Creepshow (1982)

IMDb plot summary: Five grisly tales from a kid's comic book about a murdered father rising from his grave, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.

Directed by George A. Romero. Stars Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen, and Adrienne Barbeau.

Creepshow is an anthology of five Stephen King horror stories, woven together through a loose frame of a young boy reading the Creepshow magazine. As with all anthologies, the quality varies from short to short, but overall I had a good time with this one. I appreciate the thread of goofiness that flows through every piece of it -- I had several laugh-out-loud moments, particularly in the first story. The one starring Stephen King himself is easily the weakest, particularly because King is truly awful in it, even if the final scenes are great fun. But other than that, they're all pretty solid and I enjoy the creativity of each story as it played out. An enjoyable watch, with only one really worth skipping.

🎥 Creepshow (1982)

📊 Ranked #1382/4316 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 67

beat National Theatre Live: The Seagull (#2197 → #2186)

lost to Pom Poko (#1089 → #975)

beat The Tragedy of Macbeth (#1651 → #1645)

lost to She's Gotta Have It (#1369 → #1364)

beat The Green Mile (#1512 → #1624)

beat Ping Pong Playa (#1438 → #1543)

beat Manchester by the Sea (#1403 → #1551)

lost to The Shoes of the Fisherman (#1385 → #1370)

beat Undercover Blues (#1395 → #1387)

beat World War Z (#1390 → #1383)

lost to The Killing of a Sacred Deer (#1388 → #1381)

beat SubUrbia (#1389 → #1404)

The Day of the Beast (1995)

IMDb plot summary: Bent on committing as many sins as possible to avert the birth of the beast, a Catholic priest teams up with a Black Metal aficionado and an Italian connoisseur of the occult. Now, he must become an unrelenting sinner. Is there still hope?

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia. Stars Álex Angulo, Armando De Razza, and Santiago Segura.

The Day of the Beast is a horror film about a priest who believes he can find the secret of the Antichrist's birth in metal music, and he teams up with a metalhead to commit as many sins as possible to prevent the end of the world. On paper, this sounds like an amazing concept, but it's flatter in execution. I wanted the film to land more solidly in either camp or horror, and instead it treads the line in a way that ends up just being kind of boring. It takes itself surprisingly seriously for being such a ridiculous premise, and not even in a so-bad-it's-good way. It's possible that there are pieces of this I'm missing culturally that would make it land better for me. But as it was it was a mediocre movie that I wanted to be more interesting.

🎥 The Day of the Beast (1995)

📊 Ranked #2660/4315 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 42

lost to Zelig (#2196 → #2198)

beat The Fugitive (#3268 → #3266)

beat Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (#2731 → #2727)

lost to Finding Vivian Maier (#2462 → #2399)

lost to A Foreign Affair (#2592 → #2596)

beat 10 (#2659 → #2945)

lost to The Harder They Fall (#2626 → #2370)

beat Death on the Nile (#2642 → #2662)

lost to The Keep (#2634 → #2373)

beat Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (#2638 → #2921)

lost to The Devil Wears Prada (#2636 → #2630)

lost to A Cure for Wellness (#2637 → #2238)

The Second Mother (2015)

IMDb plot summary: When the estranged daughter of a hard-working live-in housekeeper suddenly appears, the unspoken class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray.

Directed by Anna Muylaert. Stars Regina Casé, Helena Albergaria, and Michel Joelsas.

The Second Mother is a Brazilian film about a woman who moved to another city to work as a live-in maid and housekeeper, leaving her young daughter behind to be raised by her father. Years later, her daughter is ready to go to college in the big city, and she visits her mother and gets to see what her life has looked like for the last decade. The drama in this film is largely due to the young woman being unable to process the subservient role her mother is happy to live in to provide for her, and the mother's frustration that her daughter isn't willing to play the same role as needed while staying with her. I enjoyed the fact that the film was clearly exploring an uncomfortable class divide but still keeping the dramatic tension very small and personal. The acting is understated but extremely watchable and draws you in. That being said, it was one that didn't emotionally stay with me once the credits rolled. I thought to myself, "That was good," and then almost immediately forgot about it. I could see myself returning to it, as I think it was well-done, but I wish more of it stuck with me.

🎥 The Second Mother (2015)

📊 Ranked #1924/4314 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 56

beat Deceiver (#2196 → #2195)

lost to The Band Wagon (#1088 → #1087)

lost to Strictly Ballroom (#1649 → #1648)

lost to Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (#1925 → #1923)

beat Holiday Inn (#2059 → #2060)

beat Divergent (#1992 → #1999)

beat The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (#1958 → #2239)

beat Isle of Dogs (held at #1941)

beat Backbeat (#1933 → #1930)

beat Connie and Carla (#1929 → #1932)

beat Peeping Tom (#1927 → #1931)

lost to Rabbit Hole (#1926 → #1900)

Memories (1995)

 

IMDb plot summary: A freighter crew responds to a distress call from a station run by an AI opera diva. The AI manipulates life support, VR and nanosystems, posing dangers the crew must overcome to survive.

Directed by Kōji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura, and Katsuhiro Ōtomo. Stars Tsutomu Isobe, Shozo Iizuka, and Koichi Yamadera.

