Movies, Films & Flix

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Mark and Zanandi discuss the 1998 horror sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Directed by Steve Miner and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams, LL Cool J, and a plethora of masks, the movie focuses on what happens when a mythical serial killer steals a car and drives from Illinois to California. In this episode, they also talk about horror sequels, road trips, and axe fights. Enjoy!

If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!

Quick Thoughts:

• Between Dolly, Final Destination, Bloodline, and The Wrath of Becky, I like horror Seann William Scott.
• Excellent usage of a shovel.
• The special effects makeup team should be applauded
• Director Rod Blackhurst has given the world a straightforward slasher that tells a fun story in 83 minutes. 
• Never leave the trail
• Dolly is a top-notch feature that intelligently distributed its low budget to the dedicated crew. Look through the film’s “Cast and Crew” page; it’s stacked with talented people who have worked on cool films. 

At a brisk 83 minutes, Dolly is a fast-paced slasher/survival horror film that delivers gory goods. Based on Blackhurst’s 2022 proof of concept/short film Babygirl, the economical movie leans into grindhouse aesthetics (grainy 16mm film, practical effects, lots of gore) and is refreshingly straightforward. If Dolly has a theme, it’s that hikers should never leave a walking trail, because exploring unmapped (and slightly mystical) areas can lead to ripped jaws, shovel shots, shattered legs (thanks to a shovel), and bloody ears. 

The lean-and-mean fable revolves around what happens when a couple’s morning hike in the Tennessee wilderness is interrupted by a shovel-loving maniac (Max the Impaler – AKA Max Lindsey). Macy (Fabianne Therese) and Chase (Seann William Scott), are a soon-to-be engaged couple, who after coming across Dolly (Max the Impaler), are separated during a skirmish featuring copious ultra-violence. Macy is whisked away to a solitary (and slightly magical) home in the woods, where she’s imprisoned and forced to be a “doll” for Dolly. While in the house, she comes across a fellow prisoner named Toby (Ethan Suplee – his character is named after Tobe Hooper), who talks to Macy through a locked door in the home. From there, the cat-and-mouse shenanigans kick into gear as Macy attempts to get out of the house with her jaw attached (the jaw stuff will stay with you). 

In an interview with Eye for Film, Blackhurst said he made the film because it was simple and manageable to make. Simple isn’t always easy, so it’s a testament to Blackhurst and his team for taking a simple idea and not stretching it too thin. The smart thing about keeping things simple is that Blackhurst, cinematographer Justin Derry, production designer Kyra Boselli, and the makeup department (Gabriella Bordo, Alex Solorzano and Ashley K. Thomas) could focus on their respective tasks with efficiency and clear goals. The end result is a wonderful blend of New French Extremity films and 1970s American horror, and you’d never guess that the interior of the hell house was built in an old perfume factory in Tennessee. 

The main draw of Dolly, aside from the excellent cast made up of Scott, Therese, and Suplee, is Dolly, the hulking doll mask-wearing antagonist, who is lethal with a shovel. Blackhurst and producer Ross O’Connor discovered Max the Impaler when they came across a flyer promoting a National Wrestling Association event in Tennessee. Blackhurst and O’Conner were impressed by their look and size, so they doggedly worked to get in touch with the elusive wrestler. When they finally met, Max told them they had always wanted to be a horror movie villain, so Blackhurst found his lead in the psychically imposing wrestler (here’s an NWA match showcasing their skills). Max’s history as a professional wrestler aided greatly when performing the physically demanding (and wordless) role. Hidden behind a mask created by Dan Martin (Possessor, Stopmotion, Infinity Pool, Dashcam, Censor, Color Out of Space, In Fabric, Free Fire, 47 Meters Down – the guy is legit), Max does a fine job of creating a tortured, damaged and brutal antagonist (whose story will be told in an upcoming prequel). 

With Dolly, Blackhurst succeeded in crafting an effective film with very little money and time. It isn’t original, brutal, or edgelord (think Terrifier) enough to become a new classic, but it will be respected by the horror community because of how it excels on every technical level. If you’re looking for a brisk and brutal horror movie, you will appreciate Dolly.

Quick Thoughts:

• Between His House, Slow Horses, Gangs of London, Mr. Malcolm’s List and My Father’s Shadow, Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù has been on a great run. 
• Director/co-writer Akinola Davies Jr. has crafted a confident film full of excellent performances and memorable visuals. 
• The cinematography by Jermaine Canute Bradley Edwards is thoughtful and well-composed. 
• It took 10 years for Akinola Davies Jr. and Wale Davis to get the film made, and I think it helped them because it gave them years to prepare, organize and plan. 
• I love the WWE jokes (Kamala gets it bad). 

