Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 7)

Short Stories

“Mary Marrow” by Margaret Killjoy (2025): A nicely creepy tale dancing the line between magic and obsession.

Novels

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder by Stephen Cox (2025): A mystery with supernatural elements that feel entirely natural, as lived-in as the central relationship between Mrs. Ashton and Mrs. Bradshaw, con artist and radical, respectively.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (2023): Excellent Jim Crow horror. Elsewhere, I called it a sort of anti-Totoro, with children sensitive to the supernatural (but haints, not helpful nature spirits) and surrounded by a close-knit community (embedded in a larger close-knit community that wants them dead) with a father doing what’s best for his family (leaving).

Media

Weapons (2025): The whole was not greater than the sum of its parts (much like Barbarian), but in this case I liked the individual parts (unlike Barbarian, which had a great extended opening, a chilling embedded short film, and a monster trope I dislike). The kid-I-want-to-hug and Amy Madigan did a great job in the latter segment, though that felt like a straightforward short film that didn’t connect well to the ambiguously creepy preceding material. Anyway, I like both of those movies, despite the muddling of message and title.

The Substance (2024): I thought this one was pretty strong until the final twist on monstrousness. It felt silly and indulgent, coming on the heels of an examination of youthful antics impacting later functionality, losing prime years to the demands of work, how the female gaze (even when turned on oneself) can mimic the male gaze, and so on.

ETA: Whoops, that’ll teach me to take unfinished posts out of draft. I’ll just chuck stuff I didn’t include into my next post.

#recommended #recommended2025