Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

North By Northwest (1959)

Phillip Vandamm: Seems to me you fellows 

could stand  a little less training from the F.B.I. 

and a little more from the Actor's Studio.

Granted I've seen this movie approximately one thousand times but can't you just hear James Mason purring out that rejoinder? God what a voice that man had. I've already used one of these posts a few years back to expound upon the implied homosexual connection between Mason's character and his favorite side-piece henchman played by Martin Landau, but I could go on about how James Mason is like the paltonic ideal of a Hitchcock Baddie for days. Smooth as hell, a gentleman to the end, unspooling a truly ridiculous plot via ludicrous means -- sure why not send Cary Grant to the middle of nowhere to be shot at by a crop duster? Why not, I say! Anyway Mason was born 117 years ago today -- go watch one of his movies! You will not be disappointed. He was always the man.

The Book of Leviticus

Neon just dropped the above... poster...s... for the upcoming gay horror film Leviticus -- since it's a gif of two images I'm not sure what to call it. I've seen the phrase "motion poster" before so I suppose that fits. Anyway they're both great images, and supposedly we're getting a trailer tomorrow (the movie is out on June 19th) but, unlike the trailer for the new Evil Dead movie that I just posted, I doubt I will share the one for Leviticus. Because I've seen Leviticus -- I posted about it about a month ago, that it was playing the "New Directors" fest here in NYC -- and I am one hundred percent certain y'all should go into this movie as cold as possible, like I did. I've really been wanting to write up my thoughts on the film, which are myriad and emotional, but I've hesitated for a couple of factors. 

One is that I'm not sure I can write about it without talking about everything going on with it, but honestly that's not been the main issue. The other is that, and I don't think this will surprise any of you who've been here lately, I've really had some writer's block bogging me down over the past several months. I've felt like it's had to be super obvious to any of you visiting -- I've really been operating on auto-pilot lately, and I need to get myself out of this funk. Especially if I'm going to write about a movie like Leviticus, which moved me in some profound and extremely personal ways. So if anybody has any words of encouragement I wouldn't hate to hear them, is what I'm saying -- the thing is that I'm hardly alone in feeling broken by the world these days, and I guess that's what's sort of kept me clammed up about it. It's been very much the preacher's funeral sermon in Synechdoche New York -- "Maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery because they have their own." It all feels redundant and obvious and in turn pointless and it cycles, and cycles. Hopefully I can dig myself out of this grave and do better! Understatement! Anyway here's some video I took of Leviticus director Adrian Chiarella introducing the movie at MoMA a couple of weeks back; he really speaks beautifully:

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Gonna Go Blue, Baby

I guess that I did a lot of posts yesterday that were placeholders for today -- there was the Charlie Cox thing I just shared and now here we have the trailer for Blue Film, which I posted the poster for and said then that we'd be getting this trailer today. And here we are. Full of trailer! Blue Film stars Boots actor Kieron Moore (seen, seen, and seen again for good measure above) as a cam-boy who finds himself spending the night with an older gentlemen (Reed Birney from House of Cards) when... well I only have a vague idea of where the movie goes and I'm keeping it that way, meaning that no, I have not watched thei trailer. I scanned through it for thirty seconds to make the above gif and then stopped. Because I don't wanna know! But here, if you do, said trailer:

Blue Film is out on May 8th. We will be watching. You?

Great Moments in Movie Staches

Give it up for Rock Hudson serving hard 70s porn coach in Roger Vadim's exceptionally bizarre 1971 movie Pretty Maids All in a Row. Anybody seen this? For some reason its name crossed my social-media a couple of times recently which i took as a sign to watch it. So I did that last night and, uhh -- what the fuck was that? It's basically Porky's as a giallo film... or perhaps a giallo film as Porky's is more apt. It's a broad sexploitation comedy where the high school teachers are fucking and murdering their students. Before you run out thinking, as I did, "Oh my god I have to see this!" please know it's not a "good" movie. For all the WTF-ery going down it's somehow still plodding and pointless and mean. It's 1971 so of course it's profoundly misogynistic but even so, having that expectation going in, it manages to seem extra gross. Angie Dickinson plays a teacher opposite Rock and you can tell she was just bone-deep exhausted having to play this role, which demands she be dumber than hair. 

