When writing the watchlist for this year's 31 Days of Halloween, I put on Coralie Fargeat's REVENGE because I adore THE SUBSTANCE and wanted to see more of her work. I listed BYSTANDERS because I'd been following director Mary Beth McAndrews, then editor of Dread Central, for years and wanted to see what her debut would have to offer.

But it wasn't until I began to research BYSTANDERS that I realized what serendipity had casually placed in front of me: REVENGE was not only a massive influence on McAndrews for her movie but also her entire Master's thesis on women-helmed rape-revenge cinema. It's one of her all-time favorite movies, a film she has represented under her skin with a - fucking stellar - tattoo.

And while I find both movies to approach the rape-revenge subgenre in wildly different manners (I liken REVENGE to a sledgehammer whereas BYSTANDERS comes across like the slightly rusted aluminum bat lying in the corner of the room that you don't even register until it's swung upside your temple), both films register as entries in a new school of the subgenre, one informed and represented by the female gaze. Less exploitation, more examination.

So today's installment deviates from the beaten path to talk to McAndrews about the impact REVENGE has had on her life and rape-revenge cinema, including its influence on BYSTANDERS. We talk patriarchy. We talk about ugly frat sweaters. We talk about the intricacies of killing peopl- I mean, boys, on film. It's a wild fuckin' ride and Mary Beth is a total mensch.

Both BYSTANDERS and REVENGE are currently available to stream on Tubi.

Follow Mary Beth McAndrews on Instagram and her website

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Please rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!

Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

REVENGE is the feature directorial debut of Coralie Fargeat, Oscar-nominated for directing last year's total fucking banger THE SUBSTANCE.

THE SUBSTANCE had a budget of $17 million. REVENGE had $3 million. And in comparing both movies, it gives me great joy to see that Fargeat's penchant for the surreal and gnarly diminishes not with a lowered budget. Her ideas remain just as ferocious and maximalist, like a sledgehammer to the face.

REVENGE refers to the second part of the "rape-revenge" couplet as a woman named Jen (Matilda Lutz) exacts hers against three married men: one who raped her and the two friends who did nothing to stop nor punish it.

These men (one of whom is her now ex-boyfriend) are armed with rifles, riding on ATVs and Range Rovers. Jen has on a T-shirt and shorts. She had heels at one point but sacrificed them to the desert. So, yeah. The odds aren't great.

But spite is a hell of a drug. Some would say it's even better than peyote. Fire and brimstone ensues in a whirlwind of viscera and chipped nail polish.

REVENGE is now available to stream on Tubi.

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MOTEL HELL arrived only months after FRIDAY THE 13TH, poised to be regarded as merely another slasher imitator looking to cash a quick buck. However, Kevin Connor's horror-comedy, penned by brothers Robert & Steven-Charles Jaffe, deceptively avoided the pitfalls of its contemporaries. This movie, about a farmer and motel owner (Rory Calhoun) killing wayward travelers to grind into the blend for his famous smoked meats, dives into psychedelia, satire, even thoughtful discussions regarding social fears of the time.

If the world is overpopulated, isn't Farmer Vincent doing the greater good by eliminating the riff raff? The sex workers, the weed-smoking rock and roll ruffians, the degenerate swingers, the health inspectors working as pawns for a meddling bureaucracy? Vincent's crusade might even be a calling from the Almighty.

But nobody's perfect and when Vincent takes a liking to his newest would-be victim, a beautiful blonde named Terry (Nina Axelrod), the threads of this backwoods operation begin to unravel.

Cue chainsaws, hypnosis, pig masks, mass hysteria and a stellar country song. Can you really ask for anything better?

MOTEL HELL is available to watch on Tubi.

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*Apologies for the audio: I tried recording in the car & tweaked the sound as best as possible.*

POSSESSION is simply a feel-bad movie. Andrzej Zulawski's chaotic magnum opus of divorce, abuse and horny tentacled fucks has to be seen to be believed. For those who grew up with Sam Neill as the heroic Dr. Alan Grant in JURASSIC PARK, prepare to have your childhood chewed up, spit out and bombed. This is a movie I don't often understand but within its swirling camera movements, frenetic performances and sickening score I relish. It's a movie made to be discussed for hours after every viewing, a communal experience built out of our human need to try and explain what in the flying fuck we just witnessed was.

If you're into the two mighty Davids, Cronenberg & Lynch, this movie's gonna be your new freak flag to fly. Let's talk about it.

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THE MONSTER SQUAD brings the Universal Monsters of yore into the '80s with a healthy dose of sugar-blasted cereal and unmedicated ADHD.

Directed by Fred Dekker (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS) & written by both Dekker and Shane Black (THE NICE GUYS, LETHAL WEAPON, KISS KISS BANG BANG, most of your favorite movies ever), this combined family drama, top-notch makeup effects and preteen comedy with unapologetic horror.

Dracula calls a 5-year-old girl a bitch, because of course, he would? As was done to Freddy Kreuger in this decade, the Universal Monsters were sanitized into cereal mascots and plushies but Dekker and Black's script remind us not to be fooled. These are still vampires and werewolves, after all, ready to carve into flesh and crush whatever magic amulet threatens to lock them into Hell for good.

So, who do you call to handle these beasts of death? A bunch of kids, obviously. The motherfuckin' Monster Squad.

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SCARY MOVIE is a staple of my childhood, an entryway into horror movies during a time where I wasn't allowed to watch most of them.

It's a time capsule, for better and worse, of the late '90s/early '00s sense of humor & general fatigue regarding the slew of teen slashers riding SCREAM's coattails.

This was my intro to the Wayans Bros, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, Shannon Elizabeth during their own first Hollywood at-bats, before Hall would act for Paul Thomas Anderson & Wayans would do his best J.K. Simmons in HIM.

Sophomoric? Absolutely. Problematic? You bet your ass. But the Wayans carried the parody torch into the millennium, better than their contemporaries. WAZZUP?!

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WE ARE STILL HERE occupies a crossroads in the horror genre: that of the '70s & '80s-inspired supernatural chillers, the gorefests from guys like Lucio Fulci and the patient character studies of grief popularized in the '10s (anything A24 would touch).

These elements shouldn't work so well together but I guess when you got a horror nerd like Ted Geoghegan writing and directing, it simply does.

Paul and Anne Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig & Barbara Crampton) have just suffered the death of their college-aged son, Bobby. In an attempt to lessen the pain, they pack up everything and move to a remote New England house with a strange 100-year-old history.

The rest moves as you'd expect: Anne hears noises, sees things shuffling about on their own. She's convinced Bobby is somehow in the house trying to connect with his parents. Her husbands drowns the pain with whisky and denial. Once the supernatural grows too obvious to ignore, Anne calls their friends, Jacob and May Lewis (Larry Fessenden & Lisa Marie) to give the house a once-over and provide some much needed friendship.

If you're equally a fan of movies like THE CHANGELING, DEAD & BURIED and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, you'll find the threads tying these elements together. It's patient enough with its characters to allow them the space to grieve while also brisk enough to satisfy any genre thrill-seekers. It's a unique balance that leaves me talking about every individual piece for hours after it's over. WE ARE STILL HERE is a pizza-and-beer-and-shoot-the-shit-forum of a flick and isn't that what we want from a proper Halloween watch?

WE ARE STILL HERE's 10th anniversary Blu-ray is available to buy now from Dark Sky Films.

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