media update: October

Thanks to the addition of a third person mode, I was finally able to play Resident Evil Village!  (RE7 unfortunately remains first person only, and because it leads straight into Village, I watched a recap on YouTube.)  It was pretty good, with lots of tense action, and the DLC was really creepy.  Despite the third person mode, I did have to pass off to G a few times when tight spots led to nausea (and literal projectile vomiting when I didn't pay attention to my body's signals), but for the most part I was okay.

Asterisks denote something I particularly enjoyed or found especially worthy of my time; double asterisks are reserved for the creme de la creme.  As always, your mileage may vary.

FICTION

1. Play Nice by Rachel Harrison:  When Clio inherits a supposedly haunted house after her estranged mother dies, she thinks it will be fun to remodel it for Instagram views; she is very wrong.

2. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty:  A desperate mother calls on a priest to exorcise her possessed daughter.  This book is over fifty years old and reads like it (at one point someone exclaims "Cheezus peezus!") but it still retains some of its shock value.

2025 TOTAL SO FAR: 19

NONFICTION

1. Uncanny Valley Girls by Zefyr Lisowski:  An incisive look at horror films as glimpsed through a trans perspective.  Candid and raw, and I hope it gets people to watch Saint Maud since that's one of my favorite underappreciated horror movies.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the ARC!  The book is out now.

2. Replaceable You* by Mary Roach:   A look at human body modifications, including artificial parts, grafts, implants, and bionics, in the author's trademark "weird science" style.  Even the footnotes are interesting!

2025 TOTAL SO FAR: 11

MANGA/GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. In Mourning* by Paula Cheshire

2025 TOTAL SO FAR: 12 volumes of manga and 7 graphic novels

MOVIES

1. Jurassic World: Rebirth:  A group of operatives go to a remote island to gather genetic material from dinosaurs.  It has some fun sequences, but there's an unnecessary subplot with an imperiled family.

2. The Monkey:  A wind-up toy monkey causes grisly deaths whenever its key is turned in this gleefully grisly movie based on a Stephen King story.

3. Locked:  A petty thief (Bill Skarsgard) gets trapped in a smart car modified by its owner (Anthony Hopkins) to have some decidedly illegal features.  Tense and fun.

4. Presence:  A family moves into a house with an unexpected tenant.  More sad than scary.

5. The Three Caballeros:  Donald Duck visits Latin America with a couple of avian friends.  Not much of a plot, but the Mary Blair design work is gorgeous.

6. The Life of Chuck*:  This is a hard movie to describe without ruining it.  I'll just say it's beautiful and you shouldn't watch it with anyone you wouldn't want to see you crying.

7. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning*:  This picks up immediately after its predecessor, so I can't go into detail lest I spoil something.  It's not quite as good as the last several M:I movies, but it still has some killer action sequences.

8. Hell of a Summer:  Camp counselors try to survive when a murderer in a devil mask starts picking them off.  It's a horror comedy, but it's neither scary nor funny enough to be worth watching.

9. The Perfect Neighbor:  Told mostly through police bodycam and security footage, this documentary is about the murder of Ajike Owens by a "Karen" who was constantly harassing kids in the neighborhood.  Warning: it doesn't show the shooting, but it does show Ajike's family (including her young children) learning that she had passed away, which is distressing.

10. A Real Pain*:  Benji and David (Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg) are cousins who take a Jewish heritage trip through Poland to honor their late grandmother.  Sharply written and bittersweet.

11. Weapons*:  When several children run off into the night and vanish, a devastated community searches for answers.  A clever horror movie liberally laced with pitch black humor and some great camerawork.

12. The Fantastic Four: First Steps*:  The titular superheroes face off against a huge threat in this fun flick.

2025 TOTAL SO FAR: 84