The Friday Night Horror Movie: Good Boy (2025)

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The idea of a horror movie told from the perspective of a dog is a good one.  It’s a great one, actually. It seems so simple you wonder why it hasn’t ever been done before. The execution of Good Boy is mostly good too. Except for a few shots, it isn’t from the dog’s POV or anything, but the camera is often set down low, from the height a dog would normally see. The dog’s owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), barely has his face on screen. If you’ve ever had a dog suddenly look out a window into darkness or bark at a door when no one was outside, then you know the feeling this movie gives you.

There isn’t a whole lot of plot to describe. Todd has some kind of disease. The kind that makes him cough up blood regularly. The film opens on him unconscious, lying on his couch with the dog Indy (a very good dog, indeed) sitting by his feet. Todd’s sister Vera (Arielle Friedman) discovers him there and calls for an ambulance. 

Upon release, he moves to his dead grandfather’s old home in the woods. Vera constantly calls Todd with concerns over his health, to his increased annoyance. The house is old and creepy and possibly haunted. Indy regularly feels a dark presence there. Sometimes he sees something lurking in the shadows. Sometimes it does more than lurk. This is the type of film that will linger in a wide shot inside the house. After a long beat, something will move, or a shadow will become a creature. I found myself always looking in the backgrounds to find some new horror.

It is a mood film with jump scares.

I dug all of that. But the script has problems. Nothing is very well defined. My expectations were that Todd would be attacked in some way by the monster and Indy would triumphantly save him. I would have even accepted Todd dying early in the film and the rest of it being Indy trying to survive the monster like a Final Girl.

But Todd hardly even notices the evil presence. It might be attacking him. It might be making him sicker.  Or it might be possessing him somehow. But none of that is clear. At one point I thought the monster might just be a metaphor for his illness.

Indy is more of a passive observer than a hero. It would have been incredibly obnoxious to have him barking at everything the entire movie, but he just sits there watching weird shadows appear and nightmare monsters attack without hardly even growling. 

All of this makes the film fairly inert. There isn’t much forward motion to it. The plot never seems to go anywhere, but the themes—what the film is trying to say—are more muddled than clear.

I’m glad I watched it. I really do think the concept is a good one, and the execution is well done. I just wish there was more to it.

Five Cool Things and The Bride!

28 weeks later

We are about to get hit by a massive snowstorm and ridiculous cold (for Oklahoma, which means about 10 inches of snow and temperatures around -5). Or so they say. I don’t really trust weather predictions around here. We could just as likely have record-breaking heat. It looks like large swaths of the USA are going to get hit, so if you are in its range, stay safe.

While you are staying inside and keeping warm, I’ve got a few cool things you can check out, including an intense HBO series, a zombie sequel, a new release of an old book, an old remake of an even older comedy, a couple of Agatha Christie adaptations, and the first look at a retelling of the Frankenstein story. Click here to find out more.

The Cocktail Waitress by James M. Cain

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Between 1934 and 1943, James M. Cain wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, and Double Indemnity, three stone-cold classics.  These made him one of the godfathers of the hard-boiled detective stories. They made three great movies off of those novels, which also makes him the godfather of film noir.  

He wrote several other books during this time. I’ve only read one of them, Serenade, and didn’t particularly care for it, but those big three are amazing. He wrote many more books after this period, too, and I only just realized he kept writing up until his death in 1977. In fact, he was writing The Cocktail Waitress when he died. 

I say writing it, but in fact he had mostly finished it. Or rather, he had finished it a few different times. Originally written in the third person, Cain became unsatisfied with this and rewrote it in the first person, changing the vernacular to fit his protagonist’s voice. He then sent a draft to his publisher, who demanded he change the ending. A final draft was never sent, and so the novel was shelved after Cain died. 

Many years later, the good people at Hard Case Crime publishing went digging for it and found several different drafts. They had to make some decisions on which parts of which drafts to use, but ultimately published what they consider the final book in 2012. But this isn’t a case where they hired some new writer  to complete an unfinished novel; they simply had to decide which parts of various finished drafts to edit into what we now have on our shelves.

