Despite these increasingly turbulent times - or just to spite them! - I sat down again with Jaylan Salah to have a charming chat about The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Vampire Lovers, and more of our favorite Pride picks on The Jay Days Review YouTube Channel! I'm grateful to be an ally and discuss what our favorites get wrong as well as what rainbow they get right.
Desert Hearts and When We Rise
I had such fun chatting with The Lone Acting Nominee Podcast about Jack Palance & City Slickers!
It's so great to be a part of so many new Podcasts in 2025! Join me on Blue Sky for more collaborations or browse the Podcast tag for more appearances including:
Hateship Loveship on the Female Gaze Podcast
Critic Spotlight: Kristin Battestella on The Women InSession Podcast at InSessionFilm.com
Women's History Month Collab with The Revisionist's Almanac Podcast
I'm so grateful to have my television review of A Spy Among Friends at Geek Vibes Nation!
My long form written output has slowed but the Great Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch moves on nonetheless with several podcasts and television coverage including:
Hateship Loveship on the Female Gaze Podcast
Jack Irish at Keith Loves Movies
Mare of Eastown at Keith Loves Movies
My Fall calendar is almost full however my DMs are open on Blue Sky for audio/visual or writing collaborations. Positive engagement and thoughtful exchange is a wonderful thing!
Disappointing 19th Century Gothic Dramas
by Kristin Battestella
These two throwback productions have a lot to offer in period piece morose. Unfortunately, the crowded storytelling makes for disappointing, mixed bag viewing that deserved more.
The Black Velvet Gown – Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) leads this 1991 award winning ITV adaption of the Catherine Cookson novel complete with 1830s impoverished patchwork and dirty coal downtrodden mood. The dated, flat print actually helps the humble, hardworking candles and quills as our widow Mariah and her children come to work at a dilapidated manor for four shillings plus room and board. Bitter spinster sisters give the disapproving once over and gossip about what trouble she is because Mariah can read and write, but chores and montages with upbeat music and ye olde town square bustle imply circumstances are otherwise happy. The master sets up a school in his library for the children and offers our housekeeper his mother's titular gown. However, suggested love triangles with the woodsman move quickly, nobody seems to brood or like each other that much yet there's talk of marriage and Mariah disrobes to wait for the master – who says she doesn't look that much older than her little daughter. Though struggling financially, he promises the children puppies and ponies, crossing fatherly boundaries and creepily manhandling them before the enraged twelve year old boy slices up the master with a sickle. The master admits he had to give up teaching because of his “weakness” but his threat to have the boy jailed for attacking him carries more weight then his implied abuse? The family is blackmailed into staying, forcing Mariah to rip up that gorgeous dress before the time jumps to eight years later. Our daughter is now quite the scholar, feeling sorry for the deathbed master that taught her and screwed over her family. This moves fast, almost too fast – as if the important elements have been glossed over and we're supposed to sympathize with the master for making the daughter his heiress. The male lawyers think Mariah should be grateful for inheriting this strapped property, speculating that she slept with her master to get it. Unfortunately, any potential behind closed doors meaty is at best tame and largely absent. A letter seemingly confirming the master abused the son is ignored by the daughter he educated, and her being smart is made the worse crime. Servants must know their place and never talk back as we move from mother to daughter in the second half. Young Biddy remains determined at the new downstairs, defiant despite being whipped while her brother is said to be smart enough to keep quite. The abusive undercurrent is confusing, for sex was seemingly traded to the previous master yet it's this tough laundress work that must be endured and overcome. What filth she's spreading by quoting poetry in public and learning letters in the servant quarters! Although the nothing new statements are weak, the high up idiots not wanting anyone else to gain knowledge reeks of today. Once elevated to chambermaid, our daughter learns how to behave and marries up before using her inheritance to open an equal opportunity school. The morose atmosphere, dramatic performances, and attention to class detail are here, however the last half hour rushes with no focus on how our smart girls cause trouble and all the men want them nonetheless. The twofold storytelling feels pointless with no time to tell either properly – leaving viewers to read the book to get the whole tale. I mean, the dress never even had to do with anything? Great frock, though. Would wear!
