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!

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! 

This is our newsletter so I am going to allow us to nerd out for a minute. Late last year, Joe and I were lucky enough to catch Rhys Darby’s stand up at Helium in St. Louis. After the set, there was no time for a meet and greet but Rhys hung around for just a minute shaking hands. As Joe cut through the tables, he caught Rhys just before he retreated to the green room. Joe gave Rhys a Thrills Ville shirt said a few things and walked away with a huge smile.

Now, fast forward 3 months to the other day when, to our surprise, Joe caught a glimpse of something on a recent episode of Rhys’s podcast The Cryptid Factor. Rhys was sporting the Thrills Ville shirt! Our little logo made it all the way to New Zealand and probably caused more than one or two people watching Cryptid Factor to go “huh, wonder what that shirt is?” Joking aside, it was really cool to see the shirt make an appearance. But enough about that, let’s talk cryptids!

So, if you don’t know what a cryptid is, from Wikipedia:

Cryptids are animals or other beings that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated by science.

A cryptozoologist is, basically, someone who searches for or studies cryptids. The Cryptid Factor is a podcast they describe as “Three best buddies dedicated to all things weird that are yet to be defined by science.” Basically, it is three pleasant kiwis talking about whatever and being pleasant. You shoud really do yourself a favor and check it out. They started in 2013, so there is plenty of backlog to chew on if are looking for something new to listen to for several hours a week!

Back in our part of the globe, if you don’t know, the Piasa Bird is a famous local cryptid. Originally discovered as a Native American painting on the bluffs outside of Alton, Illinois, the Piasa Bird is a legendary dragon that patrolled the Mississippi. If you haven’t, head to the Great River Road and behold the restored painting on the bluffs. 

Speaking of cryptids, did you know that Thrills Ville has a wide selection of cryptid merch? And not just Bigfoot-related. Stop on by for all your “not yet confirmed by science” merch needs or maybe just a Thrills Ville shirt to match your new favorite podcaster!

This year saw Inside Out 2 and Wolverine & Deadpool duke it out for the top spot, followed by Wicked, Moana 2, and Despicable Me 4 to round out the top 5. Otherwise, there were several other films that, while they didn’t crack into the top spots, still made a decent amount versus their expectations. The most notable of these was Terrifier 3 which made waves by burying Joker 2 during its second weekend and wildly outperforming its expectations overall.

2024 continued to be the mixed bag for Hollywood that we have seen the last few years but we also saw signs that audiences still turn out for quality movies. Hopefully things like Terrifier 3, The Substance, Oddity, Nosferatu, Longlegs, etc will start to give more momentum to appropriately sized budgets and projects that stay true to artists’ vision instead of blowing up budgets on safe mediocre things we have seen 100 times.

Overall, 2024 was a decent year for movies in the theater and definitely had a better “average” experience than other recent years where we saw huge flops and stretches of nothing interesting enough to invest in seeing at the theater.

Streaming delivered another good year of hidden gems, foreign oddities, and low budget chances taken on quality projects. Over on Letterboxd, we were able to look at the best reviewed movies from 2024 that didn’t make a splash at the box office. In this list, we have some great films like Oddity, I Saw the TV Glow, Anora, The Wild Robot, and VHS: Beyond.

For best theater experiences this year, it has to be Dune 2 in the Dolby Cinema. It is hard to beat the feeling of the seats and your entire existence rumbling as Paul Atreides climbs his way up to set the reigns on that sandworm. As for streaming/home experiences, Oddity was a great surprise that we were talking about for weeks afterwards.

Overall, our favorite movie of 2024 was The Substance. Unhinged from start to finish, it was amazing to see an over-the-top gore-filled arthouse character study while it was new and in the theater. Sure, the movie isn’t for everyone but it is great to see what will be a cult classic when it is new instead of finding it decades later.

So, as we look forward to 2025, we have another year that looks to be stacking up about the same. There are a few big sequels, several smaller things to get excited about, and plenty of questionable things getting a green light. Keeping an eye on Jurassic World, Avatar, and several smaller horror movies. Follow along here as we see how it unfolds. Happy New Year!

The Thrill of the Binge

Once the costumes and decorations of Spooky Month are packed away, it’s time for another time-honored tradition: The movie marathon. Whether you’re waiting for Tom Turkey or Kris Kringle, there’s something about gathering for a marathon that is perfect for the holidays.

We here at Thrills Ville are equal-opportunity bingers. Whether it’s Star Wars, Harry Potter, a Marvel marathon, Jurassics Park… Jurassics Parks? Jurassic Parks?, whatever, maybe it is just a pile of movies you love, we’re here for it. For us, Lord of the Rings has become an annual tradition. Every year, we gather to make it a full-day event. We’ve learned that it’s not just about watching the movies—it’s about embracing the ritual, the game breaks, the food, the company, and the excitement as those final moments close in.

Over the years, we’ve perfected our marathon game. It’s not just about zoning out in front of a screen. We turn it into an event. A marathon can be a feast, a celebration, party. Even a simple movie night can feel special if you invest the time in making it memorable - grabbing themed snacks, playing games between movies, or giving it the MST3K treatment.

