Scorsese and Lynch share in the recognition that there are tragedies that cannot be undone, that there are wounds that cannot be made whole, that some tears in the fabric of human decency are permanent. By facing the horror of violence head on, they raise the curtain, turn on the spotlight, and allow the preciousness of life to take center stage.
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Is Martin Scorsese’s David Lynch Movie
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Scavengers Reign,’ Max’s Psychedelic Sci-Fi Animated Series
What Shows and Movies Will It Remind You Of? Pull up a chair, this is gonna take a minute. The pastel wonder of the all-ages series Adventure Time and Steven Universe, the beautifully creepy sci-fi psychedelia of the French animation landmark Fantastic Planet, the weird techno-organic symbiosis of G.I. Joe: The Movie, the grotesque fungal infections of The Last of Us, the adorable and improbable bio-psychic critters of James Cameron’s Avatar, the beauty and danger and environmentalism of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the futuristic motorcycles and gloopy expanding blobs of Akira, the weird-new-thing-every-four-minutes imagination and pacing of Raised by Wolves, the working-stiffs-get-stranded-among-xenomorphs-by-an-uncaring-Company idea of Alien, the hey-we’re-just-folks-trying-our-best-in-the-wasteland vibe of Station Eleven…but wait, there’s more! Beyond films and TV, the biggest touchstone of all is the comics and art of French cartoonist Moebius, and the Moebius-indebted wave of underground science-fantasy comics that peaked around 10-15 years ago (and spawned the. If you’re a gamer, you’ll be reminded of virtually every exploration-based science-fantasy game of recent years: No Man’s Sky, Astroneer, Subnautica (the plot is virtually identical), even The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and its weirdly lovely Depths.
Our Take: Reread that last paragraph. Think you can guess the problem here? Scavengers Reign is exceedingly well-executed psychedelic science-fiction animation for adults and teens; co-creators, co-writers (with Sean Buckelew and James Merrill), and co-directors Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner are very obviously both huge aficionados and skilled practitioners of the genre. But if you, like me, are steeped in this stuff, you’ll react one of two ways: “Oh boy, more of this!” or “Oh boy, more of this?” I’m more in the latter camp myself.
But that doesn’t take away from the talent on display in the creature concepts and designs. Again, these are mostly attempts to reinvent a pretty reliable wheel — How can we make an alien parasite, but different? — but they’ll have you saying cool/gross/ooh/eww throughout. Considering that this is a survival adventure, that’s half the battle.
I took a look at Scavengers Reign, the vibey, gloopy new Max sci-fi animated series, for Decider.
“Billions” thoughts, Season Seven, Episode Twelve: “Admirals Fund”
Am I at a loss for words over the series finale of “Billions”? That depends. Do hooting and hollering count as “words”?
There’s no other way to put this: In its final hour, “Billions” delivered, and delivered, and delivered. It saw what it needed to do — spend 45 minutes beating the living snot out of Mike Prince, and the remaining 15 minutes depicting beloved characters being really nice to each other for a change — and by God did it. In the process, it gave us that rarest of prestige-TV commodities: a happy ending.
City in Dust: How ‘Cloverfield’ Brought Horror Back to the Giant Monster Movie
And the thing looks so expensive. The casual ease with which it depicts the most expensive place to film in America getting completely destroyed by a gigantic entity and the United States military is mindblowing, especially after 15 years of bland destructive spectacles in superhero movies shot either on streets in Vancouver or in warehouses in Atlanta. I watched it with my 14-year-old kid, who at times literally couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “How the hell did they film this?” he asked, completely baffled — and awed.
As ‘Billions’ Ends, Its Creators Discuss the Changing Face of the Ultrarich
Since “Billions” first aired, shows taking on the very wealthy have become both common and popular. But shows like “Succession,” “The White Lotus,” even a horror story like “The Fall of the House of Usher,” are often satirical. “Billions” is frequently funny, but the intent feels different.
LEVIEN This was not a satire. It’s a drama with comedic moments, but that’s different than a satire. These characters are perhaps exaggerated in some ways, but we’re not sending up the rich. That wasn’t our goal here. It was more to let people into a world we felt we’d identified — yes, with our spin and our point of view, but not so that we could all huddle together and laugh and feel better than them.
KOPPELMAN There’s an absurdism to “Billions,” for sure, but that’s because the world right now is capital-A Absurdist. The show has to capture that spirit.
