As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #ScarySocial presents The Harbinger!
If you want to join us this Saturday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
The Harbinger is available on Prime! See you there!
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to actress Catriona MacColl.
This scene that I love comes from Lucio Fulci’s 1981 masterpiece, The Beyond. In this scene, Liza (MacColl) first meets the mysterious Emily (Cinzia Monreale). To those not familiar with Fulci’s aesthetic, it may seem strange that Liza would not be more surprised to find a blind girl waiting for her on one of Louisiana’s infamous bridges to nowhere. Those of us who are familiar with Fulci, though, recognize this as being one of his most gloriously dream-like moments.
This scene is also memorable for bringing together two of the best actresses to have worked with Fulci. MacColl appeared in all three of the Beyond films, though she played a different character each time. Monreale also appeared in several Fulci films, including the family western Silver Saddle and the underrated Sweet House of Horrors.
1967’s Gamera vs. Viras opens with what appears to be a yellow and black-striped Tupperware container spinning through space. Looks can be deceiving, though. It’s not actually a freshness-sealed container that’s heading towards Earth. Instead, it’s a spaceship from the planet Viras. It seems that the inhabitants of Viras are dependent upon Nitrogen to live. Foolishly, they’ve wasted all of their own Nitrogen and now they’re planning on coming to Earth to steal ours!
GAMERA, WE NEED YOU!
Gamera vs Viras is yet another Gamera film in which everyone’s favorite flying turtle also serves as the defender of Earth. Even though the adults on Earth frequently mistake Gamera for being a threat, Gamera has a sentimental attachment to the planet’s children. In this film, when he’s not fighting aliens and orbiting the planet, he’s hanging out with a bunch of boy scouts. Unfortunately, for Gamera, the aliens realize that his protectiveness of children is also his greatest weakness. The aliens abduct two of the boy scouts, American Jim (Carl Craig) and Japanese Masao (Tōru Takatsuka) and lure Gamera into space. The aliens manage to take control of Gamera’s mind and soon, they’re forcing him to attack humanity!
In America, Gamera vs Viras is one of the best-known Gamera films. That’s because, in 1969, American International Television released it directly to American television in a re-edited and dubbed version that was entitled Destroy All Planets. (I assume that the title, which doesn’t really anything to do with the plot, was meant to bring to mind Destroy All Monsters.) Destroy All Planets is the version of this film that went on to be included in hundreds of DVD box sets. Destroy All Planets is a great title. I mean, if you’re a monster movie fan of a certain age, there’s no way you’re going to able resist watching something called Destroy All Planets.
Whether you call it Gamera vs Viras or Destroy All Planets, this is one of my favorite Gamera films. Yes, the kids are a little bit annoying but Gamera is absolutely adorable and this movie finds him going up against a giant squid. To be honest, this film is totally worth it just to see the Squid.
Watching this film, I thought about how sad it was that the Squid didn’t just politely ask for some Nitrogen, as opposed to trying to conquer the planet and steal all of it. I’m sure that humanity would have been willing to share. I mean, a planet that has embraced a giant fire-breathing turtle has to have a good heart, right? I also felt sorry for Gamera because those kids wouldn’t stop yelling at him. I get that Gamera has a soft spot for kids but I imagine even the most loyal of giant turtles needs a break every once and a while.
Speaking of turtles (both giant and otherwise), turtles are really cool creatures that don’t cause any trouble for anyone. We live near a creek and it’s not unusual to look outside and see a turtle slowly making its way down the sidewalk. One thing that I love about this neighborhood is that everyone gives the turtles their space. The turtles may not be fast but they know where they’re going.
In 2004, Godzilla: Final Wars was released by Toho and promoted as Godzilla’s final film.
And indeed, for ten years, there was no sign of Godzilla. There were rumors that he would return but, for the most part, he was a fondly remembered relic of a different era. That changed in 2014, when Legendary Pictures produced and Warner Bros. distributed a new Americanized version of Godzilla. Though the new version was not particularly well received by critics, it did well enough at the box office to convince Toho that it was time to make a new Godzilla film of their own.