Shot on location in Lagos, Nigeria, over eight weeks, My Father’s Shadow is loaded with intimate details that make its world feel alive and lived in. The cinematography, sound design, editing, and performances are top-notch, and I can’t wait to see what director Akinola Davis Jr. does next because he knocked his feature-length debut out of the park. 

My Father’s Shadow revolves around a man named Folarin (Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù), and his two children, Akin (Godwin Egbo) and Remi (Chibuike Marvellous Egbo), having an eventful day in Lagos, Nigeria. Opening outside a beautifully detailed home in the Nigerian countryside, Akin and Remi pass their time alone (their mom is at work) playing with hand-drawn WWE wrestlers and bickering about food. Their father is rarely around as he works in Lagos (higher wages), and when the brothers talk about how they wish he was around more, he appears in the house, and agrees to take them to Lagos for a day trip so he can collect the six months of back pay owed to him from the shady supervisor at his factory job. 

While in Lagos, the family visits the National Theater, stops by an empty amusement park, and swims in the Gulf of Guinea. They also talk about life/loss on a beach that’s home to a beached tanker boat (wonderful shot) and a dead whale that gets hacked to pieces by an opportunistic crowd. All the while, vultures circle above them, Folarin has constant nosebleeds, and the escalating political tensions surrounding a contentious presidential election threatens to cause chaos in Lagos. 

In an interview with The Guardian, Dìrísù describes the film as being “a fantastical, pseudo-biographical piece of work about grief and loss and family, fatherhood, masculinity, connection and absence.” The explanation may sound like a lot, but it’s perfect in that it’s a film about a father reconnecting with his children during a politically turbulent day in 1993. The pseudo-biographical element comes from the fact that brothers Akinola Davies Jr. and Wale Davis made the film so they could explore their relationship with their father, who died when they were children. They grew up hearing stories about their “Larger-than-life” dad, and they eventually felt that they’d learned enough about him to create a three-dimensional character that would do him justice. The fantastical elements exist around the ever-present vultures who circle Folarin throughout the day, and their interactions with the Nigerian military, who have an ominous vibe punctuated by long stares and slow-motion. Also, in an interview, Davies Jr. talked about how dreams play an important part in Nigerian culture, so they made sure to bookend the movie with the idea with dream-like visuals. Perhaps the most powerful moment in the film is when Folarin talks about how he dreamt that his deceased brother’s spirit was worried about being forgotten, so he named one of his children after him to ensure his memory would survive. It’s an excellent monologue that’s shot confidently by Jermaine Canute Bradley Edwards. 

The cinematography by Jermaine Canute Bradley Edwards is worth noting because the shot composition and framing are wonderful. Whether it’s rotting door frames, a colorful Ferris wheel, or a rusted tanker sitting on a Nigerian beach, Edwards found ways to find intimate visuals that made the world feel simultaneously real and mystical. Shot on KODAK 16mm (for cost reasons), the smaller infrastructure allowed the crew to move freely around their locations, which proved to be invaluable for the young cast members who were aided by the freedom the mobile camera allowed. 

Final thoughts – Watch it. You will see it in your dreams.

Quick Thoughts:

1. I’m a fan of chaos, so I love that Emerald Fennell was given $80 million to direct a wildly unfaithful adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
2. I wanted moor (I had to do it).
3. The jellied fish is a fun visual gag, and cinema needs more flesh walls.
4. The world needs to learn more about Edgar Linton’s interior design choices.The guy seems pretty chill, but he has some bold taste.
5. Cathy’s victory roll hairstyle is inspired and adds devilish dimensions to her character.

When it comes to adapting literary classics, there are several choices filmmakers can make. They can stay loyal(ish) to the text (No Country for Old Men, The Green Mile), make a few adjustments (del Toro’s Frankenstein) or disregard everything and make a movie because they like an actor and want to give them a starring vehicle (Besson’s Dracula). Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel is unique in that Fennell is “making a version” of the text that’s trying to recreate the feelings she had while reading it as a teenager. It was a unique experience watching how she chopped up Emily Brontë’s text to create her 136-minute romance epic. Fennell removed the second half of the book (like most adaptations do), ditched a copious amount of characters, and laser-focused on the tortured relationship between Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliffe (Jacob Elordi) that will get a physical (and emotional) response from audiences. While researching the project, Fennell watched her favorite sweeping alt-romantic movies like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Crash (1996), Romeo + Juliet (1996), and The Handmaiden (2016), to help her create a visually distinctive romance that challenges the conventions of traditional love stories. The problem is that The Handmaiden and Crash go for it, whereas “Wuthering Heights” seems content to bombard the senses of theatergoers while avoiding the novel’s much-discussed themes of class, racism, generational trauma, and class conflict. To be fair, going hard on the romantic entanglements of characters played by Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie was a smart business decision (the movie will make decent money), and is probably what helped Fennell get an $80 million budget from Warner Bros. 

