Three Films Make A Post: He's not a serial killer. He's much worse.

Troublesome Night 8 aka 陰陽路八之棺材仔 (2001): This eighth entry into the venerable series of Hong Kong horror comedy anthologies surprises by not being an anthology movie. Instead, director Edmond Yuen Chi-Keung chooses to draw out a single story that might have made a strong segment for an anthology into a full length movie that starts slow, continues slower and suddenly becomes downright entertaining in its last half hour (the bit you’d actually find in the anthology movie). It’s not terrible, but it’s also not exactly an exciting piece of cinema, not helped by Yuen’s bland and characterless direction.

Dust Devil (1992): Every few years, I try again to watch Richard Stanley’s much loved horror magnum opus, a film I always should have been all over, given my tastes in horror. Every few years, I don’t get on with it. Or rather, I didn’t, for suddenly, this year, the film opened up to me, and suddenly its complicated mix of private and not so private mythology, its surrealist commentary on colonialism and its human consequences, and its intense visual style came together in a singular way; eccentricities I found annoying the last four or three times suddenly make total sense.

That abuse and the kinds of violence certain men inflict upon women have been more on my mind lately than I’d like to might have played into my finally connecting with this one, as well, for this is also a film about an abused woman stumbling into a man (well, sort of) even more toxic than the last until she will eventually become so hollowed out, his personality will be able to just slip into her.

Succubus (2024): Succubus is no Dust Devil, but I do appreciate how much R.J. Daniel Hanna’s film wants to be like one of the films of the classic exploitation era: sleazy (or as sleazy as you can get in 2024), a bit absurd, but also absolutely interested in talking about some of the issues of the day in the sort of crudely metaphorical manner that makes my heart go out to any movie using it. It also features Ron Perlman playing one Dr. Orion Zephyr, adding a little joy to anyone’s day.

I also appreciate the film’s willingness to just go there and attempt the budget size version of the visionary artistry it can never afford the proper effects work for.

The script, on the other hand, could have used a little more time, perhaps a clean up of the pretty draggy middle of the film, as well as more focus on the core of what it clearly wants to communicate about relationships in the age of swiping wherever.