DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 14, 2025

The Lift (1983) A high-rise elevator with an experimental microprocessor loses its mechanical mind and starts offing anyone who, literally, pushes its buttons. Fortunately, Felix Adelaar, elevator repairman extraordinaire is on the case. You would think this would be as silly an idea as something like The Mangler's killer laundry machine or The Refrigerator's killer… well, you know, and yet it's got that little bit of something that's rightfully earned this obscure little Dutch horror a cult following over the years.

TIL: In noting in the Catechism that an object can be exorcised, the Church recognizes an object can become the focus of outside evil forces just as a person can. Now, that doesn’t mean your toaster is someday going to gain awareness and bite your hand off. It just means that, for whatever reason, the demonic can become fixated on a physical object. Such an idea should be no big shock to Christians who accept the notion that there’s a spiritual dimension to reality.

The Corpse Vanishes (1942) A somewhat mad scientist uses specially scented orchids to put virgin brides into death-like comas, then whisks their bodies back to his lab where he extracts gland fluid to keep his own wife young. A female journalist tracks the scientist down, but quickly runs into trouble when she discovers the deranged family who lives in the basement where the scientists dumps his victim's bodies. Except all those dead brides might not be so dead after all. Yep, it's another cheapie from Monogram starring Bela that doesn't make too much sense at all, but it only runs for one hour so you'll barely notice.

TIL: One of the odder reasons skeptics try to give for the reason Jesus' corpse vanished from the tomb is that he didn't really die on the cross, but rather swooned, was taken down, and healed with aloe and myrrh. Pesky science gets in the way of this conspiracy theory, though. A 1986 article published by medical experts in the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that the combination of extreme blood loss, shock, dehydration, soft tissue damage, extreme fatigue, nail wounds, pierced heart and lung, and general asphyxiation Jesus experienced would have left no room for survival. Points for trying, though.

DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 4, 2025

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) Hungry witch Debbie Harry prepares a young boy to be her supper, but agrees to postpone putting him in the oven for a while if the lad can pull a Scheherazade and keep her entertained with stories. The tales he spins include a Bram Stoker story in which Steve Buscemi meeting a mummy, a Stephen King yarn in which David Johansen battles the world's most indestructible cat, and a variation of Japanese folklore in which Rae Dawn Chong hides a secret about gargoyles. Simply put, if you liked Tales from the Darkside the TV show, you'll pretty much like this.

TIL: Speaking of source material, skeptics like to note some similarities in certain Bible stories such as the Great Flood and similar stories in earlier myths. The wishful thinking seems to be that the existence of these antecedents somehow disprove what's in Scripture. Another way to consider such parallels, though, is that maybe something like the flood actually happened way back when and various civilizations interpreted it through the lens of their individual cultures. The goal then becomes to figure out which of those versions best reflects spiritual and/or historical reality. The Bible tends to win such arguments.

For Aleteia this week I take a look at the new documentary on our soon-to-be Saint, ‘Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality’.

DAILY CALL SHEET: APRIL 26, 2025

Invisible Ghost (1941) Bela Lugosi's wife abandons him, but shortly thereafter becomes brain damaged and starts showing up to stare vacantly through the windows. Whenever she does so, Bela slips into a trance and becomes a homicidal strangler. The thing is, he doesn't know he's doing it, and the number of people who might figure it out is slowly dwindling. Nobody's invisible and there is no ghost, but if you can live with the misleading title, this has a nice enough atmosphere to make it an easy way to fill an hour.

TIL: The movie may not have had an invisible ghost hanging around, but the world does. Pope Saint John Paul II spoke of the Holy Spirit as the “hidden God,” observable only through the effects of His actions in the world and the actions of those He resides within. Of course, just because He's invisible, that doesn't mean He's some impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is a person, meaning we have to develop a relationship with Him as we would anyone else. That can take time.

The Unholy (1988) After somehow miraculously surviving a fall from a skyscraper, Father Michael is sent to New Orleans to battle a demon who targets priests for temptation and murder. Following his acclaimed turn as a priest in The Assisi Underground, Ben Cross returns to the cassock in this lesser known (at least he probably hopes it is) late 80's horror outing. To be honest, the flick is on the mediocre side and the tempting more often than not involves little more than disrobed women. However, it does have plenty of rubber monster suit action, plus it's always nice to watch a film where the priest actually makes it to the finale with his vows intact and is portrayed as a hero for doing so.

TIL: Priestly celibacy (no marriage, therefore no sex) is not dogma, but rather a discipline imposed by the Latin Church after the turn of the first millennium when some priests started trying to leave Church property to their children. Celibacy has become to be viewed as a gift that God bestows on priests who, like the unmarried Jesus before them, can extend to all people the familial love usually reserved for spouses and children. So far, the discipline seems to have been a net positive for the Church. Naysayers have tried to link celibacy to sexual abuse; however, as celibate priests account for less than 1% of total child sexual abuse cases in most countries, that theory is patently stupid.

DAILY CALL SHEET: APRIL 20, 2025

Gamera vs. Barugon (1966) When a ginormous opal turns out to be an egg (when will people in movies learn giant oval things are always an egg), it hatches the monstrous Barugon. This doesn't sit well with Gamera, who returns from space to save the world. But can even the terrific terrapin survive Barugon's phallic ice-spray tongue or the even more destructive rainbow death ray that shoots out of Barugon's back? Yes, rainbow death ray. Look, it's a Gamera movie. If you can't go along with a rainbow death ray, you shouldn't even be here.

