John Waters picked this as his top film of 2025, telling Vulture that “My favorite movie of the year is a disagreeable but highly entertaining tale as exhausting as today’s politics with characters nobody could possibly root for. Yet it’s so terrifyingly funny, so confusingly chaste and kinky that you’ll feel coo-coo crazy and oh-so-cultural after watching. If you don’t like this film, I hate you.”

I don’t want John Waters to hate me.

Luckily, this is the second Ari Aster movie in a row that I’ve been challenged by and liked, after Beau Is Afraid, and I think both of those films may not be as popular as Hereditary or Midsommar, but they’re definitely better films.

Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) is enacting a mask law in the wake of COVID-19. Yes, this film takes us five years — and another world — back to 2020. Meanwhile, Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) refuses to believe in the virus, as he’s been living in a steady stream of conspiracy theory talk thanks to his wife, Louise (Emma Stone), and her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell).

After they battle over the mask rules, Joe decides to run for mayor, which upsets his wife. But are there any good guys here? Sure, Joe is a jerk, but Ted wants to bring a data center to town. Then again, isn’t it a conflict of interest that Joe gets young cops Guy (Luke Grimes) and Michael (Michael Cooke) to be his campaign aids? And what’s with his patrol car being covered with misspelled conspiracy campaign ads? Is that the result of his wife’s guru, would-be cult messiah Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler)?

In the middle of all of this, even the young folks get in over their heads, trying to navigate Black Lives Matter. Ted’s son Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka), his friend Brian (Cameron Mann), and social justice influencer Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle) want to get Michael on their side, as they’re all white yet wish to belong.

During a televised campaign stop — how big is Eddington? — Joe remarks that Ted sexually assaulted his wife, who has blamed her father, but then again, Vernon’s cult is based around repressed memories that could be false. She leaves him; Joe goes into a noise complaint at Ted’s house and gets slapped.

This causes Joe to flip out. He starts his rampage with the killing of a homeless man, then works his way to Ted’s house, where he shoots him and his son with a sniper rifle, set up to look like Antifa — remember when they were going to attack the suburbs? — before a private jet of heavily armed Antifa actually does arrive in town.

At the same time, Native American Officer Butterfly Jimenez (William Belleau) learns that the shots that killed Ted and Eric came from his tribe’s land. He figures that the sheriff did it, just as Joe is framing Michael. The point of all of this is moot, as Antifa — who are really terrorists posing as Antifa — attack the town, killing nearly every cop until Brian saves the sheriff, who had been stabbed in the head while randomly blasting a giant machine gun, even hitting Butterfly with a round, before a terrorist kills him. Brian shows up and faces off with the last gunman, killing him and saving Joe. 

But did he save Joe? 

Joe gets everything he wanted. He’s now the mayor, but he’s a vegetable. He can’t speak or even take care of himself, and every action he takes is dictated by his wife’s mother, who uses his power to push her conspiracy agenda while still allowing the data center to open in town. After a long day — and urinating on himself and needing to be cleaned by a nurse who slaps him — she shows Joe her daughter, now pregnant with the cult leader’s baby. At night, she and the male nurse get into bed with one another — and Joe — and he has everything he wants but has no idea it’s happening. Well, maybe he didn’t want his mother-in-law next to him in bed.

Nobody in this is a hero, like how Brian was only into Sarah, not her politics. And yet he becomes a hero for using a gun to save Joe, whose actions have set the town on fire. He becomes a right-wing hero when all he wanted was to sleep with a liberal girl who thought that his politics were performative because, well, they were. 

Aster told Variety that this movie is about “a conflict between a small-town sheriff and mayor, is partially inspired by a similar stand-off that took place in New Mexico during the COVID-19 era.” That sheriff, David E. Frazee, visited the set, and he and the mayor of Estancia, Nathan Dial, are both thanked in the credits. And while Aster had this film in mind before he made Hereditary, he said the main idea was “How can I make a film about the incoherent miasma we’re living in without the film becoming a message?” 

So many questions: Who sponsored the terrorists, with their logo of a hand squeezing the life out of our planet? Was Vernon really abused? Who abused Lou, Ted or her father? What is the significance of the name Solidgoldmagikarp, the AI data center company?

Actually, I learned what it means from this great article on Jacobin: “It turns out “solidgoldmagikarp” is a reference to an actual AI phenomenon. A couple years ago, ChatGPT users discovered that if they asked the AI to repeat the phrase “solidgoldmagikarp,” it caused the chatbot to fritz out, unable to make sense of the command. Why? Because for years, a Reddit user named “solidgoldmagikarp” would log on to the subreddit r/Counting and simply post ascending numbers. So every instance of that phrase was linked to a string of numbers in order. Because these stupid chatbots can’t reason, the machine just spits out something unintelligible. The error has since become a meme. And by becoming a meme, the chatbot can now only make sense of it. Digital hallucinations, which are not real in any sense, become real by virtue of people talking about them enough.”

