Halloween is right around the corner, so in this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, we turn sadism and mutilation into a pretty fun time.

That’s because my guests are Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti, partners in life and filmmaking whose first feature, the found-footage chiller It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This was a berserk highlight of TIFF’s Midnight Madness program, It’s continuing to terrify audiences across North America as we speak: Here’s a list of upcoming playdates. (Nick and Rachel plan to be in attendance at most of them.)

Rachel and Nick are goofy, cheerful people who love horror in all of its forms … even the torture-porn genre, as exemplified by their pick for the podcast, Eli Roth’s Hostel. You know, the movie where a bunch of American bros go to Slovakia for a promised sex romp, only to discover that truth in advertising laws are very, very different in the EU.

Are they right? Is Hostel an underrated classic of splatter cinema? Listen and find out!  Subscribe to the show at Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or on your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while strapped to a gurney, thinking about the choices that brought you to this moment.

And once you’ve done that, there’s plenty of Shiny Things to catch up on; last week, I wrote about the disc debuts of Exhuma and A Quiet Place: Day One and the new Criterion double-bill of Val Lewton’s horror classics I Walked with a Zombie and The Seventh Victim, and subscribers to the paid tier got my latest list of weekly recommendations, Want to see what they see? Sign up right here, and get to reading!

… and if you’re reading this on Tuesday morning, there are still tickets available for tonight’s TIFF Lightbox screening of The Void, part of our free monthly See the North series celebrating Canadian cinema. And this one’s in Cinema 3, which is a nice big room for all the Lovecraftian weirdness. So come join us, won’t you?

On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by Halifax filmmaker Tara Thorne — another veteran of the alt-weekly grind who switched careers later in life to find fulfillment as a writer and director. (I like the sound of that.)

Tara’s first feature, Compulsus, opens across Canada this Friday, and her second, Lakeview, is currently doing the festival circuit, so this felt like the perfect time to have her on the show — and she came in hot with Hustlers, Lorene Scafaria’s ceaselessly entertaining 2019 true-crime drama about the women of Scores, and how they dealt with being exploitated by rich assholes by exploiting them right back.

Okay, it was illegal and whatever, but it was a really fun ride while it lasted, and that’s the fizz that Scafaria brings to the story. Plus, The Dutch has a cameo and that’s all a movie requires to go in the canon nowadays.

Wanna join us? Subscribe at all the usual places — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it after you and friends hunker down to get your story straight.

And then get caught up on Shiny Things, which last week featured reviews of Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs and the new Ultimate Cut of Bob Guccione’s Caligula, which labors very, very mightily to convince you there’s something serious and honorable in the wreckage of Tinto Brass’ 1979 epic. (There is not, but it’s an interesting proposition.)

I also did another What’s Worth Watching column for paid subscribers, and if you want to know what’s in it, well, there’s a really easy way to find out. See you there!

I truly don’t know why it took so long for someone to bring Alien onto Someone Else’s Movie. We’ve had episodes on Aliens and Alien 3, and there were a couple of times I came close to having to tackle Alien Vs. Predator, but in nine and a half years, no one ever picked the original … until now.

Conor Sweeney, a member of the Astron-6 collective and the star of Steven Kostanski’s retro fantasy comedy Frankie Freako — which opens across Canada this Friday, and is a ridiculous amount of fun — finally chose Ridley Scott’s genre-defining 1979 masterpiece, and we had a really great time talking about it, the franchise it spawned, our mutual loathing of Scott’s dopey prequels and a few other things. You should give it a listen.

So, you know, do that! You can subscribe at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it as you argue with your ship’s computer about decoded distress signals and distressing corporate priorities.

And then you should catch up on Shiny Things, because I’ve been busy! Last week I launched a new recommendations column for paying subscribers, and I covered Via Vision’s lovely double feature of Paul Auster and Wayne Wang’s Smoke and Blue in the Face, as well as some very weird new releases from Severin Films. Not subscribed yet? Just click here and I’ll get you set up.

This week on Someone Else’s Movie, we contemplate the collapse of American society … through a very stylish lens.

My guest, producer and director Alyssa Rallo Bennett — whose latest feature The Arrival landed on digital and on demand last Tuesday — picked Sam Esmail’s slow-rolling apocalypse thriller Leave the World Behind, and that opened the door to both an appreciation of Esmail’s eerily credible take on the end of everything — as experienced by a handful of people thrown together at a Long Island house — and the frankly terrific performances of Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke and Kevin Bacon.

