© Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
© Hannah Beier/Reuters
© Dave Sanders for The New York Times
© The New York Times
After Guardian writers shared their scariest Halloween watches, readers respond with their picks, from Jaws to The Blair Witch Project
My parents took me to see it in the theatre, under the impression that it would be appropriate for a seven-year-old. Princess Mombi’s macabre wardrobe of disembodied heads; the psychopathic laughter of the “wheelers”, with all four limbs ending in squeaky wheels; Nicol Williamson’s sinister, vicious Nome King – all are permanent fixtures in my unconscious hall of famous terrors. And Fairuza Balk’s Dorothy is eerie to match, a perfect uncanny heroine for a truly twisted “children’s” film. gradeoneirony
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© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
Low-key but well-designed Brazil-set chiller, which starts with a mysterious emergency call from a nightmarishly mouldering care home
The year is 1996, the country is Brazil, and young firefighter Ana (Marjorie Estiano) is returning to work after freezing up on the job. We see in flashback that, as a young child, she survived the horrific experience of her disturbed mother attempting to carry out a murder-suicide. Unluckily, one of her first jobs after returning to work is to respond to a call from a dilapidated nursing home in the middle of nowhere. The first sign that something is amiss when she and the crew rock up, is that nobody at the home will admit to having made the call in the first place. The place itself is also obviously trouble; it’s got the kind of damp in the walls that isn’t just a challenge for estate agents, but might also seep into your soul.
The stage is thus set for Ana’s past and present day perils to collide. Of course, people with traumatic backgrounds are 10 a penny in the horror genre at the moment; gone are the days when terror and unease sprang from the fact that this gnarly stuff was happening to a normal family, a nice young girl or an average bunch of teens, and could therefore happen to you, too. Perhaps film-makers have cottoned on to the fact that nobody really perceives themselves as having lived an untroubled life. Everybody is vulnerable.
A Mother’s Embrace turns out to be a minor but interestingly woozy and off-kilter entry into the canon of thoughtful trauma horror; its strongest suit is vibes and imagery, with the persistent queasy sensation that Ana has wandered into a bad dream. But is it her bad dream or someone else’s? The excellent and nightmarish production design suggests the answer doesn’t matter; she’s in trouble either way.
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© Photograph: Blue Finch Film Releasing
© Photograph: Blue Finch Film Releasing
© Photograph: Blue Finch Film Releasing
The president’s wife is reported to have ‘privately raised concerns about’ the destruction of the White House East Wing. If so, they were ignored
From Eleanor Roosevelt to Melania Trump, the East Wing of the White House served as a base for first ladies. It was where Michelle Obama spearheaded her Let’s Move public health campaign and where Nancy Reagan and her staff worked on the Just Say No drug awareness initiative.
“It was a place where first ladies could carry out the important work that they do,” said Katherine AS Sibley, a professor of history at St Joseph’s University.
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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
(Columbia)
The Catalan star’s monumental fourth LP features lyrics in 13 languages, references to female saints, the London Symphony Orchestra – and Björk on ‘divine intervention’
Last week, Rosalía appeared on a US podcast to discuss her fourth album. At one juncture, the interviewer asked if she didn’t think that Lux was demanding a lot from her listeners: a not entirely unreasonable question, given that it features a song cycle in four “movements”, based on the lives of various female saints and involves the 33-year-old Catalan star singing in 13 different languages to the thunderous accompaniment of the London Symphony Orchestra; and that it sounds nothing whatsoever like its predecessor, 2022’s Motomami. “Absolutely,” she responded, framing Lux as a reaction to the quick-fix dopamine hit of idly scrolling social media: something you had to focus on.
Demanding a lot from her listeners didn’t seem like something Rosalía was terribly bothered about, which is, in a sense, surprising. Pop has seldom seemed more prone to user-friendliness, to demanding as little as it can from its audience, as if the convenience of its primary means of transmission has affected its sound: it occasionally feels as though streaming’s algorithms – always coming up with something new that’s similar to stuff you already know – have started to define the way artists prosecute their careers. Then again, Rosalía has form when it comes to challenging her fanbase: variously infused with reggaeton, hip-hop, dubstep, dembow and experimental electronica, Motomami represented a dramatic pivot away from her 2018 breakthrough, El Mal Querer, a pop overhaul of flamenco that – incredibly – began life as the singer’s college project. It seems oddly telling that the biggest guest star on Lux is Björk, whose distinctive tone appears during Berghain, somewhere in between a resounding orchestral arrangement, Rosalía’s own operatic vocals and the sound of Yves Tumor reprising Mike Tyson’s “I’ll fuck you ‘til you love me” tirade over and over again. It’s hard not to suspect that Rosalía sees Björk as a kindred spirit or even a model, someone who has predicated a decades-long solo career on making artistic handbrake turns through a glossy aesthetic.
