Hello and welcome to another addition of Five Cool Things, the bi-weekly article where I talk about all the fun, interesting, and cool things I’ve discovered since the last time. This week we’re talking about a crime novel I accidentally read twice, and a whole lot of horror movies because it is October and that’s spooky season. Enjoy.
The Whites
I am a very big fan of novelist Richard Price’s work. He mostly writes crime fiction set in and around New York City. His characters feel more real somehow than most characters in detective stories. His cops feel like real people. They aren’t super sleuths with powers of detection above mere mortals. They also aren’t always men with a calling who feel it is their moral duty to solve crimes. They are just guys with a job. They try to solve crimes as best they can, but at the end of the day, they go home, have a drink, and spend time with their families. His criminals are the same way. They are just people. They might sell drugs, or even commit a murder or two, but they have hopes and dreams, families and lives outside of crime. His stories always feel like they could have really happened. They feel like really well-written news reports.
Buy The WhitesThe other day I finished whatever book I was reading, so I started looking for something new. I found The Whites in my stack of recently purchased books and started reading it. Toward the end, a passage seemed very familiar to me. I knew how it would end before I read that page. None of the rest of the book was at all familiar to me. It all felt new. I assumed that I had simply read a similar scene in another book. Maybe Price had done something similar in one of his other books. Or maybe I’d seen a movie where something like that had occurred. The scene wasn’t so original that it couldn’t have happened in another story. I shrugged and finished the book.
When I went to log it on my Goodreads, I discovered I had in fact read The Whites several years ago. When I went to shelve the book, I discovered not only had I read it before, but I owned a second copy. Getting old is the pits. I can’t even remember what books I’ve read before.
It is a very good story, so I’m not mad that I read it a second time. It follows Billy Graves, a sergeant leading a group of detectives working the Manhattan night shift. They don’t usually solve crimes; that’s the day shift’s job. They process any major crime that happens at night. They visit the crime scene, do the initial interviews, call in forensics, etc., but when their shift is over, they hand the details to the daytime detectives and are done with it.
Graves used to be part of an anti-crime unit in the South Bronx known as the Wild Geese. But when he accidentally shot a kid while trying to stop an angel-dusted perp, he got busted down to desk jobs. He did that for a decade before finally being given this night shift. But when the “whites” of his former colleagues start showing up dead, he knows something weird is going down. Whites are what they call their white whales – people they know got away with something heinous, but they were unable to put away for one reason or another. This irks the cops to a great degree, and each of them winds up following the guys long after they should, always hoping they will be able to put them away for something. And now they are winding up dead.
Like all of Price’s books, this one is filled to the brim with characters all of whom have their own stories. All of which are told excellently. Interestingly, when Price started writing this book, he wanted to use the pseudonym Harry Brandt. His goal was to write a much breezier book than he usually does; maybe he could make it a best seller – something to read on the airplane or beach. Something that wouldn’t tarnish his literary name if it got bad reviews. But by the time he was done with it, he realized that was foolish. This was still a Richard Price novel. So the credit on the book jacket says Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt. No matter whose name is on it, this is a great book.
The Nude Vampire
There is nothing quite like a Jean Rollin film. The French director mixed arthouse aesthetics with grindhouse sex and violence. He made weird, elusive stories filled with large-breasted women wearing nothing but sheer fabric. This one’s about a group of men who have kidnapped a woman who is unable to die. These (rich, white) men also believe that she needs blood to survive and must stay out of the sunlight. She might be a vampire, or they might be crazy. They are definitely running experiments on her to figure out how she’s developed eternal life (for they want that for themselves). They’ve instigated a suicide cult and then feed those who kill themselves to the woman.
Buy The Nude VampireThe son of one of the men accidentally discovers what’s going on, and he tries to help the woman. Later, there will be a whole clan of people, possibly from another dimension, who will work to save her. There is a lot about this film I didn’t understand. This is a film that begins with a nude woman being given shots by a bunch of dudes in masks. Then another woman (nude save for some sheer fabric) is seen running down a dark street being chased by people wearing animal masks. I’m not sure we are supposed to understand it all. But that’s the blend of arthouse and grindhouse. It isn’t straight-up sex; Rollin has to give it to us in this dreamy, psychedelic way. I think I love it.
The Conjuring
For most of our married life, we only owned a single television. For a time, my wife didn’t want us to have a TV in the bedroom because that would just lead to us going to bed with it on, and she didn’t want to become that kind of person. Personally, I would have liked one, but it wasn’t something worth fighting over.
Buy The ConjuringIt was mostly fine except when we both wanted to watch something different at the same time. Or when I wanted to watch a horror movie. She’s not a fan, so if I wanted to watch horror, I had to wait until she was out of the house or had gone to bed. This severely limited my horror-watching ability.
A few years ago, she took our daughter to Kentucky for a week to visit her parents. I had to work, so I stayed home. For the first few days, I felt like a king. I could do anything I wanted. I could eat junk food and watch horror movies until my heart was content. Which is pretty much what I did. It was awesome. Until about night #3. Then I started really missing my family. It is lonely living alone. And those horror movies started to get to me. Every little noise the house would make after I turned off the lights was suddenly a slasher killer breaking in to get me. Every shadow was a ghost. I watched a comedy the next night.