Fennell’s version of “Wuthering Heights” kicks off with a public execution that features a criminal (with an erect penis – because it’s a Fennell movie) being hanged for the enjoyment of a horny crowd. From there, we’re taken to a large estate (Wuthering Heights) in the moors of Yorkshire that looks more like a hellscape from a fantasy film than a location in England. The craggly and constantly wet Wuthering Heights is home to a young girl named Cathy (Charlotte Mellington), her housekeeper friend Nelly Dean (Vy Nguyen), and her drunkard father Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), who drunkenly comes home from the execution with a feral kid (Owen Cooper), whom he picked up during his drunken journey home (the guy drinks mountains of gin). After some debate, the kid is given the name Heathcliff (named after Cathy’s deceased brother), and he and Cathy become fast friends as they deal with the abusive Mr. Earnshaw, who stays busy by accruing gambling debt and beating Heathcliff. 

Years pass, and the relationship between the now uber-beautiful Cathy (Robbie) and Heathcliff (Elordi) has blossomed into a full-blown unconsummated romance. A wrench gets tossed into their burgeoning love affair when a wealthy man named Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) and his ward, Isabella (Allison Oliver – a lot of fun) move into a nearby property named Thrushcross Grange. While trying to get a glimpse of her new neighbors, Cathy hurts her ankle and is forced to reside at the sprawling estate for six weeks. While she’s there, the wealthy Mr. Linton takes a liking to her and proposes marriage. The proposal is convenient because their union would alleviate Mr. Earnshaw’s money problems, but it’s also problematic because Cathy and Heathcliff are in love. After a miscommunication perpetrated by Nelly (who is the villain in this film), Cathy accepts the proposal, and a sulky Heathcliff disappears into the English countryside. From there, the film becomes a messy romance between two messy people who do some terrible things to each other (and others).

The cinematography by Linus Sandgren (First Man, Saltburn, Babylon) is top-notch (the movie was shot on 35mm VistaVision cameras), but features too many “Hey, you know what would look cool?” shots. Whether it’s Cathy sleeping on a boulder or leeches on a wall, a few of the setups don’t feel organic and solely exist to look awesome. The most impressive aspect of the film is the production design by Suzie Davies (Saltburn, Conclave, Hard Truths, Mr. Turner), who helped make Wuthering Heights feel otherworldly and mystical. The best bit of production design is Cathy’s room at the Linton estate. The walls are the color of Cathy’s skin, and there are freckles and veins painted onto the wall to mirror her face. It’s simultaneously creepy and romantic, which is when “Wuthering Heights” is at its best. The look of Thrushcross Grove is interesting as well, because Mr Linton seems to be a level-headed fellow, but he’s decorated the place to look like a combination of the Overlook Hotel (The Shining), the house from Cries and Whispers, and something from a Wes Anderson movie. 

Fennell was looking to recapture how the book made her feel when she was in her teens, so we’re watching a lavish production meant to recreate the feelings of a teenager. It’s clear that she really wanted to see Heathcliff and Cathy having sex, so she dedicated a large portion of the budget to ensuring the two good-looking actors had many steamy scenes. The problem is that even with all the bodice-ripping, the movie never feels cohesive because it gets lost in sultry visuals. It would’ve been nice to see Fennell tackle the complexity of the novel instead of solely focusing on the Romeo and Juliet-esque (which is recapped in the film by Isabella) relationship. However, I have a feeling that “Wuthering Heights” is going to make a lot of money because it blasts the senses and gives mainstream audiences (who haven’t read the book) an epically bad romance.

You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).

If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.

Mark and Aaron Neuwirth (@AaronsPS4 on X) talk about their favorite 2025 action scenes from Gladiator Underground, Diablo, Prisoner of War, Baby Assassins 3, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Reflection in a Dead Diamond, Holy Night: Demon Hunters, Sisu: Road to Revenge, Nobody 2, Influencers, The Naked Gun, Splitsville, Ballerina, The Prosecutor, The Phoenician Scheme and about 35 other cool movies. Enjoy!

Make sure to listen to the Out Now With Aaron and Abe Podcast (@OutNow_Podcast on X) and 2 Black Guys Talk Godzilla (@BlkGodzillaTalk on X).

If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!