Tag Archives: Fantasy

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CAPSULE: DUST BUNNY (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Bryan Fuller

FEATURING: , Sophie Sloan, Sheila Atim, Sigourney Weaver

PLOT: An orphan girl hires a middle-aged killer-for-hire to kill the monster living under her bed.

Still from Dust Bunny (2025)

COMMENTS: Bryan Fuller has established himself as a unique voice and a major name in the entertainment industry , producing and writing a variety of TV shows both based on well-known franchises (“Star Trek: Discovery”) and more personal in tone (“Pushing Daisies,” “Wonderfalls”). The latter category is the perfect showcase for his idiosyncratic vision combining the playful and macabre.

In Fuller’s debut as a feature film director, this combination is apparent in the relationship between the two protagonists. Mikkelsen plays a hardened and cynical hit man, an anti-hero bringing to mind his leading role in Fuller’s iconic show “Hannibal.” Sophie Sloan, in contrast, plays Aurora, a young girl tormented by the monster lurking under her bed. These two couldn’t seem more different, but those differences are what makes them perfect complements.

Fuller establishes the connection between the girl and the killer early on in a purely visual way, without dialogue or unnecessary exposition, just with a firefly leading the viewers’ gaze. The characters’ eyes intersect; they are neighbors in the same apartment building. And when a “dust bunny”—our tale’s monster—devours the girl’s parents, she doesn’t hesitate to ask her intriguing neighbor for help. Gradually, a connection blossoms between them, notably similar to the central dynamic in ‘s Léon: The Professional.

Not everything is as it looks. A  game of unreliable narrators and deceptive POVs takes place, blurring what is real and what is pure imagination—at least for a while. Dim lighting and foggy environments create a sense of ambiguity, enhancing an already hypnotic atmosphere.

Dust Bunny is uninterested in maintaining this uncertainty for long, however, especially in regards to the nature of the monster. The special effects used for the creature haunting the girl lose their subtlety in the second half of the narrative, dramatically degrading the horror aspect. Instead, it remains a character-driven drama with action elements and hints of the supernatural. There is an attempt at commentary about the monsters in ourselves, but it seems like an afterthought. Some twists will make for an entertaining ride, for sure, but not enough for a truly memorable experience. In the end, Dust Bunny is too much style and not enough substance.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Strange, bizarre, and terrifically weird, writer/director Bryan Fuller’s ambitious ‘Dust Bunny’ should whet the appetite of fantasy fans hungry for a mature fairy tale… [the] script is like a Lewis Carroll fever dream. The peculiar setting teases a sweet children’s story akin to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ but Fuller embraces the darkness.”–Jonathan Hickman, The Newnan Times-Herald (contemporaneous)

Dust Bunny [4K UHD + Digital Insert]

Dust Bunny [4K UHD + Digital Insert]

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS (1963)

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Korolevstvo krivykh zerkal

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DIRECTED BY: Aleksandr Rou

FEATURING: Olga Yukina, Tatyana Yukina, Andrey Fayt, Lidiya Vertinskaya, Arkadi Tsinman, Andrei Stapran

PLOT: A spoiled young girl enters the Land of Mirrors, where she goes on a quest with her mirror twin to rescue a boy imprisoned by the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors and his devious daughter and Toad courtier.

Still from Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: A colorful explosion of baroque and fantastic conceits that’s a set designer’s dream project, the lavish fantasy Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors never fails to astound with its visual invention (not to mention odd details like the piano-playing monkey). To be properly considered for the Apocrypha, however, we’d like to see an actual restored version rather than the cheapo dubbed Something Weird print currently available. But by all means, keep the English language version as a supplement.

