Insidious: Out of the Further is the best film in the franchise since the original Insidious in 2010. As the sixth entry in the series, we’re finally getting back to the roots: a movie simply intended to scare audiences.

According to the Science of Scare Project, Insidious is considered the fourth scariest movie of all time. I don’t particularly agree with that assessment, but who am I to argue with science? I think this mostly has to do with the number of heart rate spikes recorded, and that film definitely has some of the best jumpscares ever, including the iconic Red-Faced Demon appearing behind Patrick Wilson. You know the shot.

The movie was very popular without a particularly involved story to drag it down. Subsequent films mostly tried to stick to this idea while expanding the lore surrounding the dark afterlife known as The Further. It’s been hit-or-miss depending on how much each movie strayed from the core tenet to just be scary. For instance, it was nostalgic to see the original cast return in Insidious: The Red Door (2023), but I didn’t particularly need closure on the Lambert family’s generational trauma after thirteen years.

So while Out of the Further is also about generational trauma (we’re in the peak generational trauma era of horror), it doesn’t wallow in it at the expense of being scary. The film is loaded with tons of scares and some genuinely thrilling moments, making it a perfect date movie. There’s a scene in a sofa cushion fort that’s one one of the most brilliantly shot set pieces of the year. (It reminded me of Backrooms, although I’m sure that’s coincidental.) It’s claustrophobic and manages to push all the buttons needed to get anyone’s heart racing. Kudos to director Jacob Chase for pulling off this sequence, and to Amelia Eve, who plays Gemma, for portraying a character curious and strong-willed enough to disregard every red flag and still explore the unknown! My audience was basically sighing a collective, “aw hell no!”

I like that the producers decided to make this a completely stand-alone film by bringing in an entirely new cast of characters only loosely connected to the previous films. This time, single mom Gemma is having a series of nightmares that are dragging her into The Further, causing her to lose touch with reality, and terrifying her daughter Maya. Ah, the same thing happened to Gemma’s mom and scarred her for life. See, it’s that generational trauma thing! The biggest difference this time is that the dead folks milling about in The Further now have the ability to enter the real world. They are kinda similar to Romero zombies, which I liked. There are even a couple shots that reminded me of both Day of the Dead (1985) and Dawn of the Dead (1978). I really hope those were intentional!

The always delightful Lin Shaye is back again as Elise, the medium who is fully versed on The Further and is able to guide people to safety. Even though Elise died in the first film, she’s always around in the afterlife to provide the thread holding the entire franchise together.

Also, Gemma is a dental hygienist which means you can expect a lot of gross-out toothcore. Yes, I just coined that expression. There’s even a cool part where the camera is inside a patient’s mouth looking out. Expect drilling and slime and all kinds of mouthy trauma thoroughly designed to make you gag. Toothcore.

There’s very little to fault about Insidious: Out of the Further. It’s filled with tension, well-executed jumpscares, good acting, gross-outs, and mostly believable characters. It’s well-paced, scary, and fun, without any deep meaning to get in the way. That’s all I want in an Insidious movie.

8/10

Every film Jane Schoenbrun makes seems to move closer and closer into the mainstream without ever leaving horror-adjacent arthouse cinema. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) was a weird, disturbing look at online culture, loneliness, and isolation, and I Saw the TV Glow (2024) expanded those themes through the lens of dayglo ‘90s TV. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is easily her best and most approachable film, diving even deeper into her fascination with gender identity, queerness, and sexuality. This time, these ideas are explored through probably the most familiar horror format: the early ‘80s slasher flick.

Horror fans especially will be rewarded by having an intimate knowledge and understanding of Friday the 13th and its endless sequels. It might be difficult to process Camp Miasma without familiarity with the tropes of camp slasher franchises: the masked killer, the final girl, the ridiculous mythologies, and even the marketing. But more importantly, it will help to have seen Sleepaway Camp (1983) and to understand why its notorious gender-nonconforming ending (basically a transgender monster) feels so uncomfortable today. Actually, there’s a lot in these old films to make modern viewers cringe.

It’s interesting how Eli Roth, who just released Ice Cream Man last week, is equally versed in classic horror, yet seems more fascinated with the aesthetic gore and sleaze of these films while Schoenbrun is far more interested in their cultural context. (To be clear, I appreciate both approaches.) She wants us to look deeper at the themes running through slasher films and ask ourselves why sex and punishment are so connected. And what happens when a queer filmmaker (who clearly loves these movies) tries to make sense of them. Schoenbrun acknowledges the blatant sexism and homophobia prevalent in ‘80s slashers, while still adoring the movies.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma tackles all this with an extremely meta premise. Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a filmmaker hired to reboot the fictional Camp Miasma franchise. She’s well aware why the studio wants her: she’s a gay, arthouse filmmaker they see as someone who can provide them with a “woke” version of the movie in order to diffuse problematic ‘80s sensibilities. And the film we’re watching isn’t afraid to mention how Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) placed Freddy Kruger in the real world of the actors from the first film.

Kris’s plans change when she meets Billy (Gillian Anderson), the final girl from the original Camp Miasma movie, who is now a recluse living in the cabin where the movies were filmed. And this is where the movie became completely different than I was expecting. This is largely a two-person, single-location movie with the two women forming an intellectual, erotic connection, based around their complicated feelings surrounding the essence of a slasher film. Or, as Billy puts it:

“These films are about two things, flesh and fluids.”

I appreciated that the franchise’s killer is called Little Death, from “la petite mort”, the French expression for orgasm. The kills in Camp Miasma are literally portrayed as orgasmic with fountains of blood spewing and spurting from every hacked body. But it’s also an expression of how Kris is trying to come to terms with her own sexual awakening as a teen when she first watched Camp Miasma on VHS.

A lot of viewers may have a hard time connecting with the themes Schoenbrun is trying to explore in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, but I think most horror fans will appreciate this fresh self-reflection on our favorite classic movies. These films contain a lot of baggage, yet she doesn’t seem interested in mocking them, or worse, correcting them. She turns their contradictions upside down. In some ways, her message is that although slasher films can be awkward to watch with 2026 eyes, there’s something about being uncomfortable that’s kinda hot. We all need to feel a little death.

9/10

No!

There is no reason to feel guilty. You don’t have to feel obligated to master something or stick with it forever just because you’re curious.

I just returned from San Diego Comic-Con, which was an exhilarating and overwhelming experience. While I am unfamiliar with most of the niche pop-culture characters on display, I enjoy absorbing as much as I can. I want to remain culturally literate even if my knowledge is only surface-level. My goal is to know a little bit about a lot of things. Just enough to have a frame of reference for other people’s passions and to remain curious enough to hold up one end of a conversation.

Did you know that there are over 1000 Pokémon? I have never watched the Pokémon series or played a Pokémon game, but I can recognize Pikachu and Eevee, which is enough to get by. There are certain things that transcend niche groups into the general zeitgeist of culture, and these two characters are good examples. I know who Scarlett O’Hara is, but have never seen Gone With the Wind. I have enough frame of reference to know who LeBron James is, although I am not a basketball fan. Most people who aren’t horror movie fans can identify Jason Voorhees, but (as a self-appointed expert) I wouldn’t expect them to know Victor Crowley. Even a small amount of knowledge gives us a place to meet.

One of my writer colleagues is super into Dark Moon and gave me a complete rundown of this anime. She spoke passionately about the series, describing each of the traits of its seven vampire heartthrobs. (It’s basically like a boy band, I think.) I loved learning about the show and all its details, but it’s enough for me to know that it’s a series about seven vampires vying for the attention of one girl.

I don’t need to become a fan. I care that it’s something she cares about. And if the topic of niche anime ever comes up, I have a small entry point into a conversation and an opportunity for human connection. There’s a lot to be said for being a generalist: to speak the language of a variety of topics without understanding all their jargon and minutiae.

This works both ways: we all need specializations to give other people a doorway into our world. When I tell people I am a woodworker, the most common question they ask is, “What do you make?” They rarely ask, “How?” They do not need to know about router bits or pocket screws to have a discussion about woodworking. But what often happens is that curious people ask deeper questions that relate to their own general knowledge or experience. They might have questions about types of wood or whether a bit of damage to their desk is repairable. Or they might proudly relate a story about the time they replaced a rotted board on their stairway.

Beyond just being culturally and socially literate, there’s a practical side of knowing a little bit about a lot of things. I’m currently building a new bathroom vanity, and having a basic understanding of plumbing helps me to build a cabinet that best suits the pipes and whatnot that need to do their thing underneath the sink.

I know enough about electrical wiring to install an outlet, switch, or light fixture, but I have no interest in learning how to, say, install a breaker box, something I have only needed once in my life. A general understanding also helps me recognize my limitations and know when it is time to hire a professional.

The phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none” is often treated as a low-key insult, as if broad curiosity is a moral failure to commit to something. There’s a certain pressure to strive for expertise at anything we show a bit of interest in.

It’s tempting to get caught in our own life bubbles and dismiss things we think aren’t for us. We don’t need membership or credentials to let other people’s enthusiasm rub off on us.

