It’s oftentimes hard for a movie to withstand that kind of hype, but I managed to maneuver around spoilers, trailers and art around the film. All I knew was that it was scary and good.

After screening the film, it was confirmed: The Witch is scary good, possessing otherworldly performances, astounding camera work and exquisite lived in sets and costume design.

It’s New England in 1630, and William (Ralph Ineson), under threat of banishment from the church, moves his wife and five children out of town and on a plantation on the precipice of the wrong forest.

When their baby disappears under the care of eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), the family slowly turns on her, accusing her of witchcraft and setting the stage for what felt like the world’s creepiest Shakespearean production.

The Witch is marketed as a New England folk tale, and we learn that the uncomfortable events of the film come from actual accounts, with much of the dialogue lifted verbatim from the texts. Because of that and the unreal performances by every single one of the family members, from the kids on up to the parents, this film feels like more than just a hellish Puritan nightmare. It feels real.

I have no idea how the young actors, Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson, who played siblings Mercy and Jonas respectively, could handle the difficult Yorkshire accent and period dialogue. But they and everyone else did, perfectly. They each have standout moments, with the oldest son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) proving that possession still can feel fresh and disturbing.

Kate Dickie, who as any Game of Thrones fan will know, specializes in playing characters that hurt your soul, is chilling and monstrous as Katherine, the family’s crazed matriarch.

Ineson, who tries and fails to keep his family together, delivers a heartbreaking performance, digging great, untold depths to keep faith.

But this is Thomasin’s movie, and while this sentiment is likely repeated by every critic who sees this movie, it’s no less true: it’s a star-making turn by Anya Taylor-Joy, a Miami-born actress who grew up in Argentina, lived for a time in London, and whose first language was Spanish, making her performance even more astonishing. Her big eyes are mesmerizing, like Amanda Seyfried’s but with pain surrounding her hazel irises. Not to sensationalize and play Monday morning quarterback, but her performance was just as powerful as another young blonde’s star-making turn in Winter’s Bone, and she showcases Jennifer Lawrence level talent.

Yes, there is a witch, a terrifying creation, but much of the terror comes from the agonizing melodrama when this family turns on their daughter/sister. Increasingly nobody believes Thomasin, and of course, every event is timed to paint her as the culprit. While this is a lean movie, Eggers’ relishes these scenes precisely because they’re so difficult, and because we know another witch sighting is around the corner to make everything even worse.

The Witch isn’t one of those exploitive jump scare horror flicks, even if it will likely make you jump, gasp and swear. Eggers earns every grisly Brothers Grimm moment, and gets as dark as possible: there is no comfort to be found here, this is an unholy baptism of sinister shit that gives me continued faith in not just the indie horror genre but in movie-making in general.

The Witch arrives in theaters February 19 to ruin your sleep. Make it a success.

It’s not often you find a movie bursting with decapitations and dildos that also has a heart, but found one you have in the form of the deliriously zonked out Deathgasm from writer-director Jason Lei Howden.

On its surface, the film is about a bunch of loser high school students fending off a demon-fueled apocalypse, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But Deathgasm shows us the appeal of Heavy Metal and that it stems from the same place everywhere else comes from during adolescence: loneliness and feelings of being irrevocably different from everyone else. Heavy metal gives Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) an outlet.

He’s hated by his Aunt and Uncle, essentially living out a metal version of Harry Potter, with his cousin David and his henchmen bullying him in ways that only movie bullies can, spraying piss at Brodie and his nerdy friends, D&D nut Dion (Sam Berkley) and Giles (Daniel Cresswell), who’s kind of just an asshole.

It all changes when Brodie meets Zakk (James Blake), at, where else, a record store, and they all form a band called, of course, Deathgasm.

The plot trappings are standard fare, but the film’s gonzo sense of humor and bonkers (and violent) series of events will win most everyone over.

The darkness even appeals to Medina (Kimberley Crossman), the hottest babe in school that Brodie has a not-so-hopeless crush on.

After Brodie and Zakk end up with a mystical Black Hymn from their metal idol Rikki Daggers, they end up playing the song and unleashing Hell on a small New Zealand town in the form of The Blind One, a demon.

From there, Deathgasm is a dizzying array of gore, practical FX and sex toys as weapons, with Zakk finding ways to use chainsaws that even Evil Dead hasn’t. There’s hardly any boundaries of where to go: this is a movie with a baby vomiting blood.

In other words, it’s delightful, and another example (after Housebound and What We Do in the Shadows) that New Zealand is the most metal place for indie horror.

Deathgasm is available On Demand and on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Blessedly, the Syfy creature feature and wannabe Sharknado is everything you want it to be.

