Where'd You Go?

 

Ah, the made-for-TV movie. Even as the golden era ended at the turn of the century, stations like TBS kept gifting the world with these treasures. 

Quick Plot: Nothing unites a new family like a road trip! Dad Jim (my early Clash of the Titans crush Harry Hamlin) is hoping that some Nevada desert will warm his nice teen son Matt and bitter tween daughter Katie to his new wife Patty (The Partridge Family's Susan Dey), a book editor with a cell phone (slightly ahead of the curve in 2002). Also in tow is Matt's pal Ethan. 

After stopping for terrible burgers at a greasy diner filled with ominous locals, budding photographer Matt convinces his family to take a detour to an abandoned mining village. It's a fun hour spent wandering a mysteriously empty main street but also just enough time to cause some car trouble. The family makes a camping trip out of it with a sense of adventure until they discover a dusty video camera with some early found footage home movie of the last group to open their sleeping bags in the same house. 

Things look worse in the morning when the car goes missing. Yes, these hills have eyes, and they're not smiling. 

Made for the TBS Superstation (THROWBACK!), Disappearance is a curious piece of cinema (well, small screen cinema). The film is written and directed by TV veteran Walter Klenhard, a man with dozens of Garage Sale Mystery credits to his name, plus the irresistibly titled Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear. 

I've been talking a lot about one's level of expectation when approaching a genre film. Standards change depending on budget and ambition. They also get very skewed when we're talking about a television network that hasn't aired its own film content in twenty years. 

Like any TV movie, Disappearance shows its format with some commercial fade outs and a fairly clear TV-14 limit. But it's also filmed in the sprawling Australian outback and has an aura of something slightly bigger. The cast is strong, and that includes the younger actors who feel quite lived in and comfortable as this family. There's a kind of YA literature energy to how things go down, which I mean as a compliment.

I think a lot of viewers, both from 2002 and 2025, won't find much in Disappearance. But if you go into it with an open mind and fondness for a time when the letters TBS had a certain ring, you might, as I did, walk away having had a surprisingly good, albeit confusing time. 

High Points

The combination of good writing and confident performances from young Jer Adrianne Lelliott as Matt and Basia A'Hern (who went on to do editorial work for Furiosa, which is pretty badass) as Katie really do help to make the family antics of Disappearance work well

Low Points

I love a good ambiguous ending, but it's genuinely bizarre how little a made-for-TBS thriller ends up disclosing. I have no idea what actually happened in this movie, which is admirably daring on Klenhard's part, but incredibly unsatisfying on mine

Lessons Learned

Any pilot knows never to nose in 

The best defense against a rattlesnake is a cushy polyester wallet

If it's on tape, it has to be real

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had fun with Disappearance, though it's certainly not for everyone. Find it on Amazon Prime (or your local TBS station).

Flying Economy

 

A few months back, I watched the first three entries in the Airport series over the course of a few days. The experience was, well, weird. 

Have you seen these movies? They're insane, in both terrible and wonderful ways. Each one comes loaded with gender politics that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. Every flight attendant (well, in these cases, stewardesses) is having an affair with a much older married superior. Old ladies scam their way through security. Suicidal bombers cheat the insurance industry. The third installment sees the plane buried at the bottom of the ocean. Everyone from Christopher Lee to Gloria Swanson shows up. This series is madness!

Anyway, for someone whose reference to Airport was always just Airplane! (which, it turns out, isn't THAT much zanier than Airport), this was a wild ride that no colors every other piece of culture I consume set on commercial aircraft. 

Quick Plot: The worst people imaginable board a flight headed to Tokyo. Among them are a new racist bride, a soon-to-be-divorced-but-faking-it-for-their-friends couple, a sad pregnant girl not in love with her partner, a racist petty thief, and a few portly men who dare to EAT on a plane (we can assume at least two of them are also racist). We know this is a crime because the attractive and trim flight attendants make jokes about it. I should also mention that the head of the crew is hoping that this is the trip that will finally convince her captain boyfriend to leave his wife and kids. 

A reminder: this is a 12-hour flight. We're going to be with these jerks for a while.