Why do we think that if we are curious about woodworking or anything else, we have to deep-dive into it? Is it a sunk cost fallacy? Or sunk time? Not every interest needs to become our entire identity. Every bit of general knowledge gives us another way to understand what someone else cares about.

If you built one simple thing out of wood and moved on, you didn’t fail. You dabbled. You gained an understanding of wood and how it behaves. That alone is enough to appreciate things people make and possibly find a new conversation to join. You can even tell them that pine is fine.

I texted one of my colleagues before entering the theater to see Ice Cream Man:

“Here to see for myself if this is the shitshow everyone says it is.”

I’ve never been a huge fan of Eli Roth, finding most of his films very derivative. On the other hand, he is extremely well-versed in the lineage of horror films, and likes to include a lot of homages and references to other movies in his stories. (His 19 episode series, Eli Roth’s History of Horror is a fantastic guide for anyone interested in the genre.) But there comes a point when I question whether he’s paying homage to classic films, or simply copying them.

Ice Cream Man (not a remake of the campy, underappreciated 1995 Clint Howard movie) tells the story of an ice cream man whose frozen treats turn kids into killing machines. And that’s pretty much it. It’s an unrated, darkly comedic gorefest that had me chuckling a few times.

There’s such glee in these murders and in all the creative ways the children manage to obliterate their parents and any other adults who enter their paths. Keep in mind, this is unrated, extreme gore and not for everyone. The practical effects are very well-executed, convincing, and you’re bound to be grossed out by at least one of the kills. It’s actually kind of refreshing amidst the current round of “prestige” horror films meant to challenge viewers with their cultural commentary. Sometimes it’s just fun to see a young child saw the head off her mom.

I can’t help but wonder if Roth made this film in response to the success of Terrifier 3, wanting to top Damien Leone’s depravity. (Read my article Is a Gory Indie Hit Dismantling Hollywood’s Censorship Machine?) There’s even a shot where a girl is making a “snow” angel in a pool of blood, a moment directly lifted from Terrifier 3. Clearly it’s homage. And the film is full of them to the point where there’s not a whole lot of originality. There are references to Weapons, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, The Birds, Children of the Corn, Night of the Living Dead, and many, many others.

But all of that aside, I enjoyed Ice Cream Man. It doesn’t deserve anywhere near the level of trashing it’s receiving. The kills are creative, the story is completely absurd, there are lots of plot holes, and none of it makes much sense. But damn, it’s really fun. The acting from the children is quite good, especially by Charlie Zeltzer who plays Jared, and carries the entire movie. The practical gore effects are fantastic, the CGI is what it is, and the film moves quickly.

Most of the hate this film is receiving is centered around Eli Roth (a polarizing figure) and his use of generative AI. All the talk online made me believe that the film was an AI slop feature presentation. It’s not. There are two scenes that Roth hired Dark Half, an AI visual effects company, to create. One is a brief 1920’s Max Fleischer style cartoon (another homage) that shows up on the kids’ phones. It was about three seconds long and added nothing…I have no idea why this was even in the movie. The second (allegedly) AI scene is an expositional flashback describing the ice cream man’s backstory. The scene looks weird and is masked with scratches to make it seem like an old home movie. This is a couple minutes.

Both of these are very small parts of the movie and didn’t distract me any more than the old-school CGI. (Will VFX ever manage to create a convincing fire?) Again, the practical effects take center stage here. I suspect Roth just wanted to pack in all the effects he thought were cool. There’s even a scene shot on Kodak Super8 film. Wait, maybe that was the flashback scene. Nobody’s confirmed anything.

Obviously this is a passionate issue with a lot of people and I understand all its nuances and implications. At my showing, one guy stood up and shouted “Fuck AI!” as he stormed out of the theater. It was all very performative and honestly, as a horror fan, my mind went to a line from Cronenberg’s 1983 classic, Videodrome, “LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!”

7/10

I’m a lifelong fan and huge advocate of low-budget, independent films. The mere fact that someone with a creative vision is able to assemble a team, actually produce a feature film, and get it distributed is something to be cheered.

I never evaluate or criticize elements such as acting or special effects in these movies because I understand that the quality of these things is largely based on budget. I cut them a lot of slack. What draws me into a movie is its story, something that costs nothing to dream up.

What Tomorrow Brings is a passion project created by the Engelbert Family: written, directed, and produced by Matthew Engelbert, and starring his daughters Joely Engelbert and Phoebe Engelbert who play sisters. There are other Engelberts involved in music, hair, makeup, and costumes. When I read about this in the synopsis, I was immediately reminded of the ultimate family affair, the Adams family, who make outstanding, kickass horror flicks such as Hellbender (2021) and Where the Devil Roams (2023). Their work is collaborative and inspiring, and yet the fact that they are a family is not the headline: their films stand alone.

According to the press materials, What Tomorrow Brings film was completely shot with an iPhone 15 Pro Max and “filmed using full-scene takes without cutting within scenes”. Huh. Okay. I’m not sure why the tools and techniques used to make a work of art are relevant. (Same goes for Christopher Nolan rambling on about shooting The Odyssey entirely on 70mm Imax film.) Fine. It’s like a painter desperate for me to understand the paints and brushes they use.

The story here is solid and has the potential to be a powerful, slice-of-life drama under more capable hands. High school senior Clara becomes the unintended sole caregiver of her younger sister Ruby after their mom leaves them. It’s a good set-up, and Joely Engelbert is quite convincing as Clara, but the film suffers from not utilizing the medium of film. It feels as though Matthew Engelbert hasn’t watched a lot of movies and doesn’t fully understand cinematic narrative structure. The most frustrating problem is that the entire movie is narrated by Clara after the story’s events have transpired. It tells its story rather than showing it.

There’s a twist in the third act that would have been absolutely devastating if the scene had been actually filmed. Instead, we have Clara telling the story about what happened! What?! It was stunning that the one opportunity to emotionally connect to the audience was left to exposition.

And as much as I resist complaining about technical details in zero-budget films, I feel like I have to address the elephant in the room here since the promotional materials are so proud of the “shot on a phone” business.

The audio.

Look, even the most entry-level, 13 year old YouTuber understands one thing: if your audio sucks, it will destroy the integrity of the entire video. The sound quality in this movie is so tinny and echoey that the film is almost unwatchable. A low budget cannot excuse using the phone’s built-in mic. You can literally pick up a Rode lav mic or even a shotgun video mic for a couple hundred bucks.

A smartphone can shoot amazing video: 28 Years Later, and Unseen come to mind as great examples. The reason why those work is because the filmmakers treated the phone’s camera simply as one tool in their overall production. What Tomorrow Brings is so flatly lit in every scene that I’m not sure any lighting equipment was used. Again, you can pick up some quality lights for a couple hundred dollars on Amazon. Just taking the time to light scenes can go a long way in creating evocative moods and can elevate any film, regardless of its budget.

I’m sure the Engelberts had a lot of fun making this movie, even going so far as showing behind-the-scenes stills during the credits. It’s a fine film for them to show to their friends and family, but it’s a very tedious watch for the rest of us.

There’s a lot to be said for artistic passion and I really hope the family continues making films. Even just investing a little in a DSLR will go a long way. Post your films on YouTube, build an audience, hone your craft, work on filmmaking fundamentals, write great screenplays, don’t be afraid to collaborate, and enlist others for help. But seriously, get a mic.

It seems that once a successful horror film develops into a franchise, it begins to get obsessed with its own mythology. Every sequel introduces us to a new bloodline or some bit of lore that we need to put into the context of all the previous films. I find myself having to brush up on all the entries in a series before watching the latest installment. Refreshingly, the Evil Dead films mostly resist this temptation and deliver just what I want in the series: blood, gore, action, and fun.

Since Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic, all of these films have certainly expanded on the story of the Necronomicon and the Deadites, but that’s not the appeal. I love these films for their breakneck energy, outrageous practical effects, cool camerawork, and dark humor. Evil Dead Burn fully understands the assignment.

I love that Sam Raimi assigns each film to a fresh new director. After Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise (2023) shifted the story to a high-rise apartment building, Sébastien Vanicek now brings us back to the woods with a new family who has to take on the dead.

Like all the entries in the series, the story is centered around a family, in this case focusing on Alice (Souheila Yacoub) whose abusive husband has just died. Now she’s trying to pick up the pieces of her life while navigating her horrible in-laws and all their baggage. Intergenerational trauma has kind of become a cliche in recent horror, but here it’s not the main attraction. Mostly, it serves as insight into Alice and raises the emotional stakes…then it’s on to the carnage.

Once the action begins and people start becoming Deadites, the film barely lets up. It’s pretty much non-stop mayhem for the remainder of the movie. One gory set piece escalates to the next. The practical effects are spectacular, with some of the most outrageous gore in the series. It’s no surprise that the movie was originally awarded an NC-17 rating, forcing Vanicek to tone down a number of scenes to secure an R rating. Even with this theatrical cut, it definitely pushes the limits for mainstream horror. (Can we please just ditch the MPA, though?)

