Andrea and I are back at it! We went to see the Cat Video Fest for 2023 at the North Park Theater. Don't know what the Cat Video Fest is? It's a compilation of viral cat videos, tik toks, and gifs from the past few years all in one place! If you like cats it's def worth seeing, and as a bonus a percentage of the proceeds goes towards local animal shelters and animal welfare organizations!

I like that you can submit pictures and videos to the North Park of your cat, and they will show them before the movie. I submitted a pic of my little Ginger. She had the whole big screen to herself! I didn't have time to pull out my phone to take a picture, but this was the one I sent in. The time she had a blep.

Cat Video Fest 2023 was divided up, as before, with CATegories like "Drama", "Action", "Documentary", and "Musical". Some of the highlights for me included the movie opening with songs from the Cats soundtrack (I love musicals), there's a Shining reference, you see the life of Fred the boat cat, Cat Man Chris the owner of Marmalade, Simon's Cat with the cutest cartoons, Cute Aggression metal song (which I just learned about and LOVE!), and the catchy Hold On to My Fur song from thekiffness. Not to mention, there are clips of kitties sleeping on books, wearing raincoats, the first ever cat video, and lots of one-brain-cell orange kitties! It's delightful.

The compilation was slightly different from last year. There were more musical clips and the clips seemed longer. They feature hirokisan79 and his piano cat duets more than once. I wish they sold the soundtrack to Cat Video Fest 2023! 

You can read about the other years I attended too 2019, 2020, 2022.

After getting our cat fix, we were hungry, so we went down the street to The Merry Shelley. I'm embarrassed to say, it took me way too long to blog about The Merry Shelley, a local goth hang out. It's a small bar that has it all, spooky decor, goth music, fun events, good drinks, food, and... books. Yes, books! It's a little free library too! We popped over, I donated some books, and picked up some that were on my tbr list from eons ago.

This particular night, there were tarot card readings being done by Liz from Divination Station. She's a sweetheart, and manages Rising Goddess a local metaphysical shop that I recommend, not only because they have a "house cat" named Trixie, but because it's a great store with good vibes. Naturally, Andrea and I had to get our readings done. 

Trixie & her blep. (Pic taken from the Rising Goddess Facebook page.)

During the course of our evening we saw old friends, and made some new ones. I don't get out much because I work a lot, but when I do, I like it to be a quality night like this! A night of cats & bats!

I thoroughly enjoyed Last Night in Soho, part murder mystery, part psychological horror it was entertaining and visually captivating to watch. I knew the premise from watching the trailer, but there are a bunch of plot twists at the end that will surprise you!

***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT***

We see young Eloise Turner, an aspiring fashion designer, get accepted to the London College of Fashion. She loves the swinging 1960s music and style, and has visions of her dead mother. Her gran warns her about moving to London, and what it did to her mother, but Ellie is confident she can take care of herself. We find out her mother committed suicide when Ellie was 7. Ellie is an outcast and doesn't fit in at the party dorm residence in London, so she takes matters into her own hands and rents a top apartment in an old building. The world-weary landlord, Ms. Collins, warns her of a smell in the apartment during the summer and a strict no boys allowed past 8pm policy.

Her first night in the new place, Ellie dreams of herself in the 1960s as another woman named Alexandra, whose nickname is Sandie. Sandie is confident, loves attention, and her style is the epitome of 1960s high fashion. She walks into a club looking for the owner because she wants to sing there, but instead she meets Jack. A knight-in-shining-armor man that punches out a guy that won't take no for an answer. They make a scene, leave in a rush, and he asks her out for the following night. Sandie just happens to live in Ellie's apartment. Ellie's alarm goes off, and she goes to class. Being inspired, she uses the pink dress from dream girl Sandie as part of her design for class.

This dress is classy, flowy and a showstopper.

This first sequence is wonderful, there's lots of mirror-play where you see the other woman in the mirror, it reminded me of Poltergeist III. The 1960s dancing is fun, and Sandie's hair is perfect throughout every scene. Of course, Ellie can't wait to find out what happens next, and neither can the audience!