The end result is pretty good. Like I said, I haven’t read any of the books Cain wrote after Double Indemnity in 1943, but my understanding is that his later books tackled other interests besides crime. The Cocktail Waitress was then an attempt to return to form, perhaps to stir up commercial interest that had waned.

Our narrator is Joan Medford, and her story begins with her husband’s end. He was a deadbeat and a drunk who used to beat her. He died in an automobile accident, leaving her with a young son, a house, and a pile of unpaid bills.  The accident was a little suspicious, but the cops couldn’t find enough evidence to book her for it, so they let her be.

Because she’s telling her story (into a tape recorder to get her side of every crime – there will be several – onto an official record), we’re never quite sure if what she’s telling is the truth. She is absolutely an unreliable narrator.

Because of the unpaid bills, she takes a job as a cocktail waitress. It’s one of those joints where she has to wear a skimpy outfit and accept the fact that her customers are going to hit on her, pinch her posterior, and sometimes ask for more.

She’ll meet two men at this job that will change her life. The first is Earl White, an elderly, very wealthy gentleman with a heart condition that makes it impossible for him to have sex with Joan or anyone else. This doesn’t keep him from making passes at her, but he tips extremely well, so she encourages him. So much that he eventually asks her to marry him. He promises he’ll behave, and anyway, if he doesn’t, he’ll literally die from trying, so what has she got to lose? 

That would certainly get her out of all her financial troubles, set her up for life, and allow her son to live a good life. Currently the boy is living with his dead husband’s sister, a woman Joan hates.  She suspects the woman wants to keep her boy permanently, but she knows she’s got to get something more financially permanent in her life in order to take him back, and Earl would be just the thing. 

The other man is Tom. He’s young, fiery, and handsome. Also broke. Also a bit of pig. The first time he meets him, he’s drunk as hell, and he slides his hands right up her skimpy waitress outfit and into places no man should go without asking first. She gives him her what-for for doing that, but it kind of turned her on. Or something. She’ll eventually let him take her out. For her trouble, he takes her to a place with curtains around the booths so that couples can do things people really shouldn’t do on a table where others might want to eat. She kind of likes it this time, but then remembers her deal with Earl and splits before things get too heavy.

And that’s the crux of the story. Earl will give her all the stability she craves, but she’s not attracted to him. Also, he just can’t help himself. Whether it will kill him or not, he’d really like to get it on with Joan.  Then there is Tom, who cannot help her financial situation out, and he’s kind of lecherous, but damn it if he doesn’t turn her on.

If you know anything about James M. Cain, you’ll know this story will have some deadly twists. I won’t spoil them, but let’s just say the law gets back on her trail, and it will be difficult for her to get out of it this time.

Cain’s stories were always a little bit sleazy. He liked writing about characters on the rough side of the tracks and never strayed away from sex in his stories. Lust is all over The Postman Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. He goes pretty hard in that direction in this story. I know it was written in the 1970s when those boundaries had been pushed farther by others at this point, but it did feel wild to read him going as far as he does in this story.

It also feels like an older man trying to keep up. Or a once great writer trying to relive his glory days.  And you can definitely feel some of the editing going on. I don’t ‘know that I could point you to a specific page where you can tell that the editor used an older draft or whatever, but overall it did feel a little disjointed.  But also, I rather enjoyed reading it.

I remember reading Mildred Pierce for the first time and stopping after several pages, my heart racing and a smile on my face.  I immediately told my wife she had to read it. I wanted to shout it to everyone that this was an amazing book. It was just that good. I did not have a moment like that while reading The Cocktail Waitress. But that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy I read the book either. I’m glad I did. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Cain’s novels. I’m so glad they were able to put it together and give it to the world.

