Brian Collins

#435. Detour (rewatch)

Is this a movie about the unluckiest guy in the world, or is it about a schmuck? Is it possible to be a schmuck and also simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Why are people arguing over John Carpenter’s legacy like he died recently.

I finished The Black Dahlia a day later than expected, but that’s okay, now I can focus on important stuff.

#434. The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy

Might sound stupid to say this, but this might be the In the Aeroplane Over the Sea of detective novels.

Grave Descend - Michael Crichton
Double Indemnity - James M. Cain
The Hunter + The Man with the Getaway Face + The Outfit - Richard Stark
Cape Fear - John D. MacDonald (2/2)

Tentative TBR list for November:

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett (reread)
The Way Some People Die - Ross Macdonald
52 Pickup - Elmore Leonard
Dark Passage - David Goodis
The High Window - Raymond Chandler
Shadow Ticket - Thomas Pynchon
Vanity Fair - W. M. Thackeray (1/2)

Things Beyond: November 2025 (Cover by Jack Gaughan. Galaxy, March 1970.) A short and sweet review forecast for this month, partly because I’m running behind on my writing a bit and so am pressed for time, but also becau…

November's review forecast is looking pretty straightforward, although we do have a spooky short story from Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, plus a collab novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and more!

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But how come they don’t make book covers like this anymore.

#433. The Dead Zone - Stephen King

An important lesson to take from this is that maybe violence IS the answer sometimes.

#432. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

The script is inept, like you know something is wrong when they backpedal from 4's really dumb twist ending, but I think it's fun!

#431. A Night in the Lonesome October - Roger Zelazny

One of those novels where the stakes are actually pretty high, but you wouldn’t know that for most of it. The tone is pretty laid-back, even with featuring Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, a Lovecraftian horror or two, etc.

Scorsese’s last three movies have been his bleakest, although at least in Silence there’s a glimmer of hope at the end. With The Irishman and KotFM that hope has been snuffed out.

Short Story Review: “The Pear-Shaped Man” by George R. R. Martin (Cover by Stanislaw Fernandes. Omni, October 1987.) Who Goes There? Happy Halloween, ghouls and gals! George R. R. Martin is now one of the most famous American authors alive, but this was not alwa…

For Halloween we've got a delicious tale about a paranoid woman and her eccentric neighbor. It's "The Pear-Shaped Man" by George R. R. Martin, from the October 1987 issue of Omni!

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Placing bets that Vance gets divorced in the next six months or a year?

#430. The Cipher - Kathe Koja

Very early '90s grunge horror, but also I get the itchy feeling that the novels Koja wrote right after this one are better.

#429. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)

Deliberately lightweight and short (like I imagine you can get through this in 10 hours or less on replays), but very charming! This is a game where Bowser is a tsundere, Peach is a fujoshi, and also you befriend a pirate.

Short Story Review: “Day of Judgment” by Edmond Hamilton (Cover by Pete Kuhlhoff. Weird Tales, September 1946.) Who Goes There? Born in 1904, Edmond Hamilton was, along with friend and close contemporary Jack Williamson, one of the last of the classic SF…

They have journeyed from one ruined world to another, only the latter is now populated with... furries? It's "Day of Judgment" by Edmond Hamilton, from the September 1946 issue of Weird Tales!

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The black spinessss.

#428. Two Against Nature - Steely Dan

On the one hand it's nice that they didn't chase trends like it would've been very tempting to do, but also this sounds like Steely Dan to someone who thinks Aja and Gaucho are boring.

My goal is to have the most awesome apartment library.

#427. Willy's Wonderland

Kind of a dogshit movie, but I respect that Nic Cage plays the most competent blue-collar guy ever who doesn't say a damn thing the whole runtime.

Yeah, that’s the worst part, although being pro-AI is also embarrassing.

Well that and Schrader being an alleged sex predator.

It's not too late, Paul Schrader. You can kill yourself.

John Carpenter is so funny, because he directed Halloween, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and In the Mouth of Madness. He also has not directed anything that’s worth a damn in 30 years.

Kinda sucks that DSA people suck up to a 300-year-old walking skeleton who sympathizes more with Israel than with immigrants.

One of these is not like the others.

#426. Candyman (1992)

I miss my squibs and practical fake blood in my goddamn horror movies.

Short Story Review: “Reckoning” by Kathe Koja (Cover by Ron Walotsky. F&SF, July 1990.) Who Goes There? Kathe Koja started getting professionally published in the late ’80s, as part of a generation of new horror and SF writers, appea…

His girlfriend died, which sucks, but fortunately she got better. It's "Reckoning" by Kathe Koja, from the July 1990 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!

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#425. Häxan

Might have the earliest example of nunsploitation in film history, and that’s pretty neat.