More Bits and Pieces…
I’m now officially into the last week and a half of my sick leave and it has done me a lot of good; I didn’t expect to be off this long but I’m glad that I made that appointment with my GP back in September :o) Just one more meeting with Occupational Health and, fingers crossed, I should be good to go back to work next month.
All of which is a round about way of saying that once again, I did very little yesterday; literally just what the doctor ordered. I did watch a couple of movies though, and read a couple of short stories, because well, of course I did ;o) Let me tell you all about it, movies first…
‘Good Boy’ (2025)
Not to be confused with the 2022 horror movie of the same name (not a bad movie at all, just a whole different relationship between a man and his ‘dog’…) but to be honest, there’s very little danger of that happening. Everyone (and their dog) has been talking about ‘Good Boy’, this year, and I finally got the chance to watch it yesterday morning.
Todd suffers from a chronic lung disease and has relocated to his grandfather’s old house, in the country, to try and recuperate. He’s not on his own though, his faithful Retriever Indy has made the trip with him. Right away, Indy can sense that something is horribly wrong; there is something in the house that wants to harm his master, can Indy protect him?
Before anything else is said, I’ve got to take a moment and say what a good boy (sorry) Indy is; both as a character and an actor. I’m no expert on animal actors (at all) but Indy did such a good job on screen, I couldn’t help but wonder how much had been trained into him and how much he thought was actually happening. If you’ve ever wondered what goes through a dogs mind, on a daily basis, ‘Good Boy’ really gets you to see the world through Indy’s eyes and seriously, being a dog is a full time job :o)
From where I was sat (the comfy chair), some of the plot detail felt a little vague but I’d have to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that of course the detail is vague. Indy is a dog experiencing all of this on pure instinct and the film does a superb job of showing that. Add in some vicious jump scares and we’ve got a film that’s officially a strong contender for my favourite horror movie of 2025.
‘Weapons’ (2025)
At 2:17am, all but one of the children of Miss Gandy’s class woke up, left their homes and ran off into the darkness. This is the story of what happened next…
I’ll be honest, I’m still trying to get my head round ‘Weapons’ so don’t expect too much sense here ;o) Lets just say that usually, my attention tends to wander after an hour and a half, of movie, so the run-time for ‘Weapons’ (just over the two hour mark) had me a little concerned. Turns out that I didn’t need to worry, ‘Weapons’ had my total attention the whole way through. The movie is centred round a very intriguing mystery and the way that it plays out, being told through overlapping perspectives of the cast, is masterfully handled.
I’m still processing the plot but am very glad I finally gave ‘Weapons’ a chance; well worth a look if you haven’t seen it already.
Prime Video, and various YouTube adverts, has gone all out to get me to watch ‘Black Phone 2’ recently… Have you seen it? I’ll be honest, I haven’t even seen ‘Black Phone’ yet so I’m not going to go ‘sequel first’, I’ve made that mistake before…
What I did instead (thanks to a fully loaded Waterstones card, September’s Birthday shopping continues to reap rewards) was pick up a copy of Joe Hill’s ‘Black Phone & Other Stories’ and go straight to the original short story. And… While I liked the idea, ‘Black Phone’ was over and done with a little too quickly for it to really go into any depth and build up a good head of fear. I might still give the movie a go though, we’ll see…
All wasn’t lost though as I went on and read ‘Voluntary Committal’ which ended up being superb; a good mix of the ‘quiet horror’ of growing up with little hints of cosmic horror that really opened up the scope of this tale. ‘Voluntary Committal’ is one of those tales that you’re glad you came across but you can’t help but kick yourself for not having read it sooner.
‘Black Phone & Other Stories’ has elbowed its way into the TBR pile and I’ll be picking out a couple of stories, here and there, for occasional posts.
All of which is a round about way of saying that once again, I did very little yesterday; literally just what the doctor ordered. I did watch a couple of movies though, and read a couple of short stories, because well, of course I did ;o) Let me tell you all about it, movies first…
‘Good Boy’ (2025)
Not to be confused with the 2022 horror movie of the same name (not a bad movie at all, just a whole different relationship between a man and his ‘dog’…) but to be honest, there’s very little danger of that happening. Everyone (and their dog) has been talking about ‘Good Boy’, this year, and I finally got the chance to watch it yesterday morning.
Todd suffers from a chronic lung disease and has relocated to his grandfather’s old house, in the country, to try and recuperate. He’s not on his own though, his faithful Retriever Indy has made the trip with him. Right away, Indy can sense that something is horribly wrong; there is something in the house that wants to harm his master, can Indy protect him?
Before anything else is said, I’ve got to take a moment and say what a good boy (sorry) Indy is; both as a character and an actor. I’m no expert on animal actors (at all) but Indy did such a good job on screen, I couldn’t help but wonder how much had been trained into him and how much he thought was actually happening. If you’ve ever wondered what goes through a dogs mind, on a daily basis, ‘Good Boy’ really gets you to see the world through Indy’s eyes and seriously, being a dog is a full time job :o)
From where I was sat (the comfy chair), some of the plot detail felt a little vague but I’d have to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that of course the detail is vague. Indy is a dog experiencing all of this on pure instinct and the film does a superb job of showing that. Add in some vicious jump scares and we’ve got a film that’s officially a strong contender for my favourite horror movie of 2025.
‘Weapons’ (2025)
At 2:17am, all but one of the children of Miss Gandy’s class woke up, left their homes and ran off into the darkness. This is the story of what happened next…
I’ll be honest, I’m still trying to get my head round ‘Weapons’ so don’t expect too much sense here ;o) Lets just say that usually, my attention tends to wander after an hour and a half, of movie, so the run-time for ‘Weapons’ (just over the two hour mark) had me a little concerned. Turns out that I didn’t need to worry, ‘Weapons’ had my total attention the whole way through. The movie is centred round a very intriguing mystery and the way that it plays out, being told through overlapping perspectives of the cast, is masterfully handled.
I’m still processing the plot but am very glad I finally gave ‘Weapons’ a chance; well worth a look if you haven’t seen it already.
And then I read a couple of short stories :o)
Prime Video, and various YouTube adverts, has gone all out to get me to watch ‘Black Phone 2’ recently… Have you seen it? I’ll be honest, I haven’t even seen ‘Black Phone’ yet so I’m not going to go ‘sequel first’, I’ve made that mistake before…
What I did instead (thanks to a fully loaded Waterstones card, September’s Birthday shopping continues to reap rewards) was pick up a copy of Joe Hill’s ‘Black Phone & Other Stories’ and go straight to the original short story. And… While I liked the idea, ‘Black Phone’ was over and done with a little too quickly for it to really go into any depth and build up a good head of fear. I might still give the movie a go though, we’ll see…
All wasn’t lost though as I went on and read ‘Voluntary Committal’ which ended up being superb; a good mix of the ‘quiet horror’ of growing up with little hints of cosmic horror that really opened up the scope of this tale. ‘Voluntary Committal’ is one of those tales that you’re glad you came across but you can’t help but kick yourself for not having read it sooner.
‘Black Phone & Other Stories’ has elbowed its way into the TBR pile and I’ll be picking out a couple of stories, here and there, for occasional posts.
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