The Dead Room, on PBS

Aubrey Judd is so old school, he largely built his reputation on radio. He still hosts the same long-standing ghost story program, but, much to his frustration, annoying hipsters now write most of the tales he reads. However, the script gets flipped in more ways than one in Mark Gatiss’s The Dead Room, which airs on participating PBS stations over the coming month.

Unlike The Tractate Middoth, this week’s Ghost Story (formerly “for Christmas”) is not based on a M.R. James classic. Here we have a Gatiss original, but perhaps he should have stuck with the master.

Regardless, hammy Judd is a perfect fit for the great Simon Callow. Frankly, Judd finds tonight’s story a bit tacky, because of the violence, but his new producer, Tara, believes it is the kind of contemporary work they need to spruce the show up. Ironically, they must record this week’s production in the old, shabby studio the show used to be produced in years ago.

Initially, Judd finds it rather nostalgic to return to his old “haunt.” At least that is what he tries to project for the benefit of Tara and Joan, their ancient, taciturn foley artist. Yet, he soon hears strange noises nobody else notices. Perhaps most ominously, the pages of his script in explicably re-arrange themselves into a completely different story. It rather unnerves him, but somehow he fails to recognize the significance of it all.

In terms of story, Dead Room is passable, but it is no M.R. James yarn. Clearly, Gatiss tries to bring “updated” contemporary social sensibilities to the venerable Ghost Story for Christmas tradition, but it possibly backfires. After all, Judd’s identity is central to his character and his actions, but they consequently lead to the sins he must account for.

Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to listen to Callow unleash his inner Vincent Price as he waxes poetic over great ghost stories and other assorted pleasures of life. Callow has the voice for it, so he ought to narrate more spooky tales for real.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man

Considering he is such a staunch anti-Nazi, Hellboy would probably take issue with the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD)’s association with the United Nations, in light of the UN’s current ideological climate. Back in the 1950s, the UN declared him an honorary human. However, Anung Un Rama (a.k.a. Hellboy) remains keenly aware of his lineage, as the offspring of a witch and a demon. Once again, he fights both in Brian Taylor’s Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which releases today on VOD.

While babysitting their “cargo,” a large demonic spider, Hellboy’s boxcar derails, forcing him and his fellow BPRD agent Bobbie Jo Song to chase the arachnid into the Appalachian hill country. Things go from bad to worse, when they encounter a village plagued by witchcraft.

Tom Ferrell, a recently returned prodigal son, understands the black magic only too well. Effie Kolb, a seductive witch, nearly tempted Ferrell into a Faustian bargain when he was a teen. Frankly, he fears he backed out of the ritual too late. Assuming himself damned, Ferrell still wants to save his childhood sweetheart, Cora Fisher, who lately succumbed to the temptations of black magic.

He must also bury his profligate late father in the only holy ground available, in the grounds of Rev. Watts’s tiny clapboard church. Ominously, the local witches lay siege to the church, under the orders of the demonic Crooked Man. Once a wealthy man, the Crooked one hopes to regain his fortune, by earning one penny for every soul he corrupts.

The spooky, witchy hill-and-hollow country is actually an eerily suggestive setting for the Hellboy franchise to explore. It is easy to believe evil infects the literal ground there (which agitated the spider, causing its escape). (Licensing Cowboy Roy Brown’s ‘Trouble in Mind” for the closing credits was a nice touch.) However, its straight-to-VOD (in the U.S.) production values look a bit threadbare. There is also a lot of hocus pocus in the third act that makes little to no sense.

On the plus side, the portrayal of blind Rev. Watts is refreshingly sympathetic. Unlike far too many horror movie depictions of priests, when Rev. Watts faces temptation, he resists. Indeed, he turns out to be quite a heroic figure (whom Joseph Marcell plays with appropriate conviction).

The Irrational, Season Two, on NBC

Last season, Dr. Alec Mercer overcame his own personal biases and the “halo effect” to undercover a liberal politician’s involvement in the deadly bombing that left him physically scarred. Perhaps this season, he might heal in other ways as well. However, Dr. Mercer must first deal with the cliffhanger that ended the first season finale when creator Arika Lisanne Mittman’s Irrational returns tonight, on NBC.

One of the things that went right for Mercer last season was his increasingly romantic relationship with Dinshaw, so he would presumably be distressed to see her snatched off the street and bundled into a van. Of course, it rather follows that the kidnapping would be related to her previous work as a MI-6 agent. Fortunately for her, Mercer deduces her distress sooner rather than later. He also has a direct line into the FBI. In addition to his ex, Marisa Clark, who often calls in Mercer to consult, his formerly slacker sister Kylie also works at the Bureau as a contract cyber-crime specialist.

As a result, the season premiere, “Collateral Damage,” is less of a whodunit and more of ticking clock rescue operation. Lead Jesse L. Martin has solid chemistry with Keren David, which helps sell the drastic step Mercer takes to find Dinshaw. Meanwhile, his long-suffering teaching assistant Rizwan Asadi must endure several clinical experiments exploring the overwhelming desire for revenge.

Indeed, Mercer’s investigative methods are often the best elements of each episode. This is very definitely true of the next installment, “A Kick in the Teeth,” a crisply paced hunt for an apparent serial killer (nicely helmed by experienced horror genre director Ernest Dickerson), but the mystery is undercut by the episode’s limited cast of characters.

However, it announces an increased role for supporting character, Simon Wilton, the well-heeled replacement for Mercer’s other assistant, Phoebe Duncan, a Gen Z’er “stressed out” by Mercer’s crime-fighting productivity. Wilton both embarrasses and redeems himself. However, unlike other students of his generation, he takes responsibility in a smartly written scene, featuring Max Lloyd-Jones as Mercer’s new TA-gofer-sounding board.

Mr. Crocket, on Hulu

A lot of people owe Barney the dinosaur an apology. He is far from the world’s most detestable kiddie TV host. Compared to this sinister child-abductor, it isn’t even a close call. As a bonus, his theme song is an even more insidious earworm. However, one of the few parents he leaves alive comes looking for her son in Brandon Espy’s Mr. Crocket, which premieres Friday on Hulu.

