This year, I have actually received “for your consideration” emails from publicists. They are emails asking you to add a particular film to your year end lists, or if you are fancy enough, to vote for the films in various awards. All these emails were promoting Hundreds of Beavers (USA, 2023), which I found hilarious and totally support their campaign. I would love to vote for the Hundreds of Beavers slate in the Academy Awards or Golden Globes, but I can’t. And I would add it to my end of year list here, except I already included Hundreds of Beavers in, “Things I Liked in 2023.” And wrote a bit about Hundreds of Beavers here. And I interviewed action choreographer and beaver stunt man Jon Truei here.

But I still have plenty of fun and spooky new things I liked in 2024. Get ready for puppets, Wonder Woman, sweet male partners, difficult women investigating crimes, women seeking justice and fighting monsters, Wales, folk horror, True Love, stalking, an out of his depth French aristocrat, jerk vampires, spies, thieves,18th Century fashions and a lot of films with a lot of great looks.

Absolute Wonder Woman (DC, 2024—ongoing) Kelly Thompson, writing; Hayden Sherman, art; Jordie Bellaire, colors; Becca Carey, letters

So I planned to write about Absolute Wonder Woman once the series was complete. I’ve only read two issues so far, but the art is fantastic and I am enjoying Kelly Thompson’s take on Diana. It’s an origin story and that might put me off with any other writer, but not Thompson and not Absolute Wonder Woman. Princess Diana has been raised by one of her traditional enemies, the sorceress Circe, on an island called Hell after the gods destroyed the Amazons’ Themyscira. Thompson puts Diana in this new setting while maintaining the qualities that make her Wonder Woman: Diana’s strength, courage and compassion. Diana is a born hero–something that other writers have struggled with when trying to fit her into cliché origins. But Thompson makes this story work and gets down to superheroing business fast. Despite being sent to Hell, and despite the gods attempting to eliminate even the word, “Amazon,” Diana knows who she is and returns to our world to fight for it. And this time she has sweet tattoos, a big ass sword,* a knowledge of witchcraft, and a companion, a skeletal Pegasus.

The Adventure Zone versus Dracula (Maximum Fun Network, 2024) The McElroy Family

The first arc of The Adventure Zone is one of my favorite podcasts ever. The McElroy Brothers, Justin, Travis and Griffin, play Dungeons and Dragons with their father Clint, using a roleplaying game as a series of improv prompts. It’s for jokes and goofs, but also creating characters and a story that were not only funny, but engaging. Since then, the McElroys have told other stories and used different role playing games. I have liked some—the first Dadlands story—and had little interest in others—no more magickal academies for me, thanks. But The Adventure Zone vs Dracula feels a lot like the early days. It’s all “Yes, and.” There’s ingenuity in both storytelling and problem solving. There are crazy ideas and excellent jokes. And the McElroys sound like they’re having fun, too. In an adventure led by Dungeon Master Griffin, player characters Lady Godwin, Crawford “Mutt” Muttner, and Brother Phileaux seek revenge against Dracula—and to a lesser extent the Wolf Man and the Invisible Man, a known dick. Beyond these Universal Horror Monsters, the adventure includes more characters who recently entered the public domain. They are so well integrated that you can enjoy the story and the jokes without the conceit interfering with the fun.

All three characters are pretty sweet, but I especially enjoyed Justin’s Lady Godwin.** In a world where so many players embrace character classes as stereotypical personalities, Justin makes his refined society lady into a frankenstein barbarian based on Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey. Clint’s Brother Phileaux becomes something altogether unexpected and disturbo-hilarious after another Frankenstein-related choice. Travis does a fine job with a ranger as an Appalachian backwoods monster hunter. If the many, many episodes seem like too much of a commitment, try out, The Adventure Zone vs The Great Gatsby, which features Lady Godwin, Brother Phileaux and Mutt in an adventure of manageable length. 

All The Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, Vol. 2 (Severin, 2024)

I usually try to focus on one film, but it has been a good year for box sets, at least for me. Sure, I couldn’t afford all the ones I wanted—I’m looking at you Shawscope, Vol. 3—but there are excellent sets out this year. I love the first volume, but All The Haunts Be Ours, Vol. 2 is my shit. It has a non-anglophone, international focus. It includes some of my favorite films, even ones I pester people about, including: Marcin Wrona’s Demon (Poland, 2015); Nonzee Nimbutr’s Nang Nak (Thailand, 1999); Yoshihiro Ishikawa’s Bakaneko: A Vengeful Spirit (Japan, 1968), because who doesn’t like a cat demon lady; Sisworo Gautama Putra’s Sundelbolong / Ghost With Hole (Indonesia, 1981) starring Indonesian horror icon Suzzanna, which I wrote about here; John Llewellyn Moxey’s The City of the Dead / Horror Hotel (1960), featuring Christopher Lee as a jerk; and Erik Blomberg’s White Reindeer (Finland, 2952). And about 20 more new-to-me films I am so excited to see. Even if the set is more than you can lay out right now, it’s worth taking a look at the contents to hunt down some new films. You could also try asking your local public library to acquire it. Everybody gets to see the movies and there’s a better chance of them being not only seen but preserved.

