No. 70 - Killers of the Flower Moon
Two horrific stories- one pretending to be a real BBC newscast and the other being a real life atrocity dramatized by one of America’s greatest filmmakers
Trick or Treat?
Insane of the BBC to air Ghostwatch (1992) and pretend it was a real broadcast as a prank because this film is terrifying.
Ghostwatch is a sort of mockumentary horror film that tells a ghost story in the style of a special news broadcast for Halloween. We’re introduced to our host, Michael Parkinson (as himself), the reporter on the scene, Sarah Greene (as herself), the cameraman and sound man, Chris Miller and Mike Aiton (respectively and, also, as themselves), as they document an alleged haunting in a small England home as a fun Halloween special. In the studio they have an expert in the paranormal, Dr. Pascoe (Gillian Bevan), walking them through what she’s gathered in her research with the afflicted family, but often she finds herself desperately defending her work.
For a period of the runtime, the news crew are content with taking most of the haunting business quite lightly. They prank each other, tell stories of benign ghosts, and revel in the Halloween spirit, all the while, real terror begins to brew. Brief glimpses of a ghost are seen through the fuzzy 90s television cameras, deeply disturbing stories about the area start to come to light, and pain is inflicted on the residents of the haunted house. The news team is, more often than not, quick to brush off the macabre, the frightening, and the disturbing as just pranks or dismiss them without question. Dr. Pascoe urges them to take things seriously, but by the third act of this film, it is too late.
This film is an extraordinary watch as it starts out as a comfy Halloween experience and slowly turns into a techno-folk-horror nightmare. It works so well because it sells the verisimilitude of a news broadcast, even down to the sharp denials from newscasters of anything too morbid in favor of an insisted “we don’t want people to have sleepless nights.” Much easier to sweep the darkness under the rug than to confront it. Their smiley dispositions slowly fade away as the horrors they tried to sweep away confront them instead and, honestly, it really scared me too.
Ghostwatch is available for digital rental.
A Message for our Sponsors
Do you love reading I Liked It! and want to support the hard working individual behind it? Do you want to throw money at I Liked It! as a way to say “don’t go on hiatus ever again”? Then donate to my ko-fi! Its a low price way to show your appreciation. Just send a few dollars as a way to say “I’m buying you a coffee/beer/a big bag of buttery movie theater popcorn/etc.” If you donate, you may get a shout-out in my next issue! Click the button below for more information.
Snakes and Coyotes
A lot of folks associate Martin Scorsese with his crime epics. Works like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, or Casino where the protagonist exploits an established system to take in tons of cash and influence. These good times only go on so long before the law gets involved and ruins everything.
One of the many interesting things about Killers of the Flower Moon (2024) is that it follows a very similar template. Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) works under his uncle, the powerful William “King” Hale (Robert DeNiro), in his network to systematically eliminate the Osage people in order to collect their wealth, land, and oil rights. Unlike those other crime epics, and similar to Scorsese’s last film The Irishman (2019), there is little glamor to their work and success. Ernest’s catchphrase in the movie is “I love money.” He even jokes about how he loves it more than his indigenous wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and it becomes clear as the film goes on how much he values money over human lives - specifically the lives of indigenous peoples.
The opening of the film informs the audience that the Osage people own a great deal of land that has oil under it. In a mock newsreel, it claims they are the richest group of people in the world and shows their wealth as something obscene, but it becomes obvious that this isn’t necessarily the case. All their money is still controlled by white bankers who give them weekly stipends. If they need a large amount they need to convince these bankers that they need it for something worthwhile. It’s no coincidence then that these bankers, along with every other white man in town, is under the influence of Hale, who is orchestrating the deaths of countless Osage.
There is no sympathy had for the criminals and they display almost no humanity. They are spineless husks looking to just accumulate more wealth. Opposed to the rich life, culture, and spirituality the Osage characters have, these craven devils only focus on sucking the money out of them. Unlike the violence in films like Goodfellas, there is a deep sorrow each time another Osage falls victim to Hale and his goons. They are vampires. They are parasites. They are murderers. Scorsese shines a spotlight right on them by making Ernest the protagonist. His story shows just how culpable and baldly evil these murderers were in their attempts to extinguish human lives. In infamous critic Armond White’s extremely negative review of the film in The National Review (which I dare not link here), White claims the movie is asserting that “America’s white men are spiritually sick” and, if the actions taken by the white men in the film and my knowledge of history are anything to go on, history is littered with spiritually sick white men. Ultimately, Killers of the Flower Moon a deeply upsetting portrait of colonizers, of greed, and of America because that sort of exploitation is still felt and is still being perpetrated today with little guilt.
Killers of the Flower Moon is in theaters now.
Stray Observations
I don’t listen to a whole lot of podcasts anymore, but occasionally I’ll tune in for one if it intrigues me enough. One such episode caught my attention recently; the “Jim Downey” episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Jim Downey, famed comedy writer, slots in neatly with Conan’s comedic temperament and their conversation is as hilarious as it is fascinating. Downey details his work with American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson as well as the late great Norm MacDonald. Definitely worth a listen for comedy fans.
Quick shout-out to my mom for donating to my Ko-Fi. Love you mom!
Embarked on my now yearly traditions of watching both Over the Garden Wall (2014) and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004) for maximum October vibes. Over the Garden Wall being a nice little slice of New England inspired autumnal folklore that is spooky without being scary. Darkplace isn’t scary either, but is far sillier with its intentionally shoddy production and pompous lead actor/writer/creator Garth Marenghi. Both have vibes that scream halloween, whether it be Over the Garden Wall’s pastoral setting or Darkplace’s copious use of fog machines and colored lights. Both are incredibly short shows, taking only a little over 2 hours each. Darkplace is streaming on Peacock and Amazon Prime while Over the Garden Wall is streaming on Hulu.
Another Halloween-y show that’s only recently become available is the three episode miniseries Stephen King’s Rose Red (2002), which is a cozy little treat of a haunted house story. It is pretty clearly Stephen King riffing Shirley Jackson’s horror novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959) where a group of psychic researchers explore a purported haunted house. Rose Red is nearly identical, but with one psychic researcher bringing together an entire team of psychics to investigate a haunted house. They encounter ghosts and non-Euclidean architecture, and some of them even go mad. The scares aren’t really effective and the special effects are crummy, but it manages to be really engaging through the gorgeous production design, talented ensemble cast, and the deep history King has crafted. Despite being released in 2002, it has a distinctly 90s sensibility and that is likely why I find the show so endearing. Each episode is about an hour and a half, so this three episode series is still a bit of a commitment unlike Darkplace or Over the Garden Wall. Rose Red is available to stream on Hulu.
Thanks for reading and have a happy Halloween! Don’t forget to to share or donate if you enjoyed reading!