Brain Tremors

The TRIBESMEN post: To thine own self-promotion be true

2012-02-03T00:49:00.000-08:00

Hello dearest Reader,

You may not know this, but not only do I write (intermittently) about obscure films and books, I also write fiction.

In the past I've posted links to various magazines my work has appeared in, but this time things are slightly different. This time I've got a whole book all to myself and it's being released as part of John Skipp's new Ravenous Shadows imprint.

Tribesmen is a 30,000 word novella (meaning it will take roughly the same amount of time as a feature film) and it's available right now for your amazon Kindle (or the Kindle iphone/android/PC app, if you're not into the whole e-reader scene).

Here's the official synopsis:

In the early 80’s – at the height of the ultra-violent “Italian cannibal” grindhouse film craze – a small international cast and crew descend on an isolated Caribbean island, hoping to crassly exploit the native talent.

But the angry, undead spirits of the island have a different, more original script in mind. And as horror after staggering horror unfolds, the camera keeps rolling. To the blood-spattered end…

If you read this blog regularly, it's up your alley. But don't take my word for it. Check out the incredible authors who were generous enough to blurb me:

"The best new writer I've read in years. Wonderfully lean prose and edge-of-your-seat thrills. Drop everything else and start reading Tribesmen."

–Nate Kenyon, author of Sparrow Rock and Starcraft Ghost: Spectres

“Tribesmen is a gory and clever homage to those Italian cannibal flicks that we all love so dearly, but without the real-life animal cruelty! Highly recommended.”

–Jeff Strand, author of Pressure and Wolf Hunt.

"Sometimes everything goes wrong, in the best possible way. Think Snuff and Cannibal Holocaust meeting at a midnight movie. And then give one of them a camera, the other a knife."

– Stephen Graham Jones, author of It Came from Del Rio, Demon Theory and The Ones That Got Away

There you go, that's my pitch. If you're curious but not sold, you can send a free sample to your Kindle (the first 1 and 1/2 chapters, I believe).

Check it out here and if you do pick it up, please consider writing a quick review.

Thanks for your time,

Adam

Update: if you are a nook user, the ebook is now also available at Barnes and Noble.

NOT a ghost story, ghosts don't know they're dead: Haunt by Laura Lee Bahr

2011-12-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

Laura Lee Bahr’s debut novel Haunt is the literary equivalent to a Rubik’s Cube. Maybe that analogy won’t hold up for everyone, but it certainly does for me because there’s no way in hell I’ll ever be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube.

I don’t mean to imply that the plot is based on an indecipherable puzzle (although there is a strong mystery thread that weaves through the pagecount). What I mean is that even when Haunt is at its most frustrating: it’s always fun.

What on the outset looks to be a multi-perspective story about the intersecting lives of three different characters turns into an ever-shifting (and ever-collapsing) meditation on storytelling, relationships, metaphysics and, ultimately, life itself.

The plot (as far as it is summarizable) concerns Richard, a broski from Middle America who’s recently moved to LA, Sarah, the spirit who haunts his apartment and Simon, the magnetically dashing journalist who’s somehow tied up in Sarah’s death (or is he?). If that sounds vague and confusing…it is. This is a difficult book to summarize not only because I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but because Bahr herself is constantly messing with the chronology, reliability and even the planes of reality within her novel.

In the introduction, editor John Skipp reveals that the book was originally intended to utilize a “Choose your own adventure” structure. I’m glad that the gimmick was jettisoned, because what Haunt is now is a multi-tiered adventure where you have no choice, even when one is being offered to you. It’s a puzzle where some of the pieces are missing and where some were never meant to fit together in the first place. The result is invigorating.

Bahr’s book is colorful, beguiling and intelligent without ever feeling snooty or overindulgent. It’s a book that straddles a number of lines effortlessly: it strikes just the right balance between highbrow and lowbrow; it never lets its perplexing nature overshadow the reader’s sense of forward momentum or atmosphere. As far as it dives into the surreal, Bahr’s prose always feels grounded, the way I feel art like this needs to be for maximum enjoyment (think David Lynch or earlier Darren Aronofsky).

Highly recommended for the adventurous readers among you (and I’d like to think that’s all of you, so don't disappoint me).

Catching up with Andrew: Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary)

2011-12-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve been a fan of Jeff Strand’s work for a few years now, but I’ve never picked up his earlier work (hop in the ole time machine and read about my first exposure to Strand right here. Why was I underlining titles back then? Was it my 5th grade book report?). More specifically I’ve never read his Andrew Mayhem series of horror/comedy/thrillers. Last month saw the re-release of the first three Mayhem books in spiffy* new digital editions (that are intended to prepare readers for the forth), so I decided to give the first title a whirl.

I really had no idea what to expect with Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary). I’m not much a fan of ongoing series, so would it feel too TV-ish to me? Would Strand’s prose be as funny and dry as his later work? How would I be able to fear for a character’s safety when I know they’ll be around for at least three more books?

The answer: those were all stupid questions and I should stop being a doubting Thomas.

Graverobbers is a ghoulish rocket that runs on the propulsive combination of its ludicrous plot and the likeably doofy voice of its narrator. Andrew’s first adventure is as enjoyable as he is inept.

The book is labeled as an “Andrew Mayhem Thriller” but I think “Mystery” would give perspective readers a better idea what to expect. Andrew may be a schmuck, but he’s still a detective in the tradition of Sherlock, Marlowe, Spade and Lew Archer. The clue elements may not be as integral to the overall success of the book as its humor and gore are, but there’s a mystery going on here nonetheless.

If we need further evidence to prove that Strand’s playing around with the genre of Chandler and Hammett, there’s also that great hardboiled cliché of the protagonist getting knocked around. Andrew is pummeled, shot and stabbed for our amusement, so even if he can’t detect, he’s got that in common with his forebearers.

Even if when all this violence that is perpetrated on poor Andrew, we don’t feel that the stakes are quite high enough, Strand ratchets up the tension by throwing some innocents into the fold. Where the aforementioned detectives are all aloof lone-wolves, Andrew’s got a family to protect and we can’t help but fear for them.

Graverobbers Wanted is three bucks, you should check it out.
If the sign of a good series can be measured in the amount of time it takes a reader to purchase the next book, then let it be known that I finished the transaction for Single White Psychopath Seeks Same a minute after reaching “The End.” If that's not an endorsement, I don't know what is.

*With striking covers by Strand’s wife, author Lynne Hansen.

In Every Dream Home a Heartache: Dream Home (2010)

2011-10-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been interested in the way different governments codify and deal with “extreme” media. Like most horror fans this mean that I have a fascination with (and healthy fear of) censorship. Although many enjoy griping about America’s film certification board, the MPAA, it’s important to remember that it is an independent, not governmental body. In many countries this is not the case, and though there are many problems with the MPAA, it does not have the power to ban a film outright.

This stuff is not ancient history (the Thatcher-era “Video Recordings Act” was during the late 80s, and even this year the UK banned Human Centipede II claiming no amount of cuts would get the film certified) nor is it restricted to the Brits (see Australia’s recent crack down on violent video games) but I would argue that no area of the world has a more interesting ratings system in place than Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s certification system (established in the late 1980s, before which there were no ratings but harsh restrictions on what could appear onscreen) is a series of categories capped off with the highly permissive Category III rating (Cat III). Cat III films require the viewer to be over 18, and although pornography is not permitted in HK (on the black market, such content is referred to as “Cat IV”) Cat III films are allowed to have a level of sex and violence (and often times a combination of the two) that would make any other ratings board balk.

Unlike the MPAA’s restrictive (and seldom used) NC-17, many films are produced specifically to carry the label of Cat III. Although many varieties of films find themselves carrying the label, within the HK horror genre, the certification led to the formation of a loose subgenre of cheaply produced HK splatter films. Films like Ebola Syndrome, Dr. Lamb and Daughter of Darkness consistently smash the boundaries of good taste, but have probably never been anyone’s idea of cerebral, highbrow international cinema. Ho-Cheung Pang’s Dream Home (2010) is not one of those films. It may be a Cat III horror film, it may contain stomach churning scenes of violence and brutality, but where the goal of the films mentioned above is taboo-breaking, Dream Home has satiric, intelligent and artistic aspirations…

But if that’s not your thing it also has a woman being suffocated using a vacuum cleaner, a plastic bag and a zip-tie. Yikes.

In fact, the violence in Dream Home is so extreme that cuts had to be made in Hong Kong just so it could be a Cat III film. If this doesn’t pique your interest, then you’ve probably haven’t seen some of these movies. I have no facts to back this up, but I have a feeling that the reason the HK ratings board was so hard on Dream Home was how GOOD the film looks.

This is one of the slickest horror movies you’ve ever seen, and the gorgeous photography only serves to enhance the unsettlingly well-executed gore effects. Speaking of gore, the FX are mostly practical with slight digital embellishments. Dream Home could be used as a good counteragument to those diehards who naysay digital gore. As with any tool, it just has to be used correctly.

The plot is simple: Cheng (the quite fetching Josie Ho) is a middle class gal with aspirations of being an upper-middle class gal. She’s going to get there by securing the apartment of her dreams (hence the title), but given HK’s economy and impenetrable housing market that’s easier said than done. In many ways this is the world’s first “real estate horror” movie, and to make it a lot less boring than it sounds the narrative is fractured. We jump back and forth in Cheng’s life, from her childhood to the point where she decides to take up arms (a box cutter, some zip-ties and her grandfather’s toolbelt) against the tenants of a luxury high-rise. This temporal hopscotch ensures that a splatter set-piece is delivered about once every ten minutes, keeping our attention.

I love the ideas that fuel the film, I love parts of the film, but I do not love Dream Home.

Like the best genre works, Dream Home is a movie that engages the world around it. It is a movie that not only offers entertainment (of a pitch-dark variety) but also societal commentary. Although it is steeped in localisms, you don’t have to know a bunch about the history of Hong Kong to enjoy it (in fact, there is a brief text primer on the Chinese “handover” and Hong Kong’s political and economic situation at the beginning of the film). If anything, it helps looking at the movie with American eyes: these desires and economic woes are universal.

Dream Home is a difficult movie to discuss, because I think I enjoy it a whole lot more in theory than I do in execution. It’s got problems. And chief among them is pacing. The movie starts with its best sequences, by the middle the audience can predict the ending (down to the final shot), and in the end the crescendo it tries to build to is the only action sequence that rings hollow.

So do I recommend you seek it out? Yes. With enough blood spillage to appeal to gorehounds and enough thought behind it that it will appeal to pseudo-academics like myself, the film is worth it although I doubt it will 100% satisfy either camp.

Dream House is on Netflix Instant in HD (which is probably as good/slightly better than the DVD if you have a fast enough connection). If you're a Netflix ex-pat, there's always Amazon.

It was released uncut stateside by IFC, so kudos to them (they also gave a release to the excellent Pontypool. It seems that as they decline as a network, they’re growing as a distribution channel). I don’t speak Cantonese, but I do have to say that the subtitles seem a little hinky. Then again, maybe that’s how the dialog sounds in it's original language. Sadly there seems to be no blu-ray in any country, that’s a shame because the film is very nice looking.

How are they going to stay in this house for more than a season? American Horror Story and the “New TV”

2011-10-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

If you haven’t noticed that television has changed over the last 6 or 7 years, then you probably don’t own a television. Thanks to HBO (The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire), hour long dramas are no longer restricted to crime-of-the-week police procedurals and night-time soaps. And, more recently, thanks to shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Battlestar Galactica, they’re no longer limited to pay-cable either. With nuanced character work, complex narrative arcs that can take tens of hours to mature and evolve, and budgets to rival the best Hollywood can muster, in many ways this “New TV” is a genre all its own.

This year I haven’t seen every pilot, but most of the new shows I’ve sampled have been quite dismal. Many were even “didn’t make it through half an episode”-level dismal. Serial television is both a commitment and a gamble, not just for networks but for viewers. Not only is it incredibly difficult to line up all the variables and produce something worthwhile, but who wants to invest seven hours in something that may not even make it to a season finale? Or three hours, if you were one of the handful of people tuning in to NBC’s The Playboy Club?

So what does this idea of the “New TV” have to do with FX’s American Horror Story? Judging from the pilot, I’m not sure.

What I am sure of is that I really enjoyed the pilot. This doesn’t tell us a whole lot about whether the show will evolve into one of the shining examples like I listed above, or devolve into the same-y crap that clogs our airwaves. Not too harp on the “what ifs” too much, but it must be said that I feel showrunners Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have a history with such de-evolution. The first seasons of their pre-Horror Story shows (the ultradark, sexed-up soap Nip/Tuck and the still-running Glee) offered great promise upfront but ultimately delved into self-parody and banality in their later years.

But let’s look at the positives, shall we? We’ve been given one hour, and it’s a damn fine hour. American Horror Story’s first episode is an unholy patchwork of so many influences and references that a viewer has to ask themselves: at what number of influences does homage stop being a retread and enter back into the realm of wholly original? If there is such a point, I think Horror Story surpasses it.

I’ve heard a lot of comparisons to Dark Shadows, which is valid, but there are also shades of Twin Peaks, Lar’s Von Trier’s The Kingdom, The Addams Family, Matheson’s Hell House. Most of all it reminds me of the 90s short-lived, but fondly-remembered (at least by me) series American Gothic.

These are all good influences, but Horror Story is also blessed (cursed?) with the one of the genre’s more recent, less-than-admirable trends: MTV-ization. By this I mean the frenetic, often distracting and nonsensical way that most ADD-addled material seems to be presented to young audiences these days. In the pilot, there’s not 30 seconds that go by without a jump cut, a trippy in-camera zoom, a subliminal flash of “disturbing” (and often arbitrary) imagery. Luckily, the rest of what’s on display is so pleasing that these stylistic annoyances are forgivable, and in some cases even enjoyable.

Ryan Murphy may not be a calm, metered director, but damn if he can’t write some of the best pulp dialogue. The script is chock full of snappy retorts, deliciously petty quips and crescendos with one knockdown Dynasty-level screaming match. The dialogue would be nothing if you didn’t have the right actors doling it out, and this is another area where Horror Story excels.

Led by the beautiful and talented Connie Britton (the slighted, tragic matriarch), the cast is a nice assemblage of talented familiar faces and some wonderful character actors. This variety of semi-self-aware high-pulp needs to be played serious, loud and seriously loud, and nobody in the cast seems to understand this better than co-stars Jessica Lange (an aging, bigoted southern Belle) and Dylan McDermmot (who is still probably flossing bits of the scenery out from between his teeth).

“But what about the horror? Will genre fans be happy?” You ask. “They should be,” I would answer. Beginning with a grisly pre-credits sequence that involves not only a creepy old house, an ominous little girl and pickled fetuses, but also glimpses of some kind of ghost/monster, the show continues to ladle on the shocks evenly over its runtime. Shocks that include—but are not limited to—a creepy gimp suit, a poltergeist pulled directly from Poltergeist, and a crispy Amityville-esque murderer. I think you’ll find something you’ll like.

Only time will tell if American Horror Story can stay the course, sustain its quality and become one of the few successful serial genre shows, but I, for one, am rooting for it. Check it out if you haven’t done so already.

The Value of Shock

2011-07-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Yeah, there are like fifteen hundred other reviews of this book bouncing around the internet. I know. But I went to a store and bought this last week, so you’re gonna have to indulge me while I put down some thoughts.

There are very few nonfiction books written about horror films that aren’t either: a) breezy, fan-written overviews of the genre, which are generally full of hyperbole and geek-bias or b) so overly academic that they preclude enjoyment. In Shock Value, Jason Zinoman solves this problem by approaching his chosen material as both an intelligent fan (the guy wrote for the New York Times and Vanity Fair) and by focusing the majority of his attention on the interesting—and often untold—human stories behind the production of these films.

Zinoman’s area of interest is the dawn of “New Horror” in the 1970s. As you probably know, there’s not a whole lot left to say about Halloween, The Exorcist, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or Rosemary’s Baby. These films have been poked and prodded, reconstructed and deconstructed under every possible critical and academic lens. Wisely, Zinoman chooses to take a closer look at the creators of these films over in-depth analysis of the films themselves. He examines both the cultural climate of the time in which these men were working and their relationships to each other (relationships which range from playful thematic discourse to professional symbiosis to downright adversarial). Through extensive and candid interviews with filmmakers like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper and a host of their collaborators Zinoman creates intriguing miniature portraits of the men themselves, but also to tell the larger story of the movement they forged. These are men we don’t hear from a lot (promo material for DVDs barely counts, and that’s not the kind of engagement they give Zinoman). Many of their stories are quite fascinating and will often offer deeper insights into their work.

Worthy of special mention is the large swath of time Zinoman takes discussing the life and work of the late Dan O’Bannon. It’s great that this lesser-respected, semi-kooky, but very important figure in genre cinema gets to tell his side of the story one last time in the pages of Shock Value. For me, this alone was worth the price of the book.

How much enjoyment you yourself will derive from Shock Value, probably depends on your level of open-mindedness and readiness to interact with a text that you may not agree with at all times. The hardest of the hardcore horror fans will probably find much of the ground covered to be familiar, and even if they don’t they will possibly take offense to Zinoman’s frank appraisal of horror post-the advent of New Horror. The author approaches the men he’s studying in a very smart way, and is very quick to point out how well-read his subjects were as young men. By the time he reaches his conclusion he makes two fairly controversial assertions. First he points out the unfortunate trend that many of these filmmakers were never able to top their early (and in most cases, first) works. This is unpleasant, but it’s also pretty objectively the truth. Zinoman then implies that the reason there has never been another boom in horror comparable with the 1970s, is because once the conventions of the genre were established, the genre fed on itself (and only on itself) until stagnation. Zinoman attributes this decline to the fact that while Craven and Carpenter took their ideas of what was frightening from the works of Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, younger filmmakers were getting their same conceptions exclusively from Craven and Carpenter.

If that last sentence raised your ire—if you’re ready to hurl lame insults like “elitist” and “portentous” at Zinoman—then maybe you won’t enjoy Shock Value. But you also might be the person who needs to read it the most.

INSIDIOUSly Engineered

2011-07-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

I’m not the type of moviegoer who can “turn off their brain” for a big summer movie like Transformers 2 in order to give an otherwise bad film a pass. I’m not a snob, I would argue that I'm quite the opposite in that my primary interests are the “lowbrow” genres. But I am of the strong belief that a poorly made film cannot hide behind its genre affiliation, no matter how loud the insistence of the film’s defenders that I should: “relax, it’s only a movie.”

James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s Insidious is one of the few films I can think of that dodges this ongoing debate entirely. Here we have a film that demands to be taken on its own terms. If genre-savvy viewers (those who have seen more than a handful of fright films and were born before the Clinton administration) want to enjoy Insidious, they must acknowledge that the film is a composite. When I say composite, I don’t mean to imply that Insidious has anything in common with the mosaic filmmaking of Quentin Tarantino, or the pastiche/homage/rip-off tendencies of his imitators. What I mean is that with Insidious, Wan and Whannell (the writer/director duo behind Saw) have created a film that’s such a tight an assemblage of familiar spookhouse scares, that it never desires to be its own film. This does not mean that Insidious lacks merit as horror entertainment: if judged on the number of effective jump-scares alone, it would rank among the best ever.

Insidious is a loving and well-made “greatest hits” reel for the last century of horror cinema, but it completely fails if you try to scrutinize it as a film in and of itself. If that sounds like a conflicted statement, it’s meant to be. The promotional material included on the disc indicates that the duo set out to make just such a Frankenstein patchwork, by having them run down a veritable laundry list of famous moments they wanted to include.

For a film with a such a comparatively small budget, Insidious looks great, especially on Blu-ray. Wan gives a nice sense of geography with his camera movement and placement, and it’s the main reason that the scares work so well. The look may be effective, but the film borrows even its aesthetic from other films by using the "dank-but-slick" look popularized by the American remakes of Japanese films like The Ring and The Grudge.

Wan and Whannell fill their roadside-attraction of a movie to the brim with onscreen talent, but never deliver a single character that seems real or even dimensional to the point where they deserve names. There is The Dad (the talented Patrick Wilson), The Mom (the even more talented Rose Byrne), The Grandmother (Barbara Hershey whose inclusion I suspect is a nod to one of my own favorite films of this type, The Entity) and The Psychic (prolific character actor Lin Shaye). The film’s adherence to the haunted house/possession genre is so strict that I really don’t have to tell you much more beyond those character-types for you to synopsize the plot for yourself. All but one of these non-characters fit perfectly into the mechanism that is Insidious. The sore-thumb is Rose Byrne’s character, who spends the majority of the film screaming, crying and never really solving anything until her skeptic naysayer of a husband has to step up and save the day. The extreme degree to which her character is ineffectual would be insulting if everything else about the film weren’t so intentionally under-written.

Most of what I’d heard about the film mentioned how disappointing many people felt the ending was, as it does descend quite rapidly into preposterousness. Personally I was all for it. I enjoyed it just as much as the rest of the film and the scares never slow. I genuinely liked the look of the main demon (he’s like a red, humanoid and creepy Gonzo The Great) and felt that “The Further” sequences at the end were home to the very few original ideas in the movie.

So do I recommend you seek out Insidious? Yes, highly, but only if you're looking for some scares...and soild ones at that. But be warned, these “free-standing” shocks don’t ask that you for one moment care about the connective tissue between them. As against my nature as it is to say: I had no problem enjoying Insidious “for what it is.” It does what it was engineered to do and it does it well.

Folk’d Up: Does "Wake Wood" Squander Its Proud Heritage?

2011-07-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Purchasing a movie without having first hand knowledge (or a trusted recommendation) is often called a “blind buy.” As I mature in taste and cynicism (and as my wallet begins to atrophy), blind buys are becoming a thing of the past on my part. It wasn’t the modest price tag of the Wake Wood blu-ray that encouraged me to make the buy (blindly), but instead a rather curious quote on the cover copy: “[Five Stars] An instant folk horror classic.” Folk horror? A contemporary film belonging to the very small subgenre of British horror film that includes such classics as The Wicker Man (1973) and Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)? Where do I sign up? Sadly, “truth in advertising” is a bit of an oxymoron.

Wake Wood is a movie that can’t commit. It has all the parts: two more than competent lead actors, foreboding (but beautiful) rustic Irish scenery, a mysterious town complete with pagan cult. But what it lacks is a writer and director who have any idea what kind of movie they want to make.

The setup is promising enough. Bereaved parents (Aidan Gillen, playing a much less smarmy guy than his characters on The Wire and Game of Thrones, and Eva Birthistle) move to a quiet suburb after their young daughter’s untimely death, but once there are presented with a way that they can have their daughter back for three more days. There are rules to the pagan ritual of course (there are always rules: don’t feed her after midnight, she doesn’t like bright light…wait wrong movie) chief among them is that the ritual can only be performed as long as the little girl has been dead for less than a year. I don’t think it’s meant to be a secret, but little Alice has been dead a year and a few days. If that constitutes a spoiler than Wake Wood features the worst poker faces in the history of cinema, because when asked how long their daughter has been dead Gillen and Birthistle’s characters begin their downward spiral into dimwitism, and they take the film with them.

In the film’s cinematic forbearers, when character motivations were hazy or the narrative relied heavily on dream logic, it was okay because those films didn’t insist upon the reality of their universe. In Wake Wood, when characters make inexplicable decisions, don’t communicate vital information to each other and are given incongruous and sketchy motivations, it’s just lazy filmmaking. Wake Wood wants the metered-pace of a seventies-flavored throwback in its first two acts and then switches to a slicker, more modern, stalk-and-kill for the last half hour. It just doesn’t work. The film feels like two separate movies cut together, one is a gory, gruesome and completely over the top evil kid on a rampage picture (which I am in no way opposed to). The other half is a slow-burn character-driven art-horror flick where the two protagonists are unlike-ably stupid (or aloof enough that we can’t justify their brain-dead decision making) and the evil pagan cult is actually fairly benign. Wake Wood may have been able to overcome this unholy union if its foundation were a stronger script, but alas.

What’s most frustrating about the film is not the promise it possessed in theory, but the charms it possesses in reality. There is a lot to like in Wake Wood. The sequences with the cult are enjoyable in that they recall older, better films. There is some genuinely pretty cinematography and it’s the first film since the reformation of Hammer Studios to carry at least a bit of the “feel” of classic British horror (although it’s not the best, that honor lies with the very good, but somewhat redundant Let Me In) but these glimmers of quality are overshadowed by the film’s noncommittal.

So “an instant folk horror classic” it is not, but an above-average
—if narrativly messy—addition to a Netflix queue as long as your expectations aren’t set too high.

