Directed and written by Julian Pölsler and based on Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall, this follows a woman (Martina Gedeck) who goes to the Austrian Alps hunting lodge of her friends Hugo and Luise. Somehow, she is cut off from all human contact when an invisible wall suddenly appears. She adopts her friend’s dog, Lynx, and learns just how strong she is when all alone in the world.

By the end of the film, she feels born again and just when you think that there’s a message in this, a man appears and kills one of her cows and — spoiler warning but I hated this — her dog. She shoots him, throws him off a cliff and buries Lynx. Why?

I wanted to like this more than I did. I love the slow-moving story and the way that it was shot. And yes, I understand the circle of life and that animals must die (a cat also dies in a windstorm). But the ending feels unnecessarily cruel. Maybe that’s the story, and this has no moral. Everything is left up to you, even the idea of the wall and what happens next. Maybe I’m an idealist, and I’d like to remember the woman, her cow, her cat and the dog making their yearly trip in spring to live on a mountain in happiness rather than the gory and nonsensical close.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I get why this documentary is made, but you have to ask yourself, “Is a TMZ documentary about how rough it is for child stars made by the very people who make it tough to be a young celebrity so difficult, not a snake eating its own tail?”

This is an hour long, but it feels like hundreds of years as we hear the same thing repeatedly, as public domain and TMZ footage is used as we hear the same story we’ve heard since, well, forever, just with different people. The public demands new stars, and then we also require the ritual where they are destroyed for our pleasure. At the same time, we furtively read about it online while preparing to pay too much for groceries and sneak a read of the tabloids that still exist in our rapidly non-print world. Or we watch it on TMZ, which seems to sicken me every time I hear one of its hosts and hear I am perpetuating this bullshit by even writing about it because I have OCD and feel the pull of having to write about every Tubi Original.

You should watch this, I guess.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I want to love this movie, but I don’t.

It has everything I should love.

It’s an auteur project by Anna Biller, who directed, wrote, edited, produced, scored and designed the clothes.

It’s shot on 35mm film.

It’s about a woman discovering herself through witchcraft.

So what gives?

Elaine Parks (Samantha Robinson) is a widow returning to the dating scene. But nearly every man she gets with becomes too clingy, either having to disappear or die. Her apartment is great, her clothes and makeup are perfect, but nothing seems to work out for her.

I get what this movie is going for, but it feels so mannered and even meandering that it comes off as more like an artistic exercise than something with blood in its heart and loins. Say what you will about Eurotrash movies, but at least they got excited. This feels like it constantly tells you its references, points out where it got its color palette from, and reminds you how long it took to make all the costumes. But what about the actual movie? Do people just like this because it’s on the right side of sexual politics? Because, well, good for the movie, but that doesn’t instantly make a movie good.

There’s a time to have something important to say and not sledgehammer it home over a running time that feels like a Warhol stunt film instead of The Velvet Vampire, which this is indebted to. I could film my Letterboxd list, too, and it’d probably just as boring. But hey—this movie sure is pretty, right?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Before Adopted even has its credits, ten-year-old Dylan (Jayden Aguirre) has already killed his foster family, a fact that no one believes except for Detective Dante Miller (co-writer Marques Houston). The story that he tells about a killer biker who came into their home seems a bit too wild. Yet, who can not believe a child? Indeed, all kids are innocent.

Nope. Get ready for a Chris Stokes take on The Bad Seed, but instead of killing another child over a handwriting contest, people of all ages get killed.

Carrie (Drew Sidora) and James (Daniel J. Johnson) have always wanted a family but can’t. Luckily — well, you know — they are able to adopt Dylan immediately and never learn that his past family died. He’s the perfect kid and even calls them mom and dad on his first day in the house. But in just minutes, Dylan and Ryan (Jahlil Muhammad) — the nephew of next-door neighbor Diane (Shalet Monique) — are playing with a real gun and faking deaths. He also gets way too into Melissa (Victoria Nuckles), who is much older than him, but Dylan is already coming on to her, and when she tells him that she has a boyfriend, he shoots both her and her mother, Diane.

