After Midnight, Behind the Closet Door

My Bloody Valentine Review

2012-02-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Heart Day Humans.

I gotta admit…I have been dreading writing this review. I know how much of you love this movie, but for years every time I sat down to watch it I liked it a little less. The pacing in the first half is slow, the killer isn’t that frightening or interesting looking (I mean, seriously, he is a miner in a gas mask) and the characters are unforgivably stupid. But before you pull out your torches and pitchforks, let me just say that I recently popped in the legendary uncut version and it’s actually much better. The special effects are awesome! In a time where the innovation of making the innards of humans look real thrived, it confuses me how for almost three decades, the literal “meat” of this movie was buried under a pile of celluloid and the dreams of a begrudged director.

The backwater mining town of Valentine Bluffs is under the murderous siege of Harry Warden, a gas masked pickaxe wielding heart ripping murderer who hates Valentine’s Day. You see, back in the early 60’s, Harry and his fellow mining crew were killed in a methane gas explosion caused by the incompetence of the crew’s foreman. This was because the town was holding its annual Valentines Day dance and he was in a rush to get to the party, leaving his post unattended. Harry managed to stay alive down there for six weeks, eating the flesh of his co-workers. But consuming your friends while rotting tens of feet below the ground makes humans go crazy apparently, and Harry was committed to a mental institution. On the one year anniversary of Harry’s tragedy, he escaped and ripped out the heart of the reckless foreman responsible for the accident. So the legend goes, he stalks the town on Valentines Day, ready to continue his horrible murder spree if anyone ever holds another Valentines celebration. But now, twenty years later, the town of Valentine Bluffs is finally ready to try pissing on the electric fence and decide to hold another Valentine’s Day dance. Predictably, the bodies pile up and the Mayor tries to cancel the dance. But the local horny teenagers reject this reality and substitute it for their own by holding their own party, unbeknownst to the Mayor or the Chief of police, who work to capture the elusive Harry Warden. All the while, a love triangle between a young girl named Sarah and her two potential lovers, T.J. Hanniger and Axel Palmer commences throughout the film.

Before I get into what I don’t like, I want to emphasize the idea of a crazy killer whose motivation is to murder those who wish to openly celebrate Valentines Day is highly entertaining. My initial dislike of this movie comes from a general exasperation I feel for the slasher genre. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good gore brigade as much as the next blood thirsty lusus naturae. But too often, I find many of these movies are based around the stereotype of a masked, heavy breathing barbarian hacking up a bunch of sex crazed over medicated frat kids. We’ve seen it before and we still do, constantly. It’s difficult not to think of a million examples of the still living and breathing slasher genre. Off the top of my head, I know of a few films currently in production, like the remake of the cult classic Maniac, as well as a couple new movies, (Hack/Slash, Chained and a 100 Bloody Acres). A good slasher film generally incorporates a combination of an unsettling killer and atmosphere, a cleaver twist, the inclusion of likeable and annoying characters, and impressive special effects.

First off, I don’t find gas masks scary. This is because they tend to make me think of army/navy surplus stores. When I think of a cleaver slasher mask, I think of the William Shatner white face worn by Michael Myers in Halloween. The mask was eerie because it looked too synthetic to be human but still had the basic shape of a human face. This was emphasized by the fact that it was painted pure white, taking away even more subtle nuances of a human face. The end result was a face that looked vague and neutral. When you saw Myers, you knew there was no discussion with this guy; he had his mind set on what he was going to do to you. I get why Harry Warden wore a gas mask, he was dressed in his old miner’s outfit. It works, especially given the fact that the characters are all miners, making it ambiguous as to whether it really was Harry who was killing everyone. But it always came off to me as a cheap alternative to creating an original face of fear. Not bad, but it screams for a touch up.

Despite this, the atmosphere in the movie is actually pretty good. The mine is impressive and that has a lot to do with the fact that it was shot on location. Also, the ending twist wasn’t bad at all. It actually reminded me of the twist in Friday the 13^th, but I’ll leave that for you guys to decide for yourselves. I am very happy to give these aspects a pass. However, the behavior of the protagonist’s was so fucking stupid, I was unable to care what happened to the majority of them. They get upset about the cancelation of the Valentine’s Day dance and they know about the threat of Harry Warden. Still they decide to hold a party anyway, despite the warnings of the police chief Jake Newby. To make matters worse, to impress their girlfriends, a bunch of the miners decide to take their girls down into the mine for a tour all the while drinking like a bunch of bloated grannies at a family reunion. I enjoy a few chuckle headed idiots in my slasher films. After all, it’s fun to generate that desire to see them kick the bucket. But if all the characters behave like a bunch of dumb shits, the movie becomes predictable and I no longer care about their ensuing shenanigans. This is really what bogs this movie down so much. That, and the lack of special effects.

At least that is how I felt before watching the unrated version, released in the 2009 Lionsgate distributed DVD. For those who don’t know, over 9 minutes of the film was cut out of it’s original version, leaving out a great deal of the gore and violence. But without it, all that was left was a bunch of sloppy teenage drunks lining up on the slaughter house conveyor belt. Don’t get me wrong, I am a purist more often than not and believe that once a movie is released, it should probably stay that way. After all, what is a final cut if not the final version of a movie? But now that this footage has been put back into the film the way the director initially intended, I can see how much better this was supposed to be in the first place. Some of these special effects were so fantastic, it begs an explanation from the MPAA. My favorite effect was the cadaver in the washing machine. The differences between the theatrical and unrated versions are minimal, mostly a few extra close ups of the manikin. But the body is so rotten and waterlogged, as if it had been shoved inside the machine the night before and put through a flesh melting spin cycle. Those extra little touches really make all the difference when watching a film meant to show off the gore. All I have to say is, awesome!

The censorship of this film was nothing more than pure unadulterated defamation to what could have been (and in 2009 hopefully did become) a staple of the genre for mainstream audiences. Luckily, the film gained a strong cult following during its initial release. Without the huge outcry of its fans we never would have the movie in its entirety like this. Also the fact that the remake came out that year helped a lot to push this re-release, but we will chat about that movie later. If you love a good slasher this is definitely a classic worth watching, but stick to the unrated version or else you are missing out. There are some pretty grizzly moments to be had here. Even I can get over my prejudices for the average slasher film while watching it, factoring in of course that My Bloody Valentine was one of the early ones, and therefore the learning curve the genre was going through make the flaws even more acceptable. So long as you keep this in mind, you are in for an awesome ride. So grab your box of chalk flavored sweet hearts, dim the lights and get your hands on a copy of My Bloody Valentine. You won’t be disappointed.