One Battle After Another is the Pick of the Week

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One Battle After Another was one of my favorite movies of 2025. I saw it in the theater, I watched it streaming at home, and now I’m going to own it on 4K UHD. It is a great movie. You can read my thoughts on it in my post about my favorite films of 2025 here.

Unfortunately, this disc comes with no extras. Apparently there is a Steelbook coming out in March that has some extras, but as far as I can tell, it has already sold out.  Maybe Criterion will hook us up sometime in the future.  Until then, this looks like it. I’m still making it my pick of the week because I love the movie, and I’m excited to own it on home video.

Also out this week that looks interesting:  

Wicked: For Good: A movie based on a musical that was based on a book that was made into a movie that was adapted from a book. Or something. Wicked was a smash hit on Broadway. It was based on a book that adapted the beloved Wizard of Oz novel by Frank L. Baum (which of course became a beloved movie.) They stretched the musical into two movies, and this is the second one.

Roofman: Based on a true story, this drama/comedy stars Channing Tatum as a man who robbed a bunch of fast food joints by cutting through their ceilings. He got caught, went to prison, broke out of prison, and wound up living inside a Toys R Us. The trailers make it look like a silly, fun movie, but there is quite a bit of downer drama mixed in.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete Season Two:  If you like classic Doctor Who these Blu-ray sets of complete seasons are amazing.  This one includes the following stories: Terror of the Zygons, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars, The Android Invasion, The Brain of Morbius, and The Seeds of Doom.

Springsteen: Delivery Me From Nowhere: I still haven’t seen that Bob Dylan biopic, so don’t ask me about this one.

Snakes on a Plane 4K UHD: It seems so strange today to think about the build-up to this movie. People were so excited about it. Mainly because that clip of Samuel L. Jackson saying a very funny thing was everywhere. But then the movie came out, and it was kind of a dud, (or so I’ve been told – I still haven’t seen it), and we all moved on. But if you are a fan, then Arrow Video is giving it the UHD treatment.

Fackham Hall: This very silly comedy, which is basically a Downton Abbey spoof, was cowritten by Jimmy Carr, a British comedian who hosts about half the panel shows airing in England right now. 

Captain Blood 4K UHD: Criterion is releasing this Errol Flynn swashbuckler about a physician who becomes a pirate after being unjustly imprisoned.

The Dead 4K UHD: John Huston’s adaptation of the James Joyce short story of the same name gets the Criterion treatment.

Death on the Nile 4K UHD: After the success of the Sidney Lumet-directed Murder on the Orient Express, EMI Films wanted to adapt another popular Agatha Christie story. This was the natural selection. Albert Finney bowed out of playing Hercule Poirot again, so Peter Ustinov jumped in his shoes. This star studded mystery has some lovely on-location shooting in Egypt. You can read my review here.

Evil Under the Sun 4K UHD: Death on the Nile was successful enough that they adapted yet another Agatha Christie. You can read my review here.

The Mirror Crack’d 4K UHD: Yet another Agatha Christie adaptation. This one doesn’t feature Poirot. Instead, Angela Lansbury is playing Christie’s other famed detective, Miss Marple. I watched this one several years ago and found it rather dull, which is why I do not have a review for you.

Lucifer: The Complete Series: Based on a DC Comics series, this show follows Lucifer Morningstar, aka Satan, as he abdicates his throne as ruler of Hell and moves to Los Angeles to run a nightclub.

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, No. 5: The famed director (my favorite) has been working with the Criterion Collection, creating these boxed sets of lesser known films from around the world. This set features Chronicle of the Years of Fire, Yam Daabo, Kummatty, and The Fall of Otrar.

Torso: A pretty sleazy Giallo finds beautiful women hiding out from a serial killer inside an isolated country villa. Naturally, the killer finds them there, and they have nowhere to run. I reviewed the movie (not this release) here.

Now Watching: Deadline at Dawn (1946)

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Deadline at Dawn (1946)
Directed by Harold Clurman
Starring Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, and Bill Williams

After a woman he meets is murdered, a soon-to-ship-out sailor has until dawn to find the killer, aided by a weary dance hall girl.