2016’s Shin Godzilla is not a sequel to any of the previous Godzilla films. Instead, Shin Godzilla imagines a continually evolving Godzilla attacking Japan, for the first time, in 2016. When Godzilla first appears, he definitely doesn’t look like himself. He doesn’t have his famous scaly skin. Instead of proudly striding through the cities and stepping onto buildings, he slithers through the streets. To be honest, he actually looks a little… well, goofy. At first, I wasn’t really sure that I would be able to accept this Godzilla. However, the film apparently predicted my reaction. Throughout the film, Godzilla slowly transforms (or “evolves,” as the film puts it) into the majestic monster that we all know and love. And when that Godzilla finally made his appearance, I wanted to cheer. I also wanted to hide behind the couch, because this is one of those films where Godzilla has no interest in being a nice guy. He lives to destroy, and Shin Godzilla, made in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis that rocked Japan in March 2011, doesn’t shy away from showing the amount of damage and death that would result from an actual monster attack.
The film uses Godzilla sparingly. Instead, most of the running time is taken up with meetings. The Japanese government meets and tries to figure out what to do about the monster that’s attacking their country. The military is unprepared. The citizens have no memory of being put under a national emergency. The prime ministers (yes, the film goes through more than one) all look like they’re about to have a panic attack when they’re expected to make a decision. The Americans send over an envoy (Satomi Ishihara) who views dealing with Godzilla as a way to further her own political ambitions. Running throughout the film is the idea that the Japanese government has been left powerless to deal with real emergencies. The film’s ineffective bureaucrats become stand-ins for the same bureaucrats who failed in 2011. This is the most openly political Godzilla film since the first one.
Indeed, Shin Godzilla is far more concerned with how the government reacts to Godzilla than with Godzilla himself. I imagine that was, and probably still is, an issue for some viewers of the film. Myself, I appreciated the film’s portrait of a useless and largely impotent bureaucracy full of entrenched people who were more concerned with their own advancement than with protecting the citizens they were supposed to be serving. There’s a satirical edge to Shin Godzilla that I absolutely loved. Be glad Godzilla isn’t real, the film seems to be saying, because these idiots certainly aren’t going to protect you. Instead, all they can do is issue meaningless statements and pointless regulations designed to maintain the illusion of their own power. In its way, Shin Godzilla predicted the entire COVID era. It’s a Godzilla film with a lesson for us all.
This song was recorded for the original Fright Night and, of course, the music video is full of clips from the film. It does a pretty good job of mixing scenes of the band with the film. I miss that days when music videos were often commercials for movies. I discovered some of my favorite movies through music videos.
This video was directed by Paul Justman. He also did videos for Deep Purple, Rick Springfield, Diana Ross, and The Cars.
“It doesn’t feel wrong. They’re bad people. They deserve to suffer.” — Jay
There is something especially unsettling about a horror film that refuses to let you know it is a horror film until you are already trapped inside it. Ben Wheatley’s Kill List begins in the familiar, grimy territory of a British crime thriller, but its slow, deliberate transformation into full-blown cosmic and folk horror makes it one of the most unnerving films of the 2010s.
Jay, a former soldier turned contract killer, has been out of work for months after a botched assignment in Kyiv. His wife Shel is fed up with his anger, his drinking, and his lack of direction. Their marriage is strained, their finances are collapsing, and their home feels less like a place of comfort than a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Rather than starting with a monster, a murder, or a flashy supernatural hook, Kill List starts with domestic tension. It places the audience in a home where every conversation feels like it could become a screaming match, and every small complaint seems connected to a much larger emotional wound.
That grounded, unpleasant realism is a huge part of why Kill List works so well. Wheatley does not rush to tell the audience what kind of movie they are watching. For a while, it plays almost like a rough, deeply uncomfortable British domestic drama, with the sort of bickering and passive-aggressive resentment that feels overheard rather than scripted. Jay and Shel’s arguments are messy, mean, and often funny in a dark way, while Jay’s friendship with his old colleague Gal has a lived-in quality. These are not glamorous movie hitmen trading cool one-liners. They are middle-aged men with bills to pay, bad tempers, old wounds, and a job they would probably rather not be doing if they had any other viable option.
Jay’s decision to accept a new killing contract with Gal initially pushes Kill List further into thriller territory. The assignment comes from a wealthy, unsettling client who hires them to eliminate three targets: a priest, a librarian, and a member of Parliament. That setup sounds straightforward enough, and Wheatley lets the film function for a time like a grimy, morally rotten crime thriller. Jay and Gal investigate their targets, plan their attacks, and move through a world of rural estates, anonymous offices, abandoned buildings, and shadowy back rooms. There is tension, but it is the tension of men entering dangerous situations without knowing whether they are being watched or manipulated.
