Happy Christmas, Etc.

chrstmas haul

Happy Holidays, everybody. I hope yours is spent with those you love and that they bring you joy.

We’ve had a good Christmastime thus far. Last night we got together with our larger family. My mother grew up in this area, and all of her siblings (and their children and grandchildren) still live here. We always gather with them for Christmas Eve and share food and fellowship with one another and then do a little Dirty Santa. It is strange how they keep changing. One of my cousins has completely blacklisted the entire family for some reason, so she no longer shows up to that shindig. Sometimes her children drop by, but they didn’t this year. One of my other cousins now does stuff with his new wife’s family, so he was absent, as was yet another cousin for reasons that weren’t disclosed to me. It feels so weird to not have such a full house, but I get it; things change. Many’s the time when we’ve not gone to that particular party because we’ve been elsewhere. But I enjoyed the time we had with those who were there.

This morning we had brunch with my parents, my brother, and his wife. That was a new tradition, but a good one. Later this week we’ll be visiting my wife’s family in Kentucky. When we get back, my sister will be in from her life in South Korea. Like I say, things change, but it is still good.

The important part of Christmas is family and love, and I’m so happy to have those things. But I have to admit I really like Christmas presents. I love opening things and receiving gifts. I guess it just brings out the kid in me.

And with that, I get to share my Christmas haul with you all.

For years and years I always asked everybody to get me fun socks. I was tired of wearing boring white and black socks. I wanted my feet to have some fun. But for the longest time no one seemed to understand that. At best I’d get a couple of pairs of argyle socks, and that was it. Then several years ago my wife found some good stripy ones and a few others with fun designs. I made sure that I praised them to high heavens to everyone, and now I have a lovely collection of fun socks. This year my wife got me these most excellent Jaws socks, and I just love them. She also got me some Scrabble socks for some reason. That’s a game I haven’t played in years, but I sure will wear the socks with joy anyway.

Most years my wife and I buy each other some fun “nerd” shirts. This year she got me this excellent one of Peter Cushing holding up a cross to keep the vampires away. I cut them off in this photo, but she also got me a couple of collectible dolls – one Frankenstein, one from The Fog. I used to hate collectible toys, but now I love them.

Then there is an X-Men comic, a collection of Paul Naschy films (who made a bunch of silly werewolf films), the three Doctor Who specials with David Tennant’s brief comeback, and Thrillers From the Vault, which features some great-looking B-grade horror movies with guys like Boris Karloff, a collection of Psycho films, and a UHD version of the classic anime Akira. Good stuff, one and all. Color me thankful.

I feel like I’ve been saying this for the last several years, but thanks for hanging in there with me. The blog yet again went through several changes. The biggest, of course, was that I gave up the music. I can’t say that I regret doing that, as I do think it was time, but I do miss it. I keep thinking about returning to it in some new way (some way that won’t have my real name associated with the files), but that’s just a flighty dream at the moment.

I appreciate all those who have stayed with me through this transition into just talking about movies and things. I know most of you don’t care, that most of you just wish I’d share some more music. I’m very thankful for those of you who do care and who comment and chat about cinema with me. But I’m also thankful for those of you who are still signed up for the emails even though you probably ignore them or have shifted them to spam. It is nice to pretend that the nearly 1,000 of you that are subscribed actually enjoy my writing. And that’s sincere, not me being snarky. I do realize that many of you aren’t interested in movies, but it makes me happy that you haven’t unsubscribed yet.

Anyway, I just want to say thank you. This blog still means a lot to me. And I truly do hope your lives are full of good cheer and joy this time of year.

The Midnight Cafe’s Top Five Movies of 2025

I watch a lot of movies. As of this writing, I’ve logged 4,963 films on Letterboxd (and that doesn’t include the hundreds of films I’ve forgotten to log/completely forgotten I watched). I watched 458 this year alone. But while I do watch a lot of movies, I don’t tend to keep up with current movies. I rarely go to the theater anymore, and my tendency is to watch old movies at home. My feeling is that there are so many great older movies that I haven’t seen that there isn’t a lot of reason to try to watch new movies that might not be that good.