Up in the air, oddness ensues. A passenger guarding a mysterious coffin-like box has some kind of a seizure, dying instantly and causing some mild panic just as weather conditions jostle the plane. Air masks drop down, luggage descends from the upper storage, and a corpse goes missing. The only thing worse? First class passengers are forced to move down to economy. The horror!

Flight 7500 is directed by Takashi Shimizu, best known for both the original and surprisingly good American remake of The Grudge. This film definitely shares some of The Grudge's style, albeit in diluted form. It doesn't help that Craig Rosenberg's script is filled with so many awful characters, though most are thankfully played by good actors who manage to make them pop onscreen. 

Look, when I queue up a genre movie I've never heard of on Amazon Prime, my expectations are in a specifically low place. As soon as actual actors like Amy Smart and Johnathon Schaech show up, my brain has to do some recalculating. Where is the bar? 

The easy answer could be at 20,000 feet. Dad jokes aside, Flight 7500 is kind of like a junk drawer that has a few pleasant objects messily tucked inside. Based on the haircuts and fashion, Flight 7500 feels like it couldn't have been filmed after 2008, though it's currently on Amazon Prime with a 2014 date. The way these people speak to one another comes from another world.

And yet, I was kind of into Flight 7500's story? Even if it didn't line up in any logical way? There's a twist that hits at the 3/4 mark that isn't very satisfying in a narrative sense, but then you land on a good actor's face as they react and you walk away feeling like these 90 minutes had some value. 

And then you end on a very dumb jump scare and become even more convinced that the 2014 date is a lie. 

High Points

Genuine standing applause to much of the cast of Flight 7500, most of whom are overqualified for this kind of movie. Leslie Bibb is, for all intents and purposes, playing a woman whose primary motivation is to pull a cad away from his family, but we're able to forget that because she's also quite good as an actual flight attendant. Even Nicky Whalen, last seen by me as a shark hunter in Maneater, makes her terrible human being of a character, actually fun to watch

Low Points

If you start thinking about the details in Flight 7500, you will very quickly find that you have watched a movie that makes very little sense

Lessons Learned

The longer the flight, the more racists onboard

It's bad luck to board a flight without saying I love you

Screenwriting 101, courtesy of The Darkest Hour: if you need to establish a character as being unlikable, the easiest bit of dialogue is to have him rant against the 'no electronics during takeoff' rule

Rent/Bury/Buy

I think of Flight 7500 along the same lines as The Asylum's Flight of the Living Dead. These are not, by traditional definition, 'good' movies, but they're both far better than their poster art and pedigree would suggest. If hearing something described as "The Grudge on a plane" lends any interest, this is a fun watch. 

What Pairs Best With Foot?

 

You know what subgenre doesn't get the credit it deserves? Dinner party horror. Give me an elegant shot of protein's greasy skin, the sparkle of a dangly earring frantically bouncing as the tense but impeccably dressed hostess pours the wine, and that moment of awkwardness when a guest asks the wrong question and what can I say? I'm very easy to satisfy.

Quick Plot: Upper class Gwyn and Glenda (THAT'S FUN TO SAY) are hosting a hoity toity soiree in their sprawling country estate with the last minute assistance from Cadi, a quiet local. Also in the mansion are spoiled adult sons Gweirydd (a triathlon athlete) and (maybe) recovering drug addict Guto.

Glenda doesn't seem to notice that Cadi has virtually nothing to say, mostly because the rich socialite seems to really enjoy the sound of her own voice. Her husband is equally insufferable as a member of parliament. Their first guest of the evening, Euros, is somehow even worse: he's a snobby businessman in charge of drilling for valuable minerals underneath farmland. 

Considering The Feast's first tag is "folk horror", you can guess where this is going. 

Throughout the evening, Cadi seems to absorb the rotten core of her employers, process it, and spit it right back out at them. These are awful people who take what they want with no regard for the land it comes from. They deserve a very, very bad night.

Witten by Roger Williams and directed by Lee Haven Jones, The Feast is a simple story with a clear message.  Making his feature film debut, Jones shows admirable skill behind the camera. The Feast looks and sounds impeccable. And then it gets very, very gross.

