I'm Vrai Kaiser, writer by profession and analytic nerd for the love of the game. I've been published in online magazine The Alligator, and am currently working to get my first novel published. Here you'll find updates on my work, as well as pop culture analysis, recaps, and reviews. Commentary and requests are always welcome.
These days The Wicker Man is best known for its ridiculous 2006 remake, the centerpiece being walking meme Nicolas Cage. This is a shame—as much fun as a bad movie can be, the original 1973 Wicker Man is one of the unassailable classics of horror, mixing memorable performances and unsettling visual design […]
I wouldn’t say this is a GOOD movie, but it’s definitely a hell of a spectacle.
Isekai isn’t my bag most of the time, even if we’re talking about the 90s stuff that tended to be a lot more interesting (and a lot less gross) than the male wish-fulfillment version of the genre exploding at present. But there is one I adore: Escaflowne, the […]
The Fly is a nearly perfect horror film—it has tight writing, excellent performances, visceral practical effects, and well-developed themes about the horrors of deteriorative genetic inheritance. It was a breakout performance for Jeff Goldblum and, before that one episode of Rick & Morty, the most likely reason the average moviegoer […]
20 years. I made it almost 20 years without watching this movie.
This essay was commissioned by Wendy Cannan. You can find out more about commissions here. “Bad on purpose” is an extremely difficult sell. It requires a much higher level of shared knowledge than straightforward comedy—both because the creator must know how to replicate the hallmarks of amateurishness while still […]
With thanks to Hiimdaisy Picture this: a TV drama opens with the usual cast meeting the one-off characters of the week. Character A, whom we have probably never heard of before, is gay. Character B is aggressively homophobic in reaction to this news, tossing slurs and hateful rhetoric […]