COMMENTS: In the 1950s and 60s, American producers, desperate for B-inventory to fill the teeming drive-ins, increasingly turned to foreign productions to stock their larders. This was especially true of children’s films: kids are less discriminating moviegoers, just throw some spectacle and slapstick on screen and you can keep them busy for 90 minutes while moms and dads do whatever it is moms and dads do when the kids aren’t paying attention. To meet this market,  plundered Mexico for dime store fairy tales. made inroads into the Soviet Union, re-editing halfway decent movies like the planetary exploration saga Planeta Bur (1962) with newly shot footage into ridiculous cut-n-paste monstrosities such as Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968). More to the point for today’s topic, AIP Pictures acquired 3 respectable folklore-based films from talented Soviet director Aleksandr Ptushko and desecrated them with shoddy editing and bad dubbing (in the case of Sadko, they turned the eponymous Russian hero into “Sinbad,” trying to fool viewers into thinking they were seeing a Ray Harryhausen epic.) These AIP knockoffs were so cheap and weird that they became popular entries in the canon.

Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors falls loosely into this genre, with one difference: although a dubbed version of this Soviet variation on “Through the Looking Glass” was prepared, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence it screened in the USA. The American version was copyrighted by Walter Manley Enterprises, a company whose only other known contribution to cinema history are a series of compilations of the Japanese superhero series “Starman” that they edited together into semi-coherent feature films for the television market. Kingdom may have seen a few televised screenings after midnight or Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS (1963) →

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: OBEX (2025)

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OBEX is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY: Albert Birney

FEATURING: Albert Birney, ,

PLOT: Conor, a gentle shut-in, must navigate the dangerous world of a computer game when it kidnaps his dog.

Still from Obex (2025)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Strange cicadan adversaries, point-and-click logic, and a celebratory eccentricity make OBEX an obvious odd-ball. Bonus points for being wholesome in its weirdness.

COMMENTS: 1987 was a year for cicadas. Billions of them globally, and who knows how many thousands emerging from their slumber to provide Baltimore a whirring, chirping Summer soundtrack. Reason enough to stay indoors—though left to his own device, Conor would do so anyway: he is a shut-in. For reasons only hinted at during Albert Birney’s low-key adventure film, OBEX, Conor only leaves his property when his dog Sandy is stolen by the the demon Ixaroth and spirited away to the mysterious land of Obex.

“Spirited away” may not be the correct phrase. Birney’s film exists at a strange intersection between (period) technology and classical fantasy, and Sandy’s plight is revealed through the monitor of ye olde Macintosh computer. Conor’s life, quiet and regular, relies on (then) state of the art home computers. His income is earned via text art portraits—lines and lines of punctuation forming a Pointalist-style image—and he ends the day with one or more machines running with midi-ambient or midi-karaoke music before bedtime. He lives alone with his dog, and his computers, and his stack of three cathode-ray televisions which, except on movie nights, all play different channels in the background. And every night he dreams about aimlessly driving his deceased mother in her old car.

The coziness of Conor’s space couldn’t be more different than the vast fields and forests of Obex, which our determined hero explores in the film’s second half. He encounters human-sized bug monsters, a kindly shopkeeper (a hold-over from his corporeal life, Maria, who does Conor’s grocery shopping every Wednesday), and makes a new friend out of an old one: an RCA Victor Model 14S774G—but call him “Victor.” His travels with Victor bring him to an automobile incongruously parked in the middle of an open stretch of greenery, its keys tucked in the visor, just like where Conor’s mother stored them. Other connections connect as well, and while we’re fairly sure we’re in the benighted land of Obex, we are almost certainly somewhere more allegorical as well.

From his small home to the wilds of Obex and into the heart of Ixaroth’s nightmare realm, Birney recounts Conor’s Quest (complete with a hat lifted, I swear, from King’s Quest) with heart, flourish, and more than a few sound-and-sight jests. And the film is more than just nostalgia, although there is plenty of that. OBEX is an unlikely adventure, an eccentric character study, and, to borrow another director’s observation, an unexpectedly gentle film. Capturing its combination of mirth, melancholy, innocence, and self-awareness in words is difficult—though perhaps the complimentary side of “quaint” might do. Cinematographer (and script co-writer) captures the television-feel to a T, and having seen OBEX first on the big screen and recently on my laptop, it felt “right” in both sizes.