Somehow, Carrie and Jamescano adopt a second child, Bella (Livy Neachell), days after Ryan kills himself mysteriously. Bella might be just as bad as Dylan, but he’s all for killing her before we find out by drowning her in a pool.

Dylan is my favorite Tubi villain now because he’s risen above being verbally abused by his mother and physically attacked by his father — his legs have been scarred and burned from being doused with boiling water — to turn the tables on everyone else, shifting from being a good little boy to suddenly questioning his parents’ abilities ranging from being able to raise him to even calling Carrie’s cooking out by telling her that he’s never had chicken this dry before. It’s incredible how good he is at being the worst child ever.

The end of this movie is something. I’m not going to spoil it for you—Tubi has already teased a sequel—but I didn’t see it coming. Moms will be thrown down the steps, fathers will be attacked, and police will be called. It’s really got the most “woah” cut to credits I’ve seen in some time, as well as a square-up reel PSA before the credits.

This may be the best Chris Stokes movie ever.

You can watch this on Tubi.

My brother has a significant sneaker collection. As I am to Joe D’Amato, he is to Nike. When I watched this movie, I recognized so many people who live for the next drop. But is it any different than collecting physical media, toys or comic books? Well, you can probably make more money investing in shoes.

I liked that this goes back to Chuck Taylor shoes and the world of athletic equipment, which all looked the same, as well as the athletes and brands that changed how we see shoes and sports. Beyond that, it goes into celebrities and shoe customizers, so if you have no idea what shoe collecting is about, this is a good introduction.

My brother could find a lot wrong with it, but he’s an expert. As someone naive to the scene, I thought it was a good hour to watch.

Directed by Sia Savvy (Gone Before His Time: Kobe Bryant) and written by Christine Nusbaum (Famously Haunted: Hollywood), this doesn’t shy away from some of the issues with shoes, from gangs wearing their colors to people being attacked and killed for their shoes, as well as the difficulty of even getting some Nikes.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who wrote the story with Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, The Neon Demon finds Jesse moving from Georgia to Los Angeles, all of sixteen, ready to become a star. She soon takes a shoot with Dean (Karl Glusman), becomes friends with makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone), as well as two other models, Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee). The girls soon become jealous of her, as her youth — can people tell the difference in these ages? — get her more attention than them.

Of course, Jesse is about to find out about the dirty side of modeling, whether that means being coerced into sex, pressured into cosmetic surgery or having dreams of triangles and men penetrating her mouth with a knife. Afraid after someone breaks in next door, even staying with Ruby is dangerous, as she repeatedly tries to have sex with Jesse, who reveals that she is a virgin. When she’s turned down repeatedly, Ruby goes to her job at a morgue and gets off on a corpse.

Soon, the girls shoved Jesse into a pool and stabbed her repeatedly, consuming her body. It’s not for everyone — Gigi screams, “I need to get her out of me” before slicing her stomach open — as eyeballs are puked up and eaten.

Refn has watched many of the movies you have and then some. Ruby is inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky. a lipstick called Red Rum. Before making this, Elle Fanning was told to watch Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. A character is named Roberto Sarno. And yet this movie played Cannes, filled with grindhouse imagery. Also, It’s gorgeous. The story doesn’t matter. It just is.

Directed by Jason Winn (Deadly Secrets of a Cam Girl) and written by Dean Loftis and Mary O’Neil (Sinister Surgeon, You Shouldn’t Have Let Me In), Tarot Curse has Tara (Lauren Chanel), Preston (Kamarion Miller), Jordan (Triston Dye), Quinn (Evelyn Kim) and Chloe (Selena Turner) getting fake IDs and going to New Orleans to party. While there, they learn their futures from The Reader (Anna Talakkottur), who — as if you couldn’t guess by the title — curses them with a Final Destination-esque series of deaths.

There’s a character named The Bone Daddy (Mikhail Keize) in this, and I just want to point that out.

This has one major scene going for it: a vending machine that slices the fingers of one of the characters when they attempt to put their hand into it and pull out a stuck candy bar. This has always been one of my big worries, and seeing it in a movie, complete with practical blood and gore, made me yell out loud, which rarely happens anymore. What a shocking scene almost topped by a chandelier to the head later.