I believe it goes without saying, but if you haven’t seen the weird and wonderful classic that is the original The Wicker Man,you really should.

Also, if you want to expand your “folk horror” repertoire I strongly recommend you seek out the R2 release of Blood on Satan’s Claw (it’s a bad title, but possibly my favorite Brit horror movie ever. Period).

Also, I’ve been pretty rough on this movie so if you want a second (kinder) opinion then my buddy and yours Johnny Boots has you covered over at Freddy in Space.

Cruising Up Mulholland Drive

2011-07-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

If you're an occasional gamer, like me, then you've probably already heard of L.A. Noire. What you may not know is that publisher Mulholland Books has partnered with Rockstar Games to put out an ebook anthology that contains original fiction from some of the best authors in the crime business (Joyce Carol Oates! Joe Lansdale! Dwayne Swierczynski! Lawrence Block!). I currently have a guest post over at the Mulholland Books site that extols the virtues of both the game and the book. It would mean the world if you dropped by and gave it a read.

If you have a gaming console and haven't picked up L.A. Noire yet: I strongly encourage that you do so as the the price is already dropping. I'm not versed enough in game economics to know if this price drop is a good or a bad thing (I want a follow-up damn it!).

All those “time outs” coming back to haunt you: Bloody Birthday

2011-07-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, I did a post about some of my favorite “killer kid” horror films, the only reason 1981’s Bloody Birthday wasn’t on that list is because I hadn’t seen it. In fact, I didn’t even know it was an entry in the esteemed “murderous child” sub-genre. But the fine folks at Severin films have allowed me to set my facts straight. While the label has been courting classier and more high-profile projects as of late(The Stunt Man and Alejandro Jodorwsky’s avant-garde art-cult masterpiece Santa Sangre), their most recent crop of releases aims to explain to viewers that Severin has not gotten out of the cult horror re-release game.

Three children (two boys, one girl), born at the same time, under the same evil astrological convergence, start killing on the eve of their tenth birthday. Classic. The strongest aspect of writer/director Ed Hunt’s Bloody Birthday, is that it quickly dispenses with the pretense that you are watching a proper film. Right away the malevolent tots are offing people, and the film’s breakneck pace only slows during its somewhat anti-climactic final moments. The film follows the prototypical (at the time) slasher formula of, if not upping the ante, at least varying the mode of death for each victim, leaving the viewer in awe of the trio of kids and their resourcefulness.

Where the weighty and European Who Can Kill a Child? exploits its pint-size antagonists for maximum dread value, Bloody Birthday takes the more American (i.e. instant-gratification) route and frontloads the film’s more shocking moments, leaning on the “oh no, the child is pointing a gun at me” effect one too many times, until the result is camp. The final product is far more guilty fun than it should be and, as usual, Severin gives the movie an HD transfer befitting a film 10x its notoriety and merit.

The protagonists never feel truly imperiled, but the gruesome fun of the first two acts (which include the dispatching of not one, but two pairs of young lovers, an 80s slasher staple) make up for the film’s shortcomings.

Rounding out the disc is a lively interview with the film’s final girl Lori Lethin, a lengthy but rambling audio interview with Ed Hunt (interesting, but is also prime background noise for when you’re doing something else) and a “Brief History of Slasher Films” featurette, which is enjoyable but won’t tell you anything new if you’re already an aficionado.

This is a recommended release, I can't wait to pick up Severin’s other recent discs.

Pleased to Meet You: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn and It Came from Del Rio by Stephen Graham Jones

2011-06-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, whilst visiting my native Long Island, I attended the Horror Writers Association's Stoker Weekend. Stoker weekend is a semi-self-congratulatory, but fully awesome, writer's convention and awards ceremony where I got to meet a bunch of people whose work I know and respect. A week later, looking back on the experience, I’ve realized that what I found just as satisfying as meeting those folks that I was familiar with was meeting writers whose work I had never given a chance. What follows are quick reviews of two such books, both of which I burned through in a couple of days (a sign of quality if I ever heard one).

I pride myself on having one finger on the pulse of horror at all times, so how the hell is this the first time I’ve picked up a book by Stephen Graham Jones? While many of the great horror writers seem preoccupied with either distancing themselves from their genre or legitimizing it, Jones jumps into the fray with a one two punch of high-literary sensibility and unapologetic pulp in It Came from Del Rio.

The story concerns a career criminal smuggler, Dodd, who is looking to retire after one last big job. Unfortunately for him the job is a doozey; one that leaves him genetically altered and concerns not only giant mutant rabbits, but radiation-sick chupacabras.

Del Rio is the kind of novel that sounds silly when summarized and puts the reader off guard with its title and lurid cover art (the subtitle is Part 1 of the Bunnyhead Chronicles, just in case the “It Came From” prefix didn’t do it for you), but pays big emotional and artistic dividends. The only corollary for Del Rio that I can think of is the work of Joe Lansdale (and not just because of the Texas connection). In fact, if you place this next to Lansdale’s The Drive-In, you could make a pretty good case that Jones is working in a brave new sub-genre: art-camp.

Both prosaically and structurally interesting (the book is broken down the middle for its two narrators, Dodd and his daughter Laurie) It Came from Del Rio is a quick read that sizzles with originality and genuine affection for the genre it is elevating to the level of high-art. I can’t wait to see what surprises the rest of Jones’ work holds.

Buy it right now from amazon!

I’ve seen both of Gillian Flynn’s books at my local bookstore, so when I was asked by one of the convention organizers if I knew her work I answered: “I’ve heard the name.” Not the best choice of words, because the next thing I know I’m being introduced to Flynn by said organizer as “a fan.” It was a little white lie on his part that was benign enough until Flynn asked me point-blank: “So you’ve read the books?” I can only assume that I turned all kinds of colors before confessing that “He may have overstated that ‘fan’ part a bit.”

It was only once I began reading Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, that I realized my embarrassment had yielded more than a funny story: I was indeed a fan.

A dark, neo-noir crime story that centers on a Chicago reporter’s return to her small hometown to investigate a series of murdered young girls, Sharp Objects is one of the most shocking and intelligent books I’ve read in a long, long time. To summarize is to bastardize, especially in a book where mystery is such an integral element to the work’s effectiveness, so I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.

Our reporter protagonist, Camille Preaker, is a reformed cutter. She compulsively carves words into her skin and throughout the narrative is constantly reminded of her scars and the words they spell. It’s a haunting device that works far better than it would at the hands of a lesser writer. Camille’s scars, unsurprisingly, stem from her childhood. Her past, the death of her beloved little sister and her strained relationship with her mother, are pieces of backstory that don’t strictly serve as characterization, but directly inform the plot in such a way that it takes the text far beyond the typical series of red herrings and reversals usually found in crime fiction.

Flynn excels in creating supporting characters that at once evoke disgust and pity. There are times, especially when the reader is completely unsure who is the killer, where certain characters are either complete sociopaths, or absolute victims of circumstance. These constant subversions of expectation are a neat trick, and one that never outstays its welcome thanks to Flynn’s clean pacing and insightful prose.

During one of the weekend’s panel discussions, Flynn downplayed the feminist overtones of her work, and even cited instances where she was labeled misogynist (the bulk of the books most reprehensible characters are women). It is my opinion that feminism is not a dirty word, and I would even go further and say that this is a great feminist text, precisely because Flynn allows much of the ugliness to be inflicted by women. Sharp Objects is a story where the only ‘sane’ and ‘normal’ character is the one with the most emotional and physical scars. Camille is a woman who has truly felt the hurt that society ladles on women but has reconfigured societal expectation (her mother and sister are perverted into monstrosities by the extremes of this expectation) into fortitude and altruism.

Sorry if I got too pseudo-intellectual for a second, but the bottom line is that this book is excellent.

I highly recommend that you pick it up.

What's Happening!!

2011-06-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Look at that cover. That's a damn fine cover. As regular readers know, what's just as exciting as Paracinema's slick visual design and full-color interior is the marvelous assemblage of writers that inhabit its pages, and this issue is no different.

For this, their 12th issue, in addition to that "marvelous assemblage" of writers they also have me for some reason. So order your copy right now for $7 (that includes shipping if you're in the US, a value that's better than any other genre magazine on the market) and you'll get my article "What? No?: How The Happening Teaches Us to Reassign Genre to Re-evaluate Crap". My last article for the mag was a straightforward piece of faux-academia so I wanted to mix it up a bit this time with something humorous. As people who have seen it can attest: there is nothing funnier than M. Night Shyamalan's 2008 film The Happening.

All kidding aside, I'm very proud of this piece and hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. In an age where most horror and film magazines aren't worth the paper they're printed on by the time they go to press, it's refreshing to see a magazine strive to be more of a film journal, with thoughtful essays that have no expiration date.

Buy a copy of issue 12 now and support a fantastic, professional labor of love. You should also probably pick up some of their few remaining in-stock backissues if you haven't done so already, may I suggest Issue 10?

A Tale of Two Women

2011-03-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

Warning: this review doesn’t get too bogged down in plot synopsis as I’ve already done that in my review of the novel which you can read here.

Film adaptation is tricky business. If you’re too slavish in your retelling the film becomes pointless, as the story already exists in another medium, but if you diverge too far from the source material, the internet rises up and starts a petition (or what ever it is they do). Additionally, adapting your own work adds an extra dimension of risk (I know it has its defenders, but I’m 90% sure the shot-for-shot remake of Funny Games was just Haneke eager to hang out with Naomi Watts in her underoos). For all its perils, however, the risk of the screen adaptation is one of the many reasons Lucky McKee’s new film, The Woman, succeeds.

How can adaptation be a strength in and of itself, you ask? When said adaptation opens new avenues of understanding into both of the texts. The source material in this case is the recent Jack Ketchum/Lucky McKee novel The Woman. But while the novel is a bleak and unrelenting meditation on the depths of human depravity and the hypocrisy of “civilized” society, the film plays like a pitch-black serio-comic satire of suburban life and America’s reliance on the traditional view of patriarchy.

The miraculous part of these divergent tones (tragedy v. comedy) is that both the novel and film are virtually identical in plot and structure. There are small changes here and there, but the story plays out exactly the same up until the ultraviolent climax.

The two versions of The Woman feel like a case study in auteurship. By this I mean that, regardless of how integral the co-authors actually were in creating each version, the novel very much feels like Jack Ketchum’s The Woman and the film feels like Lucky McKee’s The Woman. There’s a level of artistic vision in each project that allows both to stand freely on their own.

McKee’s direction is tight enough that the dashes of humor and quirky flourishes never seem forced or out of place, and much of this seamlessness is due in large part to the film’s music. Written and composed concurrently with the film, the soundtrack is filled with lyrical and tonal juxtapositions that may be jarring at first (especially the “bow-chicka-wow-wow” love theme that accompanies in the scene where Cleek first discovers the feral Woman) but soon mesh and become inextricable from the final product.

Also worthy of praise is the cast. Rarely do horror films have casts where the entire ensemble is of note, but The Woman has one. Pollyanna McIntosh plays the titular, (mostly) non-speaking Woman with a mix of primal detachment and animalistic heroism. Long time McKee collaborator Angela Bettis is as alluring and neurotically supercharged as ever, an underutilized talent if there ever was one. It’s a tough job to play a character as loathsome and disgusting (and charismatic) as Chris Cleek without delving into camp, but Deadwood’s Sean Bridgers brings a manic “Ward Cleaver-meets-Charles Manson” vibe to the role that just works. The younger members of the cast are all great. Lauren Ashley Carter, Zack Rand and Shyla Molhusen (possibly the cutest child actor ever in a horror movie) are all young folk who play young folk very well—a legitimately rare talent.

McKee has been on everyone’s radar for nearly a decade (his first film, the excellent May was released back in 2002) and I believe with The Woman he has finally made good on his promise of greatness. McKee’s had some near-misses (there are parts of 2006’s The Woods that work, some that don’t) and false starts (he was removed from the flawed-but-good Jack Ketchum adaptation Red, before he could finish) along with some legitimate, good work (his Masters of Horror episode is among the best of the two seasons), but nothing that compares to this: his best film yet.

After fielding a question about his painful experience with Red, McKee had this to say during the Q&A regarding The Woman: “I just wanted to make my Jack Ketchum movie.” Well, you’ve done more than that: you’ve made what feels like the first Lucky McKee movie since May.

It's a brave film, not just because of its extreme subject matter but also the risks that it takes with the genre. It's a film that will probably alienate as many as it wows, "hardcore" horror fans included. In my opinion, there is no higher praise.

Highly recommended.

Only Women Bleed: The Woman by Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee

2011-02-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

Has the whole world gone crazy? We as a culture/subculture/peoples have plenty of opportunities to ask ourselves this question on a daily basis. Here's one more:

There is a new book co-written by Jack Ketchum out and the world hasn't taken enough notice.

A new Ketchum book, let alone one co-authored by filmmaker Lucky McKee (the man behind the indie neo-classic May and is also responsible for what I feel is the best Ketchum screen adaptation: Red) is a reason to celebrate, people!

A quasi-followup to Ketchum's Off Season and its sequel Offpring, The Woman's titular character is the lone surviving member of the cannibal tribe in the first book. At the beginning of the story The Woman, injured and alone, is found by Chris Cleek, a small town lawyer and closet psychopath. Cleek captures The Woman and brings her home where he keeps her in his fruit cellar and tries to "civilize" her with the help of his family. Any more synopsis is spoiler territory, so I'll stop there.

Those who read that description and shudder that Ketchum and McKee will be content to settle for exploiting the ol' horror chestnut of "modern man is the real monster" can breathe a sigh of relief. The authors take the trope of man's bottomless capacity for cruelty and twist it, emphasizing the "man" part (and place it in direct contrast to "woman") and creating a bold novel that simultaneously works on two levels as both a philosophical critique of misogyny and an explosive, disturbing horror novel.

The work's staunchest detractors (aside from those violently off-put by the subject matter, but let's not count them) will probably claim that this is Ketchum returning to the well-trod "woman is bound and tortured" setup one too many times. I can see value in this argument as The Girl Next Door and Right to Life share similar themes and plot conceits. The Girl Next Door is probably Ketchum's most widely read and controversial book, but where The Woman owes most similarities is to the lesser-known novella Right to Life. Much of The Woman's middle section parallel's Life's prisoner/captor dynamic pretty closely, but there are some fundamental differences that not only make The Woman a very different novel, but a much better one.

First and foremost among those reasons: the ending. The final quarter of The Woman is absolute dynamite, truly the most satisfying and legitimately scary (how many horror novels these days actually pull that one off?) climax that I've read in ages.

Secondly: its literary weight. Ketchum knows his way around a pen, and, looking at the evidence, McKee does as well. The prose in The Woman is a strong confident step above most of the genre. It's a short book, but that's because it's not bogged down by excess fat or padding. Every word counts and while every passage may not ring as lyrically, the book has more than it's fair share of beauty(and purposeful, abject ugliness). I read it on the Kindle, and while I do enjoy being able to save parts for later, it is very rare that my fingers get such a workout highlighting so many passages. American Pastoral and Horns are the only books I've used that function as much for and those things were behemoths.

Finally: The Woman, though upsetting and unnerving in many places, devotes very little of its page count to descriptions of Cleek's cruelty. For me, this is a huge plus. Ketchum and McKee wrote a book that is more about the ideas of ugliness and destruction than it is about the actual acts. It is a book that launches these ideas into the air, bats them about, and takes an introspective look at the wreckage.

I wrestled with the idea of not reading this book, as McKee had filmed a feature adaptation around the time the novel was being written. What we have here strikes me as a chicken/egg type of question. Of two works created at the same time, which will emerge as the dominant form of the story? Does there have to be one? We'll see.

I'm more than excited for the film adaptation, but I'm also glad I got to experience the novel with all its shocks and surprises intact.

You can start reading The Woman instantly if you get the ebook from Crossroads Press. Cemetery Dance is also offering a hardcover edition, with a bonus novella "Cow" (that's one double-dip I'll be partaking in).

Giveaway: Invest in Horror and Win Valuable Prizes!

2011-02-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

Followers of my twitter know that I've been (politely!) spamming John Skipp's Kickstarter project Rose: The 3D Zombie Puppet Musical. Well, with about 20 days to go, the film needs some more support if it's going to get made.

Skipp describes the film as "Pee Wee's Playhouse meets Night of the Living Dead." For those leery of donating: check out the Kickstarter page, watch the video, read the literature and see that Skipp and the rest of the production have a game-plan and that this film has a great chance of kicking serious booty.

The production is offering some very cool incentives for all the different levels of pledges (from $1 to 5K) but I figured I'd try and do my part to sweeten the deal.

Anyone who pledges on the site (even a dollar) and leaves their name (the one you used to pledge, please) and email in the comments section on this blog will be entered to win the paperback version of John Skipp & Craig Spector's splatter-punk classic The Bridge. Not only is this a great book, but because of the troubles of publisher Leisure Books this may be one of your last opportunities to own this edition.

As a bonus, if the contest receives more than 30 entries I will add a second prize: The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction #4, which is guest edited by Skipp. This is a weird wild issue that includes stories from frequent Skipp collaborator Cody Goodfellow, D. Harlan Wilson and others.

This is a community-based fundraiser, so I'm giving you one more way to increase your odds of winning. Anyone who copys and pastes the message below into their twitter will receive one additional entry:

Support smart indie horror! #zombiemusical #rose3d http://kck.st/fTth0y

One last thing, Kickstarter will only charge your credit card if the production team raise all the funds by Feb 24th. But, you will be eligible to win my contest regardless of the team reaching their goal or not. You, literally, have nothing to lose.

If you've already pledged just comment below and you'll be entered. Spread the word!

Not Print, No Problem: Nightjack By Tom Piccirilli

2011-01-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

I've had a Kindle since the second generation model was released almost two years ago now. I've mentioned my undying allegiance to the amazon corporation in posts before, so that's not really news. Two days ago my friend bought a Kindle 3, he carries it around in a Ziploc baggie (because he hasn't settled on a case yet) but that's not the point. The point is that ebooks, to quote the seminal film Class of 1984: "are the future."

If you need further evidence to support the idea if a digital revolution beyond my personal anecdotes (and really, why would you?), chew on this: noted crime/horror author Tom Piccrilli's newest book, Nightjack, makes its debut exclusively in the digital format. This is not only important because it is a new work by an established author appearing first in digital, but because Nightjack is one of Piccrilli's finest moments. Blending the hard-boiled/noir nature of his later work with the more gruesome, slipstream narratives of his horror output (i.e. A Choir of Ill Children) Nightjack is a cross-genre work that charms with its off-beat sensibility and inventive twist on the "split personality" trope.

The story concerns William Pacella. Well, technically it's about Pace. Pace is one of Pacella's myriad alternate personae that arise when his psyche is fractured by the murder of his wife. With the split also comes Nightjack, a Jack the Ripper-esque killer who is handy with a knife and whom Pace uses to take revenge on the crime family responsible for his wife's death. We the reader enter the story post-killing spree, when Pace (and the rest of his alternates) has been incarcerated in a mental hospital. He's joined on an adventure by three other multiple-personality cases (Pia, Faust and Hayden) that will send them across the globe to Greece to unravel a mystery that could either cure or kill them all.

Don't let that gonzo synopsis scare you away, this is a plot-filled, borderline-psychedelic ride, but one that remains readable and enjoyable throughout. It's one of those novels that is so twisty and dense with characters that it defies proper condensing. Piccrilli's prose is slick, scary and, occasionally, very funny (the novel is about as much of a comedy as a meditation on loss, sorrow and revenge can be).

Pace is a likable protagonist, even if he does spend the majority of the novel slightly more bewildered than the reader. But it is Piccrilli's supporting cast (and their numerous alternates, one a pug named Crumble) that truly keeps things interesting. My favorite of which is Pia, the hopelessly damaged go-getter whose main ambition during the course of the novel is suicide.

Pace sets his sights on saving everyone, but Nightjack has different plans. One of the many joys of the novel is having a protagonist that is both admirable hero and sickening villain in one body. To elaborate further would lead to spoilers, the novel is only five bucks and I guarantee you'll find it worth every penny.

Nightjack was released in digital and audio by Crossroad Press who is also in the process of re-releasing John Skipp and Craig Spector's original splatterpunk classics, and have just this week put out an uber-affordable edition of Jack Ketchum's wonderful Ladies' Night . My kudos to them for providing not only great new material but re-issues of some amazing work.

Also, while on the subject of the "digital revolution" I encourage you to check out Ken Wood's editorial in Shock Totem #3 to hear the redemptive story of a one-time naysayer who has seen the light.

Classics Get Genred: 'Black Swan' and 'Enter The Void' Reconfigure Cinema's Past

2011-01-17T11:08:00.000-08:00

The most prominent and flattering quote on the promo materials for maverick-Frenchman Gaspar Noe's latest film, Enter The Void, comes from the New York Times who exclaim: "Exceptional...this is the work of an artist who's trying to show us something we haven't seen before."

I would agree with that statement wholeheartedly, although if I were to write that blurb I'd probably have included an asterisk. You see, from my perspective, Enter The Void fits nicely on the shelf with another of this year's great films: Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. Both are in part an attempt to forge something new and original out of the spirit of an already great film. Sitting in Cambridge's lovely Brattle Theater and watching Noe's film I found it nearly impossible to not think of another three-hour headtrip I had previously seen at the same venue, nearly in the same seat: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

2001 is one of those films that tests the mettle of young film fans. From my experience, it's the film that you watch first when you're too naive to handle it and therefore you despise it. The contrarian nature of your younger self condemns it as self-indulgent and boring (both phrases that your younger self has probably not yet acquired). Later, maybe in college, or maybe the summer before: you see it again. This time it clicks. Not just the iconic music and memorable sequences ("I can feel it Dave") but the little things: i.e. the methodology behind Pan-Am's future in-flight meals. From then on you're hooked, you might as well get Hal-9000's name tattooed on your bicep. I bet that something similar happened to Gaspar Noe, because Enter the Void, for all of its inventiveness (and, believe me, it has that in spades) is just a filmmaker's thoughtful reconfiguring of the movie he so clearly loves.

A character in Enter the Void remarks that "dying is the ultimate trip" how ironic that "The Ultimate Trip" happens to be the tagline used on one of the posters for 2001. This is not to say that fans of Kubrick's film will love (0r even recognize the similarities in) Enter the Void, but the film does deliberately make structural, tonal and (in some cases) visual, callbacks to Kubrick's zonked-out space epic. I'm not the first person to note this (in fact, in the Times article quoted on the poster, Dargis does single-out such similarities) but it does leave me asking questions about what exactly these filmic echoes mean.

In the age of remakes, reimaginings and other requels, Enter the Void stands out as a wonderful, unique exception. A first person film that is actually shot "first-soul" for the bulk of its runtime, you say?

Noe's inclusion of such obvious parallels to 2001, a seminal film text, are less sophomoric "homage" than they are the result of fully mature "remixing" of classical elements. In short: Enter the Void is NOT a flashy and morally-bankrupt remake akin to LaBute's The Wicker Man, but is closer in execution to the way Shakespeare borrowed, condensed, and sensationalized many different sources to write his plays.

I know, Kubrick's film is about a future astronaut's metaphysical sojourn and Enter the Void is about a dead drug dealer's journey through his highly-stylized, intensely sexualized, and uber-cinematrick-laden afterlife. Both films carry very different log-lines, but intersect in some amazingly provocative ways, take my word for it and seek out the film if you have not already.

Like any modern day movie geek, I worship at the alter of Darren Aronofsky. The mustachioed virtuoso has yet to strike out in my book. From his esoteric flops like The Fountain to his more straightforward award-bait like The Wrestler, I love (or at least respect) it all. The filmmaker that made himself known with Pi and Requiem for a Dream has sought a middle ground with his latest effort, Black Swan. The movie is accessible enough to fit into the genre of "commercial thriller" but carries enough bizarre flourishes to placate the arthouse crowd (I'm one of the few 'horror folk' that rejects the idea of claiming Black Swan as one of our own. I don't deny its horrific tendencies but I do feel the need to note that it has more in common with the traditional Hollywood thriller than it does with Argento, De Palma, et al.). Aside from plot, structure and visual ques, Black Swan borrows entire shots from The Red Shoes (1948). Sure, Pressburger and Powell's visually groundbreaking 1940's musical didn't have any lesbian sex or a scene of maternally interrupted masturbation, but that stuff is just window dressing anyway. At their core both films are about the high cost of perfection in the pressure-filled world of the Ballet.

What we have here in both films is a remix in ever sense of the word, with the exception of the ubiquitous deep0voice found in contemporary music that shouts the word "Remix!" at every spare moment. The films stand on their own (and are often much more extreme than their predecessors), but offer that little extra something to the viewer that knows his/her history.

