Editorials
“The Walking Dead” Ends Excellent Season 9 With One of the Coolest, Most Unique Episodes to Date
♫ Walkers in a Winter Wonderland ♫
“The Walking Dead” has been on the air for nine years, which has equated to nine seasons, and yet heading into tonight’s Season 9 finale, we had never seen the characters dealing with seasonal changes. Filmed in Georgia, the show has outright ignored the harsh realities of winter from the very beginning, with budgetary constraints to blame for the oddly consistent weather patterns. After all, turning Georgia into a winter wonderland is no easy task. But with ‘The Storm,’ the show has finally proven that with a little magic, anything is possible.
Directed by Greg Nicotero, who’s frequently at the helm of the show’s standout episodes, ‘The Storm’ picked up some time after the devastating events of ‘The Calm Before,’ with the Kingdom having fallen and the community’s residents forced out into a harsh winter storm. Their goal? To find warmth and safety in their new home at Hilltop. Meanwhile, the residents of Alexandria dealt with their own issues, forced to bond with Negan while the storm raged on.
Given the surely insane amount of work both physically and digitally that’s required to bring a faux winter to Georgia, it’s likely that Season 9’s final hour will be the *only* episode of “The Walking Dead” that ever takes place during a big winter storm, and ‘The Storm’ no doubt worked overtime to completely scratch the itch and play with the elements as much as possible. Much to my personal delight, the episode was indeed a full-on winter affair, giving us everything from an icicle kill(!) to a tense sequence set atop a frozen lake. And yes, we even (finally) found out what happens to zombies when they’re exposed to the winter elements.
Spoiler: they freeze solid.
In the episode’s eeriest, coolest scene, our heroes came across three “snowman zombies” en route to Hilltop, completely frozen in place. Michonne sliced their heads off with her trusty katana, essentially shattering them clean off their bodies and spewing icy blood all over the snow; later, Michonne had trouble slicing through the frozen neck of another zombie, making for a cool little moment. After encountering the frozen zombies, the group was attacked by another horde of walkers that were buried *underneath* the snow, ‘The Storm’ again giving us a very winter-specific scene that helped it stand out as easily the show’s most unique episode to date. Even outside the world of “The Walking Dead” you’ll find few zombie movies set during Winter, so the setting was all around a relatively fresh coat of paint for the sub-genre.
We even got to see an unfortunate zombie who found himself stuck up to his chest in a frozen lake, part of an emotional scene wherein Lydia contemplated a zombie-assisted suicide. Lydia blames herself for the brutal murders of Henry and the nine other heroes who ended up with their decapitated heads stuck up on pikes, and she’s self aware enough to know that the group would be a whole lot safer from her mother’s wrath if she wasn’t part of their family. If she was, well, gone. Ultimately, Carol showed up just in time to stop Lydia.
Over at Alexandria, the show sort of struggled to get the characters out into the storm, coming up with the plot device of a faulty fireplace as the reason why they’re forced to move from one building to another. So that he wouldn’t freeze to death down in his cell, Gabriel and the gang also had to set Negan free and let him walk among them. This portion of the episode had a very Hateful Eight feel to it, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s gleeful wise-cracking making it something of a fun departure from the more serious tone of Michonne and Daryl’s struggles out in the titular storm. And it gave us a nice little moment wherein Negan saved Judith’s life after she went out looking for Daryl’s dog, providing a wee little taste of the redemptive arc that’s no doubt going to reach its zenith when Negan helps our heroes in their battle against the Whisperers. Granted, it’s been clear for a while now that Negan has a certain fondness for Judith, but it was nice to see him actually risk his life to save hers.
One could argue that a character who was introduced by literally bashing in the brains of one of the show’s most beloved characters could never (and *should* never) be redeemed, but I for one am on board with any show that grows and evolves its characters in such extreme, unexpected ways. Three seasons ago, I damn sure never expected we’d find ourselves here.
As it turns out, a change of seasons was just what “The Walking Dead” needed for a standout finale that, while relatively uneventful in terms of storyline progression – Alpha and Beta didn’t even show up until the very end, and only for one brief little moment – brought a whole new look, mood and atmosphere to the show. The team did a great job creating a faux winter for ‘The Storm,’ and it’s one episode that you’ll no doubt remember as time goes on. While many episodes of “The Walking Dead” (even the best ones) blend together, “the winter one” was unlike any other, and that’s pretty cool to see from a show nine years deep.
The episode may have been titled ‘The Storm,’ for obvious reasons, but it’s clear that the real storm is on the horizon. On the road to what’s sure to be a bloody, intense battle, ‘The Storm’ was a nice little episode centered around the theme of coming together and working together, and it was great to see our heroes bouncing back a bit after what they endured in ‘The Calm Before.’ That episode felt more like a traditional “Walking Dead” season finale than this one, but I’d argue that this cooldown (quite literally) was needed after the Red Wedding-esque devastation. An all around great season closed out on a fresh, fun note. I’ll take it.
Plus we got to see the first ever “Walking Dead” snowball fight. What’s not to love?!
So… any guesses on whose voice that was at the end…?
Editorials
Five Serial Killer Horror Movies to Watch Before ‘Longlegs’
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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