With that being said, I did make an effort to watch more new movies this year. I actually made it to the theater on seven different occasions and watched a total of 42 movies made in 2025. For context, I’ve still only watched 34 movies from 2024, and I’ve had an extra year to see them.

That’s not a bad number, but considering there were hundreds of movies that came out this year, it is but a small drop in a very large bucket. So, I can’t really say these are the best movies of 2025, but they are my favorites of the ones I’ve seen.

caught stealing

5. Caught Stealing

This crime thriller from Darren Aronofsky seems to have completely flown under everyone’s radar. That’s too bad because it is a terrific little flick with an incredible cast and some wonderful direction. Austin Butler stars as Hank Thompson, an alcoholic bartender who could have been a contender, but his once promising baseball career ended after a terrible drunk driving accident left him wounded.

When his neighbor (a mohawk-wearing, thickly accented Matt Smith) leaves town and leaves Hank with his cat to take care of, all hell breaks loose. Before the week is up, he’ll be tortured by Russians, threatened by cops, and nearly killed by some Hasidic gangsters. Caught Stealing is light on its feet and gnarly fun.

predator badlands

4. Predator: Badlands

Who would have thought that in the year of our Lord 2025 we’d get yet another Predator movie and that it would be one of the best of the year? Director Dan Trachtenberg, who also helmed the excellent Prey and the pretty good Predator: Killer of Killers knows how to take what was a silly 1980s action flick and turn it into something meaty and good.

All of the other Predator films have basically been Predator vs. human stories. This one turns the Predator into our hero and sets it on the deadliest planet in the universe, where even the plants want to kill you. He’s teamed with Thia (Elle Fanning), a half-broken cyborg created by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (which is from the Alien franchise, which means we might finally get a good crossover film at some point). They will attempt to not only survive but also kill the universe’s most fearsome creatures.

The world building is terrific, the action is incredible, and Elle Fanning is a blast to watch.

train dreams

3. Train Dreams

If I were doing a longer list and adding in lots of special categories, I’d call Train Dreams my surprise favorite. I had never heard of the film before I watched it. I hadn’t seen a trailer or a poster, even. Nobody in my social media circles was talking about it. But one day I was looking through a list of movies that came out in 2025, hoping to find something interesting that hadn’t been hyped to death, and I landed on this. I’m so glad I did.

Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton as a logger living in the early part of the twentieth century. He is a quiet, simple man who faces love and loss while the years roll by and the country around him changes all around him. It is a slow film, never flashy or exciting in an action-packed sort of way, but it is beautiful and profound. Filmed in the Pacific Northwest, the camera lingers on the nature all around him. He’ll meet various characters and find friendship and love, and feel great guilt over the violence he observes. Edgerton has never been better. He says so much with so little dialogue.

This is a tone poem, filled with beauty and wonder, sadness and awe.

one battle after another

2. One Battle After Another

This Paul Thomas Anderson epic is his most political film and his most personal. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Bob, a former revolutionary who settled down once his girlfriend split, leaving him to raise his daughter. Sixteen years pass, and he’s become something of a drug-addled, alcoholic burnout. But when a former nemesis reappears and comes after his daughter, he rejoins the movement and bands together to save her.

There are some current political themes in the films, as migrants are seen being held prisoner inside fenced-in cages, and the villains are racist white nationalists, but mostly it is about this dad trying to connect with his teenaged daughter and keep her safe.

It has a grand scale and a large cast; it is epic, yet personal, tense, and often hilarious. DiCaprio has never been better, Sean Penn is terrific as the hard-nosed military goon going after the girl, but it is Benicio Del Toro that steals the show. He’s a levelheaded sensai who keeps Bob (and the film) grounded. He is the calm in the midst of an insane, chaotic storm.