Evil Dead Burn takes its title literally. More than any previous entry, this one leans into the “evil” part of Evil Dead. The Deadites seem more vicious and sadistic here...they are truly evil. And there’s a lot of fire and burning going on, suggesting burning passions and heated emotions. But I guess you can read whatever you want into the flame metaphors.

This is all tempered with a bit of dark comedy, but not as much as I prefer in my Evil Dead films, which was a little disappointing. Mostly, Burn is played off as straight-up horror. There are a few moments of comic relief, but the tone is definitely more serious than I was expecting.

Side note: keep an eye out for Evil Dead Wrath, which has already been shot and is due to come on in 2028!

If you’ve been feeling groggy by the latest wave of slow-burn arthouse horror flicks, Evil Dead Burn is the blood-splatter in the face you need. It’s gruesome, non-stop, old-school horror meant to gross you out in the most entertaining ways possible.

8/10

I sometimes get messages from people asking for advice on how to get kids into woodworking. They have pragmatic questions such as what tools and techniques to start with, projects to build, etc. None of these well-intentioned parents has ever asked me if I think it’s even a good idea. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “why do I want them to learn my hobby?”

When my son was born, I naively thought he would be “just like me”. My ego assumed he would grow up loving things like horror movies, beer, and woodworking, as if those things are genetic. So when he was about 6, I thought it would be fun to introduce him to woodworking. It seemed like the dad thing to do. (Horror movies and beer would have to wait.) Sometimes he seemed to enjoy watching me work on things in the shop for a few minutes at a time, so I took that as a cue that he was interested in woodworking.

The first thing I did was show him how to cut a piece of thin wood using a hand saw, which seemed like a very safe bet. (It would take a serious dedication to lose a finger with a coping saw.) This lasted for about three strokes before he wandered away to examine the various tools in my shop, asking occasional questions.

Next, I handed him a small hammer, and as I held a nail with a pair of needle-nose pliers (I’m not insane), he tried pounding it into a board in which I had drilled a starter hole. He was a bit amused by this exercise, but after one nail he was done. We tried a few other simple tasks such as smoothing a board with my random orbit sander, which he kind of enjoyed for a minute or so.

After about 15 minutes in the shop, he drifted away to play with Lego. I felt like this was a successful session. That just letting him try different tools was enough to build curiosity and interest. Perhaps.

One day I clamped a board to my miter saw and helped him power the machine on and pull the blade down to make a cut. I helped him hold a board as we ran it through a bandsaw. And we drilled a few holes with my drill press. Even though it was my hands that were controlling everything, it was very stressful.

Then I concocted a plan for us to make a simple little candle holder together. Basically, he would make one cut on a small chunk of wood, sand its edges, and glue it onto a small, pre-cut base. Super easy. I tested out the whole process and presented him with my prototype. Excited to actually build something together, I said, “Let’s make one of these together!”

His response: “Do we have to?”

I was taken aback, but had no intention of pressuring him. “Oh, of course not! If you’re not interested in this stuff, that’s totally fine!”

It was an early-parenting lightbulb moment. I had made the woodworking more about myself than him. I was discovering that my kid was an actual sentient being developing his own interests that weren’t always aligned with mine. And that is way cooler than having a kid who just wanted to make me happy.

He simply loved reading about and observing some things that he had no interest in actually doing. Just a genuine curiosity. I had blinders on and assumed he would be “just like me”. I’m so glad that didn’t happen.

Wyatt appeared in some of my early YouTube videos, even making cameos through his teens. In fact, he filmed my first videos on my Sony Cybershot when he was 10. (Thus, the low angle shots in those videos!) He loved this stuff and he liked performing. As it turned out, we spent a lot of time in my shop together after all. He just found his own way into it that was different from my own narrow thinking.

2008. After filming my first YouTube video.

Wyatt’s almost 30 now and his life experiences have been completely unique from mine. He got a university degree, something I never did. He’s taught me about things I was never interested in such as video game mechanics, coffee, musical theater, and how to be empathetic. He’s never developed a passion for horror movies (although I keep trying), and to this day he has never drunk a beer or any other alcoholic beverage, something I have neither encouraged nor discouraged…it’s just his thing. And it’s cool when our interests do align, such as our shared love for music, rollercoasters, food, graphic design, and writing.

My “class”

At one point I was enlisted to teach a weekly woodworking class to a group of 9 and 10-year-olds, which turned out to be way more stressful than I imagined. We began with a rundown of basic safety rules and moved on to revisiting my candle holder project. (Because every kid has a penchant for aromatherapy, naturally.) Sure, there’s a nice lesson here about making something as a gift. Kids are always proud to present a hand-made gift to a parent or grandparent who will cherish it forever no matter how sketchy it looks. But still, it often feels forced.

Teaching the class was like wrangling cats. I didn’t have duplicate tools for every kid, so I had to find safe things for other kids to do while I was working with whichever one had a sharp implement in their hand. They all seemed to somewhat enjoy hand-sanding with pieces of sandpaper, so that kept them occupied for a little while. There were only six kids, including Wyatt, and most of them got really squirrely, really fast, and ended up just playing games in the driveway. I definitely wanted a beer after those classes.

I conducted just three shop sessions, and we managed to plod through them and get the blocks of wood completed. The kids enjoyed painting their projects the most. I doubt any of them did any more woodworking beyond that, and I learned that teaching woodworking online to adults is much easier.

Like many hobbies and interests, people need to come to woodworking on their own terms. Sure, allow kids to observe what you’re building and answer any questions, but read the room carefully before any hands-on instruction occurs.

When I think back on the times I spent in my shop with Wyatt, I realize he was doing something I had to relearn much later in life. He was exploring without the need for it to become a thing. Watching and observing was enough to satisfy his curiosity. To me, this seemed unfinished. To him, it was complete.

As adults, we obsess over outcomes and results. We feel like everything we attempt needs a conclusion — something we can point to and say, “I did that”. Of course there’s value in following through with a project we set out to accomplish; my entire career is spent helping people to actually build stuff. I’m suggesting that sometimes fixating on the end goal of a completed project can suck the joy out of the process. We stop appreciating the smell of freshly cut pine and fixate on the frustration of boards that don’t fit together properly.

It’s tempting to turn every interest in our lives into a project. Everything is approached with the same goal: to produce something measurable. We want blueprints for our relationships and our hobbies become side hustles. Kids become projects with goalposts and expectations.

Planning is great and completing projects is rewarding, but it’s worth broadening our goals beyond the default finished project. Sometimes the bigger goal is becoming the kind of person who can experience curiosity for its own sake.

Mother Future Self is a soft, restrained look at a friendship that ended without a conclusion. Taking place entirely at an experimental dance retreat deep in the woods of Maine, the story follows Sofi, an intern at the camp, and a handful of other creatives finding inspiration and personal expression through a series of exercises and workshops. If you’ve ever been to any kind of focused retreat, you’ll know that a big part of these things is to simply escape from your daily grind.

Writer/director Tori Lancaster seems to intimately understand this world, exploring it with natural dialog and a shooting style that made me feel immersed in the atmosphere. A large part of this realism comes from KJ Holmes, a real-life experimental dance instructor who plays Colleen, the director of the camp. I suspect the kinetic exercises and projects she presents here are techniques she explores in her actual practice. These are some of my favorite scenes in the movie. They feel unscripted, real, and feel like a documentary.

As the attendees begin to show up on the first day, Sofi is greeted with an unexpected arrival: Jordan (Betsey Brown), a friend she hasn’t seen since college, eight years ago. It’s an uncomfortable reunion filled with awkward small talk. Clearly there’s a history between these two, but the film never fully lets us in on what it was…except partially through dance.

Lancaster slowly reveals bits and pieces of the two main characters’ past, but never commits to an explanation. I suspect this will be frustrating for some viewers wanting a bit more resolution, but it’s one of the things I love most about Mother Future Self. Many of us have been in a relationship that abruptly ended, whether ghosted or completely cut out of the other person’s life. It’s the kind of thing that might have no easy answers, and is confusing even for the two people involved.

It’s an interesting choice to have both Sofi and Jordan as equal main characters in the story. I found myself trying to side with one or the other, but that’s not how relationships or break-ups work. From Sofi’s perspective, Jordan completely shut her out of her life with no explanation. But by revealing small characteristics of both women, we know it’s more complicated. Mother Future Self gives us almost no context. Were they lovers? Best friends? There are relationships that exist in a bubble, impenetrable by outsiders.

But within the confines of dance workshops, Sofi and Jordan partner up and express their shared trauma. It’s unspoken, passionate, and at times quite amusing. There is no dialog in these scenes, which makes the times when the two verbally confront their past almost explosive. It’s as if they have no other way to communicate honestly, except through improvisational movement.

The film contains two unsettling scenes revealing each woman’s anguish. The first one involves Sofi wandering into a house in the woods and doing some very odd things. It’s quiet and disturbing, but gives us a hint into her secret, personal demons. Perhaps Jordan was witness to some of this behavior years ago and had no way to cope other than cutting Sofie out. The second scene involves a dance performance near the end of the film, where Jordan confronts Sofi in a painful bit of self-expression. It’s a pivotal point of desperation asking (without dialog) for Sofi to make a decision. She makes two.