It has a shirtless, sweaty and self-aware Steve Guttenberg, who not only calls out act breaks, but complains to his agent: “I hate bugs. I can’t be in a bug movie.” Arni, his smarmy agent played by Danny Woodburn, yells back: “You’re in a bug movie!”

Side-stepping the bug/insect wormhole (spiders aren’t insects, guys), Lavalantula also features too many bad one liners to count.

It has bad CGI and even worse acting.

It has the world’s most lopsided love triangle between Colton’s son Wyatt, a super cool biker, and Travis, a super annoying biker.

It has a Sharknado crossover that will question your entire existence, and make you ponder the possibility that all of Syfy’s creature features exist in a single cinematic universe that would make Marvel jealous.

It has a Police Academy reunion, teaming the Gutte with Michael Winslow, Marion Ramsey and Leslie Easterbrook, names that will only mean anything to you if you’ve watched Police Academy hung over.

Lavalantula opens with Guttenberg getting a pounding during an interrogation, taking punch after bloody punch from that guy in 24 (Carlos Bernard). We learn that Guttenberg is a former Green Beret, CIA operative, a Medal of Honor winner and the head of the Black Cobra Society (just like in real life). We also learn that he’s none of those things, and that he’s filming a movie. Yup, Lavalantula is one of those. Guttenberg is actually Colton West, a down ‘n out former action star, now known for his criminal record rather than the blockbuster superhero flick Red Rocket.

He’s got a wife who’s pissed at him (played by Nia Peeples) and a son who’s pissed at him (whose name would illicit exactly no recognition from anyone reading this), and a career on Life Alert.

Luckily for him, and the audience, what’s supposed to happen over a million years happens overnight. Lavalantula answers the age old question that has haunted LA residents: is it possible for LA traffic to get any worse? Yes. All it takes is an ancient volcano (?!) in the Santa Monica mountains (!!) erupting all over the 405, because volcanos and spiders become one or something Mayan, and we’re treated to fire breathing spiders destroying all of your favorite Los Angeles landmarks.

Lavalantula is the right kind of ridiculous for a Friday night with your pals, or for when you’re playing hooky from work on a Monday afternoon. This is a movie that gleefully murders dogs, love triangles and the elderly with equal relish.

At one point, Guttenberg hijacks a StarLine tour bus, breaking the fourth, fifth and sixth wall in the process. Onboard, he meets Sandlot and Mean Green superstar Patrick Renna as Chris, a super fan of Colton West’s.

Yup, it’s everything you wanted.

Syfy fashioned Lavalantula to become the next Sharknado, greenlighting a sequel last summer after its broadcast premiere (with a title of 2 Lava 2 Lantula). There have unfortunately been scant updates since, but one can hope we haven’t seen the last of Sweaty Steve and company.

In the meantime, Lavalantula is available on demand and is out on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Drinking Game

1. Drink every time there’s a self aware reference to the fact that Steve Guttenberg *GASP* is a washed up actor.
2. Take a sip for every cheesy action movie one liner that would make Ahnuld litigious. Example: “No fare, no ride.” Cue: shotgun.
3. Drink every time there’s a Los Angeles reference. Since this is the most LA movie I’ve ever seen, this might be the only rule you need.
4. I don’t think you need me to tell you to drink any time someone says “Lavalantula,” but drink double whenever someone says “Mamalantula,” which yes, does happen.
5. Drink for every news report.
6. Take a drink for every different kind of weapon used to dispatch the evil lavalantulas.
7. Whenever a costumed character on Hollywood boulevard is massacred, drink. [Technically, this is double dipping with Rule #3, but it’s worth it]
8. Finish your drink when Steve Guttenberg becomes a literal superhero.

Extra Credit: Drink for every tremor.

Disclaimer: Please drink responsibly and don’t drink and drive. Sleep on a friend’s couch or sober up by watching Police Academy 1-4.

I got a late start to the horror game. When I was younger, I was derisive of the genre, which is code for being too chicken shit to explore it.

Sure, I grew up watching Universal horror with my father and Uncle, but it wasn’t until the past couple years when I first saw Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and Night of the Living Dead, which so happened to coincide with securing a (blessedly short term) position at Famous Monsters magazine.

Luckily, this newfound love of horror has taken place during a revitalization of the genre, thanks to Blumhouse Productions, filmmakers like Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett, Ti West and Joe Begos who revere their 80’s roots, and a growing international scene that has included The Babadook, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Housebound. This trend has continued in 2015 with films like It Follows, and will only grow as we enter Halloween season and the festival darlings arrive in theaters and on demand.

Outside of The Witch, no indie horror film has been met with more buzz than IFC Films’ Irish horror film The Hallow (originally known as The Woods).

