What to stream this Halloween season

Speaker 1: (00:00)

It's Halloween season. So we are gathering our midday movies crew to recommend some appropriate viewing options. Everyone defines har differently. So these selections reflect some very different options. Joining me today is KPBS arts reporter and cinema junkie host Beth Armando and movie Wallaces podcaster. Yazdi Patala welcome to you both. Thank

Speaker 2: (00:21)

You. Thank you.

Speaker 1: (00:23)

All right. So we're, we're looking to pick one new film, one old film, and one series to binge on first, let's start with new Beth. What do you recommend?

Speaker 2: (00:33)

I decided I wanted to recommend something that revisits kind of familiar territory, but gives it a fresh spin. So shutter is showcasing a film called the medium, which is a Thai horror film, and essentially it's a possession tale. So we've seen a lot of these movies about evil spirits and demons possessing someone and then an exorcism, but generally speaking, these exorcism films deal with the Catholic church and a priest. So this puts us in Thailand and the rituals and ceremonies are completely different. The sense of how demons or evil spirits exist in the world has a different sensibility. So it feels like you're kind of getting a familiar story, but with a very fresh perspective. And I just thought it was great. Yeah.

Speaker 1: (01:20)

Uh, what about you? What's a, what do you recommend as a new horror film?

Speaker 3: (01:24)

So my pick is a movie from 2017 and it's by the director Yorgos Lanthimos, who has made a career out of making films, which are oddly disquieting and disturbing. He made movies such as dark tooth and the lobster. And then more recently the favorite, which one, a whole bunch of Oscars. I think the killing of a sacred deer was somewhat under appreciated when it was released. And what I really like about this film is that it creates its own observed roots, but then sticks by those rules and sees it through to the end. And, uh, nominally, the movie is about this very famous cardiac surgeon played by Colin Farrell and his wife played by Nicole Kidman and, uh, they have their kids and unbeknownst to his wife, the husband starts befriending this teenage boy who we find out has a relationship to his past. And very soon strange things start happening to his kids. And so this movie sits squarely in the area of children and peril sort of paying for your past sins, but more than anything else, this movie just made me so uncomfortable. And so unnerved genuinely unnerved that I think it takes some degree of skill to do that.

Speaker 2: (02:43)

The other thing about that film is it taps into a different aspect of horror that sometimes gets focused on. So a lot of horror films are about jump scares. This is about building dread, which is a much more, I think, effective means of horror and much more disturbing and uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: (03:01)

And I think it's, I mean, I would say it's kind of rare these days. So many horror movies come out and it is sort of just, it's a slasher flick or something along those lines, and they've not taken the time to really develop the storyline. There's not enough a large investment in that. I don't think, I mean, I don't know. What do you guys think?

Speaker 2: (03:19)

I mean, I think horror works best if you care about the characters, um, because that's where you really get the tension and the discomfort. If you're not invested in the characters or care about them, to some degree, there's no tension because you just don't care what happens to them. So I think building the sense of dread takes a lot more craft. And for me personally, it's a more disquieting sense of horror that lingers with me long after I've left the theater.

Speaker 1: (03:45)

Mm Yazdi. Where can listeners catch a kid? The killing of a sacred deer it's

Speaker 3: (03:51)

Streaming right now on Netflix. Ah,

Speaker 1: (03:53)

Okay. So, so now let's, let's move on to old, uh, Beth, what's your recommendation for an old movie

Speaker 2: (04:01)

Because there's an excellent new Candyman film out right now that taps into the original film. I am going to suggest that people go check out the original 1992 Candyman if only for Tony Todd's incredible performance, but the new Candyman, unlike the Halloween kills film, which is out now really understands how to build on the previous film, take the mythology of it, expand on it, make it more contemporary, make it tap into our current events in a really effective way. And going back to see the original one makes the new one even better. So I highly recommend going back. This is based on a Clive Barker story. It has an excellent score by Philip Glass. It was directed by Bernard rose and it really is an exceptional horror film. And one of the first to give us an iconic black horror figure in it. And Tony Todd is just fabulous. Okay.

Speaker 1: (04:57)

Yazdi, what's your recommendation for an old film for Halloween season?

