Freddy's Nightmares - Episodes 37-40 Reviews

In these batch of episodes, there's more sequel visiting to be had along with vampires, erotic phone numbers and psychological warfare.

Episode 36: Easy Come, Easy Go

Greta from earlier in the season got herself a sequel episode. Last time we left off, she had been blackmailed into a third marriage by a man who actually liked her as a person. By the time Greta grew to like him, he was dead. As was the twin brother of her second husband, whom she was also sleeping. As Greta sealed up the dead bodies, her sister came to see her. The sister married Greta's ex-boyfriend and Greta killed him when he tried to blackmail. Then Greta got herself killed by her sister. A lot really happened in that episode. 7/10

Episode 37: Prime Cut

While I'm all for the supernatural side of things to emerge in this world, I genuinely thought this was an absolutely awful way to introduce vampires. That's what we were getting with the female tracker who was terrorising the men in this episode. Or was it a cannibalism episode? All I know was that I found the episode absolutely excruciating to watch. 2/10

Episode 38: Interior Loft

One thing I've noticed about this second season was the switch in focusing on adults mostly being terrorised over teenagers by Freddy and other fucked up shit in Springwood. This episode had a former teacher live out her rage through an erotic but violent book she was writing after a recording on an 976 number went horribly wrong. If you were a man, you definitely weren't making it out of this one alive. 6/10

Episode 39: Interior Loft - Later

A sequel to the previous episode with a sleazy hunk named Art causing problems for two groups of characters at separate times in the loft apartment. The first was a sculpted and his girlfriend where faking a death went horribly wrong and the latter had Art playing two women off each other. With the latter story, it ended rather badly for Art. 6/10

Episode 40: Funhouse

Let's go back to much earlier in the season and bring back another doomed home in Springwood. Then let's throw in hunky moving man Turk into the mix and have him get caught up in the antics of two different couples. Then have the second part of the story reveal that the main players were screwing with him before killing him off for no reason, other than pure malice. It's actually a pretty good episode but Turk wasn't the brightest. 7/10

For my final blog for this show I will tackle A Family Affair, Dust To Dust, Prisoner Of Love and Life Sentence.

Space Races, Tornadoes And Serving The C Word

I did one of these about two months ago and I might slip in another before the year ends. Anyways, a lot of other things I've been watching the last few weeks.

9-1-1: I can't believe we're on to a ninth season of this show but I can also believe that ABC will bleed this show dry. Anyways the first four episodes had Athena and Hen up in space because at this point, it's not even the most ridiculous thing the show can do these days. There was Eddie losing his grandmother, May and Harry becoming regulars, Buck dealing with Bobby's absence more than Athena and Howie officially becoming captain. It's a bit of a weak start for the show.

9-1-1: Nashville: As one spin off ended, another rose in its place but I can't tell if this show will be a success story like 9-1-1: Lone Star or crash and burn like Doctor Odyssey. It's a very haphazard show so far with the opening three parter tornado story doing little to properly establish the character dynamics. Right now, it feels like a spin off for the sake of having one rather than a show that genuinely justifies it's existence.

All's Fair: Ryan Murphy might be having one of his most challenging years in a long time because not only have some of his shows gotten cancelled, his new line of shows seem to be leaving audiences rather cold. I guarantee if this show had been released a decade ago, it would've been lapped up. It's got a strong cast with Sarah Paulson, Glenn Close, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor and Naomi Watts and then there's Kim Kardashian. The first five episodes threw in some big guests, moments of sheer opulence and savage one liners from Paulson's venomous Carrington Lane but it's also a case of Murphy reheating past triumphs in an underwhelming way.

Big Brother UK: It's been twenty five years since the most influential reality show hit UK screens and this series was a very mixed bag. Fortunately we got a likable winner with Richard but we also had to endure unbearable people like Caroline, Sam, Nancy and George and the inconsistencies with rule breaking and often disastrous late night spin off often tested my patience with the show. It'll be back for a 2026 series but ITV2 need to make some changes if they're going to continue with the show.