And after watching writer-director Corin Hardy’s film in the worst possible fashion for a horror movie (during the day, with a screener link on an iPad), I can see why.

It has a classic (read: yawn) premise: new parents Adam (Ripper Street’s Joseph Mawle, AKA Benjen Stark) and Clare (Bojana Novakovic) have recently moved to the remote Irish countryside, bringing their baby boy and Border collie along for what turns out to be a dangerous ride. They live next to, or practically within, an ancient forest, one whose land and trees are being sold for lumber by the government because of Ireland’s sorry economic state. The woods aren’t too happy about this. Or more accurately, the creatures that inhabit it aren’t.

Adam, flippantly disregarded as a “tree doctor” by superstitious locals, is studying the trees before the lumberjacks arrive, making him a villain in the town, who all know that “the Hallow” should not be messed with. Hardy has fun with this, utilizing Game of Throne’s Michael McElhatton as the dangerous neighbor, trying to warn Adam and Clare of their impending doom in hilariously scary ways. The Hallow is a movie where Roose Bolton comes ‘round with the bloody Necronomicon (okay, so it’s a gnarled, creepy book of fairy tales, but same diff), and that’s about when it elevates beyond its stock premise and gets to the crazy (fiery scythes and Cronenbergian horror).

That crazy has a lot to do with parasitic fungus; it’s rare to find that as the vessel of horror, and even rarer to see “fungal research advisor” in the credits, as Hardy’s film delights in oozing, sticky, muddy sludge seeping through every nook and cranny. The Hallow is a homemaker’s nightmare before we even glimpse the awesome woodland zombie dead-eyed Gollum’s crawling about, baby hungry.

The Hallow doesn’t tread any new ground (particularly when it comes to Clare, who isn’t given much to do beyond screaming, running and baby-holding until the end), but it’s a tremendously enjoyable throwback, with more than just jump scares. In addition to Bolton, Hardy employs Spaced and Luther star Michael Smiley as the unhelpful cop archetype, another self-aware wink to the monsters in the woods genre. But what really makes The Hallow memorable is the stellar (and practical) creature FX. The “hallows” are terrifically rendered, and the superlative sound design sells the whole thing.

It’s easy to judge horror movies, but right now, indie horror is some of the most fun you can have at the movies, and Hardy’s The Hallow is an exceptional example of that.

The Hallow arrives On Demand November 5, and in theaters starting November 6.

You’d be hard-pressed to find two more misunderstood genres than the horror and western. The former is often (and unfairly) seen as schlock, a cheap studio stunt for cash. The latter is seen as a long since dead genre, a relic of Classic Hollywood, despite Django Unchained, Deadwood, Meek’s Cutoff and titles that owe a debt to the western frontier (Firefly/Serenity). Blessedly, Bone Tomahawk throws the two genres into a blender, and thanks to its impressive cast and ballsy brutality, pulls it off, ushering in the winter of Kurt Russell.

David Arquette’s character, who we find out much later is named Purvis, may as well be called “Mr. Inciting Incident,” as he and horror icon Sid Haig (as Buddy) open the movie robbing and killing (as one does in the West), stumbling on an Indian burial ground as they make their escape (again, as one does). It predictably ends poorly for Buddy, and Purvis manages to escape, seeking refuge in Bright Hope.

He doesn’t get it. Instead, he brings whatever it is that killed Buddy with him.

Bright Hope is a small, “civilized” tenement, sparsely populated with some of the best actors in Hollywood. Kurt Russell was practically born with a Sheriff badge emblazoned upon his chest, but he wears one here anyway lest we forget that he’s the moral, upstanding Sheriff Franklin Hunt who will do anything to protect his town.

Patrick Wilson is the stolid, stubborn cowboy with a romantic streak Arthur O’Dwyer, suffering from a debilitating leg injury, his loving wife Samantha (Banshee’s Lili Simmons) there to care for him. LOST’sMatthew Fox is the aptly named John Brooder, an Indian-hating, sharp shooting jerk who loves his horse and spyglass (“the German”) more than anything else.

There are also random appearances by Sean Young and James Tolkan (Principal Strickland), but the true highlight is the nearly unrecognizable Richard Jenkins as Chicory, a doddering chatter box of a widower, acting as Hunt’s back up deputy. This seemingly unnecessary position comes in handy when Deputy Nick (poor, poor Nick), Samantha and Purvis get kidnapped by the mysterious Indian tribe that slightly uncomfortably act as the monsters of this movie.

We learn that these Native Americans aren’t like the rest. They are truly troglodytes, ruthless and dangerous cave dwellers that even the lone Indian in town labels as savages. Because this is a period piece and a western, this fits, and because there’s something mystical and horrific about the cave dwellers, Bone Tomahawk manages to skirt the controversy seen by Adam Sandler’s sure-to-be-terrible-and-offensive Ridiculous 6. Despite being crippled, O’Dwyer joins Sheriff Hunt, Chicory and Brooder on one of those hopeless but not at all hopeless because it’s a movie rescue mission.

