Whistling past the graveyard. (Patreon)

Perhaps I did stack the deck a bit by suggesting that voting for Cemetery Man would honor my late friend Bryant Frazer. That wasn't my intention, honestly—I just associate the film with him, as he was the one person loudly championing it back in 1996, when it arrived in U.S. theaters. In any case, it fairly walloped The Draughtsman's Contract, 61% to 39%. Streaming on Shudder and AMC+ right now. Last week's winner was Messiah of Evil, so apparently "spooky season" constitutes February as well as October. 

Couple of oldies (in the sense of having requested some time ago) selected by the algorithm this month. I skipped Kingpin in theatrical release, watched it on video five years later for some reason that I no longer recall. (Assumed it was an EW piece, but I'd stopped writing for the magazine by then.) It was not my thing, and almost certainly still isn't. As for Scorsese's debut feature, which I saw at the Museum of the Moving Image in 1996 (double-billed with Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), I can't honestly claim to remember it at all, suspect it's of primarily historical interest. Both of those are rentable from the usual suspects.

(Meanwhile, I watched Peppermint Frappé last night, so the only remaining previous random draws are Happy Hour and Family Business, both of which I've punted until after the Skandies deadline. Happy Hour because it's five freakin' hours long, Family Business because I think I'm gonna treat it as one episode of the TV series it was part of rather than as a stand-alone feature—as far as I can determine, it's never screened as one, though Seventeen definitely did. So you'll eventually get a review of Middletown entire, Chris. And I haven't forgotten about auto-qualifier The Lion in Winter, that's coming too.)

Thanks as ever to each and every one of you for your patronage. It's my privilege to entertain you with painstakingly crafted blathering.