The Doctor and the Devils – The Burke and Hare names are changed for this long gestating 1985 Freddie Francis (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave) directed and Mel Brooks (Dracula: Dead and Loving It) produced horror yarn with a surprisingly elite cast. Well dressed doctor Timothy Dalton's (Penny Dreadful) sophisticated justification of what must be done in the name of anatomy and male only lecture hall contrast the gory body on the exam table – the grim product of grave diggers Stephen Rea (The End of the Affair) and Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies) who circumvent medical law for three guineas a body to impress working girl Twiggy (Brand New World). Dirty streets, ruined clothes, and congested pubs don't mix with the top hats and brightly lit upscale, reiterating the classism between working girls and well to do praying doctor's sister Sian Phillips (I, Claudius). The dialogue is intriguing and the performances well done. However this is slow to start with to and from coming and going carriages and romps in the back alleys. Drawn out scenes and idle busy moments delay the graveside thefts, creepy cadaver cuttings, bleeding arteries, and blood splatter marring the fine shirts and ties. At only ninety-two minutes, this should know whether it's focus is the murderous men or the medial horror. Pretty medical assistant Julian Sands (Gothic) gets his hands dirty in buying the bodies, but seeing his girl in the shady brothel, well that's too much! Humor and hooker jokes are apparently meant to have us laugh at the downtrodden who have resorted to killing, but the realistic gore and muffled smotherings in the dark are a better warped. After all, our desperate snatchers are putting bedridden victims out of their misery. The dirty pain, black teeth, and pox sallow waste of the living is made new, fresh, and useful as a dead body. New messy science has no time for red tape impeding a surgeon who makes scary sense when he objects to his talents being shackled by outdated ideology. Rival professor Patrick Stewart (Star Trek) is suspicious of our flippant doctor at the medical inquest. Yes that is his kidney in the jar but it's not his kidney! Healing a grateful cripple offering a meager payment conflicts with the necessary dehumanizing of the cadaver. Our doctor can't worry that they used to be people when it's his duty to do what needs to be done in the name of science. The provocative ideas are crowded with the body snatching comic relief, unnecessary scenes, back alley cockfights, and long gaps with seemingly important characters absent onscreen. The last half hour rushes with dinner parties shocked to hear of homelessness, doomed women, and the city squalor beneath the high society galleries. More victims and moralistic questions split hairs on if paying for bodies is murder for hire. Poor lodgers who suspect foul play and a tough old lady that just won't die are oddly played for laughs amid fiery dreams, butchers, and bodies in the sewer. Recognizing a victim is inconsequential when our doctor demands that he is right and the medical establishment is wrong. The Hammer throwback vibes and gothic atmosphere are welcome with working girls in peril, betrayals, and fingers left in the fireplace. However the period drama and humorous attempts don't quite come together with the best horror moments. This wraps up quickly with who's arrested or gets away unbothered becoming lost – probably thanks to the decades of delay and too many hands on the script.
It's both pleasant to be recognized for one's work yet also a little daunting when the focus turns on oneself. Fortunately, I had a delightful experience with the Women InSession Podcast at InSessionFilm.com when it was my turn in the hot seat for a Critic Spotlight episode!
In addition to listening to my horror cred and history as a film critic, you can also read my latest Author Spotlight in the current #Grandparents Issue of Search Magazine!
Although you can still follow me on Instagram, if you're on Blue Sky you'll also note I've created a second handle for my Kbatz Krafts DIY. In addition to my Spotlight moment, I have another DIY Article in Search, too!
Visit the Podcast and Video tags for more upcoming appearances or peruse past Search Magazine excitement including:
Mary Tyler Moore Retrospective
I had a tremendous time chatting with Morgan at the Female Gaze Film Podcast about the 2013 film Hateship Loveship!
Thank you for listening to our conversation! Follow me on Blue Sky for more upcoming Podcast and Video appearances or browse previous audio/visual guest spots:
The Revisionist Almanac Women's History Month Collab
1999: The Podcast – The End of the Affair
Greatest Movies of All Time – Ben-Hur
This month it was such a privilege to be part a small part of The Revisionist Almanac's Women's History Month Collaboration podcast!
You can hear many amazing voices amid this epic episode and stay tuned for more video chats with Jaylan Salah on The Jay Days YouTube Channel as well as my guest spot on an upcoming episode of The Female Gaze Film Club!
DMs are open on Blue Sky for collaborations or follow our Podcast tag for past episodes including:
The Revisionist Almanac – 1956
Greatest Movies of All Time – Ben-Hur
1999: The Podcast – The End of the Affair
Two Too Obvious Horrors
by Kristin Battestella
These recent women in horror films make for an unfortunately obvious duo playing into cliches and doing much too much. Pity.