As we see in the prologue, if Mr. Crocket hears one of young fans taking verbal or physical abuse while they play one of his VHS tapes, he comes out of the screen to administer violent retribution, taking the child back with his to his creepy nether-realm. Usually, there are no survivors, but when the mom, Rhonda, escapes his wrath, becoming a broken, crazy street lady out of grief.

Unfortunately, Summer Beverly ignores Rhonda’s crazy-sounding warnings until it is too late. Her son Major has been an eponymous pain, ever since his father tragically passed away. After a few hurtful (but from the audience’s perspective, not unwarranted) words, out comes Mr. Crocket. Of course, the cops dismiss Beverly’s outlandish account. Instead, she must team up with Rhonda and Eddie, a mysterious young man who seems to know a lot about Mr. Crocket from personal traumatic experience, to find the missing children.

The premise of Mr. Crocker, expanded from by Espy and co-screenwriter Carl Reid from Espy’s short film, appealingly pushes a lot of VHS-era nostalgic buttons. However, it feels like the final product was reluctantly dumbed-down somewhat. The obvious comparison film, I Saw the TV Glow, was too much in its own head—and way, way too preoccupied with sexual and gender identity politics. In contrast, Espy and Crocker could have dived more deeply into Crocket’s backstory. Perhaps the best example of a between-film that gets the balance right would be Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Nevertheless, Elvis Nolasco gives a terrific horror villain performance as Mr. Emanuel Crocket. If Crocket goes franchise, he will deserve the lion’s share of the credit. He shows an understanding of what made characters like Robert Englund’s Freddy so popular, while still making Mr. Crocket very much his own thing. Plus, Alex Winkler’s songs, with lyrics written by Espy and Reid, perfectly compliment his unsettlingly chipper attitude (also note, they hold a final tune for an end-of-credits “stinger).

Superman & Lois, Season Four, on CW

This will be the final season of CW’s last DC superhero series currently on its schedule, but they are going out with a bang. The first three episodes of season four adapt the most famous Superman comic book story arc of all time. Saying what it is outright would violate embargoes. However, any serious fan knew the prospect of battling Doomsday during season three’s cliffhanger ending boded ominously. Dark days are ahead, but the Kent family must band together in the first three episodes of Superman & Lois’s fourth and final season, which premieres tomorrow on the CW (moved up from its previously announced date).

Thanks to a suit and some training from the DOD, Jordan Kent is Superboy, but he remains the same dumb kid. His brother Jon continues to be the more mature one (comparatively speaking). The Kent family needs his stabilizing influence when Lex Luthor declares war on them. Beyond the obvious supervillain reasons, he created Doomsday to take on Superman, to get to Lois Lane, Luthor’s real nemesis. The disgraced mogul still blames the former Daily Planet reporter for his incarceration and his estrangement from his daughter Elizabeth.

Luthor is not too happy with Lois’s father, General Sam Lane, either. In addition to serving as Superman’s handler, he also helped secure protective relocation for Luxor’s daughter. Striking while the iron is hot, Luthor has his thugs kidnap the General. Although the Kents remain in crisis mode, Superboy can focus his super-hearing on finding his grandfather’s location.

At least it gives him something structured to do. When Superboy flies off on his own initiative in the following episode, “A World Without,” it leads to trouble. Frankly, they already have plenty of that. In addition to the embargoed stuff, Smallville Mayor (and Clark Kent’s old sweetheart) Lana Lang Cushing undercovers evidence of Luthorcorp’s plans to buy up considerable parts of the town, presumably for nefarious purposes.

Things look pretty bad in the next episode, “Always My Hero,” so the DOD must call in reinforcements. There is no Justice League in this world (and not much time left to create it), but there are John Henry Irons, a.k.a. Steel (Shaquille O’Neal played a very different version of him in a movie best forgotten) and his daughter (no longer his niece) Nathalie, a.k.a. Starlight, who happens to be Gen. Lane’s granddaughter, in a weird multiversal kind of way. They will see their share of action in an episode rife with tragedy, but driven by hope.

Indeed, these three episodes show why Superman & Lois is better suited to take on this storyline than the live action films. Despite the spandex and superpowers, this show always put family drama front and center. It is about the Kents rather than cosmic spectacle. (That said, the big extended super-slugfest is rendered surprisingly well.) Despite some changes to fit the show’s pre-existing mythology, it really gets to the essence of the classic storyline.

It is also just as much about Smallville as was Smallville. Indeed, Emmanuelle Chriqui supplies some of the most memorable quiet moments as Mayor Cushing, who comes to support her friends, the Kents. However, Michael Kudlitz is definitely the star of these three episodes, as Luthor, who is undeniably on the march. He certainly has the swagger and the snarl for the super-villain.

Dylan Walsh also delivers some standout scenes as Gen. Lane. While his character is imperfectly human (as we see during flashbacks), he is a refreshingly sympathetic military figure. Indeed, the way the series developed his relationships with the Ironses, nicely played by Wole Parks and Taylor Buck, has been quite an intriguing wrinkle. Parks and Buck also deserve credit for rehabilitating the Steel character after the Shaq debacle.

Guitierrez’s The Wait

Jobs were hard to come by in 1970s Spain. Poor Eladio would have been better off working as a bellhop in a dysfunctional hotel in Torquay. Instead, he accepts a position as the gamekeeper on Don Francisco’s estate. They say the soil there is cursed and he might be too in director-screenwriter F. Javier Guitierrez’s The Wait, which is now available on VOD.

There was a time when Eladio was an avid hunter, but he is over it now. However, his young son Floren has a passion for shooting, but more so inanimate targets than animals. Regardless, the little boy takes to Eladio’s new gig much more readily than his mother, Marcia.

One day, Don Francisco’s crony, Don Carlos, offers Eladio a Faustian bargain. Don Francisco approved ten shooting stands for the big annual hunt, but Don Carlos, the hunt master, wants to sell thirteen. Eladio fears the potential crossfire could be dangerous. However, his increasingly embittered Marcia browbeats him into accepting Don Carlos’s bribe. Tragically, Eladio’s concerns are vindicated when Floren is killed by an errant shot.