What does all this mean? Well, if the 90's were the dawn of [annoying] self-referentialism and the 2000's were the age of "homage" and pastiche, then maybe the 2k10's are going to be the era where filmmakers learn to both embrace and depart from the films that built the canon they love and respect. A geek can dream, can't he?

And YOU were giving Sam Raimi a hard time?!

2010-12-26T21:02:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: The following review observations are based on a "preview" showing of the musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. I'm sure someone would get huffy if I didn't acknowledge that they are still working on some of the show's technical aspects. When it opens in February there may be some changes made to the production.

That said, you would have to change a lot.

In the infamous 1979 film Caligula, there is a scene in which Caligula, along with a bunch of his subjects, sit in a coliseum watching executions. The method of the prisoner's execution is not a traditional gladiatorial match or death by hanging or beheading. No, keeping with Caligula's over the top flair, the men are buried in the arena floor up to their necks and have their heads chopped off via an enormous, ornately decorated, brightly-colored, lawnmower as it is pushed across the field towards the emperor who watches from the best seat in the house. The "lawnmower" is crewed by a large team of technicians and slaves, both seen and unseen. It is a state-of-the-art, overly-complex death machine (picture below, click for a better look, isn't that a spiffy screen grab?).

What does Caligula's head-slicing lawnmower have to do with Julie Taymor's mega-budgeted new musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark? Well, you've no doubt heard about the several injuries that have plagued the stunt-heavy production. The most recent of which occurred a few days ago and landed stuntman and dancer Christopher Tierney in critical condition (broken ribs and internal bleeding, the fall he took in front of a sold-out crowd nearly killed him). Mr. Tierney's fall also resulted in the cancellation of several shows while the production was pressured to adopt and institute new safety measures.

I turned up to the theater last Wednesday to find a throng of camera crews and sullen looking theater goers and knew the cause almost immediately. The production's scheduled "post-accident comeback show" had been canceled mere hours before curtain. The producers offered guests a full refund and shuttled star Reeve Carney (freezing his balls off, no doubt) out the door to sign autographs in an attempt to soothe the disappointed masses.

I doubt the refund made any of the hundreds of children left out in the cold with no Spider-Man feel much better, but hey: it's better than rushing the show on unprepared and having another injury.

I had washed my hands of the experience, said my "aww shucks" and figured I wouldn't be attending the sold-out show any time soon. But, as fate would have it, today's blizzard (12/26) afforded me the opportunity of seats opening up. Lucky me.

The tone of the show and its execution (the sets, costuming, etc.) fluctuate wildly, as if nobody, from Taymor down to the company's lighting department really had any idea what the hell this thing was supposed to be. One moment its design and dialogue is cheesy comic book pastiche (clothing that looks like it's been "drawn" on the actors, pop-up book sets, and copious "Biff" "Slam" "Crack" signs ala the Adam West Batman television show) and the next it's Taymor's Lion King-puppet schtick. It's all tied together with the expensive looking but antiseptically anemic city skyline and enormous digital screens. It all never meshes and, despite the noticeable differences in style, is uniformly tacky.

Aside from promised plot of web-slinging "biff " "pow" action and Peter Parker/Mary Jane romance, Taymor also tries to legitimize and intellectualize (HAH!) the story by introducing a quartet of comic book loving young folk to be Spidey's fanclub and Greek chorus. She also augments the web-head's origin story to include Arachne, the figure from Greek mythology who is turned into the first spider. Of all the show's missteps (which there are many) these additions are perhaps the most laughably stupid and cringe-inducing-ly self-indulgent. I'm no continuity obsessed comic-geek, change whatever you want Julie. But if you're changes involve a scene in which your corseted, sequined chorus line of arachnoid showgirls (each having eight stocking-ed legs) help their mistress try on four different sets of stolen knee-high boots (I swear to God this happens, I couldn't make this up). If this happens, Julie: then you've made a wrong turn somewhere.

The supposed point to this mash-up of Ovid and Stan Lee is that old chestnut that pseudo-intellectuals use when trying to simultaneously defend and dismiss the superhero genre. The idea that "Superhero stories are today's myths!" If that is true and Taymor et al are trying to invite that kind of comparison then I must say that I'm at a lose to decode what kind of myth Turn Off the Dark is: it's not really a creation myth and for the amount of whining and loafing our hero does it's not much of a hero myth. Oh, I know. It must be a veiled metaphor for a train wreck. Bravo.

U2 catches a lot of flack from certain corners, but personally I don't mind them. Joshua Tree is a great album, even if I don't care for some of their newer stuff. That said: Bono and The Edge's tone-deaf score makes minstrels like Nickelback look like a group of Steven Sondheims. Crummy, repetitive Edge-esque guitar riffs are coupled with lyrics that sound like the songwriting duo was just flipping through a rhyming dictionary at random, eager to have the whole ordeal over with and just get their names up next to Ms. Taymor on the Marquee.

As for the talent on stage: it's a mixed bag. The matinee show featured Matthew James Thomas as the title character and Jennifer Damiano as Mary Jane. Both stars admirably rise above the music itself, even if their effort is in vain. Thomas is a competent vocalist and has to both sing and deal with cumbersome flying rigs through much of the production. Damiano, who is not the stand-in but the lead, fairs worse. At this performance her voice was spotty and line delivery was lukewarm, but hey, she's been through a lot. All these actors have, they aren't just sweating losing their jobs (a very real possibility if the show fails to take off) but losing life and limb.

This, the show's 21st performance in front of a paying audience, was not as plagued with problems as some of the earlier previews. Although, there was an alarm tripped on one of the actor's rigs during the Act 1 finale. The new safety procedures insisted that the action be stopped, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin dangling above the crowd with the house lights on for about 5 minutes. The actors seemed to take it in good humor, mugging for the crowd and getting awkward laughter in return. Their body language as they were hoisted back on stage by technicians seemed to say: "business as usual for your friendly neighborhood stuntmen."

I'm being hard on this show, and regular readers know that I usually keep everything nice and cheery, but here we have something I feel is truly worthy of contempt and I thank you for indulging me.

For those looking to paint me as a Grinch: tearing apart a show whose target audience is kids. Let me leave you with a mental image that, for me, perfectly sums up the whole experience. At the intermission break, dying to stretch my legs I stood up and in doing so glanced at the row behind me. There, curled up on his seat in the fetal position, was a boy of about ten years of age. The young boy was sleeping soundly, gripping the show's playbill against his Spider-Man t-shirt. It was 2:30 in the afternoon (the Sunday matinee began at 1 p.m.) and Spider-Man, the Green Goblin, and Julie Taymor had put this kid to sleep with a show "extreme" enough to hobble its cast members.

Compare with the above image from Caligula

*One last note: The show is budgeted at $65 million but Spider-Man's webs are achieved with white party streamers and one of Spidey's stunt doubles is a foot-long action figure on a string.

** This is too much fun, last note, I promise: At the beginning of Act II there is a super villain fashion show, complete with catwalk. Carnage's costume is sequined, The Lizard is an inflatable puppet and the mostly-paper mache Kraven might be the most frightening thing I have ever seen.

For those of you worried that I misread the tone of this musical and read above thinking it's clearly pure farce: the majority of Act II is comprised of boring, sappy Peter/MJ, Peter/Arachne love ballads.

One Last Hooray for Hollywood: "The Day Before"

2010-11-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow's novella The Day Before is notable not only for how many genres it touches on (Sci-fi, horror, showbiz satire, Mad Max-style actioner) but also how many emotions it packs into it's modest page count.

The story concerns a group of Hollywood insiders that are pushed out of their makeshift sanctuary on Catalina Island. Our writer/director protagonist is convinced by a manipulative super-producer(a thinly veiled Harvey Weinstein caricature) to rove across the post-apocalyptic wasteland to make one final blockbuster. It seems impossible that a book with this outlandish a premise could so articulately represent two author's complex love/hate relationships with Tinsel-Town, but it does just that.

Skipp and Goodfellow know movies. This may seem like an odd requirement for fiction but it's not only very apparent upon reading it's also integral to the book's success. They pack their cast with archetypes only film fans would catch as archetypes: the ultra-professional Russian Cinematographer, the director-jail auteur, the successful hack, the alcoholic "method" actor. They're all nicely drawn and surprising in the way that they adapt (or don't) to the end of the world.

The authors could have easily turned the book into a damning but playful indictment of the film industry. Instead they opt to approach the subject matter with enough wit and a wider scope that moves it out of the realm of straight-up satire and into soulful, but critical, fiction.

At 150 pages The Day Before is readable in one joyous, extended sitting. Smart in ways that so few genre novels allow themselves to be: highly recommended. Available in paperback from Bad Moon Books.

Hearing is Believing: The First Three Episodes of Tales from Beyond the Pale

2010-10-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

"The new face of horror may very well be the old face of horror." That's the idea posited by Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid's new venture Tales from Beyond the Pale, a collection of half-hour downloadable radio dramas. Judging from the first few episodes: they may be right.

The entire operation is a class act: an aesthetically pleasing website, itunes friendly files, and posters for each episode drawn by Rue Morgue's "Ghoulish" Gary Pullin, but it would all be for naught if the episodes didn't deliver.

Due to both the shortish nature of the episodes and the trend towards "TwilightZonian"/"Talesfromthecrypt-ian" twists, I've kept my reviews short and as spoiler-free as humanly possible.

The debut episode "Man on the Ledge" packs the most star power behind the microphone (Vincent D' Onofrio) but is not necessarily the best of the bunch. Written and Directed by Joe Maggio "Man on the Ledge" features a strong lead performance and a smart script, but suffers from a plot and twist that most listeners will hear coming from a kilometer away. BUT--there's never anything wrong with a familiar story told well. So as far as pilots go: "Man on the Ledge" is worth your time and $2.

Director Simon Rumley brings listeners the most extreme installment of the first three episodes: "British & Proud." A truly twisted tale concerning a young British man's marriage to a mysterious African girl and the resulting "meet the parents" scenario. This is the only episode to not hinge on its twist, and thus is admirable for its straight-forward approach to the story. The voice acting here is uniformly great and the plot offers more socio/politico "food for thought" than the other two entries.
Written by novelist Sarah Langan (Audrey's Door, The Missing) and directed by J.T. Petty (S&Man) "Is This Seat Taken" is easily the strongest episode of Tales from Beyond the Pale yet. A twisty tale of a not-so-accidental meetings between a man and woman on a train that leads to murder, mayhem and the reappearance of suppressed homicidal tendencies. This may just be me embracing my inner Long Islander (and my inner psychopath) but "Is This Seat Taken" scores some serious points for prominently featuring the Long Island Rail Road. I also enjoyed the way that this episode plays with the idea of an "audio only" experience (the whole thing is told via one of the protagonist's tape recorder). The episode toys with listener expectation in the final moments without ever confusing. Highly recommended.

I'm more than excited to see what the next few weeks bring and am happy to report that with such a strong start I will definitely be picking up the rest of the episodes as they become available.

The Horror of an Altered 'Wall'

2010-10-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

Disclaimers:If you're not familiar with Pink Floyd's The Wall (the landmark concept album/rock-opera/concert/Alan Parker-film) or you don't give a damn about Roger Waters' new staging of the album; then I have to warn you that you may not give two craps about this post (I have something more explicitly horror-themed coming within the week, don't worry I know we're in the best month ever).

Also, I have to state up-front that I have the utmost respect for Roger Waters and thought that this was one of the best (if not the best) concerts I've ever seen(and I've been to a metric ton).

This Thursday I attended the music event that I've been waiting the better part of my life to see: Pink Floyd's The Wall performed in its entirety.

I loved it, it was everything I hoped for, but there were also some changes to the program that not only tired to rearrange the context of the original album, but spelled out too explicitly what was already there (an even greater sin, in my book). This post will look at those changes and nitpick what was otherwise a truly incredible show and one that anyone who can see should see.

The technological upgrades to the show are more than welcome. Cutting edge, digital, modern equipment trumps three 35mm projectors (the extent of the equipment at the original show) any day of the week. I take issue with Waters' overwrought pantomime when accompanied with overly-explicit anti-war, anti-religion and anti-consumer culture images.

It's no hyperbole when I confide with you that one of my earliest memories is listening to the album on my parents Hi-Fi system. Shortly after that I remember watching the film for the first time (parenting class of 1957 represent! Y'all traumatize your kids) and the rest is history.

I'm not doubting Waters' authority in changing the text. He wrote the damn thing: he can do whatever he wants to it. But, I can't help but feeling that in an attempt to reach out and change the jaded mind of the most pigheaded members of his audience (which has to be the vast minority) he risked alienating the more intelligent among us. I'm not portending or presuming my own intellectual maturity, but I feel upon the forty-eighth-thousandth listen: I know at least partially what The Wall's about.

Waters' real fault here is doubting the formative/informative powers of his own songs. Tracks like "Nobody Home" "One of My Turns" "Bring The Boys Back Home" and "In The Flesh (part 2)" both consciously and subconsciously deliver their message through alternating feelings of exhilaration an melancholy.

The "absolute" message of The Wall is indefinable, it's a lot of things, but there are some inescapable truths discovered upon listening. The album's overall statement that "the world is absolutely insane" (newsflash!), technologically imposed anomie and that war is both avoidable and shameful should be inescapable to any listener of the album. These ideas don't change between 1980 and 2010, so why change the mode of transmitting them?

There is a sequence where the visuals of the show alternate between the deaths of WWII soldiers and more recent casualties of violence in the Middle East. It's a positively striking parallel, but it also takes place within the first 10 minutes of the show. It's the only alteration the audience needs to see the message Waters is transmitting. It's a good change, one that brought me close to tears when accompanied with the iconic music.

Not so effective or subtle are the visualizations that follow (i.e. a warzone being "bombed" with the symbols of religion, money, and corporate greed).

A good example of an update not working is the new accompaniment of "Mother." It's a song (a gorgeous and amazing song) that's obviously about abuse of authority/presumption of inability. The new version starts out with Waters strumming a guitar along with footage of himself (30 years younger) but then is accompanied with the words "Big Brother is Watching" with brother crossed out and replaced with mother. It's a clarification that I, as a mentally competent human being, don't need or want. It takes me out of not only the song but the entire show, I start thinking things like: "some of us have had 30 years to think about this song, we get it."

What I'm saying is: if I myself, someone who share's Waters' political/social views pretty closely(I'm no fan of war or religion, although I do still cling to capitalism, sorry Rog), thinks that the updates to the show are a bit heavy-handed: then what the hell is someone who doesn't agree with him going to feel like after seeing it? On the original album, the room for ambiguity was enough wiggle room to let a listener in on the poetics but not entirely in on the politics. Not to mention that Waters' views have grown more pronounced over the last 30 years.

The show works best when it sticks closely to the original. The stage-crew constructs a physical "wall" on-stage out of white cardboard bricks, and the original Gerald Scarfe-based animation makes multiple appearances. The artistry and craftsmanship on hand is breathtaking, but the changes (to borrow a Briticism) are piss-taking.

I love The Wall, and if I had the money I'd follow this show for every stop, not caring that I see an identical show every night. But, I can't help but wonder if Waters is hurting his case (both politically and artistically) by "updating" a classic. Roger: go ask George Lucas if these changes were a good idea.

We Belong Alive

2010-10-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

"Mary Alice got cancer, just like everybody here/seems like everyone I know is getting cancer every year."

The blue-collar narrator of the Drive-by Truckers' song "Putting People on the Moon" echoes a sentiment that most of us have thought/felt.

It's hard to find a person whose life has not been affected by some form of cancer.

Aside from being a devout enemy of cancer, I'm a big fan of Fright Rags t-shirts (especially since they switched over to the much softer shirt material, papa like). I recently received an email asking me if I'd help get the word out about their new design. For the month of October they'll be selling a shirt with the above design entitled "We Belong Alive." It's a clever and striking rendition of the famous Janet-pose recreated with the Bride of Frankenstein. When you order you'll be directly helping Leisha and her family, a woman living with breast cancer who needs the help.

You can order a shirt and read more about why you should help and where the proceeds are going: here.

For those thinking it...yes I can work DBT into every post.

Paracinema is my happening and it freaks me out!

2010-09-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

Between graduate school, writing the great American novel, and keeping myself sane & healthy (food, shelter, all that jazz) I've neglected my blogging. But good news: I will return in full force some day soon. Until then, feast your eyes on the beautiful cover above.

My essay/article/manifesto "Melodrama in Fast Motion: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls As Not Just Strange but Scathing" will appear in Issue 10 of Paracinema Magazine. You can preorder it here.

Paracinema is easily the most intelligent horror/exploitation/b-movie magazine on the market (it's actually more of a film journal, as they cut out all the crap: "No movie reviews, no music reviews, no toy or action figure news, no book reviews, no filler") and I am thrilled and honored to be a contributor.

For those living in the cooler areas of the country it will also be available in finer independent retailers but I wouldn't delay if I were you: grab your copy online.

Flash Fiction: "Un Ultimo Hombre Lobo"

2010-09-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my story "Un Ultimo Hombre Lobo" went live on 52 Stitches.

For those unfamiliar 52 Stitches is run by the awesome Aaron Polson and offers a year full of free stories (one a week) and ends with all 52 collected and published as a physical collection.

This year, should you pick up year 2 when it goes to print, the profits will go to help the late Jamie Eyberg's children.

Great project, great writers, great editor, great cause.

Southern-Fried Mash-Up: Dread Island by Joe R. Lansdale

2010-08-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

I think I've said this before, but if not I'll say it again: Joe R. Lansdale is one of the best writers currently in a living, breathing, above-ground state of being. And by "one of" I'm talking, like, top three material.

I've also might have mentioned my disinterest in the current publishing trend of literary mash-ups (Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, Count Chocula Sits Down with Ezra Pound, etc.). They simply are not produced for me, hence my disinterest. I don't hate them like some people seem to (there seems to be a lot of that going around: people passionately hating things that they clearly are not the intended market/audience for).

IDW Publishing's upcoming "Classics Mutilated" anthology (prose, not comics, IDW is branching out I guess) is looking to change all that. See they've brought in a list of very talented writers to play the mashup game, and if this first preview book is any indication: homerun, IDW.

We'll have to wait until the full anthology is released in October to see how twisted the other authors chose to get but they'll have to seriously step it up to beat Lansdale.

His story can be summarized: Huck Finn and Jim meet up with Brer Rabbit and fight Cthulhu.

This isn't some half-boiled Mark Twain fanfiction. Lansdale obviously has some serious love and respect for the source material, but that doesn't stop him from laying the camp and humor on thick where he needs to (i.e. Cthulhu becomes "ole Cut Through You" in Huck's dialect). I won't go into synopsis beyond the premise above (it's a little less than 80 pages, and had a few more surprise guests I don't want to spoil) but I will say that I enjoyed the way that Lansdale gives a reason for all these characters to get mixed up together, thin as it may be.

It's hard to tell where Lansdale's anti-racism, skeptical of organized religion sensibilities end and Twain's begin. The two writers obviously share a lot of ideas although they are separated by a century.

It may be a cliche, but the only problem I had with this book is that it ends. It's funny, literate and (dare I say) a tad heartwarming. The only readers I would hesitate to recommend this to are those unfamiliar with the stories being mashed and for those readers I have two words: Project Gutenberg.

If you don't want to wait for October for the anthology IDW has Dread Island available in a limited "Convention Edition" for 15 bucks.

(P.S. Count Chocula Sits Down with Ezra Pound is not a real literary mash-up, but it should be.)

Devil Hunting for Fun and Profit

2010-08-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's been really dead around here, believe me I know.

Luckily, I do have a new guest blog entry up as part of Severin Film's "Forgotten Severin Classics" series. It's a deep philosophical feminist reading of...a Jess Franco cannibal film (I'm dead serious).

I'm very proud of it and I'd love it if you'd take a look. Intimate knowledge of the film's not required. Even though I spoil a bunch of stuff, it won't diminish the crazy, sleazy enjoyment if you wanted to go ahead and grab the DVD when you're done reading. Severin is a great company, support them.

The article can be found right here.

"I must have lost my grip": Galaxy of Terror on Bluray

2010-07-30T02:02:00.000-07:00

Last post (which feels like eons ago) I talked about the ways that expectation and screening conditions can color one's enjoyment of a film, now I'm going to avoid the cheap Rocky Horror reference and talk about anticipation. Anticipation is quite different than expectation, as in my experience you can high (or great, if you prefer) expectations for a film while not brimming with anticipation to see it. For Galaxy of Terror (1981) I had both high expectations and I've been waiting years to finally see it, leading to fervent anticipation for Shout Factory's high def retooling of the film.

This edition is the first time that this film's been available on DVD legitimately in the US. Part of Galaxy of Terror's allure is, in fact, its scarcity. VHS dupes and questionable gray-market releases only helped to fuel the film's underground reputation. Before I had been bitten by the coveting bug I had seen the film's gaudy (but awesome) poster but thought little of it. It wasn't until a few years ago when Jovanka Vuckovic (then the editor in chief) had written an essay about the film in Rue Morgue. Well here we are (it has to be 4 or 5 years later) and Ms. Vuckovic is writing the liner notes to this new edition, we've come full circle and finally I get to see what all the hubub is about.

I was not let down, although the real film is quite different than the one that's been playing in my head for the better part of a decade. Galaxy (originally titled Planet of Horrors and then Mind Warp: An Infinity of Terror) concerns the crew of the spaceship Qyest, who are charged with the task of rescuing ship that has disappeared on a mysterious planet. When they crash land on the planet's surface they find that their worst fears are coming to life and picking off the crew in grisly fashion. It's a hybrid of creature horror with light psychological elements that never gets boring because each crew member's fear manifests itself as a unique monster.

Whenever you read anything positive about Galaxy of Terror, the author with preface their love for the film with the caveat that they recognize it is indeed a "cheap Alien (1979) ripoff/cash-in." It's true, we are dealing with Roger Corman's New World Pictures here, they are going to have to liberally borrow to maximize economic viability. What many people don't acknowledge was that Corman had set up a system by which young filmmakers were given small enough budgets and exploitable enough premises that they were afforded an unprecedented amount of creative freedom. Corman was the still the boss, but New World was a dream come true for fresh talent.

If the special features are to be believed, the biggest talent behind the camera on Galaxy of Terror was a young James Cameron. Cameron served as production designer on the film, and in a lot of the look you can see visual shades that will later inform his official take on Alien. Talent in front of the camera is no different, the crew of the Quest is comprised of genre superstars who were big then (Ray Walston, My Favorite Martian!) and who would soon be big (Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Grace Zabriskie).

The film slows down towards the end of the crew's stay in the evil pyramid, but there is more than enough cool practical effects and original ideas to justify more than one viewing.

The bonus features are some of the best ever produced for a film like Galaxy of Terror. Shout Factory deserves all the praise in the world for these new editions of the Corman catalog. The highlight of the features is an exhaustive 6-part documentary that's over an hour in length when watched using the "Play-all" function. Marc Siegler, screenwriter, and Bruce Clark, director, try to distance themselves from the film, protesting that they've moved on and up, but the rest of the cast and crew interviewed (including Englund and Haig) seems to have fond memories of the rigorous shoot. The most fascinating part are the segments on the props and effects, there are simply so many of such high quality that you get the feeling that without the guys interviewed here: Galaxy would have never earned its cult status. Other featurette highlights include the revelation that Corman himself directed the infamous "maggot rape" sequence, and also (not surprisingly) that the scene came under heavy fire by the MPAA.

At a time when it was looking like the glory days of the disc format was behind us, it's so refreshing to see releases that go above and beyond like this. Having a definitive edition may destroy the feeling among those "in the know" that Galaxy of Terror is a lost gem, but to those people I can only say that: movies were meant to be watched. I can't recommend this whole series enough. Vote with your dollars, people.

Gimme That Ole Time Religion: [REC] 2

2010-07-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

A lot of people don't seem to take them into account but expectation and screening conditions are two of the most important variables that affect an audience member's enjoyment of a film. We may try to remain impartial to internet buzz and critical reception, just as we can try to ignore the jackoff checking his iphone in the seat next to us: but these things nevertheless change the way we experience films.

Let me give this idea a bit of context:

A year or so ago, after the genre websites had thoroughly whipped themselves into a tizzy over it, I finally sat down to watch the original [REC] (2007) once it received a legitimate DVD release stateside. I was watching it with my girlfriend. We were watching on her smallish television and I prefaced the film with "I hear this is really great." To which she replied "what's it about?" Which caught me a little off guard, because I didn't know.