What makes the film increasingly unnerving is that every target seems to know more than Jay and Gal do. The victims do not merely fear death. In some cases, they appear grateful for it. They refer to Jay as though he has been expected, almost as if he has been chosen for a role he does not understand. The priest calls him “the harbinger,” while the librarian thanks him after being killed. These details are not explained in a neat, comforting way. Wheatley plants them casually, allowing confusion to gather in the background while Jay becomes more violent, unstable, and paranoid.
That gradual descent is what makes Kill List so effective. It starts off more like a thriller, or even a bleak crime drama, but slowly makes its way into full-blown horror by the time the end credits begin rolling. The film does not suddenly flip a switch and announce that it has become a supernatural nightmare. Instead, it lets the atmosphere become stranger one scene at a time. A symbol appears carved into a mirror. A strange man silently watches from the woods. A dinner party turns from awkward to deeply hostile. A pair of masked figures emerge at the edge of a field. By the time the movie reaches its final stretch, the feeling is no longer one of criminal danger but of being trapped inside a ritual that began long before Jay understood he was involved.
Wheatley’s direction is crucial here. Kill List has a raw, handheld, low-budget immediacy that makes the violence feel especially ugly. There is very little stylization separating the audience from what is happening. The film is not interested in making murder look slick, cathartic, or exciting. When Jay attacks someone, it feels brutal, chaotic, and emotionally damaging. The violence is often sudden, but it is never casual. It leaves a stain on the scene, on the characters, and on the viewer. Jay’s behavior becomes increasingly alarming because his anger is not framed as toughness. It is framed as a dangerous loss of control.
Neil Maskell gives an excellent performance as Jay, a man whose emotional state is always sitting somewhere between numbness and eruption. He is not an easy protagonist to like, and that is part of the point. Jay can be cruel, childish, frightening, and self-destructive. Yet Maskell also makes him feel recognizably human, especially in the quieter moments with his son, Sam. Those scenes matter because they give the final act its real emotional weight. Jay is not just a professional killer being targeted by an unknown force; he is a husband and father whose damaged life is about to be pulled into something far worse than a failed job.
Michael Smiley is equally strong as Gal, who initially comes across as the more stable, reasonable half of the duo. He is calmer than Jay, more socially functional, and less openly volatile. But the movie gradually reveals that Gal has his own weaknesses and blind spots. Their friendship feels genuine, even when it is poisoned by secrecy, resentment, and the increasingly bizarre circumstances surrounding the contract. MyAnna Buring also deserves credit as Shel. She could have easily been reduced to the stereotypical nagging wife in a lesser film, but Buring makes her sharp, vulnerable, manipulative at times, and visibly exhausted by the life she shares with Jay.
The horror in Kill List becomes especially potent because it draws from both cosmic and folk-horror traditions without fully settling into either one. The cult imagery, hidden rituals, strange symbols, rural landscapes, and anonymous masked figures all give the film a folk-horror texture. There is a distinctly British unease to the countryside in the final act: fields that should feel open instead feel isolating, and a rural community becomes a place where ancient, secretive violence can exist just out of sight. At the same time, the movie’s cosmic-horror side comes from the sense that Jay has stumbled into a system too vast and unknowable for him to comprehend. He thinks he is taking a contract. In reality, he may be participating in a process that has been designed around him from the beginning.
That sense of predestination is one of the film’s most disturbing qualities. Kill List never overexplains the cult, its beliefs, or exactly how much control it has over the characters’ lives. Some viewers may find that frustrating, especially because the ending refuses to provide a clean mythology or a tidy resolution. But that ambiguity is also why the film lingers. The cult is scary not because the audience receives a detailed rulebook, but because its reach appears to be everywhere. It can infiltrate a job, a social gathering, a family home, and even the choices Jay believes he is making freely.
The ending is famously shocking, but it is not shocking only because of its cruelty. It works because the movie has carefully built Jay into a man who responds to fear with rage and violence. The final revelation turns that trait against him in the most devastating possible way. It is bleak, tragic, and almost mythic in its nastiness. The final image does not feel like a twist for the sake of a twist. It feels like the horrifying completion of a ritual that the audience has been watching take shape without fully recognizing it.