Rating: 7/10

The first act of this story is quite good. A drunk sailor wakes up to find he has no memory of the last hour of his life and a wad of bills in his pocket. He has a hazy memory of the money belonging to a girl he got drunk with the night before, but when he goes to return it, he finds her dead. He enlists a dance hall girl to help him figure out what happened. He has to be on a bus to report for duty at six in the morning.

All of that stuff is enjoyable, but then they get a cab driver entangled in the mystery, and the quality dips. The character of the cab driver is actually interesting, and the performance from Paul Lukas is good, but he winds up feeling like a third wheel. He takes away from the chemistry the two leads have and muddles it all up.

I hated the conclusion. Thinking about it now, it sort of makes sense, but in the moment it felt absolutely wrong. But the filmmaking is good, and the acting is good, so it is well worth watching.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973)

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Paul Naschy was a Spanish writer/actor/director who is most known for a series of horror films he made where he starred as a werewolf named Count Waldemar Daninsky. The films are mostly unconnected to one another except that he plays a werewolf with the same name, but there is no continuity to be found within them. I’ve seen a couple of them and quite enjoyed the watch. So much so that I found a collection of Naschy films boxed up in a Blu-ray set and put them on my wishlist for Christmas.  My lovely wife bought them for me, and I opened them up tonight to start watching.

What I failed to recognize when I put this set on my wish list was that these films are just random Paul Naschy films, not a collection of his werewolf movies. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound, so I put on the first one and hoped for the best. 

According to the liner notes (and Wikipedia), Naschy was told by the producers they wanted to make a film with him, but in order to do so, they needed a script ASAP. So he popped some pills and sat down to write, pounding out the script to Horror Rises from the Grave in 36 hours.

It definitely feels like a movie whose script was written in 36 hours. There is very little story to it, and it plays like Naschy just took every horror movie he loved and blended them together. Then added copious amounts of gore effects and enough naked breasts to make Cinemax on a Saturday night blush.

Still, it is pretty fun to watch.

It begins in medieval times, where a warlock called Alaric de Marnac (Paul Naschy) and his witch companion Mabille de Lancre (Helga Line) are executed (he has his head chopped off, she is burned alive) for Satanism.

Flash forward to the present, and a group of young people, including Hugo de Marnac (also Paul Naschy) head out to Hugo’s ancestral grounds, where a psychic medium told them the bones of Alaric de Marnac are buried. They figure it will be fun to dig up an old warlock (also there might be treasure).

Naturally, they find the bones. Naturally, when they do, all hell breaks loose. But it is a strange sort of hell. This is where the rushed script becomes apparent. Eventually old Alaric de Marnac will rise from the grave, but first his severed head seems to mesmerize some local townsfolk, and then some of Hugo’s friends, where they go about killing everyone in sight. Later, some of those dead folks will rise, zombie-like, and wreak havoc. Alaric de Marnac takes a couple of our heroes as slaves, and one pretty (and scantily clothed) lady has her blood drained onto the bones of Mabille de Lancre, which brings her back to life.

The movie pretty much exists so that our villains can kill our heroes with full gruesomeness and pretty ladies can run around in sheer nightgowns taking their tops off (with echoes of the vampire films of Jean Rollin).  It does do both of those things very well, so who am I to complain? There are some interesting transitions, and the gore effects are good. It is goofy and dumb, but if you like that sort of thing, this film is pretty fun.

One of the bonus features on my Blu-ray is a selection of alternate “clothed” scenes. Some theaters in Spain at the time didn’t allow nudity, so they shot those scenes twice, once without clothes once with them on.  I thought that was pretty funny.

Five Pink Panther Films are the Pick of the Week

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Though I haven’t seen them in many, many years, I have a great fondness for the Pink Panther movies. Kino Lorber is releasing all five of the original films (but not that dreadful remake with Steve Martin) in UHD. Sadly, there is no boxed set, but I grouped them together anyway for my pick of the week.

