Tortillaphilia Esoterism. Food. C-movies. Travel. Burritos.

They Walk. They Talk. They Kill. That is Dolls’s tagline, which puts it neatly in line with other misleadingly marketed doll-based movies.

Dolls is the first horror movie I remember actually loving as a young’un back in the eighties. I don’t know exactly what attracted me to it, though as someone who today has a fondness for gothic ghost stories, I would imagine Dolls being a foundation. A large mansion with killer — though barely walking or talking — dolls must have left some sort of mark.

Has it held up, though? That’s tough to say. It might have, but there is a disconnect between what Gently Matured I would have thought had I first watched the movie in 2018, and me now reliving my childhood.

Thirty-one years after its original release, Dolls looks and plays like a product of its time. The eighties were built on the premise of clueless dads with new, heartless significant others, using their kids as pawns in divorces. Granted, more-so in comedies (likely starring John Candy) than horrors. Being shacked up in a mansion with creepy hosts and a group of other stranded guests is a bit more sixties in style. It was overplayed already in 1987, but it at least throws us into the action without much pause for subtleties.

There are few surprises in Dolls, but that might have felt differently back then. Pre the Child’s Play-s of the world, killer dolls at least felt somewhat novel. The effects — all practical, natch — look dated these days, but they’re still charming. Antique dolls attacking those who have lost their inner-children holds up well and is creepy. Stuart Gordon’s direction is stylish, and though Dolls isn’t up there with Re-Animator in substance, it is in a different league than the nine-years-out Pinocchio’s Revenge.

There isn’t a whole lot of depth to the story, but the fairytale celebration of childhood, and a fable-esque punishment of those who have grown cynical has a gleeful menace to it. The cast, too, is serviceable. Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason, old pros as they are, are probably the more familiar faces, though model Bunty Bailey is recognizable from A-ha’s Take On Me. It isn’t an ensemble dreams are made of, but it works well enough.

Maybe what it all came down to for Young Me was just that: Elements that worked well enough, and a gee-whiz factor that was eerie rather than scary. It was something to watch, rooting for the girl and her protector while boo-hiss-ing those who wouldn’t let kids being kids.

It looks slick still, Madonna-like fashion aside, and it’s grotesquely fun. Today, it is, to me, more a celebration of my childhood than it is of filmmaking, and that’s OK. What Dolls would mean for you, though? I honestly have no idea.

Trailer

So, this is a sequel I don’t think anyone really asked for, but here we are, all the same, yet again watching somebody watching something that kills them after seven days. Yes, The Ring is back, the third iteration (of the American version, that is) so ring-y it’s called Rings, plural.

I liked the originals, both the Japanese and the American versions. The first in each instance were on par with each other, though the American sequel was, in a rare case, better. Somewhat confusingly, it was directed by Hideo Nakata, who made the first Japanese movie, but not its sequel, nor the first American entry. Go figure.

More Japanese sequels/prequels were made, none of them particularly good, so let’s just circle back (wa-hey!) to the third American movie.

I’ll be honest, this is objectively not a good film or even a decent sequel. Subjectively, though, I like it. I probably shouldn’t, as, say what you want about its predecessors: at least they were very well made A-movies. Rings is decidedly a B-movie, unapologetically so. (I think — I haven’t actually talked to director F. Javier Gutiérrez.)

Yet again, we’re back to people watching that damn V.H.S. tape which kills you after seven days. Of course, we’re now in 2018, and after a character for some unknown reason decides to fix a V.C.R., the film gets ripped to a digital format for everybody’s viewing pleasure.

There’s a whole hoopla about having to cremate Samara — the girl in the Killer Movie™ — to stop the cycle, and there are some clever little touches about a new movie within the movie, but in the end, the plot doesn’t matter a whole lot. Rings is more about being scary — which it sort of is in a jump-scare kind of way — than trying to say anything.

This all sounds negative, I know, and it is is negative in the sense that I wouldn’t pay $10 in the theater to watch Rings. Now that it’s streaming on every platform under the sun, there are reasons to check it out.

First, the film is well shot, and it retains the stylish, cool Seattle-y color palette of the first movie. (Although nobody in their right mind would believe this was filmed in Seattle.) Some of the imagery in the new Killer Movie™ is quite striking, and how it translates into what the protagonist sees in the real world is pretty clever.

The actors, while not in the recognizability class of the previous movies, universally do a good job. Yes, the plot and dialogue are overly dramatic, but the cast does what it can with them.

And for having a story that mainly is a vehicle to show Gutiérrez’s flair for the visual, the ending is pretty clever. Not in a forced way, either — it fits well into the Ring-verse.

Rings is not a great movie as such, but it’s one worth watching if you liked the two previous entries. And even if you haven’t watched any of them, it does work as a standalone movie for when you don’t feel like watching anything heavy.

Trailer

Fresh off Gerald’s Game comes Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, a Netflix adaptation of the 1959 Shirley Jackson novel which also served as the source for 1963’s The Haunting. I have not read the book — note to self to do so — but the movie is a favorite of mine. Written by Nelson Gidding, and directed by Bob Wise, The Haunting’s scares came from what it didn’t show. No ghosts, no villains, no decapitations — for being a haunted house movie, there weren’t many apparent hauntings. Instead, the film depended on sounds, surreal visuals, and so on and so forth. Go watch it, it’s a classic.