By the way, I know you people will hate me if I don’t compliment this guy’s mustache…It is a fine mustache indeed. And yes, he is the most sympathetic character in the movie.

Bongcheon Dong and Ok-Su Station Ghost Stories A.K.A. The 2011 Mystery Shorts

2012-02-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

I hope you don’t plan on going to sleep anytime soon. That is my job after all; to frighten you all into the piss puddle induced state of a creepy wo/man baby. But tonight’s horror doesn’t come from yours truly. Actually, this frightmare of a double feature is a series of pieces made by an artist from the Orient.

The Bongcheon-Dong and Ok-Su Station Ghost Stories are original comic strips written and animated by Studio Horang, a Korean writer/director/blogger who has managed to keep a pretty low profile on the internet circuit in the English speaking countries of the world. Very little is known about the artist. Many fellow internet creepers (like myself) have stated the artist’s name is Jong-Ho Choi, but they are all citing the blogger named Robot 6 as their main source (you can check out his stuff here). As I write this, there is currently only one video on Horang’s youtube page, and it is a 46 second music video for the Korean band C-Kret (the opening of an anime maybe? I don’t know. I don’t watch a lot of that stuff...here is the link anyway http://www.youtube.com/user/StudioHORANG/videos). Much like Horang, I was unable to find very much about C-Kret (however, you can find the vocalist, Gaya’s website at http://www.aragaya.net/ check it out. That is, if you happen to know how to read Kanji). Despite Horang’s incredible obscurity, he has made a huge splash in the digital cesspool that is the internet with his incredibly short and sweet horror series, the 2011 Mystery Shorts, consisting of the two horrifying ghost stories I am sharing with you tonight.

These two horror stories, short as they are, are jam packed with Lovecraftian elements. Specifically, they instigate the fear of a supernatural influence over an urban setting. Bongcheon Dong is a housing division in Seul, South Korea and Oksu Station is an actual train line in the same city as Bongcheon Dong (probably the home town of Horang himself). Not only that, but they introduce characters that are completely out of control of their current ghostly situation and unable to comprehend the horrors that await them until it is too late.

As I stated before, I hope you were not planning on getting much sleep, because I guarantee that at least one of these two horrifying web comics will keep your eye lids glued to the tip of your scalp. I am reluctant to give away too much information on these pieces other than they are very eerie and claim to be based on “true events”. Horang manages to put the reader directly into the setting of the pieces within their first panels, as well as develop a very frightening mood, seemingly without an ounce of effort.

I mean, look at this. Even out of context, this image is bound to haunt anyone’s nightmares.

I fear that any more commentary I may be able to add would only detract from the experience of these nightmare inducing stories. So without further ado, I present to you Studio Horang’s 2011 Mystery Shorts. Read them and judge for yourselves just what makes these damn things so haunting. I recommend beginning with the Bongcheon-Dong Ghost Story first. Normally, I’d say save the best for last, but the Bongcheon-Dong Ghost Story really enhances the reading experience of the Ok-Su Station Ghost Story; forcing you to wonder what is going to happen in each on coming panel.

You can read the Bongcheon-Dong Ghost Story with an english translation here:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=31&weekday=tue

And, of course, the Ok-Su Station Ghost Story with an english translation here:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=30&weekday=tue

I for one hope to see more from Horang, and anxiously look forward to the opportunity of sharing many more narcoleptic nights with his horrifying work. I hope you feel the same as I do about these creepy fucking stories. And as a very sexy woman once said while waving goodbye on the show Movie Macabre, until next time, "unpleasant dreams".

Shockfest: The Complete Application Collection

2012-02-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

Hello Meat!

A couple of months ago, I posted a video application for the position of host for Shockfest film festival. I am sure some of you got a chance to watch it, but in fact, there were actually four videos in total, two of which never went viral. So, I wanted to share with you all the complete collection of video applications. The process to get the job was very tedious and took a lot out of me. After all, I killed a cat, raised the dead, and summoned a demon inside of an orphan all in one month. The wonderful people at Shockfest did eventually get back to me. The end result? They shared a wonderful long weekend with me as their host of 2011. Thank you all for the absolutely frightful experience. So, without further ado, here they are. I hope you enjoy them.

*I would also love to add a special thanks to the following people for making these video applications possible.

Dustin Gardner

Keith Wyrick

Joe Bou

Mai Mai

Nique Rose

Pat Jankiewicz

Edward and Victoria Plumb

Guil and Alesha Claveria, and all the good people of Shockfest Film Festival

May you all rest in a horrific slumber.

Solicitation #1

Solicitation #2

Solicitation #3

Solicitation #4

Ravenous Review

2012-01-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

Sup, delicious humans!

I have missed every single one of you, as I hope you did me. I beg you pardon my triple month disappearance, but I have been taking culinary classes. I am currently perfecting my recipe for toddler tartar. It’s coming along pretty well, though I must admit I am having a little trouble with the marinade. If anyone is interested in following my chiefscapades, you will be glad to know that I will soon provide you step by step instructions on the preparation of my new dish. That is, as soon as I manage to get my hands on a real kitchen, rather than a leftover hotplate I found in the depths of the closet.

The series of events that stimulated my interest in the culinary arts unfolded after a private screening of the hunger pain inducing movie, Ravenous. The movie is set in the mid 1800’s during the Mexican American war. Lt. John Boyd (Guy Pearce) is granted a promotion after he single handedly captures the enemies’ fort. However, Boyd’s superiors don’t feel he is worthy of his new post, since the methods implemented to accomplish his goal were embarrassingly cowardly. You see Boyd really doesn’t have the stomach for violence. Early in the battle he played possum, watching his company fight and die around him. As he waited out the carnage, he accidentally sampled some blood from a dead soldier. Upon consuming the blood he discovered that it had rejuvenative powers, enriching him with a newfound vigor. Pumped, he snuck out from under a pile of bodies and singlehandedly captured the enemies’ fort, winning the battle. However, unable to let Boyd’s initial cowardice go unpunished, his commanding officers ship him to the remote Fort Spencer in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they could be sure he would never see action on the battlefield again. There, he meets his new unit consisting of such appetizing human actors as Jeffrey Jones and David Arquette.

Soon after Boyd gets himself situated, a strange man collapses just outside of the Fort. His name is Mr. Colqhoun and he is one of the last survivors of a lost caravan somewhere in the Sierra Mountains. Once his party’s food supply disappeared, they were forced to eat their dead in order to survive. They kept that going for as long as possible, but once their numbers dwindled to nothing, Colqhoun decided to flee from the party in hopes of finding help. With this morbid story, Colqhoun successfully convinces everyone there is still a survivor in the woods eating the last of his party members. Feeling obligated to help the poor souls; the soldiers and Colqhoun embark on a journey to save the lost survivors. Unfortunately for them, they soon realize that they are actually the victims of a horrible trap. So of course, culinary hijinks ensue.