Speaker 3: (05:02)

I kind of, from my old older movie Peck, I went to David Cronenberg who is another master of, uh, creating films, which genuinely unsettled you. And, you know, he's, he's done more than a share of making or complex stunning disquieting movies. And I really liked the fly because this was a movie which was released in 1986. It's based on a short story from, uh, 1957, uh, which was subsequently in 1958, made into a movie. And this is his, a remake of that movie. To me, at least it was my first introduction to body horror in that we are so used to being obviously attached to our body and, you know, being, being who we are and to see somebody's body disintegrate or to see really unexpected things happen to somebody's body can be very, very unsettling. And this movie is like a masterclass and it's about, uh, this, uh, eccentric scientist, uh, uh, played by Jeff Goldblum who after a bungled experiment, uh, starts to mutate into this human fly kind of hybrid creature. And, you know, Cronenberg is that peak form and the movie has this psychosexual undertone. And at the same time, it very deliberately gets very close to, you know, as, as the transformation is happening, it gets very close to the body. And I remember just being so shaken by that movie that I watched it. And it's interesting, the new Candyman movie also taps into some of those body horror issues. But, uh, for me, the flier is kind of the epitome of that.

Speaker 1: (06:50)

I remember seeing it and it made my skin crawl the internet

Speaker 2: (06:55)

Just

Speaker 1: (06:56)

As it should. Oh my goodness. All right. Let's move to a, a binge-worthy series. Um, what would you guys recommend for something that would better binge-worthy?

Speaker 2: (07:06)

Well, for me, hands down, I would go to mine hunter, which is a David Fincher series. Sadly, it kind of ended without a resolution and there's still possible talk of it being finished, but this is based on a true story of these guys in the FBI who started the behavioral science division, which is to kind of make sense out of serial killers. And what I love about this film is that the most disturbing scenes tend to be the interviews with the serial killers, which are taking place inside prisons, mostly nothing overtly scary, no gory scenes of murders, sometimes not even talking about the murders, but it's just this entering a mind of somebody who is capable of these horrific crimes and realizing just kind of like how different they are in terms of how they perceive the world. Those scenes are just chilling. I mean, you can feel like the hairs on your arms, you know, raise and you get goosebumps because you're you feel like you're witnessing something truly terrifying and because it's rooted in the real world, it's even more scary. So I love that series

Speaker 1: (08:17)

And that's all the signs of a good series to binge watch, especially if you're going to binge watch a horror series. Um, mind hunter is on Netflix as is your pick. Yes. Do you tell me about it?

Speaker 3: (08:27)

Yeah. So my pick is a series which hardly requires more publicity. It's the one that everybody's watching right now. And it, a squid game squid game within 15 days of being dropped on Netflix became their most watched show ever, which is incredible considering their past with, uh, a number of remarkable Veld regarded well watch series. And yes, you know, squid game is kind of battle Royal or hunger games meets Agatha Christie's and then there were none,

Speaker 4: (08:59)

Uh,

Speaker 3: (09:06)

Yes, it is brutal and violent and exceptionally entertaining.

Speaker 3: (09:15)

But I think if you set all that entertainment pieces aside, what remains still in the series is what interests me, which is, it has a few things to say about class, about racial hierarchy in Korea, about capitalism, of course. And you know, in that way, it is similar to the film parasite, which won a whole bunch of awards a couple of years ago. But I think the reason why this series is really resonated worldwide, not just in the U S and Korea, but worldwide, I think is because the idea of, you know, whole bunch of people who are forced to play a game to which they may not necessarily know all the rules very well as a consequence of which many of them can die, I think is draws a lot of parallel to the whole pandemic experience we are going through right now, where we are sort of trying to be, we're trying to understand where we are and we didn't know how to play the rules of the pandemic.

Speaker 3: (10:13)

And people were just, you know, seemingly dying, you know, without reasons. So I think it's kind of tapped into our state of being right now. And I, I just loved how the series as well put together as it is. It takes a lot of time with building these characters and builds them layer by layer. So you understand them. And then it uses a lot of genius in terms of how even those very beloved characters get dispatched. So, you know, I can't wait to watch it again. I am not a big horror fan. I'm scared of core and so forth, but in spite of that, I've watched it. And I like, like everybody else on the planet, I am quite thrilled with it.

Speaker 1: (10:57)

Uh, three episodes in on squid games it's intense. And the parallels that you can draw from it are really the true horror in it, for sure. But, uh, I really appreciate you guys as pics and your, your suggestions. Well, thank you.

Speaker 3: (11:13)

Thank you much.

Speaker 5: (11:16)

[inaudible].