Flanagan’s version of The Haunting of Hill House is, understandably, very different. Running ten episodes, the series is set in present time, with flashbacks back to when the Crain family lived in the Hill House. The most significant difference from the original movie¹ is that this, at its core, is an outright ghost story. What exactly was going on in The Haunting was up for interpretation, but the show makes no bones about it: the hauntings are to be seen.

Yet, there is a lot more to Hill House, which in many ways can be watched as a family drama. With their mom having died — be it through suicide or some other nefarious ways — in the mansion, each member of the Crain family can be found coping with the outcome twenty-six years later. The oldest brother, who claims never to have seen any ghosts, is a famous haunted house writer. One daughter has become a mortician, while another is a child psychologist. The twins both have fallen into bad places. And the dad? Who knows what’s going on there, but he was never able to keep the family together after they escaped the house. (Thumbs up to Timothy Hutton for his portrayal.)

When we join the present, things are starting to go ugly very fast, as the titular haunting is starting up again.

Hill House is one hell of a well-made show, and easily my favorite since Twin Peaks: The Return. Flanagan directed all ten episodes², and the package feels more like a ten-hour movie than an episodic drama. Stories from past and present are seamlessly edited together, and often times, previously seen scenes are expanded on in later episodes. The slow reveal of the story is as labyrinth-like as the house itself, and a second viewing would be worthwhile.

It is scary, too. There is a good mix of The Haunting’s silent creepiness, and more modern jump scares. (I usually can give the latter a pass, but Flanagan uses them to great effect.) The slower build is still what gets under your skin — a revelation about the Crooked Neck Lady halfway through is downright disturbing. There is no lack of dark turns in Hill House.

And props for getting Russ Tamblyn to make an appearance. The actor, probably best known as Dr. Jacoby in Twin Peaks these days, co-starred in The Haunting, giving the original movie a nice nod. (Alas, no signs of Liam Neeson from the remake.)

Should I describe Hill House in one phrase, it would be a modern, Gothic family horror-drama. You don’t have to be into traditional horror movies to enjoy the series, and the complex family dynamics elevates Hill House to something more than just a fright-fest. The acting throughout is spot-on. But, of course, it helps if you like being scared because let it be abundantly clear: you one-hundred-percent will be.

N.B.: Maybe it’s not fair of us to claim all credit for Flanagan’s recent success after our semi-enthusiastic Hush and Oculus write-ups, but we’ll still take half of it.

¹ … and maybe the book is different, but I’m fairly sure I’ve heard it’s not.

² He also wrote three and co-wrote one.

Trailer

Let’s talk pizza, as all people of good manners do.

Wicked Pies started out as a truck, and has recently opened a brick-and-mortar location. Other places have had good luck with this in the past, and Wicked neatly follows their tradition. The pizza here is good. Very good. Enough so I’d put it as a viable alternative to Vic’s, which I don’t do lightly.

As so often is the case, it’s all about the crust. Here, Wicked serves one that looks oddly white, almost to the point where you’d expect it’d be doughy. It’s not. Instead, the outside has a crunchy bite, giving way to a chewy center. It’s what we collectively, as a society, should want: a crust for the people.

The flavor is spot on. Any proper crust, with olive oil or another favorite accouterment, should be able to be enjoyed by itself. Wicked passes that test.

Crust aside, the pies as a whole are tasty. The White Lodge comes with a rosemary potato base, which, when paired with Gorgonzola, has a pungent profile in all the right ways. Fortifying it with olive oil creates a surprisingly light, yet solid palate. It’s not what food comas are made of, despite what the ingredient list might suggest, and it’s impressive that the potent flavors don’t come through as a smack in the face.

Also worth a look are The Log Lady Breadstyx, which, as one may (or may not) expect, are served as logs. The addition of either mozzarella or pesto is laudable, but the logs could easily be enjoyed al natural.

True, naming the menu items after Twin Peaks might be a bit played out, but I’ll give them a pass. I mean, it’s Twin Peaks. Come on!¹

The prices are a titch higher than at some spots — $14.75 for a cheese — but the quality of the ingredients holds its own.

Take out or eat in — the locales are charmingly sparse, not unlike pizza spots we’ve seen in both Northern and Southern Europe. Nothing overly fancy, just a comfortable space.

It worries me that Wicked isn’t too busy. I suppose it is hard to spot in its anonymous Franklin location, and competition from the well-established Old School must take its toll, too. Therefore: Do us a solid, and give Wicked Pies a try. It’s a pizzeria that deserves to flourish, and its pies are vastly different from Old School’s. Downtown Olympia’s food scene could stand some differentiation², and high quality picks like this can only benefit all of us.

¹ It only seems appropriate, Seeing The Return revealed Olympia as the starting point of the Blue Rose case.

² Say what you want about Lacey, but their food scene both varied and international.