I was quite disappointed when [REC] turned out to be "only a zombie movie." This, the film that had been heralded as the "next big thing" belonged to a genre that had long worn out its welcome. The first film managed to be an above-average mashup of 28 Days Later and Blair Witch Project (the whole movie is "filmed" by a news crew). It had some nice scares and complex setups, but at the end of the night it was still a zombie movie.

Tonight I saw [REC] 2 during its three night stint at the Brattle theater. The experience I had with the film was the exact opposite of its predecessor, leading to one of the best nights of horror cinema I've had in years.

The film begins just like the last one, we are introduced to a set of characters (in this case a SWAT team escorting a VIP), they are given some tenuous reason for filming themselves (the team not only has a camera man, but individual cameras on their helmets), they are let loose in a quarantined apartment building and charged with getting to the bottom of the "infection." I don't want to spoil things, but the film takes a drastic departure from its "zombie movie" roots by giving a very supernatural reason for the infection visited on the tenants of the building.

The paranormal occurrences are introduced slowly but surely, building to the film's disturbing denouement. By the end the film is so different that viewers of the first film would have never been able to guess where the series was heading.

As many critics have noted (I like to look at criticism after the fact, so nothing was spoiled for me on my awesome first viewing) the film borrows heavily from The Exorcist (1973). It's true, but you would have to be one up-tight idiot if you can't see the conscious love for the classics that co-directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza are infusing into their film. [REC] 2 is the spookfest too end all spookfests. The first-person perspective and cramped hallways ensure it's probably the closest thing to a physical haunted house experience that cinema has ever pulled off.

The Brattle presentation did the film justice: pumping up the volume and letting the jump-scares and fake-outs really pop. It's been years since I've felt that giddy "hide behind the couch" adrenaline rush that first captured my heart as a kid, but this film, at this screening, gave me that in spades.

The film has its faults: the "found footage" gag only goes so far, character motivations are hazy (why are the kids in the middle of the film compelled to sneak into the apartment?), and the dialogue (at least in translation) is iffy. But it works. It works wonders. It's a sequel so good that it has me doubting my appraisal of the first film (the movie syncs up with the original at many points, making the most out of its temporal and physical proximity to the first film) and has me eager for a sequel. Although, I don't doubt myself that thoroughly, I feel that the first film is like an extended preamble to this superior production (the budget is much higher this time around, as evidenced by the FX). The seed of a religious slant is planted in the last few moments of the original, but it took a whole other movie to get to the really groundbreaking stuff.

[REC] 2 may not be a classic, but it's a very good film. When you combine this with the highly subjective factors of my own (lowered) expectations and the (superb) screening I attended: the movie completely worked for me. Fun and legitimately scary in ways that few films are anymore, I urge you to seek out [REC] 2.

Hopefully I didn't raise your expectations too high.

Strength, Muscle and Jungle Work: Predators

2010-07-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

Predators isn't bad. It's not that great either. I can't properly articulate it but this "middle-of-the road-ness" is in someways more frustrating than an out-and-out bad installment in a long running franchise. We've had crappy Predator movies before, but we've never had a "just decent" one.

The film has a great cast, a proven filmmaker (I found director Nimrod Antal's 2007 film Vacancy to be immensely enjoyable) and it's shot quite nicely. What hobbles it, and I do mean a vicious Misery-style hobbling, is its generic and bland script.

The premise itself is not the problem. The idea of having a group of multicultural badasses taken from armies and gangs all over earth and having them dropped into a giant game preserve is inspired. Sure it's goofy, but it's the good kind of goofy that dispenses with boring exposition and (literally)drops our characters into the middle of the action. Out of the aforementioned badasses Danny Trejo, Walton Goggins (who played Shane on The Shield), Alice Braga (City of God) and Adrian Brody (The Pianist) are the highlights. There's also a brief scene-stealing turn from Laurence Fishburne.

For those doubtful that the rather bookish looking Brody will be believable as a Black-ops mercenary should be quieted up right quick once the action starts. Brody and the rest of the cast's awesome ham-fisted performances are easily the best part of the film. The actors (Goggins especially) take the cliche crappy dialogue they've been handed and try their damnedest to inject some life into it but it's too little too late. Their lines are DOA.

One of the best parts about the original Predator was all the great quips given to the characters, they not only looked tough but they talked tough. They weren't spouting genius, earth-shattering dialogue, but at least it was fresh and entertaining. Strip away their archetypal clothing (i.e. the yakuza in a snazzy suit, the redneck felon in his deathrow jumpsuit) and this new set of "cannon-fodder" characters are all interchangeable. Even when there is an attempt to spice things up with a joke or one-liner, it's telegraphed and falls flat.

The film also has pacing issues, with a huge chunk of time in the beginning when the titular aliens go unseen and then a silly, clunky and disjointed climax. When it finally looks like the human characters are getting the upper-hand the whole picture stalls out and the "galaxy's greatest hunter" goes MIA for five or so minutes, allowing everyone time to chat amongst themselves. It has no rhythm or logic to it and, worse yet, no surprises.

It may sound like I'm being too hard on the film, and maybe that's true because there is a lot to enjoy here, but it's frustrating to think of what "could have been" had a little more effort been taken on the page. Especially considering the obscene amount of talent both in front of and behind the camera.

For those with lowered expectations Predators is a passable R-rated B-movie and one of the better ways to spend 2 hours in air-conditioning this weekend considering this year's lack of quality summer movies. So if you've already seen Toy Story 3 (yeah I know, big overlap in audience there) and there isn't a theater playing the fabulous Winter's Bone in your area, I would say go for it.

Oh Baby: Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Wrath James White

2010-07-05T12:19:00.001-07:00

Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town is one of the creepist and most melancholy little books I've read in a long time. The 'little' isn't meant to be a slight, the book is actually printed in a miniature digest size, so it's both physically diminutive and eye-catching.

The plot concerns Mika, a teenage girl who lives in a backwoods area of California where the main venues of entertainment take the form of drug abuse and sex. Mika's also a diagnosed schizophrenic who self-medicates with Meth. When Mika witnesses strange ghost children swimming in the river, and her friends start dying the question becomes: is it real or all in her mind?

The story is an odd mix, it contains shades of White's trademark "extreme horror" aesthetic, but it's also a realistic look at drug abuse, while also being a folktale inspired ghost story and, in the later half, a love story. The blending of genres is ambitious but is also very successful. If anything the tale is a bit heavy on the sex, but it does serve the story and adds to the feelings of unease the reader experiences.

In the book's devastating but exceedingly well-written final pages it becomes clear that White is a writer completely in control of craft. When he wants to churn the reader's gut or mimic his character's dialect, his style is purposefully low but he's also a someone who can conjure a great lyricism in his words when he wants it.

At 160 small pages, the book is a lightning fast read that's most definitely not "feel good" but is more than worth a look for readers who are looking for a touch of darkness.

Highly recommended. Available from the publisher, Thunderstorm Books.

Blanket of White By Amy Grech

2010-06-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Judging from how few truly great ones there are, single author collections may be the hardest books to get right. There are far more middling ones than there are consistently good ones, and there are very few classics (Bradbury, Lansdale and early King being some of the best). So Amy Grech's Blanket of White has the odds stacked against it merely by virtue of its format.

There's a weird juxtaposition taking place in a lot of Grech's stories featured here. Many take on the appearence of more antiquated(or at least more "traditional scary story") material such as old castles partially constructed with headstones, mysterious noises in the night, the ghosts of old lovers while others use this same narrative style to take on far sicker subjects (genital mutilation, euthanasia, senseless killings perpetrated not by ghosts or ghouls, but by humans). It is when these two styles are mixed together (and there's an additional dash of restraint) and an emphasis is placed on emotion over carnage that Grech's best work emerges.

Grech's prose is serviceable even if her dialogue is a bit over-explanatory at times (her style actually works quite well in the more traditional stories, lending them the pleasant ring of nostalgia) but the real problem here, as it is with so many collections, is inconsistency. There were stories I found myself really enjoying and ones...well, not so much.

The tales I liked and that gave me a welcome chill were, more often than not, the more restrained ones ("Damp Wind and Leaves" which goes back to that nostalgia quality mentioned above, "Ashes to Ashes" a short, sweet and scary downplayed example of Grech's sex/romance/horror tropes, and ). Although, there are exceptions to every rule and my favorite story ended up being "EV 2000" a futuristic story about a machine that's Hal 9000 meets a Dracula, a little bloated around the edges and owing a lot to Koontz's Demon Seed, the story is still fun and carries an unexpected punch. But then there were the stories I was not crazy about, that take to long to get where they're going ("Crosshairs" a sometimes chilling and effective story about a pint-sized psycho that starts too early and ends too late which wouldn't be a problem if characterization weren't so slim) and others that are just either over-the-top gross ("Come and Gone") or too in-your-face with their symbolism and philosophizing ("Blanket of White" which seems to be a favorite of many, but rubs me the wrong way with its bombastic dourness and never really earns the emotion it so clearly wants because we know from the third paragraph what the little girl's "gift" will be).

Grech should be applauded for her efforts to marry traditional straight-forward fright storytelling with emotional, sexual heft and weight... even if it doesn't work every time. Regardless, there are a handful of stories to recommend and the price is right if you get it in digital.

"America Loves You, Frankenstein!": Death Race 2000 on Bluray

2010-06-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

The double-dip, the homevideo industry's most perplexing (and sometimes infuriating) practice. Why do I want to pay for the same movie over again? Is the question that every fan/collector has to ask themselves when faced with the newest "Super-duper Deluxe 5-Disc Clusterfrak Edition" of a favorite film.

The old me would fall for this racket routinely but I must say that I've become a much more educated consumer in the last few years, tightening my belt and reducing double-dips to next to zero. Bluray reissues pose a serious quandary: you could pay the money for the upgrade and get hosed (i.e. Warner's recent reissue of the original Clash of the Titans, which looks like crap and includes no new bonus features except a commercial for the remake. Wow, thanks guys.) or you can buy something like Shout Factory's new Death Race 2000 (1975) disc and feel like you're literally watching a classic film for the first time.

Even if you haven't seen it, you're probably familiar with the plot of director Paul Bartel and producer Roger Corman's Death Race 2000. In a dystopian fascist America the public has fallen in love with a cross country race where the drivers score points not only for speed but for vehicular manslaughter. The film is not as dour as its premise (it's actually a pretty broad comedy with some scifi elements) but it is definitely just as bombastic. The late David Carradine plays Frankenstein, America's favorite racer and the races only multi-time winner, and Sylvester Stallone steals the show as his rival "Machine Gun" Joe (who gets not all, but most of the best lines "Why do I want to win this race? In the name of hate.").

I would not only say that this is the best disc of the year but it's in the running for the best Blu-ray on my shelf, but maybe I'm bias: I've loved Death Race, no exaggeration, for the majority of my lifetime. I love the over-the-top satire, I love its presaging of reality television, I love the funky pseudo-arthouse cinematography, I love the cars, I love the break-neck pace, I love Sly Stallone firing a machine gun into a crowd of spectators and above all else I love the fact that it marries economic viability and an interesting plot that actually has something to say(regardless of how silly or obvious that something may seem).

There is a commentary with Corman (that is great, but a holdover from the previous release) and a new one with 2nd unit director Lewis Teague, who would later direct Cujo (1983) and Alligator (1980), and editor Tina Hirsch, which is a fantastic addition and I feel a lot more informative than the old one. There are a metric ton of features which include: two featurettes (one old and one new), a great interview with writer Ib Melchior who wrote the story on which Death Race is based (and directed the B-scifi classic The Angry Red Planet) and an interview snippet with David Carradine(which is actually an outtake from another interview, but is still a more than welcome addition) and a bunch more stuff. For a laugh be sure to watch the included "Trailers from Hell" version of the trailer which carries a very candid commentary by John Landis (who is actually in the film).

I would say that if you haven't seen it, than this disc is an absolute no brainer. Even if you've already seen it, love it and own it I would also advise that you strongly consider the upgrade to Blu. The features are abundant and the picture is sharp and colorful (you can count on one hand the shots that show their age, but otherwise the transfer is miraculous). So go grab some popcorn and be prepared to find out the answer to the age old question: Is it possible to score a race official?

(I know, you don't get it, but you will)

Nate Kenyon: An Interview

2010-06-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

What’s that? No strange post title? A new post that’s not a write up of some movie you’ve never heard of or comic book you don’t care about? An interview you say?

Yes, today on Brain Tremors we’ve got a very special guest: author Nate Kenyon.

Kenyon is a relative newcomer to the horror publishing world, but you wouldn’t know it from his accolades. Multiple-time Bram Stoker award finalist, glowing reviews and books in both paperback and hardback limited editions, Kenyon’s kicking ass.

I reviewed his most recent novel, Sparrow Rock, here on the blog and later got in touch with him and secured an interview. If you haven’t picked up any of his books you really should. They’re an absolute blast and I can’t recommend them enough (I just finished Prime, totally excellent sci fi). You can find out more on his website, and his books are available everywhere.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Your first novel, Bloodstone, was not only nominated for the Bram Stoker award but was also drew favorable comparisons to the early work of Stephen King, something that your publisher took advantage of in blurbing and advertising the book. Since some of your novels have been so radically tonally different from each other does the use of those quotes on your work make you feel pigeonholed at all?

That's a great question. First of all, of course I'm tremendously flattered to be compared to Mr. King, who is probably the greatest horror writer in history. Certainly he's done more to raise the profile of the genre than anyone. He's always been one of my favorite writers, so he's certainly influenced me. But I never sat down to try to write just like him. "Voice" is a tough thing to define, but it's something that just comes out when you write. It's how you're feeling at the time, and what's inside you. I do think comparisons like this can pigeonhole a writer, both in the minds of the readers and with editors who are considering publishing your work.

That said, I can't worry too much about it. I just need to keep writing what comes out, and let everyone else decide what type of work it is.

Could you talk a bit about your writing process, you’ve stated in other interviews the importance/challenge of balancing a family, a day job and a writer’s life. How do you go about making it all fit together?

It's a constant push and pull. I've gone through different stages where I wrote whenever I felt inspired (younger, no family, no day job) to writing more consistently late at night (family, day job and my only real free time) to writing pretty madly through nights and weekends as deadlines approach and then easing off and focusing on other parts of my life. I think the key is to focus on one step at a time--a goal for each day, or each time you sit down to write. If I look at the big picture (oh my god, I have 70,000 words to write by WHEN???) I can freeze up and then the words get much harder.

Prime, what I find to be one of your most satisfying, cerebral and interesting works, was released in the small press (by Apex) and is your shortest work of stand-alone fiction, a “novella.” What was the reason for that? Was it developed with the small press specifically in mind? And, if I may ask, which arena of publishing do you prefer?

PRIME was originally a long short story--about 11,000 words. I tried to sell it to genre magazines but it was little too long for them. Jason Sizemore at Apex read it and couldn't use it in his magazine, but suggested I expand the story and we publish it as a novella. I thought that was a fine idea. Since I'd never written much sci fi, I was concerned going in that it would fall flat, but once I got into it the story just exploded. It was one of my most satisfying experiences, and I think all of us (me, my agent, and Jason) all read the final version and thought we had something special.

So I suppose you could say PRIME was developed specifically for Apex. They bought it based on the short story and the hope that I could make it work as a novella. I never submitted it to a larger house (most don't publish novellas anyway), but since it's been successful, I have had some inquiries about expanding it yet again to novel length. I'm considering that because I think there's more story to tell.

I'm not sure which arena I prefer--there are advantages to both. Big houses get you read and have larger press runs and sales, but small presses allow for a lot more personal input in the process, and an ability to do some things you might not be able to do with a commercial house.

The face of publishing is changing, it’s going digital. Because you are new enough to the literary scene you are one of a very few number of writers whose entire oeuvre is available in ebook format. What are your feelings about Kindle, nook etc?

Well, I think it's the future, no question about it. I think within five years the overwhelming majority of books will be sold in e-book format. Apple's iPad is the real game-changer in my opinion, and it's exciting what some publishers are already doing with interactive books. That said, I love print! I'm a techie in many ways--read all my newspapers online, love my iPhone and MacBook, work in digital design as part of my day job--but with books, and books alone, I personally prefer the old model. It's not rational at all, because I can see and accept the future that's coming, and I think it's the right thing too--fewer dead trees, more efficient distribution and business model, better for the consumer. But I can't help it. I'm sure I'll adjust eventually.

I’m a movie guy, so the question has to be asked: Do you enjoy genre cinema? What are your favorite films?

Oh, yeah. Love the movies. I love Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby (and these are some of my favorite books, too). I'm a big comedy, action and thriller movie buff as well. I'm hoping I'll be able to see some of my own work on the big screen someday. The Reach has been optioned, and Sparrow Rock is looking good too.

A lot of current day author’s seem to have trouble straddling the line between “literary” and “genre” fiction, something that I think many of your readers would agree you do quite well. Are you one to proscribe to labels? What I mean is, do you think of yourself as a “horror writer” or simply a “writer”?

As a marketing guy in my day job, I understand the value of labeling books or writers--brand is important. But I just write what I feel like writing, and I think that if you took my work and stripped away my name, cover art and all the blurbs and marketing and mixed them all up with a bunch of other stuff, people might label one horror, one, thriller, one mystery, one science fiction...my point is, how people perceive things going in makes a big difference in how they feel. And that can be good or bad, depending on the situation. I'd rather have people evaluate each book as they read them, in a perfect world.

I’d like to ask you a question about your next novel, which is set in the immensely popular StarCraft universe. How did that project come about? Are you a gamer yourself? How do you approach a book based on an established property verses one of your own unique creation? Will we get a spoonful of horror with our sci-fi when the book hits shelves? Hypothetically are there any other properties that attract you as a fan/writer?

An editor at Pocket Books read PRIME, my sci fi novella, and asked my agent if I would be interested in writing for Blizzard. I'd never done any work like that, and I'm not a gamer, but it looked like fun, and it would give me great exposure to a large fan base. So I decided to go for it, and I'm glad I did. I'm in the middle of writing the book now, and it's a real challenge, and different that writing my own stuff. It's tough because you have to get the details right! But I'm learning a lot about myself in the process. Yes, this will be a pretty dark StarCraft novel, and I think that's one reason why Pocket was interested in me--the story calls for a little bit of horror, and that's fine with me.

I'd probably write for Blizzard again, and I might consider other properties too, although it's very important to me to write more original novels, and there's only so much time in the day!

Finally, a running theme through some of your books seems to be conspiracy theories (especially Sparrow Rock). Are you a conspiracy theorist? Why or why not? Or can you not answer those questions because big brother may be monitoring this interview?

Nah. Quite the opposite in fact. But I love the idea of them--there something mysterious, something creepy about a group of faceless people pulling the strings around you without you knowing it. It makes for great fiction.

Thank you so much for your time.

Lookie What I've Got

2010-06-14T22:42:00.001-07:00

That, my friends, is Necrotic Tissue #11. I'm often very lowkey when I try to push my publications on you but..... MY NAME'S ON THE COVER!!!!!

Ahem... sorry.

If you don't have a subscription to this fabulous magazine, I suggest you grab one now (your sub will start with the issue above I believe). It's published in a very attractive digest-sized booklet (the quality of the content and the binding makes it more of a journal, but if they want to use the term magazine, more power to them) and is jam packed with great fiction. I've been a subscriber since they've gone print, but this is my very first appearance in the mag (so take my word, a subscription is totally worth it).

I'm very proud of my story in this issue. It's called "The Still" and if you've read my story in Shroud #7, this has a very similar 'southern grotesque' tone to it.

Subscribe because you'll not only be supporting writers like me, but you'll be helping to keep a quality genre publication in print at a time when more and more are either folding up shop or going exclusively digital.

Don't worry, if you're a cheap bastard (or my grandmother) I'll be posting a link where you can buy the individual issue when it goes on sale in a couple of weeks.

Thank you for your time.

The Brattle Becomes The Alamo

2010-06-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

I should preface this entry by saying that it's probably going to be a lot "bloggier" than usual. If you're unclear on what that means...so am I.

I didn't used to be very busy. Then I graduated a film major and had to start doing something real, so that probably explains a lot. One thing I used to be able to do, before I was taking challenging, time-consuming classes during weeknights and doing homework along with trying to find time for my own writing on the weekends, was go to the cinema. Most of last year (which saw an influx of tougher English classes and more rigorous girl interruptions) I was lazy and went to the multiplex closest to me. A multiplex that never ran good films and mostly never hooked up the sound and picture well on their crappy films. If I wanted to watch obscure or independent films I watched them on DVD. But the time before that, that was the golden era of Boston's independent theaters and I.

For my first couple of years in the area I was a card-carrying member of the Coolidge Corner Theatre (no really, they give you a card when you sign up) and frequently attended special events at The Brattle in Cambridge. Not only did I get to see some incredible first run movies that I would have had to wait for disc if I were not in such a great area (95% of the country is stuck with Shrek 4 while we get Let The Right One In and No Country for Old Men in their limited runs) but I also got to see some really strange films that most people never have the chance to see projected (three or four years ago I saw a double bill of Shanty Tramp and Troll 2 at the Brattle).

So when I heard that The Brattle was going to be hosting a series of films curated by Lars Nilsen of the Alamo Drafthouse, I was flung into a fit of deep dark depression and self loathing when I came to terms with the fact that I probably wasn't going to make any of the films. Then I looked at the lineup and did the modern day equivalent to swearing an oath to Oden: I swore on behalf of Michael Caine that I would attend at least part of this series.

Tonight, Saturday, was the night I picked to attend (and when I say "picked" I mean "only night I could attend"). That's when things got messy. I had told my best friend (awwww) that I would go out to dinner with him, his girlfriend, our friends and his family. Remembering this late Friday, I begin to sweat bullets. When will dinner be? Where? Will I miss a film? Two?

Lucky for me, dinner was scheduled for 6 (the first film started at 8) and the restaurant decided on was half way to the theater anyway. Afterwords the adults went back to their hotel and the rest of the kids (a misnomer at this point, we're grown humans) decided to go to Cambridge to bowl at one of our favorite hangouts (Lanes and Games, an amazing time-capsule of a place: complete with wood paneling, carpeting on the walls and Ms. Pacman). I took the train with them, where they preceded to try and convince me to go bowling instead. I was having none of it. My resolve would not be weakened. I'd gone to (many)films alone before, and I'd do it again.

Long story short, I plopped myself down into my seat right as Lars Nilsen was taking the stage to introduce our first film, The Velvet Vampire. Nilsen is a great speaker, and his affinity for obscure, neglected and maligned genre films is downright inspiring. I don't know if the majority of the audience knew what they were in for, but I think after some of the initial shock value wore off that the virtues of the films were not lost on the crowd.

Director Stephanie Rothman's The Velvet Vampire (1971) was completely unknown to me going into it, and after watching it I'm baffled as to why it hasn't attained at least a smidgen of a cult following. It's a neat pre-Near Dark "vampires in the desert" flick that relocates the Dracula story to America and changes the sex of the vampire. Starring Michael Blodgett(who played the gold-digging Lance in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) and Celeste Yarnall as the seductress bloodsucker Diane. Velvet is good dirty fun and Rothman conjures some great images despite the movie getting quite slow and silly sometimes.

Second up was Jean Rollin's third film Shiver of the Vampire (1971). I'm mildly familiar with Rollin's work, and my interest in seeing this film was the driving force in attending this screening. It was totally worth it. Shiver is a psyched out artfilm in sheep's clothing. Expecting the unexpected is exactly what I've come to expect from Rollin (well, that and naked French girls). Seeing this film projected in 35 mm (imperfections and all) probably made the most difference on the big screen vs. the small crappy one.

Rounding out the night was a 12 am showing of Lady Terminator. Nilsen prefaced the film by saying (hope I don't misquote him too badly): "I genuinely believe that those first two films were legitimately good films. I see them as personal artistic statements smuggled into the system under the camouflage of genre films. Lady Terminator is not like that."

And so begins an hour and a half of the most amazing world cinema I've ever seen. Conceived as Indonesia's answer to James Cameron's film, Lady Terminator is a mishmash of laughable dialogue, insane plot developments (instead of being from the future, this "Terminator" is created by a magic eel that slithers into her vagina!), and jaw dropping stunts and special effects. There are several winning scenes that make this one worth tracking down (I believe it's out on disc from Mondo Macabro, which makes it even weirder that I have not seen it/don't own it) but the best is probably Lady Terminator's rampage through the police station. It's a ten minute long squib-fest that culminates in the un-manning of an elderly gentleman using a machine gun.

The moral of the story of my night is: friends are great, but Lady Terminator is better.