While Tarot Curse is very much a by-the-numbers teen curse movie, it is much better than most studio horror these days, and it’s free on Tubi. For its million-dollar budget, the kills look good, the New Orleans scenery is appropriately dark and mysterious, and the movie moves quickly. What more could you ask for?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Caroline Labrèche (Marry F*** Kill) and written by Catharine Park, this Tubi Original is based on the true story of Viktoria Nasyrova, who in 2016 visited her stylist, Olga Tsvyk and gave her a piece of poisoned cheesecake.

Tsvyk nearly died and came home to find that a lot of her belongings were stolen. She blamed Nasyrova before learning they weren’t the only people looking for her. Herman Weisberg, a former NYPD cop turned PI, had been searching for her online. He did find her by paying attention to her social media images, leading the police to her. When arrested, she had ID cards belonging to Tsvyk. As the women looked similar, they believed she planned to steal her identity.

Weisberg was working for Nadia Ford, a Russian woman who believed that Nasyrova had robbed and murdered her mother in Russia and came to the U.S. to stay on the run from Russian police. It took six years for the case to go to trial and just hours to convict her; Russia may still extradite her for crimes there.

This Tubi Original has Victoria Diamond as Nasyrova and Nastassia Markiewicz as Tsyvk. They don’t look much alike, while the real people could have been related. If you don’t know this story, it has been on several true crime shows, and this is a good way to catch up.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I always wonder when people are going to start blaming Jessica Fletcher for all these murders. By the third regular episode of the series, it happens. When she protests when her book is turned into a slasher movie, Jessica winds up as the prime suspect when the producer is killed.

Season 1, Episode 3: Hooray for Homicide (October 28, 1984)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

One of Jessica’s books is becoming a movie, and she’s not happy about it.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury and were they in any exploitation movies?

Claude Atkins returns as local lawman Captain Ethan Cragg.

Crystal is played by Melissa Sue Anderson, who, by 1984, knew all about slashers after appearing in Happy Birthday to Me. She’s probably best known for playing Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie.

Ross is John Astin, once Gomez Adams and also someone who moved into directing, creating episodes of Night Gallery, CHiPS and, yes, Murder, She Wrote.

Marta is Samantha Eggar, who I have discussed so many times that I worry that she may take out a restraining order on me. In case you want to get obsessed, she’s in The Brood and Demonoid.

Allan is James MacArthur, Danny Williams from Hawaii-Five-O.

Elinor is Virginia Mayo, who was a major star in the 1950s, but people like would know her from Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood, Haunted, Castle of Evil and Evil Spirits.

Norman Lester, Esq. is played by Ron Pallilo, who was Arnold Horshack and also appears in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Skatetown U.S.A. and Snake Eater.

This episode’s cop, Lt. Mike Hernandez, is José Pérez from Short Eyes.

The murdered filmmaker is Jerry Lydecker, who is John Saxon. If you’re reading this site, you know who he is. And if you don’t, man, you have so many great films to watch.

Scott plays Morgan Stevens, the first of three roles on this show. Most people remember him as David Reardon on Fame.

Marty is Lyle Waggoner, Steve Trevor on TV’s Wonder Woman, a Carol Burnett cast member, and someone who was in movies like Surf II, Wizards of the Demon Sword, Dream a Little Evil and Love Me Deadly. He would be in two more Murder, She Wrote shows.

Sunny is Marianne McAndrew from The Bat People!

Wayne Power,  Erik Holland (Maniac Cop), Hank Rolike, Paul Ryan, Barbara Lynn Block, Michael Milhoan, R.J. Adams, Jack Scalici, Lisa Hope Ross and Selby Dessner play smaller roles.

What happens?

Jessica’s book The Corpse Danced at Midnight has been optioned to be made into a movie. She flies out to Hollywood and is informed by her lawyer, Marty Strindberg, that they’re stuck and the film is getting made no matter what. After getting turned away at the studio gate, Jessica makes fast friends with costume designer Marta Quintessa (Samantha Eggar looks as if she brought all her clothes, as usual) and gets on set.

