Alright folks, it’s Wednesday again, and you should hopefully all know the drill by now. This week I burned through a couple of classic ‘60s films, along with the usual scattering of horror selections, and I’m eager to share my findings with all of you. The spoils were frankly excellent this week; Ghostwatch felt similar to Noroi in terms of its understated yet incendiary assault on the found footage genre, and the ‘60s films were an unrelenting buffet of great performances both straight-laced and satirical. Let’s run it all down in the Week in Review!

This week, upon the recommendation of a friend, I decided to distract myself from our current viral and climate-related apocalypses by rewatching a classic exploration of 20th century apocalypse: Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy, Dr. Strangelove. Centered on a military standoff between America and Russia that progresses just a smidgen further than the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dr. Strangelove’s reflections on the madness of the military ethos, the folly of mutually assured destruction, and the way governments diffuse responsibility for the most atrocious of inhumanities feel just as sharp now as they must have back in the 1960s.

And beyond that, Dr. Strangelove is also just an incredibly funny and fast-paced film, making terrific use of its perpetually scene-stealing generals and other larger-than-life characters, like the melancholy Russian ambassador or Strangelove himself. Kubrick’s films are often renowned for their cohesiveness of cinematography, striking single images, and general structural perfection; in contrast, Dr. Strangelove is a film constructed around dynamic actor performances, and proceeds with the effortlessness and lack of ostentation of a buoyant farce. Scenes like the American President and Russian Premier bickering by phone over who is sorrier about nuclear apocalypse are as bleak as they are hilarious, and feel more representative of our twitter-driven political moment than most recent commentary I’ve seen. It might seem like a strange choice, but watching Dr. Strangelove demonstrate how our human idiocy and nearness to self-destruction have long been accepted truths actually helped me feel a little better about our current world on fire.

I also watched another ‘60s classic, the star-studded war epic The Dirty Dozen. The Dirty Dozen is centered on Major General Sam Worden (Lee Marvin), who is tasked with turning a group of twelve convicted army prisoners into an elite commando unit, just in time for a suicidal D-Day mission of sabotage. The film’s cast is ludicrously talented, with Marvin being joined by Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes (in a role that I’m more than a little suspicious inspired Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle), Donald Sutherland, Ernest Borgnine, and many more.

Though “1960s war epic” might imply a dry or somber feature, The Dirty Dozen is actually more of a big, boisterous popcorn flick, just one that happens to feature consistently stunning cinematography and half a dozen of the most acclaimed actors in Hollywood history. The film makes brilliant use of its ensemble cast, and is sprinkled with genuinely goofy capers, like when one of the dozen is forced to pretend he is a general, or when the whole gang competes in a war games exercise that honestly felt reminiscent of something like an ‘80s “jock camp versus nerd camp” battle. At the same time, the lead performances are dynamic and convincing, and the film proceeds with absolute confidence towards a genuinely nail-biting final act. I hopefully don’t need to tell you all that the classics tend to be good, but I should emphasize that the classics are often fun, and The Dirty Dozen is a prime example.

I also checked out another horror film from off the beaten track this week, this time exploring the British made-for-TV film special Ghostwatch. First airing on the BBC on Halloween night back in 1992, Ghostwatch was screened without preamble or warning, presenting an investigation of a theoretically haunted house as if it were just another TV special. Presented by a familiar TV announcer in his first acting role, Ghostwatch was essentially a War of the Worlds-esque grand fabrication, along with a triumph of “found footage”-style horror created seven years before The Blair Witch Trials. Ghostwatch is fascinating as a cultural object, but also just goddamn fantastic as an actual horror film. 

The film’s live broadcast conceit makes for a very slow burn, with a good half hour or so passing before we have any reason to suspect this haunting is more than an elaborate hoax. What glimpses we see of the supernatural are vague and haunting, and by splitting its narrative across a variety of first-hand explorations, interviews with paranormal investigators, phone bank segments, and much else, Ghostwatch is able to present a sense of the paranormal steadily encroaching across all elements of its characters’ lives. The film takes some solid swings at the ways media impacts our sense of selfhood and truth, but its greatest successes are in how well its distinctive format facilitates its horror, as well as the evocative, understated clues we receive regarding the true nature of this haunting. I’m always happy to find another hidden gem of the horror genre.

I also rewatched another horror film, one I’ve seen a bunch of times at this point: Cabin in the Woods. Cabin in the Woods essentially takes the tired fundamentals of B-horror scripting as a sort of ritualistic bible, and presents a narrative where the fun of watching a doomed group of college kids march into oblivion, complete with the audience calling shots and gasping at new twists, is naturally baked into the story itself. It’s a love letter to fans of schlocky horror, and its self-awareness is never intended to dismiss such films, but rather to embrace and revel in what’s so fun about them. Sequences like the cast’s visit to their incredibly haunted basement, or the entire final act, are indulgent, glorious celebrations of horror imagery and ephemera. It’s a great group film, and one I’m likely to watch again.