Whew! What a year! Thrills Ville stayed busy.

Starting in January, we had Joe’s 45th Birthday party with a rocking live performance in store by Rebecca’s band Low Water Mark for Ghosts.

April we hit up the Wildey’s 2025 Short Film Fest with our friend Byron and took home the top prize in the community film category with his film Cereal Offenders starring Joe and co-directed by Adam!

Mid-year we went heads down and rolled out our Ebay store, Patreon, revamped newsletter section of the website, got the Cult Movie Club going in collaboration with the Edwardsville Public Library, started doing some new video formats for our YouTube channel, attended a few local toy fairs, and even more I am probably forgetting.

Then we restarted the newsletter (for good this time), had Jason and Michael roaming the streets for Halloween, and held our 2nd annual Black Metal Friday. Unfortunately the snow preempted Small Business Saturday but we rescheduled a day later.

This month we collaborated with the Edwardsville Public Library again as they re-launched their Anime Club into the Adult Animation Club.

We have also been discussing some big plans for something we can’t really talk about yet but, needless to say, we will drop details here when we have them. If we can pull it off, it will be epic.

For 2026, we are planning even more, stay tuned for details on Joe’s 46th birthday party bash!

Thanks for following us and being part of our journey, we couldn’t do this without the support of the community and we hope to keep pushing higher from here. Happy holidays and happy 2026 everyone! Our journey continues…

Running out of time? No where to turn? Don’t despair! We have that perfect last minute gift you are looking for, socks, shirts, toys, posters, artwork, stickers… You don’t have to settle for a candle. Well, unlees you want to pick up one of our amazing pillar candles like a Jeff Goldblum, Elvira, or the king of Christmas: Clark Griswald!

It is getting down the the wire and, last we checked, more and more items are throwing up the dreaded “Arrives after Christmas” warning on all your fave online stores. Come in and get the relief of a gift in your hand, no waiting on shipping!

We are open extra days on Monday 12/22 & Tuesday 12/23 from 10-7 then 10-2 on Christmas Eve 12/24. But if you wait to come in on 12/25, you are too late, we are closed, and that’s on you.

1974 - R (or Worse) - 7/10 - A Blueprint With Some Rough Edges.

Like The Burning, The Amityville Horror, or The Blair Witch Project this movie is a clear blueprint for a lot of holiday horror that came after. Trigger warning that one of the characters is getting unwanted perverted phone calls and the caller really goes there with the dialog. It is meant to make you uncomfortable and even being 50 years old, it still does its job. Everthing else in this movie is now seen as a by-the-books slasher but you can tell this is early in the genre and unique for blending in the Christmas vibes.

1996 - PG - 2/10 or 8/10 - A Good And Bad Holiday Classic.

This movie is a testament to the draw of Arnold throughout his career. By most measures, this movie is a mess, has moments that haven’t aged well, characters that are annoying, actors that can’t act, and all the rest of the problems. But then you get Arnold and Sinbad running through the city encountering absurd situations in persuit of a young Anakin Skywalker’s most desired toy: TurboMan. Strangely, it works. Just enough on the line to push Arnold and Sinbad to overact their hearts out. Bad but fun!

1988 - PG-13 - 8/10 - Bill Murray as Ebeneezer Scrooge, Say Less.

Drop Scrooge in the excessive 80s New York and you get Scrooged. Filled with biting satire and cynical snark that still hits. Bill Murray puts in a classic performance good enough you can’t really imagine it being anyone else in the role. The effects are effective enough here and the pace and directing never get in the way. What you get is what you want from Groundhog Day-era Bill Murray at the top of his game smashed up with a modernized (now 40 years ago but not jolly ole England) version of a classic.

2015 - PG-13 - 9/10 - The Other Big Red Guy Isn’t Nearly as Jolly.

The one criticism of this movie that I can get down with is that it doesn’t go further with the violence. Honestly, though, not sure why they didn’t just go there because the rest of the aesthetic, intensity, and feeling here deliver on the twisted story of Krampus. This movie is a great mix of horror, holiday, satire, camp, special effects, and amazing art direction. A lot of memorable visuals here and a lot of echoes of other holiday classics, this feels part twisted version of Christmas Vacation and part Joe Dante cranked to 11.

2023 - NR (Probably R) - 10/10 - Blueprint for badlands.
While watching Predator: Badlands it is hard not to see a comparison to Scavenger’s Reign. Without getting into spoilers, the tee-up for SR is that it is a breathtakingly detailed animated series about a spaceship’s crew who crash land on an unknown planet, are scattered, and need to find each other and their downed ship. As they make that trek, we are treated to a visual and artistic feast of the detailed creatures, plants, and interactions of the ecosystem of this strange world. Beautiful, fascinating, and epic.