Wanna listen? You can subscribe at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download the episode directly from the web and play it in your panic room. It won’t save you, but it might help lull you to sleep.

(And if you like the movie, I’d also recommend Al Horner’s conversation with Esmail on the Script Apart podcast about adapting Rumaan Alam’s novel for the screen and the specific changes he made to the material. )

And when you’re done, assuming the internet still works, catch up on your Shiny Things! This week marks a shift in the way I write the thing; I’m still covering physical media from week to week, that’s not going to change, but I’ve started a what-to-watch advisory for the paid tier that covers streaming releases as well as discs. Last weekend I tackled The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal and His Three Daughters, which respectively dropped on Prime and Netflix last Friday and are both very good.

… other than that, I don’t have much to talk about this week. Still regrouping after TIFF and figuring out what I’m going to do for the next few months. But don’t worry, I’m working on it.

Hey, look at me! I survived the festival!

… well, barely. I’m wrecked, to be honest; exhausted and wrung-out and now dealing with having caught an actual old-school cold in the last weekend of the festival. Also I swallowed a bug on Saturday morning and my throat is still ragged; you can hear it in the intro and outro to this week’s Someone Else’s Movie.

Fortunately, the episode itself was recorded just before the start of TIFF, so I’m hale and hearty and even pretty sharp — which is what you need to be to discuss a film as challenging as Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which somehow went unchosen for the first nine and a half years of the show.

But writer-director RJ Daniel Hanna — whose clever techno-horror hybrid Succubus lands on DVD and digital next week — went for it, and I’m so glad he did; it led to a knotty conversation about how Kubrick forces his audience to sympathize with a monster, and then to even empathize with him — and how Malcolm McDowell might have been the only person on the planet who could have played Alex DeLarge.

Also I have a great story about how Kubrick managed to protect his film from its studio, which McDowell told me during the 40th anniversary press tour. (I know he’s told it to a whole bunch of people, but that’s not the point. It’s a great story.)

Join us, won’t you? You can subscribe at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it when Beethoven no longer appeals.

And after that,  subscribe to Shiny Things so you don’t miss a single word of verbiage on all the physical releases I can eat, starting with this week’s look at Criterion’s masterful release of Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers and Arrows frankly preposterous three-disc special edition of David Twohy’s The Chronicles of Riddick. The man shot his shot, and you kinda have to respect that.

People don’t believe me, but working for TIFF is so much easier than covering it.

Attending a film festival as a journalist and critic is a gauntlet — three weeks of prep, ten days of screenings and interviews — and it’s exhausting.

On the programming side, it’s months of work, but all the hard stuff — the screenings, the inviting (and the passing), negotiating the various logistics — was finished weeks ago. The festival is the celebration, the part where we introduce the movies to audiences and the larger world, and I tell you, it is the most fun I will have all year. It turns out I really love this job.

And one of the movies I’m most excited to put in front of a crowd is Shook, the feature debut of Amar Wala, who joins me for this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie. It’s a charming, spiky and unapologetically authentic movie about a young writer figuring himself out in today’s Toronto, and people are going to love it.

Amar picked Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, with which his own film has certain emotional resonances, even though the characters and storylines are completely different. I’ll just say this: Saamer Usmani’s Ash and Awkwafinia’s Billi would have a lot to talk about if they ever ran into each other in an airport.

It’s a fun conversation, and you should listen in. Subscribe at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you sit in  impotent silence at a family gathering. We’ve all been there.

Also, I’m still keeping up with the Shiny Thingses — the next couple of weeks may be spotty, but last week I wrote about Ishana Night  Shyamalan’s The Watchers, just released on 4K by Warner Home Entertainment, and Robert Rodriguez’ Mariachi Trilogy, newly remastered and reissued in an impressive boxed set from Arrow Video. Go on, subscribe! You know you want to.

On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by writer-director Ian Harnarine, who spent a decade expanding his 2011 short film Doubles with Slight Pepper into a very satisfying feature film, Doubles, that makes its VOD debut today after its festival and theatrical runs. It’s a story of a father and a son separated by oceans both literal and emotional, and the long road to reconciliation. It’s good!

And Ian chose a film entirely unlike his own: The Harder They Come, Perry Henzell’s reggae-inflected cult classic starring Jimmy Cliff as a musician-turned-outlaw racing through Kingston for revenge on the shady promoters and dirty cops who derailed a promising career. It’s got a body count, and you can dance to it. There’s really no downside.

So crank the sound and get subscribed at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download it directly from the web and play it while you lie in wait for those greedy fat cats who done you wrong. It’ll pass the time.