Well, that was my night. Thank you Lars Nilsen for picking such great films and thank you to The Brattle theater for being an amazing venue. I resolve to be a better patron and show up more often.

A long personal anecdote and then a review of the Class of Nuke'em High Bluray

2010-06-06T23:17:00.001-07:00

When I was about 12 or 13 I made a discovery that I would wager a lot of young men have made over the last few decades. I picked up The Toxic Avenger on some store shelf, and immediately became "Tromatized." After watching everything that a 12 year old me had ever wanted to see in a film realized (horrible toxic mutation, breasts, and a realistic head-crushing) I was transformed into a young devotee of the world's oldest "fiercely independent" movie studio: Troma.

When I say devotee, I mean it. I tracked down every Troma VHS and DVD that I could get my hands on. Every movie was introduced, with flair, righteous fervor and pompacity by Troma's co-founder and spokesman Lloyd Kaufman. Kaufman became my teenage mind's correlate to Che Guevara: an independent artist put down by "the man" and fighting for the rights of the truly outre artists.

Under the Troma-spell I changed my AOL screen-name to Tromafan127, ordered t-shirts and three-ring binders from their website, and sought out their Hell's Kitchen studio headquarters to take pictures in front of.

I memorized the lines to all the Troma film's of note (Tromeo & Juliet being my favorite), idolized their stars and converted friends. And then something happened: I wanted to breakup with Troma.

Maybe "Uncle Lloyd," their fearless leader, had taken one too many pot-shots at mainstream movies that I also liked, or maybe I just felt that my cinematic explorations needed to "mature," but either way I grew distant from Troma.

I went to college, I looked at all the hipsters, anti-intellectuals and pretentious "film people" (I would not classify all of them as such, but definitely some) that populated my classes and began to doubt myself: if this was the modern-day film intelligentsia, then maybe Kaufman was right. I took a few classes that I loved, made friends with some professors that really understood the power of cinema, and then I got a miraculous email: Lloyd Kaufman, creator of The Toxic Avenger was coming to campus for a screening and Q&A.

It all came flooding back. I could not wait to see the film I loved, presented by the man I spent so many of my formative years idolizing. The event surpassed even my loaded expectations. In front of Boston Universities "cinematheque" Kaufman gave advice to students on how to "break the hymen of Hollywood," how to keep their souls in business and the importance of vegetable dye and bromoseltzer in filmmaking.

Most importantly he talked about a filmmakers need to utilize self promotion if true independence is to be maintained and to defend their own intellectual property rights in the face of the digital age. It was a revelation: Lloyd Kaufman was exactly the kind of battered hero that I had seen him as as a thirteen year old. Furthermore, he was offending the "delicate sensibilities" of every self-righteous jerk in the room.

The night was a triumph. I stayed after the show, bought a Tromeo & Juliet deluxe DVD (Lloyd was also the first cinematheque attendee to bring DVDs to sell) and got to talk with the man a little while. What I discovered that night was that the Kaufman presented on the introductions to Troma's DVDs is a different person from the real Kaufman, but not by much. He's a man who cares about the future of the small empire that he helped build, and is not entirely trusting of the young people that he is poised to leave it to in the future. He's a man of good old fashion work ethic and chutzpah. He's a charismatic mix of P.T Barnum, Bergman and Karl Marx.

Enough trips down memory lane: how about a review?

Class of Nuke'em High (1986) is one of the early high benchmarks in Troma films. An insane melding of Class of 1984 (1982) and radioactive mutants, Nuke'em plays like a John Hughs film directed by Herschel Gordon Lewis and Satan.

The plot concerns Tromaville high school, a school that's undergone some changes thanks to its close proximity to an ineptly run nuclear powerplant. The school's honor society has been transformed into a band of punks called the cretans and it's up to young lovers Chrissy and Warren to stop them.

Nuke'em High is one of my favorite Troma films and also one of the most accessible. It includes everything that makes a Troma film perfect for party-watching and many of the Tromatic hallmarks (the "Troma meltdowns," Tromettes, and an overarching heavy-handed ecological message) that establish it in Troma canon.

It's a film that is most definitely worth seeing at least once, and now with this very nice Bluray disc, it's also nice looking. The ravages of time have taken their toll on the film, but the print still suprises with bright colors and at times acute detail. The film and transfer aren't going to win any awards, but they're above serviceable. The only problem I had was that the disc does not seem as stacked with extras as it could have been. The commentary by co-director Kaufman is excellent, but it's a hold over from the DVD release. There are a few amusing bits, and some great trailers to whet your appetite, but I remember Troma DVDs for their ridiculous abundance of features. This is easily forgiven though when you consider the quality of the film and the modest price point of the disc (14 bucks on amazon!).

So whether you are a veteran or a Troma neophyte, I highly suggest you pick up this disc....and remember: Toxie loves you.

"We're a happy family": Girly (1969)

2010-06-05T22:12:00.001-07:00

While we're on the subject of poorly marketed films, let's look at 1969's Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly shall we?

Director Freddie Francis should be no stranger to both horror and film fans in general. Not only the director of several Hammer films and the classic anthology Tales from the Crypt (1972) for Amicus, the Englishman was also an accomplished Hollywood cinematographer (The Elephant Man, Dune). In Girly he gets away from the gothic and delivers a satire of the modern.

The story of a bizarre familial unit composed of Mumsy (an exaggerated send-up of the classic British matriarch), her maid Nanny, and her two grown children Sonny and Girly. The family abducts "special friends" in order to inflict strict rules of behavior on them while the kid's play sadistic games. This all changes with the arrival of "New Friend" (Michael Bryant), who cunningly pits the family against one another, trying to out-play them at their own rigged game.

The characters are purposely absurdest, they speak largely in nursery rhymes and trite morals. The dialogue accents not only the film's explicitly highbrow aims, but adds a level of creepiness to the characters.

Not really a genre film at all, but more a dark comedy/allegory ala-Harold Pinter's The Homecoming (the film was actually adapted from a play entitled We're a Happy Family) Girly was a complete non-starter when it debuted in the UK. In the States and future television screenings the film was retitled simply Girly. I don't find it surprising that the film did not catch on with the average movie goer, but I do think it's strange that the film has received almost zero critical attention over the decades since its release. With similar films like Lindsay Anderson's If... (1968) becoming critical and academic darlings, it's a wonder that a film with so many strong points and big ideas as Girly can be overlooked for so long.

It's little wonder that the film had its title shortened to Girly. Not only is the original a mouthful but the real star of the proceedings is Vanessa Howard, who plays Girly with an unsettling mix of genuine adult sex appeal and infantalized line-delivery and mannerisms.

Arriving on DVD from Scorpion Releasing (who are quickly becoming my new heroes after this and their Doctor Death disc). For a "lost" film, Girly looks damn good. There is some softness here and there and some tiny flaws but when you consider the film's age and history this is a pretty great transfer. There is a lengthy interview with screenwriter Brian Comport that is informative, expansive and peppered with some nice still photographs. Comport is affable and not afraid to talk about the production in a "warts and all" fashion. The only problem being Comport's THICK accent and the supplement's lack of subtitles.

The film's not perfect (it moves slowly and repeats itself once too often) and it's not for everyone (there's nary a drop of on screen blood or nudity to satiate the more lizard-minded among you) but for a certain kind of curious film fan, Girly is well worth picking up. It is an example of a good film with moments of greatness that has been unfairly abandoned by time, audiences and academia.

(Genetically) Planned Parenthood: Splice

2010-06-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Vincenzo Natali's Splice is pretty crazy. It's also pretty great. It's a creature feature that remains surprisingly bloodless throughout most of its runtime, but don't let that stop you. Also don't let Warner Bro.'s lame and misleading trailers and commercials dissuade you (I used the German Poster above, because the American ones are fugly). No matter what their marketing department wants you to think: Splice is not Species (1995).

But Splice knows that you've seen Species, Splice knows that you've seen a lot of films. Splice also knows what you're not expecting. You aren't expecting a cinematic hybrid that deftly switches from over-the-top science run amok B-movie, to perverse family drama, to a post-Gattaca comment on parenting (both good and abusive), but Splice is all these things. In order to hold itself together it also possesses more than an ounce of awareness about its own absurdity, a self awareness that thankfully never materializes as self-parody or audience winking (we've had enough of that crap).

It's a testament to what can be achieved through filmmakers that know how to get the most out of practical effects, CGI, and when to combine the two. Filmmakers who also know when to trade effects in for quality cinematography and a talented cast (Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley and Delphine Chaneac).

I could go on forever about the film's fun mix of light "food-for-thought" take on gender power struggles and campy but well executed creature gags, but this is a film you should really just see for yourself.

For my fellow horror fans and bloggers: I'll make a deal with you. The deal is that if you walk out of the theater fully enjoying the movie like I did (and some of you won't, I get that and accept it), you are not allowed to bitch about remakes and sequels for a whole month...okay, unrealistic, a week maybe?

Scalp Poping Jamboree: City of the Living Dead on Bluray

2010-05-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

The late Lucio Fulci is a divisive figure in horror cinema. Mostly under-praised by horror's academia (along with a few of the more contrarian bloggers) and overpraised by hyperbolic gorehounds. In truth he was, in my opinion, a very prolific and occasionally visionary director with a lot of misses, but some truly fantastic hits.

1980's City of the Living Dead (A.K.A The Gates of Hell) is not Fulci's best work (that would probably be The Beyond, Perversion Story or Lizard in a Woman's Skin), but it is far from his worst and includes a lot of the inventive gore that made him a cult figure in America.

The soundtrack may "borrow" quite a few ques from Romero's Dawn of the Dead, but the plot takes a different more supernaturally-oriented take on the living dead. The film's a bit muddy on the details, but basically the suicide of a priest in the cursed town of Dunwich (I know, right?) has caused the Gates of Hell to crack open and if they aren't closed before All Soul's Day humanity is screwed. The plot is all over the place, the pace is at times tedious, the acting is middling, and the dialogue is somewhere south of middling, but all of these are tertiary concerns.

Fulci and his crew create some gorgeous images, make good use of locations, and create some head-scratching (in a "how'd they do that" way) and gut-churning gore effects. These visuals are the star of the show and the bluray disc does a marvelous job of recreating them in the brightest sharpest fashion possible (it's probably no exaggeration to say that the negative elements are never going to be able to look better). Colors are vibrant and the blood, guts, grubs and viscera are all glistening.

The film may not be a classic, but looking at the abundance of bonus features: you wouldn't know it. Segments like the 30 minute "Making of", one on one interviews with a few of the lead actors (about ten minutes each), a twenty minute Fulci remembrance, all reveal a wealth of great information with minimal repetition. My favorite feature (because I'm a geek) is entitled "Marketing of the Living Dead" and it's an HD scroll of all the different Theatrical and home video art used to promote the film around the world. It runs about ten minutes long and includes some really cool rarities like art from the film's German 8mm release and it's official "banned film notice."

Blue Underground seems to be the only genre releasing house really throwing themselves into the High Def arena, and their doing an amazing job. Other companies should take note.

Video Nasty, Digital Age: The Toolbox Murders on Blu-ray

2010-05-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

For a long time in Britain it was actually illegal to sell certain horror movies on VHS. Most of you know what the term 'Video Nasty' means, so I won't go into a long description of the phenomena here. After all was said and done 39 films had their names added to that illustrious list. While there were many great films on the list that lived up to their government-imposed labels as sick and obscene, there are a few that fizzle once viewed and beg the question "Why the hell was this banned?"

Thankfully, right off the bat, you will know why 1978's The Toolbox Murders was banned. The bulk of the film's titular murders are right at the beginning. The young female bodies pile up one on top of the other, until you begin to wonder when the killing is going to end and some characters and plot are going to show up. Eventually they do and the film mellows out into a hybrid of suspense-free whodunit and Psycho-lite family issues.

It's a structural device that leaves some viewers feeling dirty sitting through the initial rampage (the right response) and some feeling cheated that there is not that level of bloodshed throughout (the, um, wrong one).

Bottom line, I love the movie. I think it's well made and sports a kooky performance from Cameron Mitchell, and even though it's as predictable as the sun rising in the east, it gets the job done. But, I can also see how people could hate it. So you're either along for it's sleazy late-70s Based on a True Story (suuuuure it is) feel, or you aren't. You know yourself better than I do, you decide.

Now, that all that messy "is the movie good" garbage is out of the way, here's the meat of the argument: how is the shiny high def disc put out by Blue Underground? Fantastic.

Many people seem to be arguing that these films work best when watched on VHS with all the noise, washed-out colors and junk native to that format. But I would argue, vehemently, against that overly-romanticized notion. This film was intended to be shown theatrically, or at the very least in a drive-in.

I don't know about you, but my private 35mm screening room is under construction at the moment. I guess I'll have to settle for the vibrant colors and clean picture of this Blu-ray disc. If you like the movie, or have never seen it before and it sounds like your thing. I cannot recommend this disc enough. The features are great, but are ports from the old disc, the transfer is the real star here folks. Gore-gee-us!

"See, this is how you get ants!": Sparrow Rock By Nate Kenyon

2010-05-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

Nate Kenyon's new book is like a delicious horror literature smoothie that's a blend of all the sub-genres I enjoy. It's a post-apocalyptic survival story, conspiracy theory-realized story, a monster story, a coming of age (or not) story, all with a dash of The Thing thrown in for good measure. I mean this as the highest form of compliment, and do not at all to imply that Kenyon's Sparrow Rock is pastiche, it's not.

What it is, is a story that knows its roots. Kenyon knows the conventions of the genre, and tries his damnedest to make something honest and inventive in a niche that so many authors have written so many great works. And I really, really liked it.

The story centers on Pete, a high school student who has had to deal with some terrible things in his life, a sick mother and abusive father, even before he's trapped with a group of friends in an advanced bomb shelter by nuclear war. Sparrow Rock is so plot twist laden that to summarize beyond the premise would be to enter spoiler territory, but let's just say radioactive fallout is the least of the teen's worries.

Kenyon writes teenagers the way they should be written, as intelligent fully formed human beings, some readers may try to find fault in just how "in the know" these kids are, but I suspect that those will be the readers furthest removed from high school. The teens use an amalgamation of high school biology and history coupled with years of fascination with internet conspiracy theories. As someone not too long out of high school (half a decade), I really connected with the character of Jay. I had a friend in school just like him, who was always sending me bizarre conspiracy theory message board threads and explaining all kinds of far-fetched "government secrets" that I had to be crazy not to believe.

Kenyon's characterization takes a back seat to to his intricate and lightning paced plot, but it certainly got the job done. Exposition and flashbacks to Pete's past are woven into the text at a refreshing pace and in such a way that they add rather than subtract tension to the post-apocalyptic action of the novel.

I've also read Kenyon's debut novel Bloodstone, which is immensely enjoyable because takes a much more traditional approach to horror (that book's haunted town makes a cameo in Sparrow Rock, if I'm not mistaken). But I must say that Kenyon's latest is the book that had me running to fill up my Kindle with more. The audience for this novel is two fold, you can come into it looking for a simple scary survival story, or you can be attracted by the melancholia of the themes of loss and regret, but either way I bet you'll really enjoy Sparrow Rock.

Raiding the Racks for Horror

2010-04-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Greetings all, I've been doing a fair amount of reading and watching, but a woeful amount of blogging. Nothing's really struck my fancy in a big enough way to get me typing. That is, until I went to my local comic book store this Wednesday and was struck by a pretty good idea for a post.

Here's three things you can and should pick up at your own comic-slinging establishments.

I wrote up Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows' limited series Crossed a while back. Color me surprised to see Crossed: Family Ties #1 on shelves this shortly after the original series came to a definitive close. But fear not! Just because Ennis has handed the reigns over to another writer for this sequel/spin-off, does not mean that Family Ties is a knockoff/money grab. No, this is grade-A all the way baby. It's written by the supremely talented David Lapham (Stray Bullets, Young Liars) and illustrated with a wonderful sense of motion by Javier Barreno.

Family Values focuses on a whole new group of survivors (a large Mid-Western family) and pits them against the "crossed" a deranged horde infected by an unexplained virus. Ennis had some scummy survivor characters in his original roster, but Lapham takes this idea of "humans are the real monsters" one step further by making the patriarch of the Pratt family just as despicable as the crossed themselves. The first issue was just as twisted and disturbing as Ennis' original series and, luckily, never suffers from the much feared "been there, done that" feeling of most sequels.

Area 10 is a hardcover graphic novel that is part of Vertigo's new "Vertigo Crime" imprint, and boy is it fun. Written by Christos Gage, Area 10 is part police procedural and part Seven-style thriller (or MPD Psycho, come to think of it) with an added psyche-out/supernatural element to spice things up. Despite the large page-count he has to fill (nearly 200), artist Chris Samnee (who has an awesome sketchbook/blog here) is more than up to the task, and turns in some truly terrific black and white compositions.

What Vertigo is trying to do with this series is admirable: bringing back crime comics in a high quality, one-and-done format. I've heard mixed reviews of some of the other titles in the series, but if Area 10 is any indication I will be picking up a few more as soon as I can spare the cash.

I could probably have spent a whole post talking about how cool this book is, but that would spoil the fun for you, and make me have to write more. So there.

There's been a lot of Stephen King work in comics lately, but they've been adaptations (The Stand, Dark Tower) and none of them (I believe) have been written by the man himself. Enter Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque's new ongoing series American Vampire. In the series's first five issues Snyder splits each page count with King and they both write stories taking place in a separate time period. In the first issue released last month, this worked absolutely flawlessly. Snyder's half of the issue deals with a young actress dealing with the pitfalls (and fangs) of 1920s Hollywood while King's half details the origins of a mysterious cowboy in the 1880s.

If #2 has a major flaw, it's that it's no #1. There are some growing pains and quite a few pages are taken up with clunkily delivered exposition. Despite this shortcoming the art remains top-notch and there are some interesting twists in vampire lore introduced.

It's too early to tell how it will fair in the long run, but American Vampire is off to a very promising start. I wonder how King got involved with the project, but I imagine that Vertigo is seeing sales boosted immensely by his name. That said, I also suspect readers may prefer Snyder's half of the story to King's, which good news for Vertigo as is a strong reason for them to stick around once King's tenure is over.

Iggy and the Protuberances: Horns By Joe Hill

2010-04-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you've noticed this, but bookstores like to segregate the genres. In their minds there are such irreconcilable differences between Jack Ketchum and Jack Kerouac that geographic and physical borders must be erected. Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy sometimes get their own sections, are sometimes lumped together, but are almost always separated from the confusingly named "Fiction" section. If you're a real romanticist and lover of genre, like I am, this probably pisses you off. Not only is it a pain to figure out where the author you're looking for is placed, but he or she may even have their oeuvre split between two or more sections.

When it comes time for Joe Hill's second novel Horns to be moved from the "New in Hardcover" table, it will probably give some poor schmuck a real headache when he has to decide what sector of the store to put it in. What will it be pal? Horror? There is certainly some of that, with the devil and the snakes and the head explosions and whatnot. Fantasy? Well there are certainly some moments of Gaiman-esque whimsy. Wait, it gets even more complicated because then there are those lengthy portions where nothing supernatural happens for 50 pages at a stretch and we are given strong, well written and believable characters taking on tough questions. *Gasp* Do we put this in the high-fluting "Fiction" section?

I say that, not because I'm thinking like the enemy and claiming that Horns has more legitimacy to be in the no-genre-allowed "Fiction" section of the store, but because it really is a textbook case of genre's being so crossed and blended that they cease to exist.

As with most books, to summarize is to spoil. So here's the pitch in as few words as possible. Our hero, Iggy, goes on a bender, wakes up with devil horns and the power to reveal people's darkest desires and secrets. He must use said power to find and bring to justice the person responsible for the murder of his childhood sweetheart/love of his life, Merrin.

Even though it is written by a man, the main characters are men, and the reader is never privy to Merrin's perspective, in thinking about the novel I can't help but approach it from a feminist reading. Almost the entirety of the novel's catastrophes stem from the men's inability to communicate with Merrin. They think they can somehow read her mind, rationalize her actions without actually consulting her on the matter, and it leads to tragedy violence and heartbreak, not to mention satanic mutation.

The story is told by alternating between Iggy's "be-horned" adventure in the present and a series of flashbacks and perspective changes. It is these flashbacks that provide the emotional core of the novel, and it is Hill's acute understanding and gift when it comes to portraying the young male psyche that lends credence to the novel's more fantastic elements. Emotional without being sentimental, realistic without being oppressively melancholy--Hill is a dude who knows what's what.

Hill garnered a lot of well earned praise for his first novel, Heart Shaped Box, and in my opinion he deserves even more for Horns. I don't know if I could call it his best work without hesitating (he also writes the superb comic series Locke & Key and his short stories are pretty great as well) but it is certainly worth a read for anyone who likes fiction...regardless of what section of the store you find it in.

My Big To-Do

2010-03-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Hello all, it's been dead here. I know. It's not due to lack of interest, merely lack of time. Between classes, getting a new apartment for next year, and gearing up for Grad School, I've neglected Brain Tremors. Fear not though, I am planning my triumphant return. In the meantime, here is something non-horror related, but still pretty cool.

A week or so ago I conducted an interview with Patterson Hood, frontman of my favorite band the Drive-By Truckers. If you don't know DBT, you should (Decoration Day, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, or their new album The Big To-Do would be great starting points).

Here's the interview, part of the BUQuad's illustrious 11th issue.

Dios Mio: AntiChrist (Flix of Fear #2)

2010-03-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

Alright, two brief notes right up front: 1) This review was started in the beginning of November. I don't even remember why I didn't finish it, but by the time I came back to it, AntiChrist was out of the theaters, so I didn't think it would do anyone much good. Which leads me to...

2) I only dug this out because it gave me an opportunity to (re)start my "Flix of Fear" column, where I highlight stuff you can find on Netflix's incredible "instant watch" program.

Here's what I had to say shortly after leaving the theater:

The last 30 minutes of Lars von Trier's Antichrist is the cinematic equivalent of being punched in the face. I mean that as a compliment.

Even though I rarely watch trailers and avoid film synopses like the plague, you can't turn around on the internet without bumping into an article on how "shocking" this film is. So it's not that I went into the film unprepared. Last week in fact, the proliferation of von Trier's controversy followed me off of the internet and into the real world. I was doing my normal eavesdropping in class when a fellow student began talking about the bizarre theater going experience he had: a woman urinated a few seats over from him. You heard that right, von Trier's climax was supposedly so shocking it could make you pee yourself. Needless to say I made the trip to the theater shortly after hearing that.

I have very little experience with von Trier's work and what I have seen I haven't been too big a fan of (2003's Dogville, for example). I usually have a very low tolerance for self-indulgence, but the film's much talked about slow-motion opening sequence won me over almost immediately. This brings us to the one thing that can be universally agreed on about Antichrist: it is a beautiful film. Shot by frequent Danny Boyle collaborator and Oscar winner Anthony Dod Mantle the film's aesthetic veers wildly from the lush vibrant greens of the forest to gothic foreboding compositions of the same world turned upside down. [...]

That's where the original write-up ended, I was about to start listing the things I didn't like about the film, but instead why don't we skip to my new and improved ending?

The bright side of not blogging about this directly after seeing it is that I've had a chance to digest von Trier's film a bit more. How does it hold up a few months later? While I still can't get the last few sequences out of my head, the flaws are still there. BUT, if a movie can jar me like that, I'm willing to put up with a lot. von Trier makes you put up with a lot though, my original, knee-jerk reaction to the dialogue and pacing of the film was that dreaded and oft-used phrase: over-indulgent. I still partially believe that.

BUT...

Once you get over the hurtles that the film places in your way, you recognize the cojones on display in AntiChrist: two actors, a cinematographer and a (possibly insane) director going full on, unapologetic-ally for broke. Now that, my friends, is worth watching at least once.

I know you have a Netflix subscription: Go watch it.

Bark at the Moon: The Wolfman

2010-02-12T16:57:00.000-08:00

Universal Studios has been really sticking it to horror fans over the past few years. They've maligned their greatest cinematic legacy: "The Universal Monsters." First with a mediocre action-oriented retread of The Mummy (that isn't bad as a Summer blockbuster, but is terrible as a successor to the Karloff version) then with the absolute prostitution of it's best properties with the cartoon-ish, soulless monster mash/toy commercial that was Van Helsing. Being as bias as I am towards the original Universal Monsters (probably the VHS tapes that got the most use in my childhood, outside of Jaws) these last few years have seen my patience wear thin. Over the last year or so the internet has been abuzz with stories of trouble on the set of Universal's latest attempt to breath new life into one of their monsters. This time it was Lon Chaney Jr's furry-footed alter ego: 1941's The Wolf Man (my second favorite monster growing up, next to The Creature from the Black Lagoon).