There's a proto-Heathers thing going on -- the movie's one great joke is about the school having a "moment of silence" for the murdered cheerleaders during the big game -- but I think that might be the only time it actually wrung a laugh from me. Probably the most fascinating thing is watching the closet-case Hudson get his Psycho moment, turning a big campus hetero-stud into a figure of menace. But to be honest the movie doesn't seem terribly interested in making his character legitimately scary -- you basically get the feeling that the movie's still on his side after it reveals he's the killer very early on, and that those sluts and bimbos really had it coming. And remember, do keep in mind -- this is all (in theory) being played for wacky laughs! Laughs that never land. Still (in theory) it's interesting, and we do get to see big strapping Rock Hudson walking through a locker-room full of stripping football players, and it co-stars Telly Savalas AND Roddy McDowell, and the movie is deeply obsessed with the unrelenting boner of its main character, who for some insane reason is named "Ponce de Leon Harper" (played by the unconventionally adorable John David Carson). If you're ready to be offended and bored by a nevertheless fascinating mess I suppose I recommend this. But also I warned you.

Good Morning, Samson

Aww big ol' Samson from the 28 Years Later movies -- aka actor Chi Lewis-Parry -- shared this picture on Instagram this morning with a message of "Memento Amoris" aka "Remember Love", what a sweetheart he is! No seriously I have an enormous crush on CLP (and yes okay Samson too, jeez) after The Bone Temple -- have you seen it yet? Have you read my review yet? As a person who was decidedly not a fan of the first movie I found this sequel leaps and bounds weirder and more moving. And gayer. So much gayer. Watch this video of CLP and Ralph Fiennes chatting and tell me they don't have chemistry for days:

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Black Phone 2 in 200 Words or Less

I suppose if forced to choose I'd rather be bored than offended, so I guess Black Phone 2 is better than Black Phone in that it's not quite so rigorously homophobic this time out. Otherwise -- shrug emoji? I swear the first hour of this sequel is the same scene played out several times in a row. Little sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) -- who's very much the protagonist this time out -- slips into a dream, a phone rings, ghost kids, wakes up, little more dream, longer ringing phone, more ghost kids, on and on and on until your eyes have rolled down your throat. I don't recall the sound of a ringing phone being quite so annoying in the first film -- it's absolutely relentless here. Call it "Won't somebody answer the goddamned phone???": The Movie. And I've said this before when it comes to Scott Derrickson's movies (re: Sinister) but I will never find Ghost Kids scary. Ghost Kids will never be scary! There's some fun Elm-Street-esque shenanigans in the last half but having re-watched Dream Warriors earlier this week if you can't have a character say "In my dreams I'm beautiful and bad!" then bzzzt, you lose the contest.

Good Morning, World

Okay the "good" portion of this post officially ends immediately following that gif of Charlie Hunnam naked (in a pose we've seen and loved from him before!) because this gif is taken from the trailer for Ryan Murphy's forthcoming series Monster: The Ed Gein Story, which is... well when I say "not good" I mean evil and disgusting and so forth; so many skin suits, and not just Charlie's beautiful naked one! Because the trailer actually made me more excited for the series -- fone one I had no idea Laurie Metcalf was playing "Mother" and YES. A billion times yes. Charlie Hunnam was already several yesses but this takes it stratospheric. Let your breakfast settle first, and then watch:

This premieres on Netflix on October 3rd. I am so there.