Memories is a Japanese anthology film with three short films, all based on manga stories by Katsuhiro Otomo. As with most anthology films, some of these are more interesting than others. The three stories are very, very different in terms of style as well. The first is sort of romantic drama, the second one -- my personal favorite -- is sci-fi horror comedy, and the third one is dark and a bit more unusual in form, as it tells a mostly-silent story of a world that is perpetually at war. That one was the hardest for me to latch on to because of the lack of dialogue, but overall these all felt like they were worth the watch. I got around to liking all of them in the end and I really liked the variety of the different films. This is one that I knew very, very little about, but I really enjoyed it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Memories (1995)

📊 Ranked #1109/4313 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Zelig (#2196 → #2197)

lost to Shakespeare in Love (#1087 → #657)

beat Quartet (held at #1648)

beat Koyaanisqatsi (#1367 → #1404)

beat Henry V (#1227 → #1225)

beat Fanny and Alexander (#1156 → #1193)

beat Minority Report (#1121 → #1120)

lost to Session 9 (#1104 → #1102)

beat Match Point (#1113 → #1111)

lost to Single White Female (#1109 → #1108)

beat Dangerous Liaisons (#1111 → #1148)

beat The Last Metro (#1110 → #1155)

Sound of Falling (2025)

IMDb plot summary: A remote German farm harbors generations of secrets. Four women, separated by decades but united by trauma, uncover the truth behind its weathered walls.

Directed by Mascha Schilinski. Stars Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, and Susanne Wuest.

Sound of Falling is a German film following four generations of women all living in the same house from the 1800s all up to modern day. The film cuts non-linearly between the four of them, hopping from story to story and timeline to timeline. I found it a little jarring until I finally settled into it. As a result, I liked the film more in concept than an execution. Many of these scenes were so slice-of-life and so slow that it was difficult to really connect to the characters or to the conflict of the moment, although there were definitely a few that stood out. I think I may need to re-watch it again now that I have a stronger understanding of the film's concept, as well as hopefully having an easier time identifying the different characters the second time around. Even though the stories were set several decades apart, I still found it difficult to tell when I was in which timeline. However, it is a really creative film, and I totally understand why people are loving it, even if its structure kept it from totally landing for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sound of Falling (2025)

📊 Ranked #2186/4312 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

lost to The Girl on a Motorcycle (#2196 → #2184)

beat Bright Lights (#3266 → #3488)

beat Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (#2730 → #2731)

beat Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (#2462 → #2463)

beat The Accidental Tourist (#2328 → #2329)

beat The Seventh Seal (#2261 → #2262)

beat Ender's Game (#2228 → #2229)

beat The Dawn Patrol (#2212 → #2213)

beat Serpico (#2204 → #2205)

beat The Lair of the White Worm (#2200 → #2202)

beat Away We Go (#2198 → #2199)

beat The Score (#2197 → #2198)

Hello Again (1987)

IMDb plot summary: A suburban housewife chokes to death and is brought back to life by a spell cast by her wacky sister.

Directed by Frank Perry. Stars Shelley Long, Judith Ivey, and Gabriel Byrne.

Hello Again is a 1987 comedy about a woman who unexpectedly dies, and then a year later her witch sister manages to find the spell that will raise her from the dead. She then has to figure out whether she wants to return to her original life or start something new, now that everybody has kind of moved on. Shelley Long absolutely carries this whole movie. She is clumsy and awkward, but refreshingly real in her portrayal, rather than being that movie version of it that nobody who is actually clumsy and awkward ever relates to. I totally connected with this woman and her discomfort and her sense of eternal shame in not being able to be the smooth one at the parties her husband brings her to. As a result, watching her try to redo her life is really engaging. The ending is pretty cheesy, but it's still an enjoyable ride for most of the way, largely because she's such a fun person to observe on screen.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Hello Again (1987)

📊 Ranked #1339/4326 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 69

beat The Forbidden Kingdom (#2200 → #2201)

lost to The Fugitive Kind (#1091 → #703)

beat Space Sweepers (#1650 → #1702)

beat City of God (#1370 → #1535)

lost to A Bug's Life (#1231 → #1232)

lost to His Girl Friday (#1301 → #1298)

lost to Sling Blade (#1335 → #1334)

beat A Serious Man (#1352 → #1400)

beat Unbreakable (#1343 → #1342)

lost to Serial Mom (#1339 → #1335)

beat Wonder Boys (#1341 → #1340)

beat The Post (#1340 → #1371)

Terminal (2018)

IMDb plot summary: A film noir taking place in a train terminal at night. Add two male assassins, a female assassin, a waitress, a teacher, a janitor, and a crime boss. Add revenge. Who says mystery is a lost art?

Directed by Vaughn Stein. Stars Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, and Dexter Fletcher.

Terminal is sort of a two-pronged story. One piece featuring Margot Robbie as an assassin, where we watch her going around and accomplishing her work and one featuring Simon Pegg as a man who is dying of terminal cancer and runs into Robbie's character in a diner. The film juxaposes these talky scenes about death with a lot of more intense action sequences. There are fun moments to this, but overall it falls flat for me. It definitely feels like two different movies and when the first half ends, the second half doesn't feel connected to it. So it all feels a little disjointed. I didn't mind either half individually, but together they don't help each other out very much. Kind of a disappointing watch, even with a talented cast.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Terminal (2018)

📊 Ranked #2907/4325 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 37

lost to Rififi (#2201 → #1964)

beat The Witches of Eastwick (held at #3280)

lost to Internal Affairs (#2741 → #2613)

beat Firecreek (#3015 → #3017)

lost to The Subject Was Roses (#2885 → #2614)

beat Chinatown (#2950 → #3264)

beat Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (#2917 → #2934)

lost to Liz & Dick (#2901 → #2887)

beat Soylent Green (#2909 → #3239)

beat Mad Dog and Glory (#2905 → #2909)

beat Street of Chance (#2903 → #2908)

beat The Hollars (#2902 → #2912)