Devil In Disguise: John Wayne Gacy: For those who find Netflix's Monster series on the exploitative side of things in it's depiction of real life serial killer, Peacock has an alternative. This first season might have been about John Wayne Gacy but the emphasis was more on the lives of his victims and the trauma their families had to endure more than Gacy himself. At eight episodes, it did lag a little but it's a good alternative to it's Netflix counterpart.

Marvel Zombies: I gotta admit, this really just came and went. Aside from Daredevil: Born Again, it feels like none of the MCU shows really made much impact this year. This didn't even need to be a four part series. It could've been a 70 minute animated movie and it would've worked better. If you're a fan of Ms Marvel, Kate Bishop and Ironheart, this one's for you.

Only Murders In The Building: Season 5 hasn't been the show at its strongest but it hasn't been horrible. I do feel there's a lot of life left with the show but the Lester mystery was by far the weakest in terms of execution and eventually resolution as well. I mean the killer was someone we barely knew and therefore it was harder to care about them being caught. Saying that, I am looking forward to seeing what things will be like next season when Charles, Oliver and Mabel head to London.

• The fourth season of Bridgerton will be released from January 29th and February 26th respectively on Netflix.
• Stranger Things Season 5 will be released on Netflix from November 27th, December 25th and January 1st.
• Peacock have cancelled Poker Face after two seasons but have renewed Twisted Metal for a third season.
• Fallout Season 2 will premiere on Amazon Prime from December 17th.
• The BBC have renewed both Line Of Duty and Doctor Foster for seventh and third seasons respectively.
• The Sophie Turner starring series, Steal will premiere on Amazon Prime from January 21st.
• FX have cancelled English Teacher after two seasons.
• Jason Momoa has signed on for another Apple TV series called Nomad.
• Grotesquerie has been rumoured to be cancelled after one season by FX.
• Season 2 of The Night Manager will be released on Amazon Prime from January 11th.
• The eighth and final season of Outlander will air on Starz from March 6th.
• Amazon Prime have ordered Escorted to series, which will be written, produced and star Brett Goldstein.
• FX have renewed Alien: Earth for a second season.

My Review of It - Welcome To Derry: "The Great Swirling Apparatus Of Our Planet's Function"

 

Written by Helen Shang

Directed by Andrew Bernstein 

Hallorann (to Taniel): "What they want me to do to you. It's not going to be pleasant."

Now we're at the halfway point of this show, it's definitely time for Bill Skarsgard to show up and wreck proper havoc on the Derry residents. I'm hoping this will be the last episode not to feature him.

Following the events of the previous episode, Lilly along with Ronnie, Will and Rich tried to show their photographs to Bowers in order to free Hank. Sadly the photos weren't enough to get Bowers on side. That guy really does want to see Hank sent to Shawshank, doesn't he?

Anyways, the photos did get discovered by Charlotte with Will having to fill her in on everything. Charlotte took it upon herself to strongarm Bowers into letting her visit Hank and the latter confessed to an affair with a married white woman. Needless to say that was something that Hank didn't want to confess to Bowers to for sadly good reasons.

As for the kids, Will's fishing trip with own father led to another creepy encounter in the water and then there was Marge. I actually had to look away during that eye scene, it was genuinely that horrifying to watch. On a frustrating note, I also didn't like that everyone assumed that Lilly attacked her when we know what really happened to her.

Getting to the root of the episode, I'm not loving the military subplot and I really hate that General Shaw's stupid enough to think that having Hallorann as an ace up his sleeve will result in being able to control Pennywise. He's going to end up getting a lot of people killed in the second half of the season.

Saying that, I actually do think Chris Chalk better be up for some award love in the next twelve months. He's doing amazing stuff as Hallorann and the scene with him invading the mind of poor Taniel (Joshua Odjick) at least provided a nice origin story for what's been terrorising Derry all these years.

- Will definitely has it bad for Ronnie as both his parents now seem to be aware of. 

- Marge really was going to go ahead and let those mean girls humiliate Lilly. This episode also revealed that Madeleine Stowe's character is called Ingrid. Ingrid talked about missing kids in the 1930s.