And here is one more Naked Charlie Hunnam gif to see us out:

5 Off My Head - Brooklyn Horror 2025 Time!

Starting next week we'll be entering the annual "very quiet round these parts" portion of the calendar as I plunge head-first into the fall film fests -- first it's the New York Film Festival, then there's the autumnal edition of NewFest, and then kicking off on October 16th there's the Brooklyn Horror Fest, which I've been covering since year one. This is year ten! By the time Halloween comes I'm always completely blown out but it's worth it every time so I keep it up anyway, despite the years of my life I've no doubt lost to cinematic exhaustion. Anyway today BHFF announced their new line-up and you can see the entire thing right here, but I'm going to zero in on a few titles (five specifically) that I'm most excited about seeing. A few of the movies they're showing I've already seen at earlier fests this year (Tina "daughter of Geroge" Romero's queer zombie flick Queens of the Dead is a hell of a lot of fun) -- in fact one of them I've even reviewed! You can read my thoughts on the brilliantly surreal head-trip Buffet Infinity right here. But let's get to the rest!

5 Brooklyn Horror Tiles to Devour

Dust Bunny -- Obviously! Duh! This kiddy horror flick from Pushing Daisies and Hannibal genius Bryan Fuller screened at TIFF yesterday and they also dropped the trailer (right here) -- it stars Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver and I haven't shut up about it for a very long time. And it looks like this will be my first opportunity to see it before it hits theaters on December 5th!

Boorman and the Devil -- This documentary about the making of John Boorman's disastrously-received Exorcist sequel just premiered at Venice last week and got a really good reception. Also the queer horror community being as small as it is we here at MNPP know some people who worked on this (including director David Kitteredge) and we've been hearing about its making for what feels like forever! Put it in my eyeballs!

This is Not a Test -- Although the official page for this (the Opening Night) movie on BHFF's website doesn't mention its queerness, Variety's article on the line-up does -- either way we dug director Adam MacDonald's former feature Pyewacket a lot and we're always on board a high-school-set zombie movie. 

Tinsman Road -- A new found-footage horror film from homosexual director Robbie Banfitch, director of the found-footage freak-out The Outwaters. I was slightly mixed on that one (although it has some excellent scares and atmopshere) but we support our people! Meaning "gays" but also "found footage horror movie lovers."

Violence -- Looking forward to this one mainly because it stars Rohan Campbell, who was done dirty by David Gordon Green's Halloween Ends. He was good in a terrible role, and we're giving him a second chance. Does it hurt that he's hot as hell? Of course not. We are but human.

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There are a heap more movies worth seeing so make sure you scan the entire line-up at the link, and if you're in NYC between October 16th and 25th then you owe it to yourself to celebrate the Hallow-season with some of these frights! Badges are on sale right now; individual tickets go on sale this Friday at Noon!

I ❤️ LURKER

The queer-ish stalker thriller Lurker starring Archie Madekwe and Théodore Pellerin has been out in theaters for a couple of weeks now -- have you been able to see it yet? I dug it a whole bunch when I saw it at Sundance earlier this year -- if you missed my review you can read it right here. Who didn't miss my review? The PR people apparently,. because they went and used one of my quotes in an ad for the movie! We all know I'm a sucker for blurb-whoring so well here we are. This was actually from a couple of weeks ago but I missed it until today when my fellow Pajiba contributor Kayleigh alerted me to it -- their campaign has been clever, using modern technology prompts as advertising tools; here tis:

Archie & Theo 4Eva

A movie I liked very much when I saw it at Sundance earlier this year is out in theaters tomorrow -- it's called Lurker and it stars Théodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe as a stalker and the singer he stalks respectively. You can read my review right here. I've posted about it a bunch since then -- you can watch the trailer right here -- since it's deeply fucked up in several of my favorite delightful ways and I can't wait for y'all to see it. As for right now why not watch this "deleted scene" that the official Instagram account for the movie just shared of our lead twosome being very intimate? To get yourselves in the mood, of course. What mood, well I suppose that's up to you!

On Weapons & Its Gay Stuff

Nobody likes a killjoy yet I've found myself falling into that role over and over and over again when it's come (mostly) to horror movies in 2025; I just haven't been on consensus this year. God forbid. But it seems to've been my review of writer-director Zach Cregger's Weapons, which stormed the box office this past weekend, which seems to've annoyed people the most... even though I gave the movie a mostly good review! I gave it a fresh Red Apple on that dastardly Tomatometer! I just have several nits to pick with the film that seem to really be killing people's joy, if the comments on said post are to be believed, and there's one I really want to address since it's a subject I've spent most of my writing career (lol "career") contemplating. 

