13 March 2025

2 Too Obvious Horrors

 

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.


05 March 2025

1999: The Podcast Guest

 

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:


TheRevisionist Almanac – 1956

Greatest Movies of All Time – Ben-Hur

NeverEnding Watchlist James Bond Collab

2024 Guest Podcast Round Up



23 February 2025

My Coffin of Oscar Disdain ⚰️

 

My Coffin of Oscar Disdain 

by Kristin Battestella


My piss-ant attitude toward Oscar pundits this messy awards season did not happen overnight. As I've mentioned on Blue Sky and in several Video and Podcast appearances alongside my previous Why I'm Disinterested in Awards Season op-ed; my disdain for the Academy Awards began early. Here then are the chronological nails in my coffin and why the head scratching, so often erroneous Oscars are not worth such out of control, vicarious obsession for everything but the films that are supposed to mean the most to us.


The 1980s Elitism


As a kid in the eighties I was aware of the Oscars purely as prestige. Awards were for art house, international, period piece epics and serious films that I often didn't get to see. Oscar winning films weren't for everyone, and that exclusivity remains largely true. Many popular films and blockbusters or genre hits of the decade have endured more than many of the obscure, out of touch eighties Best Picture nominees. Maybe I didn't understand the details then, but the Academy's unwelcoming, full of itself nature was already apparent.


The Searchers receiving no nominations


When we got our first VCR, I fell in love with what cinema should be upon seeing The Searchers. In consulting my ye olde film guides and Oscar books, however, I was completely baffled that The Searchers not only didn't win any of the big awards, but it wasn't even nominated for anything! This was a how sway before there was even how sway. I read more literature agreeing on the mastery of John Ford's seminal piece, and this lack of Academy acknowledgment remains flat out WRONG. Little me knew it then, and my disdain deepened upon reading of more fifties Oscars errors – like Rear Window going empty-handed.


Goodfellas losing Best Picture


Surely, historical Oscar mistakes were just a fluke of classic film to be studied, right? Alas no, as I saw the Academy screw up again in real time when Goodfellas did not win Best Picture. Everything I already thought about Oscar's elite attitudes was compounded by the white savior Dances with Wolves defeating the unmistakably Italian Goodfellas. This egregiousness made it personal.


Montgomery Clift's losses


Falling in love with the mid-century acting masterclass that is Montgomery Clift's unfortunately brief body of work is something every so-called classic connoisseur should do. Although nominated four times for The Search, A Place in The Sun, From Here to Eternity and Judgment at Nuremberg; Clift never won. A case can also be made that he deserved more nominations for The Heiress, Red River, I Confess, Suddenly Last Summer, Wild River, or The Misfits yet because he's not an Oscar winner, Clift is now considered somewhat second tier in the classic pantheon. My budding teen self was once again confounded how some of the best films and performances will always be on the outside looking in when it comes to Oscar.


The ignoring of Terence Stamp for The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert


Obviously I knew nothing of the drag scene in nineties Sydney, but I learned everything I needed to know about rainbow compassion from Priscilla. Famed as the villainous Zod in Superman, Stamp's middle-aged transsexual widow was a revelation transcending cinema. A tender, delicate performance that was a bold, daring statement speaking to post-AIDS attitudes that continues to resonate today. Naturally the fearful Academy dared not touch such superb insight – instead choosing the relative safety of only acknowledging Priscilla for costumes.


L.A. Confidential not winning Best Picture


Somewhere along the line I heard someone say that the Screenplay winners are actually the better movies than what wins Best Picture. Never has this been more true than the heaps of praise upon the blockbuster Titanic, which is not the better picture than the neo noir masterpiece that is L.A. Confidential. Here the eighties prestige swung the other way – choosing the popular film and box office success as increasingly necessary to win. Whether you are a complex, sophisticated piece that stands the test of time apparently has nothing to do with it.


No nomination for Guy Pearce for Memento


Too bad for everyone who's tired of hearing me say it, but this is my hill. Guy Pearce's lack of Academy acknowledgment for Memento highlights all of Oscar's problems. Playing it safe #oscarssowhite not properly awarding Denzel Washington for Malcolm X lead to his against type make up win alongside the nomination acclaiming offensive performances like I Am Sam. This slap in the face was enough to make me stop actively paying attention to awards season for the rest of the decade. When the Academy doesn't recognize someone like Pearce and Christopher Nolan as the future of twenty-first century cinema, what are they even doing?


A point for Christian Bale's win!


