Horror Old and New, a Snake-Handler Doc and More, Now Available to Stream

We’re back with another week of quality options for viewing in the safest possible conditions. There is a certain degree of community in the perpetual, poking uncertainty we’re all experiencing. So here are several options from many genres, and I hope they (or some of the previous 24 weeks’ worth of columns) provide you with some joy and/or transcendence. Also, just in case you’re wondering, I’m not going to be discussing that film, the very famous one that’s causing the uproar right now, because four of my critic colleagues have gotten death threats just for having opinions about it in a public forum. See past installments in our series here: March 26, April 2, April 9, April 16, April 23, April 30, May 7, May 14, May 21, May 28, June 4, June 11, June 18, June 25, July 2, July 9, July 16, July 23, July 30, Aug. 6, Aug. 13, Aug. 20, Aug. 27, Sept. 3, Sept. 10, Sept. 17.

Sibyl via the Belcourt

Sibyl (Virginie Efira, from Paul Verhoeven’s Elle) is an alcoholic therapist who is going through it. She’s taking some time off from her practice to get her life in order and finish her book, but professional boundaries have always been an issue for her (especially when she starts mining her patients’ lives for her novel) — and then she gets called in to be the on-set counselor/mediator for a film experiencing production problems. Sibyl’s patient (Blue Is the Warmest Colour’s Adèle Exarchopoulos), the film’s director (Sandra Hüller, from Requiem and Toni Erdmann) and Sibyl’s own husband (The Ornithologist himself, Paul Hamy) are all part of this sexy juggling act of a dramedy, and everyone is acting at the top of their game. This is one of those traditional French films where everyone speaks directly about issues that would be concealed beneath decades of finely wrought repression in other nations, and it refuses to be predictable or easy to process. Director Justine Triet has a gift for tonal shifts and keeping the characters intersecting on interesting paths. We’ve got a review of this one from contributor Sadaf Ahsan in last week’s issue of the Scene, so give that a read.

Holy Ghost People on Amazon Prime

Made for (and rejected by) PBS in 1967, Holy Ghost People is one of the great documentaries of that era, exploring a snake-handling congregation and the people who express their faith as such. It is an essential document that features just about the greatest ending to any work of art focused on the human experience. It is rare that any work about the religious impulse goes quite this far, and it will shake you to your very foundation.

The Babysitter: Killer Queen on Netflix

If you remember video on demand in its most late-’80s incarnation, then you remember Viewer’s Choice. A satellite feed accessible in specific chunks of time via your cable box, it was like having an analog take on a video store every couple of hours, and it was how the most enduring genre offerings of that decade’s end made their debut. A sequel to 2017’s charmingly grotesque The Babysitter: Killer Queen is Viewer’s Choice aesthetics conjured up and given form — teens in trouble, a fun soundtrack, outrageous gore and a propulsive pace that keeps things lively so you don’t dig too deep into some very strange structural issues. Cole (Judah Lewis) barely survived that time when his babysitter (Samara Weaving!) and her satanic blood cult nearly killed him in the first movie, and the experience has made him a little weird. So rather than let his clueless parents send him off to psychiatric high school, he goes off with the only other survivor of that night and some other cool kids to a bunch of houseboat parties up at the lake. But here’s the thing about a satanic blood cult: They’re gonna get you. This is generally pleasant and kind of inconsequential, but it’ll scratch your dance-party-and-exploding-head itch, even if it’s not quite as fun as its predecessor and gets mired in some unexpected sentimentality.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot on HBO

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a shambly and amiable caper dramedy that launched Michael Cimino’s directorial career and served up Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges as a couple of outlaws moseying toward a possible big score. It’s also one of those ’70s films in which tone is everything, and the vibe is warm. Eastwood’s ex-con preacher and Bridges’ pretty car thief meet cute, eventually reconnecting with some old prison buddies to try and recover some stashed loot. There’s clever plot twists and great performances across the board (though the double-edged sword of ’70s cinema sexuality is both freeing and in one particular scene deeply problematic), but it’s all about the journey. Calling it a more narratively inclined Two-Lane Blacktop is a fair comparison, and the film’s pansexual tendencies feel liberating. The film is packed to the collar with the freedom of a top-down convertible and the open road itself.

Messiah of Evil on Amazon Prime

One of the enduring classics of hippie horror, Messiah of Evil is a very California apocalypse, foretold in the stars. Arletty (Marianna Hill) has come to this beachfront town to find her father, whose art has spiraled into fatalistic cosmic dread even as the dead themselves simply refuse to remain that way. Trippy, terrifying and unique in ’70s shock cinema, this effort from Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck (responsible for American Graffiti and Howard the Duck) is a dreamscape where dark waves are always lapping at your feet and prophecy and paranoia are inseparable. The grocery store, the gas station, the movie theater — whatever safety and security you may have derived from these spaces and the institutions they represented are gone, and this spry nightmare boasts set piece after stunning set piece. It’s essential viewing.

Seven films by Marlon Riggs on Ovid.tv

Having mentioned the late Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied in a previous installment of this column, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring some attention to Ovid.tv’s acquisition of seven of the director’s titles for domestic streaming. Those include the staggering Color Adjustment (a document of the history of Black representation on television), the aforementioned Tongues Untied and Black Is … Black Ain’t. Riggs was one of the greats in Black and queer cinema of the ’80s and ’90s, and having his work represented to this extent is a gift.