Annoyed at the should-know-better homosexual’s comment on my review saying we fought for the equality to be played as weirdo jokes and get murdered in horror movies so I’ll probably go off on that at MNPP tomorrow, stay tuned!

— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 10:05 AM

Yeah that's the one. Specifically people seem annoyed with the following passage from my review (and yes I'm diving head-first into SPOILERS at this point so beware if you haven't seen the movie and care):

"And oh right lest we forget there’s the homophobic portion of our evening’s entertainment, the chapter involving Marcus (Benedict Wong, great and not in the least at fault for the way these scenes are framed). He’s the school’s gay principal and he’s who, along with his hissing stereotype of a partner (they love weiners and have Mickey and Minnie t-shirts, haha!), the film really relishes giving a heftily violent what-for. Killing your gays is so in y’all."

Marcus' partner is named Terry and I honestly don't know if I'll see a more offensive-to-me image in the movies this year than the one of Terry mincingly holding up two boxes of Fruity Pebbles in the grocery store. And that really has nothing to do with the "killing your gays" trope -- although yes I'll get to that -- it has to do with it feeling as if Weapons is actively laughing at these characters for being gay. It's not that I mind "sissies" in real life -- nobody's ever mistaken me for the captain of the football team y'all. It's that the movie thinks these gigantic queens are weird and hilarious and so fucking gay -- aren't they so fucking gay??? So many weiners! Plates and plates of weiners! High-larious!

And yes I will admit I've lost some of my humor here in 2025 on this subject. But I feel as if any sane fucking queer person should be right there alongside me in the same humorless goddamned boat. Look around. Our rights are being ripped away. Marriage Equality is probably going to be gone in the next year. Trans service members are being ripped out of service and denied retirement benefits right now, right this second, and it'll be the rest of the rainbow next. They are coming for us all with terrifying methodical swiftness and all of our systems of defense are failing.

So yeah ten years ago I also might've been making the case, as has been made in the comments on my review, that some modern version of cinematic equality sees gays getting to die in horror movies just like straight characters do. And sure, okay -- in a utopia there's something to that. Maybe just don't turn them into cartoonish stereotypes before that? Maybe we can be main characters once in awhile? And maybe don't have it be the gay characters love for one another that becomes what kills them. Weapons gives us no reason to give a shit about Marcus & Terry's relationship before Marcus is forced to murder Terry by smashing their faces together over and over again, which -- it's not a fucking stretch to see this as "men kissing men" weaponized. 

So yes -- we argued that we gays should be able to die in horror movies just like straights. It's just -- JFC did the storytellers immediately take us up on that offer, like gangbusters. In the past month I've seen (SPOILER for The Gilded Age ahead) a gay dude trampled by horses in front of his lover on The Gilded Age. I've seen a gay couple in the horror movie Together (SPOILER for Together ahead) turn out to be the weirdo freak cult leaders who've come to pervert the straight couple and turn them into non-binary monsters. And now I have seen this sequence -- in a movie I mostly liked otherwise! -- and... I dunno. I'm just pretty tired y'all. So cut me some slack if I kind of come off like this most of the time:

Double Your Dylan, Double Your Fun

I'm so burned out these days I saw that the doubled Dylan O'Brien comedy Twinless had gotten a release date and I remembered liking it at Sundance but I had completely forgotten I'd reviewed it as well. But I did! You can read that right here. I even called it "Tasty Cringe Farce For Sickos" and come on, guys, how is that not on the poster? That's a killer tagline. Whatever. I can only do so much work for you. Anyway they also dropped a trailer so watch that if you feel so inclined:

Twinless is out on September 5th. You should see it.

Not just because Dylan O'Brien is hot, but here are some gifs 

from the trailer that underline that much after the jump...