Kill List is not a comfortable watch, and it is not a horror movie that tries to please the audience with easy scares or a reassuring explanation. Its slow burn can feel deliberately abrasive, especially in the early domestic scenes, but that patience pays off. Wheatley takes a grim thriller about two hitmen and gradually transforms it into a nightmare of conspiracy, fate, cult ritual, cosmic dread, and folk-horror menace. By the end, the film has moved so far from its seemingly familiar premise that it feels like the ground has disappeared beneath it. That is what makes Kill List so memorable: it does not simply become horrifying. It reveals that horror was there all along, hiding inside every uneasy conversation, every unexplained symbol, and every choice Jay thought was his own.
Here to help you get into the holiday spirit is Vincent Price, reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. This scene comes from a 1985 television special that was called The Teller and the Tale.
1958’s War of the Satellites opens with a tragedy.
The United Nations is leading the way in humanity’s attempt to explore space. Unfortunately, ten manned spaceships (or “satellites” as they’re called in this film) all run into the same problem. There’s a “space barrier” around the Earth, one that traps any ship that flies into it. On Earth, Dr. Pol Van Ponder (Richard Devon) is forced to remotely blow up both the ships and the UN’s astronauts. It looks like the the UN’s space program is coming to an end.
Or, at least, it does until an unseen group of aliens drop a missile on Earth. The missile, when it’s discovered by two “teenagers” who appear to be in their 30s, doesn’t explode. Instead, it simply carries a message. Don’t try to explore space, the message says. A group of snooty aliens have decided that humanity is not ready to leave the planet. The message is read at the UN. In a scene that warmed my heart, the American delegate replies that no one tells humanity what to do. The aliens don’t want us in space? Well, guess where we’re going, baby!
(Woo hoo! I love my country!)
Unfortunately, Dr. Van Ponder is in a serious car accident and is killed. Or, at least, that’s what everyone believes until he shows up at the UN without a scratch on him. Van Ponder explains that he miraculously survived the accident and he’s now ready to lead the UN mission into space. The UN takes his survival as a sign that Van Ponder is meant to take humanity to the stars.
Of course, the truth of the matter is that Dr. Van Ponder actually was killed in that accident and the man at the UN is not Van Ponder but instead just an alien pretending to be him. A few people notice that Dr. Van Ponder is acting strangely. He speaks without emotion and uses curious phrases. When he burns his hand during an experiment, he barely seems to notice. When he’s alone in his office, he creates a second duplicate Van Ponder so that he can be two places at once. Everyone who suspects that Van Ponder is actually an alien ends up dead. Once the satellite takes off, it falls to crewman Dave Boyer (Dick Miller) to not only thwart Van Ponder’s evil scheme but to also convince Sybil Carrington (Susan Cabot) that Van Ponder is no longer the man who she thinks she loves.
Reportedly, a day after the Russians launched Sputnik, Roger Corman met with film producer Steve Broidy and said that, in return for $80,000, he could have a satellite movie ready to go in 90 days. Broidy asked him what the film would be about and Corman replied, “I don’t know but I will have the picture ready.” Broidy handed over the money and Corman shot War of the Satellites over the course of ten days. Corman also said that Broidy was so impressed with the film that he gave Corman an extra $500 to throw a party for the cast and crew. Corman never threw the party.
As for War of the Satellites, it clearly a rush job. The interior of the space ship is basically two rooms and a couple of chairs. The idea of the UN having a space program feels ridiculous today and I imagine it probably felt just as ridiculous in 1958. (We should have kicked the UN out of New York decades ago) That said, I have to admit that I really enjoyed this film. Richard Devon gives an appropriately off-center performance as Dr. Van Ponder and this film actually features Dick Miller in a rare heroic starring role. Even though he’s playing an astronomer, Miller still comes across like a New York wiseguy and my favorite scenes are the one where he gives Van Ponder a look that just seems to shout, “What are ya talking about, ya putz?” There’s something really enjoyable about watching scrappy Dick Miller play the type of role that would usually go to someone like Peter Graves or Kenneth Tobey. In an interview, Miller said that he felt miscast as the hero because he was only 5’5 while Devon was 6’1. But the fact that Devon is actually so much taller than Miller only makes us rooft for Dick Miller even more. As played by Dick Miller, Dave Boyar becomes the type of underdog that you can’t help but cheer for.