The movie that scared me the most was The Conjuring. I still maintain it is one of the best horror films to come out in the last 15 years. The film follows two different families whose separate stories eventually come together. The first is Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga), two real-life spook hunters (well, real in as far as they claimed to be paranormal investigators, but were in fact total frauds). The second is the Perron family, led by Roger and Carolyn (Ron Livingston & Lili Taylor), who have recently moved to a rural farmhouse with their five daughters.
The film takes its time before it dives into its horror. We get to know both families. Ed and Lorraine are deeply serious in their pursuit of ghosts and demons. They assist the Catholic Church in fighting ghosts; they give lectures at universities, and they aren’t afraid to admit when a house is simply infested with bad plumbing and noises created by the wind. The Perrons are good people. We see them laugh and play and take care of each other. The film builds a lot of empathy for both families before all hell breaks loose.
It does a great job of building the terror as well. It isn’t afraid of jump scares, and it uses them effectively, but it also creates tension and atmosphere. All of this turns into a truly good movie, not just something that terrifies you for a minute then leaves you a minute later.
I Saw the TV Glow
Last time, I talked about Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. I liked it so much I sought out this other film from director Jane Schoenbrun. I am now going to seek out every film they make. I thought about this film for days after watching it. I’m still processing it, if I’m being honest.
Buy I Saw the TV GlowIt follows Owen (Justice Smith), a gawky, shy kid through several stages of his life. As a young teen in the mid-1990s, he meets Maddy (Jack Haven) at a boring school thing. He’s intrigued by her aloof nature. When he sees that she’s reading an episode guide for the TV show Pink Opaque, he asks her about it. She invites him to her house to watch it. They bond over the show and share secrets with each other in the way that only gawky, weird teenagers can. Time passes, and they drift in and out of each other’s lives.
He has a kind, loving mother and a big, tough, masculine father (played by Fred Durst of all people) who clearly doesn’t understand what to do with his weird, non-sexual son. It is strongly hinted at that she has an abusive father. We see bits and pieces of their lives, and it is mostly a struggle. They only seem like themselves when they are around each other. And even then, they struggle to understand who they really are.
Much like Teenage Sex and Death, this is a weird movie. Lots of strange things occur, and it doesn’t spell anything out for you. Also, like that other movie, this one shows us that Schoenbrun has a clear vision and a deep understanding of time and place. Those early scenes get the 1990s exactly right. We see clips of the TV show within the movie, Pink Opaque, and it looks just like shows from that time period aimed at geeky teens.
This is a thoughtful, meaningful text about identity and the power of nostalgia. It is never stated outright, but it is pretty clear that Owen and Maddy are trans. Maddy will ultimately accept who she is, but Owen is unable to get there. The way this concept is presented to the audience is so strange and beautiful.
I was a weird, unpopular kid growing up. This film brought me back to all those feelings. I grew up in a conservative, religious household. Thankfully, my parents let me be weird. I grew my hair long, listened to hard rock, and loved horror movies. Something about that drew other weirdos into my circle. I think we were all trying to navigate this space between our religious upbringing and our desire to find who we really were. I wonder what happened to all those kids. This movie really dredged up a lot of stuff for me, in a really good way. I love when a movie does that. How great art can challenge your thinking about who you really are. I’m excited to revisit this film again and again.
Sweet Sixteen (1982)
John Carpenter’s Halloween might not have created the slasher genre, but it certainly popularized it. A couple of years later, Friday the 13th solidified most of the tropes. There were countless imitators throughout most of the 1980s. Sweet Sixteen is one of the better ones. It has the usual horny teens, gratuitous nudity, and gnarly kills. It doesn’t do anything particularly interesting with that stuff, but what makes this stand out from so many of the others is Bo Hopkins as the town sheriff and Dana Kimmell as his teenage daughter. Hopkins has such an affable likability, and his character is a wonderful mix of good-old-boy, small-town sheriff mixed with genuine kindness. He calls his daughter, Marci, “Nancy Drew” because she likes to help him with his cases.
Buy Sweet SixteenShe’s with him when he discovers a murdered teen, but she doesn’t blink an eye. She gives him advice on how to proceed with the investigation. The two have such a charming way with each other that I thought the entire film was just about them solving crimes. I’d watch an entire series of that.
But of course this is a slasher film, not a family detective movie. It will come back to them often, but it spends a lot more time with other characters, mostly getting murdered. The film has its problems – it is fairly troubled with its depictions of race and racism, and there are far too many older men leering at the teenage cast. But the dynamic between the sheriff and his kid more than makes up for it.
The Exorcist: Martyrs
There are now seven films, two books, and a television series in the Exorcist universe. I’ve seen the first three films, but haven’t bothered with the rest. But this one intrigues me. Scarlett Johansson plays a cop who is investigating a series of serial killings by a person or persons who may be possessed by a demon or demons. It is unclear in the trailer. But the mix of serial killers with The Exorcist has got me very interested.