Batman: Caped Crusader (DC/ Warner / Amazon, 2024)

Bruce Timm is back, baby! There’s a new Batman animated series in town. Like Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Caped Crusader is set in the mid-Twentieth Century. It’s inclusive. It’s focused on Batman as noir detective. It’s got a great vibe. And it’s kind of a remix, with new takes on the characters. Batman, Commissioner Gordon and lawyer Barbara Gordon are trying to clean up Gotham. District Attorney Harvey Dent is, too, but he’s ambitious. I enjoyed the character design and the genderbending. It’s neat to see Harley Quinn as a much more serious psychiatrist and villain—especially contrasted to Bruce Wayne as a very pleasantly resistant patient undergoing court-mandated therapy.

Fargo, Season 5 (FX, 2023-4)

Fargo is a series I go back and forth with. Some seasons work for me. Some really don’t. Season 5 really worked for me. Juno Temple plays Dot, a woman on the run from her ex-husband, Constitutional sheriff Roy Tillman, played by Jon Hamm as a man who hates when he feels like he might not be on top anymore. Juno Temple brings fierceness to the role and has one of the better stereotypical Minnesota accents on film and television. Dot wants to protect her daughter, possibly enby child Scotty (Sienna King), her very sweet husband Wayne (David Rysdahl) and her life from Roy. (And don’t think I didn’t notice that Roy’s name means, “King”). Wayne’s very sweetness subverts so many of the characterizations of spoilsport partners in so many prestige cable shows about antiheroe with wives who just don’t understand. Richa Moorjani’s Officer Indira Olmstead wants to help Dot, but Dot plans to handle things herself. And Jennifer Jason Leigh is magnificent as Dot’s mother-in-law, Lorraine Lyon, a ferocious and leonine woman who is not a good person, but absolutely has Tillman’s number as she demonstrates here in one of my favorite moments for the season. Season 5 is ambitious including both a puppet episode and some Welsh folk horror elements that I wasn’t sure would work, but absolutely did.

Robot Dreams (Spain / France, 2023) directed and adapted by Pablo Berger

I watched Robot Dreams with several different friends in the last year and it’s had Earth Wind & Fire’s “September” stuck in my head for months. The song is in my head right now, as a matter of fact. Adapted from Sara Varon’s lovely graphic novel about a lonely dog who builds a robot companion in a 1980s New York City inhabited by animals. Robot Dreams is wonderful as an animated, dialogue-free film. We read the characters’ expressions and nice little cues like Dog’s wagging tail to feel their joy, uncertainty, sadness and exuberance. In the comic, Robot and Dog could be best friends or they could be partners. In the film, I think their relationship is more romantic than not, but it’s not explicit. And I’m not sure it’s all that important that it be specifically defined. One way or another, Robot and Dog love each other. I appreciate that  Robot Dreams reflects our changeable lives and asserts that contrary to so many stories, all our loves in the course of our lives–no matter how transient and ephemeral–are real, important and make us who we are. It’s unusual for any movie to depict true loves that don’t last. It’s even more unusual for an all ages animated film to assert that all our loves matter.

Super Spies & Secret Lies: 3 Undercover Classics from Shaw Brothers (Eureka!, 2024)

Yes, it’s another box set, but a much more affordable one. And it includes films I’ve wanted to see thanks to CG Editor Emeritus Keith Allison and longtime friend of the Gutter Todd Stadtman: The Golden Buddha (1966); Angel With The Iron Fists (1967); and, The Singing Thief (1969). Films that are shot during the heights of Shaw Brothers studios, but are not wuxia or kung fu films. All three are extremely 1960s films and extremely 007 influenced in the best ways. There are excellent villain lairs, gadgets, nefarious schemes, fun fashions, lots of gold and silver lamé. There are sinister criminal organizations like the Skeleton Gang and the Dark Angels. There are cat burglars, government agents, infiltrations and, as with so many Hong Kong films, sweet female heroes and villains. If you are expecting kung fu, keep in mind that the fighting is strictly Bondian. The whole set is entertaining as slinking around Hong Kong stealing jewels, fighting skeleton gang goons in swank hotels, and drinking martinis at a swinging club while stings from John Barry’s James Bond scores play.