There are a few other interesting things coming out this week as you can see in my post over at Cinema Sentries.

Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror (1968)

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I’ve written over 1,300 articles for Cinema Sentries. I don’t know what the breakdown is between reviews and other things like Picks of the Week and Five Cool Things. I regularly try and do a post on this site with a link to my Cinema Sentries articles, but I’ve still got a ways to go.

I try to keep up with my new writings, but sometimes I get distracted. And when I have caught up, I try to dig into much older posts. I know none of this matters to anyone, but I’m kind of astounded I’ve written that many articles for Cinema Sentries. I really ought to branch out and write for some other publications.

Anyway, I forgot to post this review when I wrote it in August. Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror isn’t a Frankenstein movie at all, but rather it is Paul Naschy’s first werewolf film. He directed and starred in a whole bunch of werewolf films back in the day. I actually got a collection of them for Christmas. They are a lot of fun, as you can read in my review.

Rest in Peace Bob Weir (1947-2026)

Earlier this afternoon I was watching a movie. When it was over, I looked at my phone. There were messages from friends from all over the country. They were all saying something like, “I hate to be the one to tell you, but Bob Weir has passed.”

I didn’t know what to say. Now I don’t know what to write. I’m still processing the news. 

I first listened to the Grateful Dead in high school. I bought Skeletons From the Closet – a collection of their “greatest hits” from one of those Columbia House deals where you got 12 CDs for a penny or some such thing. I liked quite a lot of it, but found some of it to be a bit weird (strangely, I absolutely loved “Rosemary” one of the most un-Dead like things they ever recorded.)

But I didn’t venture any farther than that until college. I had a buddy who had a handful of shows he’d recorded off a guy he knew in high school whose brother was a collector (the kid would allow him to tape one show every time my friend would take him to McDonald’s for lunch.) He’d play those tapes loud while we were driving around Montgomery, Alabama, and I totally dug it (I also thought the idea of these unofficially released tapes was just the coolest.)

From there I bought American Beauty, and I’ve been on the bus ever since.

In 1994 the Dead came to Birmingham, and my friend asked me if I wanted to go with him. The tickets were like $30 (!), which I thought was way too expensive for my budget, so I figured I’d catch them the next time they came around. Obviously, they never did come around again for the next year Jerry was dead.

I did get to see Bob Weir in various bands over the years and always loved the shows. The last time I got to see him was on the Americanarama tour in Nashville. That was the time Bob Dylan toured around with bands like Wilco and My Morning Jacket. Weir did just a few gigs with them as a solo artist. Before that show, we were all standing around outside the gate, waiting for them to open it. It was an outdoor venue, and the fence keeping us out wasn’t very high.

Suddenly I hear a familiar sound. I’d know Bob Weir’s guitar sound anywhere. Sure enough, I peek over the fence, and there he is, standing all by his lonesome on stage with his guitar. It was a soundcheck, and I could hear him clear as day. He ran through several songs, including a great version of Dylan’s “Most of the Time.”  

People all around me were chatting and paying no attention. I kept giving them glares and quietly telling them all to shut up. Didn’t they know one of the greats was on stage giving us a little private concert?

I was enthralled. And Bob wasn’t just going through the motions; he was really playing and singing those songs. He was always the consummate musician. Later that night he joined Wilco for a rousing version of “Bird Song” and an incredible cover of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

I had tickets to see him with Dead & Co. in Texas for their “final tour” but I got sick and couldn’t go.

I’m rambling now. Like I said, I’m still processing this loss. I’ve loved The Grateful Dead and Bob Weir for longer than I’ve lost just about anything else. If there is any comfort in this, it is that his music will live on without him. Those songs are timeless. And the fact that so many of his shows were recorded means we can still be listening to them for decades to come.

I’m not good at knowing what my favorite performances of anything are. So I don’t have a list of Bob Weir’s greatest moments.  But someone mentioned this performance of “Greatest Story Ever Told” and by god it is a good one.