I watched this one again just a few days ago, and it was even better the second time.

sinners

1. Sinners

I watched this one again last week, and it is still mind-blowingly good. Ryan Coogler has managed to make a vampire movie where the vampires are the least interesting thing about it. Michael B. Jordan stars as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who grew up in the deep south, fought in World War I, then moved to Chicago, where they worked for Al Capone, and now they’ve come back to their hometown to open up a juke joint.

The film takes its time getting to its horror elements. It follows the brothers as they recruit various people into helping them. They talk a Chinese grocer into supplying the food, a fieldworker into being the bouncer, and an old bluesman into making the music. Smoke’s wife will cook, and their nephew will play guitar. These scenes are given time to naturally develop, and they are a joy to watch. Coogler is giving us a tour of the Deep South from an African American perspective. We are ensconced in this culture.

The film could almost be categorized as a musical, as characters routinely play songs and music is a huge part of what this film is. There is one scene in the middle where the cousin plays a song, and it bends time and space. It is one of the greatest all-time scenes ever put to celluloid.

I could live in this world for a long time. It is almost a shame the vampires show up. It isn’t that the horror elements are bad, but I so thoroughly enjoyed watching the brothers build this community that I hate to leave that aspect to bring in the vampires. He does do some interesting things thematically with the vampires. The main ones are Irish, and there is a long history in the United States of prejudice against the Irish. Part of their welcoming call for our heroes to become vampires is that there is no more racism, for vampires aren’t prejudiced.

The battle with the vampires is appropriately thrilling and bloody, and in any other movie I’d be praising that half of the film. But man, that first half is so good I wind up feeling slightly disappointed when the vamps show up. But nevertheless, Sinners is a fantastic film, the rare film that is both thematically rich and thoroughly entertaining.

And that’s it. I won’t say these are the best movies of the year, but they are my favorite films from 2025 that I watched. What were your favorites?

The Midnight Cafe’s Top Five TV Shows of 2025

I suppose you all know me as a music and movie guy. I don’t write about television very much. That’s mostly because I don’t keep up with TV shows very well. I very rarely watch shows as they come out; I’m always behind. I also find writing about television tricky. But I do watch TV, and I love a lot of shows.

This year I actually made an effort to keep up with new TV and to watch more of it. So, I thought it would be fun to make a Top Five list of my favorites. Four of them are new series that debuted in 2025, and one of them is a little bit older, but it did run a new season this year. That was my one rule – the season that I’m talking about how to have run this year. Technically, show #4 originally aired in 2024, but that was in England; it didn’t air in the US until 2025, so I’m counting it. And here we go.

slow horses

5. Slow Horses: Season 5

Slow Horses is about an inept group of MI5 agents who have severely screwed up in one way or another (but not badly enough to actually get fired), and are now relegated to Slough House – a sort of detention center for screwups. It is run by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), an unkempt, heavy-drinking, chain-smoking elder statesman who was once a great agent but is now sick of it all.

Each season naturally finds this team of goofballs solving a real, major case, almost by accident. Season Five finds them embroiled in a terrorist plot, an assassination attempt, and a group of incels. It is a tad overstuffed, and the characters are starting to drift from their designated personalities, but it more than makes up for those flaws with added comedy. Gary Oldman is a treasure, but the rest of the cast is wonderfully fun as well.

ludwig

4. Ludwig

David Mitchell’s comic persona is that of a well-educated, middle-class, slightly stuffy bloke who’d mostly like to be left alone. Ludwig was custom-made for that persona. He plays John Taylor, a reclusive puzzle maker whose twin brother is an Oxford police detective. When that brother disappears, his wife (Anna Maxwell Martin) calls upon John to help her find out what happened. Being identical twins, John pretends to be his brother initially to grab some notebooks from his desk at police headquarters. But quickly he’s swept up into a murder mystery. And because murder mysteries are like puzzles, he quickly solves it.

