Schmear Hunter's Brainwash [95]
Unpacking the Hype, Elevating the Unknown: 'Frankenstein,' 'Predator: Badlands,' 'It: Welcome to Derry'
Hunters,
Hitting you with some genre fare today after an artsy Brainwash last week, filled with The Lowdown, The Chair Company, and Bugonia.
Before that, some housekeeping. Over on NO NOTES, our red carpet chat with Sentimental Value star Elle Fanning. The film debuts in LA and NY today before expanding wide through the month. A lot more SV content is coming your way. I love this movie very much.
The SchmearCast is coming BACK. Expect it to grace your Spotify/Apple Podcasts by midday Wednesday. It’ll be a jam-packed fall recap of film and TV. I’m trying to get back to the weekly cadence through the rest of the year for you fine listeners.
Let’s get into today’s newsletter:
The Hype
Frankenstein (Movie)
Predator: Badlands (Movie)
It: Welcome to Derry (TV)
Frankenstein (Netflix)
What is it? A brilliant but egotistical scientist brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.
Watch if you like: Crimson Peak, Nosferatu, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth
Schmear’s Verdict: Handsome and heartfelt but never thrilling, a beautifully crafted film that just doesn’t stir the blood.
“It’s (not) alive! It’s (not) alive!”
From jump street, Frankenstein wasn’t working for me. If Guillermo del Toro had made this movie twenty years ago, I’m convinced it would’ve been great. Back then, his creative limits—smaller budgets, tighter constraints—brought out the best in him. Here, unshackled thanks to Netflix’s bottomless pockets (a rumored production cost of $120M), he’s adrift. The result feels both too grandiose and strangely hollow: massive sets populated by five people, no pulse beneath the surface.
It’s impossible not to watch this and compare it to Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. That film, though flawed, was scarier, hornier, and more psychologically dense; Frankenstein has no real heartbeat. It’s neither fearsome nor sexy. It wants to be a gothic romance, but it plays like a fairy tale drained of wonder. Oscar Isaac’s performance is grating, Jacob Elordi does his best to inject some emotion, and Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz are almost entirely wasted.
I hesitate to come down too hard—del Toro remains a meticulous craftsman. The production design is clearly labored over, and certain images have that familiar spark of imagination. But then the CGI wolves show up, or the lighting goes flat and televisual, or the sets start to look like they’ve been borrowed from Wicked…Any sense of intimacy or awe collapses under the weight of artifice.
What’s missing most is grounding. Pan’s Labyrinth was alive with political charge and mythic allegory. Frankenstein feels untethered to anything. Even if you’ve forgotten Mary Shelley’s novel, you can see most story beats lumbering forward predictably on the far horizon.
Frankenstein does not feel like the work of the man who made Hellboy, The Devil’s Backbone, and Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s polished, expensive, and passionless—a creature stitched together without a soul.
Predator: Badlands (Theaters)
What is it? A young Predator outcast from his clan finds an unlikely ally on his journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
Watch if you like: Prey, Predator Killer of Killers, Avatar, Predator, The Mandalorian
Schmear’s Verdict: A surprisingly tender, pulse-pounding survival story that proves the Predator franchise still has (green) blood—and heart—left in its veins.
Even my appreciation of Dan Trachtenberg and his past Predator entries, Prey and Killer of Killers, couldn’t have prepared me for how much I loved Predator: Badlands. It’s the most heartwarming found-family tale since The Wild Robot. I know that sounds blasphemous for a franchise built on blood and gore, but this is a perfectly calibrated PG-13 adventure about violence, survival, and connection.
It follows a runt-of-the-litter Predator dropped onto a planet where everything’s trying to kill him. The setup is simple, but in a brilliant, video-game kind of way—each level introducing new and imaginative creatures that make the world feel almost Avatar-like. While the planet has that gray, ugly quality that’s become standard in modern blockbuster fare, there’s still a desolate beauty to it, with the blend of CGI and on-location New Zealand shooting giving it striking texture.
A film like this needs a good critter, and this one definitely has one—something in the spirit of The Mandalorian’s Grogu. Our Predator, played with surprising emotion by Dimitrius Koloamatangi, links up with a cut-in-half Weyland-Yutani synthetic, played by Elle Fanning. They have a Shrek-and-Donkey kind of relationship: prickly, humorous, and unexpectedly sweet.
Meanwhile, Fanning also plays the synthetic’s “sister,” rebooted and set on a warpath against them. The story stays mission-oriented and clean, and Elle elevates the material—mixing humor, menace, and pathos across both roles. The action is clear and cogent throughout. You can imagine Marvel execs watching this and wishing their own set pieces were half this coherent. The sound design ripples through you, as does the score from Sarah Schachner and Benjamin Wallfisch.
The movie is predictable—you can guess most of the beats early—but it’s staged and crafted so well that it doesn’t matter. My theater was even clapping during a few of the kills and big moments.
Maybe it sits a notch below Killer of Killers and Prey, both of which used silence and imagery to greater effect. Badlands is louder and busier, but it’s a rocking and rolling experience. Trachtenberg remains completely locked in on character, and his imagination feels boundless.
Predator: Badlands only strengthens the case that this is quietly one of the best and most consistent franchises running today.
It: Welcome to Derry (HBOMax)
What is it? In 1962, a couple with their son moves to Derry, Maine, just as a young boy disappears. With their arrival, very bad things begin to happen in the town.
Watch if you like: It, Watchmen, Stranger Things, Lovecraft Country, The Outsider
Schmear’s Verdict: Creepy, confident, and surprisingly fun, It: Welcome to Derry is a throwback horror series that knows how to scare and entertain in equal measure.
As a Stranger Things detractor, I wasn’t exactly poised to enjoy It: Welcome to Derry—but three episodes in, I’m extremely impressed. The It movies from Warner Bros. are uneven. The first is fun; the second is pretty terrible. Between that and my skepticism toward kid-centric horror nostalgia, my expectations for the new HBO series were low.
What I didn’t anticipate was how intoxicating this show’s Pleasantville-meets-Cold-War-paranoia atmosphere would be. Set in 1962 Derry, Maine, it follows a group of kids tormented by a demonic force that manifests their worst fears.
Director Andy Muschietti (who directed both It films) and showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Kane keep things inventive, gory, and surprisingly harrowing. The show feels like a ride—one that goes on just a little longer than you want, in the best way. When it leans on practical effects—a supermarket scare involving pickles, a bed frame turning murderous—it’s genuinely terrifying. The CGI, though, dulls the edge and drains the fear.
The cast is a major strength. The kids hold their own, but the adults are even more compelling. Jovan Adepo and Taylour Paige play a couple who’ve moved from Louisiana, carrying with them echoes of the Jim Crow South, reverberating ever northward. Chris Chalk is terrific as Dick Halloran. Racial tension quietly pulses through the show, giving it unexpected depth and urgency.
You can feel writer and consulting producer Cord Jefferson’s touch throughout. His presence brings sharper sensitivity to the show’s racial and social dynamics—recalling HBO’s Watchmen or Lovecraft Country and how intelligent those series were about race. Welcome to Derry isn’t quite at that level of sophistication, but it’s reaching for something similar, layering meaning beneath the scares.
Three episodes in, we’re still waiting for Pennywise. The sustained dread and inventiveness make it hard to complain, but I’m ready to meet the big man. I usually appreciate restraint, but it’s time for the rubber to meet the road.
It: Welcome to Derry is that rare horror show that’s actually scary—a turn-the-lights-off kind of series that also has something on its mind. Against my biases, I am looking forward to riding this ride each week.
Thanks for reading!