Aphorisms and Ectoplasm

Suspended Desperation

2011-02-22T02:50:00.000-08:00

Final Girl Stacie Ponder's Film Club pick for February was a bit of a curveball; I don't always participate, so I could be wrong here, but this one seemed like an atypical choice for the FGFC. First of all, it's brand new (I'd never heard of it until twelve hours ago), and second-of-all, it's pretty slick. If you've been following along at home, you'll know that most FG flick picks aren't slick...so much as...apt to be obscure and timeworn. Splendid gems for the most part, but usually in need of a good polishing. Frozen (2010), on the other hand, is fresh from the oven. Or icebox, in this case.

The set-up is basically the engine that powers every phase of the plot: three college kids become stuck on an immobile ski lift, stranded above a wolf-harried mountain, and attempt to survive with only their wits and their mitts left to them. (Spoiler! - they lose both really, really, quickly)

Directed by Adam Green of Hatchet fame, and featuring a cast of young horror veterans - Emma Bell (Walking Dead), Shawn Ashmore (The Ruins), and Kevin Zegers (Dawn of the Dead), Frozen is a deceptively simple modern thriller with admittedly minor scope, but keenly whetted for maximum audience impact. It's refreshing in its light touch - the melodrama is kept in check, there are few false notes in the character's interactions, and the tension and ultimate climax resolve organically. Also? No obvious reliance on CGI. These days, that's a laudable rarity.

So while the movie does an adequate job of keeping the audience caring about the characters' predicament and maintains a fairly decent pace, it suffers a bit from its ostensible antecedents. To wit; 2003's Open Water was a mostly grim slog through the last hours of a callow relationship doomed to evisceration by stupidity, recrimination, and bitey sharks. There is that same problem here. Mathematically, this fatalistic narrative equation can yield only a small number possible outcomes. The setup requires at least one sacrifice, so during the second and third acts, we're left expecting either one or both of the remaining characters to a) live, or b) die.

Perhaps paradoxically, by narrowing the focus by a third, the emotional stakes are equally divested. We care about this group of kids, (and they're presented as a unit, not a predictably killable crew of Hodder-fodder), but individually, as the three become separate, the dynamic spins away. It creates tension, but it's also an obvious, glaring tell for the audience - a familiar keyframe.

Early on, Frozen namechecks Jaws as a foreshadowing tool. A fear of being torn apart by predators is horribly realized for one, and you can't help but wonder if a Final Destination style outcome waits in kind for the others. When Bell's character declares her fear of burning to death, I half expected her to horribly combust while attempting to light a makeshift flare using her cigarette lighter and a length of ultra-flammable fleece from her jacket lining. Was it a coincidence that the jumping Trade Center workers of 9/11 were also mentioned? Were we supposed to anticipate the dubious irony of a flaming frost-bite victim falling to her death from the less-than-lofty heights of a mundane chairlift? I hope not, and I'm glad it didn't go there (although Ms. Bell is slated to appear in the upcoming Final Destination installment, so...hmm)

Frozen also owes some of its frosty DNA to the haunting and tragic Wind Chill, a comparison which is maybe unfairly apples & oranges of me, but I think deserves a mention. Frozen also got me thinking of the raft sequence in Creepshow 2. The escape plans devised as a kid (in case of a monster sighting) when lying on that raft in the middle of the lake at the cottage are no different, really, than the contingencies imagined after the ski-lift swings to a juddering halt on a Sunday in February over the treacherous Pinball Run.

As far as contingencies go, the majority of the viewers I'm sure formulated their own strategies while watching this, and those strategies would in all probability fail just as spectacularly as the panicked and element-numbed trio from the film's did. In fact, I'm willing to bet my season lift-pass that the Mythbusters devote an entire episode to alpine survival, punctuating each practical demonstration with abundant clips from Frozen to underscore their "kids, don't try this at home" mantra. ("Watch what happens to Buster's legs as we drop him onto a frozen hillside from a height of sixty feet!")

Ultimately, Frozen's glacial charms are more than enough to outweigh its shortcomings, and the final result is about nine million degrees more sizzling than what I would've expected from the helmer of the fucking Hatchet films.

A Package Arrives!

2011-02-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, I had a dream in which my left foot was in need of some expensive surgery only offered by an exclusive hospital in Geneva. As I couldn't afford both the procedure and the transatlantic airfare, my doctor came up with a cunningly simple workaround - he sawed it off at the ankle and bade the receptionist to express-mail it to Switzerland. Then he gave me some crutches and told me to go home and wait. The latter half of the dream had me hobbling about restlessly, listening for the postman's heavy step at the front path. A package finally appeared, and I tore open the bubble-wrapped envelope with relief. My foot was repaired and ready to go. Full postage paid. Unfortunately - much like the Swedes and their damnable Ikea deliveries - the Swiss surgeons had neglected to include English instructions for re-attachment. I was, if you'll excuse the pun, stumped.

Anticipation is a potent thing. Whether manifesting as barely perceived butterflies in our waking lives, or powerful presentiments of slumbering wish fulfillment, the promise of a thing yet to come; assigned but unknowable, awarded yet unclaimable, can yield the sweetest of torments. And so it was this dread anticipation which did accompany my discovery of a manila-sleeved enigma stuffed in the mailbox Monday evening. Was it a foot, you ask? Better, my friends. Better and bloodier. It was my pre-ordered copy of

The wait is over!

Many of you are familiar with the works of Stacie Ponder, professional graphic artist and tireless authoress of Final Girl. What you may not know is that last year, in the paltry span of two days, she made a near feature-length film with her own resources pretty much single-handedly. And let me tell you, it's good.

Befitting bugsplat on Google's road camera heading to Ludlow.

Krista (Lark) is looking to put some distance between her and a physically abusive spouse. We see her car arrive at a bleak desert motel in Ludlow, CA. Unpacking her meager belongings (and a seemingly endless cache of cheap vodka), she checks in to room #8.

Early on, we're introduced to Krista's constant companions: her collection of welts and bruises, her cellphone, and a rapidly-diminishing supply of assorted painkillers and anti-depressants. Ominously, each of these fairweather friends are prone to exhibit diametrically opposite functions; the bruises are both painful reminders of her past and a lifesaving catalyst for change, the phone is her lifeline to the future, as well as a dangerous connection to her abuser, and the pills will cushion her emotional trauma even as they confound her ability to cope with it. It's not just Krista who is at a crossroads - everything in her inventory possesses a dualistic, potentially malignant nature.

Ponder shows us a lot of her broken heroine's psychosexual history and the frightening depth of her instability in the hour that follows, perhaps documenting only a few minutes of Krista's downward spiral, perhaps a few days. The overall effect is designed to disorient, so further plot details become entirely subject to the viewer's sympathies. One does sympathize, however, make no mistake. Shannon Lark does a fantastic job of riveting the viewer to Krista's lonely plight, allowing us enough distance to judge her terrible choices, even as we commiserate, feeling every shock, punch and indignity.

In the highly enjoyable commentary, Stacie cites Friedkin's Bug and Polanski's Repulsion as Ludlow's thematic godparents. Myself, I would be surprised if audiences weren't also reminded of Carnival of Souls (the doomed heroine, inexorably drawn to an abandoned location), Mulholland Drive (a damaged woman's delusional reinvention of characters and events), and even a hint of Konami's second installment in the Silent Hill series, populated by self-destructive penitents trapped in their own private purgatories.

Very much in keeping with Ludlow's elegiac flavor is James Barry's original music. It is not the typical fare of no-budget independent works, and adds tremendously to the film's emotional impact. Rounding out the cast is Elissa Dowling (in two roles), and Ned Christensen as Steve, the silent, stalking Shade of Krista's subconscious.

Stacie has been reviewing and discussing films for the better half of a decade, now. She's absorbed an uncanny, almost encyclopedic knowledge of suspense and horror, and amassed legions of fans in the process. Her critical aim is true. And so here's the thing: unlike your typical backyard-zombie movie, fledgling filmmaker, Stacie had a HUGE task ahead of her. How do you craft a story - with no budget to speak of - that's going to satisfy genre fans who've seen everything? More importantly, how will you maintain credibility as a connoisseur to such a jaded and sophisticated audience? Today's fans have seen every cliché, every cheap convention and lazy contrivance there is, and this genre is rife with them, even the old pros like Romero and Hooper have fallen prey to them. We complain loudly and bitterly over the crap that tries to pass for art, and the trite shorthand that usurps true storytelling. "I could make a movie ten times better than this!" we say with the contempt that attends absolute certainty. With this in mind, the pressure to make something that isn't an exercise in hackneyed futility must have been monumental for Miss Ponder.

It's with great appreciation and relief that I'm able to say that not only did she show courage in the attempt, but incredible deftness in the execution. Ludlow is a triumph.

The Hellbound Fart

2010-08-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

You all know Stacie Ponder from Final Girl, don't you? Her Film Club is the cat's pajamas. The lady has an unerring sense of taste, an uncanny nose for schlock, and a unique gift for picking just the right horror flicks month after month.

So I'm giving her a pass on this one, and instead blaming the disgustingly apocalyptic heat.

Because this:

WAS AWFUL!

Hellbound ( ~~1984~~ )(1994) is a Chuck Norris movie. It's a movie where Chuck Norris out-woodens the clapboard sets with his acting, where the less-than-unknown supporting cast makes you wonder if they weren't hired purely out of charity, and where any redeeming cheese factor is blighted by the fair-to-middling competence of the direction and cinematography.

This thing is just tedious. But since this is supposed to be a review instead of a heatstroke-fueled grouse, here's the rundown: Chuck portrays a Chicago detective nonsensically named Sgt. Frank Shatter. Presumably Frank Shatter is a moniker designed to confer an acuity for shattering bones, but in my estimation it's what you call a guy who quite frankly shits his pants in the past tense.

Voluminously beshatted and stratospherically waisted PANTS!

To digress just a bit - I just fucking don't get Chuck Norris, I never have. Ok, he's believable as a diminutive bearded fellow with a penchant for flailing about with his lower limbs, but hell, SO WAS MICHAEL FLATLEY back in the day. The guy's head is 30% larger than it ought to be, his shoulders seem scarcely broad enough to support even a normal-sized noggin, and his trunk and musculature befit an octogenarian (funny enough, I liked "The Octagon"). He's never managed charisma or gravitas in any of his roles, and it just amazes me how he acquired this nutty fanbase that somehow sees a badass under that baby beard and those birthing hips.

Ugh. So, it's time to wrap this up - the thermometer's climbing. Chuck Norris and his embarrassing stereotype of a black sidekick are on the hunt for a Satanic toady with ridiculous hair (actually, he's in good company) who wants to gather the pieces of a broken sceptre and raise the Devil. They end up in Israel (because production decided it was cheaper than Iraq, I guess?) and archaeology happens, and the devil dude with the wacky gurning and basso profundo dubbing, and then Chuck + roundhouse kick, + roundhouse kick = THE END.

So much bad hair.

So much bad acting (and obviously, hair).

Let's not and say we did.

This godawful shitpile is worse than all the worst parts of Dead Heat, Lethal Weapon, End of Days and Sister Act and right now I'm so hot and sticky I could cry.

My soiled diapers are still more slimming than Chuck Norris' slacks.

Lucio ad nauseum

2010-05-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

Has it really been a year since my last post? It has! So much to catch up on! Let's see...I had a birthday! And...that's pretty much it. If you're wondering what manner of eldritch incantation finally awakened me from my ancient slumber, it was none other than the Final Girl Film Club pick for this month, to wit - "The Gates of Hell" (AKA "City of the Living Dead") Great choice, Stacie. Just for that, here's an animated GIF just for you.

Who can name all four of those iconic broads?

Anyway, for the sake of those unfamiliar with the basic plot of GoH, here's the rundown: during an ill-considered séance, a woman (Catriona MacColl) named Mary Woodhouse ((not to be confused with Mary Whitehouse, bellicose British busybody, distinguished Doctor Who detractor and all-around Anglian alarmist) clairvoyantly witnesses a priest's suicide in the churchyard of a New England town called Dunwich. The shock of the vision triggers morbid catatonia, so before anyone can even wipe the drool from her chin, she's pronounced dead and without so much as a by-your-leave (or a post-mortem), is planted six feet under. Fortunately for Mary, a nosy reporter (Christopher George) happens by before her dirt nap turns permanent. At the behest of her magnificently coiffured medium (think Rhea Perlman as SHAFT), Mary and Peter travel to New England with some vaguely-articulated plans of closing a gateway to the City of the Dead.

This old collar is dying for a little accessorizing...

Meanwhile, in Dunwitch we meet some of the locals, none of whom are particularly interesting except Bob, the town pariah and pervert (played to the squirrely hilt by Italian splatter mainstay Giovanni Radice). We learn that the town's ancestors were witch hunters (a plot point that adds up to zero, btw), and that supernatural goings-on are definitely afoot.

Afoot...

It doesn't take long before the town's population dwindles dramatically thanks to the murderous spectre of the dead priest, or in Bob's case, a drill through the face via industrial lathe.

Bob, getting some much-needed colour in his cheeks.

When Peter and Mary (Paul probably figured that leaving on a jet plane was a prudent course of action. Well played, Paul) FINALLY arrive in Dunwich following an unbelievably leisurely road-trip, the dead are a-walkin' and the maggots are a-flyin'. Seriously, Fulci interrupts one of the few moments of essential exposition with a whirlwind of WORMS. We're talking Cloudy With A Chance of Maggots here. Damn, if only today's directors had the clout and/or nerve to glue live squirming maggots to the faces of their four principal actors. I can almost hear Fulci instructing his crew in his thick Italian accent "Worms first! Actors second! Story last!"

Ultimately, the remaining characters band together and come up with a plan to find the final resting place of the priest, dig up his body, and do something to it in order to close the hell-gate. It's never made very clear, and frankly the whole grave-desecration thing seems counterintuitive in regards to closing infernal portals and such, but what the hell do I know? I'm a Unitarian. I'll not spoil the ending, suffice it to say that a) this is a Fulci flick, and b) by the time the credits roll. there's scarcely a zombie in Dunwich with an empty tummy.

Overall, one helluva great movie. I'm not being sentimental here, either; the f/x sequences are show-stoppers, the soundtrack and ambient sounds are unsettling and often way OTT (at various points, the hooting of a Kookaburra!), the plot. thin and incidental, moves along at a brisk pace, and the actors emote gamely, though the dubbing can be pretty jarring. The shambling undead are back in fine form here, too. Some of them teleport, which really cuts down on the shambling time, and decreases your odds of outwalking 'em exponentially. One spry cadaver, violating about a dozen Zombie Union rules, actually jumps down Jackie Chan-style from atop a thirty-foot fence. Totally badass.

They say Fulci unofficially counted Gates of Hell as the first entry in a potential series known to fans as the "Seven Gates Trilogy". The follow-up was "The Beyond" released a year later in 1981, but a third movie sadly never materialized. When people talk about this director's work, the time period under discussion usually centers around the early eighties in general, and four films in particular. I've made a handy little comparison chart which shows some commonalities between the "Big Four", and how they stack up. Everyone has their favorites, obviously, so there are no "winners" here, except you, dear reader. For your elucidation I present the Fun Fulci Factsheet. (Humor me and click it.)

So many common elements! Obviously, the primary link is Catriona MacColl, who starred in all but Zombi. She makes for a fiesty, albeit oft-overlooked Final Girl. And then there's Lucio himself, who brought all these wonderful gutmunching epics to life. When the dead do rise (and they will, dammit), I hope Fulci picks up right where he left off...

How Not to Decorate

2009-03-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Final Girl's Film Club pick this month is Italian splatter-maestro Lucio Fulci's 1981 gut-wrenching, optic-nerve-abusing thriller "The Beyond".

Unlike his long-treasured films such as "Zombie", "Gates of Hell", and "House by the Cemetery", this one is considered something of a lost classic, due to the sketchy availability of the notoriously censored video version (released in the murky 80's as "Seven Doors of Death"). This is unfortunate, as it stacks up technically pretty impressively next to his more well-known works - too bad I'm a little long in the tooth to really appreciate it on a truly visceral level. What a shame, because this sucker does not want for viscera.

Since its restoration, The Beyond has been praised as a masterpiece. I'm not disputing this, and no offence to my fellow Fulciphiles, but after two viewings it still hasn't had much of an impact on me. I just can't come up with much to say about this movie besides the fact that it's definitely faster-paced than HBTC, marginally less coherent than GoH, and nowhere near as unsettling as Zombie. The set-pieces are very effective, Catriona MacColl is fetching as always, and the music doesn't completely trample the mood. Is Fulci in top form here? Absolutely. Yet somehow it all feels a bit empty. Or maybe it's just me that's empty. Not to be gross here, but I've got a nasty flu and...well.

So in light of my present inability to formulate any kind of sincere commentary (thanks Nyquil!), I'm turning this review over to my esteemed pals* from across the pond - a pair of recent Toronto émigrés who never lack for opinion (solicited or otherwise) - those shrewd-eyed Scotch stylistas - Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan!

Watch 'em on HGTV

*******

"When decorating a large space, such as a vintage hotel, avoid repeating the same colour scheme in every nook and cranny. Sepias, browns and beiges are great for warming up a space, but too much of the same will soon have your guests reaching for the pitchforks and torches!"

"Don't let dark, dingy spaces turn your luncheon into a lynching. A smart, decorative wall hanging can redirect the eye away from the shadows and onto that striking hand-crafted focal point."

"Contractors - can't live without them; can't kill them. Well you could, but it's cheaper in the long run to just hire the right ones. Always check for references, never sign a blank cheque (or a carte blanche, for that matter), and never pay out a lot of money up-front. That way, those malingering painters and plumbers can never take you to the cleaners!"

"MIRRORS! Not only fab from a vanity perspective, they also can be used to visually double the size of your smallest room. Position them opposite windows to brighten up a sitting room or piano parlour. Unless your name's Ray Charles, why entertain in the dark?"

"Speaking of light, if you've got no natural source for it, don't be gloomy. Put a little of your budget toward recessed lighting panels. They more than pay for themselves when you look at the finished product. The effect is so cheery and relaxing, your guests won't want to leave!"