For much of its too-long two hour plus running time, writer-director S. Craig Zahler walks a tight rope. Sometimes, Bone Tomahawk feels like it doesn’t know what it is, with clashing tones and meandering plots often biding their time to make the sudden spurts of gorey violence even more shocking. Yet it works, precisely because we see something Patrick Wilson and I have never seen onscreen, and hopefully never do again. I’m not one to turn away from a movie, but I kind of wish I had toward the end of Bone Tomahawk. Poor, poor Nick.

Nick’s loss is mostly our gain though, as Bone Tomahawk provides an intriguing template for a promising subgenre, though it’s much more western than horror, despite its grisly finish. Thankfully, Richard Jenkins, Kurt Russell and their bickering company provide an entertaining presence inbetween the action.

When I was a kid, I spent an inordinate amount of time in my weird salt and pepper carpeted room. I would play with my action figures all day, narrating their battles, recreating scenes from comic books, cartoons and movies in glorious mash-up fashion, throwing them to and from the room and at the walls, to simulate the gritty reality of “war.”

I was painfully shy, and my Room was the only place I could be unequivocally myself, sheltered from the rest of the world. I miss it.

But I can’t even imagine if Room was my world, and the only thing I knew. That’s what his Ma’s (Brie Larson) garden shed prison is to Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a four year old boy who has grown up knowing only the insides of Room.

For a kid, even a Room can seem like an entire world.

And in Room, the transformative must-see film based on Emma Donaghue’s acclaimed novel and adapted by her own hand, it’s a fascinating one. Yes, the tragic, uncomfortable circumstances make your skin crawl, but Jack has no idea of the circumstances surrounding his birth, and this story is from his fascinating perspective, and director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank) renders many unimaginable situations to (painful) reality.

Jack just knows Ma, Room and the fuzzy feed of Dora the Explorer that they receive. Sure, he knows about Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), but he’s not allowed to see him, and goes to bed before he comes over. Jack doesn’t know that Ma was kidnapped by Old Nick seven years previous, and that he’s raped her nearly every day since, and that Jack himself was conceived from one of these unspeakable deeds.

He loves Room and Ma. He doesn’t know that the trees, birds and people he sees on TV are real, that anything exists out of Room.

It’s hard not to be frustrated, angry with Jack, but of course, none of this is his fault, and you can hardly blame Ma for how he’s sheltered him. But eventually, Jack’s blissful ignorance becomes too much for Ma, who finally stops lying to him, revealing to him that there is a world beyond Room.

Those scenes between Larson and Tremblay are the best in the film. Ma has carried this truth for so long, and needs someone to understand, and Jack doesn’t, at least not at first, decrying this new reality as make-believe. “That’s a boring story. That’s not the story I want,” he yells, tantrum at the ready. And who can blame him? This movie captures the mind, soul and stunning adaptability of a child perfectly, thanks to Tremblay’s performance and a mindblowingly empathic perspective from Abrahamson and Donaghue.

In the sometimes overwrought, but always necessary, narration, Jack comes to grips with the truth: “I’m four and I knew nothing. I’m 5 and I know everything.”

You’ve never rooted for characters to escape from their circumstances MORE than in Room, but when we get what you want, it feels just as weird and uncomfortable for the audience as it does for Jack and Ma, a truly mind-boggling achievement by Abrahamson.

Room highlights the incredible adaptability and intelligence of children, and how adults just don’t have the same capacity. Ma never expected to leave, to make it back home, to return to her life, and see her parents again. Larson’s Ma would’ve given up long ago if it weren’t for Jack; she’s been broken for so long that she might never be repaired. It’s an unreal performance from Larson, summoning untold depths of sorrow and compassion. She’s so good it almost demeans it all by suggesting an Oscar statuette; this is an achievement all on its own, and is the kind of performance that cements her place as one of the finest in the industry.

Room is incredible, a story of survival, adaptation, perseverance and love, one where Larson, Tremblay and Abrahamson prove irreplaceable as a cinematic family all their own.

Room opens in New York and Los Angeles October 16, and expands nationwide November 6.

This past summer I was granted the opportunity to cover a few panels at the TCA’s, the Television Critics Association’s never-ending trolley of gift bags, unhealthy food and forced awkward panels discussing the new and old shows coming this fall: The Muppets! The Walking Dead Grey’s Anatomy! Tyra Banks’ Fab Life, a new talk show that is going to get us to embrace yellow as the in color and undoubtedly will change talk shows forever.

