Drink "Parings": 100-96 including Martin and God Told Me To

These films are pulled from a list created by TimeOut. See my earlier post, "100 Film Adventure with Sharpened Drink Parings" for full details.

100-Seen it: The Babadook (2014) Director: Jennifer Kent Stars: 4.5
Some people get all “Well is it just a metaphor? That’s lame.” No. It’s terrifying. The monster is terrifying and the grief allegory is unnerving. Great Australian film with a chilling atmosphere and some hideous vocal fry from our gay icon, the Babadook. Since this movie is the lowest ranked on this list, I will now be extra pissed for every mediocre movie and say, "well this isn't better than Babadook!" 
Drink Paring: Shiraz (not Syrah, cause Australia)

99 -Seen it: The Mist (2007) Director: Frank Darabont Stars: 2
Well this isn't better than Babadook (I warned you)! Here’s the deal, I get why people love this movie. Sense of the unknown paired with metaphors about religion, government, and mob mentality, blah, blah, blah. I just don’t think I watched it at the right time. We have a lot of apocalyptic films and television series now (including Darapont’s Walking Dead) and I think I’m just exhausted of the whole "humans are the real monsters" narrative. I may have suffered from too early of a monster reveal as well, because I was much more terrified before that tentacle came flying through the garage door (not a spoiler, it’s so early on). I also was frustrated by the tragic ending because they wouldn’t even wait five fucking minutes before jumping to a horrifying conclusion. The only reason I gave this as many stars as I did is because of Queen Marcia Gay Harden giving her all and slaying us all with her talent. 
Drink Paring: Jungle Juice...you don’t really know what’s in there, but it’s gross. 


98 -New Viewing: Martin (1976) Director: George Romero Stars: 4 Where I watched it: I tried to pay people for this, but alas, couldn’t find it on any streaming service, but the whole thing is on YouTube. 
This movie slaps you in the face with “who the fuck is this” right away. Our protagonist (antagonist?)/maybe vampire clumsily fumbles through his attacks in a way that leave you embarrassed for him versus scared for his victims. Warning that his attacks venture into sexual assault in a way that made me wish I was anywhere else watching a 2D Disney film. This movie accomplishes putting you in the villain’s head space in a way that doesn’t apologize for his behavior, but let’s you study it. One would argue that the central villain is the repression and shame that his family implements, fucking up his mental state to a point of violence (similar to Carrie). Whether it was Romero’s intention or not, it’s difficult not to make parallels between Martin’s upbringing and the power of sexul repression. Several of our most famous serial killers experienced oppressive childhoods, frequently venturing into the arena into sexual repression (Gein, Dahmer, Gacy, etc.), so this character’s backstory is disturbingly plausible. As a gay guy, I also can’t help but make connections between Martin’s ambiguous memories with religious zealots to a queer person being raised within a fundamentalist home. The scene in which a priest was invited to the house to “cure” him felt especially reminiscent of trials queer people may endure from conservative families. I don’t want to brush past the fact that Martin is definitely not a good person and I don’t think this movie wants you to feel sympathy for his actions. The film does, however, invite you to explore the complicated psyche of this character and leaves you with an abrupt (and awesome) ending that leaves little time to process these events. 
Drink Paring: Barefoot Sweet Red, is it sweet or just gross? Added fun if you spill it on yourself and look like Martin having a fun night out 

97-New Viewing: God Told Me To (1976) Director: Larry Cohen Stars: 2 Where I watched it: Shudder
Just like the mass murderer in the opening of this film claims that God told him to do it, TimeOut told me to watch this film. We both had a rough go of it. Part crime drama, part cult exploration, part alien invasion, part what fuckery is this, how did I get here? I seriously asked myself that question continually throughout the film, because we took so many detours into madness that I thought I missed something when I had, in fact, not. This movie received mostly positive reviews, but my favorite was a negative one from Roger Ebert stating, “There were times when I thought the projectionist was showing the reels in random order, as a quiet joke on the hapless audience.” I was wondering if Shudder had just screwed up this digital copy, but after googling the plot, I discovered that nope, this is it. This hellish journey of a cop noticing a pattern of motives with mass murderers in NYC that devolves into a bizarre alien origin story was entirely intentional and not an editing mistake. It also gets exploitative with its black characters. I get that it was the 70s, but there is enough critique on racism in cinema at this point, that audiences were most likely aware of the racist implications but then shrugged and went back to buying mustard color appliances or however people in the 70s spent their time. With all this bitching, you may be wondering how this film even got 2 stars from me. I got to give it credit for going there. As an alien lifts up their shirt and displays a rib vagina (I’m not speaking hyperbolically, that’s exactly what it is), I wanted to die. And I guess that’s at least something. Also there’s a killer cameo by the late, Academy Award nominated actor Sylvia Sidney (you may know her as the caseworker, Juno, in Beetlejuice). She broke that set with her talent, displaying quiet desperation as her character explained her virgin birth by alien (again, this is the actual plot, I’m not fucking with you). 
Drink Paring: Absinthe. Or don't drink it and it'll have the same effect.

96- Seen it: It Follows (2014) Director: David Robert Mitchell Stars: 2.5
This film is primarily known for its “STDemon,” a monster that marks you as a target until you have sex with someone else, passing the target on to them. I gotta give this movie credit for the creative concept, the 80s inspired score, and the bizarre, ambiguous time period, varying in technology, costumes, and architecture from across decades. There are also some decent scares, most notably the infamous “tall man” played by the late Mike Lanier. The reason I didn’t give this film a more favorable rating is because the characters are written flat and oftentimes are rather stupid with their decision making. The film starts so strong, but then you get tired waiting for some sort of conclusion and almost hoping that the STDemon just kills them all so we can move on. The ambiguous time period that I just complimented also left me very confused during my first viewing and became a distraction. 
Drink Paring: UV Vodka, cause all the bright colors and young people who will willingly drink that poison