That's a good thing! There's an all-in style that I appreciate, even if it feels a little easy. This isn't an epic film or one for any all-time list, but it's a solid entry into the always welcome folk (and dinner party) horror. 

High Points

The overall tone of The Feast is positively intoxicating. Between Samuel Sim's moody score, Bjørn Ståle Bratberg 's rich cinematography, and the entire cast's unnerving performances, this is a sumptuous experience

Low Points

At barely 90 minutes long, it's perfectly reasonable for The Feast to feel small, but I do wish it threw in a teeny bit more of a challenge. Minor spoilers: the family is so unrepentantly awful that it's pretty hard for the audience to feel much actual tension once Cadi's hand is revealed. It's certainly satisfying, but I just wonder if there was a bit more room for surprise (and yes, I realize I'm saying this about a film where a character inserts a glass shard in her vagina and feeds a man his host's maggot-infested shin)

Lessons Learned

You won't find bok choy on a local grocery shelf

So much of early motherhood is cutting fruit into small pieces

A whole lot of work goes into making a pavlova

Rent/Bury/Buy

I caught The Feast as it was leaving Hulu, but it's likely moving to another streamer (it feels VERY Kanopy). Any fan of folk horror will find a lot to digest (SEEWHATIDIDTHERE).

The Sound of Silence

It should go without saying at this point that any horror fan should be investing in a Shudder subscription. Not every new film it hosts works, but you can usually count on whatever it's pushing to at least be of interest to the genre. 

Quick Plot: Title cards inform us that the rapture has occurred, and an unspecified (but seemingly significant) amount of time later, the world is recovering by keeping quiet. One cult centers their belief system around the concept of speech being a sin. Members sever their vocal cords and occasionally make human sacrifices to a carnivorous clan of creatures known as "The Burned Ones."

Azrael (scream queen Samara Weaving) and her lover Kenan attempt to escape with varying levels of success. We follow Azrael through bloody battle in the woods, hitchhiking help down the road, and all-out destruction as she ends up back at camp. Throughout the full 90 minutes, we hear no discernible words. 

Azrael is written by The Guest (and to far lesser acclaim, Seance's) Simon Barrett, a man who's found tremendous success in low-to-mid-budget 21st century horror (though more often than not, left me pretty cold). Director E.L. Katz has played in the same circle, with Cheap Thrills and an ABCs of Death 2 credit. 

Despite a pretty specific and unique hook, Azrael doesn't really have that much going on. Weaving is unsurprisingly great in the title role, and makes a believably resourceful heroine on the run. Or so we assume? There's so little backstory or meat on the script's bone that for all we know, Azrael is a worse villain than her religious captors. Who knows?

I appreciate a lean film that doesn't have to explain itself, and on that front, Azrael is likely a satisfying watch for many a genre fan. Its action is well-staged, and it has some pretty gnarly creature design that goes a long way. I didn't dislike the process of watching the movie, but as soon as it ended, I found myself shrugging. There's simply NOTHING there in terms of weight, character, or story. 

High Points

Let it never go unsaid: Samara Weaving is a movie star. Let us all be thankful that she also seems to love the horror genre and keeps making these kinds of movies

Low Points

I know that the average film audience member is not expected to be very smart, but do we really need a flashback twenty minutes into a story? 

Lessons Learned

Rock music is the universal language of the post-rapture future

Never turn your back on a human sacrifice

Love makes us do very dumb things, such as forgetting that the tribe who raised you is very good at setting traps

Rent/Bury/Buy

Azrael doesn't really have much to say (GET IT?!), but it's a fun, efficient little ride that has just enough to make its gimmick work for its short stay. Have at it on Shudder. 

Nerd Alert!

 

It's been far too long since I nerded out with some genre book recommendations. So put on those spectacles and let's go to the library!

Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven

World War Z (the book, not bland excuse for a movie) laid out a pretty great template for how to tackle an high concept story. Oral histories aren't new, but Max Brooks took the format to such success with his epic zombie tale that it's not surprising to see the next generation of horror novelists try the same thing. Mike Bockoven doesn't really have the same sharpness in his actual writing, but by golly can he tell a fun story. In Fantasticland, we follow the bizarre fallout of an unprecedented hurricane locking a Florida theme part away from the rest of the world. The mostly twentysomething part-time employees are left to quickly form their own tribes, enjoying all of the concession stand offerings while turning gift shop souvenirs into grand scale weaponry. It's a wild ride that doesn't fully work if you think too hard about it, but you'll have a hard time putting it down. 

Pair It With:

H.G. Bells' Sleep Over is similarly a better idea than novel, but it's SUCH a good idea. It follows the same oral history style as Fantasticland, only with more widespread apocalyptic overtones. One day, nobody can sleep. And the next day, they still can't. What happens to the world when every one of its inhabitants is functioning in a fugue state? A whole lot of pretty horrible stuff. Enjoy!

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

 

There's nothing new is framing the beauty industry as body horror, but Ling Ling Huang's exploration brings some new ideas to the table. A former piano prodigy stumbles into a day job at an innovative new spa. Before she can read the side effects, she's experiencing bizarre transformations that turn her Chinese-American identity into something very, very different. Huang's writing isn't for everyone, but it's a very specific window that's worth a peek through. 

Pair It With:

I haven't had the chance to write about just how much I loved The Substance, and now that it's a bona fide 4-time Oscar nominee, there's a part of me that feels like you don't need me telling you what you probably already know: it's a joyfully gross rave of just how weird body dysmorphia makes us. 

Mister Magic by Kiersten White

The setup of Mister Magic is incredibly cool: the youth cast of a Romper Room-esque kids show reunites as adults, only nobody, including the internet, quite remembers why the show ended in the first place. There is somehow no video evidence of it ever even airing, though the Mandela Effect is in full swing with chat room typers who can fill in the blanks. Author Kiersten White was raised Mormon and seems to use Mister Magic as a thoughtful way to explore the stifling, dangerous nature that religion wields over its children. The novel doesn't quite go as dark as you might expect early on so horror readers should keep their expectations in check. Still, it's a unique idea that should satisfy some readers.

Pair It With:

I had last mentioned Mister Magic in a review for Mr. Crocket, which certainly shares some story threads in following an '80s children's television show personality with nefarious motives towards his audience. It's an easy double bill, but I'll also throw out the title of 2024's best film, and one that also happens to use fuzzy media nostalgia as a lens to find a deeper understanding of identity: I Saw the TV Glow.

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

If you liked Babylon but thought it needed more dark magic, allow me to introduce you to the glorious Siren Queen. Set in the golden pre-Hays Code Hollywood, Nghi Vo's novel follows an ambitious Chinese American actress as she navigates monstrous studio heads and witchy wilting stars who have all sold aspects of their soul to live the dream. Luli is willing to do the same but only on the condition that she never be cast as a maid. So where does that leave a non-caucasian, queer starlet? Well, as the monster of course! Vo goes all in with turning the studio backlots into a weekly witches' sabbaths, with characters shapeshifting into far more interesting creatures than any plastic surgery could create. 

Pair It With:

I'm not always the biggest fan of Hollywood stories, as the behind-the-scenes narratives usually just feel too insidery or depressing. Both descriptions fit a film I love in spite of this: Kevin Kolsh and Dennis Widmeyer's Starry Eyes, which stars a game Alex Essoe as a struggling actress who finds herself in situations not unlike Luli. If you enjoyed the brutal Starry Eyes, Siren Queen might read for you as a similar story told decades earlier.

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers 

Deliciously twisted is the best way I'd describe this novel, which follows a painfully chic food critic who discovers that nothing tastes as good as the perfectly prepared flesh of an ex. It's impossible not to be swept up in the glamorous, worldly life of our occasional cannibalistic narrator Dorothy Daniels. Summers relishes Dorothy's unapologetic hedonism, and I found it impossible not to root for her to savor every bite.

