Getting sick while you age seems more challenging — the survival to wellness part, I mean. The last covid vaccine I took was about three years ago. Last year I got the flu, and yup, that was the year I didn’t get the flu vaccine either. My track record is not looking good. That feeling of normal life interrupted, unable to do anything beyond not moving, not eating, and not doing much of anything that you really needed to do, is very annoying and depressing. The only thing left is to make the best of it with what you can.
So in the past week, between chills, sweats, sleep, lack of sleep, and (a definite benefit here) weight loss, I managed to get caught up with the CBS show Tracker — loved seeing Jensen Ackles as Colten Shaw’s brother — and its blend of cases to solve. At first I didn’t like the show, thinking it was yet another addition to the pablum-bloated, scripted fantasy-reality shows that CBS indulges in like NCIS, FBI Blue Bloods, Sheriff Country, Boston Blue, the list goes on. Given the current reality of what’s happening today, the scripting is more a wishful throwback to the good old days, so how anyone can watch that stuff is beyond me. But Elsbeth is a lot of fun and brilliant in many ways — if you haven’t seen the Doll Day Afternoon episode you must, it’s an instant classic.
And then there’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the outrageously awesome South Park. Dissent is what made America. Ironically, it’s also chipping away at our unity and shared sense of purpose when some insist their dissent is the only one that holds value. But Colbert and South Park are hilarious in how they voice dissent in very damning ways with a maliciousness that so easily merges into comedy (satire? parody? the Court Jester making fun of the obtuse King?), that each episode for either of them is a wonder to behold.
I also managed to finally watch Doctor Sleep. What works so well for it is the merging of both the novel and Kubrick’s The Shining to a better degree than Kubrick’s vision alone. I know Stephen King did not like that vision much (I was disappointed too: that Dick Hallorann chest meets axe thing, huh?), enough to write up a multi-part tv series to get the taste out of his mouth, but I’m glad he liked Mike Flanagan’s vision of finally putting a resolution and salvation into Doctor Sleep that was missing in The Shining. It was also a great pleasure to watch a straight-forward horror movie again, riffing on the vampire theme. I love Jordan Peele’s horrors, don’t get me wrong (Nope is my favorite so far), but sometimes, a cigar can just be a cigar, to steal a bit from Freud. Movies like The Substance (2024), The Strays (2023), The First Omen (2024), and the underwhelming The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) can gain a lot of traction from social, religious, and political commentary wrapped into the core of the horror, but that commentary can also dilute the terror by neon-signing over it.
For a book recommendation I heartily command you to read Splatter Flicks: How to Make Low Budget Horror Flicks by Sarah Caldwell. Even if you aren’t a budding horror maestro, itching to lens your first indie testament to terror, you will learn a lot about how movies get made, not just horrors. The reading is smooth as pâté spiced with essential experiences and guidance from pros in the field who worked themselves through and upward in their filmmaking craft. After watching horrible horrors like The Brain (1988), you kind of wish the book was available back then, too.
I’ll have a full review for Splatter Flicks up soon. That is, assuming I don’t get the flu too. Gotta work on that track record.