TIL: Most everyone knows the story of God putting a rainbow in the sky as a promise to Noah that He wouldn't destroy the world anymore until it's absolutely the right time. However, they usually forget it shows up again in John's vision of Heaven in Revelation where the apostle sees a rainbow encircling the throne of God. It's a call back to the lid (named the mercy seat) which covered the Ark of the Covenant, and it symbolizes that even at the end of all things, God is encompassed with mercy.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Still recovering from the mental and physical wounds suffered during the first movie, Dr. Frankenstein wants nothing to do with  the flamboyant Dr. Pretorius' plans to create a mate for the quite alive but horribly lonely creature. However, after Pretorius convinces the mopey monster to kidnap Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth, the sullen scientist reluctantly agrees to the experiment. The rest is true celluloid history. From Karloff's sympathetic performance to Whales' subversive humor, just about everything works here, even the Bride's signature fright-wig hairdo. Likely to forever have a spot on the list of greatest sequels ever made.

TIL: To modern audiences, it's pretty obvious the super-gay Pretorius wants to conceive with Frankenstein without any of that messy female stuff mucking up the process. Now, the Church does not condemn all uses of technology to help with conception. However, it does conclude that any method that doesn't involve sex between the husband and the wife is immoral because it does violence to the dignity of the human person and the institution of marriage. As Pope Pius XII put it, "To reduce the common life of a husband and wife and the conjugal act to a mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological laboratory."

DAILY CALL SHEET: APRIL 19, 2024

Killer Workout (1987) Rhonda Johnson owns the hottest fitness club in L.A. However, business starts to drop off a little once someone begins using a giant safety pin to slash up her clients. Could the grisly murders have anything to do with the tragic tanning bed accident which befell Rhonda's twin sister a few years earlier? With at least 20%-25% of the film devoted to spandex-clad exercisers gyrating to 80's bands you've never heard of, this is hardly the best entry in the aerobicide sub-genre (yes, such a thing exists). But c'mon, a giant safety pin? That's slasher gold right there.

TIL: With its required routine of sit, stand, kneel, stand, etc., participation in Mass is often jokingly referred to as Catholic aerobics. The movements have meaning, though. Genuflecting before you take your seat is a sign of reverence. Standing at certain points like the reading of the Gospels is a symbol of honor and respect. Kneeling and bowing signifies adoration and gratitude, especially before the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Even sitting in the pews itself has meaning as a posture of listening and receptivity. So, when it comes to Catholic aerobics, there's devotion in the motion.

Now Showing at a Blog Near You: The guys over at The Official List of 100 Movies Every Catholic Should See have recently finished their list of... well, 100 Movies Every Catholic Should See.

DAILY CALL SHEET: APRIL 18, 2025

 

Dr. Cyclops (1940) A group of notable biological experts travel to the Peruvian jungle only to discover the mad scientist who invited them has bad eyesight and just needed someone to look in his microscope. When the biologists get testy over such a slight, the scientist shrinks them to doll size and chases them into the wild. Revenge is plotted. The story is pretty rote, but the three-strip technicolor and Oscar-nominated special effects are worth the intermittent trudging. Besides, without this, those of us who were kids in the 70's would likely have never gotten Dr. Shrinker, and that would have been a crying shame.

TIL: Jesus said, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness." Now, the Lord wasn't condemning the vision impaired. As St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (don't hear that last name too much anymore) explained, "The single eye is the love unfeigned; for when the body is enlightened by it, it sets forth through the medium of the outer members only things which are perfectly correspondent with the inner thoughts. But the evil eye is the pretended love, which is also called hypocrisy, by which the whole body of the man is made darkness."

Vampires (1998) The original bloodsucker Valek is looking for a an ancient relic that would make vampires immune to sunlight. It's a good thing the Catholic Church has been raising Jack Crow since he was a child to be her master slayer of the undead. This barely broke even when it was released and has never been highly regarded but, like many of Carpenter's lesser works, Vampires is aging better than it has any right too. With James Woods leading the cast in a bevy of unhinged performances, it gets by on entertainment value alone.

TIL: In the novel Dracula, Van Helsing acknowledges all of the Vampire Lord's supernatural powers, but notes his greatest asset is mankind's total rejection of religion in favor of secular scientism, the misguided belief that science is the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. He says, "For in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be [Dracula's] greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armor, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies."

DAILY CALL SHEET: APRIL 9,. 2024

 

The Toxic Avenger (1984) Bullies force 98-pound weakling Melvin into a barrel of toxic waste which horribly disfigures the put-upon janitor, but also grants him superhuman strength which he uses to dismember local nogoodniks like Bozo, Slug, and Cigar Face. This disrupts the criminal empire of Tromaville's crooked mayor, who decides to frame Melvin for murder. What's a grotesque superhero to do? What we think of as Troma Entertainment starts here and it pretty much defies criticism. You either grok with its weird combination of lowest of low-brow humor and semi-socialist vibes or you don't.

TIL: As Christians are called to be good stewards of God's creation, the responsible handling of industry's toxic waste is a no-brainer. However, at a 2009 synod, Pope Benedict XVI warned of another form of toxic waste to be wary of. He noted, "There is absolutely no doubt that the so-called 'First' World has exported up to now and continues to export its spiritual toxic waste that contaminates the peoples of other continents, particularly those of Africa." What wastes was he speaking of? That would be the West's toxic materialism and lack of moral values. God expects us to clean those up as well.

For Aleteia this week I take a look at 'The King of Kings' which is tailor-made for kids (as Dickens intended), but just might have something for grown-ups as well.