It may come as a shock, and I know I'm going to be in the minority here but... I thought The Wolfman was pretty good.

Now wait a second, I didn't say "great" I said "pretty good." The Wolfman is the kind of remake that really shouldn't get under anyone's skin, as it has very little to do with the original film. With the exception of the character's names and a few in-nods to the original (Lawrence's cane, the old "when the wolfsbane blooms" poem, etc.) this is an in-name-only remake of the classic: different time period, different origin story, different location, and lots and lots more blood and guts.There are some truly eye-rolling moments in Joe Johnston's version of the story (the director took over the project shortly before shooting, after the first director quit due to problems with the studio, never a good sign) but there are also some fairly great parts.

First: the bad news. The script has some clunky dialogue and pacing issues, but The Wolfman's real problems mostly come near the climax of the film. It is during the Wolfman's rampage through London that viewers may get a sinking sense of big budget crapfest deja vu. There is also a climactic showdown (between who and who is a slight spoiler) that is lame with a capital L.

The effects are mostly good which is why the segments that aren't stand out so prominently. There is some shaky CGI (especially when the Wolfman goes from biped to quadruped) and while Rick Baker's makeup is mostly awesome there are a few times that you feel the director is showing us a bit too much of the wolf costumes.

The real strength of The Wolfman lies in the fact that these problems, which would normally be debilitating, never stopped me from enjoying the film. That's in large part due to the inspired casting of Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro. The rest of the cast is no big shakes (Hugo Weaving seems to be doing his "Agent Smith" with a slight British accent and cooler facial hair) but it's really del Toro and Hopkins' show anyway.

The transposition of the story to Victorian England is a good change merely from a stylistic perspective. The lavish costuming and intricate Gothic locations will probably remind horror fans more of Hammer's lush costume pieces than Universal's original Wolf Man. There is minimal obvious CGI-enhancement (with the exception of the aforementioned London rampage) and all these sets and costumes are lovingly photographed, making The Wolfman one of the more visually interesting big budget commercial films to come along in a while.

Lastly, there's the gore. Oh the gore. I'm by no means a gore hound, I like Fulci just as much as the next guy, but a man can not survive on viscera alone. That said, I think that it's both remarkable and refreshingly ballsy that Universal released The Wolfman with an R-rating. Limbs are hacked, heads severed and innocents are not spared. The horror of Talbolt's moonlight benders are reinforced through intense bloodletting, serving a narrative point in highlighting how even a likable guy like Larry is powerless to the curse.

You can call it rose-tinted glasses, call it the result of lowered expectations, but I don't think you'd be right. I'm pretty sure I sincerely enjoyed The Wolfman and that you might too.

Oh and one more (non-Wolfman related) thing: don't text message during the movie. If your really going to have ten emails to send on your Blackberry, stay home.

Least Convincing Timeshare Infomercial, Ever: Frozen

2010-02-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

Writer/Director Adam Green's newest feature is refreshing. It's refreshing a the way that I felt his last theatrically released film Hatchet, was not. Hatchet carried a lot of internet support behind it, support that was palpable almost a full year before the film's limited theatrical released. When I finally got to see Hatchet (a few years ago in the same exact theater that I saw Frozen this Friday) I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. It had some wonderful cameos, a few inventive kills, showed a real reverence for slasher history and was obviously the work of someone who was a true fan, but for me it just could not live up to the weight put on it by the community. Maybe it caught me on a bad day, people still seem to love it, but enough about the past, let's talk about the present...

Three college kids trapped on a ski lift. They're stuck up there until the mountain re-opens in a week, they have to get down or they'll freeze to death.

The claustrophobia and simplicity of Frozen's central conceit has many critics comparing it to Open Water (2003). I don't like that comparison because Frozen is a film where things happen, at times very terrifying things. Green shows a great amount of bravery in tackling a subject that could turn very boring, very quickly and demonstrates some serious skill making sure it doesn't.

The online video advertisements they're playing on many genre websites (which I was mostly successful in ignoring before taking a trip to the theater on Friday) are really a bummer, they show way too many of the film's coolest images. Take my word for it Frozen is a movie you should not watch a trailer for. Green does a good job making us care about the characters (even though in the first act, they can kind of come off as toolbags) by making them approach their problem in a very realistic way. He also fleshes out their back stories and relationships just enough that we can relate to them, but not enough to bore us. Like myself, I'm sure that many of my horror geek brethren will find it easiest to identify with Joe, played by Shawn Ashmore, the third wheel and gym class flunky of the group who must conjure some unexpected heroism. Joe's name is a nod to director and Green's buddy Joe Lynch who made the awesome Wrong Turn 2 my review here. The film is chock full of tiny references and cameos (a number of Hatchet cast members make an appearance) like this that never get too distracting.

Making the minimalist concept exciting does come at a price though. Frozen sadly has its fair share of eye-rolling moments, and though none of them ruin the film, they do keep "classic" status way out of arm's reach. Talking about these parts enters spoiler territory but I will say that there is the appearance of an unexpected advisory for the kids that may give some viewers the chills, but whose appearance may not be so easily swallowed by others.

It's not perfect, but as I said in the beginning: Frozen is a breath of fresh air. Especially if you see it with a live audience. It's such a treat to see a literate, well-made and (most importantly) scary horror film in a theater. This is very much one of those "vote with your dollars"-type situations. Instead of whining about a lack of originality and quality in contemporary horror films, get yourself to a theater (if there's one in driving distance) and see Frozen. Both you and the internet-ers that have to read your boring re-heated rants about the 7th Saw sequel and needless remakes (newsflash: nobody likes 'em, you're preaching to the choir), will be glad you did.

Tying the premise of a horror film to a recreational activity is going to bring the Jaws comparisons. I'm not sure Frozen will keep me away from the slopes (I don't go often, but I'm glad I got my most recent trip out of the way a few weeks ago) but it will definitely add an extra bit of stomach acid to future ski lift rides.

"What's your favorite movie?"

2010-02-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

If you're a film major you get this question a lot. You get it at parties, in classes, on the subway, in taxis, at urinals. You get it every time you tell someone what you study. You don't have to be a film major to appreciate the quandary here. Anyone who loves movies knows what a trick/impossible question this is.

I love movies: plural. To choose one raises so many questions, to choose one makes me immediately think of 5 others that I "love more." I was just asked by one of my girlfriend's friends "what's your favorite movie?" I answered but in a way, I lied. I said that it was a tie. I gave her two of my "stock" answers, two films that have enough name recognition and that I love enough to rank as my hypothetical favorites. As soon as I answered my girlfriend, always the contrarian troublemaker, says : "that's not what you said last time."

I chuckled and changed the subject, but it got me thinking. I've always disliked getting this question, but I've never fully articulated to myself why. I've tried to pick a favorite, but it's impossible. I could probably narrow it down to twenty or so, but ranking those top twenty would be impossible. The list would be a patchwork of different genres, time periods, languages and tones. All the films make me feel great, that's all there is to it.

You ask "well, what were those two 'stock 'answers? Where is that hypothetical twenty?" I'm not going to give you the twenty, I'll give you the two stock answers plus three more from the list, then I'll tell you another secret.

"Either Taxi Driver or Midnight Cowboy," that was my answer to the girl's question. In fact, it is my go to answer most of the time. Some days, if I'm feeling especially mentally spry or have been talking to a person about a specific genre of films (Westerns, Horror, etc.) I could very well answer something completely different. It was not a lie, per se, Tax Driver and Midnight Cowboy are my favorite movies. Just not all of them.

I will now give you those five, and a (all too) brief rundown of why each one is special to me. These are all perfect films in my eyes, so order doesn't matter, neither do exceptions.

Taxi Driver (1976), as it probably is for many young cinephiles of my generation (I'm not inferring that my list is wholly original or unique, it is simply mine), is not the film that made me love cinema, but the one that made me long to be a part of it.

It is the film that mathematically, undeniably proves the well-worn film school cliche that "film is a collaborative medium." Taxi Driver is and isn't Martin Scorsese's film. The young master is integral to the film's greatness but no more or less so than Paul Schrader's incredible script (his first unless you count his collaboration on the Sidney Pollack film Yakuza, which is awesome but would not be on any favorites list of mine), Bernard Herrmann's score or Robert De Niro's performance.

I think the reason I list this film first, when asked, is its ending. The faux "happy ending" to Travis's story is possibly the most disturbing and realistic part of this already dark and realistic film.

Further viewing: I'm sure you've seen Taxi Driver, but Schrader is also an amazing filmmaker in his own right you may not have seen his biopic/dark comedy Auto Focus (2002), another favorite. If you want more De Niro/Scorsese genius, sit down with The King of Comedy (1982).

Probably the most emotionally manipulative movie on the list, but not in a bad way because it is also the one most likely to move you to tears. Lots of people are familiar with Harry Nilsson's theme from the film ("Everybody's Talkin'") and know the trivia bit that it was the first X rated movie to win best picture, but it seems that less and less people have actually seen John Schlesinger's 1969 film.

For example, my sophomore year, after one of my first few film classes, I was talking to a handful of my classmates. The deadly, aforementioned question came up. Not a single one had seen Midnight Cowboy. It's not their fault, but that just kind of bummed me out. It is a film that deserves and requires at least one viewing. If you are one of the unfamiliar: you don't have to like it, and I have a feeling that many won't, but you should at least give it a shot.

Further viewing: If Ratso and Joe Buck have you all cried out, relax with one of the best thrillers ever made: Marathon Man (1976) which reunites Dustin Hoffman and Schlesinger.

Say, for instance, that you were a detective, charged with figuring out my "favorite" movie by clues left in my room. Get Carter (1971) would be your first guess because of the not one, but two large, prominently placed posters hanging on my wall (one is the one pictured above and the other is a poster sized blow up of a black & white production still, Carter putting a woman into the trunk of her own car after dragging her out of her tub, not as misogynist as it sounds).

I was never much for the genre of "gangster" films. I like them alright but I certainly don't prescribe to the college male "broski" aesthetic of plastering your wall with quotes from De Palma's Scarface (a fine movie, but one that I believe works best as a semi-parody of the genre). That's why I would define Get Carter as a revenge film, the person getting the revenge just happens to be a gangster.

Endlessly quotable, unbelievably scuzzy, and with one of my favorite scenes of all time (Carter finds a major clue to the puzzle to why his brother was murdered by watching a homemade pornographic loop, which we see reflected in the mirror behind him, nicely framed and Michael Caine's performance is devastating) Get Carter is a film you will really like or absolutely despise.

Further viewing: Ever wish you could combine your love for mediocre horror movies and Michael Caine? Then Oliver Stone's dirty little secret The Hand (1981) is for you, it may not be great, but what it lacks in quality it makes up for in certifiable insanity (not a favorite, for those keeping score). Want to see the softer side of Caine instead? He also stars in one of the best sex comedies from the 80s, Blame it on Rio (1984).

Here's the most recent movie on the list, a sprawling semi-biographical epic about the porn industry in the 70s and 80s that is also a gifted filmmaker's meditation on movies in general. Putting aside the marvelous soundtrack, the unbelievable cast (proof that Mark Wahlberg can act, despite what he tried to tell you with The Happening), and the strong sexual content (which may be outputting to some, pffft) and you still have an expertly constructed film.

A strange film in that it is both nostalgic and brutal. We are presented with characters that we identify with and like but we also see them in situations that we can't immediately identify with (nor would we want to) and watch as some decisions turn tragic. By the end you mourn for the loss of Jack Horner's (Burt Reynolds) theater-based livelihood, you curse VHS and then you stop, think about it for a second and realize that even the "good old days" weren't so great.

Further viewing: Just so you don't think I only like films that are over thirty years old, here are some more favorites from the last few years. No Country for Old Men (2007) I think the Coen's are the best American filmmakers working today, this is quite possibly their masterpiece. J.S.A (2000) Korean director Park Chan Wook's most restrained work is also one of my favorites. Up (2009) I've yet to see Moon or A Serious Man and I do love The Hurt Locker, but I think that if I had to "gun to my head"-it Pixar's latest effort is my favorite film of the year.

If this is a horror blog, then where are the horror movies? I'm getting there, pipe down.

In the end of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), he inadvertently (Romero has sworn up and down that this was never directly this intention) made one of the most incendiary social critiques in horror by having his black protagonist...well you know (I still can't bring myself to spoil the ends of movies, but if you haven't seen NOTLD and are reading this blog, there really is no hope for you).

In his 1978 follow-up he turns up the social criticism knob to 11, has Tom Savini ride into town in an oil tanker full of blood, shoots in technicolor that makes the Emerald City look like Newark, has his buddy Dario Argento lend a hand with the music and creates the ultimate zombie movie in the process, hands down.

I recently read a discussion online (some forum or twitter or blog, I really don't remember) where a bit of a backlash against this film flared up. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but comon fellas, are you nuts?

Some complain that it's dated, but as someone in my early 20s I think I'm allowed to poo-poo that without running up against the "what do you know? Old man" argument that us kids are so fond of.

Further viewing: well, in my opinion, there's really only one other horror movie that can give Dawn of the Dead a run for it's money and that's The Exorcist (1973). Generic, I know, but they really are my two top spots (until I think of another 20).

There you are. There are the five I promised (plus some bonuses). Debate amongst yourselves.

What's that?

What's the secret I was babbling about?

Well, in two years I'll look at this list, still love the movies on it, but probably construct an entirely new one. That's one of the wonders of cinema and the joys of loving it.

[Insert Health Care Crisis Pun Here]: Doctor Death

2010-01-31T17:02:00.000-08:00

1973's Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls is the text book definition of 70s cheese. Although the film is directed and produced by Eddie Saeta, nevermind the auteur theory because it is star John Considine who owns this film. Considine plays the titular Doctor,a mystic who uses his “secret formula” to transfer the souls of the dead into the bodies of the recently deceased. Although he's been using this method to stay alive for hundreds of years he also rents out his talents to the highest bidder.

Enter our protagonist: Fred, who, to put it lightly, is a bit of a goober. His wife has recently died and he'll do anything to get her back. He contracts the good Doctor to revive his wife's body (easily glossing over the morality involved). When the procedure doesn't “take” and Fred's wife remains dead, the Doc (ever the over-achiever) goes on a violent killing spree trying to find the right soul for the body of Fred's wife.

Considine (who reveals in the commentary that he studied acting under Lee Strasberg) plays Dr. Death with pomp and enthusiasm. Turning the Doc (who has some incredibly over-written dialogue) into an odd mixture of talk show host, carnival barker and Las Vegas magician. He may not give an Oscar worthy turn, but he transforms ho-hum dialogue into pure entertainment which is quite an achievement.

Doctor Death is such a hard movie to discuss without sounding like I'm over selling it. It's a film for a very specific type of person. In many ways it's a wonderful film, it's purposefully over-the-top without being overly winking, has a great villain, a cameo from Moe Howard (of Three Stooges fame) and some really gonzo kills (at one point Dr. Death shoots black acid blood out of a wound in his stomach and MELTS HIS ATTACKER'S FACE). On the other hand, it has an abundance of wooden dialogue, heroes that you don't give a crap about, and tends to drag when Considine isn't on screen.

The film was just recently released on DVD by Scorpion Releasing (I scooped it up as a birthday present from me to me) and I believe that they are somewhat newcomers to the cult DVD market. If this release is any indication, they know their stuff. The disc comes with a nice transfer (the gaudy colors of the Doctor's flamboyant costumes really pop), two ten minute interviews (one with Considine and the other with Saeta's son) and a commentary with Considine (where he talks about his impressive career and expands on some of the ideas touched on in the interview).

Nice Place to Visit But You Wouldn't Want to Live There: City Infernal By Edward Lee

2010-01-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

I've read tragically little of Edward Lee's work. A smattering of short stories, his novella The Cyesolagniac and his segment of Triage (which is a collection of three novellas by Lee, Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon). Everything I've read, I have enjoyed.

Then why have I been into horror for so long and mostly shied away from one of today's big authors? I don't have a good answer for you. It's probably not his reputation for writing "extreme horror," as Laymon and Ketchum are pretty extreme and are regular staples in my literary diet. Whatever the explanation I planed on rectifying the problem when I bought City Infernal.

City Infernal is the first book of Lee's popular "Infernal Mythos." I like to know very little about books before I dive in (you've seen how neurotic about spoilers I can get), but because Lee is known in the horror community for his stomach-churning gore (everything I had read prior to this confirms this) I figured that I was in for a sick, if a bit guilty, pleasure. In truth what I got was something much stranger and, in my opinion, much more interesting. Lee's book is less Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer and more Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

You read that right. I compared Lee's ultra-violent trip through hell to a children's book. I do so favorably.

Like The Golden Compass (or similar, lesser books) Lee builds a world that is both strange, but familiar. It is a setting that is clearly fantasy but still very much reflective of the place we live. Also, like Pullman's novel, the parallels between Mephistopolis (Lee's Hell) and our current society are not always in the most flattering.

The plot concerns Cassie, a young woman who finds herself in Hell, literally, after moving into her new house and making some new (dead) friends. Not only that but hell isn't all fire and brimstone, it's a thriving city that runs on despair an carnage. Cassie decides to plunge deeper into the metropolis to find her twin sister, who died of a suicide. But wait, there's more, because Cassie is a mortal in Hell she has crazy mystical powers that would give Satan the ability to manifest on Earth, thus she becomes a target of his demonic constabulary. It's not as exhausting as it sounds.

I really love the way everything about Lee's version of Hell "adds up." There is a clever and nicely explained piece of exposition for almost every economic, political and social facet of Hell. It's an odd novel in that the explanatory passages are the most interesting. The wildlife and social strata of Hell is captivating and disgusting. Lee masterfully mixes the thoughtful with the repugnant.

No book is without its minor faults and Lee's is no exception. The biggest problem I found is somewhat symptomatic of the fantasy genre itself, so Lee can't much be blamed. There are a number of times where Cassie and friends are helped out of a bind by some archane hell magic that the reader (and Cassie) has not been previously introduced to. These moments all feel a bit too deus ex machina, but are not really that distracting and like I said, are native to this kind of story telling.

City Infernal has been optioned for film in the past, I don't know if it still is. Any filmic translation, however unlikely, would have to be big budget and thus way toned-down, but I can't help feeling that in the right hands (Guillermo del Toro?) City Infernal would make a really fun movie.

City Infernal is a brisk read and should have cross genre appeal, anyone who wants some horror in their fantasy or fantasy in their horror should pick up a copy (some of you probably already have, seeing how it was first published a decade ago: I'm way late to the party, as usual). I have already purchased the next part of the series on Kindle and I am very interested to see what else Lee has in store.

On a bit of a negative final note: What a fugly cover. Leisure: I love the books you put out, you make horror affordable and give great authors massive exposure, but why the covers? They're tacky without being the awesome kind of tacky. They were never high art, but paperbacks used to have some pretty cool covers.

Crossbows, Coffee and Cigarettes: Daybreakers

2010-01-08T14:57:00.000-08:00

Michael and Peter Spierig (henceforth the Spierig Brothers) made quite a splash in the horror community with their 2003 low-budget zombie flick Undead. Unlike the majority of horror fans I didn't really like Undead. I thought it was a well made, but entirely too derivative film. It had all the hallmarks of early Peter Jackson and Raimi's Evil Dead films, but it was never going to replace those classics because it lacked most of the charm that came with revisiting films like Braindead.

I did, however, think that Undead made a bit of a promise, a premonition of good things to come. If the Spierig brothers could harness their obvious talent, were afforded a bit more cash (okay...a lot more cash), and the professionalism that accompanied said cash: they could make a GREAT genre film.

It's been a few years but Daybreakers fulfills that promise.

In a near future, where vampirism has spread like a plague, turning most of the world's population. Humanity is on the ropes, and the vampires ain't doing much better. Without a blood substitute they're beginning to starve and regress into dangerous monsters (the makeups for which look a ton like the "bat" Dracula from Francis Ford Coppola's version). Ethan Hawke (who's a dynamite stage actor and has done some great work recently, but never in horror pictures) plays the chief scientist leading the team trying to crack the code and invent Tru Blood for his evil capitalist pig boss (Sam Neil). It gets more complex from there, but I won't spoil it, the twists are part of the fun.

The abundance of set-pieces and relatively low scare-factor is more akin to a traditional scifi/action film, but rest assured this puppy blows away the lackluster Underworld films (a series whose aesthetic the ad-men behind Daybreakers are trying to ape in its advertising material). The plot suffers some minor pacing hiccups and the dialogue isn't always as sharp as it could have been (Willem Dafoe's character, in particular, seems like a missed opportunity) but it is the quality craftsmanship of the world-building and the brothers' visual inventiveness that keep these problems so small that they barely register once the credits roll. Likewise the allegory at work ("Blood for oil!" is now: "Blood for Blood!") is mostly heavy handed, but delivered in a way so plausible (once you swallow the main, silly conceit) that it works beautifully.

Smart without being pompous, goofy without having to wink at itself every time it passes a mirror, and with a cast that most A-list "mainstream" films would be envious of: Daybreakers is a literate and fun breath of fresh air.

Soul Draining, but in a good way: Feast by R. Scott McCoy

2010-01-07T23:35:00.000-08:00

R. Scott McCoy's Feast has been compared to a superhero story akin to Darkman or Spawn. Rightfully so, but these comparisons only do McCoy's novel a disservice. Nick Ambrose, Feast's superhero in-training, ditches the over-the-top splat-shtick of Sam Raimi's titular hero but at the same time never delves into the mid-90s uber-melancholy of Todd McFarland's red-caped meal ticket. If you have no idea what the comparisons were I just made, you obviously didn't watch movies or read comic books in the 90s.

Feast concerns Nick, a police officer who acquires superpowers while tracking down a deranged (and supernatural) killer with his brother,Pete. His main power is that he can look into souls and see how clean their karmic aura is, he also gains super strength, healing, and no longer needs to sleep. The catch being that he has to periodically feed on the lifeforce of others to stay alive. It is this moral quandary (plus the fact that Nick has some new residents in his noggin) that form the crux of Feast.

Why Feast works so well is that Nick's world has a certain "heightened reality" about it (there are blood thirsty serial killers and mob bosses around every corner), but Nick remains a very realistic character. He's very human, he makes mistakes, enjoys Chinese food, is a dope around women and sometimes lets his new-found urges get the better of him. His moral compass is always pointed in generally the right direction, though, which makes watching him grapple with some frightening obstacles all the more compelling.

Feast suffers the same problem that is endemic to all origin stories: you get all the characters put in place, lay the ground rules of their powers, have them embark on their first "mission" in the third act and then you have to leave the reader thirsty for further adventures.

Feast is great, McCoy's style is direct, fast paced, and sometimes just a hint humorous. Nick is a character I actually care about. I can't wait to see what the future holds for him. Hopefully the wait won't be too long. Highly recommended.

*For those of you who think I'm just kissing ass because McCoy runs Necrotic Tissue: Ha! He isn't even the head editor for this upcoming issue.

Serves you right. Jerks.

Good Dog: Cujo on both page and screen

2010-01-05T22:12:00.000-08:00

Before this week, I had never read Stephen King's Cujo nor seen the 1983 film adaptation. Now I've done both. It's against my nature and I will not reveal the ending to either the book or the adaptation, but for this writeup will contain minor spoilers. You other late comers have been warned. (Gimme a break I know it's thirty years old.)

Now, don't let the fact that I've never read Cujo before shake your faith in me. I've read plenty of King, both the classics and his newer stuff. I've loved some of them and I've not-so-loved some of them. The first school project I can remember doing was on the man (it was for a third grade project where we had to read a biography and then make a book report in the shape of a wire hanger mobile) and my first 'real' term paper (boy, was I wrong in thinking that rinky-dink thing in high school was a term paper). If I were asked as a senior in high school what my favorite King Novel was, I would have said: The Stand. Hands down. In fact, in high school, I probably would have answered The Stand if you asked me what my favorite book was. Period. I still love it, but these days maybe the cornucopia of allegory is a little too much for me.

Enter King's 1981 novel Cujo. King claims in On Writing, which is great, that there are one or two novels that he can't remember writing at all due to drugs and alcohol. If Cujo is the result of drug abuse: where do I sign up for my flour sack full of coke? Yes it's a sick joke, but you get the point.