Mother Future Self is an intimate film with no answers, exploring themes of friendship, codependency, and unresolved pasts. The movie is as experimental as the ad-lib choreography of the dancers and asks us to look closer into every visual expression. It doesn’t always make sense and it’s open to personal interpretation, just like many real-life relationships.

8/10

In 2019 I made a video called “How to make a basic box. And why you need to know how”. Since then, it’s received almost 5 million views and has helped a lot of people learn some of the most essential woodworking techniques. When it comes down to it, there are only two fundamental types of woodworking projects: a box and a table. Everything is a variation on those. It’s a bit of an oversimplified take, but if you want to build furniture or cabinets, you just need to know how to make a box.

Over the years, that video has received quite a few grumbling comments from viewers expressing the same sentiment: “Wait, you expect me to have a tablesaw to make a simple box?” Or, “Love how a video about making a basic box requires thousands of dollars worth of professional tools.” (Don’t they know my whole “get into woodworking for less than $1000” schtick?!)

Granted, most of these are from drive-by viewers who aren’t familiar with my channel or woodworking style and have just arrived after searching YouTube for “how to make a simple wooden box”. They are disappointed.

Honestly though, I understand where they’re coming from. It’s perfectly natural to assume that the entry point into woodworking is a hand saw and a few nails. Most people have no idea that power tool woodworking is the most common way to begin a woodworking hobby. Hand-tool woodworking is a specialty niche practiced by less than 10% of all hobby woodworkers.

But more importantly, they are confusing basic or simple, with easy. If you’ve never built anything and try to make a wooden box with a handsaw, you probably won’t have a satisfying first experience. There is nothing easy about hand tool woodworking; it requires practice and finesse. But by anyone’s measure, the box I designed and demonstrated in the video is very simple. It would be the same simple box if you made it with a chisel or a laser cutter. It’s not fancy or complex.

Simple isn’t the same thing as easy. Complex isn’t the same thing as challenging. Interestingly, simplicity can be much more challenging to achieve.

We can look at it as a compass:

Four ways to approach any craft (It’s a spectrum)

My goal with Woodworking for Mere Mortals has always been to design and produce how-to content that fits mostly within the southwest quadrant: Simple and Easy. I’m certainly not opposed to complex or challenging projects, but as a gateway drug into woodworking, it’s important that my work be approachable to beginners.

A table saw isn’t inherently difficult to use; it’s just a tool. But using a table saw to cut six pieces for a basic box is very different from using one to create box joints. The tool itself doesn’t determine the complexity of the project.

I’ve been having fun imagining what kinds of things might go in each quadrant. A Shaker table is a good example of Simple and Challenging. The form is unadorned and stripped to its essentials, yet somehow retains a level of style and sophistication with features such as those sexy tapered legs. (I don’t think the Shakers would have called them that lol.)

[Side note: have you seen The Testament of Ann Lee? It’s a powerful movie about the founder of the Shaker religious movement. There’s even a few scenes showing Shaker carpentry.]

The furniture is a testament to the craftsmanship of 18th century woodworkers who managed to create those legs with hand saws, chisels, and draw knives. For the record, tapers are not easy on a table saw either.

The most fun category to fill is Complex and Easy. Anyone who’s put together any piece of Ikea furniture understands their complexity. You get stacks of laminated MDF boards, a book of instructions, and a billion little bags filled with weird hardware. And their famous hex wrench. Although there might be a couple of frustrating moments, the furniture is generally EASY to build. Ikea has eliminated sawing, shaping, and finishing and left builders with just the assembly stage of woodworking. They are designed with precision and in such a way that anyone can experience the satisfaction of building something themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ikea has inspired some curious people to get into woodworking, much in the way Lego has been responsible for industrious children to pursue engineering and other building interests. Actually, a Lego kit is another good example of complex but easy. (Hmmm…discussion point: do you consider building an Ikea kit a form of woodworking?)

Finally, we’re left with the Complex and Challenging corner. This is probably what most people imagine when they think of “fine woodworking”. (Not a term I’m fond of.) Think of something like a stately armoire in a museum, or any other highly ornate piece of furniture with features such as hand-cut dovetails, intricate inlays, carved details, bent laminations, elaborate joinery, or exotic woods. They can be beautiful (not my personal vibe), and there’s no question that they require a tremendous amount of skill.

Since my job for the past 18 years has been creating online content for beginning woodworkers, I try to stay in the simple and easy lane. And this is where my approach to building is sometimes misunderstood. Over the years I’ve occasionally heard some variation of: Steve doesn’t appreciate craftsmanship, or that (oddly) I’m knocking skilled workers. Sometimes I get comments from people who think I somehow reached a certain point and just stopped growing as a woodworker, or that I’m afraid of more advanced techniques. This is as absurd as wondering why your child’s third grade teacher isn’t teaching calculus or assigning essays on Nietzsche.

Naturally, it’s valuable for us to consider the ways in which we grow and to continually tackle new challenges. Foremost, growth should be personally measured, rather than relying on other people’s benchmarks. Growth should not be evaluated through online analytics, view counts, or complexity of output. We need to resist the idea that creative growth is easily quantifiable.

Every woodworker is different and every craftsperson will find their own path to enjoyment by dabbling in other quadrants of my compass as they grow. If hand-cutting dovetails brings you joy, cut dovetails. If collecting tools makes you happy, collect tools. If you want to spend a year building a cabinet with hidden compartments and hand-carved details, go for it. Hobbies don’t need to justify themselves.

Alternative ways we can challenge ourselves without overcomplicating our lives.

• Focus on depth rather than layers. Woodworking offers an endless rabbit hole of techniques and skills to try. It’s tempting to want to explore them all right now. Relax, allow the hobby to expand and grow with you. Instead of learning three new techniques, spend some time refining one. Remember that first table you built? Make it again, but cleaner. This time, pay closer attention to the grain pattern. Cut the pieces more accurately so they fit together with greater precision. Look more deeply into the skills you already have.
  

• Another challenge is restraint. I discussed the merits of finding simplicity in Issue 69. It’s a process that is usually more challenging than adding complexity. It’s easy to add features to a project. When you start to wonder what a project needs, ask yourself, “Can I make it feel complete with fewer parts?” Simple becomes challenging because it forces you to be brutally honest with what matters.
  

• Pick an entry-level project and make it with the knowledge and skills you have now. Make my Basic Box. Again, don’t try to add any extra ingredients, just apply those basic skills. Even professional athletes always come back to work on fundamentals: they are that important.
  

• Enjoy being a beginner again. I think many people avoid this one because once we find a hobby we like, we get competent and comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with feeling capable, but there is something enticing about stepping into a room where we have no idea what we’re doing. I like to encourage hobby-hopping because it’s a valuable way to stretch our brains. Learn a little music. Try painting. Take a dance class. Learn a language. You might feel awkward at first, maybe even a little embarrassed. Perfect. That’s the feeling of growth.

Finally, challenge yourself by paying attention. Look, social media has ruined us all by turning attention into a lost skill. We are surrounded by things competing for it every minute. But paying close attention to something simple can reveal richness and beauty hiding underneath. Sit quietly and notice the sounds in a coffee shop. Read a poem twice and discover something, even one line, that you find meaningful. Listen to a song with headphones and actively focus on one instrument at a time. Slow down.

Many of us grow up thinking that growth is measured by accumulation: more tools, more skills, more possessions, and more commitments. As we gain experience, we may start to discover that the biggest challenge we can face is deciding what deserves our attention, and what we can eliminate.

For years I’ve had a recurring dream where I discover a room in my house that I never knew existed. It’s the type of nightmare that’s more unsettling than scary. Backrooms captures this feeling perfectly, combining a skewed sense of familiarity with uncanny dread. This film infects your nervous system.

Backrooms began as a creepypasta on 4chan in 2019 when a user posted a weirdly disquieting image of a large, empty room lit with fluorescent lights. Users were quick to expand on the idea, posting additional images and stories depicting liminal spaces.

Since then we’ve seen a subgenre of liminal movies emerge, most notably, Skinamarink in 2022. These are films with minimal story or plot, meant to immerse viewers in an uncomfortable atmosphere while conveying a sense of fragmented memories and nostalgia. Often, but not always (Aftersun, 2022), these films are linked to horror, dredging up inexplicable emotional reactions.

Or not. Plenty of viewers simply get bored, hoping for more traditional linear narratives, and Backrooms is no different.

Here, we get pieces of a story exploring themes of childhood trauma, depression, alcoholism, and loneliness from two main characters.

Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a manager of a furniture store who discovers a portal of sorts in the basement that leads to an endless maze of hallways filled with familiar objects and places…but off. These are the backrooms, lit with garish fluorescent lights and impossible geography. It’s as if an architect designed the spaces with only a vague sense of what spaces are.

Clark compares it to telling a blind person what a dog looks like and then asking them to draw one. The result may resemble a dog, but it will carry an unmistakable sense that something is wrong.

