Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I write to you from the midst of more end-of-year preparations, as I simultaneously chart out my favorite anime of the year, and also cram in as much Dead Dead Demons as I can before the dead dead deadline. I’ve been enjoying the show more now that I’m past the point I read in the manga, and am no longer directly comparing the two; taken as a work in its own right, it provides a fatigued, almost fatalistic snapshot of our lives on the cusp of apocalypse, perfectly echoing both our real-world inability to contest the decline of late-stage capitalism, as well as the ease with which that uncertainty lets us justify the unthinkable. I’ve also been puttering away at some big Dungeons & Dragons projects, and am currently nearing the end of designing a “quest” that’s in truth a brief campaign in its own right, featuring a fully populated boom town and a variety of Wild West-evoking side quests. I’ll probably let you know how that turns out either here or in my Vox Machina pieces, but in the meantime, let’s break down the week in films!

First up this week was The Devil’s Doorway, a found footage horror feature with a somewhat novel premise. Set in the early ‘60s, the film follows two Catholic priests who are sent to investigate an alleged miracle within a Magdalene Asylum, one of the brutal quasi-prisons where allegedly “fallen” women were imprisoned and exploited. The footage we see is presented as the video recordings of Father Thornton, a young man far more optimistic about the possibility of a miracle than his jaded companion Father Riley.

In terms of found footage concepts, beyond the distinct premise, there’s little here you haven’t seen before – spectral children, mysterious intruders in the frame, panicked journeys down hallways with uncertain endpoints. Though initially sent to gain video footage of a Mary Magdalene statue that cries blood, our two priests end up with a boatload of additional evidence, including exploding statuary, demonic possessions, and at least two instances of satanic rituals.

So far, so normal – and frankly, this film’s conclusion is so mundane and genre-typical that it kind of lets down the elegance of delivery in the preceding staples. However, The Devil’s Doorway is given a major lift through the exceptional performances of its two principals: Lalor Roddy as Father Riley and Helena Bereen as the asylum’s Mother Superior. Roddy brings a vivid humanity to the film’s questions of faith, singlehandedly turning what would otherwise just be a collection of scares into a poignant interrogation of purpose, while Bereen possesses a ferocity and mastery of facial control that make her more frightening than any the film’s actual devils. An otherwise passable found footage feature made watch-worthy by those two alone.

Our next viewing feels like a film designed specifically for me: The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, a Hammer Film Productions (!) and Shaw Brothers (!!) co-production starring Peter Cushing (!!!) and David Chiang (!!!!) as vampire hunters seeking to defeat an army of vampire martial artists (!!!!!!!!). I have no idea how this film came to be, but dear lord am I glad it exists.

Seven Golden Vampires offers precisely the mixture of Hammer gothic horror and Shaw Brothers action you would hope for from such a union, offering a balance that feels consistently improbable yet surprisingly functional. The film was co-directed by veterans of each production house, so neither of its component elements feel like either obligation or imitation; instead, we get ten minutes of atmospheric pondering by Cushing and his associates, followed by a thrilling ensemble battle employing all manner of martial arts weaponry, and then back to the gothica.

Cushing demonstrates more physicality than I’d ever expected from his skeletal stature, and builds a swift, natural rapport with the reliable Chiang. Scenes of zombie hordes rising to terrorize the earth are rich in atmosphere and costume design, while even the elements that don’t exactly terrify (like the frequent stuffed bats on strings) charm in their own way. It really feels unnecessary to describe this Hammer-Shaw combination as anything more than a Hammer-Shaw combination, but rest assured, you get your full money’s worth of both Hammer and Shaw here. This world is truly full of wonders.

We then checked out The Commuter, another Liam Neeson dad-core thriller from the director that brought us the surprisingly competent Non-Stop. Neeson once again stars as a former NYPD officer, who is once again drawn into a criminal conspiracy aboard a moving vehicle (this time a commuter rail rather than an airplane), and once again ultimately framed for that conspiracy’s violent consequences. Tragically, I must report yet another “once again,” as The Commuter proves that even with such a lean concept, Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra can construct a reasonably satisfying pressure cooker of a film.

It certainly helps that the cast list for this one is so generously furnished. The Conjuring’s costars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson star as Neeson’s conspiracy contact and former partner respectively, while Sam Neill plays a distinguished police captain and Jonathan Banks serves as one of Neeson’s long-time commuting buddies. The film’s attempts to elucidate some philosophical point regarding the nature of the commuter’s spirit are about as coherent as Jason Statham declaring he “must protect the hive” in The Beekeeper, but the pacing of new confounding variables is smartly managed, and the rare outbursts of genuine violence energetically shot and choreographed. Neeson’s getting-that-bag era has been frequently maligned for such sad extravagances as that twenty-shot fence jump, but I’m here to tell you that the average entry in this canon is actually a lot better than that – not great, mind you, but undeniably a pretty okay film.

We then concluded our journey through the One Piece filmography with our final outstanding feature, the preposterously titled One Piece The Movie: The Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle. Led to “Mecha Island” by the legend of a mystical Golden Crown, the Straw Hats will face off with a wide array of mechanical menaces, negotiating with the locals, investigating old myths, and ultimately, inevitably punching some bad guys.

Slotting in as the final One Piece film before Toei actually started treating these things as Events, Karakuri Castle has the unenviable task of living up to Mamoru Hosoda’s magnificent Baron Omatsuri. This it cannot even begin to do; there’s a trace of Omatsuri’s loose character design philosophy in some of the movements and character art here, but Karakuri is on the whole an aesthetically mediocre production. That said, it has one core strength that actually sets it above a fair number of these early features: through its focus on diplomacy and legend-investigating, it is an unabashedly Nami/Robin adventure.

The distinct, exceedingly variable specialties of the Straw Hats count among One Piece’s greatest fundamental assets, and Karakuri Castle takes full advantage. The film’s early material is largely defined by Nami manipulating the island’s arrogant overseers, while its middle stretch involves plenty of satisfying back-and-forth as the Straw Hats brainstorm solutions to an ancient riddle. The Boys contribute in their usual, largely physical manner, but it’s always a pleasure seeing One Piece’s craftier leads take center stage, proudly exhibiting their distinctive personalities and proficiencies. Many shonen treat their supplementary cast as either afterthoughts or abysmal gags; One Piece’s Straw Hats are a shining exception to the trend, and Karakuri Castle is a fine tribute to the most intelligent among them.