‘Foundation’ Showrunner David S. Goyer on Creating the Year’s Most Exciting Show — And Why He Doesn’t Want You To Binge It
GOYER: We’re aware of the fact that we’ve got actors like Lee Pace and Jared Harris, and that we can’t just plunk anyone into one of those smaller roles, or it’s going to break the suspension of disbelief. That is our motto: Every one of these people has to be able to stand toe to toe with Jared Harris.
Burt Young’s Guest Spot on ‘The Sopranos’ Was Everything That Made the Show Great
Not many actors can say they embodied a masterpiece in a few minutes of screentime. I certainly doubt that’s what Burt Young had in mind when he appeared on The Sopranos back in 2001. But the lovable Rocky alum’s turn as an ailing, elderly hitman who’s got one last burst of violence in him is getting held up as one of the veteran actor’s most memorable roles for a reason. In a handful of scenes in a one-off performance, Young gets his nicotine-stained fingers on nearly everything important aspect of the show. It’s a role seemingly written to illustrate what this show is about, with Young selected to give the demonstration.
“Billions” thoughts, Season Seven, Episode Eleven: “Axe Global”
Whatever may eventually happen with this almost vestigial story line, it doesn’t here. There’s no big prestige to whatever trick the writers Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Beth Schacter are pulling, not in this episode anyway. This one really is as simple as two groups vying for an alliance with a minor character we’ve seen only once, ahead of revealing her pick. Forgive me, but I still have visions of that fabulous shock ending from Season 2’s penultimate episode dancing in my head, a level of scheming, skulduggery and surprise that I want to see again before the curtain closes.
We may yet get it. I simply refuse to believe that a show this beautifully bombastic won’t go out with a bang, in a finale with more twists and turns than a Mario Kart racetrack. Keep in mind that while the opposing armies seem pretty firmly established, they have every possibility of fracturing, reconfiguring or turning on themselves. Which leads to the biggest question of all, and no, it’s not whether Chuck and Axe can stop Mike Prince — it’s whether they will be back at each other’s throats if and when they do.
I reviewed the penultimate episode of Billions ever for the New York Times.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Eight: “The Raven”
Copenhagen Cowboy, Dead Ringers, The Idol, Foundation Season 2: It’s been a great year for the lurid and the florid on television, maybe the best I can remember. The Fall of the House of Usher fits right alongside them, glowing and buzzing like a gorgeously lit, expensively dressed corpse.
I reviewed the finale of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Seven: “The Pit and the Pendulum”
Similarly, the script, by Mike and Jaime Flanagan, reveals that Freddie would have been a dentist in another life, because, ha ha, he tears Morrie’s teeth out with pliers. Once again, major kudos to the dead actor of the episode, Henry Thomas, for finding remarkable depths in his character’s shallowness. There’s no real pathos for Freddie of course, the way there was for the other four kids: There’s just disgust at discovering that someone this ineffectual could also be this cruel. It’s like watching a tree sloth light an orphanage on fire. You wind up relishing every swing of that pendulum as it slices his drugged but conscious and feeling ass in half.
I reviewed the penultimate episode of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Six: “Goldbug”
As was the case with T’Nia Miller last episode, Samantha Sloyan is outstanding as an extraordinarily wealthy and well put-together woman coming apart at the seams. The way she almost physically wills her presentation back on track after stumbling out on stage shouting the f-bomb at a nonexistent person, with the camera never flinching from her high-cheekboned, anxiety-ridden face, is a wonder to behold. She handles the explicit sex stuff in the sex tape with the practiced frankness of a woman confident in asking for what she wants. (As much as her fetishes represent a deeper dysfunction, I don’t think Usher is presenting the fetishes as a dysfunction in and of themselves, any more than Chuck Rhoades being a sub on Billions is supposed to indicate he’s an unethical prosecutor.)
I reviewed episode six of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Five: “The Tell-Tale Heart”
True, the episode may lack keep-you-up-at-night scares — the occasional flash of a corpse in a place where corpses shouldn’t be isn’t enough — but it makes up for that in intensity. It’s like an Evil Dead movie in that regard: I don’t think anyone has a hard time sleeping because of anything Ash slices up with that chainsaw hand, but none would deny that Evil Dead 2 is horror, because it was clearly made by filmmakers dedicated to shotgunning outrageous fucked-up violent gross over-the-top shit at your face every thirty seconds. From its rich assholes’ long Glengarry monologues about their own awfulness to the deliberately cruel demises of all the Usher kids, that’s obviously The Fall of the House of Usher’s intention too. You could say that’s its beating heart.
