| The AMC series Interview with the Vampire is wrapping up its second season, and was just renewed for a third. If you haven't checked it out yet, give it a shot. Be assured it makes big, sweeping changes to the Anne Rice book series – every one of them for the better, as far as I'm concerned. It's leaner, smarter, funnier, sexier and, somehow, even queerer. I'm particularly taken by the way the series employs dialogue. On so many other shows right now, characters are simply mouthpieces – they only speak to reveal absolutely every last damn thing they're thinking at that particular moment, or to thuddingly advance the plot. But IwtV's characters are all hiding their own agendas, so they don't just talk – they deploy language in a rich, multilayered way to test each other, tease each other and wound each other. The director McG's film oevre doesn't often overlap with my personal-taste oeuvre, but I stumbled across his 2017 slasher-comedy The Babysitter on streaming recently and ate it up with a big ol' spoon. The plot? Kid has a hot babysitter who seems to really get him, but one night he eavesdrops on what happens after she sends him to bed and invites her hot friends over. Turns out? Things get bloody. The script is clever, the jokes are funny, and Samara Weaving plays the babysitter – she made this movie right before she made 2019's Ready or Not, another nasty little gem of a horror-comedy in which she shines. Okay I'm recommending this next thing, but with an asterisk. Alice in Borderland is an ultraviolent Japanese thriller series about a bunch of people who find themselves in a mysteriously abandoned Tokyo; they're forced to play survival games based around a series of playing cards. The asterisk is to let y'all know that this show won't be for everyone – it features mass shootings, sadistic violence and heartbreaking deaths. Okay, now that I've winnowed out the "No, Thanks" folks, let me assure those of you who are still curious – it's compelling as hell. The two leads keep the stakes real and grounded, the whole playing-card mechanic is fascinating and satisfying, and there's this one dude who can make his face look so much like the manga character he's based on that you'll convince yourself he's a living deep-fake. This has been a very dark and bloody newsletter, so let me switch things up by recommending something dark and cute-y. The game Hauntii is available for Steam, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo. In it, you're a ghost who's tootling around Eternity, trying to ascend to a higher plane. To do so, you have to talk to folks, battle enemies, and solve puzzles – typical stuff. What sets it apart is your ability to haunt (read: inhabit, and take control over) various objects and characters. Also the look of this thing is bleakly gorgeous – its monochrome but beautifully stylized character art and backgrounds mean that even if you find yourself wandering aimlessly, as I did – a lot, a tremendous lot – there's always something cool to look at. | 