"Stripes will grow on you! As I'm always pointing out to Justin, stripes truly are slimming. But when applying this tip to a room, use horizontal stripes. They'll make you feel cosy and ensconced, as if cocooned in a snug silk blanket."

"Red and white. A favourite partnership of ours for many years. In its various mergings it can be 1950s scarlet meets pure perfect snow, or decadent crimson wed with soft creamy beige. Executed properly, this timeless pairing will help elicit a wonderfully stylish scheme. And our favourite red and white combination? That's simple: raspberry and cream – the mouth watering pairing is pretty much foolproof where design is concerned."

"When considering the bathroom, la salle de bain doesn't have to be the bane of your house. Here's a tip to keep everything stylish, safe and sanitary: create a non-slip surface beside the tub by installing a pattern of mini-mosaic tiles. As for the tub itself, a family heirloom like this clogged, filthy claw-foot antique may well prove more of a hair-loom in the end. Unless your idea of luxury is soaking in a stew of turn-of-the century germs, heave it in the trash and start fresh."

"When decorating, always make sure the eye has somewhere to go."

"Och, Colin, it's the Drapes of Wrath! Spare yourselves (and us) the shame of ruffled curtains. These ghastly things look like the discarded bloomers of a frontier saloon girl. Do you really want to be dressing your windows in a pair of old knickers that's been mounted by the entire U.S. Cavalry?"

"Ever wonder why we use red in our kitchens so much? Simple. In the Colin and Justin colour dictionary, red is the ideal shade for digestion. It's true."

"French doors are indispensable. They create a lot of flow and really open things up."

"Fun project: DRIBBLE ART! Just paint a canvas to suit your scheme. Next, spoon blobs of latex – in a complementary tone – along the top and allow gravity to do the rest. Hang, and enjoy. Simple, eh?"

"Time for the reveal!" "Open your eyes, kids!"

"Justin, they're speechless."
"As they should be. Our mission isn't just about spreading the gospel of good taste, it's also about enlightenment. Look at them, Colin. Pure rapture."
"What's happened to their eyes?

They're sort of marbleized, aren't they? Like fine Italian porcelain."
"Hmmm, yes quite subtle, but very sheik. They're learning, Colin."
"Who knew style could be contagious?"
"Actually, I did. My interior design thesis was..."
"Oh, here we go. More twaddle from your psych major days..."
"Colin, the fact that I'm the better designer isn't something you should feel threatened by. Besides, green is a terrible colour for you."
"The older designer. Not better, older."
"By a year. Not even that."
"So...who d'you think would win a no-holds-barred cage match - Schweick or Dr. Freudstein?"
"What on earth are you faffing on about?"

*******

*Editor's note: C&J are not my pals. Nor have I ever even actually technically met them. :(

Boned in the Dark - game review

2008-06-30T20:34:00.000-07:00

Alone in the Dark 5 teaser-trailers have been all over YouTube of late, and most of them looked extremely promising. Sadly, the PS2 (and Wii) version of this title was handled by a different company - Hydravision, and the reworked result is, if you'll pardon the pun, a shadow of its former self. While fans have hardly reached any kind of consensus regarding the quality of the X-Box version, citing sluggish controls, baffling plotline and a pair of abrupt, disappointing endings; the old-gen port is, without question, just plain awful.

In a Playstatic interview, Lead Designer Lionel Fumery (Hydravision is a French company, responsible for the recent and pointless Obscure sequel) is quoted as saying

“while there’ll be slightly less of the park to explore, your enemies possess a slightly less razor-sharp intelligence and the physics effects will have slightly less 'oomph.'

I don't know offhand the French word for understatement, so I'm gonna go ahead and call merde on this one. Visually, the differences can be summed up thusly:

360 screencap on left, my screen on the right..

The game has no boss-battles to speak of, no truly challenging puzzles, and is linear to the point of hand-holding. The "zombies" are a complete joke; rendered as neither frightening nor threatening, they serve merely as background furniture you can mow down with your car or shoot with your pistol. The inventory is woefully incomplete; not only are the new features such as customization absent, the items you collect don't even have ID screens. One item - a cellphone - seems designed to establish contact with other characters in the game during key events, but every bloody time I dialed a number I got the same "circuits are busy, try again later" message. So what was the point? Not that any of these characters were really worth talking to, as there was an awful lot of strong profanity being spouted for no discernable reason.

What I loved about the previous installment, "AitD 4, A New Nightmare", was the utterly charming locale - Shadow Island. It's one of my top three gaming environments of all time. It had a mansion complete with an astonishing multi-tiered library, an observatory, a zombie-infested swamp, rain-swept ruins, ancient Indian burial sites, and a huge trippy underground netherworld to explore.

The premise of hell-beings invading our plane of existence during blackouts - only to be fought back with light-based weapons worked very well. From a powerful photon-gun to a lowly flashlight, the number of clever ways to dispatch your photo-phobic enemies was limitless. In this new adventure, in which Shadow Island is replaced by Central Park, your flashlight does exactly dick.

Though I knew the PS2 port had to cut back on some scenes and levels, resulting in a shorter playtime, I had no idea the end would come as quickly as it did. One minute I was bashing down a wall to collect some gemstone that was apparently going to help me face off against my enemies, and the next thing I knew, I was watching the last cut-scene of the game. No big fight, no plot resolution, nowhere to try out all those molotov cocktails I'd saved up...just a short FMV basically telling me all my efforts were in vain. End of world, end of game.

As for replay value? None. Zip. The game didn't even give me a final save option after the interminable credit sequence. Since I didn't skip any levels, why in hell would I start a new game all over again without so much as a change of costume?

Colour me disappointed. Not bitterly so, as I will eventually fork over the bucks for a console that can play the top-notch Eden Games version, as well as the upcoming Resident Evil 5. But just because my trusty old PS2 doesn't have the power to handle the much-hyped unscripted flame effects, doesn't mean it deserves to be put out to pasture quite yet. Especially not after playing such a sour final note.

X-Box game cover v.s. Playstation game cover.

Big Trouble in Little Britain

2008-06-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

When Stacie Ponder at Final Girl offered her readers a choice for the next Film Club selection, I jumped at the chance to partake in that uniquely American institution they call democracy. Being Canadian, however, I botched it magnificently. "Schizo" was my first pick, and when that horse started coming up lame I panicked at the prospect of potential minority status and changed my vote. After the polls closed and the ballots were tallied, the winner was...Lifeforce! Hooray, my guy won! I was finally among the political elite!

As I busied myself affixing my "Food of the Gods lost, GET OVER IT" bumper stickers, however, it occured to me that the movie I thought I was voting for whilst pulling that virtual lever was actually an entirely different movie from the one rattling around in my election-addled brain. You see, Lifeforce is a 1985 vampire shocker from Tobe Hooper, whereas I was thinking of John Carpenter's 1988 aliens-among-us paranoid opus They Live.

Oops. Oh well. I suppose, like Waldo-spotting and parallel parking, democracy doesn't come as naturally to some as it does to others. I resolved to watch the movie anyway, having not actually seen it, and having absolutely nothing better to do.

The first section of the film is familiar territory for Dan O'Bannon, as he riffs on his own "Alien" script by placing his star, Steve Railsback (Helter Skelter, Ed Gein) aboard a spacecraft which has gone off-mission to investigate an alien ship.

They find the dessicated corpse of a gargoyle-like beast and a trio of nude humanoid aliens apparently in stasis.

After the decision is made to carry the their discoveries back to their own ship (The Churchill), a title card informs us that Some Time Has Passed.

A team of astronauts (piloting the ill-fated shuttle "Columbia" no less) are sent to dock with the silent and drifting "Churchill" to investigate. They find the fire-blackened interior wrecked, the crew dead, and the escape pod jettisoned. I would have blamed droids at this point, except that not all of the unlucky astronauts are accounted for. The three capsules containing the naked sleepers, however, are discovered undamaged and returned via the shuttle to Earth.

These sequences are rather impressive, by the way, and the visual effects and modelwork overall look great.

The next bit of the movie introduces us to various British actors (the remainder of the film is set in London) and stuntpeople (Tip Tipping, Stuart Fell), most of whom have appeared in at least one episode of Doctor Who. It's really sad how I know this.

Anyhow, the femalien vampire escapes her confinement and promptly sucks the "lifeforce" out of anyone she and her monumental bosoms encounter.
Beware the vampire's shadow-puppies!

Get used to these. You'll be seeing a lot more of 'em.

The two (less aggressively naked) male aliens also awaken, but are quickly blown to bits by a couple of hastily-thrown grenades. Since it's the lady vamp who's running the show, it's a pretty moot sequence.
The guy on the right is Mick Jagger's brother Chris, and the other guy once played a Cyberman. Seriously not kidding.

Next we meet Peter Firth's character, a refreshingly intelligent and perspicacious military type who begins conducting an emergency manhunt for the escaped soul-sucking crumpet. When her victims begin spontaneously re-animating, we learn that the vampires' curse is dangerously contagious.
Winehouse - Live at Leeds. Kidding!

Actually, it's more of an excuse to show off the level of animatronic sophistication those effects wizards had back in the pre-CG days. Nice for its time, but probably too hokey for most modern audiences, especially considering the female corpse looks suspiciously like the bisected zombie from O'Bannon's "Return of the Living Dead".

Steve Railsback's escape pod is recovered in Texas, and after a quick shave, he returns to London to assist in the investigation. Once hypnotized, he establishes a psychic link with the body-hopping harlot, which proves invaluable in causing Patrick Stewart (yes, that one) to holler dramatically, in that inimitable way only British actors can.

And then they kiss.
Yeah, just go with it.

Aboard a military helicoptor, Railsback confesses he was the one who torched his ship in order to prevent the aliens from reaching Earth. Suddenly, a message from the research lab confirms that the creatures are indeed vampires, and can be destroyed with whatever elaborate, lead-shafted, medieval weapons one has handy. Good to know!

Picard and another drugged passenger choose this exact moment to get airsick.

It's quite gross, actually.

We're talking Tubgirl gross.

Peter Firth gags accordingly.

London erupts into chaos as the vampire spaceship enters Earth's orbit. Not even doubledecker buses plastered with giant gin adverts can escape the carnage...

Alien ship with brolly attachment at full extension.

Deftly evading (or just plowing through) the hordes of clamoring zombies, Firth hotfoots it back to the lab to grab the sword-of-swords while Railsback "homes in" on Chesty McBreastie's location - St Paul's. Not without a sense of irony, these space-vampires.

Firth, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, heads to the famed Cathedral for a little payback. Only one man can stop him...
And his name is Rick Astley. Ok, no, it's the remaining male vampire, who is quickly dispatched.
Bleargh! Pierced by the Sword of Convenience!

Firth enters the church, and is nearly blinded for his troubles:
Railsbackside.

After some extended canoodling, finally the hand-off. The sword is thrust, and the lovers are dust.
Or...are they?
End.

Wow. I totally want to watch that again. It was goofy, quotable, batshit crazy, gory, and somehow still very, very British.

Regarding the title of this post - I'm reminded again of John Carpenter. His career started out with "Halloween", an independent horror flick that rocketed him onto Hollywood's radar, very much the way "Texas Chainsaw" worked for Tobe Hooper. A few years later, buoyed by bigger budgets and industry clout, Carpenter made "Big Trouble in Little China", a wild, perhaps undisciplined vanity project that baffled critics and many moviegoers at the time. And yet honestly? It was, and still remains, an awful lot of fun.

I'm not proposing that "Lifeforce" is on par with BTiLC, nor even half as good, but isn't it at least analogous in the sense of sheer unrestrained, joyful abandon? And if this is, indeed, Tobe Hooper's cinematic "grand folly", then why not enjoy it for exactly the same reasons?

I sure did.

Guess I'm just fussy that way...

2008-06-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Doctor Who novelizations of yore, published by Target Books - imprint of the popular BBC television series - were a collector's delight. Each was issued haphazardly in relation not only to the serial's broadcast order, but to the various incarnations of the Doctor himself. Often current releases were interspersed among classic sixties adaptations; one never knew which of the four Doctors' adventures you would be introduced to next, and this uncertainty was easily half the fun for eager fans.

For the better part of the seventies, I scoured the shelves of bookshops for the latest Who novels. The staff of Coles and WH Smith pretty much knew me by sight, if not by name. The thrill I felt stalking those titles during trips to Sherway Gardens and the Eaton Centre was something I'm not likely to ever experience again.

My interest in Who waned dramatically during the vast interregnum between televised broadcasts of seasons sixteen and seventeen. The last book in my stalled collection would be "The Horns of Nimon", and it would be two years before I got the chance to see this serial (or indeed anything from that disappointing season) for myself.

The final insult, however, was the logo change. The neon-style title configuration was crude, tacky, and quite simply ruined the books for me. While still entirely of the Target line, and bearing the same roster of familiar authors like Terrance Dicks and Ian Marter, they seemed utterly foreign and unworthy of inclusion. I suppose my nascent obsessive-compulsive tendencies were partly to blame, but the way I hurried past these sullied treasures while browsing in comic shops was very much akin to the manner in which Pee-wee Herman avoids the snake terrariums during the pet-store fire at the end of his Big Adventure.

While my collection of (homogeneously logotyped) Who books was eventually boxed up and moved to storage, those Target titles kept a-comin', and I just kept ignoring them. Finally, novelizations ceased with the demise of the Target division in 1991.

Looking back, I've come to regret my fastidious purism. These books are damned hard to come by now. However, thanks to the wonders of today's technology, I can at least see what I was missing. To wit: On Target (The Changing Face of Doctor Who) is a lovely tribute site and exhaustive archive for Who book collectors.

And just for the sake of pretendsies, I'm going to show you some of my "What If" covers, and some of my "improved-artwork" covers using the magic of Photoshop. (Forgive the artistic licence, and all apologies to you neon-logo-loving freaks out there.)

Here we have "An Unearthly Child", the first Who serial ever broadcast, novelized in '81 (missed it by that much), and spoiled by the pointless red banner and the hateful neon logo.

And here's the book I wish it could have been. The denim colour works very well, I think. Sets off Andrew Skilleter's Tardis rendition nicely.

Below is one of two non-Target novelizations from Virgin publishing, with a decent cover by Alister Pearson. Oh, but that Sylvester McCoy-era logo will never do...

While not an artistic improvement, it's hopefully an aesthetic one.

Next we have John Geary's terrific Axos cover, but with a minor error. He's coloured the tentacled Axons green instead of reddish-orange.

An honest mistake, as those costumes were re-used in "Seeds of Doom" and painted green. He was probably given the wrong snaps to use as a source. Here's a corrected version.

Speaking of "Seeds of Doom", here's Chris Achilleos' cover for that book. He's got Tom Baker nailed, but Liz Sladen frankly looks...a little odd and out of place. (Look at the positioning of her feet!)

So, as much as it pains me to take Sarah out of any equation, here's the re-do (with an attempt at a colourized Doctor).

Another one that doesn't quite work is "Brain of Morbius". This is the serial that took the Gothic themes that the show was exploring to new heights. Decapitations, organ transplants, castles, witches, disembodied brains and patchwork monsters were all featured in this story. Sarah even goes blind for a bit, while the Doctor is rude and belligerent throughout most of the proceedings. So why is this man smiling?

Ah, that's better. That's Alister Pearson's Tom Baker from the "Pyramids of Mars" reprint, replacing Mike Little's grinning scarf-attack victim.

"Planet of Evil" is next. It's another gothic thriller, though possibly more Lovecraftian than Hammer-inspired. The cover, to a degree, is a bit laughable.

Goodbye, anti-matter wolfman.

Probably my least favorite of all the covers was John Geary's "Image of the Fendahl". The figures aren't bad, but the background looks rushed and incomplete.

Don't know if this would pass muster with WH Allen's art department, but I think it's at least an incremental improvement.

By the way, I agree with the fans who felt that going from hand-drawn art to photographic covers (as they did during the Davison era) was a bad idea.

Of course, many of the painted works produced, such as Alun Hood's superb Nestine creature from the "Terror of the Autons", Roy Knipe's 3-D Sontaran on the "Time Warrior" cover, and Jeff Cummins' full-cover treatment for Leela on "The Face of Evil" were realistic enough to pass for photographs. Or very nearly.

Here's a Cummins cover with a more flattering background colour. I always hated the original's sky-blue, for some reason.

As some of you know, not all the classic serials have been novelized. "Shada" was the famous serial scuttled by a BBC strike, a couple of the later Dalek stories were never tackled because of licensing issues. Douglas Adams was intending to adapt his "City of Death" and "Pirate Planet" scripts, but sadly never got around to it. Unofficial fan novelizations of these in-limbo properties have cropped up, but since this post is nothing if not an exercise in fantasy...

We miss you, D.A.

If you're wondering if there is a practical point to any of this, I can't say. Perhaps if I had a laser-printer, I could theoretically reproduce some of these "re-imagined" covers onto the appropriate glossy one-sided card stock, and then...I don't know, tear off the old book covers and possibly find a way to glue the new ones on without ending up with a sticky pile of worthless pages of ruined memorabilia.

What do you think, Pee-wee?

Perhaps not.

Gasping at straws

2008-03-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

Damn, 1988 was a long freaking time ago, wasn't it?

I remember thinking '88 had such a modern, almost (Thomas) Dolby-like ring to it. By contrast, '08 strikes me as primitive and infantile. Maybe it's because I seem to be drooling more these days, I dunno. My point is, twenty years ago, the Home Video revolution was in full swing, and there wasn't a horror flick on tape that I hadn't crammed into my Panasonic player's hungry, humming slot. "Long live the new flesh!" I would whisper, caressing the remote's then-dizzying array of perhaps ten buttons. Hell, even Jaws: The Revenge was worth a couple of rewinds.

Somehow though, 1988's Scarecrows escaped my notice completely. You can imagine how intrigued I was to learn that it had been chosen as this month's Final Girl film club selection.

The film employs the same set-up you might remember from 2004's Dead Birds, where Confederate-era thieves broke ranks among the haunted cornstalks of a creepy abandoned farm. Here the bandits are equipped with high-tech gear, including night-vision scopes and microphone headsets, but the general idea is the same; murder, mayhem, betrayal, paranoia, telepathic scarecrows practicing their needlepoint, etc, you know the drill.

