The Black Phone (2022)

Director Scott Derrickson bring to screen what is really one of the more riveting thrillers of 2022. While “The Black Phone” almost always runs the risk of getting lost in its obvious influences of Stephen King and Amblin, “The Black Phone” ends up being a truly engaging and often scary hostage thriller. This one thinks somewhat outside the box bringing us not only in to the hot seat of the character that’s been kidnapped, but it also gives us a look at the echoes that emanate with every victim that villain “The Grabber” has ever victimized and murdered.

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Hellraiser (1987) [LA&M Film Fetish Forum]

“What is your pleasure, sir?”

Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” is a purely body horror tale about hedonism in its purest and most raw essence. Even today it’s a very erotic, but gruesome tale about the pursuit of pleasures of the flesh and how it links to a breed of entities that may or may not be pure evil. “Demons to some, Angels to others” Pinhead (technically named “Hellpriest”) proclaims is a representation of the how the cenobites reach deep down in to the pits of sexuality and kink. And no human can ever really be prepared to see what the practices of this otherworld army has in store for them.

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For Better or for Worse: The Good for Nothing (1993)

It’s weird how “For Better or Worse” never actually took off as an animated series. Comic strips like “Charlie Brown,” “Garfield” and even “The Boondocks” hit big as series, with the former two offering up their own iconic Halloween special. “The Good For Nothing” is a Halloween special mostly in spirit as the central conflict is set primarily on Halloween. That doesn’t make “The Good for Nothing” bad. It just never quite rises to the occasion to be as good as “The Great Pumpkin.”

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The CW’s “The Spencer Sisters” is a Promising Mystery

I’ve been looking forward to “The Spencer Sisters” for a long time. I’m a fan of Stacey Farber, and she’s been one of my celebrity crushes since “Degrassi.” Coming off of her fun stint on “Superman and Lois,” her new crime caper series is a breath of fresh air. In a TV space where a lot of series’ are so dark and grim, it’s fun to see a crime series a lot more lighter and less focused on death. A mix of “The Gilmore Girls” and “Nancy Drew,” “The Spencer Sisters” is an entertaining mystery drama series that teams an actual retired police officer with a mystery novelist. Both happen to be estranged mother and daughter.

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The Beanie Bubble (2023)

There’s something interesting about the influx of films about capitalism and massive corporations being tailored as approachable biopics. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this growing sub-genre of corporate/consumerism biopics feels slimy and calculated. These aren’t movies so much as they are commercials and often cheerleaders for the idea of humanizing faceless corporations and “average” CEO’s whose life literally depends on a business decision. Despite some interesting aspects to it, “The Beanie Bubble” is yet another dose of corporate capitalism being lionized in a big budget, star studded movie. “The Beanie Bubble” is vaguely about the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990’s, but it’s a mostly fluffed up, mostly fictional account of Ty Warner and how he went from billionaire to has been seemingly overnight.

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