I have a confession to make: I have no idea what days or weeks are anymore. Initially, as a replacement for the original reflection on weekly anime episodes, it felt effortless to simply echo that pattern with the films of the week. But of course, as a nervous workaholic who uses art consumption to stem the terror of existence, I’ve ended up watching and writing well ahead of any reasonable or sustainable weekly output. As a result, I now have a “Week in Review buffer” of like fifteen films, and yet couldn’t begin to place any of these films in the theoretical weeks I ostensibly reviewed them. Time is an illusion, but content is forever, so I hope you’ll forgive me for the increasingly loose conceptual justification for this weekly article conceit. Let’s get to the films!

We started off this “week” with a film I hadn’t seen since college, John Carpenter’s original Halloween. I’ve been enjoying the last year’s journey through most of Carpenter’s filmography, so it only felt right to top that off with a return to the film that made his career. And yeah, this is a career-making slasher if I’ve ever seen one.

Produced for a low budget and largely starring a collection of unknown actors, Halloween possesses some inherent technical limitations. In spite of this being her first film role, Jamie Lee Curtis is a born star; unfortunately, the actresses playing her friends can’t really act, and their line reads are about as convincing as their scripted ages. On the other hand, some of the film’s limitations are actually turned to strengths: Carpenter’s Suspiria-inspired score is iconic, while the limited application of Michael Myers himself only adds to his otherworldly menace.

And then of course, there are plenty of aspects of this film that are just plain phenomenal. Michael Myers’ presence here perfectly encapsulates the appeal of the “monumental horror,” a figure of disruption or danger discordantly transposed into a mundane environment. Seeing him standing at the end of a suburban street, or driving slowly past in his stolen car, perfectly evokes that sudden fear that can come upon any of us, that drop in the stomach when we feel there’s something wrong in the scenery, something not-right peering out at us. In spite of simply being a man in a mask, Myers always feels like an inhuman disruption, a changeling, a man whose skin fits no more tightly than the mask over his face. Combined with the most elegant cinematography of Carpenter’s career, Myers’ presence is an unstoppable blight on the suburbs, and the clear inspiration for not just the slasher genre in general, but also more elegant and precise poachers like It Follows.

We followed that up with Karan Arjun, a ‘90s feature starring two of Bollywood’s most acclaimed stars, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan. In the film, the two star as the titular brothers, who are unjustly killed by a local tyrant. After their mother pleads to the Goddess Kali for justice, the two are each reincarnated as new babies, destined to eventually remember their old selves and claim their birthright.

Karan Arjun is as packed with songs and action as you’d hope for from a major Bollywood adventure, winding through a variety of distinct dramatic stages as its lead brothers march towards their destiny. Through the profound differences in their second lives, Karan Arjun neatly illustrates the distinct strengths of its lead actors. Shah Rukh Khan naturally embodies the boyish charm of his ranch hand character, lightening any scene with his presence. Meanwhile, Salman Khan is a perpetual storm cloud of resentment and regret, with only brief fragments of fondness or hope glittering behind his iron defenses. His performance really impressed me in this film, while the quantity, scale, and intricate choreography of the dance sequences makes for a visually enchanting experience.

To be honest, I really wish Hollywood would embrace some of the assumptions of Bollywood cinema, at least in terms of the preeminence of cinematic naturalism. At some point in the past, Hollywood producers decided that making sure the audience isn’t aware they’re watching a movie is one of any film’s most essential tasks, and thus no choices should be made that draw attention to the artifice of film theater. But film is theater, naturalism isn’t law, and if your film would benefit from the whole cast breaking into song and dance for a while, that should be considered a valid option. Naturalism isn’t an inarguable ideal, it’s an aesthetic choice, and I appreciate films that explore the many alternative options.

We also checked out an improbable stop motion feature, Netflix’s newly released The House. The House is actually an anthology of three stories, all centered on different characters’ relationship with the central manor house, and each occupying their own subgenre. However, all three of these stories likely fall under the general umbrella of “weird fiction,” stories that provoke a sense of horror-tinged disorientation or dislocation within our world. And if you know my interests, you know this was pure candy for me.