Wait, what? Oh the scarecrows right, sorry. In case you thought this movie was meant to be an exercise in gothic, atmospheric, mood-driven, psychological horror? Like, say Dark Night of the Scarecrow? Think again.

"I'll swaller yer soul!"

This is 1988, people! Evil Dead and Aliens were the two horror movies you couldn't go wrong ripping off, so why the hell throw up pretensions? Especially when you can be throwing up fingers!

"Blaarggghh....fuckin' Wendy's, man."

And who the hell said "blush" back in 1988?

Not Bonnie Tyler, that's for sure! She says "rouge"! As in (to her female hostage) "here, try a little rouge, it'll make you look happier."

And you know what? She's right. Whenever I need a pick-me-up, I dash straight to the men's room and apply a little rouge. Works every time. Don't believe me? Look!

I'm like a new man!

Anyway, the scarecrows themselves are a pretty effective bunch for a lot of reasons. For one, they can replenish their numbers just by stuffing you with straw! Ok, it's an agonizing death and whatever they cut off (or out) of you they get to keep for themselves, but you get to live forever as a scarecrow. Pretty fair trade, in my opinion. Don't worry - their needlework is top-notch.

Also, as mentioned above, they're telepathic. Not the kind of ordinary mind-reading that slashers seem to use when stalking prey, either...these straw zombies will fuck with your head. They even lure a girl away from safety with the sound of her dog's barking! At least I think that was telepathy. I don't imagine it was a scarecrow crouching behind a tree going "ruff ruff!", but you never know. These guys were freaking hardcore...

"I'm gonna miss you least of all scarecrows...OW! Oh GOD!"

I love how they had the decency(?) to cover this guy's head with a sack seconds before stabbing him right in the face. In fact, the sack-thing made this kill even more horrible than it would've been otherwise. Sadistic straw-bastards!

Perhaps the thing I loved the best about "The Scarecrows" was how there was no explanation whatsoever as to how these straw-stuffed simulacrums became evil and animated in the first place. There might have been a cursory reference to three farmers and some devil-worship, but it was pleasantly brief. Maybe the writer figured that if people wanted long-winded expository speeches and a whole lot of scientific twaddle, they'd go watch C-SPAN or read National Geographic. Whatever his motivations, it was the right call.

Overall, the film is pretty entertaining and well crafted. I can see why fans have considered it a minor gem amongst the schlock of eighties video fare. The only drawback was that the final girl was a bit of a pain in the neck - always whingeing about "stickers". I'm assuming she meant those little burrs that get on your clothes in the woods. Seriously, who - besides Stephanie from "Newhart" - complains about burrs during a hostage crisis?

Pipe down and put on some rouge.

This film gets three Spazmoticons out of five, and I'm adding half a point for this line of dialogue alone:

"They'll rip your tight little asshole out before you can say QUE FUCKING PASA!"

Words to live by.

"Time for you creeps to join Ray Bolger in HELL!"

Manitou Boogaloo!

2008-02-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

When I read that Stacie had selected 1978's "The Manitou" for February's Final Girl Film Club, I could barely contain my joy. It was a helluva frightening flick when I saw it as a kid, and a blissfully campy howler when I watched it with friends on video many years later. "How would it seem now?" I heard myself mutter as I scoured the internet for a decent copy.

As it turns out, last month's barely contained joy was not premature. In fact, upon rewatching this classic, my rapture doubled, then tripled in size. Then, like an overripe pimple, it simply exploded through the confines of cautious optimism and splattered gloriously onto the metaphoric delivery-room floor of my wildest expectations.

It's just that good.

After the Avco Embassy logo (they would release "The Fog" a year later!), an appropriately (if not entirely accurately) Native craft-centric credit sequence plays, and damn, if that isn't one of the best title themes for a horror film I've heard in a long time. A quick check lists the name: Lalo Schifrin, nominated six times for an Oscar. Not too shabby at all.

The story begins inside a highrise medical complex, a clean, well-lit modern facility where two MDs are reviewing the X-rays of a young patient named Karen Tandy. She's apparently suffering from a tumor-like growth at the back of her neck; one that's growing at a rate of "7.3 mm per hour". The good doctors agree that this is an alarming speed, though when we meet Miss Tandy (Susan Strasberg) she seems remarkably calm about the situation.

In fact, she offhandedly describes regular incidences where the swelling seems to "shift, like someone trying to get comfortable in bed". Um...sure. That's one for the textbooks, anyway. Her serenity and candor (not to mention her perfectly co-coordinated peach blouse and scarf combo) are actually freaking me out a little bit here, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if she followed up with "also, once in a while I can hear a tinkling sound, like someone taking a leak" or "sometimes, I hear a ringing sound, then a click, then a muffled voice saying 'Sorry I couldn't come to the phone right now, I'm gestating. If you leave your name and number..."

Anyway, the docs aren't interested in such flights of girlish fancy, and promptly bring her down to earth by scheduling some hardcore surgery. That'll teach her.
Not surprisingly, she takes this development with nary a batted eyelash.
Clearly, she is a fembot. The scarf is a dead giveaway.

Leaving the doctors to their bafflement, and Karen to her thoughts on...anything that doesn't involve self-preservation, apparently, we swoop through a generic cityscape which could truly pass for any urban locale in America (or is this Toronto? Who knows?), we alight upon the prosaic scene of Tony Curtis fucking with the credulous mind of an extremely elderly woman. Dressed in some kind of wizard's robes and sporting an obviously false moustache, he's using Tarot cards to generate a series of oddly specific predictions. To wit: "Monday, a heavy object will fall on your foot; Tuesday, someone will cheat you at cards; Wednesday, a phonecall - probably obscene; and Thursday? Gas." The woman either has very low expectations for a)next week, or b)the art of fortune-telling, because she fills the parlour with effusive praise and presses bills into his hands. After all but shoving her out of his apartment door, Curtis removes his stick-on 'stash and heads to the hi-fi. Switching tracks from mystical mood music to the funkiest of all funky beats, he proceeds to get down.

Of course he does, he's a seventies-era swinger! Although once he removes his wizard-robe, you can see that the only thing really swinging are his far-from-Spartan man-boobs. In any event, this fifty-something Tarot-card flipping bachelor prances through his super-tidy crib over to his fridge, pours a beer into a wineglass, and sits himself down (legs crossed above the knee) to enjoy a cold one; making sure to spread a clean, starched napkin on his lap first. So not playing it gay at all, here. No siree, not our Tony Curtis. Ahem. Anyway, just as he's about to sip his Bud(!), the phone rings. When he hears it's a girl's voice, he makes a face.

Next we join Karen and Harry (Curtis' character's name is Harry Erskine) on an extended travelogue through the infuriatingly bland and identity-free city which seriously could pass for anywhere in the northern hemisphere. They take a stroll in a big park, ride on a cable car, and wander around some sort of fish mongering district catching up on old times, before finally heading back to his well-appointed domicile. After some activity which required the donning of bathrobes (maybe they each, separately, needed to shower off the fish smell) they somehow end up lying parallel to each other in front of a crackling fire. Harry hears Karen, (understandably sleepy after their platonically exhausting evening) whisper: "Pana Witchi Salatu". Hmmm. No doubt Harry thinks she's asking for his salad recipe. Or possibly something about Don Ameche. In any event, he drops her off the next day with some encouragement about staying positive, and drives away without even going into the hospital with her. Jerk.

It's the day of the surgery, and Karen's procedure is to be performed by Dr. Hughes - man of science, common sense, and steely bedside manner.

It does not go well.

The monitors go nuts as Karen opens her eyes just as the scalpel descends. Dr. Hughes delivers a spectacular incision - to his own left hand. The other medical staff are appalled and pull him backwards. It's chaos. What I love the most about this scene is the nurse sitting at her computer (a Tandy?) to the left of frame. At first she exhibits some shock and concern...

And then thinks better of it, and hunches back over her workstation, trying to distance herself from the medical crisis erupting all around her.

Well played, wise, shy little nurse. That's exactly what my reaction would be too.

Back at "work", Harry is busy in his apartment grafting his latest doddering mark - Mrs. Herz. By the way, the next few minutes here are comedy gold, with each actor playing it as broadly as possible, milking these characters for all they're worth. Harry gives the old girl a fairly good forecast, and then turns over the last card.

Ruh-oh.
Mrs. Herz wastes no time in Linda Blairing up a storm, in her sweet, lavender-scented way. "Pana!" she bellows. "Witchi!" "Salatu!" Harry, profoundly alarmed, flaps helplessly around the apartment, at one point threatening her with an ambulance. She won't be calmed, and flies from the apartment. Floats, actually - all the way down the corridor, to the top of a stairwell. Slow-mo Harry is no match for bad mojo, though, and her bewigged stunt double crashes calamitously down the stairs, taking out every spindle along the way. Harry is horrified and holds her lifeless, broken body to his chest while the sound of the approaching ambulance wails in the distance... Actually Curtis is rather moving in this little moment here, but we're given no time to mourn poor Mrs. Herz, for at the hospital...

Karen is not doing well. Harry tries unsuccessfully to convince Dr. Hughes that some kind of supernatural force is at work, but Doc's not buying any of his hippie jive. And frankly? At this point, you can't blame him for being skeptical. Surely his hand-slicing adventure was the result of some kind of...malfunctioning scalpel.

In any case, Harry realizes it's up to him to get help for Karen, so he visits another old "flame" by the name of Amelia Crusoe. The woman is a bona-fide gypsy, hence the dark locks on Stella Stevens here. Her kerchief is also a bit of a clue. Obviously, this is the moment in the script that most mirrors "The Exorcist", and it's actually not too derivative. Sure, they're basically trading a Roman collar for a kerchief, but it's so ham and cheese it works. Besides, pretty soon Harry trades in the kerchief for a real chief, so...

Seance scene. This creeped me out for years, especially the way Ann Sothern gives Mercedes McCambridge a run for her money with the sotto groaning and demonic histrionics.

Ann Southern, by the way (wonderfully cast here as Karen's dotty aunt), was the voice of the car in "My Mother the Car". So she was a natural choice to appear in a movie dealing with machines and spirits. She pioneered the machine manitou role! Where was I? Ah yes, after the tar-black head of an ancient Indian spirit makes his theatre-in-the round debut, the shocked seancees gather to confabulate.

The best part of this exchange is Southern's pronunciation of the word 'saloon'. The woman is obviously having fun. And, clearly drunk.

A Yeti-like minor character chimes in with his doubts on the subject.

"Yeah, but a wooden Indian with...magic powers?"

Shut up, beast-boy; I enjoyed Creepshow 2. Some aerial shots of a big bridge - New York? Man, this is bugging me. So ok, our kids are all over the dusty book research, as is dictated by all known paranormal movie conventions, and I'll skip all of this (including Burgess Meredith's nice little walk-on as a doubting anthropologist) except for this bizarre shot of a too-large fish in a too-small tank seemingly trying to commit suicide by fern...

~Hit refresh to see the animations here and further down, as for some reason that saloon audio clip stops the buggers in their tracks~

Critics would probably call this some kind of aquatic analogy for the desperately wrongheaded, misguided, ill-directed folly that is "The Manitou", but since I'm no sneering nabob, let's push on, shall we? The good Dr. Hughes has unwisely authorized the use of what looks like Reagan's missile defense system to remove Karen's tumor.

Seriously not a good idea. And talk about one mother of a surgical laser! I mean, unless you're having the planet Alderaan removed, we're looking at major overkill. Karen is not happy, either.

That mess she just made won't be helping her premiums any.

Desperate, Harry goes looking for a Medicine Man. Luckily he finds one in the very next scene: a tall drink of firewater named John Singing Rock who is thoughtfully tending an herb garden. Of course he is. I wonder if, in a parallel universe where this was a gangster movie, this character would be tending an olive garden and delivering his lines with an orange wedge in his mouth. Of course he would. Anyway, after some clunky culture-clashing, John agrees to help Harry in exchange for some tobacco and a cheque made out to a child-friendly Native charity for $100 000. Since Karen's aunt will be footing the bill, Harry deals.

Back in the city of absolutely no discernable landmarks (actually, let me warn you, the ding ding of the cable cars in this movie is so ubiquitous, you'll swear you're watching The Bells of St. Mary's. Or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.), Harry and John clash with the hospital administrators. Dr. Hughes, in a shocking dramatic turnaround, proves skeptical. When they visit Karen's room (speaking of hunchbacks), she's full-blown possessed, and introduces herself as "Misquamacus", a 400 year-old supershamen bent on...well, he's just really bent. John blabs awhile about sealing the spirit in a circle of protective herbs while he readies his arsenal of tatty-looking talismans for the exorcism proper, but what he ends up laying down is actually no more than a semi-circle of herbs, on account of the hospital bed being against the wall. This doesn't figure into the plot later on, it just irritates me.

The exorcism isn't much of anything but a series of interludes in which John Singing Rock (he summons rock, but sadly never sings rock, which seems like a tragic oversight given the awesome cinematic potential of a heavy-metal showdown) calls upon various spirits such as eagle and mountain to do his bidding. His manitou-mojo is dodgy at best compared to mighty Misquamacus, and the pair are forced to retreat frequently to the visitor's lounge. Just as things are getting quiet-

Aaaghh!

Misquamacus has used a "body manitou" to kill the orderly, stripping away his skin. The tortured flesh of Karen's back ripples and bulges, Harry watches in horror as the malformed abomination aborts itself.

There is a horrifyingly moist splat as the demonic dwarf pulls free and hits the tiles of the hospital room. Slowly, the thing crawls towards the men who seek to imprison it, and after raising himself up onto his knobby little knees, Misquamacus begins to chant defiantly.

After some juicy corpse reanimation and a bit of dinosaur summoning

which claims doubting Dr. Hughes' other hand, the homicidal half-pint breaks free of his herbal confinement and begins spoiling for a fight. Harry helps Dr. Hughes onto the elevator and down to a floor where his mutilated hand can be tended to. He returns alone, and is greeted by a scene right out of Doctor Zhivago.

All is ensconced in ice. A friendly nurse is frozen forever in an unflattering pose at her station. John Singing Rock is sitting prone in Karen's room, in shock after receiving a faceful of surgical instruments. On the way back to the elevator, our heroes are caught as Misquamacus springs his ambush! An ice demon!

Hey, short-round's bottom looks a bit protracted, doesn't it? Imagine if there were some other evil Manitou growing there? Oh the delicious irony! Actually, no, that's not what happens. His ass is just weird. But then! Harry has Had Enough, and hurls an unplugged portable typewriter at the bulge-butted little beggar. Unexpected explosion! The typewriter's manitou (yes, just go with it) has surprised and wounded the midget medicine man. Oh, and the frozen nurse got decapitated in the assault, too, but I forgot to take a screencap. This should get the point across, though.

Another trip in the elevator to get some help for John's face reveals the true inspiration for the Mortal Kombat character "Nightwolf":

No, actually they just convince Dr. Hughes to turn on all the electronic equipment in the building so that John can channel their manitous and destroy "the Mixmaster" as Harry is by now wont to call him. Taking the lift upstairs for one last shot at exorseismic glory, the duo dodge diabolic pink laser beams as they come abreast of ground zero. They are amazed to discover Karen's hospital room has no walls, ceiling or floor - only a dizzying starfield with the cackling homunculus hovering triumphantly over all. Distantly flanking him is a pulsing purple acid trip we are told is the "Great Old One", a serious muckety-muck in the demonic pecking order. Well, sparks literally fly as the modern equipment is charged...but because it is "white man's magic" John is unable to use it. I'm actually not sure what sort of herbs they expect us to construct our EKG machines and CAT scanners from, but clearly we screwed up somewhere. In any case, the energy is crackling, but undirectable, and Misquamacus just floats around and laughs like a motherfucker.

But! Don't you dare blink, for Dr. Hughes suddenly meets an explosive end as the power comes surging out of the sundry reel-to-reels and impressive banks of beeping set dressing!

But where is the energy going? Who will channel the awesome power of the White Man? Why, a white woman of course! Karen and her remarkably resilient hair rise from the hospital bed into a kneeling position, her gown falling fetchingly from her shoulders. Misquamacus ceases his cackling and stares...

Stares at the power growing in his miraculously resurrected former host's hands. Wait, hands? Or...

Boobs! Her gown has fallen all the way down and her boobs are primed and loaded! Also: Asteroids! Asteroids are flinging themselves at John and Harry! And more lasers! It's laser Loggins, people. Manitou has become Xanadu! Anyway, she nails him but good, and then likewise sends his cohort, the Great Old One, tottering off to that cosmic porch in the sky to bitch about the prices of prescription drugs and whatnot.

And then the room returns to normal (except for the odd bloody corpse) and she whispers "Harry?". Ahh.

The next day, Harry walks John out to his waiting cab. They talk about reincarnation and things, just to leave a door open for any number of sequels, and then Harry fishes into his pocket for something. It's John's tobacco. John takes it, appreciating the thoughtful gesture and waves. His cab pulls away. Harry smiles and waves back. Suddenly I realize that the promised hundred-grand cheque was never delivered. The White Men will never stop ripping those people off, will we?

Travelogue credits: Hmm, hey! Is that the Transamerica Pyramid? But...isn't that in San Fransisco? Aw, heck, I've stopped worrying about it. Hope you enjoyed the review (whew, that was a long one), now I'm off to learn the secret Indian name of my dryer's manitou. I'd really like to get some of my odd socks back.

Woefully disorganized telemarketer

2008-02-16T12:34:00.000-08:00

Today's exchange:

Phone - *Brrrinnnggg*
Me - "Hello?"
Phone - *crackle*
Me - "Hello?"
Phone - *papers shuffling*
Me - "Hello?"
Phone - "Oh good day, sir. *crackle, shuffle* Would you like, would you like to clean your ducts for ninety-nine dollars?"
Me - "Would I...wh...what? No, no I wouldn't."
Phone - *shuffle*
Me - "Hello?"
Phone - "Thank you."
Me - "Whuh...your welcome?"
Phone - *crackle crackle shuffle...click*
Me - "Hello?"