Mirror mirror on the wall. Things are not as they seem in the hall.

Ellie resumes her dream from the night before, again she's cast as Sandie. Jack picks her up and takes her to an empty bar. She asks what she's doing there, and he got her a singing audition there! She's thrilled, even though it's not the club from the night before. (Her singing sounds a little too contemporary for my liking, but it's ok.) She takes Jack back to her place (Ellie's place in the present) and it's presumed they have sex. Ellie's alarm goes off. Wanting to be more like Sandie, she dyes her hair blonde and gets a vintage white vinyl trench coat. She's stopped on the street by a creepy old man who thinks he knows her. This leads her to thinking that he's Jack from her dreams.

Ellie buys a copy of Sandie's trench coat. 

Ellie's dreams start to take a turn for the worse, the club Sandie auditioned at was a girly peepshow, and she ends up as just a chorus girl in the background. Jack is a scumbag and is buddies with the man he punched from the first night. Jack introduces her around and explains to her that she needs to "make nice" with the guys around town to work her way up to a better club. Essentially, he's pimping her out. She runs out, but then we see her in Ellie's same apartment with the guy she was just introduced to. She ends up a go-go dancer prostitute.

Ellie begins to have visions in her waking life of Sandie and all her johns. The johns are faceless and very creepy. So in addition to the creepy old man she thinks is old Jack following her, she sees ghosts too. She becomes unhinged. 

The unhinging.

Her guy friend invites her to a Halloween party. The mean girls from the party dorm are dressed as 1990s The Craft. Lol. Siouxsie and the Banshees "Happy House" is playing in the background as she is trying to fit in again at the bar, but the ghosts follow her. She sees Sandie and the johns. She tells her friend she needs air and goes outside in the rain. He follows her, they end up kissing, and she invites him back to her apartment. They sneak upstairs and are going to have sex when Ellie has a bloody vision in the mirror of a knife stabbing and freaks out screaming. She thinks she knows how Sandie died now. The screaming wakes up her landlord, and her friend gets kicked out.

The next day Ellie asks the landlord if anyone died in her room and Ms. Collins is very generic about it and says "people have died in every room in London and on every corner." Ellie goes to class and sees dead people everywhere and rushes out. She sees the dead men everywhere. To help her cope, she goes to the police and tells them about her dreams. The woman there takes her seriously and says she'll look into it. Her guy friend, surprisingly, looks for Ellie and wants to help her in any way he can. Ellie herself begins to go through the microfiche looking for an old case. There's lots of death in London in the 1960s. He helps her look. But she can't escape the ghosts!

Ms. Collins, that sneaky bitch. (Played by Diana Rigg of 1960s Avengers fame.)

Ellie has a freak-out at the library too and runs outside. She sees who she thinks is old Jack. She tries to record him confessing to the murder of Sandie, but he walks away and says, "I didn't kill Sandie, Alex did."  and we find out his name is Lindsey, and he was a police officer, that knew Sandie in the 1960s, he even briefly appeared in Ellie's dream! This is a lot for Ellie to process, and she wants to move out of the apartment. She grabs her friend and tells him to wait in the car while she goes inside to let Ms. Collins know she's moving out.

Not Jack, but Lindsey.

We then find out that the lady police officer came by and questioned Ms. Collins, and that Ms. Collins...DUN DUN DUN is Alexandra aka Sandie Collins! SHE KILLED all the men that she slept with back in the 1960s including Jack and stashed them in that apartment in the walls and floors. And she poisoned Ellie's tea to keep her from talking about what she discovered. Ellie's slowly loosing consciousness, and her friend that was in the car comes to the door to check on her. Alexandra / Sandie stabs him and starts slashing at Ellie while she crawls up the stairs. Meanwhile Alexandra / Sandie's cigarette falls and starts the building on fire. Ellie crawls up to her old apartment and sees the faceless men again. They followed her because THEY WANTED HER HELP. They wanted her to expose Ms Collins as their killer. The building burns, Ellie and her friend escape, and Alexandra / Sandie cuts her throat and stays in the burning building.