Wail On

There's a good chance that some of you International Readers outside of the U.S. have already seen the movie I'm about to link my review to -- Spanish director Pedro Martín-Calero's film The Wailing came out in his home country last year and it's traveled around from there. But it hasn't gotten any release in North America save a few festivals and I'm hoping the good word of mouth changes that quickly, cuz this movie rules. Click here to read my review at Pajiba -- I saw it up in Montreal at Fantasia a couple of weeks ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. It's very good! And it's Martín-Calero's very first movie so let's hope we hear more from him. Once we're able to hear this from him, anyway. One movie that kept coming to mind, although I didn't mention it in my review, was Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria -- so that tells you something about how impressive I found it! 

Boys in the Badezimmer

The classic 1980 German queer flick Taxi Zum Klo (aka "Taxi to the Toilet") is celebrating its 45th anniversary this November -- although it didn't hit the U.S. until October of 1981 where it played the New York Film Festival and oh to've witnessed some truly surprised biddies in that audience -- and so they've gone and given it a 4K restoration! And one does wonder why the 45th anniversary is so special but I suppose that's just how it worked out timing-wise.   Anyway! Said restoration will be getting a theatrical roll-out and it's premieiering here in NYC at the Metrograph on August 1st. So we've got that poster above (great poster) and the trailer down below to share. Not sure where it heads after NYC but this link should eventually prove helpful in figuring that out. Can you believe I only saw this movie the first time a few months ago? I'm a very bad gay.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watchin' Me

My favorite movie from Sundance this year was the queer-ish thriller Lurker starring Archie Madekwe (Saltburn) playing a rising pop star and Théodore Pellerin as the fanboy who worms his way into his inner circle -- the movie really keeps you on your toes and both the leads (as well as Havana Rose Liu from Bottoms) are absolutely ace. Here is my review of it. Today they dropped the trailer...

... and the poster (see the bottom of this post) since the movie is hitting screens on August 22nd so prepare yourselves! Honestly maybe don't watch the trailer, as it gives a lot up. Just listen to me! Why isn't that enough for you? Have I literally ever steered you wrong? Each and every one of you agree with me 100% of the time and I won't hear otherwise.

Seriously though -- everybody is terrific in this movie but this is sort of the role that Pellerin (an actor I've loved in everything I've seen him in to date) was kind of born to play... which maybe seems like an insult, given the role? But the boy nails it so he shouldn't care. (It probably says more about me than it does him to be honest.) But yeah he's so great in this -- just utterly cuckoo delicious. Will probably be one of my, if not the most, favorite performances of the year. So slap this bitch on your calendar, yo. And hit the jump for a couple more gifs from the trailer of note plus that poster...

Oh Alain You Devil

Misericordia kind of fell through the cracks for me last year -- I saw it at NYFF but never got the chance to review it and then I was never really clear about its theatrical release... anyway the latest movie from Stranger By the Lake director Alain Guiraudie is very good and very very gay (no shock there) and I wish I'd written about it, is my point. But here's my chance, as well as yours -- Criterion will be premeiring the film on the Channel on June 10th! That's less than a week from now! Gay Pride is good for something! Also they've dropped the news that the film will also be getting a blu-ray release in September -- they haven't added it to their site yet but I imagine it'll be up there soon for pre-order. Anyway y'all should catch this one when it drops, whether online or on physical media, it's a weird little gem (quality "Queer Creeps" content) that's wedged itself into my brain and refused to let go all these many months. I look forward to revisiting it mself. Here's the trailer:

Pics of the Day

Two new photos from the upcoming queer-ish thriller Lurker have arrived -- starring Archie Madekwe as a pop star and Théodore Pellerin as an obsessed fan who weasels his way into the star's inner circle, Lurker played Sundance earlier this year where I saw, loved, and reviewed it and you can read that review right here. We don't have a trailer yet but I am assuming that's imminent because the folks at Mubi (who are distributing the movie) have given us a release date -- you can see Lurker for yourself on August 22nd. Oh unless you're here in NYC in which case you can see the movie much soon as it's the Closing Night movie of the New Directors New Films festival happening right now through this film's screening on April 15th. Looks like there are still tickets for it too! It's a movie to see! Very good.