Interpreting a classic.

2008-01-14T04:10:00.000-08:00

The following review is indended for and inspired by the nice folks at Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club.

Three sisters they are,
of one mysterious household;
and their paths are wide apart;
but of their dominion there is no end.

"Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow"
~Thomas De Quincey~

Dario Argento's 1977 visual masterpiece "Suspiria" tells the story of a young ballet student's terrifying adventures at a European dance academy. She must quickly unravel the mystery of the violent deaths that have begun to plague the school before she finds herself sharing a similar fate.

The film is set in the German city of Freiburg, on the edge of the Black Forest, and the director takes full advantage of the gothic and neo-classical architectural treasures of Ludwig's Bavaria. At the start of the film, when Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) transitions from the bright, modern Munich airport lobby out into a night assailed by lightning flashes and torrential rain, she begs a local cabbie for help with her bags. We aren't surprised when she gets none. After all, this is the fairytale woods that the Brothers Grimm were always warning you about, Suzy. From now on, you're on your own.

Almost at once, our heroine encounters resistance. When she arrives beneath the crimson-swathed facade on the steps of the Tanz (Tony, to the decrement of one letter) Academy, drenched to the skin with her meager shawl twisting violently in the gale, she is barred entrance to the promised sanctuary. She witnesses a girl in distress, shouting something (a warning?) before the girl vanishes into the howling night. It is a quintessential fairytale crossroads-moment; the protagonist is offered one last chance to turn back...but Suzie has nowhere to go, and no way of knowing how high the stakes are if she proceeds.

High stakes indeed, for in a few moments, as we follow the doomed student who has fled the school, Argento shows us how far he's willing to up the ante. After the young woman reaches the apparent safety of a friend's (wildly stylized Deco) apartment, we are treated to one of the most vicious, uber-Guignol murder set-pieces ever constructed. Double-defenestration, stabbing, lynching and multiple impalements get the red stuff splashing in such high style that the viewer is left shocked, sickened, and breathless with admiration.

We're introduced to the rest of the major characters in short order, and many viewers are surprised to learn that although the movie is informed by the Giallo tradition (with all its attendant chauvinistic/misogynistic baggage), this is most definitely a women's picture. Well, maybe not as defined by George Cukor's RKO studio bosses, but certainly by what the Italian thriller-going audiences were used to seeing in the seventies. We meet the straight-backed, oddly Betsy Palmeresque Bavarian dance instructor Miss Tanner, high-bred American school administrator Madame Blanc, the appealingly sluttish and mercenary student Olga, and another ballet hopeful - squirrelly and secretive Sarah. Also mentioned, though never more than barely glimpsed, is the Academy Directress herself, Helene Marcos.

As the plot progresses, the director lavishes the proceedings with sanguinary flourishes, from the scarlet-saturated cinematography to the careful, bloody staging of his multiple murders, the viewer is not merely lit by the pulsing screen, but bathed in it. Rather than ring false or cheaply lurid, the deliberately hyper-real experience is wholly appropriate, and totally submersive.

Also abetting the other-worldliness of the enterprise is frequent musical collaborators "Goblin" (credited here as "The Goblins"), who provide some unforgettably nerve-wracking aural cues in layers of spare, dirge-like chords and spooky, ethereal chanting.

Suspiria has generated legions of fans over the years, many of them speculating on the future of the so-called "Three Mothers" saga. "Inferno" (1980) a less-than-stellar sequel provides some mythic underpinnings to the Mothers' machinations for those interested, and the last of the trilogy "Mother of Tears" was released this year.

One can spot some recurrent themes running through Suspiria that, in the context of the trinity that the trilogy features, provides some interesting - if perhaps unintentional - foreshadowing.

Note the triangular elevator light.

Another triangle in the scrollwork above the Academy entrance.

In the Munich square, our blind victim is surrounded on three sides by Greek and Romanesque neo-classical buildings. Each has a triangular pediment. Getting the picture? If you want to avoid the Mothers' power - stay away from triangles!

Also featured in triumvirate form are three snakes, identified by Olga's teasing claim that Christian names beginning with the letter 'S' signified the serpentine. Sonia is impaled, Sarah is slashed, and Suzy is stalked.

Soon are revealed the three irises (turn the blue one!), and not least of all, there are three iconic winged creatures that serve as a sort of supernatural shorthand for the mothers themselves. The swan, from a motif that appears in Sonia's apartment, may represent the Mother of Tears, the bat which attacks Suzy in the attic (Mater Tenebrarum?), and the peacock - The Bird with the Crystal Plumage - whose tail feathers are used to pierce the neck of his own patron witch. Tail feathers which, according to Greek myth (Helene Marcos was said to be a Greek immigrant) were decorated with the irises of Hera's fallen hundred-eyed hero, Argus.

Suspiria ranks so highly among fans precisely because its reliance on style and symbolism over practical plot conventions permits such a vast variety of potential interpretations. You'll revisit this movie a thousand times, for - like any good fairytale - the true horror of it only gets clearer with age.

The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum - Our Lady of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle; no man could read their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops for ever, for ever fastens on the dust.

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

2007-11-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

Well folks, Halloween is over, and you know what that means...the beginning of the Christmas advertising blitz! Yes, only 54 more shopping days to go! Bet you haven't even decorated that tree yet. Bad consumers, BAD! Where's your X-mas spirit?

I've seen a few ads already (mostly aimed squarely at kids), and it got me thinking about some of the goofier playthings they would market to us in the seventies. For example: anyone remember this haunting little ditty?

"New Baby Alive,
soft and sweet,
she can drink; she can eat.
New Baby Alive,
beautiful face,
dressed in pink and pretty lace.

Certainly, I've never forgotten it (shudder). And the jingle was only a prelude to the actual food-chewing, thumb-sucking horror of this battery-powered corporate miscarriage. Wondering how many others were emotionally scarred by this monstrously misguided bit of merchandise, I searched the net and found this page.

Reading through the two pages of user comments made me realize something - Baby Alive was more than just a toy - it was a catalyst. A defining marker in the psychological development of impressionable young minds. Some would survive Baby Alive's baptism of body-horror...and some would not.

Let me provide some excerpts, whereupon you may decide whether these children wouldn't have been better off being subjected to a David Cronenberg movie marathon.

my daughter had one of these and i lost count of the amount of people who thought, as she carried it through the airport in a car seat,that it was real.
-amanda p

Yeah, that sounds like a healthy formative experience. Wanna bet these days Amanda' daughter is working the pole in some dive off the Airport freeway, using her mammoth new breast implants to gain the attention and approval she developed an insatiable craving for during childhood?

I was SOO addicted to this doll. Always got my mom to buy diapers for her LOL. and those weird formula food mixtures. She was such a cute dolly. My friend came over one day though, and fell on her neck. Her head popped off and a long pink tube was connected from her body to her head. It was kinda scary..but I still love dolls!
-coraldawl

Nice to hear she still loves dolls, since following the horrible decapitation of her playmate (who "fell"), she was almost certainly institutionalized and never allowed contact with any child that wasn't constructed from horse-hair and polyurethane.

My mother had put the bateries in it before wraping her up and putting her under the Christmas tree. When I opened her up and her mouth started moving and making that motorized sound it scared the cr*p out of me and I threw the doll across the room and was afraid of it for years.
-Lisa

Today, Lisa's court-ordered therapy for post-partum depression seems to be paying off - the above recollection is what psychoanalysts refer to as a "breakthrough moment".
Unfortunately, it's also what the police call "probable cause".

LOVED her so much and had only had her about 4months and had looked after her with so much care,and then one day my mum came home in a mood and in a temper she saw my doll in my arms and throw her down the stairs and broke not only my heart but the doll as well.She did however box her up and sent a letter back to the maker and said "BABY IS NO LONGER ALIVE,SHE IS DEAD" but obviously didnt mention the stair incident, and about 3weeks pasted and hey presto i got a new one with all new bits,food etc,i was so happy but she would never replace my first one,(sad i know,and thats me im talking about!) however years later my wonderful mother GOT RID of all my toys & dolls, which was mean of her because i looked after all my dolls/toys and again she broke my heart in doing so,now i have 2 little girls and would have loved them to played with my Baby Alive...
-SUZANNE

This one's pretty heartbreaking. Suzanne? Let me give you some advice: always remember that toys are no substitute for love. Go to your daughters. Take these precious gifts into your arms; gather them up and kiss them - tell them how much you love them. Then set each one on your knee and gently remind them what a colossal bitch their grandmother was.

Sadly my Baby Alive was neglected after a while. Not being a fan of baby dolls, I guess the novelity wore off relatively quickly. I imagine that she was left somewhere after being fed and was not properly cleaned up (or cleaned out) because my last memory of her was with maggots and mom throwing her in the trash.
-lianne

Charming! You know, Lianne, in many parts of the U.S., your story is better known as "Prom Night".

I remember my Baby Alive. She was one of my favorite dolls ever. Unfortunately, one day I decided it would be fun for us to swim together, and she stopped working after that.
-Allison

Is it too much to hope that little Allison left Baby Alive floating face-down in the pool while she dashed into the house and called 9-1-1?

When I was about 5, I BEGGED my mother for a Baby Alive doll. She tells me that I made her a grand promise: I would never ever ask for anything ever again if she would only get me a Baby Alive doll. Well, she did get me the doll, and I was overjoyed...and to this day, I still remember the rubbery plastic smell of her "skin." Sometimes I encounter a rubber/plastic product that contains the same chemical odor, and it brings back such fond memories.
-Sarah

Just what is it about Baby Alive that evokes so many Dickensian childhood memories? Seriously, what kind of parent enforces a "one toy per childhood" rule?

By the way, I ran into Sarah at the downtown S&M club last Friday. She came up to me dressed head-to-toe in a vinyl catsuit, begging me not to let her use the bathroom. I told her that really wasn't my scene, gave her a quick hug, and wandered over to the salad bar.

I remember it was Christmas morning! I opened the present that contained my brand new Baby Alive. I pulled the doll out and seen it was an African American doll and looked stunned. "Mom she's black." "No honey, she's Mexican" hahahahh thanks Baby Alive for making such a funny memory.
-Ell

Gee, Ell, I'm sure that anecdote went over beautifully for your mom at her next bridge club meeting. "Funny story, girls! My daughter isn't sure if her new baby is black or Mexican!"

I remember my aunt's boyfriend didn't believe she would pee and poop, so took off her diaper, put her on his lap...and she peed. I was devasted when I left her in the front yard and my Dad ran over her head with the car.
-Crista

It's the circle of life, kid. From your first tinkle on a shady relation's lap, to your last, lifeless crap in some random driveway, it's the same the world over.
Who says toys can't be educational?

*NOM* *NOM* *NUM* *NUM*

My mommy always said there were no monsters...

2007-10-31T03:03:00.000-07:00

Most of my childhood memories play back in my head as a happy, dizzy blur. Once in a while, though, time seems to slow down and my recollections clarify for those occasional painful, unusual or disquieting events that lay unresolved in my adult psyche. This post relates my near-mint-condition memory of a Very Weird Day I recall having as a kid that's haunted and perplexed me ever since.

I remember taking a nap one particular afternoon in the summer of perhaps my seventh year. I had a brief dream in which four classic Universal monsters: Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf-Man, and Frankenstein's Monster, were meeting high above the earth in the misty upper reaches of the atmosphere. Oddly, as they strode through the clouds four-abreast (talking shop I suppose), Superman appeared. Just as the Monsters and the Man of Steel began to engage in a mind-blowing standoff, I was awakened to the sound of my mom calling me into the kitchen for lunch.

As I ate, something bothered me...the images I had dreamed about were somehow too familiar. Even stranger, the entire dream seemed to have been broken up and bound within static panels, which is an odd way to dream no matter how many comic-books one reads before nap-time.

I soon became convinced that the admittedly unlikely sight of Supes and a foursome of famous film freaks traipsing casually atop the thunderheads had come from somewhere outside my imagination.

So I sat in my bedroom for the remainder of the day, scanning through every comic I owned (modest estimate - about one zillion), certain that I would find the source of the dream's origin therein. I did not.

During dinner, I tried to explain my sudden manic obsession. My mom was skeptical. She posited that the bookcase full of Aurora Monster Models directly opposite my bed and my creepy habit of sleeping with my eyes open were probably the culprit. "We all dream funny things sometimes." she said kindly.

I would have none of it. Bolting from the table, I raced back to my room with redoubled determination. I sorted all my comics into ordered stacks and began methodically scanning them again. All of them. But by bed-time, I was forced to consider my mom's theory. And yet...I was so sure it wasn't my imagination, so sure in fact, that I remember actually bawling in frustration.

Over the years, my increasingly skeptical mind would turn to that afternoon, and I'd chastise myself for entertaining the notion that such an obviously subconscious-fueled mashup as "Superman and the Famous Monster Squad Cavort in Cloud City" could have existed in the pages of a comic book. Superman stories could get pretty silly, but this was over the fence. It was just a dream after all...

Or so I thought until last night, as I was perusing back issues of old Superman comics online, and came across this:

Superman #276, a test-run for the eventual meeting of Superman and Captain Marvel, although you can see by Cap's insignia that he's not quite himself (he debuted as Captain Thunder, actually, but for all intents and purposes he was essentially the same character).

The article continued, I scrolled down lazily, enjoying the feelings of vague nostalgia when suddenly my hand froze. Holy Moly.

Holy fucking MOLY!
I'd been right. After all these years - vindication!

And even though I got the actual identity of the caped hero wrong, the fact that those four monsters turned out to be as real as the nose on my face thrilled me to no end.

I have boxes and boxes of my old comics laying around. Taking a deep breath, I went to them. With dumb luck on my side, I opened the first box and found this very issue laying on top of the stack. I picked it up reverently, and my shaking fingers began flipping through the yellowed pages, searching intently - searching for that same quartet of monsters I had hunted for thirty years ago.

Once again they weren't there.

How could this be happening again? They have to be there! The internet insists!
Again I read through the panels and dialogue balloons, over and over, until at some point I reach the very middle of the book (where the staples live), and notice that the page numbers are not consecutive...page 10 is followed by page 13! The very pages I am now informed where Captain Thunder confronts and conquers the Monster League of Evil. I groan as the Great Mystery resolves itself.

I've no idea how and when those fantastic, fabled pages came to be lost. Torn carelessly out by one of my oafish playmates, I suppose.

Looking at the picture some more, I'm filled with awe. A meeting of genres I had spent over a quarter of a century convincing myself never happened was now staring me right in the face.

This Halloween I can finally lay that Very Weird Day to rest.
My monsters were real after all.

Dreams in the Witch-House

2007-10-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while surfing through Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics I suddenly noticed that the first issue of Detective Comics (the abbreviation of which was soon to become the official moniker for the popular publishing empire) was dated March, 1937. It's a sad occasion for pulp literature fans, as it was on the Ides of this very month that weird fiction author H.P. Lovecraft passed away.

I frankly doubt the likes of Batman (introduced in Detective Comics a couple of years later) or the Crimson Avenger would have much interested the author, who took a dim view of the hack-for-hire world of pulp publishing. After all, his own (and most accomplished) works were regularly rejected by editors in favor of stories he'd ghostwritten for others.

Still, with luminaries like Julius Schwartz, Forrest Ackerman and Caped Crusader co-creator Bob Kane (apocryphally) having personal ties with Lovecraft himself, I can't help but imagine an alternate universe (Earth-2?) Lovecraft who never got cancer bouncing a pair of grandkids on his knee and presenting each with a signed copy of his own DC title The Amazing Azathoth for Halloween, or turning up at a comic convention in the seventies sitting next to an elderly, but very much alive Robert E. Howard discussing the finer points of the Cthulhu mythos (the lucrative rights to which he now fully owns).

Anyhow; the dream. I'm lucky if I dream about Lovecraft more than once a year, and luckier still if there's any actual discourse between us. Last evening, however; and with Halloween just around the corner, I had a whopper.

In the dream, I found myself talking to a young Hal Holbrook about hauntings. I was complaining miserably about a haunted spice-rack I seemed to have inherited, when he quite obligingly drew me a map to the former residence of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Conveniently enough, the place was within walking distance, so after thanking him (and leaving him to deal with the demonic kitchen feature), there I headed, excitedly trotting along the sidewalk, under the sprawling elms of a gentrified block of upscale homes, down a shaded cul-de-sac to the very last house. Its muddy terrace was overgrown, and through the tangle of trees I could only make out the barest hint of a weathered belvedere.

To my left was the side garden of the neighboring residence, and I tried to make myself scarce, having been alerted to the sounds of conversation. Two women were speaking, and they were talking about the house! Indeed, Lovecraft had lived here many years ago, a virtual hermit and the subject of rumor and innuendo over these long years among the residents. Then - one of the voices addressed me, beckoning me over. A fortyish woman was tending to a very elderly lady on the patio. I assured them that I wasn't a murdering psycho, and that I was sorry for bothering them. The younger woman assured me it was no trouble, and that young men (usually college students) would often loiter in front of "That House".

The old woman gradually faded out of the dream as I was drawn into conversation with this seated, sunhatted blonde woman who may have once passed for a Bond girl. She drank (Long Island Ice teas, I think), and we moved closer together. I was dying to find out more about the house, though I had already gleaned that it was nominally occupied by a businessman who spent most of his time abroad. Then the no-longer-a-Bond-girl blonde looked at me and informed me sadly that it was the anniversary of her tragic separation from her lover - a man apparently named "Tuesday" - and would I mind terribly if she kissed me...

After some awkward, vodka-sodden oddness, I pulled back and informed her that I was leaving. The sky was turning a dark, purple-grey, and I bolted from the women's garden. A dapper man with a yellow vest and pinstriped jacket greeted me from the gate of the house I'd come to investigate. He told me that tours of the Lovecraft family home had been discontinued, but he felt he could make an exception. I never did learn his name, but I couldn't help wondering if this wasn't the lost lover "Tuesday". He led me down a side path tangled with creepers and bound by a cracked and ruined stone perimeter fence, and here I began to see the house in all its mortified glory. It was a gothic monstrosity blackened from age, chimney soot, and something else - an intangible yet manifest atmospheric carbonization. Where timber and masonry should have stood, there was petrified beams and blasted shingles. I shuddered at the sight of its towers' leering peaks and peeling, slate-grey gables.