Thus begins a Job-like succession of woes raining down on Eladio. They almost break him, but instead, he latches onto thoughts of vengeance, especially when he uncovers remnants of strange and possibly occult rituals.

The Wait is a powerful film, but it is not a heck of a lot of fun. It is [almost] darker than Putin’s soul and Guitierrez’s pacing is agonizingly deliberate. The film doesn’t just rub viewers’ noses in Eladio’s pain. It grinds their entire bodies into his misery. Yet, there is no denying its haunting potency.

Scare Tactics (Reboot), on USA

Most Star Trek and Star Wars fans would love to jump into the movies they love, but you wouldn’t want to be a part of the action if you are a horror fan. Except, maybe you would, if you were a psycho-killer. Hopefully, participating (as the “prankster”) in horror-themed practical joke shows offer a harmless way of satisfying those impulses. Scare Tactics was the brand-name of horror reality TV, outliving most of its imitators. Since nobody has any better ideas, executive producer Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw production company help reboot the franchise, but he does not host, when “Bedeviled,” the first new episode of Scare Tactics, premieres tonight on USA.

Peele was a solid host of his Twilight Zone reboot, so hopefully he is saving his hospitality cachet for something of similar cultural heft. Instead, we get “Flip,” a demonic horror-obsessed teen with a TV for a head. Flip feels like something a committee agreed on, so it won’t be shocking if a real host eventually replaces him. (Frankly, there are ought to be a dedication to original host Shannen Doherty, who passed away in July.)

Regardless, the first punking is quite cleverly executed. Two friends just “happened” to be passing by a chapel, where a mega-pregnant woman and her bridegroom are desperate to get married, but they have no witnesses, because all their invited guests were too scared to attend. It seems she is carrying Rosemary’s Baby, who will indeed become the Antichrist, if it is born out of wedlock.

There is plenty of gore and the old school stagecraft is impressive. However, some of the funniest lines sound like inspired ad-libs. Even the target laughs, despite the gross-out lunacy staged for his benefit.

Quentin Dupieux’s Daaaaaali!

You could almost say Salvador Dali was the Andy Warhol of the 1920s and 1930s. The idea an artist could be a multimedia celebrity pretty much started with him. Perhaps more than anyone else before or since, he lived his life like it was performance art. Fittingly, Quentin Dupieux examines Dali’s eccentricity and self-promotion in Daaaaaali! (another film to make you grateful for the control-C copy function), which opens today in New York.

When you understand the title, you understand the nature of the film. Reportedly, each “a” in Daaaaaali!, represents one of the thesps who were supposed to play him in the film (apparently, Dupieux has one “a” to grow on). It is sort of like his I’m Not There, but it is more playful, subversive, and dare we say it . . . surreal. The five do not merely play Dali at different stages of his life. They often switch off mid-scene.

Yet, there’s more, including a storyline—at least more than most Warhol films ever had. Judith Rochant is a journalist (or sometimes a barista) who needs an interview with Dali to take her career to the next level. However, he will not waste his time if cameras are not present. Fortunately, Jerome the producer is willing to fund a documentary sufficiently grandiose to satisfy Dali monumental self-image.

Of course, each attempt to film Dali leads to disaster. In most cases, it is largely or entirely his fault. He can be difficult, especially when he is a guest at a dinner party. Yet, in his defense, the dream a boorish priest insists on telling him literally never seems to end. Whenever, it seems to conclude, it turns out to be another false stop that restarts the unending cycle.

Daaaaaali! never claims to be accurate with regards to anything, but it is much truer to the spirit of Dali’s work than Mary Harron’s Daliland. It is also slyly inventive in a low-tech kind of way, like the early scene of Dali walking down an infinitely long corridor towards the room where Rochant hopes to interview him.

Planet of the Apes: The Good Seeds

Astronauts need to know their physics and engineering. Yet, since most of them have military aviator backgrounds, they are more likely to be the children of farmers than elite college professors. Alan Virdon is a perfect example. He knows his way around spacecraft and a working farm. The latter will come in handy during “The Good Seeds” (directed by Don Weis), the Planet of the Apes episode that premiered fifty years ago on this very day.

After all that training for G-forces, Virdon and Burke are in a great shape. In contrast, their chimpanzee friend Galen was a scholar, not an athlete. Not surprisingly, he twists an ankle while eluding a police patrol. Reluctantly, Polar, a gruff old share-cropper agrees to shelter them, but his eldest son Arto is not happy about it.

According to local custom, the family cow must give birth to a bull before Arto can lease his own farm. Of course, he assumes the humans will exert an unhealthy influence. However, Polar is quite impressed by Virdon’s irrigation and terraced farming recommendations. Clearly, the astronaut’s advice could boost his profitability and sustainability to an exponential degree. Nevertheless, the twitchy Arto bears close watching.

Although “The Good Seed” was the fourth episode to air, it happened to be the first one produced. Notably, this episode presents humanity in a much better light than its predecessors. Instead of bemoaning all our warmongering and tribalism, writer Robert W. Lenski finally gives us credit for our ingenuity. Instead, it is the apes who are mired in superstition and hidebound tradition, to their own detriment. (It is still way too early to start organizing to take back our planet.)

Although Galen’s injury has Roddy McDowell sidelined for most of the episode, it serves as an excellent showcase for Ron Harper’s Virdon, who has some rather touching moments remembering his family and his childhood back on the farm. Unfortunately. Burke makes a somewhat outdated reference that would have the Disney content censors clutching their pearls, but normal, healthy people will just roll their eyes and forget about it.

Mambo Legends: The Music Never Ends, on PBS

Do not call them a “ghost band.” For years, they played with Tito Puente and other great Latin bandleaders, so they are not about to stop now. They still sound great and keep gigging with a regularity younger musicians would envy. The reminiscences are almost as enjoyable as the music in Mari Keiko Gonzalez’s Mambo Legends: The Music Never Ends, which airs tomorrow on PBS, as part of the current season of Voces.