That’s what this is: a big adventure that fits right in your pocket, ready for when the whirring and chirping swarm of humdrum life is poised to overwhelm you.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Shades of David Lynch and Wes Craven merged with Birney’s own idiosyncratic Baltimore sensibilities…  Better still, for as decidedly weird as OBEX intends to be, there’s a rational, coherent center to it all.”–Chad Collins, Dread Central (festival screening)

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE HUNGRY SNAKE WOMAN (1986)

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Petualangan Cinta Nyi Blorong

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DIRECTED BY: Sisworo Gautama Putra

FEATURING: , Advent Bangun, George Rudy, Nina Anwar

PLOT: A criminal seeks out the Snake Goddess (also called the Snake Queen), who promises him wealth if he kills three women, drinks their blood, and eats their breasts, but instead, at the instigation of a rival Snake Woman, he betrays the Snake Goddess by sticking a pin into her neck while making love, changing her back into a snake.

Still from The Hungry Snake Woman (1986)

COMMENTS: Mythology is weird, but mythology seen through the eyes of exploitation film directors is even weirder. Hungry Snake Woman feels at least loosely connected to feverish legends from the Indonesian jungles, but it adds a lot of sex, blood, and kung fu. It cares not a whit for logic, dropping plotlines as if they were squirming scorpions and rushing off to the next diversion.

This is the kind of movie were it’s tempting to give a simple recap of the plot, but it’s probably better to let the viewer discover the madness for themselves. Still, running through a few of the highlights should be enough to pique your interest. We can’t pass up the major spoiler, because it’s too tempting: the Snake Goddess literally turns the film’s antagonist into Dracula at one point—not into a generic vampire, but the public domain Count himself, complete with black cloak, plastic fangs, and cheesy bat-transformation. The only alteration from the traditional template is that he now dines on the breasts of maidens after drinking their blood. It’s also worth noting that, indicative of the script’s short-attention span, our intrepid antihero quickly abandons his bloodsucking role after getting rudely stomped on the foot by a potential victim. Also keep an eye out for a menacing stock footage giraffe, incongruous day-for-night shooting, sex with a snake, centipede vomiting, and an Indonesian mullet. And kung fu. And a chainsaw. It’s that kind of movie. Hungry Snake Woman has everything a film fanatic could ask for, except for purpose or meaning. As one of the characters says midway through, “If you ask me, this doesn’t make much sense.”

Despite its indifference to logic, its mediocre acting, and its general cheapness, Hungry Snake Woman has some genuine visual appeal. The special effects are chintzy—usually just editing to make things disappear and reappear—but the costuming, makeup, set design, and lighting are superior, verging on sumptuous at times. The Snake Queen/Goddess glitters in her bejeweled regalia; her harem girls tantalize in their sheer chiffon tops and colorful bikini bottoms; and the Snake Woman looks dramatic painted head-to-toe in mottled green. The Snake Goddess’ entrance, levitating in front of her cave wall like a sexy Buddha, is imposing. These points of visual interest suggest divine grandeur, when things on the ground otherwise get totally absurd.

Suzzanna (who plays a double role here) was a huge horror star in Indonesia and is credited onscreen before the title appears; she was 46 when this was released, but still looks glamorous (and even has a nude scene, though shot at distance). The Hungry Snake Woman is actually a sequel to 1982’s The Snake Queen, which is essentially lost (although you might be able to track down a low quality VHS copy). I suspect you won’t miss anything by not having seen the first one. The Mondo Macabro Snake Woman Blu-ray is restored in 2K and looks fantastic, with vibrant colors and no visible damage. The voices on the English dub sound familiar from Hong Kong movies of the period; subtitles are also available, but this is the type of schlock that actually benefits from a dub job. And a six-pack.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a 1986 Indonesian stunner that fits right in with some of [Mondo Macabro’s] essential weird world staples like Mystics in Bali and Alucarda… it involves plenty of macabre and grotesque imagery (including a bit of animal mistreatment, mainly some scorpions), but it flirts with fantasy and comedy as well when it isn’t just utterly unclassifiable surrealism.”–Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital (Blu-ray)

The Hungry Snake Woman [Blu-ray]

The Hungry Snake Woman [Blu-ray]
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