Cujo is dark bordering on nihilist (I say bordering, not nihilist). It's the kind of book that has you tied in knots over what's going to happen and has you cursing the author when it finally does. It is bloody and grimy. The character list is long and they are all fully fleshed out. The most remarkable thing for me about Cujo is its structure. There are no chapter stops, only scene breaks where the story switched perspectives. We see inside each characters head, are privy to their decision making processes and the way they feel about others, then just like that we are whisked to a different character. Cujo is not a short book, but the lack of chapters makes it a breathless one. It isn't exactly a book you can't put down, but a book you feel rotten about having to put down. There is just no "good" place to stop. It's as claustrophobic as a blue Ford Pinto on a sunny day ( I can't resist sometimes).

I won't say that Cujo is my favorite King work, but I will say it is my favorite King work for this time in my life. (for example, I can see early high school me really digging a few of the Bachman books, The Long Walk especially).

I don't mean to sound hyperbolic and gushy, it's just true. Our tastes and attitudes are constantly in flux. Outside of its brilliant structure and crisp prose ( beyond the cliche of "crisp" I would also describe it as possessing that great "late-early period" restraint that King never quite uses now) there is something about the darkness and frustrating honesty of this novel that appeals to me on an almost primitive level. Maybe one day when I have a wife and kids, my favorite King novel will change again to suit the times. Maybe it will be Cell... Got ya!

If the novel isn't really 'about' a killer dog, it's not, then what is it about? Well (says pretentious professor Adam), it's about the way people reason and make decisions. How sometimes even when those decisions are the most natural and level-headed they can still result in absolute disaster when life throws a monkey wrench into the equation and goes veering impossibly off-script. It may sound like a mouthful, but I think this idea of chaos is the very core of the novel.

So the movie must be about the same thing right? Wrong, silly, the movie is about a killer dog.

On the special features for the recent 25th anniversary re-issue of the film director Lewis Teague says that the initial script from the film had been penned by King himself, but was rewritten because it "strayed too far from the book." D'oh. What I wouldn't give to see that version of the film.

Cujo isn't a bad film at all. It has first rate cinematography, great production value and effects and one of the most believably frightened child actor ever put on screen(what the hell did they do to that kid?). The script is serviceable and is faithful almost in its entirety. The broad themes from the novel all make at least a small appearance: Donna's fear of losing her spark, Vic's pressure at work, the remarkable abilities for a child's subconscious to attune itself to the problems around him, and the idea that one shouldn't "sweat the small stuff" because you never know when reality might turn and bite your face off.

The problem is that all these themes are so watered down in the film. In actuality this is probably a good thing, there is no easy way to cue an audience in on every thought that enters a character's mind. To translate that whole idea of "decision making" i rambled about a few paragraphs ago, Teague would have had to use narration. Which would make the film unwatchable in its obviousness and corniness. The end result is that the film is probably the best direct adaptation of the book that can possibly have been made.

Maybe in some far-flung future, when there are no more copies of the book in print, the film will be a worthy piece of art to be analyzed without the stigma of the novel. As it stands now it is only an interesting way to open up discussion of the novel, a well made genre film with a modest budget, some neat dog tricks, and a great performance by one of horror's perennial matriarchs: Dee Wallace.

It's no substitute for the book: but what film is? It's a fun monster movie with all the schmaltzy parts and fake-out scares you've come to expect from passable Stephen King adaptations. Hey, it's a helluva lot better than that miniseries they made of The Stand.*

*I've heard some people actually like that thing. Other than the cast, why? I'm not being a jerk, I genuinely want someone to explain what I'm missing.

"Plag Meen": Mama Fish by Rio Youers

2009-12-29T22:50:00.000-08:00

My to-be-read pile, isn't really a pile, it's more like an entire bookshelf. Unwieldy to say the least. That's why I've been taking this break to read. A lot. I can't write up every book, doesn't mean I didn't like them, it just means they aren't topical (for example, I just finished Bloodstone by Nate Kenyon, a very good book well worth your time, but also one that's been out for a while and received some great write ups by people better qualified than me).

I've been trying (and failing) to keep up with Shroud's novella series. I loved Tom Piccrilli's All You Despise, already reviewed the first Hiram Grange and I am more than halfway through R. Scott Mccoy's Feast as I write this. Which brings us to the topic of discussion: Rio Youers' Mama Fish.

The page count is slight but the plot and emotion outweighs that of any book in recent memory. In Mama Fish, Youers bounces from 1986 to present day to tell a genre bending story that is humorous, heart breaking, and funny while being both in awe and critical of the "wired" world we now inhabit. He does all this in crisp prose and a narrative voice that is sly, but never over indulgent.

The story is narrated by Patrick, a thirty six year old paraplegic who reminisces about his high school days and the strange boy, Kelvin Fish, that he tried to befriend with disastrous results. To summarize any more would ruin it. Just get the book.

The juxtaposition of Patrick's adventure as a kid, all of his internal flights of fancy kept intact, with his world-weary observations about technology and the way we grow dependent on them are both frightening and frighteningly accurate.

I haven't read his other books (something I will be sure to alleviate soon), but I can say that Mama Fish is the work of someone not afraid to mix it up. A confident voice untethered by the preconceived "demands" of a certain genre (be it horror or otherwise). A smart book that doesn't talk down to readers, and rewards them for their intelligence. This was easily one of the best books I read this year and further proof that some of the best stuff comes from the small press.

Christmas Blockbuster Face Off: Avatar vs. Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know neither of these films is horror, but don't worry we'll get back to my bread and butter after this brief sojourn into mainstream popcorn fair. So without further ado, my take on this Christmas' box office heavyweights:

Avatar is a cult film. Wait, don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not saying that James Cameron's ludicrously expensive scifi flick is in the same category as Rocky Horror or The Evil Dead.

I mean it is literally a Cult film. As in: James Cameron returned after ten years underwater wearing a blue satin robe and demanding that the American movie-going public drink his Kool-Aid. Which they did.

Not just your average Joe moviegoers either, Avatar is a critical darling and one of the best reviewed movies of the year. I'm beyond baffled. I'm not complaining about the film's much talked-about environmental message (quite the contrary, I'm in favor of it...preach away). It's not a deal breaker that the film's story is remarkably similar to a myriad of "going native" pictures, I certainly don't mind a simple story done well, and I have nothing against the digital wizardry on display.

No, Avatar's fatal flaw is how boring it is.

There is so much time spent watching cookie-cutter characters we care nothing about do things that are pretty to look at, but not much else.

The first 40 minutes and the climactic battle sequence are intensely enjoyable, a fun, if shallow, ride. The problem is that that's only a third of the movie. This third is especially spectacular in Imax 3D, but if a gigantic screen, 3D effects and bone-shaking sound are on the menu, a film has to be trying extra hard to bore me.

I didn't hate Avatar, but I didn't like it either. There are some bright spots, most notably the bad guys. Giovanni Rabisi play's the film's wormy company yes-man and Stephen Lang plays a space-marine so grizzled that he makes Rambo look like a toy poodle. When these characters are on screen we get glimpses of the film as the hammy blast that it could have been, but when they leave we are left with a bunch of blue cat people who take themselves (and the movie) way too seriously.

If Avatar was an over-hyped let-down then Guy Richie's take on Sherlock Holmes was the movie that nobody expected to be any good in the first place.

What a nice Christmas present it was to see that Sherlock Holmes is a fresh, funny and surprisingly faithful adaptation of one of literature's most iconic characters.

When the initial trailer for Richie's film came out, I was concerned. The trailer played more like a spoof of Holmes than an adaptation. The internet was abuzz with bad mouthing, Ritchie was "MTV-izing" Conan Doyle's creation. Well, as I think it was Shakespeare, who said: "Haterz b' Hatin."

This movie gets Holmes right through and through: his manic depressive binges when he doesn't have a case to "stimulate him," his homosocial relationship with Dr. Watson, his repartee with the police (especially Lestrade), his many disguises: it's all here, there's even a reference to his brother Mycroft! Of course their is a bit of light Hollywood tinkering going on, but even Holmes' boxing and karate antics (which every "serious critic" has poo-poo'd) are present in the original stories and novels.

The story is a cobbling together of a bunch of Holmes tales, most noticeably The Sign of Four, while combining them with a new twist that introduces a "Da Vinci code-esque"(trust me, it's not as tiresome as it sounds) element to the story.

It's no surprise, at all, that Robert Downey Jr. is excellent. But probably the biggest winner in Holmes is Jude Law. Just when he was all but counted out as "movie star" material he turns in this terrific performance. When you can steal even one scene from the sly Downey Jr. then you are one helluva actor.

This is what big franchise movie making should be: great characters played by great actors, plus some well-placed explosions and humor mixed in to ensure everyone can enjoy themselves. "Franchise" being the operative word here:

You can keep Pandora, James, because 221b Baker St is the place I want to visit again in a few years.

Hard-Gore: Wrath James White's The Resurrectionist

2009-12-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

Before picking up Wrath James White's new book The Resurrectionist I had heard some very good things about his Mass Market PB debut, Succulent Prey. Well, the demands of life got in the way and I never wound up picking up Succulent Prey.

The Resurrectionist firmly belongs in the category of "hardcore" horror fiction, a sub-genre that includes Edward Lee, some of the work of Jack Ketchum and even the late-great Richard Laymon. The "hardcore" movement is often unjustly maligned as being "torture porn," but when executed by responsible writers who know what they're doing: this is never the case. White's novel is a perfect example of this type of writing done well. There is an abundance of gore and sexualized violence but it is all placed in a bigger socio/political/spiritual context that provides food for thought between grisly murders.

The premise is a quite ingenious one. It concerns Dale, a young man who finds that he has the miraculous power to heal the dead when he witnesses the murder of his mother at the hands of his father. Instead of being the second coming, Dale gets addicted to the thrill of violence and uses his power to resurrect the people he brutally murders. His victims have no recollection of the attacks, until Sarah. Sarah is Dale's beautiful new neighbor and she must piece together the puzzle of her and her husband's multiple deadly (and sexual) assaults before Dale can do it again.

White moves the story along briskly and is careful to not linger too long on the murder set pieces involving Sarah and her husband (which happen with such frequency they would become redundant if White chose to expand on them all) . The pace does slow down a little in the second half of the novel with the introduction of the police-procedural elements, but these are necessary to move the "pieces into place" for the surprising, satisfying and well-earned ending.

A section of the book that warrants specific mention is its timeliness. One of the main complaints people usually have about many different kinds of horror stories (haunted house, stalker, etc) is "why don't the protagonists just run away?" White uses the real-life economic crisis as a means to keep Sarah and Josh afraid to leave their home, to keep Josh afraid to lose his job. In fact, if it were not for the housing crisis and its foreclosures, Dale would never have been able to move in next door. This is an example of many of the thematic threads woven into the main plot.

Readers who are tired of stories set in small New England towns and their surrounding woods will be glad to know that The Resurrectionist is set in Las Vegas. The setting of the novel is also used to comment on several of theses themes (overt sexuality, sensory over-stimulation, moral and economic erosion) in a very sly way. Not only are the big Vegas landmarks used but it is the smaller details that make the city pop and the setting feel very much lived-in.

White makes the reader think about the media they are consuming and the effects it has (Sarah is writing her dissertation on the effects of pornography on the psyche, but starts to shy away from that topic after her multiple victimizations). He has his characters raise questions about spirituality and the possibility of God. Most importantly, though, Wrath James White possesses that rare talent that only the best of the hardcore authors has: he is able to emotionally kick you in the face.

If you are a reader with a strong constitution I encourage you to pick up a copy. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future and have already ordered Succulent Prey.*

*Which is only $2.99 from Dorchester's website (along with several other good buys that include Jack Ketchum's collection Peacable Kingdom which I also whole-heartedly endorse).

Hiram Has Arrived: Hiram Grange & The Village of the Damned

2009-12-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

I approached Shroud Publishing's new book series with both excitement and trepidation. I usually don't count myself a fan of single character episodic fiction, and add to that that Hiram appeared at first glance to fit into the paranormal mystery subgenre and I was a bit leery.

I'm very glad that I gave this series a chance and picked up the just-released first book Hiram Grange & The Village of the Damned by Jake Burrows because boy were my fears unfounded.

Hiram is a fun pulp hero who is both modern-day scumbag and throw-back scoundrel. Grange has the body of Ichabod Crane, the mind and wit of Marlowe (not to mention Hiram's mind has sustained even more alcohol damage), carries an antique six shooter (which only holds five rounds, for sentimental reasons) and favors the substance abuse of a Victorian era Dandy.

With Village Burrows is charged with a difficult task: creating a first adventure that is not bogged down by too much exposition. In this respect the book is a resounding success as Burrows does not opt to go with the boring "origin story" structure. He instead introduces Hiram as already fully formed and established and proceeds to introduce some critical character development in the form of flashbacks. Glimpses at Hiram's parents and past tragedies tell the reader just enough to intrigue but not enough to bore.

All Burrow's hard work in establishing our hero would be for naught if the supporting cast wasn't up to the task, but luckily Hiram's rouges gallery is. The "big bad" for this novel is a reanimated, sledgehammer-wielding Church lady carrying out (with the aid of her husband's collection of possessed lawn gnomes) a supernatural vendetta against her neighbors. The delightfully over-the-top kills are based on the biblical plagues and are both disgusting and funny (which, like the divide between serious and comedic, is a line the book toes well throughout) .

The only real problem with the book is how quickly it's all over. The reader will flip to the last page and be tantalized with a list of further adventures but none of them are out yet. The end of the book hints at a larger mythology and (possibly?) an arch-nemesis for Hiram. One can't help but wait with baited breath, but still harbor the fear/hope that subsequent authors (each of the five planned books has a different author) will be up to the task of preserving Hiram's unique voice while not completely parroting Burrow's style.

Also worthy of mention are the fantastic illustrations provided by Malcolm McClinton and Shroud's own Danny Evarts. They add subtle extra flavor to the text and are used sparingly enough that they don't turn it into a picture book.

Both the time and financial commitment are minimal so what do you have to lose? Hiram's first case is a bizarre, grief-stricken, slime-oozing, Jodie-Foster-obsessed, gnome-smashing, absinthe-soaked, funny and thrilling ride. I highly encourage you to pick up a copy.

For Whom the Bells Toll...

2009-12-08T19:41:00.001-08:00

Big bit of news to share with you Braniacs (like the nickname I just made up for you?). You can go to this link right here and check out the table of contents for Dead Bells an anthology put together by Jodi Lee.

Notice a familiar name on there?

The idea for the collection is genius and I'm so excited to see how my light but twisted little story fits into the larger (bleak) picture. I am honored to share the table of contents with such esteemed company (Natalie Sin, WD Prescott, a novella from Gina Ranalli, and many other contributors). If you click the news button you can also see some of the great early praise that the book is getting (from horror lit radio head-honcho and Funky Werepig host Gregory Hall and Mama Fish author Rio Youers).

I'm psyched and you should be too. I'll direct you to where you can buy your seventeen copies when the book becomes available.

Back to work, I'll be back in a week or two with some really nice pre-holiday goodies for you guys (and gals).

Naschy on the Net: Flix of Fear #1

2009-12-01T18:44:00.000-08:00

The horror community suffered a great loss today. This morning came the sad news that Paul Naschy had passed away at 75. Naschy (real name Jacinto Molina) was known to many as the "Spainish Lon Chaney" but this doesn't begin to describe the passionate actor, writer and director. Far more adequate tributes have been written up on other sites, so I won't even begin to try. Instead I would like to point you to two diffrent places you can watch Paul Naschy instantly. This double feature is woefully inadequate but if you are one of the uninitiated it should buy you some time while you run out and pick up some of his other films.

1968's Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (a.k.a La Marca Del Hombre Lobo) is the awful American title given to Naschy's first "Hombre Lobo" film. While not the best Naschy film, it is a very good one. With lush and vibrant cinematography (the colors in this thing are outrageous) Bloody Terror plays like a Hammer film on steroids. It's a complete and utter monster mash, with Naschy's tragic Wolfman, Waldemar Daninsky, going toe-to-toe with pair of satanic vampires who have been keeping him captive in a creepy Gothic castle (there's no Frankenstein though, that was a complete lie made up by the American distributor).

The women are beautiful, the sets are dripping with atmosphere and Naschy plays the most over-the-top werewolf to ever grace the screen. I seriously feel bad for the actors that had to be attacked by Naschy's character, he really beats the crap out of them.

You can watch the film, if you have Netflix, here. The film is presented in English and does include the hokey "Frankenstein" opening but, luckily, this is not the truncated American theatrical cut but the 90 minute uncut version.

The second, and a little less deserving, Naschy film available online is Count Dracula's Great Love (1972). Here Naschy plays Dracula in similar sympathetic fashion to the way he plays the wolfman. The version on Hulu is badly dubbed(the guy dubbing Naschy is laughable), pan & scan, and graining low-quality video. It was also part of Elvira's Movie Macabre, so it includes all of her cynical commercial interludes. Despite all this the film itself is presented, surprisingly, uncut (at least to the best of my knowledge) and includes all the copious nudity and blood originally shown in the US Theatrical version.

Here's the link to Count Dracula's Great Love.

For more Naschy madness I suggest you check out:

Panic Beasts (1983) - This was my first exposure to the great one, thus it holds a special place in my heart. Other fans don't seem to hold it in as high regard, but it is still great later era Naschy (he also writes and directs) with a fair amount of sex and violence to spice up a rather familiar ghost story.

Vengeance of the Zombies (1973) - My favorite Naschy movie, this one has it all: Naschy in a double role (one of which being SATAN himself!), topless female zombies filmed in slow-motion and some of the coolest makeup senor Molina has ever donned.

Night of the Werewolf (1981) - Naschy's own remake of The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman (which is itself a pseudo remake of Frankenstein's Bloody Terror) is in my opinion the best version. It mixes the Gothic feel of the earlier films with the bloodier, sexier aesthetic of 80s Naschy.

Note: this is the first of what I expect to be many "Flix of Fear" installments. In this regularly appearing segment I will point you towards films that can be streamed through Netflix instant watch service and other online streaming destinations (Hulu, etc.). If you don't have Netflix and like movies: What's wrong with you? In all seriousness the inclusion of the instant watch feature has made it the best deal in entertainment, you can watch thousands of movies either online or on your TV if you have an Xbox, Playstation or any of the myriad other streaming-ready devices. I completely stole the idea for this from Chud.com's "Watch this now" column. Apologies.

Not an Oldie, But Still a Goodie: Wrong Turn 2

2009-11-27T22:24:00.000-08:00

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End is clearly a product of Bizarro World. In our reality: straight-to-video sequels of movies that were only mediocre to begin with are not meant to be good. They arn't even meant to be mediocre. But Wrong Turn 2 is good. In fact out of a rash of films trying to rekindle horror fans' love of the "traditional" American slasher (films like the Adam Green's Hatchet, The Hills Run Red, and various remakes ala Friday the 13th) Joe Lynch's debut is probably the best.

I should probably give a caveat to my whole-hearted endorsement of this film right now: this movie is for a special kind of horror fan. This is for the kind of horror fan that scoffs at a PG-13 rating on a slasher film. The kind of person that doesn't give a crap if it is physically possible to cut an American Idol runner-up in half with an axe...long ways (hint: It's not). Joe Lynch made a movie for that guy who was once a kid who would read issues of Fangoria in his elementary school's cafeteria, trying to gross-out all the girls. (Hmmm...that last one was specific, who would do such a thing?) So if you are not "that kind of person" don't take my praise of Wrong Turn 2 as gospel...I'm not talking to you.

Wrong Turn 2 is Texas Chainsaw meets Just Before Dawn with a bit of newer films like Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes sprinkled over the top. I can define it as such because it wears its influences as a badge of honor, but don't worry the film is not merely pastiche.

The slasher film has become America's Kabuki. The plots and archetypes are so familiar to us that to try and turn them on their heads would be to betray the format entirely. What Lynch does so well with this film is that he takes these familiar elements and changes them ever so slightly. This is a hard concept for me to articulate but to illustrate:try and figure out who will be the last man or woman standing within the first half hour, bet you wont get it. The film does not stick slavishly to the normal "survivor girl" format that audiences have become so familiar with. This little change makes the film seem so much fresher while still providing the comfortable entertainment gorehounds crave.

The plot concerns the filming of a Survivor-like reality show pilot in the woods. Add to the hot young cast of the reality show the cannibal clan from the first film and you get the picture.

Lynch is an impressive hand behind the camera but the film is also chock full of other talent. The acting is not There Will Be Blood but it is lightyears removed from the standards that usually come attached to the "straight-to-disc" feature. Of special note in the cast is Henry Rollins (yeah, the spoken word/Black Flag guy) who is currently appearing on Sons of Anarchy. Rollins plays his character to the hilt and it really adds an extra layer to a film that probably would have been good enough without the extra help. Eagle-eared fans will also spot comedian Patton Oswalt in an audio-only cameo. The film also sports a score by Bear McCreary of Battlestar Galactica fame. The gore is top notch and copious.

This gem came out back in 2007, it garnered good buzz but Joe Lynch is only now in talks to make his second film. The disc includes some short behind the scenes stuff and a commentary with Lynch. It's clear he knows his stuff inside and out when it comes to horror. Why ain't this guy making more movies? Like I said....Bizzaro World.

The Read Shroud CONTEST!

2009-11-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, it's been quite a long time since a post. I've been super busy taking tests, writing papers and applying to grad schools. As busy as I am I would be remiss not to remind you that my print debut in Shroud issue #7 has finally arrived and to celebrate I'm holding a contest!

The rules are simple: buy a copy of Shroud #7 and take your picture with it. Send said picture to adamblomquist at gmail dot com with the subject SHROUD CONTEST along with your name and you will be entered to win fabulous prizes. If you don't want your mug on my harddrive just take a picture of the magazine and somekind of receipt/indicator that you didn't just find the picture online.* That's it.

What will the fabulous prize be you ask? Well it will be a brand new copy of Night of the Creeps on DVD along with a surprise book. If you already own/don't want that disc you will have the option of an alternate prize TBD. Depending on the number of entries I get there may be even more goodies added to the list: so re-post, tweet and spam it up, you'd only be helping your odds of winning something boss.

What are you waiting for? Order a copy here!

The Deadline for entries is December 15th.

*In the event you don't have a camera just forward the "your item has shipped" email from Shroud.

Hello Quad!

2009-11-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

The moment all of my faithful readers haven't even known they were waiting for is HERE!

I have a feature (that includes my story "Flies in the Brain") over at the BU Quad. While you're there check out some of their other incredible articles.

For those of you finding this page from The Quad, welcome. Stay a while. If you want to check out some more of my writing there are links to various zines on the sidebar. So kick up your heels, thanks for visiting.

Post-Halloween Wrap

2009-11-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

Not too much to report. I spent a quiet Halloween in instead of taking a trip to Salem this year. I walked around a bit and got to see some great costumes, then watched Tourist Trap (1979) which is bonkers.

The pumpkins above are from last week's carving festivities, they are both designs from Zombie Pumpkins. Mine is Chucky from Child's Play, the picture doesn't really do him justice.

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween.

Tune in tomorrow for a link to my new story running in BU's Independent Student Magazine: the BU Quad!

Future (Nearly) Perfect: Hardware

2009-10-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

Before tonight I had never seen director Richard Stanley's oft-talked about film (at least in genre circles) Hardware (1990). I'd gone this far without seeing the film in one of its many unofficial releases, no VHS dupes or under-the-table convention sales for me. All I can say is: good things come to those who wait.

I say that because hands-down the best part of Hardware is the visuals, and that's saying something when a film includes cameos from not only Iggy Pop but also Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead!

The story concerns a soldier, Moses (Dylan McDermott), who brings home a robotic skull for his shut-in artist girlfriend, Jill (Stacey Travis), to use in one of her pieces. The skull is actually a Government funded android soldier that re-assembles itself. As we all know government funded androids are never friendly, mayhem ensues.

The film is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia that is one part Mad Max, one part Blade Runner with a dash of Orwell-ian paranoia. Stanley and his cinematographer Steven Chivers do a wonderful job bringing us from the macro to the micro in the first ten minutes or so, giving us a taste of the world outside before locking us in one dilapidated apartment building for the rest of the film.

I enjoyed Stanley's other genre feature Dust Devil (1992, Subversive Cinema released a disc a few years back), but didn't quite see what all the hoopla was about. For me Hardware was the exact opposite, I came in not knowing what to expect and was very pleasantly surprised. How this film is not a classic (at least a fringe one) I cannot puzzle out. Stanley himself seems to be a bit of a divisive figure, with some critics throwing the word pretentious around. I don't see that at all: I'm a fan of any filmmaker who can visually reference Dali and Bunuel's Un chien andalou (1929) in a film about a killer robot who kills people with a powerdrill/phalis.

