Fun & Silly Horror for Fraidy-Cats
No Gloominess Or Actual Scares Admitted!
Livetweet Announcement: What the Constitution Means to Me
In June of 2019, on something adjacent to a whim, Your Dames went to see Heidi Schreck’s one-woman show What the Constitution Means to Me and left the theater tear-stained and dumbstruck and quite agog over its excellence. We immediately wanted to share it with so many people! And now, thank heavens, we finally can! When we first heard that a filmed version was coming to streaming, we did not imagine that it would be arriving weeks after the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and amidst confirmation hearings for a woman who will, without question, work aggressively to roll back even the limited bodily autonomy women have gained for themselves within the laws of this country that was never designed with our rights in mind. We will probably emerge even more tear-stained than the last time. But if ever there were a moment for cathartic sobbing, it is now. So, please do join us:
When: Sunday, October 25th at 8pm Eastern
Where: Streaming via Amazon Prime
How: In both a Substack chat room (link to be sent out that afternoon) and via the Twitter hashtag #ConstitutionalDames
We hope you find the show as exceptionally powerful as we did, but cannot wait to discuss it with you, whatever your response to it is!
This special issue of Two Bossy Dames is free, but we’d simply love to count you among our paid subscribers, if that’s feasible for you!
Dame Sophie’s Spooky, Not Scary, Favorites
As has been noted in many previous issues, I am a gigantic fraidy-cat. I don’t like roller coasters, I hate jump scares, I only watch scary movies after reading every spoiler available, during the daytime. I’m basically PJ Vogt, co-host of evergreen DamesFave podcast Reply-All, and often-reluctant guinea pig in his spinoff podcast with Alex Goldman, The Scaredy Cats Horror Show.
I do love a creepy-yet-harmless spooky aesthetic, though, and if it’s wedded to good storytelling and high silliness, so much the better. I know I’m not alone, so here’s to spookiness without terror! With one very worthy exception, all of the shows and movies listed below are certified Spooky to Creepy on my patented and very official Scare Scale (which also includes categories such as Cute But Weird; I’m Watching This Through My Fingers; I Appreciate The Artistry, But No Thank You!; and I Can’t Believe I Let You Talk Me Into Watching This, I Won’t Sleep For A Week).
What We Do In The Shadows: first it was a very funny mockumentary film, now it’s one of the best shows on TV. It’s an ensemble comedy about gloriously stupid vampires and their long-suffering, kind-hearted, and highly competent human assistant, Guillermo. Every detail is hilarious on its own — these vampires live on Staten Island, they have no idea how to blend in with human society, they get into absurd squabbles with local werewolves, other vampires hate them — and combined with the cast’s loose and maximally silly performances, it’s all pure gold. If you have an appetite for horror trappings with exactly zero actual scares, give yourself the gift of watching this show. Also, the music over the opening credits is an unjustly forgotten banger, You’re Dead, by Norma Tanega. Start with either the pilot or with its best episode to date, “On The Run”, to fall under its goofy, charming spell.
Los Espookys — if you love spooky stuff that’s more about lavish weirdness and exploring the silly corners of horror than about scaring you, Julio Torres’ HBO series Los Espookys is for you. He’s the funniest man you didn’t know is making you laugh. His SNL digital shorts — such as Diego Calls His Mom and Papyrus — are acknowledged classics, but to get more of the flavor of his point of view, please watch the comedy-noir genius of Cheques or his highly conceptual Halloween costume ideas.
True Blood — the show where the vampires bang. Like, a lot. Over its seven seasons, True Blood got so bloated and dull from overindulging in its own mythology that it’s easy to forget what fizzy fun the first couple of seasons were. I’d recommend a stand-alone rewatch of Season One, which features solid world-building, establishes & follows its secondary characters, and is focused on a satisfying central mystery. For good measure, throw in some Season Two scenes with Evan Rachel Wood as the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne, because she’s clearly having so much fun with her performance.