We rounded the garden, and there, I saw the man in the blood-red cricket sweater. It was H.P. Lovecraft.

He did not engage us, exactly. His nervous eyes darted, and his large, sloping jaw was working in a manner suggestive of a man who murmurs too often when he is alone. He seemed to fret and pace for a time, as if considering a reply to our intrusion, then quickly turned and headed through the rear entrance of the house. As I watched him go, it occurred to me that I had never seen the back of him, nor even a proper profile; the only pictures we fans have to judge him by are a few grainy, black and white posed photos. His shoulders and back were broader than I had expected, and his neck longer, slightly lending to him the appearance of a vulture.

We entered the house, and it was neither in darkness nor lit up. Only a moodless phosphorescence illuminated the interior. Lovecraft walked ahead of us, agitated.
I found myself laying my hand on Tuesday's elbow. There were few rooms I could make out, only darkened doorways. In fact, the layout of the house was maddeningly...migratory, somehow. There was little else but staircases, landings, mezzanines, more stairs, another landing and a gallery that led to still more stairs. People were crowding around us now. They were in fancy dress and as they rushed past gaily, I could feel the swish of satin against my legs. Tuesday did not seem to notice them, but they were having a terrible affect on Lovecraft. He became more agitated and ran far ahead of us, till I eventually lost sight of him.

We passed by a narrow passage that looked as if it had been carved from the bowels of the house with an enormous industrial bore. It had rough stone steps that led down to a set of closed double doors. They were fastened with a small gold padlock.
I paused, intrigued, and my guide bounded past me, down to the locked double doors. He plunged off the bottom step into a small pit of water that came up to his waist, and began to gasp. Even in the gloom I could see his face drain of blood, and it became obvious that the water was fatally frigid. The doors seemed to collapse against his weight and he started slipping through the gap. I was halfway down to him when I heard a gasp from behind me...from the top of the stairs Lovecraft was gaping down at us, terror-stricken.

He hissed "That Damnable Thing!" and fled. As I realized the stairs were collapsing under me into some kind of underground cistern full of heart-stopping, arctic seawater, I woke up.

I suppose I should know what H.P. Lovecraft was referring to by his horrified exclamation (since it was my dream, after all), but I don't. Was he talking about the water? He hated the ocean, and mortally dreaded the cold. Or maybe the passageway, or the doors, or Tuesday? Or me? It's a mystery, but I do know that I haven't woken up with a panicked start like that in ages. Well, at least since the other night, when a Harley cruised by my bedroom window and I bolted out of bed thinking it was a bloody great tiger.

Thanks for another scare, H.P. You've still got it.

Highly Infectible

2007-10-13T05:58:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Renner of 28 Weeks Later has stolen - or possibly ripped out and devoured - my heart.

LISTEN~ "When I got to London, the co-ordinator was actually inside with 100 infected people, in this room, and they're all just layin' there, just kinda groaning, and he, like, blows a whistle and then all of a sudden they start BLAARR RRARGH, they start freaking out!"

Oh, and the Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is no slouch with the pretty, either.

He's like a mature, strangely sultry Fred Savage, no?

Obviously, this post is more of a hotness heads-up rather than a proper film review, so if you're still wary as to the scare-quotient of this tremendously accomplished sequel, watch it for yourself!

And thank me afterwards.

And so it begins...

2007-09-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village.

Mon Sep 17, 11:23 PM ET

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Star Wormwood has fallen.
Cower in thy masses for lo, the earth spits forth her ravenous dead.

House of Shayme

2007-07-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

This entry was initially supposed to feature an intimately affectionate in-depth analysis of 2004's Van Helsing (one of the most unfairly maligned movie triumphs in recent cinematic history), but folks? That'll have to wait.

Right now, I'd like to express my frustration with TBS.
And no, I'm not talking about an archaic tablespoon abbreviation.
I'm referring to the former Turner Broadcasting Station which, we can all agree, has proved an embarrassing failure in its attempt to attract viewers by showing popular films in their most egregiously bowdlerized airline-approved versions.

This is the network that reinterprets family-friendly fare by broadcasting the infamous crucifix scene from "The Exorcist" while replacing the line "Let Jesus fuck you!" with "Let Judas Priest fudge you!". How the topic of exorcism can be addressed in a film where any mention of God's only begotten son is replaced with dubbed lines referencing a notorious occult-metal rock band fronted by a leather-clad sodomite escapes me, but there you go.

They showed "Van Helsing" back-to-back last night. Closer than back-to-back, truth be told. At one point they actually displayed the ending credits of the movie in the bottom half of the screen while restarting it again in the tiny rectangle occupying the top half. Why?

Why, to save money, silly. Running non-stop ads for in-house-produced projects like "Bill Engvall" and "My Boys" doesn't allow for much time in between showings, does it? To say nothing of the hateful animated crawls that burst forth like so much toxic pus over the featured program, obscuring a huge portion of the picture for a full thirty seconds...

Obviously, I'm not a TBS fan.
Last night, however, while being subjected to a segment of this obscenely pervasive hype, I was struck by an ad for a show called "House of Payne". The spot was just as maddeningly intrusive as the rest, deploying a sudden, wildly distracting graphic of a fat guy leaning against a door assailed by some equally fat persons that were advertised as his "family". It looked bad. Exactly how bad I determined to find out for myself.

TBS.com offers free downloads of their newest "original" programming, so naturally I found myself checking out the link for House of Payne's deliriously panned first episode. Patiently, I allowed the sponsored ad to finish, happily anticipating what critics promised to be an ineptly staged, culturally offensive, comedically tone-deaf nightmare on wheels.

Instead I see this.

I click a link to a different episode. Once more I'm forced to watch the Pine-Sol and All-State endorsements, but again the message of exclusion repeats itself. First in English, then in French, followed by German and then Japanese.

Wh...what the hell? TBS is discriminating now?

I'm all for discrimination when it applies to matters of taste and aesthetics, but blocking IP addresses from foreign countries is a different kettle of fish. What are they worried about - bandwidth expense? This is TBS for Chrissake.
They should be grateful for every last hit.

Ma'am...we didn't find any "boy".

2007-07-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

There is a Friday the 13th Blog-A-Thon going on, brought to you by the lovely Stacie Ponder at Final Girl. And Bob Mackey has a fairly exhaustive (well, by slacker standards) Friday the 13th film series retrospective up at the Kent State official student website.

To round out the pertinent links, there's this. It's a three-year-old review of Freddy VS. Jason by Film Freak Central's Walter Chaw. This is absolutely one of the most insightful, penetrating, and cleverly subtle tongue-in-cheek reviews I've ever read. If there are two horror icons that cry out more desperately for Freudian analysis and Jungian interpretation than Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, then I'd like to meet them. Well, not in a dark alley, I wouldn't.

Seriously, whether you consider Freddy VS. Jason part of the official Friday canon or not (or simply thought it was rubbish), this thing is comedy gold, and well worth your time to read (if only for the line "...Jason himself may be the manifestation of a penis, tumescent and ramrod straight...")!

As far as my thoughts on the Friday the 13th films go, I'm not likely to ruffle any feathers with my observations:

Betsy Palmer is a goddess.
Amy Steel is a goddess.
Dana Kimmell's voice can strip paint.
Parts One, Two, and Four were the best. Part Five was easily the worst.
The MPAA effectively neutered the series as their requests for cuts became more aggressive and unreasonable. At one point, they even demanded shots of Jason's face be removed, as it looked "too grisly". And yet they gave "Mask" the green light and probably sent Cher a freaking gift basket.
Siskel and Ebert went way too far with that whole letter-to-Betsy campaign.

Yeah, not exactly controversial statements. One thing I do remember about these movies is just how much fun they were to watch as a kid. And, like comic books and Doctor Who, Friday films are damned hard to outgrow.

For example, I still have this.

Famous Monsters #163. It was my very first introduction to the legend of Crystal Lake, and man, did I get hooked. Plenty of gory (B&W) snaps, with captions like "This is the enda of a girl named Brenda" (Forry was so cheeseball!), and the accompanying article was basically a detailed synopsis of the whole film until the decapitation scene! No spoiler warnings in those days. Plus, Jason looks really freaky on the cover; it used to turn my stomach. I'd get spooked by this magazine at bedtime and hide his dishpan-mug under a comic book or a less frightening FM issue. I suppose I could have just turned it face down...

Here's me at 18.

And no, it's not my graduation photo. It was Halloween.
I had to work that night, bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant. Halloween isn't a very busy night, but I still managed to scare a few patrons. Mostly by maintaining complete silence.
"Wow! Cool costume!"
Me: ...
"Say, where'd you get the hockey mask?"
Me: ...
"Is that a rubber machete?"
Me: ...
"On second thought, is there maybe a Denny's in the area?"
Me: ...

I still have that hockey mask. I won't elaborate, but let's just say it's come in very handy over the years.

And this.

The crappy EBay pic doesn't do it justice. In fact, nothing can do it justice but the original 3D glasses that came with the poster. Do I still have them? Do you have to ask at this point?

Yeah, that poster was the shit. The axe head and all those shards of glass are flying right at your face when you look at it properly. Forget those Magic Eye books, this was real 3D on my own bedroom wall!

Anyway, you see what I mean about not outgrowing the Friday the 13th phenomena. I couldn't say just what it is about the series that sticks with people. I'm betting it's pointy, though.

So why don't we break out some bubbly (where's that corkscrew?), raise our glasses and toast the man of the hour on his special day.
Happy birthday, Jason.
You big freak.

Come and gone, as the fleeting breeze.

2007-07-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my twenty year-old Topaz developed another leaky fuel line. Like the blithely incontinent Mrs. Emery from Little Britain, the car was trailing offensive fluid wherever it went. When I was out and about, and people pointed, honked, or scowled, I'd smile idiotically and feign complete ignorance. Of course, with snow and slush covering the ground, my neighbors were none the wiser.

With the advent of spring, however, my community parking lot and driveway dried up, and people were starting to clue-in to my copious fluid loss. It doesn't take Poirot's olfactory genius to follow a trail of noxious, flammable liquid to its source. In fact, I noticed a tendency on the part of my fellow lot-mates to studiously avoid parking on either side of my rusty antique as if it were a ticking time bomb. I can't really fault them, since I seem to recall "ticking time bomb" being one of the phrases my mechanic used after he'd patched those lines a month earlier.

So - it was time for a change. After clearing out the trunk (eleven ice-scrapers...who needs eleven ice-scrapers?) I delivered the tired old trusty Topaz into the caring hands of the junkyard boss. A neighbor was selling her car; a ten-year old Plymouth Breeze, and the asking price was two grand. We haggled, and I paid her $2200. Upon reflection, I may need to tighten up my haggling skills a smidge. Anyway. I was mobile again, and rather proud of the fact. Duel airbags, automatic windows, CD stereo, and fully-functional AIR CONDITIONING! I was finally driving in the twenty-first century!

That was three weeks ago. This past Wednesday, I'm walking to the back of our Townhouse complex to go for a cool, relaxing, fume-free tour around town, and I cannot find the car. "Here Breeze!" I called cheerfully. "C'mon boy!". No answer. Well, that's odd. I remembered backing it (fancy new car = fancy new habit) into my usual spot the night before. But my usual spot does not contain a new car at all.
Instead, it contains a perplexing amount of empty space.

*******

"I think...um...I think my car has been stolen?" I say timidly into the telephone. The police dispatch lady is very nice, though she does not give me my car back. She gives me bad news instead: "Oh, Chrysler/Plymouth products get stolen every day." she says sympathetically. "They're an irresistible target for thieves. Give us your number, and we'll call you if anything turns up."

So I do this, wondering at the speed with which I went from "hazardous eyesore" to "irresistible" and make a call to my insurance company. Was this really happening?

On the Friday, I get a call. "This is Constable Somethingorother. We have recovered your car." Joy! "Just come by Division 2 in Cambridge to get the release forms."
"Will do, Officer!" I chirp excitedly, suddenly channeling Wally Cleaver.

My elation lasted about as long as it took for me to read the scrawled police report that was handed to me when I arrived at the station. Busted wheel, flat tire, no plates, ignition punched, passenger lock drilled out...
Towing fee: $160 (for moving it two measley blocks).
I signed the form and left. Then I make another call to my insurance company.

The next night (three in the morning, actually), I get a call.
"This is Constable Somethingelsecompletely, we have found your plates. Do you want to claim them, or do you want us to send them back to the Ministry of Transportation?"

"Uh, wait...what, you found my plates? Awesome! Where? How?"

"Well...sir, it's three in the morning, do you want to hear the whole story?"

"HELL YEAH!" I say (Wally Cleaver was clearly still groggy).

Well, they had responded to a call reporting two males trying to break into a Neon in a guy's driveway down in Cambridge, and when police took the two pukes into custody, they discovered one of the little urchins had been carrying my tags in his knapsack. Hurray!

The next day, I was more than happy to return to Division 2 under the pretense of reclaiming my stolen property. But it was the dirt that I was really after. "Who were they? How old? Are they pros? Any drugs found on them? Are they still in custody? Can I see them? Can I jab them with this sharp stick I brought with me?"

The receptionist was a different lady, but just as nice, and very obliging: "Two males; Cambridge residents. Aged 21 and 15. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Sir, please put that away."

*******

I visited my poor violated vehicle yesterday. It sat there, the only car in my mechanic's lot, looking pathetic and forlorn. My adjuster had called earlier and reported his findings: "Underside demolished. Oil pan missing. Engine hopelessly siezed. Total write-off."

Peering through the driver's window, I also note that the stereo has been nearly wrenched out. From the rear window (still bearing some of the scotch tape that had recently affixed the "for sale" sign) I see a grocery bag full of clothes or something in the back seat. Not mine. I think some undershorts are among the tangle of alien articles, but I'm not about to root around and find out.

The thing is, I was told that I'd likely be subpoenaed when the thieves go to trial. Should I preserve this repellent bit of evidence? Yes, I decide to save it. With my little finger looped through one of the handles, I carry it over to my mom's car and drop it in the trunk.

It's getting late; the sky is darkening and the wind is kicking up. I slowly drive out of the lot, leaving the Breeze behind.

Yet, the breeze is but a rover,
When he wings away,
Brook and poplar mourn a lover!
Sighing well-a-day!
Ah, the doing and undoing
That the rogue could tell!
When the breeze is out a-wooing,
Who can woo so well?
Pretty brook, thy dream is over,
For thy love is but a rover!
Sad the lot of poplar trees,
Courted by the fickle breeze!

~William S Gilbert

The Other Lance

2006-10-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

There is a post near the bottom of an IMDB message board by one salamander76 which declares "Lance Kerwin had to be the poster-boy for gay kids all across America. Only Robby Benson was close in terms of sheer gayness."

While that may have held true thirty years ago for gay Americans (and possibly, gay amphibians), as a warm-blooded gay Canadian growing up under the soul-blackening chill of Mr. Kerwin's long shadow, I cannot but consider this anything but perfidious slander.

The only posters of this adolescent hellspawn I ever owned were wanted posters, complete with centered rifle-scope and painted-on bullseye.

Now you may ask "How on earth could spazmo, a thousand miles removed from California and seven years his junior, possibly harbor any sort of animosity towards the good character of Hollywood's highest-paid child actor?"

That's a fair question -- by way of reply, let me say a word about pre-adolescent crushes: gay kids get them too, and they're almost always "straight".
Yep. Twenty-five years ago, I liked girls. Obsessed over them, actually.
Coveted them. Made a little fool of myself over the chlorine-bleached blonde swimming sensation the next locker over, pestered my cousin mercilessly for phone numbers and addresses of all her prettiest classmates, and rifled intently through her copies of Tiger Beat for the latest candid shot of TV's Sabrina Duncan or Letitia "Buddy" Lawrence.

I paid little attention to the likes of their scrubbed and salubrious male counterparts; the Jimmy McNichols, Leif Garretts, and David Cassidys all left me cold (ok, maybe David's brother Shaun was beginning to work his magic on me), so I had no use for those breathless gossipy boy-hunk blurbs that kept those types of mags flying off the newsstands.

So at this point, the name Lance Kerwin meant nothing to me.
But his face was about to launch a thousand (jealous) fits.

The odyssey of hate would begin in 1976, with an awful little ABC special called "Me and Dad's New Wife" which starred my future bride-to-be Kristy McNichol. It was a dippy affair, and though Kristy handled herself capably, it was soon all but forgotten by me. And yet already the seeds of envy had been subconsciously sown. The capture below records the presence of a certain blond, bob-nosed actor I would fatefully come to regard as The Enemy.

Look at him sitting there, the very picture of smug.
He's thinking "I already have a career plan! Eat my dust, dorks."

So we fast forward a bit, while Kerwin's star is quietly gathering mass.
Suddenly, it's the year 1977: the Annus Mirabilis of my youth -- ABBA-mania is in full swing, Star Wars hits theatres, Fleetwood Mac releases Rumours, Three's Company comes knocking...and Lance Kerwin's career goes supernova.

The shockwave hits me squarely between the eyes during network primetime on the 29th of January, '77. It's an episode of Wonder Woman called "The Bushwhackers".

If there was a boy who twirled, transformed, and lassoed more often than I in those days I'd surely like to meet him. I truly would. Lynda Carter was my idol, and here was this pugnacious little twit getting hired and abundantly rewarded for swaggering smugly all over my private stretch of celebrity shrinebuilding.

The Bushwhackers episode was nothing but season filler anyway. A feel-good romp smothered in Ranch dressing -- Kerwin shows up as Roy Rogers'(WTF?) emotionally wounded son, betraying the Amazon's trust by stealing her Golden Girdle and putting everyone's lives in danger.
Perversely, his character makes a dramatic moral recovery in the closing minutes of the show thanks to Wonder Woman. The exact amount of bile this scene generated in my living room that night can never be accurately measured, but one thing was certain: the Gates of Hell had opened, and Lance Kerwin was striding cocksurely from the flames...

