If you’re a fan of “The Yellow Wallpaper”—and by the light of All the Queens of Horror, there is no better time than right now to re/acquaint yourself with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 proto-feminist classic—you will find yourself positively geeking out with seasonally malevolent glee at the first act of Books of Blood. Perhaps it is coincidence, but director Brannon Braga’s choice in both bedroom décor color palette and mentally disturbed (according to other people) heroine is enough to send shivers of joy up the spines of English majors of a certain era.
It’s clear from check-in that Jenna’s hosts (Freda Foh Shen, Clive Russell) are hiding something diabolical with their folksy, salt-of-aphorism and preponderance for hugging total strangers. But the really scary part of Jenna’s plight isn’t her possible Sweeney Todd/Mrs. Lovett-adjacent hosts. Any female who has spent time alone on the road or as a solo guest in unfamiliar lodgings knows the anxiety of wondering if you’ll truly be safe as you fall asleep. Robertson captures that fear, even when the plot has her doing the hoary, ridiculous damsel-in-distress nonsense (going into dark rooms alone, not leaving when that wallpaper seems to start talking, etc.)
But it’s lazy. It does nothing new, merely retreading places we’ve already been. v
Dir. Brannon Braga, 107 min. Hulu
