2025 Halloween Viewer's Guide

HALLOWEEN VIEWER’S GUIDE

So my favorite season - spooky season -  is upon us!! And that means people may need to know what to watch over the Halloween weekend.

I am not what you’d call a horror afficionado, but I do enjoy the genre and every October I gorge myself on all things scary…so I have some thoughts on the subject.

There are all kinds of horror films within the genre…for example there are slasher movies, and monster movies, and zombie movies and supernatural movies and on and on. I will try and touch upon different sub-genres to mix things up.

I tend to watch movies in bunches…so I’ll watch a series of zombie movies back-to-back-to-back…things like that…if that isn’t your thing you can just ignore those recommendations.

Alright gang, let’s buckle up and dive head first into the Halloween Viewer’s Guide!!

SLASHER MOVIES

Slasher films were a staple back when I was growing up. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre kicked off the era of my childhood and led into a series of stellar films in this genre.

Opinions may vary with some loving Freddy Kruger and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, others dig Jason in the Friday the 13th films…me? I’m definitely a Michael Myers guy…so sign me up for…

Halloween (1978) – John Carpenter is a really great moviemaker and his greatest may be Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance are the leads in this movie…but slasher icon Michael Myers is the star. A can’t miss Halloween movie!! Available on multiple weird streaming services I’ve never heard.

In a Violent Nature (2024) – For something more modern, check out In a Violent Nature…a weirdly meditative slasher movie that is essentially shot from the killer’s perspective. Some of the kills in it are astonishing – if you’re into that sort of thing. Available on HULU.

CLASSICS

So every October I watch a bunch of classic Universal Monster movies. I get how people think they aren’t scary now…and some of it can be dated…but goddamn I really love these movies and love the craft and skill that went into making them.

Dracula (1931) – Dracula kicked off the big run of Universal monster movies in 1931. Bela Lugosi is great and it is a moody masterpiece that runs just over an hour. Available on Prime.

Frankenstein (1931) – Frankenstein came out nine months after Dracula and it is a decidedly creepy monster movie. The finale…which is filled with harrowing wails from the monster…is truly unnerving. Boris Karloff is amazing in the lead role. It too runs just over an hour long. Available on Prime.

Nosferatu (1922) – A phenomenal non-Universal 1922 silent movie from German master F.W. Murnau. Max Schreck as the vampire is one of the more alarming screen presences in history. There are different versions of the film available…all of them run between an hour and an hour and a half. Available on Prime.

NEWER SCARES

Late Night with the Devil (2024) – A very clever horror film that uses a late night 70’s tv show as its vehicle to supernatural scares. A terrific lead performance by David Dastmalchian, and deft direction make this a terrific choice for scary viewing. Available on HULU.

TI WEST TRILOGY – X, Pearl, MaXXXine: Ti West’s fun homage to 70’s and 80’s horror starts strong with X, and keeps going with Pearl, but then stumbles with MaXXine, but it never fails to be entertaining. A twisted and sexy Mia Goth is the perfect scream queen companion for this Halloween. Available on HBO Max.

ZOMBIES!!

Here is a really great grouping of zombie movies to watch together.

Start with…

Night of the Living Dead (1968) – George Romero’s classic is an exquisite piece of horror movie making and it never fails to be very affecting. Available on MGM+

Then go to…

28 Days Later (2002) – In this Danny Boyle update to the genre, zombies have evolved and humans are devolving. A truly unique play on Romero’s masterpiece. Available on Netflix.

Finish with…

World War Z (2013) – This Brad Pitt movie is flawed but it is a natural extension of 28 Days Later…and it has some pretty creepy moments and well-executed action too. Available on Paramount+

GENUINELY HORRIFYING

These are the movies that genuinely frighten me…so much so that I actually try not to watch them…and when I do it is during the daytime!!

The Exorcist (1973) – Not just a great horror movie…but a great movie. This film literally keeps me up at night which is a testament to its mastery. I even hesitate to write about it because it scares me so much. Available on HBO Max.

The Shining (1980) – Kubrick’s moody and menacing take on the Stephen King novel is brilliant and bizarre. A twisted nightmare of a movie that unsettles from start to finish. Anchored by a gloriously gonzo performance from Jack Nicholson. For a Shining double feature - Doctor Sleep: Director’s Cut (2019) – Dr. Sleep is a distant sequel to The Shining…and while it isn’t anywhere near the movie The Shining is…it is actually really good. Rebecca Ferguson gives a fantastic performance in the film that features one of the most disturbing scenes in recent memory. Be sure to watch the Director’s Cut only…the theatrical version is weak sauce. Both Available on HBO Max

TECHNICALLY NOT HORROR BUT TRULY HORRIFYING

Zodiac (2007) – David Fincher’s masterpiece…and yes, it is a masterpiece…is an unnerving and moody meditation on the darkness deep under the surface of the American psyche. The scene at Lake Berryessa is one of the most both brutal and horrifying ever made.