I could’ve muscled my way into joining the media hordes interviewing Ron Perlman, Chuck Bass, Viola Davis or Jeffrey Tambor.

Instead, I met Pacey, the only dude in the circle of press surrounding star Joshua Jackson after he absolutely stole The Affair panel. That’s not easy to do when you’re sharing the stage with Dominic West, America’s sweetheart Maura Tierney and Golden Globe winning actress Ruth Wilson for the Golden Globe winning drama from creator Sarah Treem, but Jackson was clearly at his most comfortable answering the questions of the story hungry press. It’s as if he’s been doing it for more than twenty years (get ready to feel old: The Mighty Ducks came out in 1992).

I may have watched The Affair anyways, but I certainly made it a priority last year because it starred Jackson as Cole, a dark and mysterious rancher embroiled in this sorrowful saga of adultery. The Affair is painful, gripping and tedious. Its whole premise is in the margin of anachronisms, so perhaps it’s not surprising that it somehow makes a trip to the Hamptons for some good old-fashioned wife betraying seem new, thanks to the multiple perspective conceit of the show. We see the same dreadful vacation unfold from the eyes of the two lovers, Noah (West) and Alison (Wilson). Jackson’s character, Cole, is Alison’s husband, and one of many casualties in Noah and Alison’s courtship. But it’s clear he’s been broken and incapable of connecting with Alison since the loss of their son. Nothing we see of Cole from either POV is flattering: he’s a liar, maybe a criminal, possibly a rapist, and certainly angry, jealous and screwed up well before Noah’s family visits the Hamptons. But this comes from the lens of Noah and Alison. Who is Cole, really?

What makes season 2 of The Affair so exciting is that in addition to Noah and Alison’s POV’s this year, we get to see the story from Helen (Tierney, ever the unsung hero) and Cole’s perspectives. That means more Josh Jackson.

After talking with him at the TCA’s about the difficulties of The Affair and its premise, his parent’s divorce and his growing role on the show, that’s clearly a good thing. Then again, I’m not exactly an unbiased narrator.

“We all want to follow our narrator, our hero, right? It is really really unusual for a television show, a play, a film, it doesn’t matter, for any piece of entertainment, to not present you with that truth so that you can attach yourself to that story and feel good, or bad or whatever you’re supposed to feel as you go along with it. But that is the central purpose of our show,” Jackson said.

This conceit seemed to ruffle many critics and audience members, unused to the format. But to Jackson, that’s the whole point.

“We all laugh about it, because everybody’s who been in a relationship has had that moment. ‘Honey, that’s not what happened.’ I said this, no you said that, you know? The essential truth of the show is the idea that you’re only living your own story. You can share it as much as possible, but ultimately we’re all individuals stuck inside of our own perspective. That to me is real. Everybody has dealt with that. I understand the discomfort of not having an objective narrator, the god’s eye view or the single specific character you’re following that is the truth of the show…but to me, there’s nothing about the format of mis-recollection that is all that far out there. Because we all live that, in ways large and small. I can tell you, in my household, it comes up all the time.”

It also rings true with his upbringing, being the child of what he describes as an ugly divorce.

“Here’s an empirical event. My parents are divorced. If you talk to my Mom and you talk to my Dad, about what led up to that event, how that happened, the fallout of it, it’s two wildly different stories, even though the empirical event was the same. There can be things that are empirically true, but even your recollection of that empirical event can be completely, totally different.”

These fractured stories of the same event, and Jackson’s own viewpoint is what sold him on the show in the first place.

“I caught myself having a biased moment. There’s a lot of gender politics that go into the reason why Noah’s perspective is first. We have a tendency, sorry ladies, to find men more credible than women. [creator] Sarah’s not dumb, she knows that, so she was playing against our own biases, to put the man first. Okay that must be the truth, and now we show the woman second. Certainly for me, she got me immediately. The first scene where there was a divergence between the two stories, my instinctual reaction was, ‘Why is she lying about this?’ And I think that’s brilliant. That’s what got me hooked.”

It also makes the actors a little crazy.

“Because we get into these logic loops, and honestly we spend an inordinate amount of time on set, being like, ‘Okay, so we’ve been together for 16 years, we lost a child. But you just had this horrible thing with my mother, so you’d be kind of pissed off at me. And I would be coming from the place that I was, so you would remember that I was in that place, but my mother’s thing would have definitely informed how you were feeling in this moment, so maybe we’d see this…’ It’s unending.”

So is the show’s dreary atmosphere. One thing that stands out in The Affair’s promos is how haggard Cole looks.