(FYI, Colqhoun is pronounced: COLQ like COWL and HOUN as HOON like the word SOON).

Three elements of the film really stick out at me as particularly well done: the choice of monster, the acting but most of all the music. The scrumptious human Antonia Bird is the director of the film, and I am rather surprised at how good of director she is. For a short while, I wondered why I hadn’t heard of her before, but then I learned she mostly directs British Television. It’s hard enough to tap into the walls of the house I squat in and steal American cable from the Groves, so there is no chance in hell that I would ever have decent exposure to her work. It was also surprising to see that Antonia’s genre of choice is generally not horror. I have seen many other movies from people who have dedicated their lives to make horror pictures and still cannot pull together a good suspenseful piece like this, even in exchange for the key to the basement I locked them in (I’m sure Herschell Gordon Lewis will claw his way out of that rat trap some day). This movie’s existence is rather refreshing to me, because it proves that really good movies can (and often do) slip through the cracks of mass audience appeal and/or exposure. It gives me hope to continue digging through the annals of bad movies in hopes of finding those ever elusive hidden gems of the film world. But most importantly, it makes me hungry.

The monster isn’t all that common in most modern horror movies. Sure, we have all watched episode two of Supernatural, but besides that, I don’t right recall many horror movies about this particular cryptid (I am not counting the 2001 horror film Wendigo by Larry Fessenden…I want to save that discussion for another day). In case you have never heard of a Wendigo, it is an Algonquin mythological beast that was once human, but has transformed do to the over consumption of human meat and possession by an evil spirit. They behave like wild animals, prowling the night in search of victims. Though the Wendigos in this film behave a lot more like vampires than wild animals. They spend their time mingling with humans, but only as a ruse to cover their morbid actions more effectively and choose who their next victims will be. The Wendigos powers are also vampiric in nature; eating human meat gives them a significant boost to their immune system and increases their strength and stamina. With that said, why not make this a vampire film?

Though this movie would have been just fine as a vampire flick, making the monsters Wendigos with vampiric traits allows the audience to instantly sympathize with the unfamiliar monsters in a familiar way. For the past twenty five years, the market has been over flooded with content about those pasty faced lust buckets, usually written for prepubescent human twats. I feel confident in saying that when it comes to vampires, we want to see something very new; Anne Rice filled the quota for whiny vampires for the next half a century (Someone forgot to inform Stephanie Myer). Using a different monster opens the doors for old topics to be made fresh without the conflict coming off as too old hat. There is little Wendigo content to dispute the nature of the beast, that it is ok to incorporate new ideas without pissing off your average Wendigo fan and still managing to captivate a massive audience (once again, somebody forgot to inform Stephanie Myer). We can discuss such topics as addiction, the natures of good and evil, and of course, the morality of survival tactics without leaving the audience yawning the ever famous mantra while leaving the theatre, “John Carradine did it better”. While the film sadly didn’t succeed in captivating a mass audience at the time of its release, using an unfamiliar monster at the bare minimum provided the film with a hint more originality than it’s standard blood sucking compadre. But what is a really original monster without a good cast to help bring the creature to life?

A good ensemble cast requires good talent, just as a delectable Shepherds Pie requires a sweet, juicy carcass. The casting of Ravenous is one of the movie’s finer sweet spots to be sure. The delicious human actors Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle work off each other so well, playing characters that have completely polar opposite senses of morality.

Boyd is a pragmatic pacifist, who adheres violence, unless under the threat of bodily harm. Though, because he is a soldier and killing is his job, his desire for self-preservation frequently causes others around him to get hurt, which is why he is often labeled a coward. This is seen by his initial action of playing dead during the Mexican American war. It is also seen as he tries to run away, even when Cl. Ives has just killed his fellow soldiers outside of the cannibal cave (I’m not really spoiling much, this happens too early on in the movie to ruin). I must admit I have never seen another Guy Pearce movie, and I am glad to have this be my introduction to his work. His ability to internalize the conflict and project the pain it causes his character onto his face generates a great deal of sympathy. I also enjoy watching his frustration grow as he fights to convince his fellow soldiers that Ives is in fact a man-eater. Even more enjoyable is the look he gets every time he is mortally wounded and must either eat human flesh or die horribly. You can almost see the back and forth going on in his head up to the very second he decides, “fuck it” and finally digs in. It gets me every time.

To noms, or not to noms.

Cl. Ives (Robert Carlyle) on the other hand plays a complete Nihilist; he feels no remorse for his insatiable appetite and even embraces it as his nature, which he would gladly sate at any point. Carlyle plays the part with such an unapologetic dispensation that you can’t help but fall in love with him. You even begin to sympathize with him as you learn about the unfortunate events that brought him to choose the life of a Wendigo. His actions aren’t justified, but the appeal of watching him is seeing how Carlyle makes Ives feel justified for eating people. Hmmm…Understanding the monster to a point that you humans may finally know why we do the things we do. What a novel idea. Take a note, human horror film makers; I want more of this. If I wanted to watch boring, one dimensional, teenage characters face poorly written conflicts, I’d watch Glee.

Despite the talents of our two leads, my favorite two human actors by far are Jeffrey Jones and David Arquette.

This film proved to be one of the last of Jeffrey Jones’ acting career of the millennia (he followed up with Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow). Though I can’t condone anything he may have done for his presence to significantly diminish from the Hollywood circuit, his performance in Ravenous is a bittersweet reminder of how much his talent is missed on the big screen. Jones plays Col. Hart, Boyd’s superior officer at Fort Spencer. He is a crippled and sickly old man who takes a shining to Boyd, as he is one of his few fellow soldiers with a tortured past and conflicted disposition to match his own. Hart was once a mountain of a man, but in his old age grew sickly and frail. He loves to read philosophy (he quotes Benjamin Franklin and Aristotle) and eat walnuts. Despite his overqualified credentials, he has resigned himself to the glorified position of father to a bunch of drunken and “overly medicated” ninnies working beneath him at this baron way station. You see him crave his youth, as he smashes a handful of walnuts with a thick heavy book, even though he was once strong enough to squeeze the nuts free with his bare hand. All the while he watches his life slink slowly down the drain of mediocrity and thankless employment. Actually, Col. Hart is one of the main reasons why I keep coming back to watch this movie. He goes through such an interesting character arc so Faustian that I can’t help but love the on and off screen drama of this character. Jones seamlessly slips into this performance, playing a resigned man to his midlife misfortunes and his loss of control over his own faculties. Actually, reflecting on this can be very eerie on dark and stormy nights. It is tough not to notice the similarities in tone of Cl. Hart’s frustration and Jones’ own current real life situation. One wonders if Cl. Hart’s Vonnegut esque (“so it goes”) attitude on life is not too dissimilar to Jones’ about his status as a Hollywood celebrity. I suggest you read up on the man, watch this movie, and heed my words. You may enjoy the frosty chill of celebrity misfortune.