A lot of people didn’t like this, saying that Aster was trying to make them relive the horror of 2020 with no moral center.  Aster replied, “I think that’s a pretty bad-faith read of the film. I’ve heard people say you let the left have it worse than the right. Which, to me, feels like an insane thing to say. Given that the people who represent the left in the film are, at worst, annoying and frustrating, and the people on the right are, at worst, murdering and ruining lives.”

This is a film about division, and I love it for that. It’s also a director using whatever goodwill he has left from two hits to do whatever he wants to, which is how the best movies arrive.

You can get this on Blu-ray from A24.

Santo Contra Hombres Infernales and Santo Contra Cerebro Del Mal were the first two movies made with El Santo, filmed in Cuba just as Castro took power, and smuggled out in a coffin. Enrique J. Zambrano realized he didn’t have enough coverage for two films, so he mixed footage between the two movies.

Joaquin (Joaquin Cordero) is the real star of this, a cop whose undercover identity is exposed, leading to his lover Irma (Gina Romand) being kidnapped. Santo just comes in to keep saving him. There’s not even a trip to Arena Mexico to wrestle, as Santo movies would later have. In fact, this has nothing to do with the formula you expect from these films. But you do get to see a lot of Cuba.

Santo had taken years off from wrestling to make movies, and this sat on the shelf for three years. Who knew that, despite the first two movies not being as insane as what was to come, Santo would become such a major cultural hero?

I will say that I love these new 4K Santo transfers. It’s wild to see these films in a whole new light, because they look like brand new films.

You can watch this on Blu-ray.

An early effort by the Sebastians, The Single Girls has a TV Guide-style write-up on Wikipedia: “A group of men and women travel to a Caribbean resort to discover themselves sexually, but unfortunately one of them has also discovered that they like to murder people, too.”

Also known as Bloody Friday and Private School, this has a bunch of singles all having an encounter on an island and when they’re not balling or having dark room milling, which is when everyone touches everyone else, and no one knows who is who, there’s a killer on the loose. Yes, a nascent slasher, as they say.

There’s Lola (Joan Prather), a virgin who decides to go to this island to lose her virginity. Allison (Claudia Jennings) hates commitment, and, you know, her boyfriend is a loser, so she shouldn’t be into it. Also, she’s Claudia Jennings. Shannon (Cheri Howell) wants to have everyone on the island. Dr. Stevens (Wayne Dvorek) has made a pretty groovy scene, but like I said, someone has a knife. The sex in this is relatively chaste, but there’s a good idea going on here.

Plus, we got ‘Gator Bait out of this, as it introduced Jennings to the Sebastians.

Solara (Kul Sarai), Tansy (Toria Pardoe) and Cala (Hannah Robson) are space princesses who have their future thrones taken from them when their stepmother, Voluptina (Caroline Vella), sends them through a black hole and into the past, where she hopes they’ll be eaten by dinosaurs.

This is just an hour, and everyone stays in bikinis. Also, because this is British, they’re really pale — I love that — so if you’re expecting tanned American ladies battling giant monsters, well…no… no. I watched this because I thought it would be suitable for one of my kaiju day movies, yet this didn’t even have great monsters.

Like I said, it’s an hour.

You can watch this on Tubi.

When a Stranger Calls is a remake of Fred Walton and Steve Feke’s short film The Sitter, with the first 23 minutes — the best part of the movie — being, well, The Sitter. That short played before Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and then this was the full-length result. 

Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) is watching the children of Dr. Mandrakis (Carmen Argenziano). A phone call comes in, and a voice — we later learn it’s Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley) — keeps asking if she’s checked on the children. Spoiler: The kids are dead. 

Seven years later, he’s escaped from prison, and the cop who caught him, John Clifford (Charles Durning), has been hired to catch him before he kills again. He remembers Jill, and he’s also getting close to a woman who actually treats him well, Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst). Sure, the calls coming from inside the house had already been done in Black Christmas, but this does have some moments of fright. 

When Sneak Previews did their Women In Danger episode, this movie was shown, along with Friday the 13th, Halloween, I Spit on Your Grave, Silent Scream and Don’t Answer the Phone. Even with some of those films, Roger Ebert still singled this out as sleazy.

Walton would go on to direct April Fool’s Day, The Rosary Murders, the remake of I Saw What You Did and the TV movie, When a Stranger Calls Back. 

Oh, Windows.

Gordon Willis defined the way we saw movies in the 70s with his work on the Woody Allen films and The Godfather trilogy. But he never directed, other than this movie. Vincent Carnaby said of it, “…everything about Windows is ridiculous; including the performances of Talia Shire and Elizabeth Ashley; it has remarkably little pace of any kind, partly because anything of any interest happens off-screen and what happens off-screen is consistently, nuttily irrelevant; the camera-work, which Mr. Willis did for himself, is technically O.K.”

I mean, he sold it to me with that.

