Dear Reader, what do you do when the real-life horrors encroach upon your physical and mental health? What do you do when you feel an exponential powerlessness in the face of widespread misappropriated hate and aggression? How do we make ourselves resilient against the bigoted powers that be? For me, the answers to many of the questions that have swarmed my mind lately lie in depictions of overcoming powerlessness against fictional horrors. I have been searching for answers this week, which is to say I’ve been sick and rather understandably depressed, and as a result the horror movie binge has been STRONG this week.
FOURTEEN MOVIES.
I have watched fourteen movies in the past week, some of them twice!! I was a little sick and a little depressed and I had to binge the whole Scream franchise* for Scratch-Off Sunday. Dear Reader, I do not recommend falling into this rhythm. Two movies per day does not sound like a lot, but even if every movie I watched were only 90 minutes, they’d still occupy one eighth of my day – one fifth if you factor out sleep. And then there’s the review podcasts… to give credit where credit is due, I often choose movies based on which podcasts I’m currently consuming. In this case, you can find many of this week’s watches on Gaylords of Darkness featuring horror columnist Stacie Ponder and horror programmer Anthony Hudson. It is no longer airing, but it is one of the many pieces of media responsible for my enthusiasm for horror movies. So many of the horror podcasts I find are queer spaces that provide welcoming insights and perspectives. It is a comforting reminder that horror is an inherently queer genre. Go support some horror podcasts if that’s your thing! They make my daily commute just a little brighter.
*I did not actually end up watching the whole Scream franchise… tune in tomorrow for Scratch-Off Sunday: Monday Edition for more on Scream, Scream 2, and Scream 3.)
If anyone feels themselves leaning harder into horror than ever lately, you are not alone. I say, be careful, don’t poke anything too sore or fall into a movies-only routine, but if you find comfort in the stories of resilience saturating the horror genre, why not lean into it? Become the monster! Put on your witch hat and settle in with something gut-wrenching and terrifying. Play in the space of horror in ways the horrors of reality do not allow. If you are feeling scared, give yourself permission to be scared – but also give yourself permission to fight back.
Good lord, I haven’t even gotten to the fuckin’ movies. Okay. In no particular order because I was sick and don’t remember:
Willard – I have been apprehensive about this movie as a lover of rats and general disliker of animal distress. I was happy to learn that action scenes were achieved through special effects and footage of the real little guys mainly comprised of them either snuggling or eating. Very cute. More pros include Elsa Manchester being a total queen as Willard’s mother and corny rat training montages. Cons include many depictions of human-on-rat violence and a plot that is so dark and unredeeming for any character involved. Except for Ben. Ben deserves the world.
The Innkeepers – Slow burn, lots of dread, betrayal, and suspense. I’m not going to lie, compared to something like Hell House, LLC or even The Blackwell Ghost this movie was sort of immemorable. I thought Sara Paxton’s performance was awesome, but otherwise what makes this movie effective is essentially “horror of vibes”. Not to be that person, but I work in a haunted funeral home sometimes – I know the horror of vibes can be very real. But in terms of any plot unrelated to Claire’s dykey little crush on Leanne Rease-Jones? Nothing really grabbed my attention enough to make this movie stick. Am I missing something, Dear Reader? I’d love to know why this merits a rewatch.
Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon – This movie was sort of a trip amidst the overwhelm of Scream properties I watched this week. It stands strong as a horror comedy and manages to pull some effective twists. Zelda Rubenstein alert!! The most important part of this movie is a Pittsburgh horror queen best known for her role in Poltergeist, the psychic Tangina. Rubenstein was a disability advocate and fiercely vocal LGBTQ ally amidst the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s. She has a small role in this film, but she has a huge role in my heart.