Timestalker (Wales, 2024) Alice Lowe, writer/director/star. (No, not these Timestalkers (1987))

I have been waiting for Alice Lowe’s Timestalker since I saw it announced. I have creeped on her social media. I have noted announcements for new screenings in Norwich enviously. You see, there was a time I thought I liked Sightseers (UK, 2012) because it was a Ben Wheatley movie, but it turns out I liked it because it was an Alice Lowe movie. Timestalker is a lo fi sci fi time travel comedy.*** We follow Agnes (Alice Lowe) from 1688, when she falls in love with a preacher named Alexander MacBeath (Aneurin Barnard) who is about to be tortured and executed for heresy, to 1793 when she finds him again, then in 1980 London and finally 100 years in our future. Throughout there are flashes to other eras where she pursued Alex and died in her pursuit of love while her best friend Meg (Tanya Reynolds) watches and George (Nick Frost) stalks her in turn. The fashions and settings are a high point of Timestalker, especially the enormous pink, heart-shaped wig she wears in 1793 and her 1980 perm. I loved the 1980s New Romantic songs. Lowe’s performance of a woman who takes forever—or at least 1,000 years–to realize the truth about herself and her true love is perfect. And after watching this and the serial killer / family vacation comedy, Get Away (UK, 2024), I’m really intrigued by Nick Frost’s recent performances as terrible men.

True Detective: Night Country (HBO Max, 2024) Issa López, showrunner and director

As with Timestalker, as soon as I saw Issa López was writing True Detective: Night Country, I couldn’t wait to see it. I had seen her film, Tigers Are Not Afraid / Vuelven (Mexico, 2017), and had been harrowed by it in the best way. In Night Country, Issa López sets a story on the liminal borderlands of crime, possible cosmic horror, Iñupiaq folk horror and justice. I love all these intersections. I love the country of night and the country of winter. And López weaves the story and the story elements all together so well and so thoughtfully. I love Jodie Foster playing an unlikeable, impossible police chief. She gets to play the same kind of difficult noir and horror characters so many men have gotten to play. Both her Chief Liz Danvers and Kali Reis as State Trooper Evangeline Navarro are still nuanced characters, inflected by the challenges they face because they are women and for Navarro by complicated relationships in her communities as the investigate the death of scientists who apparently walked out naked onto the ice to die. As with Fargo, I appreciated the depiction of Navarro’s kinda sorta boyfriend, Eddie Qavvik (Joel Montgrand), who is kind, supportive and deserves better. This season brought back much of what I enjoyed about the first season, but with a fresh vision (and a new sweet opening for me to love). Lifting up diverse voices and new visions benefits not just underrepresented people and communities, but it benefits us all with cool new and interesting stories.

The Vourdalak / Le Vourdalak (France, 2023) directed by Adrien Beau; written by Beau and Hadrien Bouvier

There is more 18^th Century fashion in The Vourdalak, an adaptation of Aleksey Tolstoy’s novella, The Family Of The Vourdalak (1841). Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfe (Kacey Mottet Klein), a French courtier with wig, powdered face, beauty mark and all, has been attacked by bandits, lost his horse and seeks aid in an unnamed part of rural Eastern Europe. He is sent to the house of Gorcha, but the man is away avenging himself and his village in a war on the Turks. Gorcha has told his family that if he does not arrive within 6 days he is dead, but if he arrives after exactly 6 days, he has become a vourdalak and no one should let him in, no matter what he says or does. A few minutes after the end of the sixth day, his eldest son finds Gorcha lying on the ground near the house and does bring him inside. Maybe it’s because I am always thinking about Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979), but The Vourdalak reminded me of it, though The Vourdalak is a film with more humor in it. The Super 16 mm film looks like 1970s European horror. And Gorcha is a vampire much more in the vein of Max Schreck’s Count Orlok and Klaus Kinski’s Count Dracula. Or perhaps just Kinski-ish in general. Except that Gorcha is a puppet—perhaps even more uncannily, a marionette. And he is voiced by director and co-writer Adriean Beau. The Vourdalak is often lovely, humorous and even at times gross and disturbing. And while you might be put off by a puppet vampire, the true horror of the film is perhaps the vourdalak’s horrible, misophonic slurping and chewing noises.

*I miss you, Red She-Hulk’s Big Ass Sword.

**I suspect Mary Godwin, aka, Mary Shelley.

***Thinking about River (2023) and Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes (2020). 

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Carol Borden is astounded at how many things she liked this year.