The film is not perfect (it really gets lost in cliches in the last half hour, but not enough to spoil the freshness and beauty of what came before it) but there is absolutely NO arguing against the disc itself. Severin Films: I love you. For the unfamiliar Severin bills themselves as the "Criterion of Smut." They've done a fantastic disc of the original Inglorious Bastards (1978), a bunch of Jess Franco films (which all had very entertaining interviews with the man himself) and one of my all-time favorite discs Lucio Fulci's Perversion Story (which ranks so highly because it includes a CD of the amazing soundtrack to the film).

They really went overboard with Hardware. Not only is the transfer colorful and sharp (why did I not get the Blu-ray? Doh!) but there are a bunch of great features on the second disc. The crown jewel being an hour long documentary that covers inception, pre-production, production, and release/reception (including an explanation why the film has gone so long without a proper release) and includes interviews with nearly all the major players (except Dylan McDermott). There is also a feature where Stanley discusses the sequel he wrote for the film, which sounds awesome (even though the director comes off as slightly loony) but will sadly never happen. Also included are three short films, one being the original super 8 version of what would become Hardware, and a few deleted/extended scenes.

If you're hungry for some cross-genre action or crave a little more food-for-thought with your gore: pick this up!

Not too Baaad: Animalada

2009-10-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

Argentinian filmmaker Sergio Bizzio's Animalada (2001) makes the viewer sensational promises in its first thirty minutes that the film never really fulfills. That's not to say that it is a bad film, actually it is quite an interesting mish-mash of different styles (Bizzio's influences seem to include such divergent talents as Hitchcock, early Peter Jackson and Pedro Almodovar) that culminates in a really gonzo final act that while not making much in the way of sense, is still fun.

The story concerns Alberto, a wealthy Buenos Aires resident summering in his country home with his wife when he falls in love with Fanny...a sheep. Alberto must try to keep his bizarre love affair under-wraps while increasingly strange events cause the bodies to pile up.You read that right: the film is a bestiality romantic horror comedy.

Bizzio's reach for artistic credibility with his otherwise silly subject matter is admirable. He tries to pack a bunch of satire and literary allusions into his film (the film has a particularly inspired opening that recalls Eugene Ionesco's classic absurdist play The Bald Soprano) but many of the arty touches in the second half only serve to bloat the film and weigh down the comedy.

The main problem with Animalada is one of pacing. Once the aforementioned first thrity minutes or so, the viewer expects the film to go wild and it does, but it still takes long pauses that seem like padding to get the film up to feature length.

I am a big fan of dark comedies and Animalada is similar in tone and style to one of my favorite filmmakers in the genre Alex de la Inglesia (1995's El dia de la Beastia, 2004's Crimen Ferpecto). Inglesia has seemed to have perfected the steady escalation in absurdity and mayhem that Bizzio's film seems to lack.

Gripes aside, Animalada is definitely filled with enough interesting ideas, genuine shocks and sick chuckles to warrant at least one viewing. It is available from Synapse Films, the crazies that bring you the 42nd Street Forever series.

Rock, Shock, and Loot : A Day at Rock And Shock 2009

2009-10-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

Nestled in the beautiful town of Worcester, Massachusetts every year there is a small quiet meeting of like-minded, church going individuals. Did you buy that? I didn't think so.

Rock and Shock is an annual horror convention/horror themed concert series. I have yet to attend any of the concerts (although this year they had The Misfits, who I find enjoyable) but for the past four years I have gone to the convention.

This year the guest of honor was Malcolm McDowell, hence I was doubly excited. I have an inexplicably affinity for/fascination with 1979's Caligula (I wrote a ten page final paper on the film) and thus had to have Caligula himself sign my rare 2 LP soundtrack. Outside of having one of the coolest resume's in film history (If..., A Clockwork Orange, Time After Time) McDowell is also a real class act, taking time out to talk to and take pictures with fans.

Outside of the movie biz there are also a number of horror writers in attendance. I fulfilled a yearly tradition by harassing Jack Ketchum. This year I had him sign a Spanish language edition of The Crossings, much to the amusement of scream queen Tiffany Shepis who then performed an impromptu reading from the book.

Either my agoraphobia is getting worse or the convention has seemed to double in attendance each year I go. I arrived around 1 o'clock and the crowds were modest but by the time I left it had become nearly impossible to wind through the aisles of the dealer's room. Some highlights include on-site tattooing, artists, rare DVDs, make-up demonstrations and enough t-shirts to clothe a small country (I picked up a snazzy Night of the Bloody Apes shirt from The House of Mysterious Secrets).

I only had time to attend one panel, but it was a good one. Director John Landis is a riot. He spoke about everything from Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers to how hilarious he finds the films of Roland Emmerich (His take on Independence Day: "I haven't laughed that hard since Richard Pryor") and gave some great anecdotes on his hits and misses(his stories from the set of Beverly Hills Cop 3 are classic). The interview really got me excited for Landis' return to features Burke and Hare a dark comedy staring Simon Pegg and David Tennant.

Rock and Shock doesn't quite have the appeal of New Jersey's Chiller Theatre, but then again it also does not have the decades of history behind it. Hopefully it will continue to grow and attract top level talent. For horror fans in the Boston area it is impossible not to recommend.

Crossing Lines: Crossed By Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows

2009-10-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

If you're familiar with the work of Garth Ennis (his comics classic Preacher or his newer superhero bashing opus The Boys, both of which are amazing, you should grab the trade paperbacks) then you know that he's not afraid of pushing reader's buttons. Be it organized religion or superman, Ennis will take it down to size. But if you haven't been reading Crossed, then, to paraphrase Bachman Turner Overdrive: you ain't seen nothing yet.

Crossed is Ennis and artist Jacen Burrows' new mini-series from Avatar Press, and while it takes ques from many end of the world "survival" stories, none have ever been this upsetting. That's not to say that Ennis' trademark pitch-black humor is missing here, there's just a lot less of it.

The setup is straight Romero with a twist. A group of strangers must band together to survive in a world gone crazy. The only problem is that this world didn't go zombie crazy, or even 28 Days Later "fast zombie" crazy, the infected in Crossed have become cunning, foul-mouthed rape/murder machines.

It's a tricky premise to pull off without veering too far into exploitation but I believe the team pulls it off perfectly. The violence is by no means glorified and many deaths take a big emotional toll on the reader even if the characters are not as fully fleshed out as they could be. The characters don't have to have huge back-stories to be sympathetic. The realistic art and small bits of characterization make them human, and that is all we need to empathize with their plight.

Burrows visualizes an abundance of gore but it is perhaps the tableaus before and after the violence that are the most disturbing part of his art.

It is most definitely not for everyone, but for the iron-stomached fan of writers like Richard Laymon or Edward Lee there is nothing in the horror comics field like Crossed.

Tradition Begats Tradition: Trick 'r Treat

2009-10-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

If you actively follow the goings-on of the horror film community, I'm sure you are aware of the phenomena I'm about to describe. You hear about a movie well before its release, websites tout exclusive stills and set visits, and then the glowing early reviews start to trickle in from the festival circuit. We've all been burned by high expectations set for a film that is undeservedly praised. Thus I approached Michael Dougherty's much-anticipated Trick 'r Treat with a healthy amount of skepticism. The reviews I had heard had just been too good to be true.

Trick 'r Treat deserves it. The film is fantastic. Now there is still a lot of hyperbole surrounding the film that will undoubtedly sour some people to it. So let me clearly state what it is not before I proceed to gush. What it is not: it is not a "serious" horror film. In fact there is quite a bit of gallows humor thrown in. I've read backlash from people on Amazon who (while obviously having poor taste) had no idea the kind of film they would be watching and once it was clear that this wasn't a slasher film, went on to berate the film for not being one.

What it is: the first real attempt to make a movie for the holiday we all love. Think of Trick 'r Treat as the Miracle on 34th Street of Halloween. You've probably heard similar descriptions in other reviews but this film is really a "for us, by us" kind of thing. A film that really gets what we like about the holiday in the first place. The folklore and the commercialization, the innocent joy we feel as a kid and the sleaziness we recognize as adults, if it's part of Halloween it shows up here.

The comparisons to Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt that you've heard are accurate. The film even tries to produce that same EC comics aesthetic, but I would suggest that Trick 'r Treat is better than those, in fact it is my favorite anthology film ever.

To categorize it as an anthology is also a bit of a cop-out, because it does not follow the traditional narrative structure for an anthology. There is no framing device and then three separate short films. The stories in Trick 'r Treat are interconnected and at times intercut, a tactic that greatly improves on the old format and alleviates what is a constant detractor in all anthologies: some stories are better than others. The intercuts ensure that even if a particular story is not your cup of tea, you wont have to stay with it until you are board and taken out of the film as a result.

The cinematography is gorgeous and slick. You can almost smell the pumpkins and dead leaves. The film was obviously made with a wide release in mind and it shows. The FX and production design are top notch. The cast is equally impressive with great turns from two of my favorite actors Dylan Baker and Brian Cox who both camp-it-up while still retaining their dignity and believability. There is also an appearance from the stunning Anna Paquin, who will hopefully sell some DVDs on her new found True Blood fame alone, and Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett.

But to every white puffy cloud there is a touch of gray. Warner Brothers treatment of this film has been abominable. First they let the film sit on the shelf for over a year only to unceremoniously dump it on their "Warner Premire" label where they release such "gems" as the straight-to-disc sequel to the remake of House on Haunted Hill. Not only that but they release it on a disc that has one three minute animated short and NOTHING else (which, despite being the only extra, is very cool). To add insult to injury there is a whole slew of extras available on the Blu-ray disc. Whoever made that decision should be fired. I can see the reasoning behind rewarding people for switching over to the new format by leaving off maybe one or two extras, but to release a bare-bones DVD only to punish fans is just odious.

So if you have a Blu-ray player be sure to pick up Trick 'r Treat on that format. If you don't I still highly encourage you to vote with your dollars and buy this disc. You will be supporting quality work and telling the studio what a stupid decision they made in not giving this a theatrical run. Don't let the extremists on either side ruin it for you. It's not the "best horror film evar" but if you love the holiday season, I know it will become a yearly staple in your home.

...It's just a pity Warner Bros. had to release it in such an undignified manner.

A Zombie Filled Day Continues: Feast of Flesh IX

2009-10-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended “J. Cannibal’s Feast of Flesh IX” at the Coolidge Corner Theater and it was a night of zombie themed madness that will be hard to forget. I’ve been in Boston for the last four years and this has been the first time I have been able to attend one of these (every show consists of a different band and film) and after walking out of last night’s; boy am I ashamed I’ve missed so many.

The evening started out with my hair and makeup girl (read: girlfriend) applying some bargain-basement Halloween face paint to make me look adequately undead. I then took the 10 minute walk to the theater, being met with a mix of amusement and bewilderment from the Brookline pedestrians.

Arriving at the Coolidge a half hour before show time I took my place in the line that had already wrapped around the block, and waited. Once we were all allowed inside we were greeted by the sounds of Walter Sicker & The Army of Broken Toys. The Army is one part spooky string ensemble and performance art troupe. They played several original numbers and a few covers (Johnny Cash and Elvis as I guarantee you’ve never heard them) all while delighting/disturbing with their onstage antics and encouraging the crowd to sing along. You should really check out their website and throw them some support if you like what you hear.

After the band’s brief set it was time for the first burlesque act of the night. A member of Black Cat Burlesque took the stage dressed as a blood-spattered Jackie O and then proceeded to strip town to American Flag pasties. Offensive? Yes, you don’t know the half of it. Hilarious and awesome? Yes, you don’t know the half of it.

After that came the costume contest. There was some great talent on display including a quartet of zombie Spice Girls and even a zombie “Dude” from The Big Lebowski. I really have to up my game next year and be a competitor.

The final act before the film was a preview of Black Cat Burlesque’s next show which is a salute to Edgar Allen Poe (next Saturday the 10^th at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, they are showing Dario Argento and George Romero’s Two Evil Eyes. I’ll see you there!). The piece was a Poe alcohol fueled fever-dream mixed with Benny Hill. It had remarkably cool costuming and production values and I can’t wait to see the rest of the show.

The main event was a screening of Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead (1985), a film near and dear to my heart. I’ve seen it a number of times but I don’t know if I ever enjoyed it as much as seeing it with hundreds of screaming, hooting and applauding fans. While eavesdropping, which is something I frequently do, I was shocked at how many people had never seen it before. Everyone enjoyed it and I’m glad those who weren't familiar had such a good venue for their first time. Even if it is strange to hear that a person dressed as a zombie hasn’t seen one of the biggest and best films out there.

The film was played at maximum volume, which is possibly the best way to watch the most “punk rock” zombie flick ever. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard any crowd go as wild as when Clu Gulager takes the Tar Zombie’s head off with a baseball bat. Pure bliss.

If you’re in the Boston area I cannot stress how awesome these events are. Check out Black Cat Burlesque and J. Cannibal’s websites for information on upcoming shows.

*The poster art above was done by Mister Reusch, a freelance artist and Co-Founder of Black Cat Burlesque. Check out his stuff here and here.

Woody Vs. The Living Dead: Zombieland

2009-10-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

I walked into a 2:15 showing of Zombieland today and was completely gobsmacked. The theater was absolutely packed. The movie had won me over before the trailers had even rolled. I was in an R-rated horror movie, at midday, in the largest theater in the multiplex and it was filled to capacity. That warmed the cockles of my heart.

As for the movie itself, it lived up to the theater's expectations (everyone was whooping and cheering), but maybe not to the impossibly great buzz that the critical community has hoisted on it. Don’t get me wrong; when Zombieland works it is one of the best horror comedies of all time. The problem is that it also tries to shoehorn in a lot of dramatic moments that don’t always jive with the rest of the film, all while trying to maintain its light, goofy tone. Tonal shifts are no problem. Shaun of the Dead (it is literally impossible not to mention that other zombie comedy) is a great example; in its final act it straddles the line between comedy and straight-zombie movie with apparent ease. Zombieland never attempts this kind of balancing act. That’s great, it wasn’t Ruben Fleischer’s intent to ape Shaun, but those looking for either a laugh-a-minute comedy or a “scary” film might be a bit disappointed as the movie is really neither.

One area it doesn’t skimp is the gore. Zombies are dispatched in some gruesomely hilarious ways. There are some wonky moments in the finale but outside of that the effects are generally great. They are a good mix of traditional makeup and tastefully done CGI.

The young cast does a good job but it should come as no surprise that the real star here is Woody Harrelson. The man owns every scene he’s in and his character, Tallahassee, is destined to stand just below Ash (Bruce Campbell) and Peter (Ken Foree) as one of cinema’s top zombie killing badasses.

Also, I’m sure it’s been mentioned in other reviews but the film might have one of the best credits sequences of all time. Period.

To be totally honest with you, I’m a little tired of zombies. The genre has been glutted with films (both good and bad) over the past few years, but Zombieland is a film that gets it right. It’s a funny, smart, well-made film that keeps the self reference to a minimum and focuses on delivering good old zombie-smashing fun. I wouldn’t categorize it as a classic (and it definitely doesn’t de-throne Shaun of the Dead), but there is probably no better way to mix some laughs in with your blood this weekend.

Now for some more zombies: I’m attending a midnight screening of the 80s classic Return of the Living Dead!

Hooray October!

The Girl's Got Bite: Deadgirl

2009-10-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel's feature directorial debut, Deadgirl, is a coming of age story like no other. To describe it as a mix of Stand By Me and Night of the Living Dead would not be wholly inaccurate, but it would be a bit of a disservice to the originality on display.

The film centers on two high school friends who cut class to go drink in an abandoned building only to stumble on a chained and naked woman who, they find out, cannot be killed. The plot revolves around the ideological split between the two friends. The quieter of the two, Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez), wants to do the right thing and tell someone about the girl and the other, JT (Noah Segan) wants to keep the girl for sex. Add to this a meddling third friend, a love interest for Rickie, and a couple of jock bullies and you have an exciting film that's heavy on social and sexual commentary, but never too heavy.

Far too often horror films that choose to purposely imbue feminist readings and other allegorical flourishes into their narrative fall flat, but Deadgirl will incite debate and thought without having to sacrifice any power as a story that can be taken at face value.

The film is written by Troma alum Trent Haaga and for all the its ingenuity the script also proves to be one of its few shortcomings: characters act in inexplicable ways, the action drags in places, and the dialogue could use some work. None of these are major flaws and once the film gets to its action-loaded final act they all but disappear.

Dark Sky Films, an outfit known mostly for their great re-issues of older films (some highlights include Simon, King Of the Witches, Werewolves on Wheels, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) deserves a thumbs up for acquiring and releasing the film. I do feel that the bonus materials could have used a little beefing up (the only "making of" material is a short EPK and a commentary) but for such a modestly budgeted effort like this it's great we have any material at all.

Although it's not perfect, Deadgirl is still a dark, sharply-photographed film that tries to do something different and for that it is more than worth picking up.

Fritz, Meet Beasto: Rob Zombie's The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

2009-09-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have defended Rob Zombie's much-poo-pooed film career on this site before. I feel The Devil's Rejects is a very good film, and that the rest of his oeuvre does not deserve the kind of demonization it has accrued with many internet critics. Earlier this month Zombie gave me reason to revoke my meaningless "internet geek seal of approval." Halloween 2, to put it politely, was abysmal, in fact it was one of the many reasons I haven't had an installment in a while. I usually like to keep things upbeat, write about films and books that I really like, I felt it unfair to kick Zombie when he was down, the internet had enough bile in it already.

That's the bad news, the good news is that less than a month after that train wreck comes Rob Zombie Presents: The Haunted World of El Superbeasto a straight to video, adults-only animated feature film. Fans may remember Zombie hawking this as his next project right after the release of Rejects in 2006, well it seems to have had quite a bumpy road to release but here it is.

I wasn't expecting a lot, the words "straight to video" never inspire much confidence, but as a throw back to a genre that never really got off the ground (the "adult" cartoon ala Fritz the Cat, Heavy Metal, etc.) Superbeasto could not work better. I've heard the words "juvenile", "filthy" and "dumb" thrown around about this film, and that is a very accurate way to describe it, but I wouldn't use them in a negative way.

The plot is threadbare, but this ain't Shakespeare: El Superbeasto is a has-been Luchador/superhero whose life revolves around strip clubs and the hot wings found in strip clubs, he is forced to do some actual hero work when the villainous Dr.Satan kidnaps the "stripper of his dreams" in order to gain the powers of hell. On his adventure he teams up with his secret agent sister Suzi X ( voiced by Sheri Moon Zombie) and her lovesick robot ( comedian Brain Posehn). All this is set among some of the grossest, most offensive and funniest animation in years.

The reason I like Superbeasto so much is because it is the perfect venue for Zombie to fully indulge in the creative quirks that gently annoy some people and infuriate others. His penchant for including over-written dialogue, endless genre cameos and oodles of popculture refrences and namechecking are the things that made Halloween 2 such a chore to sit through, but in Beasto's cartoon world they seem right at home. Some of the film's biggest laughs come from sight gags that only genre fans will get (i.e. Dr. Phibes playing the organ at a wedding, Varla from Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! sharing a beer with Otis from Rejects, etc.).

Far and away the best part of Superbeasto is its outstanding cast of voice actors, the imdb reads like a laundry list of genre stars, and even though quite a few of them only get a line or two, it's admirable that Zombie went through the trouble of tracking these people down. Aside from the genre stars the cast also includes Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti chewing some serious cartoon scenery as Dr. Satan and geek it-girl Rosario Dawson doing a hilariously un-PC voice for the stripper-in-peril Velvet Von Black.

The animation is smooth and polished-looking. The whole affair has a very Sponge Bob meets Tex Avery look (especially the scene in which we are introduced to Velvet, which plays like an X-rated version of Avery's classic "Red Hot Riding Hood" ). The film even has a few musical numbers (with music provided by Hard 'n Phirm) and some of these prove to be truly standout moments (a profane riff on a School House Rock segment comes to mind).

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto has all the subtlety of a freight train coupled with the intelligence and maturity of a 13 year old boy who has skipped one too many doses of Ritalin, if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, stay far away, but if you like your cartoons lewd, crude and blood splattered pick this up pronto!

Blood, Boobs & Beast... and Heart

2009-09-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

John Paul Kinhart's documentary Blood, Boobs & Beast explores the life and cinema of DIY filmmaker Don Dohler. It shares many qualities with this years fantastic rockumentary Anvil!: The Story of Anvil and the classic homemade-movie-epic American Movie but while each of those film's protagonists can be seen as wide eyed dreamers and in they end instill us a somewhat goofy mix of pity and admiration, we never feel that Dohler is "out of touch."

Dohler reaches the height of his success at the midway point of the film (which is comprised of recent interviews, vintage home movies, and behind the scenes clips of Dohler's last film) and the modest level of success he rose to (his impressive involvement in the underground comics movement which gave him some early brushes with fame, his launch of a do-it-yourself SFX magazine called Cinemagic which helped impart the inspiration and know-how that many talented artists needed to break into the industry, and his first few films, one of the best of which-Nightbeast-is included in this 2-disc set) is inspirational without the touch of "let's laugh at the hero" irony found in similar docs.

The film takes a disheartening turn in its second half when we see Dohler take a back seat to some of his collaborators, squeezing out cheap shot-on-video exploitation film that trade the sci-fi element that originally interested him in filmmaking for cheap gore effects and gratuitous, pointless nudity(the film's title is a play on the "three B's" Blood, Boobs, and Beast, which are needed to insure an independent horror film gets distribution, much to Mr. Dohler's chagrin this "way of the world" axiom permeates the bulk of the creative discussions he has with his partners)

I spoil nothing when I tell you that the film ends on a note that makes it drastically different than those more "uplifting" films. On the back cover (and in the DVD's introduction with Troma head Lloyd Kaufman) it is revealed that Dohler recently passed away in 2006. The film's final scenes, in which it is quite apparent that the cancer diagnosed during filming will kill Dohler, are heart-rending and frustrating. Don Dohler wasn't a crazy dreamer, he was fully aware of the short comings of his films, but the ones he was most proud of, the ones that are set apart by their ambition and good-natured do-it-yourself aesthetic are the ones that he will be remembered for. While it is sad, this film is a crucial companion to Dohler's films. It helps us to better understand and sympathize with the fan, filmmaker, and family man who so passionately threw himself into an industry that never really accepted him.

I can't recommend this movie enough, great stuff.

Schlock: The Secret History of American Movies

2009-08-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

I went into Ray Greene's 2001 documentary Schlock: The Secret History of American Movies thinking that it would be a bit of a waste for me. I would say I'm somewhat familiar with the exploitation films of the 50s and 60s, and worried that the film would not contain anything I didn't know. I was SO wrong, with its great collection of interviews and well-researched narration the film left me surprised, informed and delighted. It is not the names or content of the films that matter but the overall narrative of early exploitation that Greene constructs for the viewer.

The film's strength lies in its great collection of interviewees. David F. Friedman (H. G. Lewis collaborator and producer of Blood Feast and The Acid Eaters), Doris Wishman (Bad Girls Go to Hell, and, according to the film, the most prolific female director of the sound age), Roger Corman (legendary producer/writer/director/talent-magnet), Harry Novak (prolific sexploitation producer) and a bunch of other equally distinguished guests relate anecdotes and commentary as Greene examines the main movements of 50s and 60s exploitation (Teen, Sexploitation, "Roughies," Horror, etc.) in chronological order. Some highlights include both Forrest J. Ackerman and Harry Novak taking swipes at the success of Blood Feast. Forry just wrinkles his nose and politely declines to comment on the film while Novak takes the less-than-classy path and regards the film with absolute contempt(and, if I'm not mistaken, a touch of jealousy that he didn't think of it first). There are also some priceless self deprecating lines from Doris Wishman and some delightful and thought-provoking weirdness from Maila Nurmi (a.k.a Vampira). For me the highlight of the film is Friedman recalling stories from the road show circuit of the fifties. He laughs and describes the days when he and other producers were peddling "educational" films that featured childbirth and VD as "sexy."

The film could have easily been three hours if Greene had chosen to cover the exploitation of the 70s and 80s, but he instead chooses to end with the formation of the MPAA (and some bittersweet footage of a drive-in being demolished). He implies(convincingly) that the studios' ability to show sex and violence diminished the appeal and need for filmmakers and producers like those interviewed.

They may seem crude by today's standards, but I dare you to watch this film and not have your Netflix queue balloon. A good percentage of these films are available on double feature discs from Something Weird Video (which use quantity of features to make up for what they normally lack in transfer quality) and many of the Corman/AIP films covered have readily available editions.

The film poses questions about the artistic validity of the films, and while almost all the filmmakers deny any "messages" Greene's documentary definitely leaves you pondering.