Monthly Archives: November 2025

Streaming Review: Eye of the Devil

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I was listening to one of my many horror movie podcasts the other day when during a discussion of folk horror films one of the hosts mentioned such a film starring David Niven.

David Niven? Horror movie?

That’s a pairing of words I had not expected at all. This was one folk horror I had to see. Unfortunately for me in their discussion the podcast did give away the turn in the movie so it was less impactful than it might have been.

MGM

Adapted from the novel Day of the Arrow, Eye of the Devil stars David Niven as Philippe de Montfaucon the Marquis de Bellenac at an old and isolated French estate where the people hold strange rituals and customs. Philippe is called back to the estate as the grape harvest has failed for the third year in a row and he implores his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kerr) to stay behind in the city. Catherine, of course, does not stay behind but follows her husband, bringing along their two children, to the estate. Almost immediately upon arrival Catherine is terrorized by a pair of apparently psychotic siblings, Odile (Sharon Tate, here credited as ‘Introducing Sharon Tate) and Christian (David Hemmings). With her husband’s behavior growing odd and the country folk of the estate apparently intent on frightening her away, Catherine engages in an investigation to discover the truth behind those strange customs and secrets of the ancient estate.

I did not dislike this movie, but it is very hard for me to judge the film since the secret that Catherine, our true protagonist, is seeking to discover is the very thing revealed by the podcast. This is a movie whose engine turns on a single question, What is Going On, and if the answer is known ahead of time, or guessed accurately too soon, then there is little to no narrative weight or momentum keeping the viewer’s attention.

Niven and Kerr are fine in the film, turning in decent performances, but Kerr’s Catherine begins to have repeated scenes making the film feel dull and expanding the sense of its running time which is a mere 96 minutes. Sharon Tate is quite good here as the mysterious and dangerous sister. With very little dialogue Tate conveys menace with a look and her bearing.

I find it hard to recommend Eye of the Devil but it’s also hard to disentangle how much of my non-enjoyment stemmed from the ‘spoiler’ versus how much the film’s pacing simply plodded.

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Movie Review: Sisu: The Road to Revenge

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I am taking a break from working overtime at the day-job this week, and so I have a little more time to write for my blog.

2022 saw the release of the Finnish action flick Sisu, which followed the story of Finnish gold prospector and former special forces commando Aatami Korpi slaughtering a number of fleeing war criminal Nazis during the ending days of World War 2. The action was comically over the top, defying physics and reason but immensely satisfying. Apparently satisfying enough for a second movie, Sisu: The Road to Revenge.

Screen Gems

The sequel ignores Korpi’s (Jorma Tommila) lucky gold strike and takes place in 1946. Following the end of the war, Finland surrendered significant land to the Soviet Union. Korpi has returned to his home, now in Soviet territory, in hopes of bringing his simple cabin that he shared with his deceased wife and child back to Finland to rebuild it. Having killed numerous Soviet soldiers during the war, the Red High Command has decided that the living legend should live no more and pulls one of their war criminals out of Siberia, the military man responsible for the massacre of Korpi’s family, and assigned him the task of killing Korpi The Immortal.

What follows can best be described as a Finnish Fury Road but with far less adherence to any recognized laws of physics or biology. Korpi, with a large flatbed truck, attempting to return to Finland with his disassembled home, encounters numerous Soviet units intent on killing him.

How over the top is Sisu: The Road to Revenge? Well, the 1985 action movie Commando is a grounded and gritty portrayal in comparison.

If one can suspend all their understanding of the physical world and accept that this is a live action but bloody cartoon, then Sisu: The Road to Revenge is a very enjoyable feature, a perfect popcorn movie for a brainless bit of fun watching impossible action as vengeance is visited upon well deserving monsters.

If you cannot set aside physics, then the movie will only be a series of ‘oh, come on!’ exclamations as more and more impossible feats are performed by Korpi The Immortal.

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Proposition 50 a Necessary Evil

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A friend messaged me the other day asking my opinion on California’s ballot initiative Proposition 50, which temporarily suspends the independent commission responsible for drawing the state’s Congressional districts in order to allow a directed gerrymander before next year’s off-cycle elections.