Believe it or not, I took one nail out of my Oscar coffin in 2011 when Christian Bale won for The Fighter. I even called my parents to tell them the kid from Newsies won an Oscar! Despite his previously being overlooked for more daring performances like American Psycho and The Machinist, this was a rare occasion where the Academy finally did something right.


Michael Fassbender's nominations for the wrong films


Of course, my return to active awards interest was not meant to be as the impressive Fassbender was ignored for excellent performances in Hunger and Fish Tank. He was on the outside looking in at no nomination for Shame with jokes all season instead, and Carey Mulligan was also unfairly lost in the shuffle. Of course, Fassbender was graced with a seemingly obligated nomination for 12 Years a Slave, and I laughed at his subsequent nod for the stereotypically baity Steve Jobs. Forcing one of our most daring actors into awards safety turned me away yet again.


Guy Pearce receiving no acknowledgment for The Rover


I casually knew Pearce was once again not in the awards conversation for The Rover, having long accepted that it's worth seeking out his edgy, raw films that standing pat Oscar would never touch. However after having to wait for and then finally see The Rover, I was once again angry at how the supposed bar of award excellence could ignore such haunting material. Even in absentia this reaffirmed my Oscar free attitude for the next decade.


The 24-25 Awards Season


So now I was lured into the awards circus once more thanks to the world's apparently waking up to Guy Pearce's being worthy of acclaim for The Brutalist. We're in the home stretch of what has been the messiest, nastiest, cutthroat, and ridiculous award season. Everything about why I hated awards has increased tenfold in the social media age with Oscar obsession totally out of touch on everything that's happening in this disastrous 2025. Euphoric pundits play along in a game of predictions, patterns, and if this than that algorithms that have nothing to do with any meaning found in the films and performances. When the wannabe experts admit that the best doesn't win, film goers are supposed to accept that falsehood instead of enjoy the movies that move them? I object the devotion to contrived Academy politics over quality cinema.


I don't expect Guy Pearce to win anything. Even if he did, this year is the tenth and final nail in my Coffin of Oscar Disdain. I've had one foot out the door with my back turned for most of this century, and I will never be drawn back into award punditry and patheticness over art ever again.


Oscar is dead to me. I don't know her. ⚰️


19 February 2025

Revisionist Almanac 1956 Guest Podcast

 

It's very exciting to be part of other podcast ventures and appearances! After taking part in The Revisionist Almanac Let's Get Spooky Collab last year, it was my turn to take part in The Almanac's 1956 episode. See and Hear as at long last I rectified the award wrongs for The Searchers!



Thank you Andrew for inviting me to take part! With all the terrible things happening recently, it's a comfort to know my voice has meaning – even if it's in a tiny capacity talking about the movies we love.


You can also pick up some @RevAlmanac swag, but my cat photobombed my show and tell attempt! 



Follow our Podcast tag for more and revisit previous guest appearances:


Greatest Movies of All Time – Ben-Hur

Making Tarantino – House of Dark Shadows and Frankenstein Must be Destroyed

The Lone Screenplay Nominee – Stand by Me


17 February 2025

The Jay Days Guy Pearce Awards Video

 

In the spirit – or dispirit – of awards season I once again stopped by The Jay Days Review Show to talk about the overdue acclaim of now at long last Oscar nominee Guy Pearce. Thank you, Jaylan!



You can see and read more awards disdain and Video Reviews from the Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch including:


The Convert

Jack Irish


We Been Knew Guy Pearce Should Have Won

Why I'm Disinterested in Awards Season

10 Times Guy Pearce Deserved Acclaim

Guy Pearce Movies to Stream on Tubi


30 January 2025

Holiday Video Hauls 🎥

 


Kristin Battestella aka Kbatz talks about holiday loot – including new blu-ray releases, books, and Funkos! I get serious, too, about owning multiple differing versions of films and why physical media remains essential in turbulent times.



It's a Christmas Boon that keeps on giving! Kristin Battestella aka Kbatz discovers a box of DVDs from her late father-in-law and chats about the pros & cons of thrift shopping and film viewing in today's troublesome times.



Kristin Battestella aka Kbatz (and her feline co-host) share some thrift CDs and discount DVD finds thanks to Big Lots' unfortunate closing sales – including science fiction classics, comedies, and new television finds! Also, can we bring back special features and more physical media please?!




You can see more Video Critiques and DVD Hauls in our Therefore Review Playlist! Don't forget we are also on Blue Sky and you can see or hear more Podcasts and Video collabs with our handy tags! 