Finally, I feel the need to talk about the performance of the human actor David Arquette. He plays Cleaves, a low ranking private in Col. Hart’s regalia. Cleaves spends the majority of his free time smoking marijuana and eating peyote. Despite my initial low expectation of this performance, I am happy to report that Arquette far exceeded my expectation. The stereotypes of the drug fiend have become so familiar that most portrayals tend to be more of a parody than an authentic emulation. However, Arquette depicts the attitude of a reckless but loving adolescent rather than a Ninja Turtles Stereotype. But Arquette’s real shining moment is during a grizzly dream sequence, where Boyd stabs Cleaves and goes to town chomping down on his liver. As Cleaves slowly dies, he laughs antagonistically at the sight of Boyd giving into his darkest hunger. The scene only lasted for about half a minute, but this one performance reminded me of another actor well versed in the portrayal of bit creepy parts, the late and great Dwight Frye. Specifically, what comes to mind is Frye’s performance as Renfield in Carl Laemmle’s Dracula. Renfield begins the movie as a straight man, with no particular substance to him other than his desire to sell some property in London to Count Dracula. But after Dracula submits him to obedience, Renfield becomes a twisted nutcase with a morbid hunger for insects. The transformation between these two very different personalities is seamless and makes the character intimidating, since his personality shifts so abruptly. It is an art to give a side character substance and diversity, especially when that character has so little on screen time. But for Aruqette to win me over, it only took a laugh. For This performance, I offer Arquette a blood-curdling scream of approval.

The music is very peculiar in this film. The tasty human composers, Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn did a fantastic job creating a series of haunting melodies, which alone are eerily beautiful, but juxtaposed to the gorgeous cinematography, make for some fascinating content. The gritty composition really puts you into the world of this 18^th century military fort in the Sierra Mountains. The music sounds like it was written and recorded a long time ago by some primitive backwater jug band, yet the music itself would translate beautifully if performed by a philharmonic orchestra. The awkward playing of the musicians and the off key instruments they played on created a foreign and unsettling atmosphere, giving character to the beautiful scenery portrayed throughout the movie. In this way, it mirrors the gritty music often used to set the stage for such period pieces as “Once Upon A Time In The West” and “A Man For All Seasons”. It’s that grizzled and dated edge in the music that really helps capture the flavor of the setting and set the mood for this piece. It also sticks out to me as the most identifiable aspect of this movie. It just goes to show you how much a good score can affect your film.

If you are looking for a brilliant and rare horror movie, Ravenous comes highly recommended by yours truly. The monster is original, but incorporates familiar character traits of other monsters to keep it fresh. Also, every character and performance is authentic and distinct. But to top it all off, the haunting composition draws you in and keeps your ass planted firmly in your seat from start to finish. At the end of the day, these details are simply that; details. But these details make this movie one of my favorite period horror films ever made. So grab your walnuts, slice your wrists and poor yourself a glass of that ol' Jesus Juice. Because if his is good enough to drink every sunday, then surely yours is good enough for the rest of the six days of the week.

*Just a quick note about Vampire films. I don't think vampires are on their way out. I am only saying that they are embedded much deeper into the mainstream than Wendigos are. Thus, making an original Wendigo movie is a lot more easy than an original Vampire movie.

**By the way, expect a lot more content from me this year. Jeffrey is stepping out to paint the town with buckets of Babies' Blood.

Shockfest Host Application

2011-10-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

I have finally decided after 800 years to take a step out from behind the closet door and take on the moving pictures industry by its devilish horns. Get ready Hollywood. Here comes Jeffrey.

Come check out more about shockfest here

FemVamp.com Review

2011-09-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

You know what I like in my pornography? Blood, mutilation and a plot. The problem is that the only porn worthy of my erection is my gory scissor reel of Eli Roth movies (unfortunately, such films lack a plot, making it very difficult to enjoy a good old fashioned blood orgasm…But this is a discussion for another day). Luckily I recently stumbled upon something far more entertaining than any monstrous spank material put out by a thousand Eli Roths powered with atomic rays. This tasty title of titillation is called Femvamp.com, a horror comedy internet show about a clan of sex crazed female vampires who lure unsuspecting viewers to their doom through their porn website, femvamp.com.

It's not ok to hit a child, unless you
make it look like an accident

Like a horny teenage prom date with an initial fear of the almighty penis, I was titillated yet hesitant to jump into bed with this piece upon watching the first episode. My brows frilled at the exposition delivered by some loud-mouthed jockey boy. But as soon as said jock became the first victim of a vampire babe in a corset, I realized that what I had just watched was nothing more than a prologue meant to introduce the theme of the overall show, which is very tongue in cheek. Just like how Judd Nelson slipped the panties off of Molly Ringwald in “The Breakfast Club”, this webseries managed to charm me instantly after the very catchy theme song played juxtaposed to two voluptuous vampire women spreading gratuitous amounts of fake blood all over their human female victim’s mostly naked body with their mouths. Instantly, the show introduced who would eventually become my favorite character, Detective Valentine. In the first two minutes, the bitch-slapping cop (played by Jay Bingham) knocks around a baby face student under the suspicion that he is a murdering peeping tom at the local college. His constant shouting of “bullcrap” and frequent slaps in the face of a kid probably not old enough to buy beer at your local Bevmo was honestly one of the funniest things I’ve watched in a while. The best part is that Bingham plays it straight, even when the characters in the show realize how ridiculous this guy’s fast fisted tactics are. I mean it, every time he slaps someone, which is a lot; they either gaze at him blankly and confused or they start laughing at him. To which his response is to slap them again, for they don’t seem to realize how much he means business. He even goes so far as to shout at his boss when he gets kicked off the case for his use of excessive force. I just love how over the top he is with his bad cop routine; it’s as though he’s got something to prove but no one seems to take him all that seriously. This is the kind of guy who goes home and beats his wife over a miscommunication about why she was out so late with the girls the night before, after drinking his 6 pack of Milwaukee’s Best of course.

