Dracula’s castle, Astrid falls in love, gets married, then is in a birthing room where Lydia is close by. As Astrid is about to give birth, the same weird demon baby pops out and kills the doctors while crawling onto Astrid’s belly saying, “Mommy!”

Lydia wakes from the dream and Beetlejuice rises from the bed to say, “I just had a weird dream.” Lydia wakes again to an empty bed.

While I have a lot of questions, I’m not too concerned about it. I had fun seeing Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara back at it. Jenna Ortega was a nice addition, and Justin Theroux’s character was one you loved to hate.

Michael Keaton really stole the show, with Jenna Ortega and Willem Dafoe not far behind. I know I didn’t talk about Dafoe much, but I did like his character, just not his story.

One gripe I had was that in the original, Beetlejuice gave Lydia a ring from a severed finger, which I thought was what they were doing with Dolores’ character. I think it was, but I wasn’t a big fan of her backstory. I found the whole “soul-sucking” thing not really fitting with the world. There were no other soul-suckers, even though it was implied she was part of a cult.

Other than that, I had fun. Was it as good as the original? No I don’t think so. But in a cinematic world that is largely bereft of creativity, it’s nice to revisit the strange and unusual in a way that doesn’t disgrace the original.

• Beetlejuice

  • Beetlejuice

    • Beetlejuice

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These reviews contain spoilers, so be mindful if you haven’t read the story, but I will make sure to mark the area that contains a spoiler.

I don't really want to put a true star rating on this because everyone's tastes vary. This is my second Adam Nevill book that I've read that I wasn't terribly impressed with. I think the concept is awesome, and I was really intrigued by it. However, the 500+ page count could have used significant fat-trimming to make it a more reasonable 300-ish page horror book.

I say this because while I appreciate the prose immensely, I felt that there was so much fluff regarding descriptions of rooms, people, and things. It would make sense if the descriptions enhanced the plot, but they really don't. By the time I got to the climax, I was actually kind of bored, and everything before that didn't have much of a payoff. The ending was an incredible let-down.

I do think the concept was a good one, it was just not executed well in my opinion.

Open the spoiler if you want to know more, but ye have been warned...

SPOILER TERRITORY

So, the ending was abrupt. My eyes skipped over a key sentence that literally killed Jed. Later on, there was a heavily cloaked sentence that killed Max. MAX. The main person behind the whole charade. He was gone in subtext.

And the child? Kyle just walked out of the room and didn't speak a word to the child he wanted to save? I'm so confused. He was more worried about whether he'd get arrested. I kinda understand why he'd be afraid of being arrested, but there are literal witnesses to the whole reason he was there. And the child! You know what would have been cool? Leaving it up to the reader whether Katherine's exchange happened before he killed Chet.

All of this comes after an incredibly LONG info dump from Max when Kyle is at his house and after Kyle's visit to Antwerp to view these cursed paintings. Honestly? I have NO idea what transpired either with Max's monologue, or the dull painting reveal. I was excited to read the part with the paintings because of the way it was described as shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Ultimately, the scene was severely lacking and wasn't scary in the slightest.

END OF REVIEW

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