Led by bandleader John “Dandy” Rodriguez, under the “music direction” of Jose Madera, the Mambo Legends Orchestra is sort of like a Puente tribute band, because his music dominates their set lists. They all played El Rey, but most also had stints in the Machito and Tito Rodriguez bands, the other two of the big three Latin bands.

They are all accomplished and have plenty of stories to tell, like baritone saxophonist Carmen Laboy, who was the first women to perform on-stage with Puente’s band. We also hear from saxophonist Mitch Frohman, who happened to be a Jewish kid from the Bronx, who discovered Latin jazz and dance music when he sat in with Joe Cuba, while gigging with another band in the Catskills.

It turns out, you probably heard a lot of Frohman’s work. Years ago, he recorded multiple improvisations for episodes of Sex and the City. However, he has yet to receive full and fair compensation. And just like that, another musician gets a raw deal.

Ghost Stories: The Tractate Middoth, on PBS

For many [stupid] people, books are sort of like ghosts. They relics from the past, bearing witness to the folly we might have prevented, had we only read more of them. However, a part-time librarian might have a legitimately haunted book on his shelves, which is bizarrely in-demand throughout Mark Gatiss’s The Tractate Middoth, based on the classic M.R. James story, which airs on participating PBS stations over the coming month.

Although originally produced by the BBC as part of their annual Ghost Story for Christmas, PBS apparently believed the productions they licensed better fit Halloween season. Neither is wrong per se, because James is timeless—and hopefully so are books.

Intellectually gifted but financially challenged William Garrett rather enjoys working part-time in the library, while pursuing his advanced studies, even though “Sniffer” Hodgson, the supervising librarian, is a pompous blowhard. At least he did, until John Eldred requests the Tractate Middoth, an ancient Hebrew text.

The first time Garrett tries to pull it, he believes a mysterious shrouded figure coincidentally retrieved it before him. The next time Eldred calls to request it, Garrett passes out on the way to its shelf, overcome by the supernatural pollen suddenly swirling about. Clearly, that volume holds sinister secrets, involving its former owner, the nasty Dr. Rant, who maybe orchestrated all this weirdness while expiring on his deathbed, as we partially saw during the prologue.

Tractate Middoth is a particularly British ghost story. Indeed, it is easy to imagine how James’s tale might have inspired some of the early library business in A Discovery of Witches. If the story sounds familiar, maybe it is because Leslie Nielsen also portrayed the intrepid librarian on the early-1950s Lights Out anthology show.

Hold Your Breath, on Hulu

Compared to what Oklahoma experienced in the 1930s, current climate change looks rather mild. It wasn’t called the Dust Bowl for no reason. Even before, living was always a constant struggle for “dirt farmers.” Tragically, one high-strung mother’s two greatest phobias, dust and drifters, will plague her at the same time. They might even be related in Karrie Crouse & William Joines’ Hold Your Breath, which premieres today on Hulu.

Margaret Bellum’s hardscrabble life always emphasized the hard. She and her husband already buried their youngest daughter Ada, which prompted her understandable depression. Bellum’s sleepwalking incidents also required her to sleep separated from her other two daughters, Rose and Ollie, for their protection. Perhaps he should not have left her alone for an out-of-state construction job, but it was hard to turn down work during the Smoot-Hawley Depression.

Initially, Bellum’s sister Esther Smith appears more of a cause for concern, due to her poor housekeeping and erratic behavior. She also assumes Rose simply over-stimulated little Ollie’s imagination with her terrifying tales of the “Grey Man.” However, it turns out someone really is hiding in their barn. That would be Wallace Grady, who claims to be a friend of her husband and a faith healer. Of course, if this were true, Hold Your Breath probably wouldn’t be a horror movie.

Hold Your Breath is definitely a slice of macabre Americana, but its secrets and twists hold little shock or surprise, for even moderately experienced genre viewers. The early scenes are quite impressive, taking visual cues from Andrew Wyeth paintings and Florence Owens Thompson photos. As a result, the audience should readily understand how such a desolate and desiccated environment could drive someone crazy.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach is also surprisingly chilling playing against type as the Night of the Hunter-ish Grady. Unfortunately, Crouse & Joines ill-advisedly usher him off screen for long stretches of time. As partial compensation, Sarah Paulson reliably freaks out as Bellum. You could almost think of this as American Horror Story: Dust Bowl.

V/H/S Beyond, on Shudder

Thanks to the collector market, they are making small-batch limited-runs of new VHS tapes again. That is good news for this franchise. In addition to the new appreciation of analog formats, there are also plenty of weird moldy old tapes to uncover out there. The really disturbing ones fuel the creation of urban legends and the Cadillac of found footage franchises. Aliens get into the act a little bit more this time, but all the V/H/S hallmarks remain present in V/H/S Beyond, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

In a bit of a departure, the wrap-around segments, Jay Cheel’s “Abduction/Adduction” are a mockumentary, supposedly investigating alien encounters at a notorious California mansion. Some of the segments are so well done, it is disappointing to break away to a full chapter. Fittingly, Whitley Strieber gets a lot of deserved credit for establishing and popularizing (or whatever terms might be more fitting) the now familiar alien abduction tropes. Frankly, it would be fascinating to see Cheel (who helmed Shudder’s Cursed Films series) expand this into a full film.

By far, the scariest constituent film (or tape) is Jordan Downey’s “Stork,” intriguingly “based on artwork by Oleg Vdovenko.” The premise is simple, but lethally effective. An elite anti-crime police squad raids the squat house of a cult suspected of kidnapping infants. What they find is a horror show. This is the kind of found footage that is truly terrifying. The crack-house-style design makes viewers crave a tetanus booster and the camera work keeps you on high alert. Like many of Beyond’s instalments, “Stork” is not unlike several previous V/H/S contributions, but it sure works.

That is also true of Virat Pal’s “Dream Girl,” but to a lesser extent. Tara is a Bollywood idol, who shares a kinship with Hannah Fierman’s Lily the Demon from the original V/H/S (and a spin-off), as a group of paparazzi learn the hard way. In this case, the Bollywood setting helps distinguish it from its predecessors.