Pair It With:

I'm certainly not saying Ridley Scott's Hannibal is a good movie, but it is, in the words of modern vernacular, a VIBE, and therefore, a fitting pairing to A Certain Hunger in celebrating the carnal pleasure of perfectly prepared meat. 

Making Contact With Joey

 

In my 43 years on this planet, there are a few images that have stuck in my brain in the worst of ways. 

One of them was Joey.

I was probably all of 7 when I caught a glance of this cover art on the shelf at my local sanctuary that was Long Island's largest independent video store. It was my mission to rent everything possible in the horror section, but for probably a good year or two, I circled that box like Pee-Wee side-eying the snake tank.

See, like any reasonable human being, I despise ventriloquist dummies.

I don't have strong memories of actually WATCHING Joey, but the image of that dummy on a dusty VHS cover has never left my brain. 16 years into February's Shortening, I'm simply running out of killer doll movies and hence, once again, I find myself circling that snake tank, knowing the time has come.

Quick Plot: Young Joey is mourning the death of his beloved father. As he longingly speaks to him through a photograph, Joey's pure '80s toy-filled room begins to come alive. Battery-operated cars start driving, balls are rolling, and records spinning. There is no safety to be found under the covers, even if they are part of a Return of the Jedi sheet set.

When Joey's toy phone begins ringing from the closet, things stop being so scary. It's Dad! 

You might not want to tell that to your bullies.

Back at school, other students mock Joey for, you know, talking to his dead dad on the phone. But Joey is undeterred. His toys lead him down a cobweb covered basement inhabited by something I speak of in hushed tones.

(whispers) Fletcher.

LOOK AT THIS THING.

It grunts, and a pile of soft stuffed animals do his bidding. They SMOTHER Joey's favorite, a blinky robot named Scooter who might otherwise protect the poor kid. All he has to do is turn his head, blink those marble eyes, and drop his crank jaw to let out a deep "BLAHHHHHHHHH" noise and lightning strikes. 

I hate dummies.

It's no better when the thing starts talking. He tells Joey his life's story, sitting on the knee of a master of the dark arts named Jonathon Fletcher who found a way to bridge realities. According to the dummy, it's Fletcher who's on the other side of that toy phone, not Joey's dear dead dad. The late magician has been trying to cross back over using both the dummy and Joey's innocence. When the dummy nearly kills Joey's mom, the kid does the only reasonable thing in this situation: tosses it in a hole and buries him. 

Things don't end there, especially since Joey also has to deal with some toy-killing bullies. Thankfully, we're working in a post-Carrie world where a dead dad and evil ventriloquist dummy ALSO include telekinetic powers for our titular hero. 

Before you know it, Making Contact goes full-out Poltergeist by way of E.T., with actual Darth Vader masks and lightsabers thrown in for good effect. How this movie would have ever managed to escape lawsuits is quite the mystery. I haven't even mentioned the Donald Duck that flies through Joey's hallway. 

Directed by Roland Emmerich--yes, that Roland Emmerich--Making Contact is joyfully pandering to an audience looking for blockbuster '80s breadcrumbs. It's also a pretty big, albeit short mess. From a narrative point of view, nothing really adds up. It's never really clear what Fletcher or his dummy is after, or which is actually the villain. You can't think too hard about a movie that was clearly assembled mathematically.

High Points

Yes, the bullies are straight out of Spielberg, but it's kind of nice to have them acknowledge the fact that the boy they've tormented proved himself to be far braver than they ever would be when facing a murderous 1920s era magical dummy

Low Points

You know, the whole "this movie is patched together from references to far better material" thing

Lessons Learned

German children dubbed by Americans singing My Country Tis of Thee will still be out of tune

Fear comes in many forms, including 3' tall hamburgers

Every '80s lonely boy needs a blond sidekick

Rent/Bury/Buy

Making Contact is not what anyone would call a good movie. It was so clearly crafted to pull whatever bits of blockbusters it could and somehow hit a 90 minute mark without getting sued. That being said, anyone with a closeness to these kinds of movies will probably be highly amused by just how hard it was able to go. And if, like me, you find ventriloquist dummies to be pure nightmare fuel, you won't sleep easy. Find it on Tubi before Disney does.