Ken and Robin Consume Media: Gothic Giallo, Satanic Piano, and a Hallucinatory Steppe Quest
October 28th, 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
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Film, US, Joe Talbot, 2019) Aided by his aspiring playwright best friend (Jonathan Majors), melancholy nurse Jimmie Fails (Jimmie Fails) sets up a squat in the gorgeous Fillmore District house where his family once lived. Big music cues, poetic shot composition, and an initially Beckett-like dialogue rhythm build a haunting style for a story of loving a city that doesn’t love you back.—RDL
Qas (Film, Kazakhstan, Aisultan Seitov, 2022) Afraid to leave him unprotected during the 1931 famine, a gravedigger takes his eight year old brother on a mission across the trackless steppes to seek aid in the district capital. Strikingly composed hallucinatory survival quest.—RDL
Good
The Killer Reserved Nine Seats (Film, Italy, Giuseppe Bennati, 1974) Relatives, lovers, and hangers-on of the rich aristocrat Patrick Davenant (Chris Avram) arrive at his family’s ancestral mansion, now a long-disused theater, and trigger its murderous curse. Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians provided the basic outline of several Italian “someone is killing these rich jerks” movies; Bennati’s version aims for gothic horror that begins as undertone beneath the giallo murder mystery and ends up as the key note. Less gory than most gialli (modulo one murderous crucifixion), this one prefigures the American slasher with ample nudity, weirdly masked killer, and idiotic victim behavior. Carlo Savina’s score is a real standout, adding lush theatricality to the sordid goings-on.—KH
The Mephisto Waltz (Film, US, Paul Wendkos, 1971) Music critic Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda) allows himself to be cultivated by dying piano maestro (and secret Satanist) Duncan Ely (Curt Jürgens) despite the misgivings of his wife Paula (Jacqueline Bisset). This Rosemary’s Baby knockoff has great potential, sadly mostly squandered by Alda and producer Quinn Martin, who over-indulges his TV-movie sensibilities. The hip Satanic cult swaps Duncan’s soul into Myles’ body, but Alda is smarmy with either soul in him. Bisset completely out-acts Alda, and Paula outclasses Myles so much as to deform the story. There are some great scenes of Satanic party goings-on, and Jerry Goldsmith turns in a score (of increasingly atonal Liszt riffs) far better than this movie deserves, enough in fact to give it a solid Good rating.—KH
Tigers are Not Afraid (Film, Mexico, Issa Lopez, 2017) A girl whose mother has been disappeared by the local cartel joins forces with kid orphans of the drug war — and a source of dark supernatural vengeance. Strong performances from a preteen cast drive an uncompromising social realist ghost story.—RDL
Okay
Psycho Beach Party (Film, US, Robert Lee King, 2000) Perky teen Chiclet (Lauren Ambrose) pursues her surfing dreams despite sexist beach bums, a serial killer rampage, and her latent multiple personalities. Easy-target spoof turns the gay subtext of the beach party movies into text. Adapted from his stage play by Charles Busch, who appears as hardnosed cop Monica Stark.—RDL
Not Recommended
Customs Frontline (Film, Hong Kong, Herman Yau, 2024) In tandem with his bipolar mentor (Jacky Cheung), a duty-bound customs officer (Nicholas Tse) takes on the heavily equipped forces of a ruthless arms dealer. Gigantic action sequences held together by morose, catharsis-deficient melodrama and an earnest anti-war message about a conflict between made-up countries.—RDL