Jerry, the producer, and Eve, the actress, are dating, which never goes well. Yes, 48-year-old John Saxon and 22-year-old Melissa Sue Anderson are hooking up. This is very realistic when it comes to Hollywood. Jessica arrives just in time for the nude scene—the only one in a slasher. Maybe it’s not all realistic.

Jessica and producer Jerry battled it out over his movies, and wow, somehow, he had the budget to create this amazing poster for them.

But let’s give it up to Jessica. When she reads the contract over, she realizes she’s wrong and apologizes. However, it’s too late, as Jerry’s body is dead on the film’s cemetery set. Luckily, despite finding the body, the police don’t investigate Jessica. Maybe it’s because Lieutenant Hernandez is a big fan. He is such a fan that he trusts Jessica to visit Eve and tell her that her boyfriend is deceased.

So yes, while Jessica is a suspect, she gets to run around a lot. This allows us to see the movie being made, and man, I know 1984 had neon, but this movie has so much neon.

I spoke too soon, however, as Lieutenant Hernandez arrests J.B. But when they get to jail, he asks her to investigate everything for the police. There have to be better ways to get someone to help you. Despite being blocked from the set now, Jessica dresses as a tourist and learns that everyone wanted to kill Jerry for one reason or another: Marta is an ex, Eve was cheating on him, Allan had his screenplay rewritten, and if Ross gets to be the producer, his career will get the comeback it needs.

Who did it?

Eve was worried that Jerry would ruin her boyfriend Scott’s career.

Who made it?

Richard A. Colla also made Battlestar Galactica, Fuzz and The Questor Tapes.

Executive story editor Robert Van Scoyk wrote the script.

Some facts…

This episode reveals that the B in J.B. stands for Beatrice.

A poster for an adult movie, Vampire Cheerleaders, also appears in the Simon & Simon episode “The Wrong Stuff.” This is proof that both shows are in the same universe (well, the crossover confirms this).

Does Jessica get some?

This movie starts with Captain Ethan Clegg working on Jessica’s plumbing. No man works on a woman’s sink without trying to work on her more essential plumbing.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

Yes. For the first time, we get Jessica going undercover and acting like a moron. It gets way worse.

Was it any good?

I loved this episode. It features Saxon and Eggar, two of my favorites, and it gets Jessica away from Cabot Cove and trapped in the middle of a mystery, one she’s suspected of. It sets up so many themes the show would return to and become a warm blanket for me.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Marta Quintessa: Sorry to bring this up, but shouldn’t someone tell our star that her star-maker has gone to his Maker?

TV Newsman #1: I’m referring to the scene where the psychotic killer uses a flamethrower on a group of breakdancers.

Marty Strindberg: What do I know about the picture? Well, it’s guaranteed box office magic, that’s all. It’s a combination of Halloween, Porky’s and Flashdance.

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What’s next?

One of my favorite episodes is when Wealthy Denton Langley falls off a horse, dies and leaves most of his estate to his dog, Teddy.

Directed and written by M. Blash, this finds a fire in the woods somewhere in rural Oregon and sisters Angela (Jena Malone) and Emma (Chloë Sevigny) dealing with the death of their mother. In fact, just minutes after she dies in her home, a psychic (Patricia Arquette) calls and informs Emma that her mother will soon rise from the dead. Angela fights her on this, but Emma will not be denied. So the sisters wrap her in a sheet and close the windows in the hope that her soul will remain in the home and go back into her body.

While Angela is trying to do things the normal way—calling the coroner, starting to grieve—Emma is planting flowers in caves, decorating the home with balloons and doing dances that she thinks will help her mother come back.

But is that psychic call really a viral video joke? Is this movie even about death, or is it about navigating life? Do some families ever really get along or are we forced to? Does Angela care more about a new relationship than even dealing with her sister’s refusal to agree that their matriarch is gone?

By the end, this movie wants things in every way possible. The mother could be dead, a ghost, or have returned to life. As for the blaze outside the town just sits there, surrounding everyone but never really intruding. Somewhere between “pretentious trash,” “art film tone poem,” and “drone cinema,” this feels like a movie that some people are going to fill in themselves and fall in love with — you’re reading from one right now — or dismiss because it’s just ridiculous. I kind of love that it takes that swing.

You can watch this on Tubi.