Ken and Robin Consume Media: Del Toro’s Frankenstein, Silver Nitrate, and Ken Finds a New Mystery Writer to Binge
November 11th, 2025 | Robin
Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.
Recommended
Death in Captivity (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1952) One of the most original premises for a “locked room” mystery ever: in an Italian POW camp in 1943, a possible informer turns up dead in an escape tunnel that takes four men to open. Gilbert (who actually spent time as a POW in Italy) interweaves a fair-play murder mystery with a classic prison-camp story complete with heroic escape plans, all of it complicated by the fact that the Italian authorities have their own schemes to which the detective is not privy, and their own POW to frame for the crime.—KH
John Candy: I Like Me (Film, US, Colin Hanks, 2025) Documentary profile of the revered comedy star shows why he was beloved on and off screen, while gently exploring the paradox of his quiet self-destruction.—RDL
Silver Nitrate (Fiction, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 2023) When forgotten cult horror director Abel Urueta involves almost-has-been actor Tristán and struggling sound editor Montserrat in a sorcerous ritual he filmed 30 years before at the behest of a Nazi occultist, things get better for all of them. Until, as one might suspect, they get much much worse. Moreno-Garcia has total mastery of her Mexico City ‘90s milieu, and invests her characters with complete believability, which puts this “lost magical film” novel well ahead of most of its rivals.—KH
Smallbone Deceased (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1950) An annoying trustee turns up dead in a deed box, throwing the august London firm of solicitors into a tizzy, since their senior partner (also deceased) is the prime suspect. Inspector Hazelrigg (and a new hire who can’t have done it) investigate this beautifully constructed classic mystery. Like Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, the office byplay and incisive characterization carry a whole extra novel with them, allowing Gilbert to enliven the story with dry wit aplenty.—KH
The Taste of Things (Film, France, Anh Hung Tran, 2023) Revered Belle Époque food writer Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) fears for the health of his longtime cook (Juliet Binoche), who despite his adoration refuses to marry him. With a mastery of light and sound design, establishes itself as one of the greatest food films of all time, which opens up into a sublime, bittersweet contemplation of love, pleasure, and the inevitability of grief.—RDL
Good
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (Film, Spain/Italy, Jorge Grau, 1974) A petulant counterculture antiques dealer (Ray Lovelock) and stressed young woman (Cristina Galbó) are forced to remain in a sleepy English town when its reactionary police sergeant (Arthur Kennedy) accuses them of killings committed by the walking dead. Culturally dislocated horror depicts chauvinist dismissiveness as the contributing factor to gut-munching mayhem. Aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue.—RDL
Longlegs (Film, US, Osgood Perkins, 2024) Withdrawn psychic FBI agent (Maika Monroe), guided by veteran superior (Blair Underwood) hunts the weirdo serial killer Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), who appears to cause family annihilation incidents by power of suggestion. Like other recent tributes to horror classics, underwhelms when it comes time to upshift from pervasive dread to climactic resolution.—RDL
Okay
Frankenstein (Film, US, Guillermo del Toro, 2025) Petulant mama’s boy Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac, overacting badly) is hired by weapons magnate Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz, overacting well) to build a living Creature (Jacob Elordi) out of corpses … but who’s the REAL monster, eh? Who? Who? Perhaps the real monster is the filmmaker who gives us 20 minutes of Frankenstein’s daddy issues and no Bride. Del Toro’s patent visual sumptuousness (padded out by some terrible CGI) brings the color his script and characters should have had: Mary Shelley deserves better than this two-dimensional travesty stitched together from her novel and Tumblr.—KH
Troll (Film, Norway, Roar Uthaug, 2022) Determined paleontologist (Ine Marie Wilmann) estranged from her eccentric folklorist father (Gard B. Eidsvold) becomes unlikely point person when a 40-foot troll released by a tunnel blast stomps toward Oslo. Every story point is hit squarely on the nose in this transposition of the kaiju genre to Nordic mythology.—RDL