2025 - PG-13 - 8/10 - What we were hoping this would be.
Why are so many movies afraid to fully transport us and dump us in unfamiliar and disorienting settings? Sure, you get your weird locations and aliens in superhero movies but it is always carefully grounded. From the jump, Badlands kicks you directly into the deep end. We are on a hostile planet, our protagonist is a species we have only known as an unstoppable killing machine, the only thing we see that is human is broken tech. Even without that grounding, relatable themes give this movie heart amidst the action. 

2025 - PG-13 - 8/10 - Where are more movies like this?

What is my review? It is my thoughts and feelings on how good this movie was but that’s not important now. (Hey, I tried.) I was definitely skeptical going into this, I think you have to be worried about anyone being able to step into Leslie Nielson’s shoes. Fortunately, I was surprised by how much I liked this movie. Throwing back to slapstick classics like Airplane, Hot Shots, and Austin Powers, this movie’s best jokes come from misdirection into absurdity or just flat out dumb humor. Now is the time for more of this.

For the second year in a row, we made the most of being a block off the parade route and scared up some serious Halloween week fun.

Starting the Saturday before with Trick or Treating on Main for the kiddos, we loved seeing all the families and costumes out. Minecraft’s Steve (looking a bit shorter than we expected) stopped by and didn’t hesitate to bust out the moves when we blasted Lava Chicken! 

Thanks to all who grabbed a photo Halloween parade night with Michael, Jason, Joe, Rebecca, and the crew! For more thrills and chills, see our full recap video on our YouTube channel!

2025 - R - 2/10 - Some buttons Aren’t pushed for a reason.

Easily the worst VHS, just when I thought they were hitting a stride. The wrap around is fine, the first segment starts off promising but then drags on and that becomes a theme here. There are a few moments that are good in the 2 hour runtime but it is all overshadowed by one segment that is not only long but also deals with some taboo subjects that are taboo for a reason. Taking all the wrong lessons from Terrifier and combining them with things that are better left implied than explored, hard pass.

2025 - PG-13 - 7/10 - A Nine Inch Nails fueled neon thrill ride.

This movie feels more like a theme park ride than a movie. Thanks mostly to the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack that grabs you and provides a driving force through even the slower parts of the movie, it feels like the movie never lets up. On top of that, the visuals and inventiveness of the art department flood every frame. Yes, there are flaws. No, I don’t know why Jared Leto is in this. Thankfully, none of that becomes enough of a distraction to take away from the brilliant way the synths and neon are woven together.

2025 - R - 9/10 - Suspense! Horror! Humor! Heart! Filmmaking!

In the running for my favorite movie of the year. I love how lean this movie is. It establishes a premise early on, reveals the plot from multiple angles, and sticks to that premise. Without getting into spoilers, the major plot point here is something that would be obvious but “hidden” in a lesser film. Here, it is out in the open and the central driving force of the plot. This no-frills approach keeps things from getting too messy, unfocused, or bogged down as things unfold. Oh, and that end is satisfying.

2023 - R - 8/10 - Punk rock filmmaking like it should be!

Wow. Yeah, this was a surprise. Went into it hoping that there would be some over-the-top Toxie fun but was prepared for this to have some rough edges. Instead, what we got was a movie that actually managed to have some heart and make Toxie a lovable character underneath the punk rock surface. This movie is also packed to the brim with a unique style and humor like classic Troma polished up. You can feel that they had a blast making this movie and it is a blast to watch. We need more big swings like this!

Did you miss us? After a long hiatus, we are back. But where were we and what were we up to? Well, I am happy to report that we were working, some behind the scenes and some visible to get some new things going in the world of Thrills Ville.

The most obvious is probably that we have been leaning in to doing more video content, including doing some instant reactions after movies in the parking lot of our local AMC. Keep an eye on our channel as we continue to dial in all the things.

We also now have a RedBubble store that we have started up and an Ebay store where we are putting some select items you won’t find in the shop.

The easiest way to find them is from the website at https://www.thrillsville618.com/the-store

We also just had the first meeting of Thrills Ville Presents: The Edwardsville Public Library’s Cult Movie Club. Stay tuned here and on our instagram for the next one and come hang out.

So, we have been busy and now we are ramping The Thrilling Times back up to help you stay plugged in to all of those channels. Look for updates next month as we roll out some new spotlights and ways to engage here in the newsletter and on the website.

Thrills Ville Presents: Cult Movie Club

This month, we had the first meeting of the Cult Movie Club, presented by Thrills Ville, and hosted by the Edwardsville Public Library. We weren’t sure how many people to expect, given the relatively contained amount of advertising we did for it but we were pleasantly surprised to have a decent group for our first viewing.