Crazyhead — a one-season wonder from the UK about a young demon-hunter named Raquel and her friendship with a reluctant demon-hunter named Amy. They’re an oddball pair who grow to respect, love, and look out for each other, all while trying to keep their demon-hunting quiet, lest they be misunderstood as delusional hallucinators in the course of their work protecting the good people of Bristol. Think of a self-taught Buffy The Vampire Slayer with very brisk pacing, slightly wilder tonal swings and a Black protagonist. This show was my introduction to Susan Wokoma, whose brilliantly funny and prickly performance is a pure delight. (She didn’t get nearly enough to do in Enola Holmes, but my hope is that she’ll have a stronger role in a sequel. Both are on Netflix.)
I agree with Raquel: it’s important to get the nomenclature right
Only Lovers Left Alive — Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play the titular lovers in this very stylish roadtrip/dealing with family hassles movie. The vampire stuff is primarily a background structural issue for these characters: how do you protect your super-secret identity over centuries? What does it mean to be alive when you’re immortal and have seen so much shit? Is immortality…actually kind of a scam? Worth watching just for Hiddleston’s delivery of the line “just goes to show, we don’t know shit about fungi”, which is the best on-screen joke of 2014!
Facts are facts!
iZombie — what if Veronica Mars, but a zombie? When near-doctor Liv Moore gets zombified, she goes to work for the Seattle Medical Examiner, where she can put her medical skills to good use while gaining access to ethically-sourced brains. Look, ma, no murder required! When she realizes that eating others’ brains lets her take on their personalities and key memories, she becomes a secret weapon for the Seattle PD’s homicide department. iZombie features snappy dialogue, satisfying friendships, and some great plot twists, and it’s all available right now for your marathon viewing: all five seasons are available on Netflix.
Bonus Zombies! If you dig iZombie and feel brave enough to dip a toe into a show that I consider genuinely a little bit scary and that I loved to bits, let me introduce you to Kingdom (two seasons so far, on Netflix). Set in the early 1600s during Korea’s Joseon Period, it’s a zombies vs. humans show, a high-stakes political drama, a rollicking adventure, and a strong argument for the scientific method all wrapped up in one frequently grisly and beautifully art-directed package.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina — this series has been a really vexing disappointment. It wants to be as bonkers as Riverdale but doesn’t quite stick the landing, and every episode felt 7-10 minutes too long. On the other hand, the aesthetic is great, and I really enjoyed the ensemble’s very game performances, so if you just want something to run in the background while you refine your Breezy Goth board on Pinterest, it’s a decent option.
The Addams Family & Addams Family Values — alas, the genially bizarre classic sitcom starring John Astin isn’t available on streaming services, but the mid-90s films starring Raul Julia & Anjelica Huston as genuine #couplesgoals Gomez & Morticia, and a perfectly deadpan wee Christina Ricci as daughter Wednesday, are both widely available. If that’s not enough, collections of Charles Addams’ original Addams Family cartoons are out there, and if you really want to go all in, the great City of Philadelphia invites you to visit the Addams-inspiring Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, now open for virtual tours!
If you have more entries (in any medium!) that fit the Spooky, Not Scary bill, please do let me know so I can add them to my queue!
Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
Moonstruck’s glorious, overdue arrival in the Criterion Collection
Grumpy-Sunshine, the chocolate and peanut butter of romance tropes
and those of us who are dead ringers for our own parents!
We appreciate you, readers of Dames Nation!
Every time you tell a friend to subscribe, some woman, somewhere, freed from the ungrateful & undeserving clutches of Condé Nast, launches her second YouTube show in as many weeks and is profiled warmly in Vulture.
Help us build Dames Nation by upgrading to a paid subscription on Substack
Share your saucy opinions with us on Twitter whether jointly as your @twobossydames, or in single size servings as @MrsFridayNext & @sophiebiblio!
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is sweetly romantic and atmospheric without being too scary or gory. I love the soundtrack, too.
You may like the "The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell". It's a six episode netflix series that's part a classic step by step cooking and crafting show, and part a Muppet comedy with a spooky aesthetic. The dialouge/humor doesn't always hit right for me, and I think most people would agree that the crafts/recipies aren't really achieveable for people to actually follow along and make at home, butthe puppetry is really good and it has a cozy Halloween feel. I would also issue a content warning for torture in the second episode, and there's a not great protrayel of mental illiness in the second half of the season.