Sometimes, it takes a man with a really sexy O-face

By the fifth episode, the main cast of characters is set up, as are their relationships. Terry, the protagonist (also the campus pepping tom…but not the murderer) and his best friend BJ, a Chris Brown-esque side kick team up with Professor Wang, a whimsical and flirtatious college professor/vampire hunter to take down the Femvamps and stop their sexy murderous webshow. All the while, Detective Valentine continues to hunt down Terry, for he thinks he is the one murdering the local college students, even though Valentine has been kicked off of the case due to his violent and silly tactics of retrieving information. Most of these characters are likeable. Though I do admit I am not a fan of BJ (he’s mostly played up for laughs and I was never a fan of Chris Brown’s humor) I feel there is a great deal of room for growth with the character, so I am more than willing to stick around and see where it goes. The jokes that hit, hit very well, and the use of back-story adds a great deal of likeability to the characters. Specifically, we get a wonderful opportunity to see our “Van Helsing” character, Professor Wang as a young man training to be a vampire hunter. As it turns out, he was very different as a naïve fledgling pupil studying the art of vampire murder. I’d love to see more vignettes like this one peppered throughout the series. It allows us to see our heroes in different stages of their lives thus getting to know them beyond the masks of their social personalities and idiosyncrasies. The second most important selling factor of this show is the clear level of fun the cast is having while performing and frequently that alone is enough to keep my attention. It’s really ok to chew the scenery, so long as the scenery is made up of delicious blocks of ham and cheese.

It is also worth mentioning how much I like the art direction. It is especially impressive, since the series has a fairly low budget. Most low budget projects can’t seem to grasp the idea that filling the negative space in the frame makes the film’s environment look more authentic. But this filmmaker goes out of his way to make the locations look lived in and the props look real. On a shoestring budget, they build a pretty comfy looking coffin big enough to fit two bodies (kind of reminds me of the crypt of carnality I built in my basement. You know what I say, when the tomb stone’s-a-rockin…). Professor Wang sports a crossbow, a vest packed to the teeth with ammo, and giant syringes filled with silver liquid nitrate. These fine details are what make this show stick out to me as well thought out.

Miles Whitmon fantasizes about some pretty sick shit, apparently

There is only one thing I don’t like about the show, and that is the method in which jump scares are implemented. The use of jump scares in the horror genre is one of the oldest and easiest approaches to literally force audience members out of their seats. The basic formula of an effective jump scare is as follows…

1. The Setup, or the introduction of a foreign element into a sequence (i.e. a strange noise down the hallway).

2. Followed by a suspenseful build up used to create tension, (the character’s curiosity is perked and they are unwisely drawn to the mystery).

3. Finished off with the reveal of something wicked, usually accompanied by a sudden change in volume and intensity of the score and the action (without warning a loud music sting breaks the suspenseful silence and a hellish abomination pops out from the darkness to kill our curious clod).

One of the most famous and in my opinion best examples of an effective jump scare is from the film House on Haunted Hill. Two guests of a party (a man and a woman) at a haunted house search the basement for a mysterious attacker that may still be hiding somewhere. They find that the walls in certain spots in the basement are hollow and soon enough the two split up to figure out why. However, the young lady is unfortunate enough to discover…well, perhaps it would be best for you to see for yourself what she discovers.

I can definitely see where the filmmaker was going by incorporating jump scares into his series. After all, a good horror comedy joins both dread and comic relief into a beautiful unholy matrimony. But I feel the execution of the jump scares were harsher on the ear than on the heart, for they begin with a brief silence followed by a particularly loud sting. In fact, the loud sting hinders the scare, for when I turned the volume down to mute and watched it again, they were significantly more effective. But since the jump scares take up about a second or two of only two or three episodes, it is more than fair to say that I am splitting hairs in this critique.

Femvamp.com has the attributes of a high school charmer. Its personality is both cocky and funny, able to unapologetically make a face palm joke as if to say, “if you don’t like it, someone better will”. That’s the kind of gusto I appreciate with my humor. If you take the content of an Ed Wood movie and the delivery of a PG13 cut of a John Waters film (good luck ever finding one) you will be pretty damn close to the feel of Femvamp.com. If you dare incur the wrath of a fine assed blood sucking leech in hopes of cumming blood all over your Mom’s new carpet (as I know I did before I ate the harlot), go watch the show and tell me what you think. And remember to keep an eye out for Detective Valentine, I hope that once this show has released a couple of seasons, he gets his own spinoff titled “BULLCRAP!...SLAP!”

Come check it out here. You'll be glad you did.

Daddy of the Dead Review

2011-09-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

Not since the Charles Manson cut of To Kill a Mockingbird have I seen such a heartwarming story. “Daddy of the Dead” is a lighthearted romp about the hardships a father must face while raising an undead child in a post apocalyptic world. Such conflicts include racism, dietary issues and of course, bigotry. I consider this film more political than anything, as it takes a very clear position on the issue of undead parenting. Though I happen to agree with the stand the film takes on said policy, I do have a few critiques on some of the technical aspects of the filmmaking.

Though I appreciate the message the film conveyed, I think it would have added to the overall viewing experience to create a happier feel with the music selection during the sequence when the father prepared his daughter’s meal. It would have created a moment for the audience to see the bright side of raising a living dead baby. After all, a bouncing bile filled child does bring cheer to any loving household. It also would have made the finale more unexpected and suspenseful. I was also not the biggest fan of the chosen camera used to film this PSA, but nothing really compares to good old fashion 16mm, and who can afford film to shoot a doc with these days besides Ken Burns and Michael Moore? Sometimes, stories need to be told and in such cases, any working camera is a good camera.

Even though our poor subject is most definitely a victim of bigotry and racism from a mob of extremist ghouls, I can’t help but feel the film’s mission to fight racism ends up making the film maker look a tad racist himself; against zombies that is. After watching it a second time, I noticed the film maker did not go out of his way to interview any liberal zombies who may have taken the living father’s side. This leads me to believe one of two things; either the film maker is attempting to label all of the living dead as ignorant right wing trailer trash, or the film maker does not understand that zombies are as diverse a race as humans (I should know; I was an attendee at the Zombie Tea Party Rally this past weekend…it didn’t end well). I am also a tad surprised that the film did not end with a message to its audience, informing them of ways they can help fight the bigotry humans face against their zombie brothers. Perhaps a link to the website of an organization designed to fight such oppression. Well that is where I come in. If you have been moved by the message this film conveys and you wish to help such parents as the one portrayed in Daddy of the Dead, feel free to contact The Zombie Squad and ask them what can be done to make a difference. They are a charitable organization that works to help those in need under the oppression of such forces of nature as the zombie apocalypse. They are responsible for running and attending many charitable parties, conventions and events. I believe they take donations, but either way if you feel so inclined, you can reach them by clicking here.

I usually use a meat cleaver to chop the body into small pieces,
then put the unused parts in the fridge for later. But a kitchen knife
works fine, if you don't plan on keeping any leftovers.