Ellie stays in fashion school and has a successful end of the semester runway show loosely based on 1960s designs, and we see Ellie look in the mirror one last time. She sees her mother, but also young 1960s Sandie. It's a little cheesy for an ending, but the rest was excellent, so I won't hold it again the movie.

The fashion, soundtrack, story, and visuals were as sharp as a knife. I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 Vesper martinis. 

Here's the trailer...

I have a soft spot for the Muppets and watched all The Muppet Show episodes when they originally aired. (Yes, can you believe it? I'm THAT old!) It sparked my love of Vincent Price and Alice Cooper, and Kermit will always be an inspiration to me as a business owner. Keeping the show going amidst daily chaos is my life! So of course I had to watch Muppets Haunted Mansion. It was cute, but not my favorite. Let me explain...

***WARNING SPOILERS***

We get a peek at all the Muppets at their yearly Halloween party, but this story focuses on The Great Gonzo and Pepe the King Prawn. Both are invited to a haunted mansion on the 100th anniversary of the disappearance of The Great MacGuffin, one of Gonzo's heroes. It's the most haunted mansion in the world and Gonzo is up for the challenge! Pepe on the other hand, is there to party and meet celebrities. No one ever comes back from the party but Gonzo is confident that they will. After all, he's been shot of of so many cannons, this will be easy since he's fearless and "great".

It's based on Disney's Haunted Mansion ride and it references the ghosts from the ride and even how the ride always malfunctions, but you don't need to be familiar with it to understand what's going on. There's lots of ghost puns, a screaming goat, celebrities scattered throughout, and even two Muppet pigs referencing the Grady twins from The Shining that say "Come play with us forever..."

Everyone that comes to the mansion gets trapped by their fears. Gonzo gets trapped in a room where he sees himself grow old, he misses his friends, and worries that no one will care about him if he's not doing dangerous stunts. Pepe gets bewitched by a woman that wants to marry him to kill and eat him. While Gonzo faces his fear and is allowed to leave, Pepe gets drugged and stuck, but Gonzo goes back for him and they survive the night in the haunted mansion.

Clocking in at a little under and hour it definitely felt like a Muppets made for TV movie and not a movie movie. It was light, had a couple laughs, and meant for little kids. I give it 3 out of 5 Madame Pigeota crystal balls.

Here's the trailer...

I know I've been on siesta for a while, let me tell you why...

I own Cats Like Us and we've been busy with things ~ kind of  ~ opening up this summer and people going places, so that's taking up a huge chunk of my time. (Don't worry, I'm not complaining.) My shop won an award for Best Vintage Clothing in Western New York from Buffalo Spree Magazine.  

We even had a full page spread! (That's the hubs ~ Andrew.)

Photo: Nancy J. Parisi 

Location: Kleinhans Music Hall

Logically to follow, I joined the Vintage Fashion Guild, which has been a dream of mine for about 15 years. I finally qualified to become a member!

Next, I had a Halloween photoshoot with Sweet Heart PinUp for my website. If you ever have the opportunity to book a photoshoot with Destiny, she does amazing work. You may remember I wrote about doing the Shining Pinup Photoshoot and the Halloween Photoshoot before. We are even using the top image as a post card to promote Cats Like Us. (Yepper, this dress is available here. You can also shop our Everyday is Halloween Collection that we have year-round for kooky spooky ghoulies!)

Photos, Accessories & Props: Sweet Heart Pinup

Makeup & Hair: Julie Ann (me)

           Dress: Cats  Like Us

Between all this fun stuff, I've been writing movie reviews for Auxiliary Magazine. The magazine for subculture fashion, music, and lifestyle. Available in print and digital editions with weekly website content!