The best thing about this film is that it loudly declares that no one, no matter how scientifically-advanced or snooty, gets to tell humanity what to do. You want us to stay on Earth? We’re coming for the moon!
Living in Texas, you eventually get used to the long and dry summers, but it’s still always a good feeling when it starts to rain again. Up until two years ago, I got excited whenever I saw that we were under any type of weather alert. I loved the sound of the rain. I loved the way the wind howled. I even loved the thunder and the lightning. Sometimes, the lights would blink and the power would go out, but it didn’t bother me because it just added to the atmosphere.
That all changed on the night of May 27th, 2o24. I was already feeling anxious because my father was in the hospital. On Sunday, he had been in a car accident and, when I went to the hospital, he seemed like he was going to be okay. He had a broken shoulder and was obviously tired, but he was speaking normally and, when he saw me, he said he was happy to see me. He smiled, I remember that. A nurse told me that they were going to keep him for the night for observation. On Monday morning, I drove back to the hospital and, when I arrived, he was basically passed out in his bed. When I asked another nurse if he would be ready to go home anytime soon, she looked at me like I was asking a crazy question. I remember another nurse saying something about “rehab.” They promised me that a doctor would call. I went home. It turned out that they weren’t lying. A doctor did call that evening. He said my father was having trouble walking. I explained that he had Parkinson’s. The doctor said he would email me some information on the rehab centers that worked with my father’s insurance. “So,” I dumbly asked, “he’s not going home tonight?” The doctor laughed and said, “No, it’s going to be a while.”
At 9:00, I lay down on my couch and, exhausted, I fell asleep. I didn’t even bother to take off my clothes. I woke up at four in the morning to the sound of thunder and rain and howling wind. I tried to turn on the living room light, just to discover that the power was out. I stood up, stubbed my toe on an end table, said the F-word as loudly as I’ve ever said it, and then I limped over to the front door. I looked outside and the scene was apocalyptic. Rain was falling in sheets, the streets were flooded, and there were tree limbs strewn everywhere. A few trees had fallen over. The ones that still stood were violently swaying in the wind. I immediately thought of the stray cats that I fed every morning. Stupidly, I opened the front door to yell for them and I was immediately drenched.
By 7 in the morning, the rain was steady but light. I saw that Hunter and Hannah, who lived across the street from me, were outside, looking at the storm’s aftermath. I stepped outside, waved, and started to walk towards them. They saw me limping so they told me to stay where I was and came over to me. They asked me if Erin and I were okay. They told me that power was out all over town and that, when they called Oncor, they were told there was no estimate on when it would come back. We stood there and we looked up and down the block. Everything was wet. The road was so full of limbs that it appeared to be practically impassable. Trees had fallen over. Some people had broken windows. My own front door was sitting slightly off of its hinges.
(Don’t worry. Despite all the damage, the strays showed up to ask for food.)
I assumed that we would have our power back by the end of the day. Instead, the power was out for six days. It fell to the people living in the neighborhood to clean up the debris. (Even after the power came back, it would still be nearly a month before city clean-up crews got to us.) I saw a lot of really impressive things during those six days. Jeff helped to clean the streets and also helped our older neighbors with their fallen trees. Erin Nicole went to the store for people who couldn’t make it there on their own. As for me, I worried. I worried about everything. Several times, I tried to call the hospital to check on my father and all I got was some vague talk about how he had been moved to a different room. Meanwhile, the rain continued to fall. Sometimes, it was a drizzle and sometimes it was a shower, but every time it was a reminder of how little control I had over anything.
Eventually, the power came back. All of the debris was cleared. The rain stopped. My father was transferred from the hospital to the rehab center and then to home hospice, where he died two and a half months later. Ever since that week, there’s been a part of me that’s gotten anxious whenever I’ve seen that there’s a storm coming. It just brings back too many bad feelings.
A storm was predicted for October 1st this year and I was nervous. What if the power went out? What if I couldn’t contribute to this year’s Horrorthon? Well, I’m happy to say that the storm turned out to be a gloriously beautiful and rather peaceful rain shower. Sometimes, it was a heavy shower and sometimes it was a light shower, but there was a gentleness to it. I spent most of Thursday afternoon lying in bed in a comfy t-shirt and underwear, looking out the window and watching as the trees slowly and rhythmically swayed. The sound of the rain was relaxing and, as I listened to it, I remembered how much I loved the rain when I was growing up. And I realized that I still do.
