The tournament continues over on Instagram. Here are the next set of matchups.
(4) The Crow vs (61) Hellboy
I have been writing these newsletters while conducting the polls on instagram so I can already tell you that The Crow - SOMEHOW - lost to Hellboy, which makes me wonder what, exactly, everyone was doing in the ‘90s. I like Hellboy - it has the dual advantage of Ron Perlman and being the rare Guillermo del Toro movie that’s not too scary for this bracket - but it doesn’t compare to The Crow for me. Both of these movies are incredibly atmospheric; I just prefer the gothy, romantic atmosphere of The Crow.
(29)Twilight vs (36) Constantine
Constantine is in my wheelhouse as someone raised Catholic but it’s also a great John Wick sequel. It won the Instagram poll so it will be back next round to talk about.
I’m struggling to summarize my feelings on Twilight’s place in the bracket. It’s easy to reel off what’s wrong with it: the “love story” between a teenager and his best friend’s fetus, the fact that a Confederate soldier is one of the good guys, the way removing the engine of your girlfriend’s car so she can’t see her friend is painted as romantic instead of grounds for a restraining order, the disturbing implications behind why the author felt the need to have her centuries old vampire impregnate a teenage girl. I promise you there is no version of this story that requires a baby OR a canon where the main character hasn’t ejaculated in over 100 years but we somehow got both.
There is also the stuff specific to the movie, like how bad the CGI is (Reneesme belongs in a Conjuring film) and how every actor turns in the worst performance of their career. Kristen Stewart has an Oscar nomination and given the trajectory of Pattinson’s career, he’s going to have one as well, but you would be forgiven for believing every actor on set was forced through the Joey Tribbiani school.
If you rip off the home and family morality tale plastered over the horror story, you will find seeds of something legitimately disturbing. When the movies get to Bella’s pregnancy, the tone shift is palpable. Her emaciated figure as the baby eats her from within and the gory birth scene in Breaking Dawn Part 2 are genuinely thrilling. How to reconcile that with the story’s determination that the ultimate happy ending is marriage and motherhood?
There is more than I feel I can unpack here so let’s leave it at this: if you want to have some dumb fun and see a formally trained actor recognized by the crown chew some scenery or a glittery vampire tortured by love and having to go to chemistry class or even Anna Kendrick already forgetting she was ever in this…it’s the one for you! If you feel frightened by religious American concepts of love and motherhood….it’s maybe also for you.
(13) Practical Magic vs (52) Young Dracula
I haven’t seen Young Dracula, a CBBC show about the teen son of Dracula who’s upset that his familyhas moved from Transylvania to Wales, but it looks fun. Practical Magic is a juggernaut with two movie stars in an adaptation of a beloved novel that has a checklist of everything I look for in a movie: New England, fall, magic, witches, sisters, doomed love, margaritas. It wins.
(20) Eerie, Indiana vs (45) Teen Wolf
Everyone loves Michael J Fox and I can’t hate a movie that has a plotline of “there is no rule that says a werewolf can’t play basketball” but Eerie, Indiana is so underseen and underappreciated that it’s criminal that it can’t move on. Having rewatched the first episode last weekend, I can confirm that it plays just as well today as it did thirty years ago.
The story of a city kid forced to move to suburbia where nothing feels right to him, the Twilight Zone-style horror stories of creepy things lurking below the seemingly perfect surface of his neighborhood are still funny and unique all these years later. The first episode has Marshall, a Jersey teen now living in the most statistically “normal” town in America, meet a local Stepford housewife when she comes to his door to sell Tupperware to his busy working mom. By episode’s end, he finds out that she’s keeping herself and her kids young by sealing them into life-sized Tupperware coffins at night. I didn’t have time for episode two, which has his best friend get headgear that allows him to hear the thoughts of dogs, but I remember it well and may finish the whole 13 episode season by Halloween. If you’ve never seen it, I encourage you to check it out. It’s a forgotten gem.
(5) Beetlejuice vs (60) Casper
Do you remember the disappointment in your heart the first time you saw Beauty and the Beast and the Beast turned into a guy and the guy was actually uglier than the beast? Casper avoids this pitfall by turning a roly poly kindergartner ghost into Devon Sawa, a tween so hot at the time of the movie’s release that his 10 second cameo still produces thinkpieces thirty years later on how it caused people to enter puberty. Christina Ricci is a Halloween queen and her experience here had her recommend Sawa for Now and Then, so we must respect it, but I otherwise find Casper boring.
On the other hand, Beetlejuice is perfect in all its forms. I adored the cartoon version where Beetlejuice and Lydia were besties instead of demonic shitstirrer and potential teenage bride, and the musical is actually very good (as I helplessly said to myself many times as I scrolled the news last month).
(28) The Dark Crystal vs (37) Monster High (TV or movie or dolls, you pick)
Another Jim Henson Creature Shop production, I haven’t seen The Dark Crystal in so long that I can’t say much on it here but dark fantasy is always a winner in my book. Monster High is a very successful franchise, financially and to me personally because I love when people take something and turn it into an intricately involved universe and all the more when it’s now aimed at young girls. I live-posted through the Monster High live-action musical when it came out, to the interest of no one, but I’d do it again! And I might have to because the sequel is out this month.
(12) Are You Afraid of the Dark? vs (53) Phantom Pups
I have already gone on at length about Phantom Pups in this very newsletter so I’ll just note that this is the youngest skewing entry in the tournament. Parents of young kids, show your kids the pups! No dogs are injured or, in fact, dead.
As cute as that show is, Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a touchstone for a generation and will need no help running it over.
(21) Wendell & Wild vs (44) The Neverending Story
Wendell & Wild was directed by Henry Selick of Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline fame and co-written by Jordan Peele. Key and Peele reunite to play demons trying to get to the living world. I haven’t yet finished this movie because it was actually pretty scary but I intend to soon. On the other hand, The Neverending Story was the final addition to this draft because I waffled over whether it really qualified as spooky vs adventure. It’s beloved but I’m still not convinced it belongs here so we once again end on a matchup where my recommendation is ??? Do what is in your heart.