And when you’re done, catch up to the latest editions of Shiny Things! Last week I wrote about VVS’ new release of Josh Margolin’s Thelma and the Shout! Studios 4K special edition of the animated classic (?) The Last Unicorn, which is both very special and not quite as special as it might have been. What am I talking about? Only one way to find out.

On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I sit down with Irish filmmaker Paul Duane to discuss movies that explore cosmic horror at a slight remove.

He picked a doozy: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, a 1997 thriller that starts out as a police procedural about a detective trying to solve (and stop) a spate of brutal murders and discovering that the only thing that connects the killers is a drifter who claims to have no malice in his heart whatsoever. But that might be an understatement.

Paul’s new film, All You Need is Death, is also enthralled by the idea of incomprehensible forces at the edge of our understanding, and it’s a corker; you can find it on VOD in the US right now, and it’ll be streaming everywhere fairly soon.

But first, the podcast! Which you can find at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download it directly from the web and play it as you walk aimlessly through the world.

And then go catch up on Shiny Things, because I’ve been busy! Last week was all Warner all the time, starting with the studio’s spectacular 4K release of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and  finishing up with Arrow’s new When Titans Ruled the Earth set and Shout! Studios’ 15th anniversary release of Observe and Report. All good stuff, really.

The catalogue titles are only accessible to paid subscribers, mind you. But it’s really not that hard to subscribe. You should try it!

Joanna Hogg is one of my favorite directors, and someone whose films celebrated ever since I saw her first, Unrelated, at the BFI London film festival back in 2007. I was on the FIPRESCI jury that gave her our prize — I even got to be the one who presented it to her at that year’s awards gala, which was a genuine thrill — and I’ve been a fan ever since.

I’ve also gotten to know her just the tiniest bit over the years, and she’s the best, staying true to her vision and remaining resolutely herself as she gains more and more stature on the global stage. (Have you seen the Souvenir movies? You should see the Souvenir movies.)

Anyway, I’ve been waiting for someone to bring one of Joanna’s films to the podcast, and on this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I got my wish: India Donaldson, whose excellent debut feature Good One is in US theaters now and opening across Canada this Friday, picked Archipelago, Joanna’s second feature and one that further sharpens Unrelated‘s motif of curdling affection, isolated gatherings and uneasy generational interaction. And the conversation was everything I’d hoped for.

So go listen! You’ll find it at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download it directly from the web and play it while you wait for the ferry to the island.

And go see Good One, which is a knockout debut; India is subtly in conversation with Joanna’s films (and Kelly Reichardt’s, and Debra Granik’s) in intriguing ways while finding her own cinematic language. James Le Gros as you’ve never seen him before. We’ve got it at the Lightbox. You should come.

Also, I seem to be back on track with Shiny Things; last week I wrote about A24’s new 4K edition of The Zone of Interest, Via Vision’s exquisite Martin Scorsese: Films of Faith boxed set and Warner’s latest 4K set of the Rocky movies, which fixes the previous set’s issues in more ways that one. Of course, you can’t read that last bit without a subscription — but there’s an easy way to fix that.

Well, Someone Else’s Movie is up and running on YouTube Podcasts now, and we’re back on track with a brand new episode, just as I promised you. Or is this just a disquieting echo of a broken promise from another time, come back to haunt me with terrible force?

Nah, it’s the first thing. But one could make a case for the second, given that this week’s episode features writer-director Tilman Singer, and he chose to discuss David Lynch’s neo-noir nightmare Lost Highway, which exists almost entirely as an invitation to deep readings and heavily symbolic interpretations.

Still, it’s all in good fun, and I had a great time exploring Lynch’s infinite darkness with Singer, whose fascinatingly bizarre new film Cuckoo opens across North America this Friday and features a great horror turn from Hunter Schafer and an absolutely delightful supporting performance from Dan Stevens in a polo neck. So go see that!

But first, listen to the episode! It’s in all the usual spots —  Apple, Spotify, the aforementioned YouTube Podcasts — and of course you can just download it directly from the web and listen to it while you gun your car down the freeway at top speed, trying to outrun the demons that will never stop pursuing you.

You should also catch up on your Shiny Things, as I’ve been busy going through a whole batch of July releases myself — Alex Garland’s Civil War and Moritz Mohr’s Boy Kills World, and Arrow’s new editions of Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Howard Hawks’ Red Line 7000 and The Nico Mastorakis Collection (ugh).

You need to be a member of the paid tier to read the Arrow stuff, but that’s easily solved: Just subscribe already! I’ll be right grateful, I promise.