Some of the movies I've reviewed so far are Antebellum, Saint Maud, Midsommar, Slaxx, The Stylist, and coming soon, The Green Knight and the Fear Street trilogy. 

Jump to fall and September and things took a bit of a dive, I had the flu for almost two weeks. Thank goodness it wasn't COVID! (I was tested.) I'm so retro I had the old-school flu. Ironically, I usually get a flu shot on Labor Day. (Again side note: I never used to get them until about ten years ago. I was in the emergency room on Christmas Day because of the flu.) Use hand sanitizer in my shop!

Nearly accurate depiction of me with the flu. (Reagan costume Halloween 2017.)

As of late ~ meaning this past week ~ I've been having a bit of trouble with my left elbow. On Tuesday it started swelling up, changing color, and I couldn't straighten it or bend it to touch my shoulder, so I went to the doctor. A billion dollars, x-rays, meds, and more later, and we still aren't sure what's going on. No broken bones and the swelling is going down from the meds. Don't know the cause, but I'm going in for a follow up appointment next week. Eat your heart out Cronenberg I live the body horror lifestyle! (Should that be a hashtag? Is it too weird? Nah! #bodyhorrorlifestyle) Honestly, I would like to be growing another arm to make doing my hair easier. 

I have experience with multiple arms... 

(Halloween 2015.) Doc Ock! Anyone see the new Spiderman trailer? 

Ok, I'm getting off on a tangent. My point is I'm still around just busy. You can follow my Facebook page in the meantime, where I share funny memes and cat stuff. I hope you are all well? Remember wash yo damn hands!

The theme for the summer 2020 box is Camp Pusheen and I can say I have a couple experiences with camping and both of them were horrible. Downpours, wood ants, and back pain ~ not really my thing. I grew up a city girl. It's what I know. That's probably why I don't know my animals very well. It's a running joke with friends. Speaking of friends, I really miss unboxing with friends. I apologize in advance that my videos are so boring. I tried to spice it up by dressing in The Shining theme. My hair tie is from Krampus Cuties on Cats Like Us, bracelet Meteor Company, shirt Hot Topic.

Included in this box is...

1. A Camp Pusheen T Shirt. Super cute, unisex small and really big on me. My husband Andrew is taking it. (Cotton/ poly blend so it won't shrink.)

2. Vinyl Camping Figurine. Meh.

3. Plush Pusheen with Marshmallow. Adorable.

Patches. The jean jacket I refer to is this one.

Flag Pennant. I'm not sure what I'll do with this yet.

Silicone Straw with cleaner and holder. Ok so I'm really dumb. I didn't see the straw cleaner in the holder because it was folder down. My husband found it. SEE this is why I need to unbox with someone.

Thermos with Collapsible Spoon. It's pretty big. I'm def going to use this.

Outdoor blanket. I'm going to picnic the heck out of this!

Thanks for reading and be well!

Past unboxings
Fall 2017 Pusheen Box
Winter 2017 Pusheen Box
Spring 2018 Pusheen Box
Summer 2018 Pusheen Box
Fall 2018 Pusheen Box
Winter Pusheen Box 2018
Spring Pusheen Box with Jodee Bowie
Summer 2019 Pusheen Box
Fall 2019 Pusheen Box
Winter 2019 Pusheen Box and Soup

Spring 2020 Pusheen Box

Lately Stephen King has had a resurrection (pun intended) of sorts, with movie remakes of his classic horror novels like Pet Sematary and It, but I was interested to see the sequel to The Shining, Dr. Sleep. Did I mention this sequel was released almost 20 years after the original Stanley Kubrick Shining movie? I think they wanted to take their time and get it just right, and I have to say this Shining Pinup wasn't disappointed!

Before you attack me, I did read the book Dr. Sleep before watching the movie and even if the movie didn't include everything, it did hit the mark for all the important events of the book!

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

There's really three separate stories that mesh together at the end. Here's the movie in a nutshell.