Each week brings a new murder, or puzzle, and John is able to solve it. Mitchell is an absolute delight, and the puzzles are great fun. I liked this season so much I almost immediately watched it again.

task

3. Task

I’m a huge fan of crime dramas. I’m obviously not the only one, as there are approximately eight kajillion of them out there. And that’s the thing; the popularity of the genre means there is a blueprint for it. At their most basic, crime dramas involve someone committing a crime and someone else trying to catch them. There are all sorts of variations on that basic outline. And that’s the other thing; because there is a blueprint and because there are so many of them, crime dramas can feel like a comfortable pair of socks. You put them on, and as long as they keep your feet warm, you don’t really think about them again. You only notice them when they’ve got a hole in them or they are exceptionally warm and soft.

To wear out that metaphor, crime dramas are something you can throw on, enjoy, and never think about again. They are only memorable when they are exceptionally bad, or really good. The Task is excellent. Mark Ruffalo stars as Tom Brandis, an FBI agent who has been having a tough time of it lately. His family life is in chaos, and he’s suffered a recent personal tragedy. As such, we find him, at the start of the show, taking kind of a break. He’s off active duty and spends his work hours at job fairs recruiting for the FBI.

But then his boss calls to say she needs him to head up a task force to catch someone who’s been robbing drug houses run by a local biker gang. The show follows Brandis and his task force (made up of state, county, and local police) and the thief (an incredible Tom Pelphrey.) Task doesn’t do anything new with the genre, but everything is working at such a high level I have no complaints.

the pitt

2. The Pitt

It is impossible to talk about The Pitt without comparing it to ER. Both shows are set in emergency rooms and follow the absolute insanity that takes place there. Both are set inside teaching hospitals, so you get a mix of attending physicians, residents, beginners, and students. They were both produced by John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, and they both star Noah Wylie. Each series also balances big, complicated cases with smaller, simpler ones, as well as their big emotional beats with more light-hearted ones.

The biggest difference between the two is that ER aired on NBC and The Pitt is an HBO show, which allows The Pitt to be more graphic (in its language, its gore, and its explicitness – at one point we get a close-up view of a doctor trying to pull a baby out of its mother’s vagina.) It is also set during one twelve-hour shift, with each episode lasting just under sixty minutes in length.

Much like Task, this show doesn’t necessarily do anything new with its genre, but it is so incredibly well produced, well made, and acted that after one season I’m just about ready to call it the best medical drama TV has ever produced. Even better, they’ve already shot the second season, and it airs early next year.

pluribus

1. Pluribus

Up until just today I was all set to make The Pitt my number one show of 2025. It is so good I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I watched it this past spring. I immediately loved Pluribus when it started airing last month, but I wasn’t ready to have it knock The Pitt off its (presumed) top spot. Then its season finale dropped this morning, and Holy Moly was I blown away.

This is a show that’s actually best watched if you know nothing about it. So I won’t talk about its plot so that you can come to it completely fresh. I will say it was created by Vince Gilligan (who also created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul), and it stars Rhea Seehorn (who also starred in Better Call Saul). It is nothing like those two shows other than the production values are incredibly high and it never does what you expect it to do.

Every episode is surprising. I had absolutely no idea what it was going to do next, and yet I happily followed along. It is utterly original, unique, and brilliant. Seehorn is magnificent, and I love that her character feels completely real. She’s a hero, but utterly human, good but also selfish and flawed. I cannot wait for the next season to come out.

And that’s it. I won’t say these were the absolute best TV series that aired this past year. I didn’t watch every series that aired in 2025. Not even close. But these are five series I utterly enjoyed. What shows did you enjoy?