Hear or Read More of our Reviews: 

Crimson Peak

Blake's 7

 Alfred Hitchcock

Somewhere in Time 

Blade Runner 

The Bee Gees 

Kristin at Search Magazine  


26 January 2025

Friendship Thru Film at Search Magazine!

 

If you follow my Kbatz Krafts Instagram you know I write DIY articles and more for Search Magazine! For the current Winter #Friendship Issue, however, I turned the tables on my fellow ladies from the Women InSession Film podcast at InSessionFilm.com for a triple interview. Amy Thomasson, Jaylan Salah, and Zita Short shared how we've found each other through our love of movies!




Initially, I had pitched something slightly different for this issue and was way over my word limit for the first draft! Thankfully, editors Oksanna and Heather worked with me to keep the essence of the interview intact so all our ladies could be heard.


You can read the full piece at SearchMagazine.net or follow @SearchMagSF for more!



More adventures from Search Magazine:


Mary Tyler Moore Retrospective

The Bee Gees!

Search Author Spotlight


22 January 2025

1982 Co-Ed Horror!


1982 Co-Eds in Horror

by Kristin Battestella


This oddly specific trio of 1982 films ups the fatal scares for the feather haired and short shorts wearing co-eds of the day. Familiar faces confront chainsaw killers and morgue mishaps in these diverting vintage horror escapades.



Mortuary
Friend-zoned geek Bill Paxton (Aliens) and more familiar faces battle embalming mishaps and a hooded killer in this cheeky 1982 fright opening with a sunny villa pool and heavy breathing point of view kills on the lanai. This early eighties is still breezy seventies in style with roller rink action, hot pants, and feathered hair, and our cool dudes with a far out van intend to loot the titular warehouse. Spare tires, gurneys, antiques, caskets, and candelabras make for a neat mix of spooky and industrial style culminating in cauldrons, robes, chanting, rituals, and limbs dangling out the coffin lid. Stabbings and splatter provide peril but mom Lynda Day George (Mission: Impossible) has moved on since the opening death while daughter Mary Beth McDonough (The Waltons) remains suspicious despite the disbelieving police. An ominous Hearst stalks a sweet vintage Mazda as more friends disappear amid cemeteries, psychiatry, suicide history, and denied marriage proposals. Wispy nightgowns and sleepwalking begat midnight swim attacks, and our mortician once locked his young son in the morgue so he wouldn't be afraid of the dead bodies. He expects him to follow in the family footsteps embalming nude dead babes, and there's a routine to the aspiration and chemicals – almost a ritual in itself. Dead landlines, flickering lights, on and off music, and power outages scare our ingenue in a well edited frenzy before thunderstorms and séance revelations. The culprit watches the sex by the fireplace, leading to raspy pleas to open the window so he can touch her. This feels more like a television movie of the week, so the horror and gore are tame for today. However shattered glass, chases, synth score pulses, and shadows in the bedroom lead to screams, penetrating knives, and symbolic sexual violence with death throes and panting. The maniacal smiles mount thanks to the titillating body on the table, and anyone against the killer will be punished with impalement, abduction, or axes as the dangers abound at the funeral parlor. Ironic classical cues and contemporary camp winks combine for a surprisingly impressive gothic atmosphere with a fun story and scene-chewing performances.


One Dark Night – Unlike today's perfect gradients, the grainy blue night adds eerie atmosphere to this 1982 Meg Tilly (Psycho II) and Adam West (Batman) hazing horror romp with psychic undead, coffins, and creepy crypts. Despite thunder, gothic gates, funerals, and tombstones; this is very slow in getting to the actual mean girls spending the night in the mausoleum initiation thanks to bizarre opening murders, coroner vans, and crime scene carnage largely told rather than seen. Police radio chatter, onlooking crowds, and news reports waste time repeating the electromagnetic phenomenon. Back and forth cutting to the teen babes in matching bad girl jackets and photo booth fun at the arcade are also unnecessary. All of the estranged family occult, life force photographs, energy vampires, and telekinesis theories should have been shown in the beginning, and we shouldn't meet the teenagers until the drive to the cemetery. Their frienemy peer pressure doesn't need jealousy over the jock – even if that meant losing the vintage mustang and sweaty basketball scenes with short shorts and tiny towels. Dares at the door, berating threats, and Demerol ruses provide cruelty amid classism toward the poor wannabes and racism toward the stereotypical scaredy cat, toothbrush chewing Black girl who's told she's a “real” sister. Crypt plaques, flowers, sympathy cards, pews, and candles set the morose scene for the fake frights as the cracked vaults and dark windows invoke the overnight spooky. The psychic evil feeds off the delirium, vicious tricks, and growing fears inside the mausoleum maze, and it's unfortunate that the trapped suspense is continually broken by unnecessary outside scenes – delaying most of the scares until the final twenty minutes. However, the levitating caskets, reanimated rotting, and gooey bodies are superb when they do happen. Chapel prayers and individual frights escalate with crumbling crypts, rattling objects, and metaphysical winds as the mean girls get what they deserve. It's bemusing that the biggest names here have the least to do, and behind the scenes problems resulted in different video versions. Fortunately, the fun house horror finale does a lot without much gore thanks to skeletons, zombies, worms, and purple glows making for some entertaining late night ooze.