If you really want to dive in watch Zodiac and then watch Fincher’s Netflix series about serial killers – Mindhunter. Great and very scary stuff… and what makes both Zodiac and Mindhunter so scary…is that it’s real. Available on MGM+

Jaws (1975) – I saw Jaws as a kid and am still scared to get into the water…and I’m not just talking about getting into the ocean. I’m scared to go into a lake, a pond, a pool, a kiddie pool and even a bathtub. Great and very scary movie. By the way…if you want to see where Spielberg got some of his shot ideas for Jaws…go watch the Universal Classic Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). And if you listen close enough you can even hear the iconic riff that John Williams uses to such great effect in Jaws – no lie. Available on Netflix

Alien (1979) – The tagline for Ridley Scott’s Alien was “In space no one can hear you scream”…unfortunately for my neighbors  I don’t live in space because I scream my ass off when I watch this movie. A truly original film that is expertly made by the master Ridley Scott and features a terrific lead performance from Sigourney Weaver. Available on to rent or buy.

ARI ASTER

One of the great modern masters of the horror genre is Ari Aster. Aster is a terrific filmmaker – as evidenced by he’s recent work of genius Eddington. But his first two films are fascinating examples of elevated horror.

Hereditary (2018) – A genuinely creepy movie that keeps pushing viewers to the limit. A great lead performance from Toni Collette makes this movie a must see. Available on HBO Max

Midsommar (2019) – This bizarre and maniacal meditation subtly sucks you in then unleashes a world of madness upon you. Florence Pugh is brilliant as the self-centered sad sack who goes to Sweden for a much-needed vacation and ends up a diabolical Norse goddess. Available on HBO Max

ROBERT EGGERS

The other great master of the elevated horror genre is Robert Eggers.

THE WITCH (2015) – A meticulous exploration of witchery in the early Massachusetts colonies is a gripping tale that features a mesmerizing performance from Anya Taylor-Joy. A must see. Available on HBO Max.

NOSFERATU (2024) – Eggers’ take on the horror classic features a spectacular performance from Lily Rose-Depp and some of Eggers’ usual cinematic mastery. A beautiful film to look at and a wondrous addition to the vampire genre. Available on Prime.

Alright gang, those are my recommendations for this Halloween weekend. I hope you all have a great holiday and that you keep the ghosts and goblins at bay and the candies close at hand!!

©2025

The Pentagon and China's Propaganda Wars (Expanded Edition)

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 14 seconds

The Pentagon and China are waging a propaganda war against their own people, and the greedy globalists of corporate Hollywood are happy to help

Hollywood won’t choose between the totalitarian Sauron of China and the authoritarian Darth Vader of the U.S. military, but instead will support both evils, and the people of the world and the art of cinema will suffer greatly because of it.

There is currently a propaganda war being waged by China and the U.S. military where both want to control Hollywood, and therefore the minds of their citizenry, for their own nefarious means.

Not surprisingly, like whores at a battlefield brothel, the morally ambiguous harlots of Hollywood are trying to profit by servicing both combatants.

PEN America, a group championing free expression, recently released an exhaustive report detailing how China has taken control over Hollywood.

The report states, “The Chinese government, under Xi Jinping especially, has heavily emphasized its desire to ensure that Hollywood filmmakers—to use their preferred phrase—“tell China’s story well.”

China strictly controls films released in their market, which is soon to become the largest box office in the world, and Hollywood wants in on that lucrative action, so they appease their Chinese overlords by obeying censorial demands, like whitewashing a Tibetan character from Marvel’s Dr. Strange, and strenuously self-censoring, like cancelling a planned sequel to World War Z.

The whitewashing of a Tibetan character from Dr. Strange is particularly interesting as that became the outrage of the moment back in 2016 when the movie was released. Many activists and journalists howled at the inherent racism of casting a white woman (Tilda Swinton) in a role that was an Asian man in the source material. Interestingly enough, Disney (who owns Marvel) stayed entirely silent throughout the controversy. The PEN America report shows that the reason for the whitewashing was that China wouldn’t allow a Tibetan portrayed on screen, so Disney dutifully complied in an attempt to get the film in the Chinese market. Disney also kept its mouth shut as to why it engaged in whitewashing in order to cover up its appeasement to Chinese demands.

Disney genuflecting to China should come as no surprise. In 1998, Disney’s then CEO, Michael Eisner, met with Premier Zhu Rongji to talk about Disney’s desired expansion into China and the 1997 Martin Scorsese biography of the Dalai Lama it produced, Kundun, which infuriated the Chinese government.

The loathsome Eisner said of Kundun, “The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it,” Eisner then groveled further, “Here I want to apologize, and in the future we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening.”