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968)

dracula has risen from the grave

Hammer Studios made nine Dracula films. I’ve seen all but one of them (Dracula A.D. 1972), but I’ve watched them all randomly and out of order. Which makes me get the timelines all screwed up in my head. I thought this one was the third in the series, but it is actually the fourth.

One year after the previous film (Dracula: Prince of Darkness), the village that Dracula terrorized still lives in fear. A visiting Monsignor, Ernst Mueller (Rupert Davies) berates the local priest (Ewan Hooper) for not holding mass. The priest, who has lost his faith and is found sitting drunk in a tavern, informs the Monsignor that his flock will no longer enter the church for the shadow of Castle Dracula still falls upon it.

The Monsignor grabs a giant cross, takes hold of the priest, and climbs the mountain toward the castle. The priest stops short of the castle while the Monsignor gives it a good exorcism and plants the cross at the front door. The poor, dumb priest stumbles, cuts his head, and falls onto the frozen creek where Dracula (Christopher Lee) died in the last film. The ice cracks, the priest’s blood pours into Dracula’s mouth, and we get our title for this film.

The priest becomes Dracula’s slave, and Monsignor goes home. Dracula, unable to enter his castle, vows his revenge on the Monsignor and goes after his niece Maria (Veronica Carlson). She’s very much in love with our dopey hero, Paul (Barry Andrews). He’s an atheist, which very much annoys the Monsignor.

There are a lot of boring bits in the middle of this film. That beginning is pretty great, and the finale is excellent, but between the two are lots of filler. Paul works at a bakery/inn, but he studies at night to become a doctor or something. There are scenes of him working and talking to the flirty waitress (Barbara Ewing). He visits the Monsignor and Maria’s aunt. He gets drunk, and he kisses Maria. Etc. It all seems to exist to stretch the budget and the runtime to the appropriate amount. Dracula eventually shows up, sucks the neck of the waitress, and seduces Maria. It will be up to the Monsignor and Paul to save the day. The final battle is a good one, but lord, does it take its time getting there.

It does look amazing. Hammer was always good at making wonderful sets that look completely lived in and painting spectacular backdrops, and they certainly did that here. Maria often sneaks out of her home and walks across balconies and rooftops to visit Paul, and this gives some wonderful views of the town below from above. I believe it was all set work, and it looks great.

All in all, it is another fine addition to the Hammer Horror annals. It could have been a real classic if they’d spent a little more time developing the middle section, but the beginning and ending is well worth the watching.

The Top Five Film Noirs Starring Humphrey Bogart

I meant to write and post this back during Noirvember, but I got distracted, and then I forgot.

Humphrey Bogart is my favorite actor. He made some incredible films in his storied career (including my all-time favorite, Casablanca), and more than a few of them were film noirs. More than just about any actor of the classic period, his name is (arguably) the one most associated with noir. So I thought it would be fun to do a Top Five favorite noirs starring Bogart.

high sierra movie poster

5. High Sierra (1941)

Bogart wasn’t always the big star we know him as today. He spent the better part of a decade as a supporting player, often billed as a gangster or heavy. High Sierra changed that. He was lucky to get that role, as both Paul Muni and George Raft had been offered it first, and director Raoul Walsh didn’t think he was leading man material. But writer John Huston thought Bogart was perfect for the role, and eventually Walsh relented. Huston would, that very same year, cast Bogart in his film The Maltese Falcon (more on that in a minute).

With this film he hasn’t quite left the gangster mold; he plays Roy Earle, a guy who’s just gotten out of prison and is already set for his next score. He’s holed up in a cabin in the mountains with three other guys and a girl, just waiting for the right time to rob a ritzy hotel. The girl (played by the always great Ida Lupino) will lead to trouble. Bogart is still perfecting his world-weary, cynical, but ultimately sentimental character, but he’s still terrific as Earle. Lupino is great too, and Walsh’s direction is quite wonderful.

the maltese falcon poster

4. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

If High Sierra made Bogart a star, then The Maltese Falcon solidified it. Based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, this film is often considered the first truly great film noir. Bogart plays Sam Spade, a tough, cynical private eye who is hired by a woman (Mary Astor) who may not be who she claims to be and may not actually want what she claims to want.