The film maker's name is Guil Claveria. I recommend giving the film a look. It taught me a thing or two about what kind of food to feed a growing ghoul and it does a great job capturing the struggle a parent must face as a minority in a racist community.

The Book of the Law

2011-09-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

Friends and lovers, I am rather excited to begin this month’s book club meeting. So without further ado, let’s talk books.

You human beings and your religions. Do Gods have words? Some say, “Yes they do”. Can you hear them? Some say, “Yes I can”. Can I hear them? Some say, “Yes you can”. When can I hear them? Some say, “Right now”. What if I can’t hear them? Some say, “Read the Bible”. Which Bible? Some say, “All of them”. Ok, maybe they don’t say that. But you will get a whole bunch of different answers from a whole bunch of different people. It just so happens, that this one in particular caught my eye the other day and I am rather excited to share it with you.

Have you ever been interested in the pursuit of the Qabalah? Or fascinated by the use of sex and erotica to perfect your ability to manipulate the mystical powers from the astral plane? Then maybe Thelema is the right philosophy/religion for you. The Thelemic religion draws greatly from the Egyptian pantheon, specifically the deities Nut, Hadit and Ra-Hoo- Khuit are considered to be Gods of particular importance. For they are the heavenly authors of this month’s holy text.

Aleister Crowley, the founder of the Thelemic religion, was a mystic who claimed to have been lucky enough to share a conversation with a higher being. Specifically, he was contacted by his guardian angel, Aiwass, The Minister of Hoor-paar-kraat (more commonly believed to be Horus, the centralized deity of Thelema). Aiwass used Crowley’s fiancee’s body to speak through to him in order for Crowley to annotate the bible of his Theleman philosophy; Liber Al vel Legis, or in English, The Book of the Law.

In the span of four days (April 1^st, 7^th, 8^th and 9^th) between the hours of noon and 1 pm, Crowley and Aiwaas sat in the drawing room of an apartment in Cairo, Egypt to dictate this magical tomb.

The writing of the book is both overly complicated and significantly cryptic. Depending on your desire to dig deep into the will of the Thelemic pantheon or the mind of an insane genius depending on your point of view, you may either get a great deal of spiritual awakening from reading this brief dictation, or a great deal pissed off for reading something so difficult to comprehend. Later in his life, Crowley wrote The Comment, which spelled out the interpretation of his holy book in a concise simple paragraph. In The Comment, Crowley strictly prohibits any outside study or lecture of the book. He states that the book must be interpreted privately by ones self only without aid outside of his own writings and analyses. He goes on to recommend the destruction of your copy as soon as you have read it for the first time. It was in this brief paraphrase that Crowley defined the book into two simple phrases,

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”

“love is the law, love under will”

The definition of “Do what thou wilt” is meant to focus more on one’s spiritual destiny rather than one’s selfish desires. In thelema, everyone has a true will, which is considered to be one’s destiny one must attain. It is not chosen, rather enlisted upon an individual based off of their inner self in relation to the universe. To attain one’s true self is to attain enlightenment. A true Theleman’s actions are in perfect harmony with nature, as they use magick (yes, with a K) to attain one’s true will.

If you wish to read more on the subject of Thelema, I recommend starting with The Book of the Law. You can read it online by clicking here.

If you’d like to read any more of Aleister Crowley’s work online, you can do so by clicking here.

I also recommend Crowley’s autobiographical experience as a drug user, Diary of a Drug Fiend. At the very least it is worth a couple laughs.

For those of you who wish to read The Book of the Law and are easily lost in Aiwass’ fancy and highly metaphorical prose, I have written up a quick cheat sheet for you to better become acquainted with the meaning behind some of the texts. Does that make me a sinner in the eyes of your average Thelemic practitioner? I don’t care. I’m a horrible monster who lives in a closet and eats people. I think I am a tad above caring about such petty things. However, as this is such a complex piece of writing and I do have a great many babies to toss off of buildings today, my cheat sheet does not go so in depth to be a complete analysis, rather a modest glossary of Thelemic terms, metaphors and meanings behind various phrases and reoccurring concepts you will come across by reading The Book of the Law. If you are interested in reading Crowley’s various essays and commentaries on the book (which go significantly more in depth), I recommend reading his other book, The Law is for All. You can purchase a copy at Amazon.com by clicking here.

So without further ado, let us begin...

Chapter 1

Nuit

Heavenly speaker of the first chapter of the book.

She is the sky goddess, ever arching over her masculine counterpart Hadit, to kiss his “secret ardours”. (14)

“…and in his woman called the Scarlet Woman is all power given” (15)

The Scarlet Woman is the goddess Babylon, riding bare breasted on the back of the great Beast, whose number is 666 (Aleister Crowley often saved this title, The Great Beast, for himself. However in this case, he is referring to another deity. Not Satanic in nature, but Thelemic).

Babylon

-To her is the “stooping Starlight” as to Hadit is the “Winged secret flame” (16)

Nuit and Hadit are represented as female and male counterparts, Nuit the feminine encompassing Hadit the masculine in her heavenly body. Crowley is famous for his blatant and cryptic carnality, for sex is a powerful tool in the Thelemic religion. Keep your peepers pealed. You are bound to find a great deal of metaphorical soft-core porn in this bible.

-“I am Nuit and my word is six and fifty. Divide, add, multiply, and understand” (24 – 25)

The use of numbers is very common in many pagan and spiritually based religions. In Thelema, they are used to uncover many transcendental secrets. 50 + 6 is 56, the number of Nuit. When broken apart and added together, 5 + 6 = 11, the number of the Tree of Life. Take special note of the importance of the numbers 5 and 6, for 5 is represented by the Pentagram, the 5 pointed star and 6 is represented by the Hexagram, the 6 pointed star. Both stars have their own magickal significance. The Pentagram represents the Microcosm, the four elements Earth, Fire, Wind and Water crowned together with the fifth point, the spirit. The Hexagram represents the Macrocosm, the points of the star are granted to the planetary bodies Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, The Sun and The Moon. Put together, the Pentagram and the Hexagram become a very powerful and all encompassing symbol. As you can see, there is already much to dive into with this mystical text.

The Tree of Life

-“My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit” (36)

Interesting tidbit, Cowley actually did make changes to the original manuscript (such as inserting summed up excerpts from his previous work, The Stele of Revealing and various other spelling and grammatical changes).

-“Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, The Hermit, and the Lover, and the man of Earth” (40)

The Thelemic Order System has three levels of initiation.

The Man of Earth is the first level of enlightenment, in which the lesser magicks of nature are taught to the novice Thelemite.

The Lover is the second level of enlightenment, in which lessons of the first level are expanded upon with more emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge of the greater magicks of nature.