In the two decades since then, Chinese power has only grown and Hollywood has only become more and more weak kneed and reflexively compliant.

This Orwellian sentiment of controlled storytelling to fit a government-approved narrative is not limited to the communists of China though. The U.S. military has long had a very fruitful arrangement with Hollywood where they exchange free military equipment, expertise, personnel and locations in exchange for ultimate control over scripts.

Capt. Russell Coons, Director of Navy Office of Information West, sounded like Xi Jinping when he described Pentagon expectations while cooperating with a movie, “We’re not going to support a program that…presents us in a compromising way.”

PEN America notes this Pentagon propaganda program, “…the United States government has benefitted from, encouraged, and at times even directed Hollywood filmmaking as an exercise in soft power.”

But then disingenuously dismisses it, “But this governmental influence does not bring to bear a heavy-handed system of institutionalized censorship, as Beijing’s does.”

That is an absurd contention as the Pentagon picks movies based on a studio’s willingness to conform to its rigidly pro-military narrative standard, which is, in function if not form, just like China picking which Hollywood movies it allows to run in its country based on their adherence to a pro-China criteria.

Regardless, the reality is if Hollywood can financially benefit by acquiescing to the Pentagon and/or China’s demands, it certainly will.

In response to China’s Hollywood propaganda, Sen. Ted Cruz proposed the egregiously titled Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity and Protecting Talkies Act, or SCRIPT Act.

Cruz’s bill aims to kneecap Hollywood studios by withholding access to U.S. government support – the Pentagon propaganda program, if they alter their movies to appease Chinese censors.

Of course, SCRIPT will never go anywhere as the Motion Picture Association of America will aggressively lobby to get the whole thing scuttled to keep both Chinese and Pentagon money flowing to La La Land.

On the bright side, the SCRIPT Act has at least frightened the propagandists in the Pentagon and Hollywood enough that they are now openly touting their shadowy alliance.

For example, The Military Times recently ran a jaw dropping op-ed by Jim Lechner shamelessly espousing Hollywood’s Pentagon propaganda.

Lechner admits, “…limits on the cooperation with skilled storytellers at the American movie companies would significantly degrade the ability of the U.S. government to tell its own story…”

Lechner then boasts, “…over the decades, Hollywood has provided one of the most powerfully positive images of our military. No Pentagon-based press relations operation could come close to what Hollywood has achieved through its films.”

Over the last three decades, the Pentagon-Hollywood alliance has drastically altered American’s perception of the military and successfully neutered filmmakers as artists and truth-tellers.

For example, in the 70’s and 80’s Francis Ford-Coppola, Stanley Kubrick and Oliver Stone, made great anti-war films like Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, that explored the dark side of American militarism and empire.

That type of artistic and intellectually challenging anti-war movie went on the endangered species list in 1986 when the Pentagon collaborated on the making of the blockbuster Top Gun, and has since become extinct, which is why we haven’t had any great movies detailing the heinous fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Oliver Stone spoke about how he had wanted for decades to make a movie about the My Lai Massacre but was unable to get a studio on board for funding. Stone did not explicitly state this, but the implication was clear, the Pentagon’s propaganda program not only assists pro-military movies, but intimidates studios into avoiding films that are anti-war or highlight military misdeeds.

Ironically, Top Gun has become not only a symbol of the Pentagon’s propaganda prowess, but of China’s as well. In the poster for the sequel due out this year, Tom Cruise’s Maverick is still wearing his signature leather jacket, but in order to appease Chinese censors, gone from its back are the prominent Japanese and Taiwanese flags from the original.

The modern golden era of Hollywood films exploring the darker side of China peaked in 1997 with Kundun, Seven Years in Tibet and Red Corner. China’s swift and severe reaction to those films and the studios and production companies that made them, was extremely effective as it has resulted in studios strangling any truthful artistic exploration of Chinese themes and stories in order to avoid alienating the Chinese Communist Party and potentially missing out on the ever expanding Chinese box office.

As a cinephile and a truth-seeker, I want to see films made by true artists that chronicle the dramatically potent moral and ethical atrocities of both America and China. The plethora of post 9-11 American evils (surveillance, torture, Iraq, Afghanistan) and the brutal Chinese atrocities against the Uighers, Tibetans and members of the Falun Gong, are fertile cinematic ground. But sadly…thanks to Hollywood’s insidious, incessant and insatiable greed, none of those important stories will ever be told on the big screen.

The reality is that the propaganda war is already over and the authoritarian and totalitarian corporatists, globalists and militarists of Hollywood, Washington and Beijing, have handily won…and we the people, and the art of cinema, have lost. 

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Veiwer's Guide

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 03 seconds

BORED IN CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE? HERE ARE THE BEST EPIDEMIC MOVIES TO CRANK UP YOUR PANIC!

