On the third day of murder house, we’ll be slaughtered by
One crying socialite
One maid of fury
Two nursing students
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A pair of tragic blond twins
And a freak in a leather mask
Hey Killer Queens. Glad to see you survived your Monday. But it’s Tuesday now and time to settle in with some good wine and another trip to the Murder House.
I brought Merlot.
This episode starts by revealing something we already know. Moira is a ghost of the house. She was murdered by Constance back in 1983, along with Constance’s husband.
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He’s no great loss. Constance can’t tell the difference between a woman screaming yes and one screaming no any more than her shitty spouse. She should work on that.
Back in the present, Vivian is meeting with the realtor who sold the house to them. And Viv is freaking goals in this scene. She is abundantly clear that they need to sell the house now, and not at a loss. And she’s equally clear that the realtor lied to her to sell her the house in the first place.
Of course, that was before she found out the house is literally on a murder tour. I think if she’d have known that while the realtor was in the house, that lady might have been on our ghost list.
Ben, of course, is going to Ben. They don’t have the money to get somewhere else to live until they sell the house. Vivian suggests getting a job, but he doesn’t want her to because of the stress.
And stress is a pretty big concern right now. Vivian’s stressing for two, after all.
We’re treated to two flashbacks in this episode, finally getting to see the original owners of the house. That’s always where a house gets cursed, right? The first people to live there.
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In this case, it’s a doctor whose practice is failing and a socialite who doesn’t feel that a house with two servants is up to her standards.
They’re not a happy family. And the wife decides she’s going to make sure her family lives to her standards one way or another. The ‘another’ is by forcing her drug addict husband to perform illegal abortions.
Just another argument for legal, safe abortions.
Abortion is coming up a lot this season, I think. As is money. This is just one more reason why American Horror Story is a classic horror show. Real horror is always about something real. There are ghosts, yeah. There’s blood and horror and this episode ends with a dead woman’s body covered by a gazebo. And all that shit’s great for a jump scare. But that’s not what keeps us up at night.
It’s the bills we can’t pay. It’s the life-changing decision that should be personal but instead’s been politicized. It’s being trapped in a house we don’t feel safe in because we can’t afford to move. It’s the fear that our shitty teenager might actually run away and we can’t imagine living without them. It’s the real shit that scares us. And that’s what good horror, like American Horror Story does well. It blends the bills and the blood and ramps up the fear for both.
That’s it for this time, Killer Queens. See you on Sunday for episode four, Halloween part one.
Thanks for reading. If you buy anything from the links below, we do get some money back.
Smile 2, a psychological supernatural horror, released in October 2024 just in time for Halloween, sees director Parker Finn (Smile, Laura Hasn’t Slept) return with a sequel starring Naomi Scott (Aladdin) as pop star and recovering addict Skye Riley. While Smile 2 boasts a talented cast, it ultimately falls short of its predecessor, offering a familiar storyline with minor variations and a predictable finale. The film attempts to introduce a new method to combat the parasitic ‘Smile Entity’, but this addition fails to elevate the sequel beyond a pale imitation of its chilling predecessor.
The Plot.
Smile 2 begins shortly after the end of the original; just six days after Rose Cotter’s death. During a short interlude scene, we watch as the now cursed Joel attempts to pass the Smile Entity on by killing one criminal in front of another. The plan backfires spectacularly, inadvertently passing the curse onto an innocent bystander named Lewis Fregoli.
The film then shifts gears, introducing Skye Riley, a singer and performer making a triumphant return to the spotlight with a comeback tour after a tumultuous past. During a candid interview on the Drew Barrymore Show, Skye opens up about her struggles with addiction and the devastating loss of her boyfriend in a car accident. Her sobriety journey, however, faces a severe setback when she seeks pain relief from her old high school friend, the unwitting Lewis Fregoli. In a chilling turn of events, Lewis takes his own life while Skye watches, passing the Smile Entity onto her. Unaware of her new cursed existence Skye gets on with rehearsing for her tour, but she begins to notice that strange things are happening. People are smiling at her in an unnatural way and she becomes the target of anonymous attacks and aggressions. When text messages begin to arrive from an unknown number, Skye decides to get some answers.
Highlights.
Let’s not beat about the bush. I found Smile 2 difficult to finish and was struggling at about the hour-and-a-half mark to stay awake. That being said it’s worth watching because everyone needs to see the 3-minute scene of the ‘smilers’ chasing Skye through her apartment. This was possibly the creepiest thing I’ve seen on a screen. The buildup, the synchronicity of the movement of the actors and their positioning, the camera work, and the lighting. I have rewatched it several times and it doesn’t get old. If you are only interested in watching this, fast forward to the 123-minute mark and get ready to be impressed.
Drawbacks.
Where do I start?
My primary concern with Smile 2 is its striking resemblance to its predecessor. The narrative follows a familiar pattern: an attractive woman fleeing a supernatural force, grappling with hallucinations, experiencing a mental health decline, and culminating in the revelation someone close to Skye was the Smiling Entity after all. This repetitive structure diminishes the film’s impact.
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While the introduction of a new method for shedding the entity initially offered a glimmer of hope this concept wasn’t fully realized. It just served to add names to the line of people that the entity has infected in the past.