The Hermit is the third level of enlightenment, in which the Theemic student must follow the pursuit of light and knowledge. It is where one finds inner and personal enlightenment. To achieve this is to achieve the highest form of existence and become a Master of the Universe.

Chapter 2

Hadit

Heavenly speaker of the second chapter of the book

The spirit within all humans. The masculine counterpart to Nuit.

-“With the just I am eight, and one in eight”

Numbers again. You can read more about the Thelemic meaning of numbers by clicking here.

-“Now a curse on because and his kin!” (28)

“If will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, the Will stops & does nought” (29)

“If power asks why, then is Power weakness” (30)

“Because” is a rebellious word. The answer to the question “because” defines reason, and in Thelema, reason is acquiescent to Will. Crowley states in his later work, The Law Is For All, “It is ridiculous to ask a dog why it barks. One must fulfill one’s true nature, one must do one’s will”, emphasizing this Thelemic school of thought.

-“A Feast…Aye! Feast! Rejoice! There is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu” (34 – 44)

Hadit commands you to rejoice on the path of your true will.

-“There is light before thine eyes, o prophet, a light undesired, most desirable…I am the master: thou art the Holy Chosen One” (61 – 65)

Hadit’s message seems to be directed toward Crowley himself, as Hadit depicts the joyous rapture which comes with the service of dictating this heavenly prophecy. Crowley would later describe in his piece the old Comment as feeling “swallowed up in ecstacy” while writing this.

-"4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L…There cometh one to follow the: he shall expound it” (76)

Some magicians believe this to be a Cipher, a code, which can be easily solved through a mysterious process.

A wonderful author, G. M. Kelly attempts to decipher this crypic code through several notes and works of Crowley. You can read his article by clicking here.

Chapter 3

Ra-Hoor-Khuit

Heavenly speaker of the third chapter of the book of the law

God of war and vengeance (pay close attention to his words, for they are very war mongering)

Lord of the Aeon

-"Abrahadabra, the reward of a Hoor Khut” (1)

The word Abrahadabra (with an H, not a C) is, according to Crowley in The Law is for All, the mystical formula for this new Aeon, The Aeon of Horus. The reason is broken down in said book.

-“Sacrifice cattle, little and big: after a child. But not now” (12 – 13)

Interesting tidbit, Crowley had many children with many different women. A good portion of his children died in his lifetime.

-“There cometh a rich man from the West who shall pour gold upon thee…and blessing no longer be poured to the Hawk-headed mystical lord!” (31 - 34)

This is a prophesy of the future, involving the formation of the Thelemic church and the oncoming battle that will ensue.

-Hrumachis – The double lion headed form of Horus. It is an inverted form of the Sphinx, the body of a lion and the head of a man for Hrumachis has the body of a woman and the head(s) of a lioness.

-Mentu – Egyptian war God, lord of Thebes.

-Ankh-af-na-khonsu – a Thebian priest of Mentu from the 26^th dynasty in Egypt.

-Ra, Tum, Khephra, Ahathoor Bes-na-Maut and Ta-Nech – Egyptian Gods. Ahathoor is better known from history as Hathor, Egyptian Goddess of fertility and love.

Hrumachis

-“...and thy comment upon this the Book of the Law shall be printed beautifully in red ink and black upon beautiful paper made by hand” (39)

You can buy a copy of the Book of the Law by clicking here.

made with crappy printer paper and inked with equally crappy printer ink.

-“…let her be shameless before all men” (44)

more metaphorical and literal allusions to sexuality as a powerful tool of magic.

-“With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross…For her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you” (51 – 55)

Here, Ra-Hoor-Khuit condemns all other religious philosophies, cursing the oppression of all other schools of thought.

-“The ending of the words is the Word Abrahadabra” (75)

And with this, Ra-Hoor-Khuit ends his dictation as he begun it.

Aeon of isis

Pre history

Mankind worshipped a great goddess (Isis)

Mother earth took care of her children - pagan worship

Aeon of Osiris

Classical to medieval centuries

Mankind worships a single male god (Osiris)

Patriarchal values – Christian values are the priority

Aeon of Horus

1904 –

controlled by the child god, Horus

humanity will enter self realization and self actualization

Did this prophesy actually come to pass? You tell me, Led Zeppelin.

Waxwork Review

2011-09-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

This movie is silly, with a capital S-I to the L-L-Y. Everything from the wax figures (that are clearly actors working as hard as they can to stand still), to the classically trained cast easily fit to perform Shakespeare but got wrangled into something significantly worse; this movie. But does that mean I don’t like it? Hell no! I love it! It captures the horror genre of the 80s perfectly. It also pays homage to so many other horror classics. Though the film does not end up being about what you might expect a movie called Waxwork to be about, it manages to leave you feeling thoroughly entertained in all the right ways.

David Warner is David Lincoln, a man who sold his soul to the devil for power and immortality. His waxwork is filled with demonic wax figures, hungry for the souls of mortals. We first meet Lincoln seducing a group of college students (sounds like a wild Saturday night jailbait monster mash if you ask me) to come view his wax collection, in hopes of turning them all into wax monsters (and no, I am not talking about THAT wax collection of his, you perverts). Once he fills his quota of exhibits, he will turn them all into living monsters and use them to destroy the world. Of Course!!!

"Would you fine young ladies care to come inside for a lick of my snozberry?"

Like most so-bad-it’s-good movies, the cast is beyond belief. I always find it amazing how often the best actors are on the front of the line of the soup kitchen when in fact they really belong at the dining table of the immortal bard. David Warner is (as always) my favorite example of this concept. He’s been in the acting business for almost fifty years, starting out as a Shakespearian actor. He moved onto film and television in the mid to late 60’s, having performed in various BBC television movies. Sometime towards the 70’s, David became a regular in the horror genre (most notably, 1976’s The Omen). I suppose it makes logical sense for any actor to leave the theatre; even the best of Shakespeare’s minions need to eat, and there are very few venues that will pay you for acting in the theatre. Unless you like rat soup with pickles fermented in pussy juice (and on occasion I do). With this in mind, I recommend glancing over Warner’s credentials. He has one of the most diverse and long running resumes I have seen for an actor in the past fifty years, and he’s been appearing in everything since before Nicholas Cage made it cool to do so.

Despite how absurd the character or the story he is performing behaves, he throws himself into the role as though it were Richard the 2^rd (interestingly enough, he played the starring role in England). Even when he knows the rolls he is playing are complete shit, he sure does have fun performing them. This has never been more evident than here, in Waxwork. He can deliver a cheesy one liner with more sincerity than Helena Bonham Carter at a baby eating convention. Even seriously reciting the line “They’ll make a movie about anything these days” when told that the Phantom of the Opera has been adapted to the big screen on several occasions. Ignore the fact that Warner’s character is a century old wizard and should know a tad bit about pop culture. He delivers the obnoxiously silly line without cracking a sneer. I sometimes wonder if he even knows how undignified the parts he plays are, but it really doesn’t matter. He makes them dignified. And in a movie filled with silly one liners, self parodying jokes and living wax figures, it helps to have a sturdy anchor like Warner on your set.

