Spooky SZN (I mean it!)
Sunday, Oct. 11 — Good morning! Sammie Purcell here, Rough Draft’s associate editor and resident movie critic, ready to dive into the Sunday newsletter.
🌦️ Lingering morning showers with clearing in the afternoon and a high of 71°
We’re fully into October now, and if you’re anything like me, that means it’s time for horror movies. It’s taken me a while to get here – horror movies have always had a huge effect on me (comes with the territory when you watch “The Ring” at a slumber party when you’re 10 years old), but I didn’t start really leaning into my love for them until college. There’s nothing I love more than spending a lazy Sunday curled up on the couch with a movie that I’m certain will scare me out of my wits.
I recognize that’s not everyone’s bag. So if you’re a horror novice looking for an entry point that’ll be spooky, but not too scary, I’ve got you covered. No home invasions, no demons – just hauntings.
But first, here’s some news.
LOCAL NEWS
🌀 After more widespread outages yesterday, Georgia Power reports fewer than 2,000 customers still without power across the state this morning.
🔥 Firefighters from Greene County and surrounding agencies battled a large fire that engulfed the Reynolds Landing clubhouse near Lake Oconee last night.
🏳️🌈 Yesterday’s events were canceled because of rain, but the Atlanta “Louder and Prouder” Pride Festival is happening today, starting with the parade at noon. (Stop by the Rough Draft / Georgia Voice tent and say hi!)
🏈 In yesterday’s local college football results:
- No. 2 Georgia 20, No. 6 Alabama 17 (UGA’s first regular-season win against Alabama since 2007).
- Georgia Tech 28, Duke 25
- Mercer 17, Western Carolina 14
- The Savannah State at Morehouse game is today at 11 a.m. (SIAC Network)
🏈 The Falcons host the Ravens at Mercedes-Benz Stadium tonight at 8:20 p.m. (92.9 FM; NBC).
ELSEWHERE
🚨 A Philadelphia police officer was killed, and another was shot 12 times in an ambush while responding to a call Saturday. The 35-year-old suspect was charged with homicide.
🇺🇦 President Donald Trump said Ukraine should “get a new president,” blaming Kyiv’s refinery strikes for high fuel prices. Hours earlier, Russian bombs killed at least 20 people in Zaporizhzhia.
🇸🇦 An attack on Riyadh’s airport, blamed on Iran-backed Houthi rebels, killed 12 people, including an American, and injured more than 300.
⚾ MLB’s League Championship Series are set. The Dodgers and the Brewers open the NLCS tonight at 8 p.m. (FOX), and the Rays host the Guardians in the ALCS starting tomorrow.
📅 Did you know that it’s already “school-shopping” season in Atlanta? Be sure to include Ben Franklin Academy among the private high school options for your student and learn about our mastery curriculum model, individualized instruction, flexible learning times, and impressive college placement record. Register for Open Houses Nov. 11 & Dec. 3. SPONSOR MESSAGE
A beginner’s guide
🕯️ “The Innocents” – This 1961 classic is based on Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” and stars Deborah Kerr (AKA, one of the best to ever do it) as a governess who starts to think that the massive estate she’s working on is haunted by ghosts. The gothic vibes are out of this world, and it’s a lot of Kerr running around wide-eyed listening to ghosts who are definitely … well, you can read my Letterboxd review here.
🌊 “What Lies Beneath” – This Robert Zemeckis movie is my probably my least favorite of the three I’m recommending today (I bet you’ll guess what’s going on, at least for the most part, long before you get to the end of the movie), but once again, the spooky vibes are simply too good to pass up. The script is a bit clunky, but there are shots in this thing where I genuinely can’t tell how they pulled it off, and Michelle Pfeiffer is truly sensational.
👻 “The Others” – This Alejandro Amenábar film is, in many ways, the spiritual successor to “The Innocents.” Not because of its plot, but because it too features a lot of scenes where an iconic actress (Nicole Kidman this time) runs around a haunted mansion carrying a candelabra, seemingly on the verge of passing out. This is a real atmospheric masterpiece with a killer ending.
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Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ is a video game adaptation done right
🧟 “Resident Evil” has already made more than $249 million worldwide, and it looks like by the end of this week or sooner, it will become filmmaker Zach Cregger’s highest-grossing film ever.
It’s not hard to see why. “Resident Evil” is 95 minutes of pure horror joy – a frantic, silly gore-fest that succinctly captures the odd marriage of nail-biting tension and blundering silliness that make up the experience of first-person shooter and survival horror gaming.
Cregger is able to avoid the pitfalls of most video game adaptations by finding the similarities between his own sensibilities as a filmmaker (he co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten) and what it is that makes video games so enjoyable. It’s his most straightforward film by far, but also a bloody disgusting good time.
Raymond Creamer on becoming a horror filmmaker with ‘Goody Goody’
🤰 Filmmaker Raymond Creamer has been one of my favorite interviews so far this year. Before we actually dove into the film, we took a few minutes to just talk about movies – and it was so clear that Creamer had not just extensive horror knowledge, but extensive knowledge about movies of all genres.
That knowledge helped him with “Goody Goody,” which premiered on the horror streaming service Shudder in September. The film follows a couple, Goody (Samantha Robinson) and Jayson (Colby Hollman), who desperately want to have a home birth – despite the wishes of their midwife, Sarah (Colleen Foy). When things start to go wrong, and a snowstorm makes it impossible for them to get Goody to the hospital, Sarah starts to realize that this pregnancy is not a normal one – and the baby inside of Goody might not be human at all.
👹 Read what Creamer had to say about the making of the film here.
🕯️ As the sun sets over Atlanta, the past comes alive. Now in its 20th year, history, theatre, and Halloween thrills converge at Oakland Cemetery for Capturing the Spirit of Oakland Halloween tours on Oct. 15-18 & 22-25 from 5-11 p.m. SPONSOR MESSAGE
‘Saccharine’ director Natalie Erika James on the horrors of diet culture
🍩 After years of the culture beginning to shift away from the idea that being skinny is the only way to be beautiful, lately I feel inundated with social media posts that give me the sinking feeling that being exorbitantly thin is starting to come back into vogue. “Saccharine,” a new horror film from writer/director Natalie Erika James, captures the horror of that feeling.
“Saccharine” follows Hana (Midori Francis), an exhausted med student who can’t seem to catch a break. She’s in love with the hot girl at her gym (Madeleine Madden) who barely knows she exists. She has a complicated, to say the least, relationship with her parents. And she’s struggling with disordered eating – specifically, binge eating.
But Hana is nothing if not resourceful. She signs up for the hot girl’s (her name is Alanya) workout program – admittedly more to be near Alanya than for any type of physical transformation. When it comes to that, she’s found a shortcut. A new weight loss pill guaranteed to make you lose weight fast. There’s just one tiny thing – the pill is, in part, made up of human ash.
💉 I had a great time talking to Natalie about this movie earlier this year, and now that October is upon us, it’s a great time to bring it back. Check out our full conversation here.
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