Bill Skarsgård. Not going anywhere for a while?

Over at Alex on Film I just wrapped up my notes on a trio of movies about rich psychos who trap car thieves in specially designed automobiles: Captured (1998), 4×4 (2019), and Locked (2025). Watching them, I couldn’t help but think of what Hitchcock would have made out of such a set-up. He liked challenges like pretending a movie was shot all in one take, or setting a whole film on a lifeboat. Alas, none of the directors involved in these films made much out of the idea, either in terms of generating suspense or having a political message, even though each makes gestures in that direction.

Over at Alex on Film you can read my annual awards for the movies of the year. Not much to choose from this year as November-December were really rough and I didn’t watch many movies. Oh well.

This is an index of some of the vampire movies I’ve reviewed over at Alex on Film. I’ll keep adding to it as I go along.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Dracula (1931)
Vampyr (1932)
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
Son of Dracula (1943)
House of Dracula (1945)
Horror of Dracula (1958)
The Brides of Dracula (1960)
The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
Orgy of the Dead (1965)
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Daughters of Darkness (1971)
Requiem for a Vampire (1971)
Dracula’s Dog (1977)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
The Hunger (1983)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
From Dusk till Dawn (1996)
John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)
Underworld (2003)
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
30 Days of Night (2007)
Let the Right One In (2008)
Let Me In (2010)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Afflicted (2013)
Morbius (2022)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
Renfield (2023)
Nosferatu (2024)
Sinners (2025)

Over at Alex on Film I’ve posted my picks for the best (and worst) movies of 2024. Since I only watched one 2024 movie that I thought was really good things were kind of predetermined.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve added my notes on Maxxxine, which (likely) brings to a conclusion Ti West’s X trilogy. I liked the first film, X, and really liked the second, Pearl, but Maxxxine struck me as a weak way to wrap things up. Still better than most of the new movies I see, but a disappointment all the same.

Digging deep.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve just wrapped up my notes on the Phantasm series. This was a surprisingly long-lived franchise, running from 1979 to 2016 with the same core cast (except for the recasting of Mike in Phantasm II) and the same writer-director in Don Coscarelli (who wrote and directed the first four films and co-wrote and produced the fifth). Most franchises rebooted several times over the same period, but the Phantasmverse maintained a remarkable continuity. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many franchises, horror or otherwise, that managed such a feat. And I was happy they ended on what I felt was a high note. Here’s the line-up.

Phantasm (1979)
Phantasm II (1988)
Phantasm III (1994)
Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)
Phantasm: Ravager (2016)

The one and only.

This is an index to my reviews of Charlie Chan films over at Alex on Film. When I review more I’ll update.

Behind That Curtain (1929)
The Black Camel (1931)
Charlie Chan in London (1934)
Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)
Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935)
Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937)
Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937)
Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1939)
Charlie Chan in Reno (1939)
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
City in Darkness (1939)
Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
Murder Over New York (1940)
Dead Men Tell (1941)
Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
Castle in the Desert (1942)
Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944)
Black Magic (1944)
The Jade Mask (1945)
The Scarlet Clue (1945)
The Shanghai Cobra (1945)
The Red Dragon (1945)
Dangerous Money (1946)
Dark Alibi (1946)
The Trap (1946)
The Chinese Ring (1947)

Over at Alex on Film you can read my year-end awards for the best (and worst) of 2023 on screen. The small screen that is, as I just watch movies on DVD.