Pieces Christopher and Lynda Day George strike again in this Boston set, Spanish produced 1982 campus slasher. The 1942 quaint quickly turns to saucy violence, rage, and surprising splatter as our ten year old boy is not going to take it anymore. Forty years later, the creative power tools and collecting body parts resume thanks to bloody mementos of his mother and a fondness for nudie jigsaw puzzles. The murderous psychosis and disturbing social commentary beget groovy skateboarding and perky retro sweaters but the giggling, skinny-dipping babes don't last long thanks to chainsaws, creepy gardeners, and dripping bags in the freezer. This video nasty isn't shy in showing the head chopping gore, and we move from one crime to the next with swanky saxophone music, raunchy couples, and scene-chewing police trying to keep the killer publicity quiet. Deaths mount in the titular assembly of the perfect woman while Fame-esque dance classes, techno music, and leg warmers add nostalgia. Undercover tennis coach Lynda is on the case – contending with pesky newspaper reporters and “Bastards!” before more dancing leads to layered maze-like chases and thunder heralds the fatal anticipation. Despite nighttime lighting and dark killer silhouettes, we can see the equal opportunity nudity and everything in the limb losing elevator. Ironic marching band music, locker room showers, knives, and waterbeds make varied use of every campus opportunity. That curious lady reporter shouldn't sneak around alone, and cops vomit at the consequences. Sure, some of the acting is over the top. However girls are being sawed in half and the authorities are one step behind what the audience knows. The self-aware slasher pastiche does what it says on the tin and comes together for a bemusing finish.


21 January 2025

Jay Days Video Reviews Rundown!

 

In 2024 I made several appearances on The Jay Days Reviews YouTubeChannel with Jaylan Salah, one of my fellow female film critics from the Women InSession Podcast at InSessionFilm.com! In these video spots, we tend to cover more juicy topics than the podcast and get a little more zany going into television deep dives and combination conversations.



It's a privilege to have another medium to express fun and insightful analysis, and here's a rundown of the videos that can also be found in my 
Kbatz Reviews at The Jay Days Channel YouTubePlaylist:


Bound

The Convert

When We Rise and Desert Hearts

Jack Irish

Halloween TV – Dark Shadows and more

Thanksgiving Pumpkins – Don't Say a Word and Awards Season

A Christmas Carol


If you're interested in an audio/visual collaboration, messaging is open now on Blue Sky or still Twitter if need be. For more appearances, follow our Podcast and Video tags or peep some behind the scenes photos on Instagram!




 

18 January 2025

2024 Guest Podcasts!

 

After real life took over in 2023, it was extremely rewarding to have a prosperous 2024 in the podcasting and film criticism arena! In addition to my regular, wonderfully fruitful appearances with the Women InSession Podcast at InSessionFilm.com, it was a privilege to collaborate on numerous other podcasts throughout the year. Thank you so much to the websites and podcasters who were interested in hearing my voice. As a woman in a world where refined conversation and free speech are in direct jeopardy, it means everything to have a chance at the podium.


Although my long form writing output has unfortunately stalled, the first half of 2025 is already pretty full with opportunities! Sometimes it's easier said than done to fit in a few extra recording sessions a month, and like anything sometimes events fall through, but I am available for further audio/visual adventures generally now on BlueSky or still Twitter if need be. I hope to stick to the two posts a week here schedule with lists, videos, or updates on where to find my work. I've already recorded more!




Here's a rundown of my guest podcast appearances and where you can listen:


Greatest Movies of All Time: Ben-Hur

Revisionist Almanac's Let's Get Spooky

Making Tarantino: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

Making Tarantino: House of Dark Shadows

Lone Screenplay Nominee: Stand by Me

Bubba Wheat's Time to Rewind: Bedtime Stories

Neverending Watchlist's Who Should Be the Next James Bond?


For more appearances, follow our podcast and video tags or peep some behind the scenes photos on Instagram!