Furthermore, the film’s pacing suffers from excessive focus on Skye’s musical career. Scenes showcasing her stage rehearsals and music videos, while intended to establish her identity as a performer, feel unnecessary and detract from the narrative momentum. Yes, we understand she’s a performer, you told us, you don’t need to prove it. These scenes appear to artificially inflate the film’s runtime, suggesting a lack of confidence in the core story.
The Final Take.
Ultimately, Smile 2 fails to expand upon the established lore of the franchise. The film’s conclusion feels contrived, with a blatant setup for a third installment. Hopefully, if a ‘Smile 3’ is inevitable, the creative team will bring fresh ideas and avoid simply retreading familiar ground.
We’re back again with Goosebumps The Vanishing, episode two. A story too big for one episode, apparently.
Or, maybe this is just a nod to the fact that Stay Out Of The Basement was a two-part episode in the original 1995 show. Either way, after seeing this episode, we could have kept it to one.
The story
We begin this second episode with Anthony investigating the parasitic plant taking over his body. Rather than, I don’t know, going to the hospital, he’s decided to phone a colleague and send her some samples from the bulb he pulls out of his arm with a handheld garden trowel.
Meanwhile, Devin is having his own worries. He’s haunted by what he saw in the sewers. So, he gets CJ to go with him to investigate. What they find is more of the tendrils of the plant that dragged him down through the manhole last episode.
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I sure would have liked to see more about that.
Instead, we see Devin pivot to flirting with a newly single Frankie. Because teenage hormones I guess.
Meanwhile, Trey is having a terrible day. First, his girlfriend leaves him. Then, Anthony breaks his car window.
Needing a way to deal with his frustration, Trey decides to break into the Brewers’ basement. There, he starts wrecking up the place. Until he meets the plant creature and has an unfortunate accident.
What worked
The big difference between this episode and the last is the increased gross-out factor. This episode had some straight-up cringy moments. From the tendrils waiving from Anthony’s arm to the whole goat he brings home to feed his new pet, this episode was skin-crawling gross in the best way possible.
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The series is called Goosebumps, after all.
What didn’t work
Unfortunately, that’s where my praise ends. This episode, unlike the last, just wasn’t that great.
To start with, there was a lot of unnecessary drama between characters who are not in danger of being eaten by a plant from the inside out.
I especially disliked the focus on the Frankie/Trey/Devin love triangle.
Now, I don’t hate it. This part of the story adds extra emotional depth to the show. We can see why Trey would be especially incensed by his girlfriend falling for the son of the neighbor he’s feuding with. But it would be more enjoyable if it wasn’t so cliche and dramatic.
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I hate the way Trey tried to gaslight Frankie. It makes me dislike him when he should be a sympathetic character. I hate how whiny Devin is every time he talks to Frankie. And I hated the impassioned speech Frankie gives after Devin asks her why she was with Trey.
Listen, I understand what we’re going for here. Devin and Cece are not struggling financially. They’re doing alright, and their new friends here in Gravesend are not. We kind of got that without Frankie claiming that her socioeconomic status is why she’s dating a bully and gaslighter. It felt out of place. It felt like pandering. It certainly didn’t feel like something an eighteen-year-old would say. I hated it.
Finally, there was a moment near the end of the episode that irritated me. I don’t want to give too much detail because I wouldn’t dare ruin an R.L. Stine cliffhanger. But, well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I get that we’re watching a show about a carnivorous plant that is going to wreak havoc on this family and neighborhood. I understand the suspension of disbelief. Some might even say I am a little too generous with it. So I can buy into a teenager being absorbed by a plant and turned into a monstrous version of himself.
I can’t buy into what happens at the end of this episode. It doesn’t make sense with the rules established. It certainly doesn’t make any sort of scientific or logical sense. It is a lazy moment meant to further the storyline but threatens the structural integrity of the season.
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All in all, this wasn’t the best episode of Goosebumps. But it’s only the second episode. Honestly, the season has plenty of time to go either way.
The movie monsters always approach so slowly. Their stiff joints arcing in jerky, erratic movements While the camera pans to a wide-eyed scream. It takes forever for them to catch their victims.
Their stiff joints arcing in jerky, erratic movements As they awkwardly shamble towards their quarry – It takes forever for them to catch their victims. And yet no one ever seems to get away.
As they awkwardly shamble towards their quarry – Scenes shift, plot thickens, minutes tick by endlessly… And yet no one ever seems to get away. Seriously, how long does it take to make a break for it?
Scenes shift, plot thickens, minutes tick by endlessly… While the camera pans to a wide-eyed scream. Seriously, how long does it take to make a break for it? The movie monsters always approach so slowly.
Robot Dance from Jennifer Weigel’s Reversals series
So my father used to enjoy telling the story of Thriller Nite and how he’d scare his little sister, my aunt. One time they were watching the old Universal Studios Monsters version of The Mummy, and he pursued her at a snail’s pace down the hallway in Boris Karloff fashion. Both of them had drastically different versions of this tale, but essentially it was a true Thriller Nite moment. And the inspiration for this poem.