Wake Up Dead Man (2025). A young priest accused of murder in a small parish in upstate NY pleads his case to famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).

This is the third movie in the Benoit Blanc franchise, and I enjoyed it a lot. The cast is great, as always, and Josh O'Connor in particular as the young priest is fantastic and is the heart of the movie. The writing is solid and often very funny, with some great laugh lines, even if this wasn't trying quite as hard as Glass Onion did. These movies are just fun, even when they don't make all that much sense.

I will say it felt too long; I thought it might be my favorite of the series, and then it went on for another 45 minutes. 💀 It needed at least one less twist and one less dramatic monologue. I also wish one of the secondary antagonists (Cy, the mixed-race would-be Republican politician) had gotten more development or at least a hint of how he'd become who he'd become, not least because he was one of the funniest characters and stole almost every scene he was in. I have some quibbles about the narrative treatment of one of the female characters as well; I think the movie's heart was in the right place, but the execution didn't quite get there.

This one also tackled some heavier themes than either of the others. The charismatic, abusive, ego-driven church leader making his own little cult felt very familiar, especially after that podcast I listened to about Mars Hill.

Overall: just fun. Solidly entertaining in an era when it feels like mainstream movies really struggle to be that. I hope Rian Johnson makes ten more of these.

And this was the last one on his Netflix contract, so maybe the next one will get a real theater release instead of this bizarre indie-and-tiny-chain-only bullshit. OTOH, because the release has been so limited, I saw it in a completely sold-out theater that laughed throughout and then clapped at the end, and that was pretty fun. Silver linings!

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Hell House LLC: Carmichael Manor (2023). A ghosthunter and her girlfriend investigate a supposedly haunted house near the site of the former Abaddon hotel and soon wish they hadn't.

This is the fourth entry in the Hell House LLC franchise, and for my money it is the scariest. There's not even a close second IMO. It took me almost a year to watch this in fits and starts, because I kept getting too tense. I only finally managed it because an online friend was going to watch it and we had a watch party. Found footage is the scariest horror there is, in my opinion; the fiction of watching raw footage removes a last crucial layer of distance between me and the events. This franchise's greatest strength is that it has a fucking scary clown and it knows how to use it, but there are a number of scenes here without even a threat of clown that are genuinely unnerving and use the found footage mechanic in creatively terrifying ways.

As a movie, this is also far and away the best one since the first. The characters are well-developed and don't get bogged down in the history of the previous movies, unlike movies two and three. I do think the last twenty minutes or so, when it tries to tie the story to the broader lore, is by the far the weakest part of the movie, but so it goes.

Also, I've been pining for more found footage horror focused on women, and it's just a bonus that these are an f/f couple to boot, which goes completely unremarked. Yay, more of this please.

If you're looking for a good scarefest with minimal gore next Halloween, you absolutely should check this out.