'We're just having fun' | August in Review

In August, I didn't watch a single movie I hadn't seen before. And I even went to the movies twice. 

Both of those viewings were the obvious standouts of the month, but they put me in a weird position with this month's blog. How should I write about two films I've written about before? The answer: just talk about what makes them great – and how I liked them even more the second time.

The first theater experience of the month was The Thing (1982). I waited all summer for this installment of Alamo Drafthouse's John Carpenter series. I saw the film for the first time in June 2020 and adored it, and I knew the only way it could be better would be in a theater. I was right.

Last time I wrote about The Thing, I talked about how one of my favorite things is when a movie goes completely off the wall with over-the-top, weird, gross practical effects (which are, obviously, superior to CGI in almost every way). The Thing does this better than any other movie I've seen – and I say that as a diehard fan of both An American Werewolf in London and Fright Night.

For me, there's something euphoric about the way it all plays out. I'm not someone who, generally speaking, likes to be grossed out and I'm not a fan of gratuitous gore or body horror at all. But with this particular type of effect, used in this particular way, I can't look away and I don't want to. It brings me joy. As a dog melts into a monster or a man's head turns into a grotesque spider-thing, I'm grinning ear to ear.

And what's truly incredible about The Thing is that this isn't the only thing it's good at. It could be a garbage movie and get by on its effects, but instead, it's a fantastic movie elevated by them. It does everything right. I've often said Halloween is the best horror movie ever made – it's incredible that John Carpenter might have made science-fiction's best, too.

My other August theater rewatch was Bodies Bodies Bodies. I attended the premiere of this film at SXSW in March and struggled to write about it after because it's kind-of a hard movie to talk about without giving something away. I really liked it then, and I liked it even more on second viewing.

Right before I watched BBB again, I came across this excellent TikTok that describes it as a potentially "generation-defining" horror film and makes a lot of direct comparisons to the way Scream illustrated the Gen X youth experience and that generation's fears. Y'all should know I adore Scream and should have guessed by now that I'm very into critical analysis of the horror genre, so I am this TikTok's audience. It's also very accurate.

I still hesitate to say too much about BBB because 1) I don't want to give anything away but also 2) I want people to watch it and have their own takeaways. I will say I agree with the sentiments of that TikTok and would also add that like Scream, it's a classic in the making – whether people like it now or not. Like Jennifer's Body before it, I think the right people will love it some day.

Also in August, I rewatched Red Dragon, which is obviously not as good as The Silence of the Lambs, but I maintain is notably better than Hannibal. Tim also suggested we watch the Hunger Games series because he'd only seen the first one, so we watched 3/4. They mostly hold up and I can still yell for an hour about how good their marketing campaigns were.

We've also been watching a lot of TV, most notably Hannibal (the TV show) and Better Call Saul, though there are others too. Obviously, we've started Friday Night Lights, as this is Tim's first Texas football season.

I don't think I actually I read any of The Turn of the Key in August, but I'm still working my way through it. Once I finish, I have a couple of ideas for spooky season reasons but haven't committed to any of them yet.