“He’s gone through an obviously pretty bad time. But I loved being able to, finally, this guy who’s been brood-ish and emotionally distant, certainly from Noah’s side, and even on Allison’s side frankly, the place that they are in their relationship, she’s not really seeing a whole or emotionally capable man there. And to see that guy who is the broad shouldered guy who takes care of stuff with confidence, to see him in a place in his life where he’s just undone and how he sees himself: like a failure, and as this sort of useless human. He has no purpose; he has no meaning for being. We find him in 2, and suddenly we see this guy who is riddled with insecurities in a way that I don’t think we ever saw in the first season.”

Clearly, The Affair is going to be another barrel of laughs when it picks things back up.

“There’s a weakness to him. You saw a little bit of the break at the end of last year, in the finale; that was a totally different guy than we had seen before. But you’d never really seen him honestly just be ruined. He’s the type of character: ‘I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that. This is the right way. This is how we take care of things and this is how we keep up appearances in the town,’ and I think in season 2 it’s interesting to see inside that guy’s life and how he feels totally eaten up by insecurity, fear and doubt in a way that we never saw in the first season. He’s in a bad place this season.”

Is anyone really happy in the Hamptons? Thankfully, at the end of episode 2, there’s a scene between Cole and Alison that changes the direction of his character.

“I think it’s the first moment where he allows himself to sort of step back into being alive. So what happens? Everything in your life has been wiped out. Your family’s gone, your wife is gone, your child is gone. Your sense of self is completely annihilated. So he has to start figuring out who he is, what it means to be a man. Who is Cole going to be post-all of that? And in a way that I find is very true, it’s certainly been true in my life, a woman is the best way to do that. He meets this woman, and without all of the baggage of his entire life, he can start entering into a relationship with somebody that’s about his current self as opposed to everything that has come up. She’s what brings him back into the world.”

The Affair is what has brought Joshua Jackson back onto our TVs, and come Sunday October 4 at 10 PM (or now with the above video), we’ll get to see a lot more of Pacey in the award-winning drama.

Toward the end of Douglas Tirola’s Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, a documentary unraveling the fascinating story of National Lampoon magazine, Judd Apatow makes a comment that had become clear through the proceedings: the humor, satire and bite from National Lampoon became “all of modern comedy.”

Many comedy fans will point to the beginning of Saturday Night Live as the birth of what we view as “modern comedy,” but in fact, the National Lampoon, founded by Doug Kenney and Henry Beard, came earlier. Funneling out of the Harvard Lampoon (America’s oldest humor magazine, once boasting the talents of George Plimpton and John Updike), the two renegade humorists created their own brand of satire that “looted” the absolutely culturally stacked time period of the 60’s and 70’s, from Nixon, Vietnam and hippie culture, for what was a new kind of comedy that appealed to a younger audience. It was cool, hip, and a fuck you to the man. Plus, as Kevin Bacon puts it: the mag had breasts (“the humor was above my pay grade”).

As you might expect, it was madness behind the scenes. Writer-director John Landis (National Lampoon’s Animal House) posits that many older men view their college years, from 17-22, as the best of their life. But, as he says, they’re babies. And the babies behind the scenes at National Lampoon were changing the world, while simultaneously hosting the best parties, with the best drugs. Kenney desperately wanted to be a star, a beat poet, with the permanently stoned nature to prove it; Beard was a reclusive “Holden Caulfield” type. Together, along with 21st Century Communications exec Matty Simmons, they uncovered some of the best comedy talent we’ve ever seen: bringing John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner and Harold Ramis over from Second City in Chicago for a comedy album, a radio show, and a slew of off-Broadway plays. Throw in Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest, and Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead feels like an origin story for what makes America laugh, and the road map for the tragedy to come.

This doc, cleverly strung together by audio from the Lampoon’s radio show and animated articles and images from the magazine, tells the tale of the formative years of the magazine, from being a part of the culture zeitgeist (featuring a million subscribers and a 12-15 million “pass along” audience at its height), the subsequent exodus of its stars to Hollywood, and its crushing downfall and inevitable obsolescence.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, in addition to providing a necessary history lesson for people like me, who, while being aware of the magazine (and of course their classic films), didn’t fathom its cultural significance, gives us fascinating bon mots from a slew of writers and contributors for the Lampoon, including co-founder Henry Beard, and film stars and makers like Ivan Reitman, Beverly D’Angelo, John Goodman, Tim Matheson and Chevy Chase.

There’s a fascinating “What if?” element to DSBD that is unfortunately slightly hidden (and maybe fodder for another doc), and it’s that Matty Simmons was approached to make a satirical show on Saturday Night for NBC (sound familiar?). He was also told to put John Belushi on retainer; he didn’t, and the rest is history: Lorne Michaels mined Second City and the Lampoon’s writers, and created Saturday Night Live, a show now fresh off an exorbitant victory lap celebrating its 40th anniversary.