- Standout music: Ray Charles What I'd Say and Bo Diddley's You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover.

- Chronology: From where the previous episode left off.

The Great Swirling Apparatus Of Our Planet's Function, I'll admit that's a rather cool title for the show itself. The episode was good, largely for the goriness of Marge's eye scene and everything involving Hallorann.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of The History Of Sound (2025)

 

Written by Ben Shattuck

Directed by Oliver Hermanus

Lionel (to David): "Write. Send chocolate. Don't die."

I really do hate staggered releases for movies. This was released in US theatres back in September, popped up on Mubi this month but UK/Irish audiences have to wait until January 23rd to see it. I decided that I wasn't waiting that long.

Based on a short story by the writer of this movie, we had a lovely story between two men and because it's not a contemporary one, it fell into the realms of tragedy. One died, one survived, both tried to live heterosexual lives and so on. You get the gist.

Our main character would be Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal). He had an unique relationship with music and sound and his love for both put him in the cross hairs of fellow music student, David White (Josh O'Connor). It didn't take the pair long to bond over their love of music and their physical attraction to one another either.

In fact we got a nice period of time where the two enjoyed collaborating both musically and sexually before David got called to war and Lionel returned to help his parents (Molly Price and Raphael Sbarge) before his father died. Lionel's relationship with his mother seemed more testing than the ones he had with his father and grandfather respectively.

Of course the best part of the two of the movie was Lionel and David reuniting. The latter needed the former to go to places to meet people and record songs. This plot introduced characters like Thankful Mary Swain (Briana Middleton) but it also highlighted the gap between Lionel and David as well.

The second half of the movie separated the pair with Lionel having furthered his music career in both Rome and Oxford and even being engaged to Clarissa Roux (Emma Canning). Fortunately it was an engagement that didn't last as Lionel did the right thing and ended it with her.

As for David, he married a woman named Belle Sinclair (Hadley Robinson) but killed himself due to shell shock from the war. Belle knew about Lionel and David and she made sure that the former knew as well before he took a visit to the Lake District.

The end of the movie then focused on an older Lionel (Chris Cooper) promoting his latest book on radio and being reunited with the cylinder's of his time with David. David's last recording in particular did end this movie on a rather poignant note.

- This movie marked Paul Mescal taking on an executive producer role. It's very much his film to be fair.

- I found the spitting scene with Lionel and David funny more than anything else. At least we got a few sex and kissing scenes between the two of them.

- Standout music: For it's sheer significance, the use of Silver Dagger as sung by Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor at different points in the film.

- Chronology: 1910 to 1980, taking in places such as Kentucky, Boston, Maine, Rome, Oxford and the Lake District.

I can see why The History Of Sound might feel like a disappointment but for the most part, I did like it. There's a few tropes that I do think gay cinema, especially historical ones do need to move away from. Saying that, both Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor did help to elevate the material and gave their all here.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Plainclothes (2025)

 

Written And Directed by Carmen Emmi 

Lucas (to his mother): "It wasn't dad's letter, it's mine."

I've been wanting to see this movie for a bit now and I got to seeing it late last night. Theres a few gay themed movies that have been released the last two months I am determined to see before the year's out. This was one of them.

Tom Blyth has had something of an interesting career with his biggest role to date being in a prequel for The Hunger Games. In this movie, he's playing an undercover named Lucas Brennan. Lucas's assignment was entrapping gay men for public acts of indecency. Lucas was also revealed to be a closeted gay man himself.

Alternating between flashbacks and a chaotic New Year's Eve party at his mother, Marie's (Maria Dizzia) house, following the death of his father, Gus. It's a party that no-one will forget anytime soon because Lucas got into a physical altercation with his asshole uncle, Paul (Gabe Fazio) and outed him in order to preserve his father's memory.

Getting back to the flashbacks, Lucas fell in love with a closeted reverend named Andrew Waters (Russell Tovey). Lucas fell hard for Andrew, even protecting him from getting outed by the police but at the same time, Andrew might have been outed to his family. 

