MIDSOMMAR — SHOCKTOBER!

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Writer/director Ari Aster's brilliant horror/social satire is a film that would make M. Night Shyamalamadingdong jealous, very jealous.

"Midsommar" is everything that M. Night imagines his movies to be, but are not. Namely, being truly terrifying, albeit with a keen wit regarding theme and plot development. Smart.

Bold.

You want "character-driven"?

Well here it is.

Carried by Florence Pugh's flawless performance, "Midsommar" could have yet been improved upon with a good 12 minutes of editing.

Nonetheless, Ari Aster isn't afraid to shock his audience into submission. If ever there was a Halloween movie guaranteed to shock you, "Midsommar" is it.

Prepare for the worst.

This is one brutal movie. Not for the faint of heart.

"Midsommar" will not be everyone's cup of tea.

That said, if you're down with Aster's nuanced restraint, even his graphic depictions are engaging.

The violence is just literal enough, but you can clearly make out rubber from flesh.

The cycle of life, as carried out in a dystopic Swedish cult community, is the social Petri dish that Ari Aster uses to examine death, for the complex confusion and fear that it instills in all humanity.

Indoctrination is an essential part of the cult plan.

There's even a slasher-film aspect to "Midsommar" that tips its hat to black comedy.

All you need to know going into this transgressive (if surrealistic) film is that it covers: animal abuse, cannibalism, incest, suicide, matricide, homicide, and some serious fucking.

My work here is done.

Get thee thinking cap on.

Rated R. 148 mins.

BEETLEJUICE — SHOCKTOBER!

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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Tim Burton's 1988 kids' movie horror/goof-fest might have impressed that era's young audiences with its stop-motion animation effects, but "Beetlejuice" is too scattershot with its humor to make much of an impression.

Tim Burton's use of surrealistic elements gives you a disorienting sense of time and place, and that is this movie's greatest gift; it takes you to weird, dystopic landscapes and atmospheres.

There are plenty of great sight-gags, but they only get the movie so far. The narrative development just isn't there.

At heart, "Beetlejuice" is a haunted house story, with Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin doing the ghostly honors.

Winona Ryder owns the picture with her insouciant Goth attitude.

In what equates to Ryder's big screen career (this is just her third film), you can clearly see her star shining bright behind those dyed black bangs.

Michael Keaton elevates the meandering script with sheer energy. Only Robin Williams could have come close to Keaton's over-the-top performance, and even he would have had a hard time matching it.

For kids' Halloween movie, "Beetlejuice" is a safe bet, but it won't go over as well with the adults.

Debatable though is the film's tone-deaf use of Calypso music.

Not helping.

Raged PG. 92 mins.

HOUSE — SHOCKTOBER!

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 surrealistic satire regarding the overwhelming aftermath of America’s atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is a virtuosic fantasy horror movie unlike any other.

Of the atomic bombs’ 200,000 causalities, all of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s childhood friends were among the deceased.

Nobuhiko Obayashi was just eight years old at the time of the attacks. Clearly, he never lost sight of his pals, or his loss. Here, Obayashi throws a cinematic extravaganza party to celebrate the lost potential of a generation.

Extreme teenage Japanese punk power pop! You bet.

We’re way beyond “Rocky Horror” baby.

“House” takes the cake, the dining room table, the piano, and most certainly the title’s house of horrors that devours seven teenage girls via a very hungry piano.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

“House” shows Obayashi’s encyclopedic mastery of state-of-the-art filmmaking, from a deeply personal approach to meeting the sugary commercial demands of the film’s producers.

This insanely ambitious movie puts George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to shame with pure inventiveness.

Obayashi received story ideas from his eleven-year-old daughter, Chigumi. A blood-spewing white cat piles on the film’s cartoonish tone of outrageous evil consuming every body that steps in its path.

Nobuhiko Obayashi uses every filmic technique at his disposal, in order to transmogrify the grief, pain, and sense of incalculable loss that he and so many others experienced. What results is a cinematic phantasmagoria overflowing with humor, expressions of love, and deep-seeded fear of the unknown.

Visually and viscerally stunning from start to finish, “House” is much more than a mere masterpiece.

Not Rated. 88 mins.