Mary (Renate Reinsve), Clark’s therapist, is experiencing her own feelings of abandonment and gets drawn into the backrooms. Perhaps the backrooms exist to mirror our own anxieties. To be sure, there’s even a prominent reversed stop sign: POTS.

Backrooms makes no attempt to explain this strange portal, nor do people question its existence. It reflects how we are all drawn into “other” spaces without them being specific destinations: we pass through airport terminals or building lobbies, rarely considering the lonely chairs or lighting. These places are familiar, yet difficult to describe as more than a half-remembered recollection. And as time passes, we recall fewer and fewer details. Now imagine being placed in a world filled with nothing but the nightmare logic of these liminal spaces.

While Backrooms immerses us in horrifyingly beautiful sets containing hallways that never seem to arrive anywhere (I understand the actors actually got disoriented in them), it explores deeper themes about the life paths we choose and how small decisions can have much larger ramifications.

If you’ve ever watched any of Kane Parsons’ original YouTube series, you will love how Backrooms retains that exact style (still plenty of found-footage), while expanding on the lore. The film is a mystery without any answers, yet we’re given plenty of clues to piece together on our own. This is the closest a movie has ever come to capturing the feeling of a dream.

Be forewarned. As I mentioned earlier, this is not a film for everyone. Not even all horror fans will enjoy it. Backrooms is a slow burn, filled with ambiguity. It is tense, uncomfortable, horrifying, and deeply disturbing in parts. Like the backrooms themselves, you will be left with no satisfying, neatly wrapped conclusion. But if you are willing to just let the movie happen, you may find the experience to be as uniquely visceral as I did.

Backrooms is a haunting representation of an actual nightmare. One you can’t wake up from.

10/10

It’s hard for me to comprehend that there are plenty of YouTubers today who were babies when I posted my first video in 2008. They have never known a world where YouTube didn’t exist.

One of the things YouTube has afforded me is the opportunity to meet and become friends with creative peers of all different ages and backgrounds. Making videos is a common language that connects generations in a way that provides perspective. I’m impressed by most of the young people I meet. They seem to have an emotional awareness and intelligence that I never had in my 20s. Or even now. Although I’m learning a lot from them.

They are also media savvy. People born within the past two decades have had their lives regularly documented in video and photos. Every kid knows how to pose and react when a phone is pointed at them or when they point one at themselves. It’s just ingrained.

I have like two photos of me as a kid lol.

I’m exaggerating, but it seems as though hauling out the camera was something reserved for special occasions or events. Posed photos standing in front of the Christmas tree or blowing out birthday candles. And you only had one shot to not look like a dork. I grew up in a highly dysfunctional family so my experience may not reflect other Gen Xers.

When I was 10, I was gifted a Kodak Instamatic camera, but my parents treated film as a precious luxury. It’s like giving a child a toy but never springing for batteries. Oh, and if you wanted to take indoor pictures, you needed flashbulbs and those things didn’t grow on trees, ya know. I remember going to Disneyland and being generously bestowed one roll of film. 24 pictures. It came with a stern admonishment to “not burn them all in one place”. Jesus, film was like gold.

The mundane archive of life

In 1990 I got a degree in commercial photography, no doubt partly to spite my parents’ compulsive film rationing. In San Francisco, I would regularly burn a dozen 36-exposure rolls of film on a single runway fashion show. Well over 400 photos. And while that was both liberating and profitable, it doesn’t come close to how many photos I regularly shoot today.

I was curious how many photos and videos are in my Google Photos and this is not a number that is easy to find. Maybe it’s not even available. The closest I found was in my account settings where it says:

665GB used of 2TB

30,000+ Photos

500+ Albums

Even Google kinda throws up its arms after 30k and concedes, “I dunno”. I suspect I have a lot more than 30,000+. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t take a photo or shoot a video of some sort. And my experience is probably typical of most of us.

Google likes to create these “Remember this special day from 2014!” kind of thing where it picks out photos that will surely make me teary eyed with nostalgia. I love it when one of those pics is a parking garage sign reminding myself of where I parked. Or a random cappuccino. There’s an honesty about being reminded of a mundane action from 12 years ago that would have been otherwise lost to history. This is the true value of documenting our lives: being reminded that life is mostly a series of unremarkable instances occasionally interrupted by the extraordinary. This is real, unlike social media which pretends to flip the nature of our lives by trying to make everything noteworthy. Also, I will never reject the endless parade of “Cuddles and Purrs” cat pic stories Google hits me up with.

On March 17, 2015, this wall damage was important enough for me to take several photos. I have no idea why. That total lack of context is irresistible.

Since 2008 I have posted over a thousand edited videos (all extraordinary) across six YouTube channels. Videos that have crossed the barrier from personal into “content” for human consumption. Let me influence you!!! Sometimes when I need some b-roll, I watch one of these old videos and experience a certain level of anxiety. I recognize myself in those videos, but also, who is that guy?

“What would I do differently?”

I’ve recently been rewatching my entire Weekend Woodworker video series. I literally haven’t watched these straight through since I created the course back in 2017. (Wait, what? Nine years ago? Ugh.) I’m in the process of reviewing them with fresh eyes to create even more…content. My thought is to make sort-of reaction videos to them (without finger pointing over my shoulder) discussing what I would do differently today.

It’s always a bit existential watching my past self building things. Again, it’s the little mundane things that I notice the most: how my shop layout has changed, how my tools have aged, random clutter in the background, a band-aid on my finger, and (weirdly) even specific boards. It’s tempting to be hyper-critical over my personal appearance, but I’ve largely learned to cope with that bit of unsettling hell.

The main thing that I’m surprised about and actually pretty proud of, is how difficult it is to find anything I would change about how I built those projects. I accomplished everything I set out to do: teach woodworking in a highly detailed, step-by-step manner, addressing any questions and concerns that were likely to arise.

But there are always options in woodworking. So instead of “what would I do differently”, I’m asking myself, “what are some alternative methods of approaching certain procedures?” Some of this is informed by The Weekend Woodworker community who always offer suggestions as well as voice concerns over things they struggle with.

For instance, one of the most common challenges with the Harmony Garden Bench is applying finish. So much so that finishing it has become a certain rite of passage among course members. I reviewed my presentation and tried to think of what would be a better way to apply stain and polyurethane in between all those seat slats. My conclusion? It’s one of those finishing jobs that just kinda sucks, but I would probably do it the same way.

Slop that stain on

The logical alternative is to pre-finish the boards, or even pre-finish some of the boards, so I came up with a detailed plan (download my new PDF!) for accomplishing this, complete with measurements pointing out the areas to avoid applying finish so that glue will bond to bare wood. This solution will appeal to a lot of people who are concerned with all parts of the project being finished with the same level of precision and protection. I get it.

But honestly, the thought of building projects this way doesn’t appeal to me. It tends to slow down the entire momentum and add an extra layer of complication to the overall process. I like the workflow of cut → assemble → finish. Interrupting that with a finishing step after cutting hurts my brain. Not to mention, you’ll still need to touch up areas after assembly anyway.

I always like to encourage people to go into an antique store and examine beautiful furniture that was built over 100 years ago. Look underneath those tables and dressers at their secondary surfaces. They aren’t pretty. The craftsmen who built them were professionals who often left gouges, saw marks, and blotchy varnish drips. They always had an eye on the end user’s overall experience and what was most important to them.

This also reflects my general disposition and key tenet to woodworking: don’t get hung up on things that nobody will see. It’s okay to splash some exterior finish between those slats (I offer several viable techniques) and be done with it. There may be some runs and drips, and you won’t be able to buff those areas to a silky feel, but they are still well-protected from the elements. Nobody is going to shine a flashlight in those crevices and be horrified by your sloppiness. Rather than trying to sand every part of our lives smooth, maybe we should focus on the areas that matter.

I understand that not everyone shares this philosophy. The thought of intentionally providing less effort to something is anathema to their entire outlook on life. “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” Fair. You won’t get an argument from me. Expressing the best versions of ourselves can mean different things.

Old photos and videos of ourselves can be revealing. Instead of lamenting what we would have done differently, it’s far more interesting to reflect on how our past selves led to our current selves.

Anyway, I’m enjoying this process of revisiting my course videos and offering even more options for beginners. If you’re already a member, look for these to show up soon! And if you aren’t already a member, there is no better time to join than right now. In just six weekends you will have a solid foundation of woodworking and be confident enough to tackle the world. Future you will be happy you tried something new.

There’s one thing I’ve learned about mummy movies: I’m not sure what it means to be a mummy movie. Honestly, it’s barely even a subgenre of horror. I’ve never met a horror fan who cites mummies as their favorite type of monster. It’s difficult to even define the threat posed by a mummy, aside from what we all know from Scooby Doo; that they walk slowly with their arms outstretched. And of course, in recent decades, The Mummy has leaned into big budget action and adventure more than horror.