Sucking the Boys Dry At Home!

If you somehow haven't seen Robert Eggers' tremendous Nosferatu yet I will try not to judge you (oh wait, too late) and simply direct you to the streaming service Peacock, where the film is now available to stream from the comfort of your reclusive bubble. Here is my review of the film, which technically landed at #4 on my favorite movies of 2024 list but ask me another day it could've been my number one. Having watched it at home and in the theater (repeatedly) now I can say with certainty that the movie really benefits from the theatrical experience -- for one it's a dark movie...

People who complained about NOSFERATU being "too dark" really never watched GAME OF THRONES did they

[image or embed]

— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 8:22 PM

... although in a purposefully meted out way; this isn't sloppy darkness. It's painterly. But you need the screen to be large to really appreciate the detail of what's happening inside of Eggers' frames. But if it's to be at home you might be better off watching the 4K disc of the film as opposed to relying on the quality and strength of a streamer's transmission. But you do you! Just turn off all of the lights and let the mood envelope you. God I love this (sorta gay) movie. 

The Monkey in 400 Words

Although it'd be neat if he wants to hang out sometime since he seems like a rad dude (just saying) I don't personally know Osgood Perkins, sometimes actor, son of Psycho star Anthony, and the quickly-becoming-his-own-brand horror director of The Blackcoat's Daughter, Longlegs, and my til-now-favorite Gretel & Hansel. And yet it's impossible to not think while watching his latest movie, the Stephen King adpatation The Monkey, that this feels like an extraordinarily personal movie for the man. 

Like I said -- I don't know him. And yet knowing what I do -- having watched him speak eloquently in Bryan Fuller's horror doc Queer For Fear about his closeted father's tumultuous relationship with the character of Norman Bates and his death from AIDS, and also knowing that Osgood's mother, the actress Berry Berenson, was killed in one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 -- the thematic threads of cursed familial chaos passed down patriarchally that thrum though The Monkey feel, you know, fairly pointed! Notable. Of note. Resonant. And then when planes on fire start falling out of the sky? Can you blame me? These thoughts are right there for the taking.

The Monkey also feels the closest Oz has gotten to date to his father's wild late career work -- the absurdly nasty black humor on display here is very close to the Tony-directed Psycho III, or to his father's oh let's say lurid performance in Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion. This movie is bleak and pitch-black hearted and finds the absurd pointlessness of human existence to be a ribald punchline. It's of a piece with the Final Destination movies, but if they were less Rube Goldberg and more Albert Camus on acid. 

It also might be, all due apologies to Gretel, my new favorite movie of Oz's. It'll definitely take a second viewing to decide that because The Monkey is so tonally erratic and balls deep wackadoo that it's hard to decide from moment to moment if this shit's anarchic genius or gallumphing mess. Hell maybe it's both! But in a world of so much personality-free I.P.-driven "content", The Monkey feels so bloody particular, so preposterously gonzo, that I must slow-clap it for audacity alone. (If you liked last year's Cuckoo, which I've come to appreciate more and more with distance for how by-its-own-rules it flew, this should also be your cuppa.)

Eat The Night Right Up

Hey oh a new review from yours truly dropped over the weekend -- click here to read my thoughts on the French crime thriller slash family drama slash video game treatise Eat the Night and yes, yes, a thousand times yes, there is too much going on in this movie, but I still mostly liked it anyway. Obviously it doesn't hurt that the film's leading men (Erwan Kepoa Falé and Théo Cholbi) have some really hot sexual relations in the movie -- a funny factoid about them that I mention in the review is that both actors were also in Ira Sachs' film Passages! Which also had its own share of hot sexual relations and complicated characters. Mind you Eat the Night is no Passages but it's got its own thing going on that I found myself drawn to.