Story ONE
The movie picks up with Danny Torrance ~ the little boy from The Shining ~  and his flashbacks of seeing the ghost of the dead lady in the bathtub from the Overlook Hotel in his house and how Dick Hallorann ~ his friend from the Overlook Hotel ~ taught him to trap the ghosts in boxes he created in his mind. This is a key plot point.

The actors that play Danny, Wendy (his mom), Jack (his dad), and Halloran resemble the original actors. They aren't exact, and I know this bothers some people, but you get the jist of who they are.

You get the jist. This is from Dr. Sleep, not The Shining.

Danny as an adult is an alcoholic like his father. I like that they addressed this. In The Shining movie you are given clues that Jack was an alcoholic, but it's never specific that that's what's causing his temper. Danny drinks to stop the hallucinations, but unlike his father is really trying his best to stop. He packs up what little he has after a wild night out and heads further east to New Hampshire to start over. He befriends a man named Billy that helps him find a place to stay and is also a recovering alcoholic.

Danny gets a job as an orderly in a hospice facility. In the facility there's a cat named Azzie that can sense when a patient is going to die and Danny works with the cat to visit the dying patient and help ease them to the other side with his "shining" gift. Danny becomes known as Dr. Sleep. (I wish I could find a picture of the cat. It's white and fluffy in the movie.)

Story TWO
There's a little girl named Abra that also has the shining that lives near Danny. She's more powerful and can sense him. She communicates with him through a chalkboard on his wall for years. Neither of them meet in real life until one of the visions shows her a boy with a similar gift being kidnapped and killed by a gang that steals his "steam" or essence by brutally killing him. They "eat screams and drink pain". While Abra sees the vision, the head of the gang ~ Rose the Hat ~ sees her! Abra researches and finds out the boy is indeed missing and she has the clues to find out where he was buried. She tells Danny about it. He tells her to walk away.

Danny and his chalkboard.

Story THREE
If you haven't read the book, this part can get a little vague. There's a group of wanderers called the True Knot that also have gifts. They search out others like them to either eat their "steam" or convert them into immortal beings like they are. Rose the Hat sees Abra in her vision and wants to find her to take her steam.

Rose taking steam.

The closure for me was at the very end when Danny and Abra do fight the gang and lure Rose to the Overlook Hotel. The ghosts that haunt the Overlook ~ that Danny saw as a child ~ are similar creatures to the True Knot and feed off live people to take their essence. The hotel itself is a character in this movie and in the grand finale Danny opens the boxes in his mind and lets those ghosts kill Rose, but in the end he ends up dying too.

That being said, it doesn't end on a sad note! It's hinted that their are others out there with the shining, and now the spirit of Danny visits Abra. He becomes her Halloran. So with others out there it's hinted that there could be a sequel but I think they should just box the story up for now, like the ghosts in Danny's mind.

There are lots of nods to the original movie especially in the overhead outdoor shots, the music, and simply revisiting the Overlook. We see the door that Jack axed through, the "REDRUM" door, the ballroom and bar, the bloody elevators, the wintry hedge maze, and even inside room 237. It was satisfying to watch. I give it 4.5 doses of medicine out of 5.

The Overlook is a character all on it's own.

Here's the trailer...

p.s. My Shining photoshoot was included in the most recent issue of Rocket Magazine. The Autumn October 2019 Vol. 2! I got a two page spread!!!

I enjoyed the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina so much that I decided to watch Riverdale, also part of Archie Horror Comics world. Let's just say Riverdale is Twin Peaks, but less odd, mixed with the scandal of Peyton Place, and blended with Buffy high school drama to make a tasty cocktail.

The first season starts off the same as Twin Peaks, a student is killed at the river. It's a murder mystery while the audience is introduced to all the players. The main characters are Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Archie, and their parents. The adults on the show are well-known faces. Madchen Amick, who plays Betty's mom was Shelly Johnson a waitress at the Double R Diner on Twin Peaks. The Double R is where "pies go to die". She even serves cherry pie to Betty and Archie on Riverdale, it's an obvious nod to her Twin Peaks days.