The best way to prepare for Covid-19 and endure quarantine is obviously to watch as many pandemic related movies as possible. Here is a list of the very best ones to catch.

Coronavirus now seems on the precipice of an outbreak here in the United States. Even before Los Angeles was hit with any cases, here in La La Land we made the decision to preemptively panic.

For example, hand sanitizer is liquid gold in Hollywood right now. Drug stores are stripped so bare that hand sanitizer currently costs more per gram than cocaine…or at least that’s what my cocaine dealer told me.

Since we all seemed destined for quarantine, be it mandated or self-imposed, I thought I would do my part to prepare readers for how to survive the coming Coronapocalypse by putting together a quarantine viewers guide.

Here is a list of pandemic themed movies graded on a scale of one to ten for how similar they are to the real world circumstances of Coronavirus.

OUTBREAK (1995) – Outbreak is a decent movie about an Ebola epidemic, most memorable for a scene where a guy coughs in a movie theatre and infects everyone. That visual is pretty unnerving and will make you glad you are watching in a plastic quarantine bubble and not at the Cineplex.

Coronascore: 4/10 Coughs are really scary these days.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) – Tells the story of a viral based drug meant to treat Alzheimer’s that goes wrong and kills or turns humans mute while making apes super-smart and able to talk.

There has been no news about apes being susceptible to Corona, but they do say that dogs can get it. No word yet on if the infected dogs gain the power of speech…but I wouldn’t be surprised. Thankfully, they lack opposable thumbs so that is a war we can definitely win.

Coronascore: 5/10, the Coronavirus scare has not made anyone smarter yet.

12 MONKEYS (1995) – This mind-bending meditation on time travel and destiny tells the story of a group of eco-terrorists who release a deadly virus into the world in order to eliminate humans, and the band of survivors who travel back in time to stop them.

Corona probably wasn’t released by eco-terrorists, but since China imposed quarantines satellite photos show its pollution has come to a screeching halt…hmmm, makes you wonder.

Coronascore: 6.5/10. Think about it.

28 DAYS LATER (2002) – In 28 Days Later a highly contagious virus is accidentally released upon the world turning people into hyper-kinetic zombies.

Corona may not directly lead to zombie-ism, but the panic around it sure turns people…like me… into mindlessly frantic and fearful beings who attack old ladies in drug stores to obtain a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer!

As for Corona being “accidentally” released into the public, maybe by a biological weapons facility in China, I have heard crazier conspiracy theories…that’s for sure.

Coronascore: 7/10. If the virus doesn’t start a zombie apocalypse, at least it will prepare you for one.

WORLD WAR Z (2013) – Another entry where a virus turns people into zombies…this time who are attracted to sound. In order to overcome the zombie hoards Brad Pitt travels the globe looking for a vaccine. He eventually finds one and hope is restored to humanity. I have considerably more confidence in Brad Pitt solving Corona than the U.S. government.

Coronascore: 7/10…same as above plus Brad Pitt.

ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971) – In this film a satellite falls to earth carrying an alien organism, which upon contact with humans crystallizes their blood. I have yet to read of any blood crystallization regarding Corona…but to be fair I am not a big reader.

Scientists have praised Andromeda Strain because “it accurately details the appearance of a deadly agent, its impact, and the efforts at containing it, and, finally, the work-up on its identification and clarification on why certain persons are immune to it."

For scientific accuracy I give it a Coronascore of 8/10.

CONTAGION (2011) – The gold standard of pandemic movies tells the story of a virus that starts with a bat in China and then spreads across the planet due to an inter-connected global economy. Sound familiar?

Contagion also has the distinction of killing off super annoying actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The filmmakers knew audiences would love Gwyneth’s demise so much they even put it in the trailer.

The superbug in Contagion is much more potent than Corona, but the movie’s depiction of the struggle of health officials to contain and identify the virus and the ensuing collapse of social order all seem to be spot on if Corona gets really bad.

Coronascore: 9/10…It even has a bat!

In conclusion, while I am not “technically” a doctor…here is my very cinematically informed opinion of what will happen with Corona.

I believe some guy will Corona cough in a movie theatre and then Gwyneth Paltrow will fall ill and her Goop inspired vagina scented candles won’t save her.

The virus then mutates and turns people into mute hyper-zombies attracted to sound and gives apes extreme intelligence and the power of speech, which predictably leads to a zombie-ape war.

Then a time traveling space ship, hopefully piloted by Charlton Heston, lands carrying a space virus that wipes out the zombies and apes, leaving behind a rag-tag bunch of surviving humans, led by Brad Pitt, who live in the eco-utopia that is now earth.

Either that or this whole Corona thing blows over and we all live happily ever after…at least until the next pandemic comes along and scares the living hell out of us once again.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020