What she really wants is the titular object, which is a mythical, jewel-crusted statue of a bird that was supposedly gifted to the Holy Roman Emperor hundreds of years ago but has been lost to time. While trying to find the bird, Spade will run across a number of eclectic and strange people, including ones played by Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet.

The plot is complicated, the cast is perfect, and John Huston’s direction (it was his directorial debut) is fantastic.

in a lonely plac eposter

3. In a Lonely Place (1950)

This is probably the least noirish film on the list and quite possibly Bogart’s best performance. Based on the excellent novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, Bogart plays a troubled screenwriter with a penchant for violence who hasn’t written a hit movie in years. One night he takes a girl home with him, then changes his mind and kicks her out. The next morning she finds herself dead, and he finds himself a suspect. Through this he’ll meet his neighbor Laura (a magnificent Gloria Grahame), and they’ll fall in love, but she’ll never quite be sure he didn’t kill that girl.

Bogart’s performance is heartbreaking. The script is full of great lines like, “I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, and I lived a few weeks while she loved me.” Just a magnificent movie.

key largo poster

02. Key Largo (1948)

Bogart and Lauren Bacall met on the set of To Have and Have Not (1944) and fell in love and stayed together until he died in 1957. They made four films together (three of them are absolute bangers, and the fourth one isn’t bad – one of the others almost made it to this list, and the other is #1).

Directed by John Huston (his second film on this list), Key Largo includes an incredible cast (including Thomas Gomez, Lionel Barrymore, and Edward G. Robinson). Bogart plays Frank McCloud, a former soldier who stops by Key Largo to visit with his dead comrade’s father (Barrymore) and widow (Bacall) but gets stuck when a hurricane rolls in. Also stuck with them are a few gangsters awaiting a car full of cash that they’ll trade for counterfeit bills.

The hurricane and the gangsters make for a pot of dangerous soup that’s ready to boil. This boasts a classic Bogart performance. He’s smart and tough, witty and sensitive. He and Bacall work magic together, and Barrymore is great as the father who doesn’t take any crap. But it is Robinson who steals the show. He gets one of the all-time great introductory scenes and remains awesome throughout.

the big sleep poster

01. The Big Sleep (1946)

I think this was the first film noir I ever watched. Based on the fantastic book by Raymond Chandler, Bogart plays Phillip Marlowe, a private eye hired by an old man over some blackmail scheme involving his youngest daughter (Martha Vickers in a small but oh-so-memorable role). Quickly things turn complicated, convoluted, and murderous (director Howard Hawks famously phoned Raymond Chandler over who killed a certain chauffeur, and Chandler didn’t actually know the answer). But the plot isn’t really the point.

The Big Sleep is all about its mood, its characters, and the way it makes you feel. Bacall is the older daughter and potential love interest. It is a blast watching her flirt with Bogart and become the femme fatale. Everyone flirts with Bogart in this movie. The two sisters, the cab driver, the bookstore clerk—hell, I’d flirt with him if I were in this movie. It is the perfect noir and an absolute blast to watch.

Well, there you have it, my favorite Humphrey Bogart film noirs. Do you have a favorite? Do you disagree with my picks? Honestly, if I wrote this tomorrow I’d probably have different picks. But this was fun. I’ll try to do more of these when I can.

Watch The Ramparts Perform “Fairytale of New York”

The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” is one of my favorite songs. It is the perfect Christmas song. I love that it is slightly irreverent, and funny. And sad. It makes me cry every time I listen to it (and I listen to it a lot this time of year.) I love that it is a song for everyone, not just the churchgoing folk. I love its structure and its lyrics. Like I said, it is one of my favorite Christmas songs.