There were plenty of other things to watch of course, in those halcyon pre-cable days. One of the most popular offerings was The Six Million Dollar Man. Steve Austin simply rocked the playground. I don't think children even spoke to each other during recess; they just emitted bionic sounds.
Or some rough approximation thereof.
It was all great fun, but I remained oddly standoffish -- until the cyborg landscape was gloriously refreshed by the debut of the Bionic Woman.

Where Lynda was busty and regal, Lindsay was gutsy and winsome. Wonder Woman never had a "Wonder Man" to compete with, yet the Bionic Woman explosively emerged from her spinoff status as a critical success and a ratings bonanza.

I viewed every new episode of the first season as a gift from the gods.
Lindsay Wagner was better than a princess and more than an icon; she was attainable.
She was my earthly muse.
The second season premiered with a bang and progressed stunningly. Each episode shattered my expectations and whipped me into a frenzied lather.

And then February, 1977. The show was winding down for the year, and sweeps had just passed. After a two-week break, a brand new episode "Jaime and the King" was aired. Plot breakdown? An Arabian king friendly to the west is threatened with assassination and Jaime is assigned to his palatial compound as a security mole. She deploys her bionics to thwart the assassins, but in the meanwhile is forced to act as a belly-dancing governess to the spoiled royal scion.

Any guesses as to who was cast in the role of said pubescent prince?

If you guessed the Prince of Darkness himself, you're right!

Even at the tender age of ten, I could sense something was very wrong with the balance of power in the universe. The spread of Kerwin's appeal was hitting epidemic proportions, yet nobody seemed to be making the least effort to enact emergency countermeasures, let alone develop a vaccine.

His next major assault upon my blistered, ravaged psyche was the TV movie "James at 15". It was marketed as "cutting edge", and as I remember, opened with an alluringly grave title card marking it for mature audiences only.
Of course I couldn't not watch the thing. It was going to be the playground discussion topic of the season. (I might have been something of a social misfit in those days, but I was no cultural ignoramus.)

So there I sat, legs crossed, fists balled, courageously allowing the toxic spray of Kerwin's thespic depravity to wash over me. And who should make an appearance?
My beloved Mary Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie as Kerwin's girlfriend!
To pair Melissa Sue Anderson with this arrogant hellspawn-in-hushpuppies was to me the height of bad taste, or so I thought, until the monstrous moment where "James" decides to embark on an impromptu roadtrip and hooks up with...
I can't say it.
It still hollows me out inside to even think about it.
Despite the numerous outrages I had endured up to this point, nothing could have prepared me for the sequence where Curwin (Lovecraftian spelling) begins a hitchhiking adventure with... *sob* Kate Jackson!

The sight of the two of them frolicking shamelessly (and they did indeed frolic) drove me to the very threshold of madness. It felt like a barbed, flaming scimitar had been plunged into my vitals, never to be removed.

Somehow I managed to crawl to the television and shut it off. My heart had never suffered such anguish. The tireless vigor that youth (and two bowls of Rum 'n Raisin ice-cream) provides a normal ten-year old child had fled my extremities.
Helplessly I sank to the floor of the TV room -- now my temple of betrayal.
I may have actually stopped breathing for a minute or two.
But what did I care?
Moloch had claimed and devoured my innocence.
The Beast of Newport Beach had won.
And to the victor, the spoils.

Minor Komplaint

2006-10-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

Juiced as I am that Mortal Kombat Armageddon is coming out in just a couple of days, I have to confess that I'm not holding out too much hope for a Deception/Konquest-like experience.

Those reservations are quickly leavened when I think of the new and fabulously inspired Kreate-a-Fighter/Kreate-a-Fatality/Motor Kombat features.

The roster screen is reunion heaven. Except for Khameleon.
Her male counterpart is in there, though.

An odd thing; when you look at the selection screen, you realize how few female characters there actually are. They only occupy two (truncated) rows out of eight. (Plus one for Sheeva.)

And while the ladies are still decked out in as little fabric as possible, the look of the males has morphed noticeably towards the conservative end of the fashion spectrum...

They gave Rain a top-knot and a cape!

He looks cool and everything, but it's a shame they couldn't go the exhibitionist route.
You decide.

Click for bigger image.

Cannibal Confusion

2006-09-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the profoundly pants-wetting news that I finally won something from Buzz at Camp Blood, and the fact that I seem to do nothing lately except watch zombie flicks and shamble around the house til dawn, I've decided (mostly for my own edification) to clear up some of the most common misapprehensions surrounding the mouldy old cinematic subgenre I think of as 'Franco-Italian necrofetishism'. Spaghetti Horror, if you like.

Most of you reading this have, at some point (likely while drifting listlessly down the aisles of Blockbuster), asked yourself this burning question: "What's the difference between Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox, and which one did I see?"

Answering that would be a snap, but for the incestuous slew of coterminous films produced at the time that (even in this IMDB age) are frustratingly interchangeable in theme, pedigree, and title.

So here, listed chronologically, are the Italian mutilation-exploitation features that your memory may have confused, conflated, miscegenated or otherwise misremembered. Fittingly, like the Hills of Rome, there are seven of them.

Jungle Holocaust - 1977
Zombi 2 - 1979
Cannibal Holocaust - 1980
Zombie Holocaust - 1980
Cannibal Apocalypse - 1980
Cannibal Virus - 1980
Cannibal Ferox - 1981

For details, consult the handy reference tables below.

Where's Waldo

2006-09-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first Perimeter Institute lecture. Rogers television was there to capture the magic.

The guest speaker was Professor Paul J. Steinhardt of Princeton University. The title of the presentation was "Impossible Crystals".

Really interesting stuff, although when he started talking about Fibonacci sequences I had a sudden, nasty flashback to my pitiless C++ programming instructor from college.

So they aired the program on t.v. the other night, and I watched some of it, ~~eagerly~~ idly wondering if they would show my gormless mug on camera.

Kinda. The fact that I was the only one wearing a rather noticeable white baseball cap made me pretty easy to spot, but as far as my closeup goes? Not so much.
Here's a screen-grab from my computer. (You can watch the lectures freely here.)

Thanks a bunch, Mr. DeMille.

Actually, a couple of frames later, the guy in front moves his head a smidgen, and you can almost see that I'm smiling.

Smiling at the science!

Zombie Reviews

2006-09-16T23:35:00.000-07:00

Tobe Hooper's Mortuary was something of a letdown for me.
The first act was everything I'd hoped, the second kinda jumped the rails, and the third just plain ran outta gas.
And Hooper's commentary presence was just the most depressingly lifeless and hopelessly resigned-sounding thing I've ever experienced.
(And I've heard Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses commentary.)

Well, the good news is that Denise Crosby is in fine form here. She plays a good-hearted widowed mom, who makes some hilariously bad choices (not the least of which is inviting her son's new friends down into the embalming room for a peek at some new "customers"). The bad news is that the script turns her into a tiresome hatchet-wielding killjoy just as you're really starting to root for her.

Crosby's son, played by Dan Byrd from this year's Hills Have Eyes remake, is a likeable lead who turns in some good moments.

Shallow Ground's Rocky Marquette has a supporting role as a gay teen. In fact, this particular bit of casting is what really piqued my interest in Mortuary, since I first read Buzz's review at Camp Blood.

Sadly, they gave the poor kid very little to do, and bumped him off in a particularly cheesy and annoying way -- cheesy because it was a woefully executed visual effect that lacked any dramatic logic; and annoying because it was the exact same arm-through-the chest gimmick that killed his Bloody Boy character in Shallow Ground.

If, as Buzz mused, Denise Crosby is contractually obliged to appear in any movie based around a graveyard, then Marquette's contract is at least as oddly particular...
Perhaps they use the same (demented) agent.

The leaden, dreadful climax of the film looks like the product of a hurried reshoot in someone's garage, and the final "reveal" of the origins of the mysterious sodium-phobic black fungus is so feeble and dinky it's painful to watch.

In my review of Toolbox, I came down pretty hard on Hooper's "coffin-baby" concept for the killer. Does he listen?
Now he's throwing cemetery-babies at us...
Oh, Tobe. Rub some more salt in our wounds, why dontcha.

Clive Barker's The Plague was even more frustrating. I'm not sure what Barker's contribution amounted to, other than picking up his producer's cheque and ducking quietly out the back door.
When I saw that James Van Der Beek was starring in this thing, I had some misgivings, but folks -- (I wish I were joking, here), he's the best thing in this whole mess.

The premise: one bright, sunny morning all the world's children simultaneously fall into sudden, incurable comas. Babies are born in the same condition. Blah global crisis blah.
(If only. I might actually start going to restaurants again.)

Fast forward ten years.
~~Dawson returns to the Creek, decides to make a documentary~~ sorry, JVDB returns to his hometown after getting paroled. Killed a guy in a bar fight, apparently. (Amusingly, one of his co-stars mentions in the commentary that Beeks was actually discouraged from entering most of the local Winnipeg watering-holes for the sake of his own safety.)

So, just as he's beginning to adjust to civilian life, all the kids decide to wake up en masse and start whacking grownups. They go from useless, high-maintenance drooling vegetables to sullen, high-maintenance homicidal maniacs.
Pretty much like real-life kids, in other words.

Anyway, the acting is fine from the small core of key players. Beeks is pretty buff, and his cosmically large noggin seems almost within normal proportional parameters here.
Also keeping things lively is Brad Hunt, whom I admired in Cookers, and Dee Wallace who chewed up her scenes nicely in Boo.

The Plague never really bites ya, but it works for what it is.
Until the end.
The final twenty minutes took every last ounce of goodwill I had been willing to offer it, wrapped it in a flaming bag of horsecrap, and threw it back in my face.

No explanation for the child-plague was ever offered, or even hinted at. They just threw in some head-scratching "message" about raising children in a better world, and blaming adults for not leading by example or somesuch tripe.
Sorry, what? If I spend my life savings and every waking minute taking care of my comatose nine-year-old for an entire decade, only to have him wake up and try to brain me with the nearest blunt object without so much as a "Hi Dad!", then I think my responsibility as a parent has pretty much run its natural course...

I scanned the credits for some sort of punchline to all this.
Something like: “Dedicated to the bagboys of America, whose greed and ineptitude inspired this movie”.

All Soul's Day is a flat-out cannibal zombie film. It's also an irritating bore. The young leads were obnoxious, the production value was non-existent, the gore was minimal, and the zombies were about as threatening as the Taco Bell chihuahua.

Most painfully, for me, was seeing breathtaking Mulholland Dr. actress Laura Harring trapped in this zero-peso production. At first, I didn't want to believe it was her. It couldn't be her. Sure, other genre favorites like Jeffrey Coombs, David Keith and Danny Trejo pop up briefly, but Laura Harring?
Is she working off some kind of community service? I think Boy George copped a better deal, if that's the case.

Dark City

2006-09-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a copy of City Life or SimCity4.
Maybe then I could attempt to model some of the more memorable landmarks in my dream-city. My city doesn't have a name, and it changes pretty dramatically from night to night, but there are enough structural constants that I can (if REM time permits) usually orient myself sufficiently to get my bearings.

There's a huge University at the centre of town. This gleaming art-deco structure looks remarkably like Buffalo's City Hall. Skirting the downtown hub is a quaint little shopping district full of antique stores, rare booksellers, salons, cafes and upscale boutiques.

The sprawling subway system extends not on a reliably east-west or north-south axis, but quadralineally; like a rough X slashed across the city's underbelly. The northwest line peters out among the gentle hills of the wooded countryside. The northeast line terminates among the tangled tracks and blighted depots of the abandoned railyard.

The main thoroughfares, including the provincial superhighway and the "Great Overpass Project", which has been under construction since my teenage years, lies to the southwest. If I had a nickel for every time I broke down on one of those endlessly looping ribbons of asphalt, I'd never have to worry about finding exact change for the toll-roads again. The lunatic layout of this nebulous, near-Gordian knot of onramps and offramps is both infuriating and breathtaking.
If you locked a hyperactive autistic child in a large room with an endless supply of Hotwheels track, this would be the result.

Much like my hometown of Toronto, the southeast corner of the city is bounded by a great body of water. Whether it's freshwater or saltwater, I can't be certain.

There is a reliable, 24-hour transit service that links the underground to the neighboring boroughs, and to my knowledge, this bus is the only way to get to the airport.

There are a few frequently recurring themes in this "Dream City" of mine, and one of them is darkness. The sole illumination cast upon my dreams here is that of late afternoon, and the light fades rapidly after that. It almost suggests a Hyperborean latitude, if one were to try and fix it globally.

Another peculiarity is the perplexing abundance of book stores and costume shops. The former line the main downtown streets in near-perpetuity. Their sizes range from bargain-warehouse huge to airport-hangar immense. I typically wander in through a small, soap-stained glass door, and into a vast area divided into endless rows of waist-high stacks and shelves. The fare is usually bland back-issue women's magazines, Popular Mechanics, and Reader's Digest. To get to the good stuff, you have to go deeper. If you are lucky enough to spot the discreet stairway leading to the basement floor, you'll soon arrive at the gates of geek paradise.

This is where I make my happiest discoveries. Every gap in my comic-book collection can be stopped up by a few minutes perusal of the nearest bargain bin. Wonderfully bizarre fringe titles and proudly kitschy adult mags stare out at you from row after row of plastic-wrapped covers. The walls are festooned with rare and valuable collector's posters, and massive, ancient esoteric volumes vie for shelf space with modern DVD box-sets of my favorite seventies Saturday morning programs.

The costume shops abound almost as frequently. Maybe it's because Halloween always seems to be just around the corner in my Dream City, I don't know, but I encounter them all over town. They crop up in the usual places, like malls and shopping districts, but also in residential areas among ordinary homes with garages and driveways. I could be walking along a sleepy, shaded sidestreet, enjoying the beautiful colors of the autumn leaves, when suddenly I'll spot a small glass-fronted building festively sporting leering jack-o-lanterns and capering skeletons.

And these shops are often quite specialized. One proprietor announced that she only sold novelty wigs and fingernails. Nothing else in the store; just aisles and aisles of bewigged styrofoam heads and plastic press-ons arranged according to varying lengths and degrees of luridity. It's wonderful.

If I'm ever uncertain as to whether a particular dream is taking place in this nameless phantasmagoric metropolis, all I ever need to do is go for a workout.
I have discovered that I am in good standing with no fewer than three different health clubs in town. One is the University centre downtown. It's got an Olympic pool and a high-dive platform that I've never had the guts to try out. The hours are strange, however, as it always seems to be either just closing, or not quite ready to open. I seldom go here, but it's an impressive view from the high catwalk and observation deck. The second gym is a YMCA, and its location and layout shift from time to time. It's unique in the sense that it has perhaps a dozen saunas delimiting the (rather scummy-looking) pool. There are dry saunas, steam rooms, Swedish baths, eucalyptus rooms, you name it, this place has it. The biggest problem is the abominable lighting inside each of these little rooms. I never know who I might be sitting beside, or whether I've got company at all. Even more off-putting are the occasionally ghastly odours that seem to be emanating from the shadowy perspirers.

The third health club is my favorite.
In fact -- I'll tell you how to get there.
Go to one of the many malls around town (doesn't matter which), find Sears, go through the doors between the menswear and automotive sections, go down a flight of steps, go through another set of doors, and you will find a bored-looking woman behind a reception desk. Don't worry about digging out your membership card, because she never asks for it. Just head on past the treadmills, stationary bikes and nautilus equipment and deposit your stuff the locker room.
There's never anyone there, and the pool is always clean.

What will it take?

2006-09-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

Australia's "Crocodile Hunter" has been killed by a stingray barb to the heart. The poor guy was only 44. Damn. This is getting out of hand.
First Dian Fossey, then Timothy Treadwell, now Steve Irwin.

I say to hell with animals. If this is nature's way of repaying us for all the wonderful things we do for her stupid, ungrateful critters, then I say screw 'em.

Let them rot in their salty oceans and smelly jungles, and we'll just see how far they get without our help.

Remember Marlin Perkins?
He didn't take any shit from the "wild kingdom".
Hell, he patented the cattle-prod/boom-mic array.

reviews cont.

2006-09-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Final Destination 2 - Pretty much the same exact deal as the first movie, but without the level of star power. Fans peg this one as the most vicious of the trilogy. Certainly death seems to be enjoying his work a little bit too much here, especially as the climax ramps up.
Look for a pointless cameo by unsung genre hero Tony Todd as an...uh...Undertaker? Coronor? Death hobbyist? Gurney repairman?
It wasn't all that clear.

Final Destination 3 - "X-Files" and "Millennium" writing duo Morgan and Wong helm this, the final Final Destination film, and the results are something of an improvement. Some spectacular set-pieces and hilariously gory ends for our largely disposable cast add a bit of life to the proceedings, but ultimately, the same old questions arise.
For example, if Death is prepared to take time out of his busy reaping schedule to hunt down the "ones that got away" to such a (frankly anal) degree, why bother sending clues ahead of time to his doomed quarry? Are there other forces at work?
And are the characters supposed to be thoroughly unlikeable so the audience can laugh at their elaborate eliminations (some are admittedly enjoyable), or is it just a case of lazy writing?

None of it really matters, since the series has now been put to bed.
Not a bad sendoff, all things considered, but would it have killed them to throw us a quick shot of headless Stifler?

The Ghouls - This rancid no-budget shot-on-video sickpuddle should be avoided at all costs.
It tells the "story" of a hateful paparazzi-type lowlife who drunkenly witnesses a brutal attack on a woman by a pack of cannibalistic homeless men.
Some ~~deluded~~creative souls who enjoyed this thing point to its social message in regards to the film's title; the question being "Who are the real ghouls, them or us?", but when the cover of a DVD box practically screams "Zombies Attack!", forgive me for resenting the filmaker's decision to substitute hamfisted social relevancy for actual zombies.

This ain't no Dawn of the Dead, folks.
It looks like crap, sounds like crap, and made me seriously consider asking for my rental fee back. I nearly sprained my thumb holding down the fast-forward button.
If there was any redeeming value in the splatter effects, I missed it.

Night Watch - This is apparently the first installment in a planned trilogy from Russian writer/director Timur Bekmambetov.
I can't wait. For a film to set up its very own unique mythology and let it play out as originally and elementally as it does here is a rare and wonderful thing.