‘Live and Let Dive,” directed by Justin Martinez (the only returning V/H/S alumnus, from when he was part of the Radio Silence collaborative group) probably earns the honor of the film’s second best segment. In this case, a reluctant skydiver celebrates his birthday with his hard-partying friends, just as the aliens swope down from the skies to attack. The horrors start in the air and finish on the ground. Martinez fully capitalizes on the found footage genre’s potential for what-the-heckness, staging some wild alien attacks, that actually look great, thanks to the subgenres built-in low resolution requirements.

“Fur Babies” directed by Christian Long & Justin Long (the Apple commercial guy and his brother) is probably Beyond’s grossest, most disturbing component film. It also delivers the most satiric “bite,” skewering an annoying band of left-wing animal rights activists, plotting an undercover sting operation against home-based kennel. However, their hubris leads to horrific comeuppance. “Fur Babies” is rough, but it is the one fans will be talking about for years to come.

Where’s Wanda, on Apple TV+

It probably wasn’t the Nuppelwocken, the legendary minotaur beast that supposedly lives in the forest surrounding Wanda Klatt’s sleepy German village. Unfortunately, her abductor was most likely human. She has been missing for 70 days. Her parents are keenly aware of the significance of the 100-day-mark. Therefore, they decide to take matters into their own hands, but they are still the same goofballs they’ve always been in creators Oliver Lansley and Zoltan Spirandelli’s eight-episode Where’s Wanda, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

Just so everyone is clear, this is a comedy about two parents desperately searching for their missing daughter. It is probably a moderately-sized miracle that the series is not completely hobbled by tonal issues. To their credit, Lansley and directors Christian Ditter, Tobi Baumann, and Facundo Scalerandi never shy away from the fear, pain, and guilt felt by Carlotta and Dedo Klatt. Even in a dark comedy, their situation is a nightmare.

Nevertheless, they are who they are. Schlubby Dedo was also laid off, but he has yet to tell his wife, because he fears her fits of rage. Ironically, they have both largely neglected Wanda’s younger brother, Ole, during their extended family crisis.

Wanda disappeared on the day of the Nuppelwocken festival, leaving no trace until the recent discovery of her shirt in a neighbor clothing donation bin. Since the police have done little but act condescendingly, the Klatts hatch their own plan. Focusing on the homes within a reasonable radius of the donation kiosk, the Klatts devise pretexts to enter, so they can plant spy cameras. As a bonus, this desperate and technically illegal plan helps them reconnect with nerdy ole, who acquires the hardware on the dark web and helps monitor their feeds.

Each episode focuses on a suspicious house, interspersed with flashbacks to Wanda’s kidnapping and eventful moments of her captivity.  Even though she is missing, Wanda is a constant presence throughout the series.

That would be a provocative set-up for a serious drama, but there is also a great deal of slapstick physical humor. Where’s Wanda probably ought to carry a whiplash warning. Yet, the way Lansley and company depict the Klatts coming together as a family and reconciling as a couple are definitely the show’s saving graces. There is so much heart in Where’s Wanda, it never feels offensive or exploitative.

Heike Makatsch is also pretty incredible as Carlotta. When she rages against cruel fate, the useless cops, and her stupid husband, you can feel her pain. Her verbal lacerations are also often brutally funny. However, Axel Stein delivers a very familiar-feeling goofy husband performance, which stylistically is not nearly far enough from Ralph Kramden.

Things Will Be Different

It was supposed to be the ultimate “time-out.” The cops will never find these sibling outlaws’ time-slip hideout, but someone or something else has access to their sanctuary in director-screenwriter Michael Felker’s Things Will Be Different, which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Joseph and Sidney share some stormy family history, but they still sufficiently trust each other to pull off an armed heist. Their getaway could have been cleaner, but Joseph charted an unusual escape route. Apparently, this quiet farmhouse has the power to travel to some distant point in time, where they can simply wait out the cops. For each day spent in this mysterious other time, an equal day passes in the time-period the siblings left. They figure two weeks should be sufficient for the heat to blow over, but Sidney will still be home before her daughter misses her so badly.

However, just as brother and sister are about to triumphantly stride through that strange door, they find it mysteriously boarded up, with instructions to meet at the farm’s old mill. By using an old Dictaphone as a means of interdimensional, or intertime communication, the siblings learn the strange forces governing the farm are aware of their intrusion and they are not happy about it. However, all will be forgiven if they stay to capture and kill the violent “time bandits” using the portals for their own sinister ends. Of course, they agree, because what choice do they have, but the waiting takes a considerable toll, mentally and emotionally.

As weird as that sounds, Felker builds the premise and the rules of the world quite convincingly. This is gritty, grounded, lo-fi science fiction in the best sense. Frankly, viewers never get a full picture of the system that entraps the brother and sister, but the partial snapshot is pretty trippy. Technically, Things Will Be Different involves time-travel, but it really is very much its own thing. It is worth noting Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the team behind films like Spring, The Endless, and Synchronic served as executive producers and played supporting roles. Felker’s film should definitely appeal to their fans, both thematically and stylistically.

Joan, on CW

The 1980s were an era of upward social mobility, flashy style, and conspicuous consumption. Joan Hannington wanted her piece of the pie, even if she had to steal it—especially if she could steal it. However, previous bad decisions, like her first marriage, keep blocking her attempts to get ahead in creator Anna Symon’s six-episode Joan, which premieres Wednesday on CW.

Joan is a loving mother, but little Kelly’s often-absent father is a lowlife, whose underworld debts endanger them both. Believing she needs money to create the safe, stable family environment her daughter deserves, Joan embarks on a series of desperate crimes. She has mixed success as a lone wolf, but she starts playing in more advanced leagues when she meets dodgy antiques dealer (apparently, that is the only kind you can find in London), Boisie Hannington. He has some big ideas, but they require patience and discipline, both of which Joan has in short supply.

