.

Friday has arrived bringing the weekend, and I, provided I do not manage to injure myself by performing the terribly risky action of turning my head, the weekend should contain two trips the theater for in-auditorium cinematic experiences.

Last weekend I had planned to see the horror film Hokum Saturday evening. Hokum has been getting good notices, though I have been burned before by movies being talked up — I am looking at you X and Barbarian — and it looks fascinating. However, when I went out to pick up the takeaway food for me and my sweetie-wife’s dinner, I twisted my neck in a wrong manner, pinched something, and found the pain too intense to allow me to submerge my mind into a film. So, I canceled my AMC theater’s A-List reservation and suffered at home. This weekend, on either Friday or Saturday, I shall once again try to see this Irish-set horror film about an unpleasant man and a haunted hotel.

In addition to creepy isolated locations and unsettling events, I also plan to enjoy a comedic murder mystery with The Sheep Detectives.

Co-written by Craig Mazin, the creator of the astounding limited series Chernobyl and showrunner for the equally well-received The Last of Us, Mazin returns to his comedy roots with a tale of a herd of sheep determined to solve the murder of their beloved herder. With a fantastic cast and a plethora of good reviews it promises to be entertaining, funny, and heartfelt. I had planned on seeing this film long before any of the reviews had arrived. Mazin also co-hosts the podcast Scriptnotes for screenwriters and things interesting to screenwriters, and has talked, without spoiling any of the details, about this script for years, naming it his personal favorite.

Aside from those two excursions to the cinema I plan to sit down and watch the next film in the Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid catalogue, Keeper of the Flame, here at home. It will be perhaps the last feature film to be shown on my dying LCD television.