I just discovered this a cappella version of it from an Irish group called The Ramparts. It is quite lovely, and now I’m sharing it with you.

Scars of Dracula (1970)

scars of dracula

Regular readers will know I’m a big fan of Hammer Studios horror films. The truth is I don’t necessarily think all their films are all that good, but there is something about them that I love anyway. They are like Classic Doctor Who in that manner.

Scars of Dracula isn’t a great film by any real measurement, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself with it anyway. I truly can’t get enough of Christophe Lee enjoying himself as Dracula.

You can read my review of this film in all of its 4K UHD glory right here.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is the Pick of the Week

pee wees big adventure

Pee-wee is in the Criterion Collection! I love Pee-Wee Herman and his Big Adventure is one of my favorite things. I love that it is getting the royal treatment in UHD.

It is a good week for other releases including something from David Byrne, Hammer Horror, PT Anderson, Hong Kong cinema and more. You can read all about it here.

Now Watching: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
Directed by Rian Johnson
Starring: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, and Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: A young priest is sent to help a charismatic older priest in a small church. A seemingly impossible murder brings in Detective Benoit Blanc to solve the case. Every parishioner is a suspect.

Rating: 8/10

Released on Thanksgiving in 2019, Knives Out felt like a breath of fresh air. This was just before Covid kept us all home and right in the middle of Trump’s first term in office. It was a cozy little blanket that kept us warm from all the trouble brewing in the air. It was a lovely little Agatha Christie-esque mystery with an incredible cast and a terrifically twisty plot. I loved it. I still love it, as I watched it last week and found it to be just as delightful as ever.

Its sequel, Glass Onion, wasn’t quite as good. It felt a little too modern and a little less cozy, but it featured another great cast, and Daniel Craig had slipped perfectly back into his brilliant detective’s slippers.

I’ve been excitedly waiting for the third film ever since. Sadly, because Wake Up Dead Man is a Netflix film, it only got a limited theatrical release. The only theater anywhere near me that was showing it was an old, broken-down theater half an hour away. I really wanted to see this on a great big screen with an audience, but that didn’t happen.

Still, it was worth the wait. We get another great cast and a mostly great, twisty mystery. Josh O’Connor is terrific as a young priest with a dark past but a passion for compassion who comes up against a firebrand more interested in calling out the sinners than loving his flock. There are some interesting reflections on faith and the importance of finding your own calling.

At 142 minutes, it runs a little long, and not everything worked for me. The original is still my favorite, but I hope they keep making these movies for years and years to come.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

image host

This film has been popping up in my feeds and the like for a while now. A brief preview of some of my friends’ Letterboxd reviews noted it to be pretty dumb but enjoyable; also, there is a sequel in theaters now, and I’m trying to watch as many movies from 2025 as i can this month, so I pressed “play.”

I should have taken a nap. Or rewatched one of the Halloween movies for the umpteenth time. Or smashed my thumb with a hammer. Any of those would have been more enjoyable than this movie.

Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and her boyfriend Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are in the midst of a cross-country drive that will end in Portland, where Maya has a job interview. Because nothing makes you more refreshed and ready for an all-important interview like being stuck in a car for days on end.

Ryan says he’s hungry, and Maya looks at the map on her phone, spies a little diner, and tells him to exit now. I submit it is possible that there are people in this world who, while in the midst of a multi-day drive across the country, simply whip out their phones when they are hungry and choose the very first restaurant they see without looking at a menu or reading reviews on Yelp, but that was my first red flag that this movie was playing it fast and loose with plot details.

The cafe is in a tiny little town in Oregon. It is far enough off the highway that they lose their cell phone signal, but big enough, apparently, to have a good signal inside of town. Except, they actually note how big the town is, and it only has, like, 350 people. Like an old-fashioned movie, everybody in the surprisingly full cafe stops what they are doing and stares at the newcomers.