Hold Your Breath – Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story) anchors this 2024 Hulu original set in 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. Coughing and gasping dreams, our mother's prayers to not be evil, and already deceased children giveaway everything upfront along with flashbacks of dad leaving to work on the railroad and daughters locking their door. Dust lingers in streams of light shining between wood planks; the women wipe, sweep, and beat the sheets but dust is everywhere. On edge neighbors trying to escape monstrous storm clouds lead to wagon accidents and burying dead animals. Families must cling to the safety lines or be swept away in the howling winds. Bedtime stories of the previously tall, golden wheat fields don't alleviate the rattling house, creaking wood, and dirt dunes billowing against the door. Promises to join their father when he sends money become notches on the wall counting his absence while the cows quit and a self-proclaimed healing hands minister hides in the barn. Unfortunately, ridiculously loud modern crescendos interfere with the suspense – deflating the innate breathing, nosebleeds, and dirt in their mouths. There should be no music save for the banging shutters, and although they serve the plot, one wonders if all the other townsfolk are truly necessary. Even our deaf daughter is a contrivance rather than a fully developed character serving the masks, sleeping pills, unknown man, women alone, and mailbag warnings. Entertaining angels unaware Lot scripture reiterates the feminine dangers while the superfluous town gossips whisper about what violence goes on behind closed doors. Friendly knocks on the door from those colloquial ninnies are rebuffed as mom practices putting on her smile in the mirror amid congested interior barricades, fires, and sleepwalking. Pretty white dresses are ruined with blood and no one believes there was a man terrorizing them once you say he's a speck of dust that came in under the door. Viewers understand our unfit mother's selfish descent as the family cycle perpetuates with sewing needle mishaps, shooting at voices in the dust, and children in peril. However grieving visions playing at the mental versus horror metaphors become an overlong, predictable excuse when the crazed, everything's fine pretending was enough for a straight isolation thriller. Despite a fine setting, atmosphere, and performances; this is laid on thick and obvious from the opening scene.
Immaculate – The similarities to The First Omen are indeed apparent, and the obvious title is obvious to everyone but novice Sydney Sweeney (Madame Web) in this 2024 seen it all before nunsploitation yarn. Although questions at customs and searching the suitcase establish the Italian dictionary, Bible, and stuffed animal nervousness about taking the forthcoming vows; the opening runaway nun caught for buried alive screams is unnecessary. I wish the lovely on location filming and scenery were bright enough to actually see and I'm not sure when this is supposed to take place? However the American accent is jarring – an out of place modernity amid the rapid intermixed Italian exposition, diegetic choir chants, and eerie courtyard processions. Suggestive bridal vows, handsome priests, kneeling before the men, and kissing the ring innuendo are laid on thick but the spooky atmosphere and rituals beneath the inner sanctum aren't scary because the audience knows more than our vomiting novitiate. Brief visual distortions and nightmares give way to a happy daylight montage with chores and kitchen quaint even as chickens are killed and old convent patients die. Giggling bathing gossip and questions about if she has been chaste lead to humorous crescendos as they whip the cover off the ultrasound machine. Apparently, she's so faithful the miraculous mom never questions why a convent for dying nuns needs an obstetrician on call. It's tough to support a protagonist that has wine, faints, and wakes up pregnant but isn't suspicious despite Madonna ceremonies, teeth falling out, and jealous drowning attempts. Askew funerary angles, hidden scripture, hair effigies, cross brandings, and a tortured nun getting her tongue cut out attempt medieval touches while mom-to-be in white roams the halls at night with a candle. Chicken ruses, bleeding emergencies, and prayers over said bloody sheets lead to chases and a rough shower scrubbing. The priest puts on black gloves and apologizes if she feels unsafe after being subjected to a rusty nail with 2,000 year old sinews yet it's all so on the nose thanks to egotistical experiments, fetus failures in jars, misused scripture, and secret lab equipment. Questions debating why God hasn't stopped them and Ave Maria choirs feel religion-lite as our woman in labor runs, fights, and climbs the cool catacombs. She damns her water for breaking after bludgeoning the mother superior with hefty a crucifix while Carol of the Bells plays. She strangles the eminence with a rosary when he's smoking and sets the genetics priest on fire, too, as you do. Despite being eighty-odd minutes with lengthy credits eating into the actual runtime, this feels both overlong yet lacking in resolution or consequences. Fortunately our wild, covered in blood mother bites off her umbilical cord and smashes her unseen demon baby with a rock – actions accented by nails on chalkboard screaming and humorous “thump” and “sloshing” closed captions. This is a comedy and I laughed out loud.
It was so fun to get provocative and rainy with 1999: The Podcast as we discussed The End of The Affair. Huge thanks to John and Julia for having me to chat about religion, Ralph Fiennes, forties fashion, and more!
Thank you for listening and stay tuned for yet more audio and visual appearances! DMs are open on Blue Sky for collaborations or follow our Podcast tag for past episodes:
Greatest Movies of All Time – Ben-Hur
NeverEnding Watchlist James Bond Collab