I’m happy that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy brings the scares back into this franchise. (Wait, is it a franchise?) To do this, Lee Cronin basically removes mummies from his mummy movie. There are still some bandaged vestiges such as sandstorms and a tad bit of Egyptology, but this film is more closely related to The Exorcist. Indeed it feels a lot like Cronin’s previous movie, Evil Dead Rise (2023), complete with people puking black goo into other people’s mouths. It’s a thing.

It was a bold move to take this monster in this direction, and it mostly pays off. It’s also my favorite mummy movie ever! To be fair, there’s like six of them.

At 2 hours and 15 minutes, there’s a lot of story packed into this film and at times I felt like some key moments were deleted for the sake of time. Perhaps this might have worked better as a TV series where the story could be fully fleshed out and have a little breathing room. Here, it feels rushed in parts, but still a bit too long.

The film centers around a family whose young daughter goes missing and is found eight years later under weird circumstances. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy goes hard here, especially when we finally see the “mummy” that’s not really a mummy. The makeup is great and I loved that the movie gave a lot of attention to its gore effects, both practical and CGI. Casual moviegoers may be put off but the gross factor, which is pretty high.

It’s a film that holds its cards close to its vest, gradually revealing information as it moves through the story. I was fully drawn into the mystery of the first two acts, wondering how it was going to play out and trying to piece it all together. When the third act comes, all hell breaks loose with a satisfying payoff that explains everything. Overall, Cronin has written a compelling story completely different from any mummy movie you might be expecting.

There are plenty of dumb moments and the characters make some frustrating decisions, but it wasn’t too difficult to suspend disbelief…it’s a supernatural thriller, after all. The film never takes itself too seriously and there are enough lighthearted moments to break the tension. This isn’t the kind of movie that tries to make any profound statement or tackle cultural issues; it exists just to make you jump a few times and have a fun two hours.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy very much feels like the spiritual successor to Evil Dead RIse. (Hmm…maybe it’s part of the same cinematic universe.) Cronin seems intent on creating horror for horror fans and that makes me happy. It’s effective, scary, bloody and knows what it’s doing. There are a lot of demon-possessed-girl tropes you’ll recognize and gore that will have a lot of viewers wincing and squirming in their seats.

Overall, it’s an entertaining film with an intriguing mystery that delivers adequate spookiness and scary moments. It’s a creative new reimagining of what a mummy movie can be. Just don’t go into it expecting a mummy.

8/10

In the history of cinema, there have been surprisingly few POV movies…films that emulate first-person video games. Setting aside some experimental films, two recent notable examples include 2012’s wildly effective Maniac, starring Elijah Wood; and Hardcore Henry (2015) which was fun, but exhausting. A quick Google search tells me there are a few other examples I haven’t seen.

Probably the main reason we don’t see more of these is that it’s so difficult for a movie audience to identify with a main character you can’t see. In a video game this works because it’s interactive and you can “be” the hero. Within the narrative structure of horror cinema, it’s almost exclusively used for scenes involving a killer, such as Jason Voorhees. It’s an effective conceit that puts us in the uncomfortable position of imagining ourselves as the killer.

So I was excited to check out Dead Eyes at SXSW and see its take on this subgenre of the found-footage subgenre. Unfortunately, it mostly feels like a gimmick, rather than serving any purpose. It’s not trying to emulate a video game, nor does it serve to give us any insight into its main character.

The story centers around Sean (voiced by Rijen Laine) who is on a camping trip with his girlfriend and another couple to search for his missing father. It seems Dad was a mysterious genetics scientist who had a lab or something out in this remote forest.

There’s plenty to appreciate about Dead Eyes: the setting is sufficiently creepy and dark woods are always scary when lit with a flashlight. There are some gory moments, especially at the end, as well as a bone-crunching homage to The Ring…complete with long dark hair draping over the face of a herky-jerky contortionist in white. And I commend writer/director Richard E. Williams for tackling this ambitious project.

However, many of the frights involve jumpscares of people randomly popping into frame accompanied by a loud noise. Fine. But the biggest problem with the movie is the POV thing. It feels…off. Just really hard to get on board with. What struck me almost immediately was Sean’s voice which sounds as though it was completely recorded in post (I suppose it was) with an entirely different studio mic and audio quality. His voice is robust, but it sounds like a radio DJ. Whenever he’s speaking, it doesn’t sound like he’s occupying the same space as the other actors. It’s very disconcerting. On top of this, the way the actors look into the lens when they talk to Sean feels like stage acting. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s hard to act and react to a co-star who you can’t see. I’m not criticizing the acting; it just feels like it’s mismatched. Like a combination of a stage play and radio drama trying to fit within a horror film. Also, there’s a weird lack of emotion when someone dies—the characters just go on about their business. I feel like a lot of this might stem from a weak script.

Also, blood splatters on the lens of the camera and just lingers there. Huh? Are we supposed to believe that this is what Sean is seeing? Is it dripping from his eyeballs? It’s just another thing that took me out of the moment.

Finally, I wish films would stop having characters take shrooms lol. The movie already has weird and spooky things happening where we can imagine what might be lurking in the dark moonlit shadows, but then the main character is tripping. Now when I see something that’s intended to be scary or inexplicable, I assume it’s just a hallucination. It makes everything less scary and takes me out of the story. I guess it’s a way for filmmakers to shoehorn in supernatural elements that wouldn’t make sense otherwise. Bleh.

Dead Eyes is worth watching if you’re curious about the POV thing, but there’s nothing particularly engaging about the story.

7/10

This time, seven of us from the Shade Studios team were able to attend, although it was rare for all of us to get together at the same time to compare notes. One evening together, while we were at a bar, the topic of conversation managed to drift into woodworking when someone thought it would be fun to quiz me on wood. They looked around and noticed the wall. “What kind of wood is that?”

“Pine. Stained.”

This led to a discussion about types of wood. Seriously. I guess it’s one of those things that non-woodworkers don’t give a lot of thought to — until they do. The group asked more questions about the wall of wood such as, “why pine?”

“Because it’s rustic looking and it’s cheap.”

Someone joked, “Haha, yeah but it’s not like they picked it up at Home Depot.”

I looked at the horizontal boards and realized they were just knotty 2x6’s. “Actually, they could very well have picked them up at Home Depot. Those are just construction grade boards. Wood doesn’t have to be fancy to be decorative. Pine is fine.”

For some reason (cocktails) everyone thought that comment was hilarious and my unintentional rhyme became a catchphrase for the rest of the evening including the chorus of a sing-a-long. This was all very amusing, but I also remembered my mention of pine in last month’s newsletter regarding wood selection for projects, so let’s talk more about this under-appreciated wood species. The Toyota Camry of the forest.

Pine is fine

When furniture makers and woodworkers select wood for one of their “good” projects, pine is rarely on their shortlist. It’s considered too mundane, even boring. Or worse: cheap. I’m reminded of those taste tests where subjects prefer the more expensive wine when told the price, but select the cheaper wine in a blind taste test. If pine were a rare exotic wood species, would we crave its beauty? Yes, probably. Aesthetics are largely culturally informed.

It’s easy to overlook the beauty in the things we encounter on a regular basis. In North America, pine is one of the most ubiquitous and sustainably farmed types of lumber; the more of it we use, the more is planted. A victim of its own reputation, visually speaking.

It’s a soft, yet strong wood suitable for rough construction and framing. Studs are cheap, available, and hold our homes together, hidden behind drywall. Rough sawn boards are slapped together to make millions of pallets shipping nearly everything we’ve ever bought. Pine boards are used as shelves in dark pantries, covered in shelf liner and canned goods. Subfloors are made from pine plywood and I’ve seen plywood dancefloors. In the shop, we use pine for jigs, fixtures and workbenches.

It’s a material so versatile and so useful, that we often fail to consider its beauty. If we use it to build something decorative, we’re quick to disguise its shameful appearance with woodstains. Stains that come in names of other woods: walnut, red oak, ebony, chestnut, or cherrywood. It’s as though we desperately want it to be loftier than it is. If we’re going to use it for a “nice” furniture project, we want it to look expensive. The natural look of pine was even too boring for the wall of that downhome quirky rustic Texas dive bar.

None of this is surprising. The more common something becomes, the less value it has. I don’t know much about economics, but I’m pretty sure this is a rule or something. But does this mean we have to value its intrinsic beauty less?

The look of pine is expressed in its grain. The contrast between its dark heartwood (which gets even darker as it ages) and its lighter sapwood is striking. Some types of pine can have straight, uniform grain patterns while others are quite dramatic with swirly, wavy shapes. Some pine is noted for its knots left over from the tree’s many branches that were lopped off. Pine is one of the most visually flashy species of wood available. I spend much more time examining and selecting pine boards for furniture projects than I do maple or walnut boards which are far more consistent.

It does a disservice to try to make pine into something it’s not. (Walnut stain looks exceptionally weird.) It doesn’t need to be rare to be remarkable; it’s already doing the essential work of holding everything together. Once you start paying attention to it, you realize how much character it actually has. The knots, the contrast, the unpredictable grain, the subtle graying with age. It’s far from lacking beauty.