But oh, there are problems. One is, well, the homophobia. David Denby of The New Yorker said, “Windows exists only in the perverted fantasies of men who hate lesbians so much they will concoct any idiocy in order to slander them.”

Emily Hollander (Talia Shire) is all her neighbor Andrea Glassen (Elizabeth Ashley) thinks about. Emily is also attacked by a man who doesn’t have sex with her. He just wants her to beg for mercy into a tape recorder; he does it again, but Andrea saves her. Of course, Andrea has set the whole thing up and thinks that eventually, Emily will come to love her.

This came out a month before Cruising, so 1980 was a banner year for representation, huh?

This looks nice, though.

Devilman started as a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Go Nagai. A high school student named Akira Fudo absorbs the powers of a demon with the help of his friend Ryo Asuka, becoming Devilman. There was a 39-episode anime series, a year-long run of the manga and even a crossover with Go Nagai’s other famous character, Mazinger Z vs. Devilman. While the anime had Devilman turning against demons to protect humanity, the manga has the entire world end, and God’s angels come to destroy what’s left. 

And then there’s this, a movie that Beat Takeshi said was “one of the four dumbest movies ever made after Getting Any?, Siberian Express and Pekin Genjin Who Are You?, saying that “there is nothing better than getting drunk and watching this movie. There is nothing better than getting drunk and watching this movie.” In Japan, people went to great lengths to hate on this film, including comedian Hiroshi Yamamoto, whose website was filled with bad reviews.

Imagine if a major comic book became a movie and it turned out to be the worst film ever, and then add in the fact that Japan has a national identity around its culture being important, and you get some idea of how hated this movie was.

Maybe it’s because music idols, the Izaki twins, were inexperienced at best and insanely horrid at worst in this. Or perhaps it’s impossible to tell the entire story in one movie. Or could it be the special effects that redefine bad? Could it be that every fight looks like a PS1 cutscene and not actual actors? 

Well, it has Bob Sapp as a TV announcer, so there’s that. And a hilarious scene where Akira finds the head of his love, Miki (Ayana Sakai), just left for him in his house. And it ends with the moon cracked, and I wonder, is this how Thundarr got here?

Director Hiroyuki Nasu made several manga adaptations, like the Be-Bop High School movies, as well as Beautiful Wrestlers: Down for the Count and Lesbians In Uniform. I have no idea how he made this, but he died a year later, so we can’t ask him.

Some people like to discuss the worst movies, and they always go back to the same well. Trust me, there are movies that are worse than anything you can imagine. This might be one of them: a movie blankly acted by singers unable to act, special effects unable to be special, and a beloved property treated like every 1980s comic book film other than Tim Burton’s Batman. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

I first encountered this movie halfway through a showing in the middle of the night and had no idea what it was. That’s something that people that stream movies miss out on — the total confusion and need to know that arises when you discover a completely deranged movie in the middle of its running time in the small hours of the night.

William O. Brown only made one other movie, One Way Wahine. That’s a shame because I totally love what he had happening here in The Witchmaker. It’s just plain strange in the very best of ways.

Somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana, young women are being killed and drained of their plasma by Luther the Berserk, who is part of a coven of witches that has drawn Dr. Hayes (Alvy Moore, Hank Kimball from Green Acres) and his group of psychic investigators.

The coven’s leader Jessie — who appears in young and old forms — wants a member of Dr. Hayes’ group named Anastasia (Thordis Brandt, who played an Amazon in In Like Flint), who has supernatural ancestors, to join them.

There’s an interesting and probably unintended theme running through this movie, where the straight-laced older male scientists want to save the buxom blonde Anastasia and the witches and warlock just want to free her (and you know, make her a wanton woman. Can the patriarchy win out?

Six years later, this movie was re-released under the title The Naked Witch with footage that earns it that title. This is not the Larry Buchanan movie of the same name.

Alvy Moore was also the producer of this movie and would team with L.Q. Jones again to make A Boy and His Dog and The Brotherhood of Satan.

The VCI Blu-ray of The Naked Witch has a commentary track by Robert Kelly, artist, reviewer and film buff extraodinaire; a poster gallery of other notable horror films of the 1960’s and restored original trailers and a radio ad. You can get it from MVD.

From the creators of Christmas Lights, Screamityville is an 84-minute tour of some of the creepiest and most creative Halloween decorations. They claim that “It recreates the experience of driving around on a late October evening in search of your favorite decorated homes in your neighborhood.”

With music that gets you in the mood and well-shot footage, this makes the perfect Halloween movie to have running during a party. It’s a fun way to build excitement and create a festive atmosphere. And as we get further from the holiday, I turn to this to rekindle the Halloween spirit and lift my mood. There’s no narration to get in the way. Just gorgeous vistas of terrifying homes, all lit up to scare the neighbors.

If you love driving around and looking at Halloween decorations, this lets you do it anytime. It’s a convenient way to enjoy spooky sights whenever you want, making it perfect for year-round viewing.

You can get this on Blu-ray or DVD from MVD. You can learn more at the official site.