National Lampoon’s story is one repeated endlessly: it’s essentially the story of a band getting too big and popular, and fracturing from the inside, but I still found myself fascinated by the tragic figure of Doug Kenney, a man so consumed by a desire for success and addiction that it, of course, killed him. After producing and starring in Animal House (as Stork) and helping to create an entire genre of movie, Kenney was experiencing a meteoric rise in Hollywood. Of course, it also jived with the age of cocaine, and following the less than stellar success of Caddyshack (which seems insane to say now), he never recovered. The cause of his death remains a mystery, but when talking about his best friend, we actually see Chevy Chase as a human with genuine emotion, perhaps peering into the moment that doomed Chevy Chase to assholery. There’s something here, and you almost wish the doc switched gears to uncover it.

Instead we learn more about the downslide of the magazine and its lean years (which still featured a fascinating crew of writers, including Simpsons producers Mike Reiss and Al Jean, and fan letter author turned leading contributor…John Hughes). From 1970-1975, National Lampoon was the coolest thing in comedy. In 1975, it became Saturday Night Live, and it was never truly the same afterwards.

Never before or never since had a bunch of 20-something’s had so much freedom in crafting a magazine, a brand, a voice. Gifted with this opportunity, the Lampoon changed the world. But it came at a price, and like all things, didn’t last. As a Lampoon alum said, a satirist’s duty is to make powerful people uncomfortable. Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead highlights what happens when the satirist becomes powerful.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead opens in Los Angeles at the Nuart Theatre on October 2nd, and opens in NY and on VOD/iTunes September 25).

Sometime last year, on a lark, I went on an audition for a small play opening in a black box theatre on Santa Monica in Hollywood. The bizarre experience is another story, but in addition to a line reading, we had to fill out a short bio. One of the questions on the sheet asked, “In your estimation, who is the greatest actor working today?”

My mind went blank. I didn’t want to choose Daniel Day-Lewis or Meryl Streep, or anyone obvious, and for the life of me, couldn’t think of anyone worthy of such a title (I got so mad and frustrated by this unanswerable question that it probably doomed the infinitesimal odds that I actually would have landed the part).

So, who did I end up writing down?

Elisabeth Moss, obviously. The Mad Men actress who I had just finished bingeing in Top of the Lake, and who has now become independent director Alex Ross Perry’s (Listen Up Philip) go-to muse and front for depression.

Moss, the greatest actor working today? That’s certainly hyperbole, but why not? Moss is consistently incredible, and in Perry’s unnerving Queen of Earth, she is again great.

She is Catherine, a young woman who has just lost her father to suicide, and her cheating boyfriend to a sobbing, bitter and spiteful break-up. We open on the latter, and while we hear James (Kentucker Adley), the scene is almost exclusively stuck up close on Moss’ boundlessly expressive face, tears and makeup going everywhere. While James is obviously a dick, it’s clear that he’s right: that they had an over-reliance on each other, that they were codependent. We see it in flashbacks, and we see the sentiment echoed by Catherine’s best friend Virginia (Inherent Vice’s Katherine Waterston, similarly excellent).

Catherine and Jenny (only her friends call her Jenny) are the kind of best friends that have ceased caring for each other, stuck with one another because there’s no one else. Jenny cuts everyone out of her life that’s a drain, friend or family, whereas everyone who cares about Catherine has abandoned her.  When Jenny points out that she hasn’t gone anywhere that proves Catherine’s point: she doesn’t care about her. Queen of Earth is a movie about unhealthy relationships, and Catherine and Jenny’s might be most damaging of all, besides the sometimes crippling relationship with yourself. The two know each other too well, and know exactly how to hurt the other, and haven’t met a conversation they couldn’t turn into an argument, sniping at one another even in the company of others.

Following the break-up and her father’s “accident,” Jenny takes Catherine to her idyllic cabin in the country to heal.

Except, in Queen of Earth, a vacation isn’t an escape; in fact, there is no escape from yourself or your problems. Vacations are a lie, a mistake. There’s no such thing, and even as Jenny points this out to Catherine, she’s lived her whole life on a break, professing that she feels like modern aristocracy. But you can’t hide. A retreat at Jenny’s parents’ immaculate cabin in the woods provides no respite. It turns ugly, like so many horror movies, and that’s Perry’s point: grief and depression is horror, and Queen of Earth unravels into a surreal psychological horror, as we witness Catherine’s descent to a giggling, crying, hallucinating mess.

Queen of Earth is beautifully shot; the house, the woods and the lake are given a dreamy feel that’s at the heart of the film, thanks to a deep saturation of light and color. It’s almost blinding, a distraction from the unsettling foreboding that seeps through the proceedings. It feels like the beginning of the original Wicker Man, or a Hammer horror film, or even the S&M-laden psychodrama Duke of Burgundy.