Despite their bickering, Joan falls hard for Boisie and vice versa. She also enjoys the posh clothes and luxurious hotels that his schemes require. Of course, Boisie’s overseas accomplice Albie predicts Joan’s prima donna attitude will lead to trouble, but like everyone else in this series, he cannot walk away from a potentially lucrative score.

As you might be sensing, Joan has a real identity crisis. Symon cannot decide whether she is making a British version of Ocean’s 8 or an EastEnders spin-off. Just when it starts to get into a tantalizing larcenous endeavor, Hannington rushes off for another depressing meeting with social services or her grim family. To further complicate the audience’s response, we watch the future Mrs. Hannington break so many laws and make so many foolishly impulsive decisions, it is hard to root for her during the downbeat scenes of domestic drama.

Frankly, many questionable calls were made throughout the series, including the make-up for lead thesp Sophie Turner (the Dark Phoenix), which is so ghostly pale, you might half-expect the twist-ending from The Sixth Sense. It is a shame, because Turner is quite good expressing all of the title character’s emotional highs and lows. She makes Joan quite a roller coaster.

The Universal Theory

Thanks to Oppenheimer, viewers are getting used to the idea of physicists as movie heroes. Indeed, as the grandson of a Marine slated for the Japanese mainland amphibious landing, I’m probably alive today thanks to his Manhattan Project. Unfortunately, Johannes Leneirt probably lacks Oppenheimer’s brilliance and virtues. Yet, through dumb luck, he might stumble onto the secret of time-travel, the multiverse, and everything in Timm Kroger’s The Universal Theory, which is now playing in New York.

Leinert’s thesis advisor, Dr. Strathan, thinks little of him, but reluctantly drags him along to a post-war conference in the Swiss Alps. Frankly, for Strathan and his not-so-friendly rival, Prof. Blumberg, WWII maybe still lingers. Indeed, as proteges of Heisenberg, their activities under the National Socialists remain intentionally vague.

Evidently, immigration troubles delay the arrival of the keynote speaker from Iran, so Leinert has plenty of time to kill as they wait. He would like to spend it with Karin Honig, the hotel’s resident jazz vocalist-pianist. Weirdly, when he next approaches her after their memorable first meeting, she acts like a total stranger. Nevertheless, she eventually agrees to a series of assignations, until she suddenly disappears. As Leinert searches for Honig, he hears strange rumors regarding the effects of plutonium on the mountain overshadowing the resort.

Or something like that. Stylistically, Universal Theory is definitely Guy Maddinesque, but if anything, Kroger’s takes an even more abstract approach to narrative. Admittedly, Kroger and co-screenwriter Roderick Warich try to do something very cool and provocative, but it is not sufficiently grounded to connect beyond an intellectual level. The clever wrap-around segments (featuring an older, embittered Leinert appearing on a 1970s talk show, promoting his tell-all memoir, which his publisher insisted on selling as science fiction) offer some ironic humor, but the guts of it all are just too vague, too coyly open-ended, and too resistant to interpretation. Ultimately, the pieces do not quite fit together and the equation never balances.

Frankly, Olivier Asselin’s Le Cyclotron and Gyorgy Palfi’s His Master’s Voice share similar themes and aesthetics, but those under-appreciated films were much better executed. Universal Theory looks amazing, but there is less substance than Kroger’s portentous style suggests. As they might say in the Alps, it is all lederhosen and no Alpine ibex. In terms of storytelling, it is more closely akin to Tav Falco’s Urania Descending or F.J. Ossang’s 9 Fingers, which proudly proclaimed their avant-garde nature. If none of these films mean anything to you, you’re hardly alone, but take it as sign Universal Theory maybe won’t be your cup of tea.

Trueba’s Haunted Heart

Among reed players, clarinetists are considered somewhat nebbish, like Benny Goodman and Pee Wee Russell. Maybe that is why Max keeps his former musician identity a secret. However, his new hostess, Alex, develops an interest in him, which blossoms into a curiosity regarding his past. He obviously does not want to tell, so she probably should not ask, but she does anyway in Fernando Trueba’s Haunted Heart, which just released in theaters and on VOD.

When Alex shows up a week late for work at Max’s seasonal Greek isle destination restaurant, she must settle for a server position. Yet, despite her Millennial meltdown and his Gen X contempt, they still share a mutual attraction. She constantly milks his veteran wait-staff for intel, but all they know is that Max keeps himself to himself.

As the summer passes into the less busy fall, Alex moves into the hostess position she originally applied for, and into Max’s island home. However, as she pokes around, she finds strange clues to his murky history, including a 45 recorded by Paul Frye. Chico, her torch-carrying admirer, is happy track down the mysterious musician, who looks exactly like Max on his obscure LP.

Haunted Heart will deeply annoy jazz fans, in much the same way as Spielberg’s The Terminal, in that jazz plays a significant role in the film, but only holds a minor, almost incidental place in the soundtrack. We do hear “Christine Noir” & “Old Haunts,” two Frye recordings composed by Michael Philip Mossman, featuring Ken Peplowski on clarinet, with a rhythm section of David Berkman, David Wang, and Aaron Kimmel. Both tunes sound great from what we get to hear, which isn’t very much.

The rest of soundtrack consists of orchestral themes composed by Zbigniew Preisner (Kieslowski’s Thee Colors), which sound decidedly symphonic, but features brief saxophone solos (or obligatos) from Jerzy Glowczewski. Indeed, it is surprising (and disappointing), Trueba would allow the watering down of the jazz, considering he helmed the terrific jazz-focused films They Shot the Piano Player, Chico & Rita, and Calle 54.

Arguably, Trueba was consistently out of synch and off the beat throughout Haunted Heart. The slow build-up lasts about ninety non-thrillerish minutes. Only the last thirty minutes or so really give suspenseful vibes, but the mood is still undermined by forced contrivances. Frankly, it is hard to believe the way events nose-dive, when a little bit of communication might have avoided so much trouble.

Uzumaki, in Cinema Daily US

The artistry of Adult Swim's anime adaptation of Junji Ito's manga is hypnotic and the way it depicts the sinister force plaguing a Japanese village is deeply unsettling. Surpassing the previous film adaptation, UZUMAKI could leave viewers uneasy around spiral patterns for years to come. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.