I reviewed episode 5 of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Four: “The Black Cat”
It’s my kind of catty, my kind of blunt, my kind of gross, my kind of show.
I reviewed the fourth episode of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Three: “Murder in the Rue Morgue”
And so we continue with the recipe that’s worked so far: Graphic violence, sexual fetishism, actors having fun playing heel, and the unwavering belief that the ultrawealthy should be brutally punished for their crimes. What, honestly, is not to like here?
I reviewed episode 3 of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode Two: “The Masque of the Red Death”
Okay, I’m calling it: This show fucks! Somewhat literally! Titled “The Masque of the Red Death” after the Edgar Allan Poe story upon which it’s loosely based (Is that how this is gonna go? It’s a stealth anthology series with an overarching storyline?), this episode of The Fall of the House of Usher is one of the horniest episodes of television I’ve seen in a while. And I covered Season 2 of Foundation! Honestly, it takes me back to the the bone-deep kinkiness of Alice Birch and Rachel Wesiz’s Dead Ringers, a show with which Mike Flanagan’s Usher has some stylistic as well as narrative similarities. Those similarities now also include the desire to rev your engine.
I reviewed the second episode of The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” thoughts, Episode One: “A Midnight Dreary”
I can think of worse ways to spend a few nighttime hours this month than in the company of these rich assholes as they slowly destroy each other in a creepy mansion, while Mike Flanagan’s script introduces a patent attorney named Ligeia, or reveals that the artificial heart Victorine implanted in that monkey has the brand name Tell-Tale, or turns the monkey into a murderer on the rooftops of Paris, or whatever. At the very least, the element of satire should cancel out his more maudlin tendencies. (“Whatever walked there, walked together,” anyone?) Flanagan feels about as convincingly Poe-ish as B-movie legend Roger Corman did back in the day when he loosely adapted the bard of Baltimore’s work. But if we’re having some spooky fun, so what?
I reviewed the series premiere of Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher for Decider.
“The Changeling” thoughts, Season One, Episode Eight: “Battle of the Island”
Is that good enough? Y’know…yeah, probably. Denying your audience any kind of opening season wrap-up whatsoever isn’t a habit I want to see showrunners adopt as a rule, and it’s frustrating to see it in effect here. My concerns about the emotional tone of the show remain in effect, too. (Over the past week I kept thinking about how little I want little soliloquies about how great it is to remember the smell of food cooked in the kitchen with love in a horror TV show.) But it’s still LaKeith Stanfield, one of the best in the biz. It’s still Clark Backo, who I feel has many more notes to play in this role. When the show does make its mind up to be creepy, it’s real creepy — just the baseline assertion “It’s not a baby” alone is a scary thing to hear, to contemplate, to consider the ramifications of and the rationale behind. The Changeling was frustrating, but it showed a great deal of promise. I’ll head deeper into the forest if the journey continues.
“Billions” thoughts, Season Seven, Episode Ten: “Enemies List”
A common criticism of “Billions” is that its constant pop-culture references can seem forced. This time around, that’s the idea, as Prince bobbles two separate Quentin Tarantino references during the standoffs with Bobby that begin and end the show. Axe goes so far as to point this out — sure, it’s the show hanging a lampshade on what is either a tic or a signature, but it makes sense.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.
The New Horror: 10 Terrifying Recent Shows to Binge This Halloween Season
Channel Zero (2016-2018)
There are more scares packed into the first scene of the first episode of the first season of showrunner Nick Antosca’s exceptional horror anthology series than most horror TV shows can muster in their entire run. Amazingly, it only gets better from there. Each surreal standalone season of Channel Zero loosely adapts a famous “creepypasta” from the internet — the subjects include a cursed children’s television broadcast, a Halloween haunted house with a dark secret, a family of wealthy cannibals, and a woman haunted by her imaginary friend — and uses a different talented director. This gives story a different feeling, look, and tone, with one thing in common: All four are legitimately terrifying. The episodes and seasons are short, too, making each one a perfect weekend afternoon binge. And if you feel like the series ends too soon, don’t worry: Antosca has since co-created a quartet of killer streaming miniseries about murder and madness — The Act, Brand New Cherry Flavor, Candy, and A Friend of the Family — that are just as distinctive and chilling.
For Decider, I wrote about ten of my favorite horror television shows since 2016.