But most of the time, we don’t really pay attention. We walk past it, use it, and conceal it. We rely on it constantly without ever really seeing it for what it is. The more something is integrated in our lives, the more we take it for granted. None of us really noticed that “rustic” barroom wall until someone offhandedly asked the question. And then suddenly we were seeing it. Nothing changed but our attention. It’s worth taking time to refinish our perception of the pine in our lives.

And maybe not just the wood kind.

There’s a long and fascinating pedigree of hotel and motel horror films. Classics like Psycho and The Shining, as well as modern haunts such as The Innkeepers or even Barbarian if we expand the subgenre to include Airbnb (which I don’t). And you absolutely can’t go wrong with the 1980 comedy-horror Motel Hell.

There’s something about hotels that are perfectly suited for horror stories. You’re spending the night in an unfamiliar location in the same place that thousands of other people have stayed. (Eww…just don’t think about your mattress.) Once a hotel is old enough, it’s bound to have had some bad shit go down at some point, so naturally it becomes haunted! And there has to be a dark history containing old black and white photos indicating the weird spirits who now inhabit it. A haunted hotel flick which takes place say, in a Best Western Plus just wouldn’t be the same. Although a paranormal investigation into the breakfast buffet could be an interesting twist.

Hokum, the new movie by Damian McCarthy (Oddity, 2024) understands this subgenre well, creating a serviceably spooky environment filled with mysterious ringing bells and creaky dumbwaiters. Mostly a one-location film taking place largely in the long-abandoned Honeymoon Suite (aww) the set design is fantastic. There is creepiness around every corner, and McCarthy’s camera manages to find just the angles to make scenes unsettling and to slowly ramp up the tension.

All of this is brought to life by Adam Scott, who plays Ohm Bauman, a sourpuss American author who travels to Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. It’s a bold choice to make the hero such a horrible person…someone difficult to sympathize with when bad stuff goes down. But it’s Adam Scott! His performance brings nuance to the role, giving his character time to evolve, while letting the story gradually reveal his past trauma that has shaped who he is. It’s a tricky line to walk to get the audience rooting for you after you’ve behaved so horribly to the hotel staff.

Soon after he arrives he hears tales about the witch who inhabits these parts and how the Honeymoon Suite has been sealed off for years. As a horror/mystery writer this proves irresistible, prompting him to investigate.

And as much as he’s invested in the lore of the hotel, I had a harder time getting on board. I think there’s a fair amount of Irish folklore that I didn’t quite connect with, such as an ongoing problem with local goats who keep climbing onto people’s cars. Huh? There’s a person who goes missing, a local coot, and run-of-the-mill jumpscares involving a quiet shot of Ohm, when suddenly —bam! — there’s a scary face right behind him. Accompanied by an annoyingly loud noise. Hu-hum hokum.

There’s a place for the creative jumpscare: it’s one of the essential tools of horror, but nothing here seemed particularly innovative or (at times) even necessary. Thankfully, the overall tension built during the scenes carried solely by Adam Scott is quite effective at creating a sense of doom. And the way the character is written, it seems plausible that he could live or die. I like that kind of plot uncertainty. Again, all of this hinges on his believable performance.

If you’ve seen Oddity, McCarthy’s previous film, you’ll recognize the overall tone and pacing of Hokum. This slow, deliberate tone will probably resonate with a lot of viewers and turn others off. I found myself in between: I got a little impatient with the first act, but the movie definitely turns up the heat and scares in the final act. I didn’t get drawn into Hokum as much as Oddity, but it’s a solid entry into the haunted hotel pantheon.

7/10

Ugly Cry is the latest entry in the negative-body-image genre of film, alongside recent movies such as Ugly Stepsister, Saccharine, and The Substance. Or, going back to 2014, the underrated Starry Eyes. All of these deal with issues of cultural pressures and beauty expectations placed on women and their bodies, often seen through the demands of the entertainment industry.

This time, we have the story of Delaney, an aspiring actress who’s trying to land a role in a movie called “Living Ghosts” that requires her to perform an emotional crying scene. Her audition is powerful, but the producers have one criticism: she has an “ugly cry”.

“Great audition, but can you cry pretty?” Ouch.

This leads Delaney into a spiraling obsession to “fix” her face and “cry more realistically.” She watches YouTube videos, buys an online course, and ultimately decides the solution is Botox. The irony is that her scrunched facial expressions overflow with expression! Removing lines and wrinkles freezes the face, making it capable of less expression. But expressionless is seen as pretty. It’s a dark path with no escape.

Delaney is clearly a beautiful and talented actress, and by focusing on this one aspect of her insecurity, the story asks if there will ever be a time when women will be allowed to exist as-is. After achieving all the beauty standards Hollywood asks for, there will always be one move thing expected for perfection. It’s an ever-shifting goal post.

The opening scene of the movie has Delaney in her car, crying…sobbing. Although we quickly learn she’s running lines, it’s a powerful moment. It was believable and raw, and the thought that she looked “ugly” never crossed my mind. Who sets these bizarre beauty standards and expectations? Even though her facial expressions are monetizable and important to her career, I kept thinking how any small, or offhand comment about anyone’s body or appearance can stick with that person, leading to insecurities or even body dysmorphia. Under this nuanced lens, Ugly Cry is more powerful than The Substance.

I also like how the story touches on the competitive nature of acting and how friends can be unsympathetic when it comes to auditioning for the same role, but that they are expected to smile in the face of betrayal. It’s an industry driven by phoniness that demands authenticity in performance. It’s a complex path to navigate that can lead to second guessing one’s self worth.

This is also contrasted with Delaney’s social media posts…a medium that expects even more curated authenticity. There is no breaking free from her obsession with being the most convincing version of herself. And in the age of daily Instagram Reels and Stories, it’s something a lot of people can relate to.

In addition to playing Delaney, Emily Robinson wrote and directed Ugly Cry. As a feature directorial debut, it has some rough edges, mostly that it gets a little repetitive at times. It’s got a touch of body horror, but feels a little restrained. As Delaney began to spiral out of control, I kept wishing it would push the boundaries a little harder, especially as the film dives into some disturbing territory.

Overall, Ugly Cry is a strong, well written feature focusing on one woman’s relationship with impossible and unpredictable cultural and professional demands placed on appearance. It doesn’t cover ground we haven’t seen in other movies, but I appreciate how it chooses to look at one specific aspect of perfection. There are also some very funny moments, mostly involving Delaney’s mom. Sadly, being able to cry “pretty” is just another minor point in the quest for perfection that can only lead to a stifled and cynical view of self worth.

7/10

Their Town is a film about young people trying to find meaning in their relationships beyond what their parents and other adults expect of them. It’s a film about wanting to feel seen. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s a fine example of how good performances and chemistry will elevate even the simplest story.

The “town” in the title is Bangor Maine, the kind of small town where young people dream of breaking free. I guess that describes all small towns in movies, but Bangor is an interesting choice because it also looks like a quaint destination town for people who want to break free from the big city.

The “their” in the title is Abby (Ora Duplass), the popular but misunderstood pretty girl in the local high school, and Matt (Chosen Jacobs) the shy, sensitive kid who recently transferred in and has no friends. The two of them develop a romance, mostly over the course of one night.

The story hits all the beats you would expect from a teen drama. Abby and Matt both face parental and peer pressures, and Abby is involved with the school prettyboy Tyler, who is a big, abusive dick. Uh-oh, I’ll bet he and Matt are going to get into an altercation at some point and we will heart the line, “Leave my girl alone!”

Tyler drops out of the school play so Matt is shanghaied to take over the lead role opposite Abby. I have no idea why Tyler was in the play (he’s hardly the theater kid type) or how he got the lead or why he quit one week before opening night. None of this matters: we just need to get Matt and Abby to get together, and running lines is a great excuse. The movie wastes no time getting here.

And this is where we spend the bulk of the film, with Abby and Matt opening up emotionally to each other. There’s a lot of dialogue here, so the weight of the film rests on the shoulders of Matt and Abby’s honest, believable communication. I commend Mark Duplass for writing lines for teens that feel genuine.

Their Town is very much a Duplass family project. Mark’s wife Katie Aselton directed it and of course Ora Duplass, their daughter plays Abby. It’s a good mix.

One gimmicky thing I wanted to point out is the “photo album exposition” trope used to propel the story. Usually this is where a character finds a photo album filled with pictures that tell backstory. In this movie, Abby finds Matt’s perfectly placed Pre-K school yearbook. Are there Pre-K yearbooks now? Is that a thing? And do people usually keep those easily accessible a decade later? I dunno.

But it enables both kids to go down memory lane and get nostalgic reminiscing about their five-year-old kindergarten careers. It’s wild how many vivid memories they have. Jesus, my actual memories didn’t start to form until I was around 10 or so. Everything before that is pretty vague lol. But really, this is a minor quibble and easily overlooked.

In addition to the solid acting and chemistry, the film absolutely sticks the landing. This is the kind of powerful ending that makes the whole film worth watching. It’s a commentary on feeling seen, as well as a meta commentary on acting and the roles we play in life. It’s quiet, raw, and emotional. It’s the unexpected kind of ending other romance movies could take a note from.