Sleep, Starring the Late Lee Sun-Kyun

Somnologists (sleep doctors) probably take issue with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but the silent German Expressionist classic launched a tradition of some pretty cool sleep-walking horror movies. With a baby on the way, Jung Soo-jin and her husband Hyun-soo could use all the rest they can get. Unfortunately, his sleepwalking grows so disruptive, he reluctantly agrees to consult a somnologist. Yet, she soon suspects something more supernatural in Jason Yu’s Sleep, which releases today in theaters and on VOD.

It starts with some cryptic words spoken in Hyun-soo’s sleep: “someone’s inside.” Then he wakes up bleeding from a bout of compulsive facial scratching. Before long, Soo-jin finds him sleepwalking through the apartment, often in ways that risk considerable harm to himself or others.

Suddenly, she realizes their annoying down-stairs neighbor’s noise complaints might be valid and relevant. She also stops dismissing her mother’s talk of sigils and shamans. In fact, Soo-jin starts researching supernatural causes in earnest. Not surprisingly, the combined pressure of recent motherhood and her deep dive into the occult takes its toll. Nevertheless, she remains committed to Hyun-soo.

In fact, Sleep is a rarity among horror films, which genuinely respects the for-better-or-for-worse vows. Indeed, the film is largely all about how two main characters act accordingly, under extreme conditions. As Soo-jin and Hyun-soo, Jung Yu-min and Lee Sun-kyun truly act like a couple who share considerable history together, as well as the in-jokes and shorthand references that come with it. The poignancy of their chemistry further elevates with the realization Sleep represents one of the final films of the late Lee, whom many friends and colleagues believe was recklessly hounded to his death by the police and the tabloid press.

Planet of the Apes: The Trap

For the third episode of Planet of the Apes, the design team had to create a rubble-strewn post-apocalyptic San Francisco city block. Today, they could just film on-location in the Bay City—if they dared. Of course, Virdon hopes to find something, anything computer related, while Urko hopes to find (and kill) the astronauts in “The Trap,” which first aired fifty years ago today.

While taking shelter in a village notorious for offering fugitives sanctuary, Virdon notices some of the children playing with circuitry or whatever. Of course, he hopes to follow the wiring to a super-computer, but Burke wants to hit the road. That leaves Galen to break the tie. Being a naturally curious and adventurous chimpanzee, he sagely observes: “an unanswered question is a very difficult thing to live with.”

That is a good line and in general, this is a well written episode (by Edward J. Lakso).  Initially, Urko has the jump on the three inter-species fugitives, but an after shock causes a cave-in, trapping Burke and Urko inside a subway station. The apes and humans above and below must work together to rescue them before their air expires, but the gorillas frequently violate the truces they agree to.

The previous two episodes were hard on humans. However, “The Trap” shows apes behaving in ways they like to ascribe to humans. We start to get the idea human nature, in all its ugly manifestations, has nothing to do with the relative hair on your body. Rather, it is all about how those on the top of the food chain conduct themselves.

Frankly, the abandoned San Francisco does not look very much like San Francisco. The fight choreography, especially the astronauts’ dubious flying kicks, have not aged well either. However, this episode explores the fundamental themes of the franchise as well as any of the films.

Lee: The WWII Photojournalist History Forgot

Lee Miller practiced journalism at a time when reporters drank like fish, told the truth, and didn’t care about anyone’s feelings, especially their own. Frankly, for Miller, those things were all basically intertwined. She lived hard, but documented even harder truths, most notably the crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust. Yet, she died in relative obscurity. Fittingly, Miller’s career is chronicled, warts and all, in Ellen Kuras’s Lee, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

In the early thirties, Miller was a former model-turned fashion photographer, greatly enjoying the Bohemian lifestyle Europe offered. However, most of her smart-set friends were still deeply concerned regarding the rise of Hitler. That was especially true of Roland Penrose, a gallerist and poet, who much more serious about life than her other friends, especially when it came to her.

Settling down in London with Penrose, Miller pitched her current events and slice-of-life photojournalism to British Vogue, where she was championed by Audrey Withers, partly because she recognized Miller’s talent and partly because she annoyed the insufferable Cecil Beaton.

Soon, Miller publishes legit coverage of the war’s homefront impact to high acclaim. Yet, getting to the war itself proves tricky, because of 1940s attitudes. Nevertheless, when she finally reaches France she finds her greatest ally in a male rival, David Scherman of Life magazine, with whom she developed a healthy collaborative relationship and a somewhat odd but scrupulously platonic friendship.

Together they covered the liberation of Paris and documented evidence of the mass murders committed at Buchenwald and Dachau. Obviously, these scenes are horrific, but Miller had other reasons for her depression and emotional detachment, as will be revealed in the wrap-around interview segments (which are conspicuously stilted).

Regardless, reviewing Miller’s career should be a “teachable moment” for contemporary “journalists.” One can only wonder how the acerbic Miller would react to American Vogue’s infamous puff-piece profile of Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad, which described the First couple as “wildly democratic.”  Miller was a thorny figure, but her WWII journalism is impeccable.

Wolfs, on Apple TV+

Think of them like Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction. Of course, these two fixer-cleaners are not as cool as he was, even though they both think they are. Naturally, that means they prefer to work alone, but, like it or not, they must team-up in director-screenwriter Jon Watts’ Wolfs, which starts streaming tomorrow on Apple TV+.

Margaret is a very un-New York-like tough-on-crime DA, who picked a kid in the hotel bar she frequents—so, maybe she is not completely unlike some New York politicians. Rather awkwardly, the “Kid” got high and back-flipped into a plate glass table killing himself. In a panic, she dials the number of a fixer she was given for extreme emergencies. Soon, “Margaret’s Guy” arrives to take charge of the situation.