This month we watched The Gate from 1987. We started off chatting a bit beforehand about trivia we knew about the movie and how long it had been since people had seen it. Next thing we knew, we were mid-movie giving it a group MST3K treatment and cracking each other up.

Overall, it was a great first outing and is something we hope gains some momentum and grows. Come join us, help grow our community and see some weird and wonderful cult classics.

The next movie up is the Emilio Estevez classic Repo Man. Join us November 21st at 6pm at the Edwardsville Public Library. We hope you’ll be part of it for a great discussion and some laughs!

A New Way to Support Thrills Ville

As we mentioned above, we now have a RedBubble shop and an Ebay store up and running. We are starting to scale up efforts in those areas but we could use your help.

That is why we are announcing the initial rollout of the Thrills Ville Patreon.

Whether you want to support the podcast, parking lot reviews, brick and mortar store, online efforts, weird short skits, or you just like the fact that we are here building a community and spicing up Edwardsville, you can now support us via Patreon.

We are starting small with a couple of tiers, starting at $5/month. Check the specifics on https://www.patreon.com/ThrillsVille618

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

If you sign up for either of our starting tiers, one of the perks is a 6.66% discount on every purchase you make at the brick and mortar store and we will be making discount codes available for our RedBubble store as well.

As always, we appreciate your support!

Halloween is obviously one of our favorite holidays here at Thrills Ville and, if you don’t know, we are a half block off the Edwardsville Halloween Parade route, perfect for killing time after staking out your spot and setting up your chairs! Stop in on 10/31 from 6 - 9 and get your photo taken with our special guests Michael M. and Jason V., exclusive discounts and some other surprises! Stop by and get spooky!

After the parade, we will be out and about in Downtown Edwardsville so say hi if you see us and you can score a coupon for a future Thrills Ville visit! Stay tuned to our socials for more updates and see you on Halloween!

This March, if you have been following along on our Instagram, we have been doing a March Movie Madness bracket. Our criteria here are not based on which are the “better” movies but which are better at selling the madness and / or giving you the feeling that you are losing it.

We had 32 movies we started from. In the first round, we lost 16 of them. In round 2, the competition heated up and we lost a couple of surprises. Let’s look a bit more at who we lost:

• The depraved “artist” of House that Jack Built lost to mother!.

• Melancholia, with its stunningly accurate portrayal of depression, lost out to Black Swan’s study of the line between genius and madness.

• Fight Club’s inner struggle lost to The Shining, a favorite to win it all.

• Evil Dead is the better movie but Smile 2 won for driving us mad.

• Requiem for a Dream dropped to the now Oscar-winning Substance

• Dark City couldn’t compete with the unrelenting Mad God.

• Lovecraftian vibes battled as The Endless dropped to The Lighthouse.

• Finally, Cage took down Cruise as Vanilla Sky dropped to Mandy.

This gets us to our Elite Eight. But let’s get this down to our Final Four we will discuss on the podcast. First up:

• mother! vs Black Swan. In this match up, mother! gives us a great rollercoaster of a nightmare but Black Swan ultimately wins out with with its dream-like blending of reality and madness.

• The Shining vs Smile 2. Smile 2 puts up a good fight with its unreliable narrator but ultimately, The Shining’s Jack’s madness affecting both himself and the audience is hard to top.

• The Substance vs Mad God. If you want to peer into the mind of a madman, watch the Mad God. However, The Substance wins out for dragging us along on someone’s path to detachment from reality.

• The Lighthouse vs Mandy. as a character study of two men pushing each other to the brink and beyond vs one man’s journey for revenge. Madness wins as The Lighthouse takes this battle.

We are down to Black Swan vs The Shining and The Substance vs The Lighthouse. To see who wins, check out this month’s podcast! 

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2021 - NR (but R) - 10/10 - A descent into some version of Hell.

A weird, repulsive, grimy, gritty, oozing, festering, decaying mess of a movie. Filmed over decades with Tippet and an unending descent into madness being the only constants. All done with stop motion and real photography, there is a visceral quality you can’t shake. If I had to make a comparison, I would say this is like the movie version of the Saturn Devouring His Son painting. Possessed, hard to look at, harder to look away. Amazing challenging art. 10/10 BUT if you are not sure this is for you, it isn’t.

2024 - R - 7/10 - Another Caveat-like puzzle box.

Heretic is a claustrophobic little movie with a couple of Mormon missionaries being asked to question their faith. To get them to do this, they are locked in a house with a would-be convert played by Hugh Grant whose challenges puts them through a harrowing experience. The excellent use of the square footage of the house is reminiscent of Caveat as we find out what is behind every door. I am a sucker for great production design and this one-location puzzle-box house subgenre is winning me over.