The characters (even when not showing off their supernatural gifts) are idiosyncratic and appealing, without being condescendingly quirky for the sake of it. The motivations of the Night Watchers (the good guys) are simple and plausible, and even more refreshingly, the Day Watchers are given sympathetic character treatment as well. Neither campy nor arch, the villainous witches and vampires of the dark side are believable players in the struggle to keep the balance of good and evil in the film's cosmology.

The clashes between factions of Others aren't flashy or epic, either.
Encounters are catch-as-catch-can gritty, and more reminiscent of Fight Club than the exaggerated gallantry of most fantasy combat choreography.

Another sly, singularly Russian twist is the inclusion of a workaday bureaucracy in which the protagonists are forced to act as de facto civil servants; issuing licenses, granting access, and keeping scrupulous tabs on supernatural activities.
Sort of a Ministry of Magic by way of Kafka. It lends a certain revolutionary idealism to the activities of the disaffected Dark Side.

There is a whole lot going on in this movie, and sometimes I felt as though too many threads were being woven into an already rich tapestry of plot, particularly during the lead-up to the final sequences, but nothing was purely extraneous, nor did the cinematic flash and stylistic flourishes detract from the central themes of personal responsibility and redemption.

Konstantin Khabensky as Anton makes a terrific lead, and his evocative, Romanesque profile bears a striking resemblance to another of my favorite underexposed European actors; Moritz Bleibtreu:

That's Konstantin on the left, and Moritz on the right.

Apropos of nothing, here's another fun comparison:

(Someone's been studying his Guillermo del Toro movies!)

Now that the backstory is in place, and the mythos introduced, I think it's safe to predict that Dusk Watch and Day Watch will prove to be a hell of a barn-burning pair of sequels. Bring on the vodka gimlets!

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)- All set was I to classify this sick puppy as the latest symptom of the dreaded scourge "Retreadus Inanius"; but shockingly, it behooves me to retract what was clearly an erroneous and premature diagnosis.
And no, I'm not being a smartass. This flick truly doesn't suck!

It's icky and brutal, sure. To say the violence is gratuitous is like saying the Himalayas are 'a bit hilly'. But somehow it worked for me.

Not that I'm drawn to this type of movie. Hostel was quite good, but Wolf Creek and 2003's Texas Chainsaw remake left me cold and achey.
To be honest, I had no intention of watching this Hills version like, ever, but I had offhandedly asked a friend of a friend for a "Silent Hill" pirate copy, and mistakenly ended up with this.

I might have given Craven's original a pass, too, but it was so regularly spoken of in reverent tones among horror fans, that I ended up watching it more out of genric peer-pressure than any real interest in the storyline. It wasn't all that memorable.
Certainly any deeper subtextual significance lurking within the middle-class family v.s. sociopathic-outcasts dichotomy was lost on me. Besides, this same "victim turns-the-tables in act three" device was used identically in his previous film, Last House on the Left, and it was just as improbably staged.

But here we have a director (High Tension's Alexandre Aja) who has the money and technology to exploit the vast potential for some shockingly visceral set-pieces that the slapdash, low-budget original was unable to capitalize on.

Tobe Hooper's Chainsaw brought the cameras into the parlor (and pantry) of his degenerate clan, and audiences were both repelled and delighted by the candid-looking results. Humanizing the sub-humans was a tidily perverse perspective twist that worked in the film's favor. It was a beat that didn't sync at all in Craven's Hills. Let's face it, no matter how fucked-up the Hills gang looked, they were still a tribe of organized mercenaries.
I mean, as satisfying as the hitchhiker's melon-squashing comeuppance is in TCM, you still feel a bit sorry for the batshit little bastard. By contrast, characters like Pluto and Jupiter deserve everything that's coming to them. And then some.

The Hills remake gladly cranks up the indignities and piles on the outrage, to a point where the payback these (much more mutated, but equally amoral) freaks receive becomes a near orgasmic experience for the viewer.

This level of audience bloodlust generated in the payoff scenes has some critics crying foul. They say that this type film is supposed to shock people because the heroes have become the savages, not turn the audience into voyeuristic sickos by cheering for them. Is the whole thing an exercise in cultural desensitization?

That may depend on how you view pornography -- when you're beating off to Scrotomaniacs do you like a thoughtful reality-check in lieu of a ball-busting climax? I sure don't.
If a horror flick lets you "cum" (this subject was raised in the "Hostel" commentary), is it less valuable? If we leave our seats basely, brutally satisfied, are we leaving our souls behind as well?

Of course not.
Let's face it, we're not exactly watching this shit to better ourselves, are we?

wondering

2006-08-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is weird.
Sometimes my Yahoo Briefcase links work, sometimes they don't.
Why is that?

ON EDIT: The only stable urls I'm allowed are from my Yahoo/Geocities webspace. 15 megs is what they're giving me. How generous of them.

When I signed up for Rogers Cable internet, I asked if I could beef up my webspace allotment. They said "No, but you get 100 free megs of storage in your Yahoo Briefcase account! Any files you like!"

How does this help me if they reset my files' destination urls every two days?
All it amounts to is a virtual (and hacker-prone) data storage dump.
Isn't that what backup disks are for?

I even offered Rogers money to boost my limit. They actually said no.
That's some real good business savvy there guys.

So I'm hunting for a cheap web host. Ten bucks a month is about standard, isn't it?
Any suggestions?

Wait... this can't be right...

2006-08-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

Equinox has finally made it out on DVD.
I think that's great.
Too bad I rewatched the damned thing.

Have you ever seen a few snippets of something as a kid, and then sorta "filled in the gaps" as the years went by?
That seems to be the regrettable case with Equinox and I.

A little background: the t.v. I originally watched this movie on was a miniscule black and white model with a slowly decaying picture tube that stretched everything at the top of the screen. Newscasters looked like grotesque egg-headed aliens. For years I just assumed David Brinkley was a hydrocephalic.

So basically, my impressions of this film were plenty distorted from the get-go.
Throw in a warehouse full of pharmaceuticals, add about a score of intervening years and you've got a sure-fire recipe for gross misremembrance.

Plot-wise, what I remember happening was this: four young friends are trapped on an island. Their hair and casual hippie-lite attire suggest an era somewhere between '70 and '74. Among them are a scrappy blonde not unlike Marilyn Burns, a fiesty little brunette sexpot, and two affable Hardy Boy-types, capable and courageous, but at this point way out of their depth. This island, it seems, won't let them leave. It constantly messes with their sense of direction, so that they keep ending up at the same cliff outcropping, and ahead lies a dark and foreboding tunnel...

Eventually, as night falls, they bicker, become separated, and finally succumb to the diabolical forces which surround them. As dawn breaks, only the blonde girl is left with her life and sanity still intact.
But she's not safe. Something is hunting her through the trees...

The final scene is an astonishing aerial POV shot, with leathery bat-wings in the foreground flapping almost lazily, as the "thing" knifes through the branches and swoops down towards her. She manages one last desperate sprint for the safety of a sunlit glade, but like a fieldmouse before a falcon, she is caught up in the talons of a far more malign and infinitely superior predator.
The hideous gargoyle-like beast tears into the girl's tender flesh. All she can do is scream.
End of movie.

Now,if someone had come up to me last week and said "So what's this 'Equinox' movie about?"
I would have told them exactly what I have just described to you. With perfect sincerity and just about verbatim.

And I would have been dead fucking wrong.
What's the old saying?

"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

Possibly the case, here.

Anyway, since the actual movie is, in fact, far less scary that your average I Dream of Jeannie episode, I'll get right to the trivia and bonus materials.

Trivia item #1- Frank Bonner plays one of the four teens in this movie.
Yes. That Frank Bonner. Herb Tarlek from WKRP.

Trivia item #2- Fritz Leiber, an extremely talented and influential American fantasy-fiction writer and longtime correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft, played Professor Waterman in this film. And despite having a perfectly good speaking voice, they had all his lines dubbed by someone else.

Trivia item #3- The film started shooting in the mid-sixties, but when it was finally picked up for distribution in 1970, everyone had to come back for re-shoots. You'll notice how the hairstyles and sideburns change drastically in the movie. That's why.

Trivia item #4- This was a student film. The writers, effects guys and director were practically zygotes when this thing began production. (Hell, they were still drinking cherry coke and reading Famous Monsters!) Almost all of them have gone on to do some groundbreaking and award-winning work in Hollywood. Best of all, they're still plenty young enough to enjoy it!

Trivia item #5- This may be something only I find funny, but at one point in the movie Frank Bonner's character turns to his friend and says "Would you just relax? Like, just maintain."

Bonus: Forry Ackerman introduces this film! I was so happy to see him still kicking around, that I actually got a little verklempt...
Man, I used to love Famous Monsters of Filmland, and still have two or three cardboard boxes full of back issues down in storage.

So, that was Equinox.
Maybe you really can't go home again.

Underworld 2 : Stuntman to the Rescue!

2006-08-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

So while I quite enjoyed the first Underworld movie, this one felt a little thin.
It wasn't bad, but it could have been so much better.

For one thing, Len Wiseman has colour-timed this sequel to death.
Seriously, enough with the all-cerulean picture palette! They could have called this one "Return to the Blue Lagoon".

Also missing is the whole war-between-the-races angle. Besides a few minutes of Lycan-slaughter at the start of the movie, werewolves and vampires rarely cross paths in this outing. In fact, the only real action not featuring Selene (who spends most of her time batting around human soldiers) involves Speedman's hybrid-beast, a winged super-vamp and a giant white Proto-wolf who only briefly gets his claws dirty at the end.

Sure, tie that in with an all-but immortal Clan patriarch, and it all sounds very epic. But from an adrenal point of view, it doesn't quite deliver.
Not as well as the first one, anyway.

Now for the compensation package...

On the special features/featurettes menu, you can scroll down to "The War Rages On" and get an eyeful of the real star of the movie:
I give you Brad Martin.

This guy has been in everything.
Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Daredevil, Batman...the list is longer than my arm.
And what a smoking hottie.

Plus, there's this:

Okay sure, lots of straight guys stand like that (remember Heath Ledger's SAG awards appearance?), it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but a guy can dream, right?

Brad's witty and laid-back style is evident in the feature commentary too.
He was joined by Wiseman, editor Nicholas De Toth, and designer Patrick Tatopoulos.
Not only did he supervise all the stuntwork for the movie, but he directed a ton of second-unit stuff too.
Including this scene:

He mentions having to digitally remove Scott Speedman's penis here.

I guess so. If you study this picture properly, you'll realize that there's no way a penis can't exist in this composition. Gravity pretty much dictates it. (The audience is led to wonder if the quadrupedal physiology of the lycanthrope has somehow affected masculine genital declension.)
And then Brad discreetly drops the subject, failing to mention how intensive the penis removal process became. (Whether it was an extensive, costly affair, or merely a cheap digital wipe.)
Completists like myself are left dangling...

Later, during his featurette interview, Brad says "werewolves".

Listen.

But he pronounces it "werewoofs". Werewoofs.
Oh, man, could you just eat this guy up or what?

Anyway, I just heard they have announced Underworld 3. Some sort of prequel not featuring Kate Beckinsale or Scott Speedman. Ordinarily, that would be sad news. The Underworld universe without those two doesn't sound terribly interesting.
But trust me, if I find out Brad Martin is going to be part of this?
I'm so behind it.

Behold the spazmoticon.

2006-08-27T10:12:00.002-07:00

While I'm in review mode, I might as well mention some recent (and some slightly older) samplings. Most of these were direct-to-video releases, so don't be alarmed if you've never heard of half of them.

In a heartfelt ~~ripoff~~ homage to Buzz's signature skully icon, I am hereby unveiling the spazmoticon.

Go ahead and pet him, he won't bite.
(Actually, he can sense fear, so Automatonophobics beware!)

Anyway, I shall now present my musings - in no particular order - on some horror-themed DVDs I have rented over the last few months.

Boo- You gotta hand it to a movie that calls itself "Boo". For sheer chutzpah, it ranks right up there with Pffft! and the Liz Taylor bomb Boom!.

But despite some supernaturally awful performances from fully half the cast, this thing actually gets pretty good and stays that way for the last two acts.
Reviewers have suggested that it borrows too heavily from 2001's Session 9, but I thought it played more along the lines of classic eighties fare like Hooper's The Funhouse or even The Changeling.
One fairly inventive device the movie features is the graphic consequences of spiritual possession. Characters who are unlucky enough to get infected by one of the asylum's nastier spectres begin to "fall apart" in some spectacular and surprising ways.
The only cast member with any star wattage is the redoubtable Dee Wallace Stone, in a very effective, Betsy Palmer-like cameo.

Overall, a worthy timewaster.

Creep- A middling Franke Potente vehicle involving a subterranean ghoul in the London Tube system.
Potente doesn't seem know what to do with the material here, and the audience fares little better. The sadistic titular freak could easily be one of the crawlers from "The Descent" with incrementally tidier table manners.
Sadly, in this case, one malajusted mutant does not a movie make.

Shallow Ground- Now this one I sorta liked. It's a small, oddball, woodsy thriller about a serial killer and a naked, blood-covered mystery boy, played by Tobey Maguire's Spiderman stand-in Rocky Marquette. Check him out in the featurette interviews. He's adorable. Even with clothes on.

Continuing in the woody vein we have 2001's Cookers.
Not a badly acted film at all, considering the level of jacked-up paranoia the three central characters have to convincingly dramatize in their roles as strung-out meth addicts.
Brad Hunt is particularly notable here, channeling Johnny Depp and Skeet Ulrich simutaneously. He even throws in some vintage Jack Nicholson as his character really starts to lose his shit.
Unfortunately, the plot is far too threadbare to offer much in the way of a satisfying (or sensible) conclusion.

Our paranoid-in-a-rural-farmhouse theme continues with Dead Birds.
There are some truly chilling moments in this flick, the actors are solid, and many of them you've actually heard of (Jeepers Creepers 2 star Nicki Aycox, Almost Famous star Patrick Fugit and Henry Thomas from E.T.(!)).

As a dedicated Lovecrafter, I admired the way director Alex Turner and writer Simon Barrett evoked some of the more effective entries from the HPL canon, most notably "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".

From the grim pall of Dead Birds we move straight into the gag-littered foyer of 2004's zombie flick Dead and Breakfast. Played entirely for laughs, this movie's real charm is in the commentary track. Apparently there is a softball team in Hollywood consisting entirely of B and C listed young actors. One day, between brewskies and strikeouts, they decided to finance a little indie horror flick starring every single one of their friends. And frankly, what's wrong with that? Watch for the bar scene with Vince Ventresca "hooking up" with a local hayseed. Priceless.

Undead- "Dead and Breakfast" often gets unfairly compared to the brilliant "Shaun of the Dead", however "Undead" is the real contender here. Whether you consider it cheeky homage or extended Aussie in-joke, don't judge this thing until you get a load of the aliens. (Yes, infectious cannibalistic zombies are merely the appetizers here.)

Watch the scene where one character pilots a cropduster through a sky full of eerily suspended zombie victims. The sequence is not only surprisingly high-concept, it's quite breathtaking in its own daffy way.

More reviews to come...

Darkness Mauls : The Descent

2006-08-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

So. The Descent.
I met Damian and his new girlfriend at the theatre.
Damian has been a friend, co-worker and movie-buddy of mine for eight or nine years now, but I had yet to meet his new girlfriend, Jen. I had glimpsed a girl in the mall where she was supposed to work, but I wasn't sure if it was her, so I never ventured to introduce myself.

She turned out to be much cuter and thinner than the girl I had mistaken for her.
(Not that I am a body-fascist or anything, but still.)
She was a nice surprise.

We went in for the Saturday matinee, and the theatre was mostly empty.
Damian sat between us, as is the usual seating alignment for third-wheel social arrangements like this, and we sort of chatted back and forth a little bit.
I think Jen was more nervous meeting me than I was meeting her though, which I found sweet and endearing.

Lately Damian and I have been drifting out of each other's orbit, which is also common for single friends to do when one of them hooks up with a new love interest.

Whether she was conscious of this or not, I don't know, but she was awfully generous, and let Damian and I do some overdue catching-up. (Damian is the laziest emailer in the history of cyberspace. Jen actually had to physically type out his last message to me.)

So, right -- the movie.
This thing has been generating stellar writeups for a while now.
It's actually available on DVD in the U.K.

You can read Buzz's review at Camp Blood here.
And Rich's take on it at fourfour here.

I don't have much to add, as I also enjoyed the movie thoroughly.
Maybe just a couple of points.

Claustrophobia. Now, I've seen all manner of films that take place in cramped settings and it's never bothered me. The set of Das Boot seemed quite cozy to me. Newt's series of rabbit-warrens and hidey-holes in Aliens made me a little jealous.

If anything, I might have considered myself a claustrophile. As a kid, I used to jam my closet full of stuffed animals, shut the door, and then burrow underneath them. (Yeah, a whole separate set of neurosis, there.)

The point is, the spelunking scenes in The Descent singlehandedly spoiled everthing I ever liked about small spaces.
It was that hard to watch.

"Who would ever voluntarily engage in this activity?" I asked myself, squirming frantically in my suddenly cramped-seeming seat.

And this is the genius of the movie. Thematically, it harkens to the genesis of Jaws, which was a true-life account of several shark-attacks in New Jersey during the early part of the twentieth century. Back then, people had just started to swim for recreation, and it's assumed that as a result, sharks were suddenly introduced to a brand new food source.

The theme of adventurous humans wandering blithely into unknown territorial depths and paying the ultimate penalty is the critical leitmotiv in both of these films.

When the characters split up, it's not a lazy plot conceit, it's a necessary act of self-preservation on behalf of the characters. As the group splinters into wandering singles and duos, they are each represented by different light sources.
One group uses a yellow glow-stick, another is illumiated by purple flares, and other characters are bathed in the eerie green glow of a night-vision camera.
It serves as a neat shorthand for their identities, given the cinematographic challenge of differentiating each character in a pitch-black setting.

There is talk that the North American cut is inferior to the original, but don't let that get you worried. As Buzz so aptly puts it: "(the Euro version) ended with a period, while this version ends with a question-mark".
So not a big deal overall.
(And Damian and Jen squirmed rewardingly throughout.)