There's some nice sex scenes between Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey and both actors have nice chemistry with one another but Lucas and Andrew are a different kind of doomed. Lucas at least quit his job and came out to his family. He took the kind of steps that Andrew refused to do for himself.

Then again, coming out wasn't also a choice for Lucas. A missing letter had Paul and Marie mistake Gus for being gay and Paul's new girlfriend seemed to have an inkling about Lucas as well. Not to mention Lucas's former girlfriend, Emily (Amy Forsyth) definitely knew he was. Lucas really did have to come out and he did it very dramatically.

- There's a supporting role from Christian Cooke as Lucas's work colleague, Ron. Lucas was also replaced by Jeff (Darius Fraser).

- We can thank Tom Blyth for Russell Tovey's casting as he suggested him to director Carmen Emmi.

- Standout music: Emily Wells My San Francisco.

- Chronology: March to December 1997, New York. Lucas is from Syracuse while Andrew's from San Francisco.

Plainclothes was something of a mixed bag, movie. On the plus side, the chemistry and performances from Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey were spot on but it's also disappointing with how Lucas and Andrew ended up as well. The camcorder use in certain scenes did jar a little bit but it's still a good watch.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Kiss Of The Spider Woman (2025)

 

Written And Directed by Bill Condon

Valentin: "I'm sorry to break the news but nobody sings in real life."

Luis: "Well, maybe they should."

There are times when a movie comes out and bombs so badly that you have to watch to see if it's that bad. Then you find out it's actually, which made the fact that it bombed even more mystifying. This would be such a movie.

Okay, I can think of a few reasons for it's box office failure. It's very political in a climate where audiences are vastly preferring less of that, it's very queer themed and let's be honest, I'm not sure October was the right month to release such a movie.

Now let's gets to the positives because there's plenty of them Tobe had. The biggest one being Tonatiuh. Cast in the role of informer Luis Molina, he's placed in a cell with political prisoner Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna) to uncover some vital information. Needless to say, it's not an easy task for Luis.

Mainly because both Luis and Valentin are like chalk and cheese. One's a proud and flamboyant gay man with a traditional mindset towards women and the other's a straight man with a girlfriend named Marta (Josefina Scaglione) and a more modern mindset towards women. The latter's also not a fan of musicals, which posed another challenge for Luis.

Throughout the movie, Luis regaled Valentin with the story called The Kiss Of The Spider Woman. It was mixed in with other tales, had a love quadrangle of sorts involving Kendell Nesbitt (Tonatiuh), Armando (Diego Luna) and in dual roles, there was Jennifer Lopez as both Ingrid Luna and Aurora. Oh and she was the Spider Woman, who unsurprisingly symbolised death. Her kiss was inevitable.

The musical numbers popped on-screen as the growing closeness between both Luis and Valentin intensified and the Warden (Bruno Bichir) tried to drive a wedge between the pair of them. On the plus side, we got a lovely and tender romance between Luis and Valentin but also one mired in tragedy when Luis's freedom came at a horrible price.

- I agreed with a lot of the things that Luis said but dissing Meryl Streep might have been a step too far.

- This isn't the first attempt of a live action version of this movie. There was another that came out in 1985.

- Standout music: Her Name Is Aurora, I Will Dance Alone, An Everyday Man, I Do Miracles, Anything For Him and Kiss Of The Spider Woman.

- Chronology: May to October 1983 at the tail end of the Dirty War in Argentina.

Kiss Of The Spider Woman definitely deserved better as a movie. It's a genuinely good movie with excellent performances from Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna. However it's also a brilliant showcase for Tonatiuh, who absolutely stole the show here. He gave one of the most charismatic performances this year. I'd actually recommend seeing this while I find the 1985 version.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

Freddy's Nightmares - Episodes 31-35 Reviews

For this batch of episodes, there's a few sequels, a change in opening introduction and another look into Freddy's past.

Episode 31: Monkey Dreams 

As usual, a story of two halves. The first part focused on a gambling addict lab researcher. He needed to finish his work before his debt called in and kept having nightmares about his sister being killed. The second half focused on his co-worker wanting to save a chimpanzee from another researcher's treatment of the primate. Loses points for that ending. 6/10.