I favored and voted for the measure, though I did deem it something I wished I had the opportunity and freedom to oppose. I despise gerrymandering. It is the process where politicians choose their voters rather than the voters choosing their representative. Under normal circumstances, voting against Prop 50 would have been nearly automatic for me.

These are not normal circumstances.

Even before last week’s elections blew fear into the hearts of Republicans, they sensed the anger in the electorate and, given the history of off-cycle elections, knew that their position of power had become precarious. Rather than adjust their policies in hopes of persuading voters to trust them, Trump demanded that Texas redistrict to carve out five new seats deemed “safe” for the GOP, a bid to keep their grip on government.

It is unwise to go into a duel where your opponent has brought a pistol when you had agreed to swords and not change your choice of weapons. California’s abandonment of its commission was tossing aside the sword to pick up a pistol.

However necessary, it is still gerrymandering—manipulating the maps to dramatically influence the outcome of an election, a concept that is at its heart anti-democratic. I would prefer that the nation find a way to kill the process of gerrymandering in all states, but one cannot fight by “gentlemen’s rules” when the other side insists on being small-handed barbarians.

I would also consider it terribly important that the size of the House be expanded. Here is a graph showing that while US population has swelled, the House has been fixed for over a century, compounding our troubles.

us_congress_population_graph

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More Thoughts on Frankenstein

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Not so much about del Toro’s recent and lush production but more thoughts about the source text and the way people interpret it.

It is a common thought that the creature is a sad and pitiable character, his pain understandable, and perceives Victor Frankenstein as the true villain. The vain and self-centered scientist abandons his creation the moment he lays eyes on its unconventional appearance, leaving the poor creation in a monstrous body to suffer the indignities of a cruel and heartless society.

And as far as that analysis goes, it is correct, but it elides several aspects of the text and the horrific events that spring forth from it.

The creature, after finding shelter and hiding amongst a family, teaches itself to read and eventually becomes quite well-read and self-educated, skilled in understanding complex philosophical texts and arguments. This element is often deployed to portray the creature as sympathetic. To me, it is an element that renders him even more evil.

It is after the creature has obtained such mental heights as having read philosophy and advanced texts that it plans and executes the murder of a young child, framing an innocent girl as the murderer so that she is killed by a lynch mob. Neither the child William Frankenstein nor the young woman Justine mistreated the creature in any manner. Their lives were mere tools to be wielded in the creature’s quest for vengeance. They were not people with lives and emotions to be considered but things to be manipulated and abused for the creature’s self-important goals. These were not mad, spur-of-the-moment killings, but actions that were cold, calculating, and utterly indifferent to the pain they inflicted except that they troubled Victor.

Yes, Victor is horrible as well. Once freed from the grips of his obsession, he abandons all responsibility, but honestly, his sins are far less than the monster’s.

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The Neglected Blog

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I have not died, but I have been very tired. Each year from October 15th through December 7th is the Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) for Medicare Advantage plans. It is the period when people who are not new to Medicare can enroll, disenroll, or switch their plans, and my day job deals with those changes, making this time of year a quite busy one. Usually, the workload doesn’t become large and overtime is not offered until later in the AEP, like early to mid-December.

Not this year.

I do not know if more people are retiring early, losing their jobs, or whatnot, but right from the start of the AEP our work queues grew exponentially quickly. I have been taking advantage of the sudden overtime, working 10 hours a day and half a day on Saturdays.

That is not the only reason my poor blog has been neglected.

I have also entered the revise-and-edit phase of my 80s gay cinephile horror novel Final Reel.

Editing and revising is very different than drafting. Now my brain isn’t trying to conjure something from nothing, but rather shape what is already there to the image and form that now exists in my head. This process for my other novel has been mainly one of fixing sentences and paragraphs with minor plot and story changes. Final Reel wasn’t written with an outline—I made it up as I went along. This produced a manuscript where the back half doesn’t fit with the front because it wasn’t until then that I truly understood what I was crafting. So, editing and revising has a lot more revising this time around.

That said, I am extremely happy with it so far, and I think this may be my best novel yet.

However, this poor blog will continue to be neglected for the next several weeks.

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