Spooky Quickies

Media reviews for Halloween binges

Midnight Mass, Woman of the Hour, Mindhunter, Fallout and Civil War.

Midnight Mass (2022, Netflix)

Midnight Mass is a meditation on the difference between religion and faith, a moody, slow burn which descends into bloody pandemonium. It’s claustrophobic, and the jump scares are very precise, so it’s not a show you watch scrolling on your phone. Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House) called this his oldest and most personal work. Three years after it premiered, I still think about it at odd times, the deep messages about death, grief, and guilt. The tiny, dying island it’s set in is a microcosm of America, poisoned by cult-thinking and xenophobia. It asks: what makes us “good people?” Plus, it’s got vampires and a killer soundtrack of Neil Diamond songs.

Woman of the Hour (2024, Netflix)

Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut about the “Game Show Killer” has unsettling moments, but the uneven tone and theater-kid acting border on camp. It’s most effective and “David Fincher-lite” when it conveys the threatening bullshit women have to deal with from men. The game show scenes felt like they belonged in another movie, and the over-stylized production was distracting (are there ANY good wigs in Hollywood?). That detail for history should have served the story; Rodney Alcala’s murders were far more gruesome and infuriating. His victims included an 8-year-old girl and teenage boys, and his legal cases were a shit show. Odd choice to portray him in a softer light with a sexy actor. But the film shows promise for Kendrick (especially during the hitchhiker scenes). It would be a bold career move for her to go against type and dive into the horror genre full-steam. For a movie in a similar vein, 2022’s Watcher was much more chilling.

Mindhunter Season 1 (2017, Netflix)

The best thing Netflix ever did was give David Fincher piles of cash for his show on the birth of criminal behavioral science. It’s pitch-perfect with phenomenal acting and scenes that will make your blood run cold. The creator of Seven and Zodiac has 10 hours to really stretch out and go for the jugular. Mindhunter covers a fascinating chapter in American history, when serial killers exploded into the American imagination in the '70s. The killer’s casting alone is worth the price of admission. It’s mostly based on the true story of the team who coined the phrase “serial killers,” and who helped guide criminal science away from a good/evil binary. One day we'll have similar media looking into modern mass shooters.

For a documentary about Ann Burgess, who was also on this team (and became a witness for the Menendez brothers) 2024’s Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer on Hulu is a great companion piece.

Fallout (Amazon, 2024)

Speculative fiction and alternative realities have the ability to show us our place in history without the confines of actual history. In Fallout's timeline, computer chips were never invented, but a nuclear holocaust wiped out most of the earth. The show's vibes and lore are so unique and close to the game. Along with The Last of Us, we may be in a golden age of video game adaptations, which have been notoriously bad in the past. This is probably due to how symbiotic the genres have become; video games are now like shows, and shows are now like video games. Every release of new game engines gets us closer to photorealism. In a few years, both media will be indistinguishable. The themes of corporate sociopathy, body horror, family lies, and what “safe” means couldn't be more timely. In an era where we can live-stream a holocaust, Fallout's mix of humor and softness in the face of indescribable horror may be the kind of media to help some of us grapple with the news.

Civil War, (2023)

Civil War was marketed as a feature-length January 6th. Instead, it's a thought experiment on neutrality and how we document war. It follows a press team through a U.S. broken by an authoritarian regime and a three-term president. It doesn't define the conflict so that we won't take sides and have to live in the tension of its set pieces. Ironically, this neutrality can make it, well, a little dull. Without knowing the stakes, we're only left to root for a war photographer and her protégé. And that's where a naïveté dates and defangs the film. We're witnessing war crimes daily on our phones now, in conflicts which have been deadly for journalists. The idea that a press team would be so protected seems implausible and naïve. This may have worked better as a series, like The Last of Us, or if it had gone darker, like Children of Men (obvious inspirations). Still, it’s an effective reminder that Americans see wars a world away. That is, until November, when the scary shows will really begin.

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