The Descent truly blew me away. And like most inventive, novel, fright flicks, it seems to be doing poorly at the box office.
Buy the DVD. Pet it, love it, own it.
It's a fun ride in the worst sense.
Or maybe an awful ride in the best sense.
Either way, it was easily the most affecting horror movie Damian and I have seen in ages.

Maybe I should invite his girlfriend along more often...

Final ISP resolution

2006-08-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well first, some background on my connection history.

1997- Hooked up to the internet! Yay! I bought a 14.4 k modem at FutureShop (sort of a quaint anachronism, right there) and signed up with a small Internet company called Golden Triangle Online.

1999- Friend of mine built me a new tower with a Pentium chip (oooh!) and an internal modem capable of an astonishing 56 bps.

July 2002- Got a brand new Gateway, with all the bells and whistles.

August 2002- Upgraded to a DSL connection.

November 2002 - The fun begins.
And by fun I mean not so much.

What happened that winter would repeat itself from fall to spring every year till this May, when I finally threw in the towel.

As the outside temperatures began to fall, my link light on the modem would start to flicker. I couldn't do anything while the light was flickering. Not connect, not check emails, not surf...nada.
This flickering would last about fifteen seconds every two or three minutes.
All the time. For six months until about April or May. Then I would have a solid connection for the spring and summer until fall rolled around.

The tech-help guys at Golden Triangle (all of whom I would come to know on an intimate basis) went through the usual suggestions: "Check your filters, unhook your modem and let it cycle down, try your modem at someone else's house," etc.
The whole house was the same. Every phone jack that my modem was connected to did the same thing. Intermittent connectivity.

So naturally, I assumed it was a faulty modem.
I traded in my Speedtouch and asked for something better.
The girl at the front desk declined to give me a better/newer model, even though she had proudly bragged that they carry several makes of reliable "market-brand" modems. Well, okay. I'll try this replacement. It came in its own packaging with the shrink-wrap all neatly sealed, so I'm fairly certain she didn't just go into the back room and stuff my old one into a new box.

But the troubles persisted through 2004.
Then '05, and '06. It was getting utterly ridiculous.

The tech guys put me onto Bell. They issued trouble ticket after trouble ticket, and Bell service guys came and went. Nobody would admit to any line trouble.
My theory of line-freezing was repeatedly shot down.

Then something odd happened. My desk-lamp burned out one day, and after I had changed the bulb, the phone rang. I had set the lamp near the modem, and when I returned -- lo and behold -- the link light was solid! I could surf again!
Mind you, I dared not touch my lamp, and I couldn't use it to read in bed anymore, but what did I care? I was connected!

This happy turn of events lasted for a few months until I very stupidly went back to Golden (now called "Execulink") and told them my story.
They said "Oh, those modems were never much good anyway."

Ok, well, can I maybe try a good one this time? I've been a very good ~~boy~~ customer, and wouldn't mind putting my lamp back where it belongs...

After some griping and nonsense about rental fees (I didn't rent mine, I bought it)and warnings about not being eligible for warrantee coverage, I took home a brand new (so they said) G-Net modem.

It got worse. This was March of this year, and it was very mild.
The ambient temperature in my room was a comfortable seventy degrees.
But now, I could only surf for between one and three minutes before the link switch started doing its strobe-light impression. And the worst of it was I had to turn it off and leave it for half an hour before attempting to connect again!

Finally the Execulink people, who were all the while insinuating it was Bell's problem, just advised me to switch to cable.

So in May, totally defeated and dumbfounded, I did just that.
Since hooking up with Rogers Cable I've never had a single interruption.

End of story? Not quite.

Last month Execulink called and told me that if I wanted to keep my old email and webspace (which I was using) to come in and pay them to keep all that going. Fine, I thought. So I paid them thirty bucks to keep my site up for the next six months, and retain my old email.

A week later they sent me a bill for three hundred dollars.

I was fairly convinced that it had to be a mistake, but when I went in there they said that I hadn't gone through the proper cancellation channels, and "just like cable" I was obligated to pay for their service whether I was using it or not.

"Excuse me, dear." Said I, through clenched teeth.
"There's one thing wrong with your analogy: You weren't providing me with a service I could use!

I took this little snot (same one who gave me grief about replacing their malfunctioning modems) to task for a good ten minutes until she scurried into a back office and brought out a manager.

This girl had far less bad attitude, but potentially more business savvy. So I bit back some of my bile, and explained everything patiently, to let her know that I wasn't some deadbeat trying to weasel out of payment.

We stood there looking at my account, and my complaint records, and the dozen or so trouble-tickets that had gone unresolved, and my inability to connect in slightly chilly weather, and finally I think she saw my point of view.

Mind you, she tried every tactic to prove my financial obligation, even throwing that "just like cable" thing out again, but my constant refrain was "How can you charge for a service I wasn't able to receive, and how could I know to cancel said service when I have no way of knowing whether I'm still connected to it?"

I told her that frankly, given that a week before, they had told me to pay if I wanted to keep my webspace and old email active, I found the whole situation suspicious and underhanded.

I also pointed out that if, as she had mentioned, their standard practice is to suspend service after one month of non-payment, why was I being billed for three months of (non)service?

That had her over the proverbial barrel, and she finally agreed to speak to the billing department first thing in the morning.

I walked out of there still fuming, but confident that I had argued my case as well as could be expected.

The next day, she told me that because I was still receiving their email service, I was obligated to pay (as she puts it) "Umm...between forty and fifty dollars?"

"Alright, fine." I said.
"Send me a bill with the exact amount."

I wasn't thrilled, but I was satisfied.
Fair enough, I thought after I hung up.
Take your fifty and fuck off.

That was two weeks ago.
I still haven't gotten that bill...

Showtime!

2006-08-12T02:12:00.000-07:00

I'm finally going to see "The Descent" this afternoon, and I remain
utterly unspoiled!

Thank you artistically vague t.v. spots.
Thank you spoiler-sensitive horror-bloggers.

Review (and shamefully overdue technical update) immediately pending...

The Bell Jar

2006-01-17T12:47:00.000-08:00

The guy from Bell came today.

AN HOUR EARLY, but that's better than late. Or never.

The kid's name was Luke, and he was very young and attractive. Blond, blue-eyes, six-foot three.
But that wasn't going to stop me from laying the smackdown.
Which I very soon found myself doing.

He was quick to cop a condescending attitude when he couldn't find the problem.
I told him to re-check everything, which he reluctantly did (whining vocally the whole time).
On two separate occasions he mentioned wanting to go to lunch. Um. Not my problem, bitch.

Then he said that he had determined my problem wasn't HIS problem, meaning something in the house was
the culprit. He said it was my kitchen line. When I said the kitchen line was fine, he said "No, I didn't say line, I said phone." REALLY SNOTTY AND STARTING TO CROSS THE LINE.

He angled himself toward the door, handing me an invoice.
No way he was getting away that easy. I called him on his bullshit.

I said: "So, you're saying it's my kitchen phone that's the problem? Well, let's unplug it like so, and I'll go and see if that rectifies things." He got this scared look, and said "Well, as long as it takes less than two minutes, because I'm going to go to lunch." I'm not fucking kidding. This is what the punk said to me.

So I whirled around, (very Joan Crawford v.s. Pepsi Board of Directors) and said: "Two minutes? It's gonna take as long as I say it takes, because I've been dealing with this problem and people like you for THREE FUCKING YEARS!" He stammered something like "I know that sir.." but I was already thundering up the stairs.
Guess what? No dice. Problem definitely NOT FIXED.

I announced my findings, much to his displeasure. Tough shit. "Show me the problem." he snapped.
I took him upstairs, and for the thousandth time, went through the process of me getting cut off.
He stood there while I tried to surf, witnessing for his own eyes my constant disconnections.

Then he got really bitchy and stormed out to his truck. He returned to the house with a massive coil of phone cable.He hooked one end up to the basement perimeter-line and the other to my modem in my room. (All the while bitching about how this was going to take "forever".) My blood pressure was dangerously high at this point.

So he says "This will finally determine if it's inside the house or not." Guess what? Not inside the house.
DUH.

So he finally says "Well, I'll get you a new platform." And a voice in my head said :"Is "platform" Bell's code for "I don't know how to fix this" ? Who knows.

He left, after scratching out his original "diagnosis" and scrawling "reconfigure platform". He said it was a long process for them to do (didn't explain what the fuck it was in any satisfactory way) but it wouldn't be as long as "three years". I think he was trying to make peace with me here, because he smiled and winked after he said it.

I didn't return the smile. I threw open the door for him and said "Well, I guess we'll see what happens. Thanks, Luke, and enjoy your lunch".

psionic stress radiation

2005-05-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

Shucks. My DVD player froze and died yesterday.
I was feeling needy and bruised and I thought an episode or two of Buffy would slay some of my personal demons.

Alas, no. My dour mood actually slew my disk player.
That happens a lot.

When I'm in a crap mood, my car, my appliances, my computer, and my t.v. (and accessories) all respond sympathetically.

When I was in my early twenties, and constantly, profoundly depressed, I would drive home late at night after work, and streetlights would never fail to respond to my discontent by winking out as I passed beneath.

One by one.

Some well-read acquaintance once told me that this was called the "Thor's Hammer effect". Ultimately, he proved to be joking, and I guess he wondered if I wasn't giving too much ground to my obvious persecution anxiety. He offered an instance where he had been left in the dark under the same circumstance.

I countered this with rehearsals of all my recent experiences. By the time I had related the story of the River Road Blackout (ten streetlamps summarily auto-extinguished as I passed beneath each of them in turn) he was speechless -- and to my mind, somewhat affrighted.

I like complicated machinery.
I am a fan of and respectful towards complicated machinery.

So why shouldn't it behave in kind? If it is intelligent enough to know what I'm feeling, then surely it can deduce that its continuing functionality is better served by making me happy, as opposed to breaking the fuck down...

Disgust, horror...and whew!

2005-05-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

I contracted the About:Blank Adware virus/trojan two days ago.

Nasty, stubborn piece of work.
It replaced my homepage and added five minutes to my boot time.
The internet became a prickly hedgemaze of redirects and pop-ups.

If that's not bad enough, somehow this bastard hijacked my last two blog entries and inserted commercially targeted hyperlinks around a random selection of ordinary words in the post.

It took most of yesterday to get my removal skills up to speed.
Twelve hours and a dozen gray hairs later, I was able to clean it out.

In the process, I had corrupted Norton, (add the half hour I spent looking under my bed for the disk in order to effect a reinstall), and somehow Internet Explorer got deleted.

I am now firewalled to the hilt. Any of you bitches want to play now?

Actually, disregard that cocky challenge.

Just leave me alone.

aarrggghhh

2005-05-03T04:21:00.000-07:00

Bugger.

Bugger

2005-05-03T04:13:00.000-07:00

Just hours after getting my newly repaired monitor home from the service department, I got hit with a couple of adware infections.
Bad ones.
The list of things I have to do (and learn) if I'm gonna have a prayer at successful infection removal is staggering.

I'm leaning towards reinstalling my OS. Hey, at least I've got backups...

File 'O Crap

2005-05-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

I had the patience to nearly finish Resident Evil Outbreak , but the fucking sequel has managed to embarrass and belittle its heritage at its own expense, as well as the player's.

Were they under the impression that the original Capcom game was entertaining on a purely adrenal level?
Because a lot of us enjoyed the quiet times we spent inspecting levels cleared of threat. The intricate decor alone was a substantive replay feature. But this last title is nothing but a (very) loosely strung together quintet of practice missions. There can be no casual examination of clues once the immediate threats are eliminated, because every minute or so is interrupted by an automatically generated zombie breaking down the door of a room or corridor that you proudly swept clean a moment ago...

That kind of constant pressure might be fine for a military cadet learning combat simulation, but for a gamer who appreciates the effort and talent of the background rendering staff, the incidental musicians, and the puzzle-crafters, frenzied pacing is a cheap substitute for a haunting, replayable atmosphere.

I've only finished the first three missions, so my judgment might sound premature, but... I've read the reviews. They are uniformly middling.

The recent RE4, for the X-Box, in contrast, is getting stellar reviews.

Are we Sony owners just suckers, or what?

Worth a thousand words

2005-04-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

Jazz Hands!

toolish follow-up

2005-04-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

Calum Waddell is a horror geek of the nth degree.
Actually, so am I.
The thing is, usually horror geeks watch commentaries...they traditionally don't participate in them.

In this case however, the second commentary extra from the two British producers was so coated with fanboy slobber I couldn't make it to the end. Calum's filmic knowledge and girthy Scotch accent aren't enough to excuse his desperately lame anecdotes and ejaculations.

The good news is that Tobe and the writing duo of Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch (Ned, the greasy human sheepdog/handyman) on the first commentary track provide an informative, honest, and often self-deprecating overview of on-screen as well as behind-the-scenes events that in my estimation made this movie a far more entertaining project to make than to watch.

Tool Box redux

2005-04-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

My best bud Damian recently bought me (among many other disks) a copy of Tobe Hooper's remake of "The Toolbox Murders" .

Talented young cast, impressive pedigree, and a decent budget.
Talk about ruined potential...

This movie could have stood proud among its predecessors and well into the future, except for a) lack of splatter b) stolen (unreworked) themes c) wonky editing.

It spends lots of time teasing the threads of old horror themes, yet it fails to yield any unique scares or tension of its own.

Coffin Baby?
That's not a name for a monster.
That's what you'd say to the person who just caught your mononucleosis.

Some themes borrowed, but not explored:
Rosemary's Baby
House by the Cemetery
Suspiria / Inferno
The People Under the Stairs
And yes, the original Toolbox Murders...

Tobe Hooper is a heck of a filmmmaker.
I refuse to believe that the final product was his idea.

Tonight I'll listen to his commentary and judge for myself.

Sunday school salt-lick.

2005-04-23T03:22:00.000-07:00

Piety on the underpass.

Seriously people, quit it. The winos down there have enough to worry about.

pyat' shest' sem' vosem' !

2005-04-17T04:57:00.000-07:00

Did I sleep through Russia's demotion/exclusion from the G-8?

Because this confuses me.

Mostly just stuff

2005-04-14T05:13:00.000-07:00

Some links one might enjoy.
If one were me...

Mine

Hee

Hmm

Heh

AHA!

Maybe next time

2005-04-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

Oh, those poor, poor people.

My heart just breaks for them. I'm talking about the media, of course.
With the Pope and Terri Schiavo dead, the average reporter must be feeling kind of...adrift. The fact that the last two major earthquakes in the southeast region have failed to yield even the smallest tsunami is just cruel.
Talk about kicking them while they're down.

Oh well. Buck up, little newsmedia types. There are lots of other horsemen to chase.
Famine and war spring to mind.

Sudden yakking impulse

2005-04-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

Ew. I just got substantially nauseated there for a spell.

Tonight's eggs gave me trouble, but this morning's undercooked pork chops still have me nervous.

I can't beleive I didn't puke. I stood there over the toilet and salivated like a rabid raccoon for fifteen minutes before I started feeling better.

Just checked my last empty beer for a mouse carcass.
Nothing.

Very peculiar.

horror

2005-02-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

I have been getting a lot of 'stop smoking' hints.

Started playing "Constantine" on my PS2. What an assy-looking piece of shit.
I rarely give up playing a game due to presentation or difficulty. But sometimes a game looks so half-assed, that I cannot in good conscience engage/invest anything further than a cursory glance. I figure my money has been spent, but why waste my time?

I took a nap after discarding Constantine and endured a horrific dream of a woman who had had a double mascectomy. But the storyline was that she had waited too long to elect for surgery, and by the time she was operated on, most of her neck and lower jaw was deemed malignant. She looked like a burn victim, but the worst was when she dug her fingers into her patchwork chest cavity and pulled both halves of her chest-tissue back to reveal her ribcage. Reason? The doctors had elected not to close her up because the cancer was recurring so frequently.

Yeah, ew. But my dad quit smoking in his forties and still ended up dying of lung
cancer in his late fifties.

It's all a crapshoot, dawg.

Play him out, Doc...

2005-01-23T11:27:00.001-08:00

Funny, the things you think about in the morning on the way to the bathroom.
Take today -- opened my eyes, stumbled ten feet and lifted the toilet lid.
Jon Stewart, Johnny Stewart, Shelly Winters, Johnny Carson, Carnak the Great, yesterday's strangeness --and flush.

Back to my computer and I learn that Carson is dead. What a shame.
He and Shelly would crack up my shit every time without fail. As a kid, I'd actually hold up my portable panasonic tape player to the television and record parts of his skits.

Yesterday's strangeness-

Started the day debating whether to clean out some of my bookmarks.
I spied "Hydriotaphia" and wondered if I was ever going to read it.
Ended the day reading Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges.
The last line really knocked me for a loop. Well, three loops, actually.

dreams

2005-01-07T05:34:00.000-08:00

Hah.

You thought I was going to start this thing off with some embarrassingly self-absorbed, jejune dream-journal didn't you?

Well, for the benefit of those of you who will never, ever read this. (I'm looking at you, cruel world) I may just have to lower myself to your expectations...

#1. Freaky murder mystery set in an unsettlingly affable alpine community.
Who dunnit? Well, Me, as it turns out! But honestly, even when the body parts started piling up, I still thought of myself as an innocent bystander. Then the giant wooden puppet (subbing for Pyramid Head, I guess) grabbed me by the neck and I awoke with a sufficiently loud girly scream to wake the whole damn house.

#2. H.P. Lovecraft. In a nutshell, HPL either killed his mother, blew up his mother, or was his mother before disappearing in another bizarre murder mystery.
My subconscious had me digging in his past for possible motives for causing the explosion which may or may not have killed him.
Odd that Dana Andrews showed up for the wake, as did Anita Ekberg, FDR, and Hitchcock.
The dream ended in b&w (very uncharacteristicly) and left me feeling oddly miserable that
I hadn't given HPL the benefit of the doubt. (Though, I'm sure I wasn't the one who left the gas on...)

First stab

2005-01-07T04:33:00.000-08:00

Die, die, die!

That was a test...