Each of The House’s three stories are compelling in their own ways. The first is undoubtedly the most traditionally horrifying, presenting the manor as a menacing labyrinth of perpetually shifting hallways, irregularly tended by faceless handymen. Centered on a family who’ve just moved from a cottage to the imposing manner, the story’s development feels reminiscent of something like The Yellow Wallpaper, except crucially without much of a moral point. I love horror stories without moral points; I feel like their stories are that much more frightening that way, when you can’t really point to what the actors did wrong, and thus can’t hope to avoid their fate. “They dreamed too big, and they suffered for it” – there’s a cathartic simplicity to the cruelty of that journey, emphasizing not our ability to rise above obstacles, but more the simple fact that the world is cruel and random to all of us. The senseless inevitability of suffering: that’s what’s really scary.

The second short is pure Kafka, centered on a man who’s literally portrayed as an anthropomorphized rat, as he attempts to refinish the manor and sell it for profit. This story is a slow descent into total hedonism; like much of Kafka’s work, it’s about scratching at the seams of our allegedly civil society, and discovering the raw, grotesque realities that lie beneath. The story’s protagonist is sinking from the start, having invested his entire life into a house that seems full to bursting with beetles and vermin. And through its clever use of already-inhuman anthropomorphic characters, the story is able to introduce its Not Right People with astonishing gracefulness.

Not Right People are a common feature of horror literature – folks who look wrong in some way, like they’re not quite fitted to their skin, but in a way that’s subtle enough you’d normally just shudder and let it pass. It is easy enough to convey a Not Right Person through elegantly chosen internal monologue, but it’s a harder thing to realize visually, and this story manages it perfectly.

The film’s third story isn’t really horror at all, or at least, its horror is more the general horror we all face in terms of defining ourselves as people, and regretting the dreams that will never come to pass. As a result, it was almost certainly my favorite of the three. This short centers on a landlord who’s attempting to keep the manor operating, in spite of the fact that all of society has been seemingly lost to a flood. The house stands as a marker in the fog, a tiny respite from a fallen world, and our heroine clings desperately to her dreams of repainting and reflooring and finally, truly realizing this house’s full potential. Her relationship with the house is a natural metaphor for her self-image, and as the story proceeds, the steady abandonment of her remaining tenants forces her to reckon with who she truly is, and who she might still become. It’s a sharp, melancholy, and ultimately hopeful conclusion to the anthology, and solidifies this collection as a must-watch for any horror, animation, or frankly general film enthusiast.

Our last feature of the week served as my first Fritz Lang film, as we checked out the acclaimed M. M stars Peter Lorre (the droopy-eyed actor famed for films like The Maltese Falcon, and immortalized in some number of Bugs Bunny cartoons) in his breakout role, as a serial killer who hunts children. When Lorre’s crime spree prompts a citywide police crackdown, the city’s established criminals take matters into their own hands, and attempt to hunt down the killer in order to save their own business interests.

M is an interesting production in a variety of ways. First off, it’s gorgeous. I’d never seen a Fritz Lang film before, but this film alone proves he belongs to the very top tier of cinematographers, where every frame truly feels like a purposeful painting in its own right. The way this film manages depth of field while maintaining visual clarity was surely quite the technical challenge at release, but from a modern perspective, the results are still stunning in their aesthetic perfection.

M is also quite an effective thriller, benefitting tremendously from Peter Lorre’s insidious presence, as well as its evocative use of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” as an auditory motif. As a film that inspired but predates the modern thriller template, the ways in which M differs from the formula were also quite interesting to me. The film actually downplays Lorre’s presence in the first half, relying heavily on exposition to convey the panic of the police – a choice that would likely be replaced by on-the-ground scenes of investigational near-misses in a modern film. And rather than climaxing with the final chase for the murderer, M actually goes beyond that, and frames his trial as its culmination. Through doing so, M rises from a brilliantly executed genre exercise to a thorny moral question, while also giving Lorre the chance to prove he’s a top talent in his own right. A compelling and exceedingly generous movie.