I went into Their Town because I’m a big fan of Mark Duplass and was intrigued to see what he would deliver with this story. I left as a fan of the whole family. I hope they collaborate again.

8/10

[Mild spoiler]

Although Pretty Lethal is an Amazon Prime Original, it feels like a Netflix movie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s the kind of film that’s perfectly entertaining for its 90 minute runtime, and then *poof* it’s gone from memory. It’s definitely a two screen experience, a film you can watch while simultaneously scrolling through your phone. It’s flatly lit and the action is fun. There is nothing about this movie to distract you from TikTok.

I’m not being ironic or sarcastic when I say that there is a place for movies such as this. It’s sort of a new genre — the “Netflix Action Flick”. It understands its purpose and has no intention of replacing other action movies. It’s unpretentious and simply meant to be satisfying, lightweight, silly entertainment. It’s kind of like how Hallmark romances scratch a certain itch, but coexist in a world with more “elevated” romances.

The gimmick here is that the story centers around an American ballet troupe whose bus breaks down on their way to a big competition in Budapest. (Nice to see a movie filmed in Hungary that actually takes place in Hungary.) The team of girls wanders into some sort of bar and grill deep in the wilderness, only to find out it’s run by a Hungarian crime organization or something, headed by the formidable Uma Thurman. It’s fun seeing her in the role of the lead villain.

So bad things go down which require the girls to kick ass and escape the baddies using their wits and ballerina fighting skills. I’m not really sure what the motivations are with the bad guys or even what the plot involves, but again, it doesn’t matter: the girls are badasses and blood-covered white tutus look great. That’s the whole point of the movie. A detailed plot isn’t necessary in a Netflix Action Flick. We just need to look up from our phones during the fight scenes, and check out the fast-paced action. And for sure, the ballet-fight choreography is well coordinated and fun.

The characters are two-dimensional, and I’m fine with that, but I would rather they had been given at least a little more depth. It wouldn’t take much to give each of the five girls a little more to do. Instead, we get stereotyped shorthands. There’s a girl whose entire character is “Jesus freak”. Like, every line she speaks is a bible verse or preachy condemnation. There’s the “mean rich girl” who can’t understand how regular people live. Lot’s of “Eww OMG” moments with her. There’s a deaf girl (nice to see Millicent Simmonds again…you remember her from A Quiet Place) who finds a dreamy boy. I can’t remember what the fourth girl’s thing was. And then there’s the lead, the scrappy, street-smart one who teaches the other girls how to take down big dudes.

The problem here is that it’s hard to imagine how they ever became such a prominent, world-class ballet troupe when none of them got along or liked each other. Sure, the idea is that they need room to grow together as a team to take down the bad guys, but I just wish they had been given a little bit of nuance.

This is probably a mild spoiler, but I was especially disappointed with the ending. The movie was building toward a final boss battle, but instead, it played out in a very unsatisfying way. Maybe there wasn’t enough time to stage the fight, I don’t know. But it was a little jarring, especially since the kickass ballerinas weren’t involved!

Pretty Lethal is a perfectly serviceable dose of action that knows what it’s doing. The ballerina angle is fun, and the film doesn’t overstay its welcome or get bogged down in a story. If you’re scrolling through Prime looking for an entertaining distraction, this Netflix Action Flick ain’t bad.

7/10

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come fully understood its assignment and delivers everything I loved about the first film, and more. Samara Weaving is back as Grace, who managed to survive the wedding night from hell, literally escaping a family of devil worshipers and causing them all to explode. Part two picks up the story immediately after the events of 2019’s (wait, how has it been seven years) Ready or Not, but this time, she’s teamed up with her younger sister Faith, played by the always-energetic Kathryn Newton (Lisa Frankenstein).

It seems the Satanic family Grace married into was only one in a cabal of families who secretly control the world. And by taking out her in-laws she has unwittingly set off a power struggle among the world’s wealthiest narcissists and weirdos. Instead of a single family trying to kill her, this time Grace has to fend off a half dozen or so.

The film takes about ten minutes to get viewers up to speed with the story (there’s not a lot you need to know) and then we’re right into the action. The momentum increases throughout the entire film, with even more of the squishy exploding people we came to love in part one. There was only one part before the last act where the action let up for about five minutes, which gave me a chance to catch my breath, then it was hot and heavy back into the blood. It’s funny, because the directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, actually mentioned this in the post-premiere session, discussing how important the scene was, but how they struggled to keep it as concise as possible.

The stellar cast here is fantastic. Elijah Wood has carved out such an interesting career, producing and advocating for independent genre films, while still taking on quirky and oddball roles such as The Lawyer here, who works exclusively for this group of families, managing all the rules and regulations that accompany world domination and whatnot. If there’s a third installment in this series, I suspect it will hinge on his character.

I was stoked to see one of my favorite directors, David Cronenberg, in an early scene of the movie! It’s more than a cameo: he’s crucial to setting off a series of events while also imparting needed backstory. I love seeing him pop up here and there, going all the way back to Jason X (2001).

Kathryn Newton is a perfect sidekick for Samara weaving. Faith is sort of like Grace was in the first film: naive and completely perplexed by what is going on. By now, Grace is a hardened survivalist and Faith needs to get up to speed fast if she’s going to survive. Newton manages to pick roles that always seem to showcase her vibrant persona. Lisa Frankenstein and Freaky are two of my favorite horror-comedies, but I’m drawn to almost any film she’s in. Paranormal Activity 4, anyone?

In addition to its gallons of blood and gory kills, Ready or Not 2 is a very funny movie. The audience was roaring throughout the entire film. For instance, there’s a great recurring gag where these wealthy, pampered killers hunting down Grace and Faith are all inept at using weapons. Having a killer line up his target perfectly in the crosshairs, only to have the gun fall apart, would be a lazy way for a script to keep the hero alive, but here it becomes a bit that’s leaned into.

Ready or Not 2 has set a high bar for SXSW, and it may end up being my favorite film of the festival. The pacing is relentless, the kills are juicy, and the two leads kick ass. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even more than the first film. Keeping my fingers crossed for a third installment!

9/10

Perfect exists in its own universe; one that looks vaguely familiar, but with inexplicable oddities and contrasts. It’s a film submerged in water metaphors which I desperately wanted to pay off, but which never came together in a satisfying way. Its individual scenes are engaging and the format might have worked for me if it had leaned more into surrealism…or slice-of-life…or dystopian future…or horror…or satire…or lesbian drama…or romance…but instead it dabbles in all these.

The movie takes place in Breakwater, a pitstop desert town where Kai (Ashley Moore) has stopped to fuel up and get some water. It’s one of those small towns in movies where its residents all know each other and look at outsiders with curiosity and suspicion. Uh-oh, strangers never fare well in these places. There’s even the harmless but crazy old town coot, but we never see him again.

One big difference here is that all of Breakwater’s inhabitants are gay. Except Kai, who’s apparently on an emotional discovery road trip after a breakup with her boyfriend. At least that’s what I inferred after we see her rip up a printed photo of the two of them that she keeps in her glove box, which is better exposition than deleting photos on a phone I suppose. But she quickly becomes gay after swimming in a contaminated lake with Mallory (Julia Fox), a mysterious pregnant woman. Is there something in the water that got Mallory pregnant and caused Kai to fall madly in love with her? Maybe.

At one point, an event happens to Kai while swimming and the film takes a hard turn — a turn that had me perk up, thinking “Ah…now this is interesting! Is this becoming a monster film?” The scene is dramatic, funny, and kind of intense. Cool!

But then that’s all dropped. The movie gets back in its lane: the steamy sex.

Another character (Micaela Wittman) is brought in later in the film and I began to think that maybe this was a Fatal Attraction kind of thing, but then no, that doesn’t play out either.

Oh, and this all takes place during some sort of apocalyptic water shortage or something where all the drinking water is contaminated and bottled water is a luxury for the wealthy. But here again, none of this was explored. The characters talk about the dire water conditions, but it doesn’t seem to affect any of them. They just party and live their lives and stuff.

I respect the commitment of writer/director Millicent Hailes to get her unique vision on screen. Its synthy-doomy soundtrack and sexy music by FKA twigs is fantastic and carries a lot of the weight of the movie. It’s a very well-made film with a terrific cast, especially Ashley Moore, who plays Kai with raw emotions and personal strength, which may be the point Perfect is trying to make. Or it’s a film about empowerment and the cultural demand for women to be perfect. I think.

There’s an honesty to the way the characters interact, and I’m sure the film will find a dedicated audience who will appreciate its fresh look at LGBTQ+ relationships, while still keeping it sassy. In general I like films that exist in their own weird worlds, but I wish Perfect had decided on a vibe. I kept waiting for a big magical realism reveal or something to cut deep, but mostly it was all played pretty straight, so to speak.

It’s sexy and entertaining, and that’s probably enough to recommend it. I just kept waiting for it to take some risks, and every time I thought it would, it pulled back, making it a frustrating, somewhat unsatisfying experience.

7/10