With Josie and the Pussycats prominently featured in season one I was hoping for good music, but the music is horrible, distracting even. The actresses can sing, but the songs are mostly remakes with droning sad female vocal fry, some covers sound as depressing as country music. Sorry Josie!

Second season is focused on finding out, "Who is the Black Hood killer?" He's going around town murdering people that he feels deserve it, and with all the awful people on the show he's a busy serial killer.

It's fun because there's horror movie references sprinkled throughout, mostly mentioned by Jughead. There's The Shining rug print pillows on the bed at the lodge they are staying in, Jughead mentions Dracula on more than one occasion, Cheryl's Nana Rose is poisoned with tannis root (which by the way is not a real root, it was made up by Ira Levin for the book Rosemary's Baby.), and they perform Carrie: The Musical in their high school. I feel like the only successful musical episode was the Buffy episode Once More with Feeling. It moved the plot along and by the end it was explained why they were singing. The Riverdale episode seems to have been made just to showcase the actors singing abilities, not necessarily driving the story line. It all takes place on the high school stage like a real musical. I was disappointed and found it to be forced and uncomfortable.

In conclusion, I hate the music on the show, but I'm enjoying the soap opera story. A few ending thoughts...Jughead has about 10 different jean jackets. How does he afford all of them if he's living at the drive-in or in a trailer. They can be expensive! FP (Jughead's dad), played by Skeet Ulrich gives the best advice on the show. I love him and not just because he was in Scream and The Craft. Also by the end of season two I love Cheryl. Her spider pins, cherry sweaters, and red lipstick speak to my gothabilly heart.

Haven't watched season three yet, I'm waiting for it to be available on Netflix, in the meantime season two of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was just added and I'll be checking that out while I wait

There is so much hype surrounding Us after Jordan Peele's first movie Get Out that I had to see it. When I originally reviewed Get Out, the story line had a lot to unpack. I only scraped the surface so I wouldn't give anything away. In Us there's a ton of hints along the way leading you to the finale. Again this isn't "horror" in the traditional sense, but more the horror that comes along with human nature. I'm going to try to break down the clues a little better in this blog. I'm sure there's more, but this was my takeaway.

***SPOILER ALERT***

In the very beginning of the movie there's an enigmatic reference to all the abandoned underground subways, tunnels, and mines. Clue 1.

We then see the protagonist Adelaide as a little girl watching a commercial for Hands Across America in 1986. This is a real thing that happened for those that don't know. It was supposed to show unity and awareness of the hunger crisis and homelessness taking over America. What it did was brought together people, including celebrities, that donated to the cause. They ended up contributing less than half of what was collected to those living in poverty. BUT my eye went straight to the VHS tapes on the left of the TV. There's three and the one that stood out was C.H.U.D., because you can actually read the title. It's an 80s cult classic AND C.H.U.D. stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Clue 2.

Much of the story is told in flashbacks. Young Adelaide and her parents are at Santa Cruz boardwalk by the beach and they mention a movie that is being filmed there. (It's The Lost Boys , YES! Wonderful shoutout.) After her irresponsible dad wins her a Thriller T shirt at a game, she wanders off into a hall of mirrors. The power goes out and you see her inside alone being confronted with a girl that looks just like her, that's NOT a reflection.

There's religious overtones referencing Jeremiah 11:11 or "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not harken to them."

Flash forward to her being a mom in the Wilson family with two kids and a husband. Her husband suggests going to the Santa Cruz beach where they can meet their friends ~ The Tylers ~ for a vacation. She doesn't want to go because of what happened there. This part is filmed great because we go inside her head where she stops listening. She's disconnected from her family. They do end up going and on the way her daughter mentions the government controlling people. No one responds to the comment, they ignore it. (It's like living with my family.) Clue 3.

The Wilsons meet their well-off friends on the beach. Kitty, the mom had plastic surgery, the dad brags about his boat. The have a giant beach house.