This is contrasted with a myriad of intense close-ups on Moss and Waterston, uncomfortable and raw. Throughout, arguments and conversations appear to be one-sided: like in the opening scene, we only see into the eyes of one of the combatants, but from the POV of the other. They might as well be arguing with themselves, and that’s Perry’s point. We’re all alone in our depression. We feel like a voyeur on these personal moments, yet unable to trust our perspective. We can’t even trust ourselves.

Which is about how I feel about Queen of Earth: unable to trust my perspective and thoughts on this movie. The movies of Alex Ross Perry vary wildly based upon the mood you have when you go in; they have a tendency to burrow into humanity’s insecurities, and by extension, your own.

It’s never a fun experience, but it’s always a fascinating one.

Queen of Earth opens in New York August 26, with a national rollout to follow, and is NOW out on VOD.

Inbetween the internet’s collective groaning about another Spider-Man reboot were whispers about the man chosen to direct it: little known director Jon Watts (The Onion News Network). Who?

Anyone who sees Cop Car will no longer ask that question, because Watts is the talented writer-director of the taut thriller Cop Car, and afterwards, in spite of yourself, tendrils of excitement about the newest incarnation of Spider-Man might trickle through your being. At this point, it should come as no surprise that Marvel has found another under-the-radar gem. But enough of that, because not everything is about Marvel. This is about Cop Car.

Going into Sunday’s opening night screening of Cop Car to kick off the third annual Sundance NEXT FEST, I had no idea what to expect. I had purposefully shied away from everything surrounding the movie. All I knew was the classically simple title, that it starred Kevin Bacon, and that he was rocking a stupendous 70s stache.

That’s all I needed to know to be in, but in the moments leading up to the opening credits, my friends and I predicted what would take place, based solely on our scant knowledge or lack thereof, betting the over/under on how many times Kevin Bacon would have sex in his Cop Car, how many chases he’d have in his Cop Car, how many times he’d be shot inside or outside of his Cop Car, how many times he’d drink and drive in his Cop Car, and whether he was a tortured soul, if he was merely an alcoholic or a drug addict. It was like Six Degrees of Cop Thriller Cliché Madlibs, or Kevin Bacon Bingo, and is a highly recommended way to pass the time while picnicking at the Hollywood Forever cemetery.

It was also a harsh and wonderful lesson in preconceived notions. Sure, we hit on some plot points and characterizations, but the movie we got was not at all the movie we expected, and bless Watts, Bacon and company for that [and bless them for the number of times “cop car” is said in this movie; it’s the only drinking game rule required].

Cop Car hinges upon an elegantly simple set up: two young boys from a small town, Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford). The best friends are running away from home, as kids do. Their adventure takes a detour when they stumble upon the titular Cop Car, abandoned, in the middle of the prairie. From there, Travis and Harrison commit to an ever-escalating dare—the pitfalls of peer pressure, even with your best friend—one that everyone in the audience knows has to end poorly, tragically, and unfortunately. But you have no idea how: Cop Car is an inexorable tragedy, but we’re never sure of the specifics to the very end, and the result is a gripping thriller with moments that will have your heart in your throat.

In Cop Car, which feels like Mud and Stand By Me stuffed into the backseat of a police cruiser, Watts captures the joy, danger, intelligence, naiveté and stupidity of children*, with the absolutely brilliant Freedson-Jackson and Wellford as his muses, whereas Bacon and Agent Carter’s Shea Whigham display the harsh devastation of adulthood.

Cop Car is another reminder that films don’t need to be complicated to succeed, and that we don’t need to know every character’s backstory (or origin story). Oftentimes, it’s better when we don’t, not the least of which because the film doesn’t feel a desire to pander, to over-explain and dump unnecessary exposition for us to wade through. Cop Car trusts the audience to piece it together, and come to its own conclusions about what happened pre-credits (Kevin Bacon has totally had sex in his Cop Car), thrusting us in the middle and driving, never waiting for us to catch up. There’s no need; we’re right there with them.

*given how fantastically he captures childhood, Watts would be a perfect choice to adapt Chris Giarusso’s hilarious Mini-Marvels, which absolutely should be utilized as a series of shorts before their features, a la Pixar’s shorts

Cop Car opens today, August 7. Go see it; just don’t steal a cop car en route, no matter how easy it may seem.

Sundance NEXT FEST continues this weekend at the beautiful and historic Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, combining this year’s Sundance festival favorites with musical acts, virtual reality and Thomas Middleditch. For more information on the weekend program and to buy tickets, check out the festival’s website.