He inspires confidence, until “Pam’s Guy” crashes the party. The unseen Pam is the owner of the swanky hotel, who is keen to avoid scandal. Apparently, she saw it all on the secret cameras illegally installed in Margaret’s room. Obviously, Margaret worries that Pam’s Guy does not necessarily have her best interests at heart. Pam might even want leverage over the prosecutor, so the women cut a deal, agreeing their guys must work together to make the problem go away.

Predictably, they have their differences, but the job seems relatively straight, until Pam’s Guy discovers several blocks of extremely pure narcotics in the Kid’s bag—enough for a drug ring to come looking for if they simply destroyed it. Then things really get complicated when the Kid miraculously revives.

Wolfs is an amusingly cynical throwback to the dark gangster capers that Harvey Keitel specialized in during the 1990s, both in terms of theme and title. It is dialogue-driven, but there is still plenty of violence. After making bank with Spiderman, Watts returns to the scale of Cop Car, doubling down on the noir ambiance. Frankly, this is what the unsuccessful Brad Pitt fixer-heist movie Killing Them Softly should have been like.

Obviously, Watts also had the advantage of Pitt and George Clooney honing their bantering rhythm over the course of what feel like several hundred Ocean’s movies. They both have fatalistic sarcasm down cold—and it still works. Watts’ dialogue is sharp to begin with and they punch it up with their snarky deliveries.

Apartment 7A, on Paramount+

In Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Terry Gionoffrio was an in-joke. The troubled woman was one of Minnie and Roman’s Castevets’ pet projects, whom the title character initially confuses for Victoria Vetri, the actress who played her (under the name Angela Dorian, which Vetri also used for her Playboy modeling). Now Gionoffrio gets her own film, a prequel that sometimes overlaps with Polanski’s classic. Of course, her arrangement with the Castevets will be just as Faustian in Natalie Erika James’ Apartment 7A, which premieres Friday on Paramount+.

Gionoffrio came to New York with a dream and a talent for dance, but neither gets her very far, even before she takes a bad landing on her ankle. Desperate for a part, she came to the Bramford (a.k.a. the Dakota), hoping to plead her case with Alan Marchand, a Broadway producer living there. Instead, she faints into the arms of the Castevets, who immediately recognize the potential usefulness of her youth and desperation.

Out of the goodness of their hearts, they offer to put her up in their spare apartment, rent-free. They clearly have boundary issues, but Gionoffrio simply cannot refuse. It turns out to be a heck of a deal when Marchand casts her for the chorus line of his latest production. Her luck is changing, but she still gets bad vibes from the Bramford, especially when Gionoffrio starts to suspect someone secretly enters her apartment when she is not there.

It might seem sacrilegious to make a prequel to a classic like Polanski’s film, but there was already a made-for-TV sequel in 1976 and a miniseries in 2014 that adapted both Rosemary’s Baby and Ira Levin’s sequel, Son of Rosemary, so ample precedent has already been set. As it turns out, James and co-screenwriters Christian White and Skylar James do an excellent job on the micro level, rather seamlessly weaving the narrative of this film around the unforgettable events of the 1968 classic.

However, they are not as successful on the macro level, failing to land the moments of feverish weirdness and terrifying demonic dread that made Polanski’s film so powerful. Frankly, the tension only really elevates during an apartment invasion sequence that is entirely human in nature.

Chicago P.D.: Ten Ninety-Nine

Chicago is a great city for a workaholic cop like Sgt. Hank Voight. He always can count on a steady stream of heinous crimes that merit the attention of his intelligence unit. Since surviving a serial killer’s abduction at the end of season eleven, he feels compelled to make the most of his “bonus time” by fighting crime to the fullest possible extent of his human capabilities. Of course, that means the rest of the team must keep up with him in “Ten Ninety-Nine,” the twelfth season premiere of Chicago P.D. (of the One Chicago programming block), airing tonight on NBC.

The first four and of half minutes of tonight’s episode features no real dialogue and only a bit of muffled incidental chatter. We do not need any talking to understand how driven Voight is, as we watch him circling in and out of his office, only pausing long enough to change his shirt. He is like a man possessed.

Since this is Chicago, there is no shortage of crimes, but many of the ones crossing his desk involve a deadly new “bad batch.” He also might have an informant, nicknamed “Rabbit,” who witnessed a gruesome multiple homicide at a trap house, which might be related. Having survived death, Voight might have the right insight to reach him.

Presumably fans were sad to lose a regular cast-member at the end of last season, but “Ten Ninety-Nine” delivers a heaping helping of what makes this show work, steely Jason Beghe as hard-charging Hank Voight. This is episode is a great showcase for his charismatic hardnosed persona.

When Houston Had the Blues

When it comes to the blues, people always think of Memphis, Chicago, and the Delta and Piedmont regions, but rarely Houston. Yet, Houston was home to the blues kings, both of them: Albert King and Freddie King. But wait, there’s more, including Lightin’ Hopkins and Bobby “Blue” Bland. At this point, you should be wondering why was this documentary even needed? Of course, it is always nice to celebrate the blues, wherever they might hail from. In this case, Houston finally gets its due in Alan Swyer’s When Houston Got the Blues, which releases today on VOD.

It is hard to think of a bigger name in blues than that of Hopkins, except maybe Bland. Indeed, several musicians and commentators nominate Bland’s Two Steps from the Blues as the definitive Houston blues album. In the 1950s and 1960s, the city was a major regional musical hub, largely concentrated in the 3^rd and 5^th wards.

In addition to the majority black neighborhoods, Houston also received an influx of French-speakers from Louisiana. That is how the city became a launching pad for Zydeco, as personified by Clifton Chenier (who honed his art while working in the Port Arthur oil fields) and his son C.J. (who poignantly remembers his father, while speaking for Swyer’s camera). As Texas-born Marcia Ball explains, their Zydeco was essentially Chicago blues adapted to Cajun/Creole instrumentation.

Plus, Houston was home to the Texas Tenor tradition exemplified by Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Don Wilkerson (a longtime member of the Ray Charles Band, who also recorded a one-off Blue Note album), and David “Fathead” Newman. Arguably, the Texas Tenors are a bit more jazz than blues, but they have enormous “crossover” appeal.