Adelaide is incredibly observant taking in all the people on the beach surrounding her, again we get to see what she sees. She's alone in a beach full of people. There's coincidences like a frisbee landing right on the spot of a polka dot blanket, it's red, white, and blue with stars representing America?, her friends twin daughters saying the same thing at the same time, 11:11 is the score on TV and on the clock, odd nuances that are building the story. At one point her friend, Kitty asks if she's ok, and she responds with "Sometimes I find it hard to talk". Clue 4.

Once back at their modest beach house The Wilsons get ready for bed and the home invasion begins. There's a doppelganger family that breaks in, all wearing one tan finger less glove, a red jumpsuit, and each carrying sharp gold scissors. (The one glove is another reference to Michael Jackson, possibly the red outfit from the Thriller video too.) The matriarch of the family "Red" speaks to them in a scary distorted voice, explaining that the Tethered live underground as part of a failed government experiment. She's the only one that speaks. Clue 5. The Tethered look like them and reenact the same things they do above, but unlike the top dwellers their only food is raw rabbit, and they are given sharp things to play with instead of toys. (I'm guessing the scissors.) She even states that her son was "born into fire" and she had to cut him out of her belly herself. This establishes the underground family as abandoned and feral. They came above to be "untethered".

The Wilsons fight off the Tethered family, not without a bunch of symbolism to being connected like scissors, i.e. two pieces of the same part, handcuffs, her son's werewolf mask that he wears almost the whole movie gives a sense of duality, even the life preserver attached to the boat.

They escape to The Tylers house and find out they are not the only family being targeted by the Tethered. The Tylers have been killed while Good Vibrations from The Beach Boys plays in the background. Lots of irony in this movie. It reminded me of how Singing in the Rain is used in A Clockwork Orange. When you see the dead twins sprawled on the floor, it's the exact shot from The Shining with the Grady twins on the floor and blood splatter on the walls. It just proves, more money might buy you more choice in boats and houses, but it can't save you and Peele has been influenced by Stanley Kubrick.

(Scene from The Shining)

They kill the Tylers doubles. Adelaide takes on one of the girls and smashes her, not before her son sees the savage rage in her eyes. The Wilsons are trying to figure out what is going on, flick on the TV and find out everyone is getting killed by their look alike counterpart. It's going on all over the country. Once the above dwellers are dead the Tethered join hands much like the Hands Across America commercial. Clue 6. In their red jumpsuits it's a strong visual. Now we know the Tethered has the upper hand because they had a plan all along. It's a massacre along the sunny beach and boardwalk. Another sharp disturbing contrast.

Red takes Adelaide's son and Adelaide goes after her, down to the beach and in the mirrored house, down the rabbit hole, ala Alice in Wonderland. The underground is cavernous just like the mirror house, but somehow she knows exactly where she's going. Clue 7.

Red and Adelaide fight to the death. Red explains that they learned how to "copy the body not the souls of people" and that "our time is now". She has created a mob mentality among the Tethered that's very scary. I'm not going to tell you what happens, but all four members of the Wilson family survive and the bunnies are let loose. (Yay! Poor bunnies.)

I really enjoyed this movie. The Wilson's are likable and realistic. There's social commentary about poverty and how what you are born into does effect your life to an extent. The top dwellers take things for granted compared to the Tethered, and the Tylers have a lot compared to the Wilsons. Everyone stop comparing yourself, we truly are our own worst enemy!

It makes you think. I do have a couple of questions regarding the movie. Are the Tethered breaking free from the underground and controlling the coincidences above? Does Adelaide's son know what happened all those years ago? Who fed the bunnies underground and cleaned up their poop?

Now my real question is Get Out in the same world as Us? Was the father from Get Out part of the government that was experimenting on people? Curious it all takes place underground. Thank you Jordan Peele for original ideas and making me ask questions! I give this movie five giant golden sharp scissors out of five.

Here's the trailer...