2023: The Year in Bedlam
The latest installment of my annual overview of the previous year’s noteworthy film releases
GODZILLA MINUS ONE
It was inevitable that Japan’s Toho Studios, after decades of aggressively rebranding Godzilla for the international market, would finally get it right.
THE LAST CHILDREN
This uber-bleak depiction of a post-nuclear Germany was published, unbelievably enough, as a children’s book
AFTER THE BOMB
A very eighties Cold War inflected post-nuke novel
THE BED SITTING ROOM
In which the UK’s new wave science fiction scene came (briefly) to Hollywood, courtesy of director Richard Lester
RED DAWN
“Better dead than red” cinema got a memorable 1980s rethink in RED DAWN, a “what-if?” narrative about a Russian invasion of the US
THE WAR GAME
A profoundly shattering, staunchly reality-based look at the effects of a possible nuclear war on Great Britain
SHELTER
A paperback original that can be viewed as the trashy down-market inverse of ON THE BEACH
CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS
A stellar holiday themed effort from the American TV archives, and one of the medium’s most brilliant and prolific contributors: Rod Serling
Weird and Wonderful Christmas Cinema from Around the World
A much-needed addendum to a previous essay, with an overview of weird holiday-themed films emerging from around the world