Episode 32: Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

Remember the evil girl from two episodes ago? Well, she's become a teenager, her father's remarried and had a child and they've locked her in the basement. Of course the evil girl managed to get out of the basement and take over the life of the babysitter she put in the basement in place of her. It's actually a pretty decent episode where evil won out as our villain protagonist decided to get back at her family. 7/10

Episode 33: Dreams That Kill

Keeping with sequels, anyone fancy another round of Springwood Confidential? New host Charlie Nichells isn't the nicest of men and he wanted to kill the "Dreams That Kill" segment when Freddy threatened him in his dreams. Then he actually died and an experimental brain matter transplantation surgery on a young man ended up being a disaster for everyone, including the surgeon. I liked this one. 7/10

Episode 34: It's My Party And You'll Die If I Want You To

The title alone might be my favourite for an episode of this show yet. Anyways you've got that Oliver guy from earlier in the season factoring into both stories and not dying. The first half focused on a fake psychic being possessed by Freddy and going on a killing spree. The second half focused on a twenty year high school reunion, which also introduced a woman who spurned Freddy for the Prom. Needless to say, Freddy's reunion with the woman didn't end well for her. 8/10

Episode 35: What You Don't Know Can Kill You

Something of a weak episode, more in execution than premise. A pervy psychiatrist was using hypnotherapy to sexually assault his female clients, only for one of them to remember what he had done along with a co-worker willing to turn him in. The psychiatrist hypnotized a man who wanted to quit smoking in order to silence them. The man was dyslexic and that ended up being a problem for the psychiatrist. The second half then focused on the man having his face surgically altered, only for his new look to resemble a snitching mobster. Again, the ideas were great but the execution didn't land. 6/10

Next blog I'll tackle Easy Come, Easy Go, Prime Cut, Interior Loft, Interior Loft - Later and Funhouse.

My Review of Back To The Future Part III (1990)

 

Written by Robert Zemeckis And Bob Gale

Directed by Robert Zemeckis 

Marty McFly: "Hey, Doc! Where you goin' now? Back to the future?"

Doc: "Nope. Already been there."

On to the final part of this trilogy. Often, this would be seen as the weakest instalment of this particular movie franchise but it's also reasonably liked too. I like it. It at least did something a little different.

Last time, Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) was stuck in 1955 but managed to find out that Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) however had landed in 1885. A letter from Doc gave Marty the tools to fix the DeLorean to go back to 1985. Marty did that and then he went back one hundred years into the past.

I said in my last review that the people from Biff Tannen's (Thomas F. Wilson) timeline were awful and it turned out that Biff's great grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen killed Doc in 1885 after Marty received the latter's letter.

If the first two movies focused a lot on Marty and his family, I do appreciate that this movie was more about Doc instead. That's not to say Marty didn't get some focus as he met great-great-grandparents, Seamus (Michael J. Fox) and Maggie (Lea Thompson). The Irish stereotypes were rife with these characters, so points have got to be deducted for that alone.

Getting back to Doc, it was also his time for a romance and the one he got with schoolteacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) was rather sweet. It might have even been a better love story than the one with Marty/Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) or his parents. Doc certainly got the happy ending he deserved.

As for the antagonist of the film, Mad Dog isn't much different to the likes of Biff and again, he's given a much deserved comeuppance. There's some loose ends from the second movie in regards to Marty's 2015 fate that are nicely resolved.

- I had forgotten to mention that Flea popped up in this movie and the previous one as a rival to Marty named Douglas Needles.

- Both Marty and Doc say each others catchphrases instead. Michael J. Fox got hung for real during that one scene.

- Standout music: ZZ Top's Doubleback. Members of the group also appeared in the movie.

- Chronology: 1955, 1985, 2015 but mostly 1885 for the events of this movie.

While it's not my favourite of the trilogy, I can't deny that Back To The Future Part III certainly had it's moments. Focusing on Doc was definitely needed and I loved his romance with Clara. A satisfying end to a great movie trilogy.

Rating: 8 out of 10