Ghosts of Mars – So, John Carpenter, huh? I see the movie this could be, but I sort of wish I didn’t see the movie this was. Pro: lots of lesbians. Cons: just about everything else, including the depiction of said lesbians. The best among them (Clea DuVall) gets the most unceremonious, whiplash-inducing throwaway of a death. It’s unfair in its depictions of so many women and it’s brazenly pro-imperialism. Maybe this sort of film just hasn’t aged well. Regardless, I have a feeling it will sit at the bottom of my Carpenter film ranking for a very, very long time.
Sinister – When it comes to genre actors, Ethan Hawke has got to be one of my faves. He shines in horror! I have taken such a long time to see this film because just the thought of it was too scary for me to approach. My fears were confirmed, of course, as I watched these cursed snuff films alongside Hawke and somehow entangled myself in a series of horrors I wanted no part of. Nuh-UH. Hard nope. Those videos were so unsettling!! It scratched the found-footage itch despite not being a found footage film. It was a real “creepy kid movie” redemption after Insidious last week.
Fatal Frame – Okay, this is where things start getting good. See, my impulse in the face of the attempted erasure of the LGBTQ community is to dramatically increase the gay. Fatal Frame is based on a game series apparently, but the movie is available on YouTube for free and it is definitely worth a watch. This ghost story, like so many ghost stories throughout history, is a tale of lesbian longing in disguise – in which the entire student body of a Catholic girls’ school falls victim to a “curse that only affects girls” after the most popular girl goes missing. There are so many of my favorite wlw tropes in this film, and the ghost story is beautiful and haunting. It’s a great piece of intentionally queer horror and I look forward to watching it again.
The Handmaiden – I’m going to put this out front: this movie is horror-adjacent at best. Certainly has some effective psychological horror elements and some gratuitous torture at the end. But this movie is not a fave for its horror elements. This. Movie. Is. Gay. As. FUCK. Just as in Fatal Frame, it plays freely with hallmark tropes of queer literature and has a lot of fun doing it. Explicitly sexual in a way that I have seen plenty of in other films… but not for queer couples. This film is controversial for having been written and directed by men, but in the THP household this film is Queer A.F. and we will be bringing it back for many a date night to come.
Daddy’s Head – this is a touching and tense exploration of how grief can both erode and strengthen relationships – and often at the same time. This movie shares DNA with The Babadook: a mother (or in this case, stepmother) has to manage her son’s grief and her own after the loss of a man in their lives. They are preyed on by a monster that bonds with one and threatens the other. and boy is it freaky. You see just enough of the monster to be creeped out by its movement and uncanny appearance, and the rest is an incredible display of grief and guilt and anger from stars Julia Brown and Rupert Turnbull. This movie’s strength is in its stillness. Psychological horror fans will enjoy!
Europa Report – This movie is a bleak and terrifying thriller that combines the claustrophobia of spacecraft and the terrifying vastness of the space beyond our atmosphere. And hey, found footage! I think this film found a great platform for the subgenre in the dense array of cameras on a space orbiter – every interaction feels intimate yet disturbingly public and we become acutely aware that we are helpless to change anything we are about to witness. Space is scary, yo! Suspend disbelief for a bit and try not to nitpick details and I think you’ll have a fun time.
Berberian Sound Studio – This pulled some very visceral reactions from me without any real visual gore to speak of – the story of Gilderoy in the production studio working on an Italian horror film mirrors the almost dizzying paranoid atmosphere of the genre on which it’s commenting and then delivers a mystical conclusion to match. We experience the violent misogyny of the genre through the sensitive constitution of a sound producer, and all the while two old Italian men are stabbing watermelons to capture the audio reel for horrors unseen. This film may have given me an aversion to vegetables. Sickening and oppressive vibes throughout. Very good.
53% watched (242/458). Last updated 2/09/2025.
Whew! I didn’t think I was going to get through that.
I’ll meet you back here tomorrow, Dear Reader – tomorrow I’ll review the first three movies of the Scream franchise, and next Sunday I’ll review movies 4-6.
Expect wayyy less from me next week.
And until then, Dear Reader, the horrors may persist, but Paradise Lost? Found it!
The Horrors Persist 
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