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© Photograph: Publicity image
© Photograph: Publicity image
© Photograph: Publicity image
Rules seem unlikely to help – kids will just rebel. Instead, try saying it all the time yourself
Don’t tell your kids, but “6-7” is Dictionary.com’s “word of the year” for 2025. Of course, “6-7” is not a word in the strictest sense. It’s two random numbers strung together for the purposes of annoying parents around the world. What does it mean? Nothing. When can it be used? Pretty much whenever you want to piss off an old person. Such is the state of global linguistics. Having a purpose or meaning to what you’re articulating is cringe. The point is to troll, to frustrate, and to alienate. Isn’t that the whole reason the internet exists? To organize us into factions – the smartened up and the hapless?
For the childless among us, “6-7” is just online gibberish that is easily ignored – the password into a nightclub you don’t want to actually enter. For people like me with a Gen Alpha boy obsessed with belonging, “6-7” is something like the Rosetta Stone for having even a passing verbal interaction with your spawn. About a month ago, my son started saying “6-7” at any lull in conversation. He’d start asking for the thermostat in our car to be turned down to 67 degrees even if it was 62 degrees outside. For his eighth birthday, I bought him a personalized Dodgers jersey with his name on the back. The number he chose was 67. I purchased a size big enough for him to grow into, but the rest of the jersey will probably age like an apple on the side of the freeway. “Why did I pick this number again?” he’ll ask in three years. “Because your brain wasn’t developed enough,” I’ll respond.
Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
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© Photograph: Kawee Srital-on/Getty Images
© Photograph: Kawee Srital-on/Getty Images
© Photograph: Kawee Srital-on/Getty Images
Mix up a classic croque monsieur with different cheeses and, in an autumnal twist, a rich leek and bechamel base
While I love a classic croque monsieur (or madame), I do occasionally like to mix things up by using different cheeses and hits of other condiments – I basically live life on the edge. This leek-laced version feels comfortingly autumnal, and a bit special, too. If I have friends coming over, I’ll make the leek and bechamel base in advance, then fill the sandwiches just before baking and serve them with a bitter leaf salad.
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© Photograph: Matthew Hague/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Florence Blair. Food assistant: Emma Cantlay.
© Photograph: Matthew Hague/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Florence Blair. Food assistant: Emma Cantlay.
© Photograph: Matthew Hague/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Florence Blair. Food assistant: Emma Cantlay.
Obsidian Entertainment; PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC
While its story fails to deliver, this enjoyable follow-up to Obsidian’s 2019 adventure makes it up with considerable advances elsewhere
The Outer Worlds 2 was originally announced in June for £70/$80 – making it Xbox’s most expensive game at the time. This was short-lived: Microsoft backtracked barely a month later, and kept it at the standard £60/$70. While The Outer Worlds 2 is technically bigger than its 2019 predecessor, that decision was smart: this is not a £70 game.
It is, however, a thoroughly enjoyable adventure that can easily suck up hours of your time, and one that improves upon the original game in meaningful ways. With far better combat and deeper role-playing mechanics, The Outer Worlds 2 smartly expands without spreading itself too thin – even if its story fails to delight.
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© Photograph: Obsidian Entertainment
© Photograph: Obsidian Entertainment
© Photograph: Obsidian Entertainment
Republicans claim US president ‘desperate’ to end shutdown, which has now entered 33rd day
My colleague Lauren Gambino has filed this report on the California proposition to redraw its congressional district boundaries. Here is an extract from her story:
California’s Proposition 50 began as a warning from the nation’s largest blue state to its largest red one: don’t poke the bear. But when Texas moved ahead with a rare, mid-decade gerrymander, pushed by Donald Trump as Republicans seek to shore up their fragile House majority in the midterm elections, California made good on its threat.
Now, California voters appear poised to approve a redistricting measure placed on the ballot in August by Democrats and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who have cast it as a chance to check Trump’s power …
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© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters
© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters
© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters
Fast bowler says England have confidence and belief as he prepares for what could be his final series against the old foe
“My dad would be Australia and I’d be England,” Mark Wood says with a wry smile when remembering his first Ashes Tests as a boy in his back garden in Ashington, Northumberland. “I’d try to copy Darren Gough, Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard and, later, Jimmy Anderson, who I’d go on and play with. My dad, who didn’t do the actions so well, had to be Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne. He was most proud of his Gillespie but his Warne wasn’t great.”
Wood snorts at the idea that his dad, Derek, might have let him win most of those matches. “No, no, no. It was proper cricket. You had to give each other lbw and every time I hit my dad in the leg he’d be going: ‘No, that’s going over’ or ‘That’s down the leg side.’ I was like: ‘Dad, that was plumb.’ I had to get my DRS right.”
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© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
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