So, this holiday season, don’t just press play. Take the time to plan your own marathon, create an experience out of it, and invite your friends to join in. You’ll find that what could have been another casual viewing becomes something you’ll look forward to each year. We have included a schedule for those brave enough to do the full 15 hour trek to Mount Doom in a day.

Happy marathoning, everyone!

The Plan of the Things

Use this schedule and menu for a 15 hour quest! This is timed to breaks in the Extended versions:

• 9:00 AM (30 min) - Gather and Breakfast
Bacon & eggs. A variety of breads for the day.

• 9:30 AM (1 hr 45 min) – Fellowship Pt. 1

• 11:15 AM (30 min) – Second Breakfast
Crockpots: potato soup or chili. Keep these out.

• 11:45 AM (1 hr 35 min) – Fellowship Pt. 2

• 1:20 PM (1 hr) – Luncheon
Meat and cheese tray, play some games.

• 2:20 PM (1 hr 50 min) – Two Towers Pt. 1

• 4:10 PM (20 min) – Dinner
Last call on crockpots, prep for supper.

• 4:30 PM (1 hr 50 min) – Two Towers Pt. 2

• 6:20 PM (1 hr) – Supper
Grilled chicken, salad, and games.

• 7:20 PM (2 hr 15 min) – RotK Pt. 1

• 9:35 PM (25 min) – Dessert
Last break, last call for food! Clean up and put away all the food and break out the desserts!

• 10:00 PM (2 hr) – RotK Pt. 2

• 12:00 AM – Farewells
Sigh of relief, final cleaning, dole out left-overs, your work here is done.
Make sure your discs are put away properly, return them to the shelf to wait for next year’s marathon!

The Substance vs Terrifier 3. This year saw two movies shock audiences and get well-deserved mixed reviews. Which was better?

Stats

The Substance - Mubi - September 19, 2024 - Rated R

Terrifier 3 - Cineverse Corp. - September 19, 2024 - Rated R

The Good

The Substance

The Substance is a crazy, mind-bending rollercoaster through a lot. Mostly emotion as visual metaphor, the movie leaves little to the imagination and more than drives home its main point but does so in a way that feels fresh and exciting. All the manic energy, sleaze, craziness, and body horror of Showgirls, Black Swan, and Society tossed into a blender.

Terrifier 3

The little indy shockfest that could, Terrifier is back for a 3rd installment. Picking up 5 years after part 2, this one sees more lore, more gore, and more… Terrifier than we have seen before. With more budget at his command, Damien Leone is able to go even further with Art and give even more of the stomach-churning, soul-crushing, over-the-top depravity the series is known for.

The Bad

The Substance

There is a sarcastic streak and sensibility that runs through The Substance as it hammers you over the head with its main point. There is no escaping the intensity as the movie continually doubles down on being equal parts sleazy and brutal. Nearly everything in the movie is designed to be an offputting over-the-top version of itself. Some will find this intriguing, some will find it overbearing.

Terrifier 3

Terrifier 2 is too long, Terrifier 3 is shorter but still too long. The movie constantly toggles between bland melodrama and shocking gorefest so often it never finds a rhythm or a purpose and becomes a 2 hour slog to get through. 3 movies in, the parts that are designed to be shocking are shocking but are missing elements that would make this an enjoyable movie instead of an endurance test.

The Verdict

Seeing these movies so close to one another cried out for a comparison. On one hand, in The Substance, we have a film that is pushing your buttons with purpose. Instead of just talking through the emotions, it is using quality filmmaking to force you to experience them: the disgust, self-loathing, the jealousy, the fear of being exposed… it all comes out in a nightmare thrill ride that is as engaging as it is harrowing. On the other hand, we have Terrifier 3, which, as much as I hate to admit it, starts to feel like a kid kicking your chair just to make you squirm. Like The Substance, the discomfort is the intent but here there is no higher purpose. the reaction is the point. 3 movies in, Art needs a new trick. The clear winner to me is The Substance. It is definitely not for everyone but The Substance may be my favorite movie of the year.

For the month of October, we present a list of some of our favorite movies to watch this time of year, whether they are spooky, campy, or downright horrifying.  This year, for our first list we are running through 4 different categories and 5 movies in each. These are not our top 5 in each of these categories but these are all movies we have seen and recommend.

FAMILY HALLOWEEN MOVIES

Halloween vibes that are also kid (8+) friendly.

Frankenweenie (2012, PG) - Monster House (2006, PG) - Ernest Scared Stupid (1991, PG) - ParaNorman (2012, PG) - Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (1985, NR)

HALLOWEEN-TIME MOVIES

Movies set around halloween itself.

Trick ‘r Treat (2007, R) - Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, R) - House of 1000 Corpses (2003, R) - Donnie Darko (1992, R) - Sleepy Hollow (1999, R)

Straight Up Nightmares

Intense and stressful. You were warned.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, R) - mother! (2017, R) - The Shining (1980, R) - Hereditary (2018, R) - The Ring (2002, PG-13)

Movies You’ve Probably Never Seen

Cult, obscure, underseen, trash, goodbad, etc.

Mandy (2018, R) - WNUF Halloween Special (2013, NR) - Hack-O-Lantern (1988, R) - The Ritual (2017, R) - Chopping Mall (1986, R)

Use the lists above to note what you have seen or what you are able to talk your normie friends into watching the one month of the year they let you pick the movie!