They are all shocked – shocked I tell you – that she wants a vegetarian plate. They are even more shocked when they realize our heroes are celebrating their five year anniversary – but not of marriage, just dating. Apparently the citizens of this small town are very conservative. Not that any of this seems to matter to the actual plot, it’s just a chance for the film to add a little atmosphere.

Lunch over, they head to their car and find that it doesn’t start. A creepy mechanic appears out of nowhere (the film will do this a lot – hide somebody skulking around from the audience’s point of view and pretend the characters somehow wouldn’t notice a person walking right up to them and staring.) He says they’ll have to order some parts, and our heroes will have to spend the night. Luckily, there is a really nice cabin in the woods that gets “rented on the internet.”

At the cabin they sit outide and they enjoy the quiet of the woods. Then they start a little sexy time. Ryan lifts her up and takes her to…not the bedroom, but the kitchen. Because where else do you go for a little sexy time in a stranger’s house but their kitchen counters?

The doorbell interrupts their fun, and some creepy girl stands outside awkwardly. Everyone stares at each other for some ridiculously long beats, and then she asks if someone or the other is home. Ryan gives her a harsh “no” while Maya indicates she must have the wrong house. Then they stare at each other in silence for a while. It s so awkward and weird this scene. Any normal person would assume that maybe the guy who owns the place has a daughter who plays with this young girl. Any normal person would explain that they are renting the place for the night.

Girl leaves, and our heroes get their sexy time (on the couch, not the bed, because there will be a “spooky” reveal in the bedroom later). And then, oops, our heroes realize they accidentally left his asthma inhaler in the car. Because what normal people would definitely do when they are leaving their car for the night in an old auto shop miles away from where they will be spending the night with no modes of transportation is not make sure they have a life saving medical device. And it wasn’t knocked under the seat. It was sitting right there in the console.

So Ryan gets on a motorcycle that is for some reason left on the property with the keys and rides back to town. He gets the inhaler and then some food (ordering her a cheeseburger without the met – so just bread and cheese, I guess). While he’s gone, she drinks three small bottles of hard liquor and a bottle of beer.

She also calls the owner of the place because the refrigerator is out and essentially demands that he send someone that night to fix it. Despite the fact that the only thing they have to keep cool is a six pack of beer, they will be leaving in the morning. The fridge will not come into play for the rest of the movie. Not even when the evildoers start showing up and knocking on the door. It would have been an easy jump scare for our heroes to think the person at the door was a refrigerator repairman only to find out it was someone with nefarious intent. But whatever.

The creepy girl knocks on the door again while Ryan is out. Maya doesn’t open the door but is pretty freaked out by it. So what does she do in this frightened state inside a strange cabin in the woods while her boyfriend is away? She smokes a blunt, then takes a shower. That’s what everybody would do, right?

The thing is, while Maya has been alone in the cabin, we have seen the creeps staring at her from inside and outside the house. Maya plays some music on a piano, and one of them sits on a chair behind her. When she takes a shower, someone comes inside the bathroom and watches. They would surely make some noise moving around like that. Unless she’s completely oblivious, she would surely see them.

Whatever, horror movie tropes and all that. Eventually, Ryan comes home, and the creeps attack for good. More stupid decisions are made, including never calling the cops and not just high-tailing it out of there. At one point Ryan has a shotgun and the killers only have blades, but he still tells Maya to go run through the woods while he stays there. And doesn’t shoot them.

I’ve rattled on for too long. I just couldn’t believe how dumb this film was. I expect characters to make stupid decisions in horror films because otherwise the film would be over in ten minutes, but the characters in this film never make even one sensible decision.

It ends with a “To Be Continued” and while I hated this film, I kind of want to see the sequel (there will be a third one, too). Also, apparently, this is an attempt to reboot a Strangers franchise. The original The Strangers was made in 2005 and a sequel came out in 2018. I might have to watch them all as punishment for my sins.