The monsters are very memorable. Even if they do not look “real” they sure do look scary, or at least intriguing. Take the Wolf Man for example. John Rhys-Davies plays the wax figure of a werewolf. Like all the other figures, he has his own exhibit that comes to life when someone stumbles into it. One of the first victims in the film, being an idiot, does just this and falls into the werewolf dimension (did I just call it the Werewolf’s Dimension? I’d like to see a movie about that). The werewolf transformation sequence is quite silly. And though the monster’s mouth and features barely move (it’s more of a mask than a prosthetic or animatronic), it still looks pretty cool. The other monsters are pretty out of sight as well. There is a snake person, a talking plant that actually begs you to feed it ala Little Shop of Horrors, vampires, a plethora of zombies, and many other supernatural baddies. I love every single one of these monsters, mostly because I love looking at the makeup and special effects used to create them. Thankfully this film was shot in the 80s. I’d hate to see what they would do if it were shot today; everything would be CGI. And I hate the overuse of CGI for low budget movies. Don’t worry Asylum Films, your day is coming soon.

The climax of this film is one of the best I have seen in a while; it’s a battle between mythical monsters and old people. You heard me right, mythical monster versus the elderly. I know I sound like I am being a critical creature, but I do not exaggerate. In the last half hour of the film, Zach Galligan and Deborah Foreman are trapped in the waxwork. They are forced to watch the wax figures come to life and when they do, they will kill the two and destroy the world. So tell me, when faced with the threat of apocalyptic death, what is the first thing you would pray to come and save you? Perhaps a team of well trained samurai? Or a band of magic wielding demon hunters weathered by centuries of combat? You’d be completely wrong of course.

The correct answer is a gaggle of geriatrics armed with guns, swords, motor broncos and walkers. Sir Wilfred, an old man in a motor bronco played by John Steed himself, Patrick Macnee, is the character responsible for rounding up this brave collection of souls. He has been preparing to battle David Warner for decades, and finally, now at the brink of the apocalypse, these long toothed heroes have their chance to use their cunning and their canes to destroy the monsters and save the world. They succeed of course, (which says a lot about the durability of these world ending wax figures) marking a wonderful period in horror cinema history where a film carries a subliminal message about the importance of gerontological studies. The band of aging soldiers blow up the waxwork and everything inside, how more fantastical can an ending get? Perhaps if the only thing to survive the explosion besides our two heroes was the crawling hand of a wax zombie, leaving enough room for a sequel? (and a sequel there was. Trust me friends, that blog will come soon). What an ending.

Mrs. Peel, We're Needed

Waxwork’s strongest element is its self-parodies and references. Because each exhibit is a scene from an iconic horror movie (The Wolf Man, Dracula, the Mummy, Phantom of the Opera, Night of the Living Dead and many more classic gems) there are a great deal of sequences that recapture the various different styles of horror of each designated film. This makes Waxwork feel rather like an anthology film or a showcase of horror, where various different monsters get an opportunity to entertain the audience the best they can. There is very little fright within the waxwork itself however, because the figures cannot actually hurt you. You must be thrown into the exhibits for them to be able to do anything. This is not exactly what I pictured in my head when I first heard the title. What did you picture? I thought of a movie with a bunch of wax models that come to life and killed people; or a place where people are covered in wax and turned into exhibits. As it turns out, both of these scenarios are true for this film, but the focus of the film is more on the battle against the magical dark forces.

I highly recommend Waxwork for any audience interested in having a good laugh. With memorable monsters, a wonderful cast and a very epic finale, this film is most definitely worth a hearty round of applause from the peanut gallery.

One final note. I love this guy. Can I take him home and keep him please?

Pumpkinhead Review

2011-08-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

In each of man’s evils, a special demon exists.

I used to live in the closet of Kenneth “Broomstick Killer” McDuff. Before the insanity kicked in full swing, he used to barter stories with me to keep me from slitting his throat at night. My favorite story was about his trips to the farmers market as a child. Every Sunday, his grandma took him for long walks along the woods to the local farmer’s market. On the way home, strolling along the path, his grandmother told him a story about those woods that went a little something like this.

“You know you had a brother once; before you were born, and he was a bad boy. You know what happened to your brother? Your mommy and daddy took him in those woods and left him there. To this day he still lives there. And if you are bad, that’s what’s gonna happen to you too.”

When I asked him why he thought she told him this, his answer was, “that’s what southern people do”.

As a horrible closet monster, I have the honorable distinction of using fear as the greatest tool in my armament. Because of this, I find it amazing southern parents also use this tool to keep their children in line. By far, my favorite example of this idea is Stuart Gordon’s Directorial film debut, Pumpkinhead. This is one of my favorites. It’s imaginative; successfully fusing the ancient fairy tale story structure with the culture of low class southern Americana. The film stars Lance Henricksen as Ed Harley, a southern country gentleman who seeks vengeance for the death of his son Billy at the hands of irresponsible drunk driving city slickin’ teenagers. With the help of Haggis, the old witch from the woods, he summons the demon of vengeance to brutally murder the teenagers. There are many elements to this movie that I like. Brutal murder is my favorite, but we can talk about that later. The setup is suspenseful, the monster looks fucking amazing and the art and lighting departments did a superb job working together as a team. But my favorite element of this film is the writing; it is intelligent and offers just enough exposition to not talk down to an audience while at the same time giving them enough information to understand what is going on.

Before we jump in, it is worth mentioning that the script of this film was inspired by a poem written by Ed Justin. I wish we could dig some more information up on the poet, but according to my resources, he killed himself many years ago. (Please send me some contradicting information about this if you have it and I will post an update.)

Pumpkinhead is a demon from a story told to the local kids in a backwater southern town to keep them from doing “bad” things (like slicing the lips from off of your sisters and turning them into a necklace…I remember those days…). As the story goes, if you do something horrible to another person, that person can solicit the old witch from the woods and she will drag pumpkinhead up from hell to avenge you for your loss. The children believe the story is fake, but it turns out the parents tell the story because they all know too well how real it is. This whole concept of “the fucked up things your parents are telling you are actually true” is a very scary one. Imagine if it were true that you grow hair from your palms when you masturbate. Or that Bloody Mary actually killed you when you said her name in the mirror. Or if you kill anyone, an 8 foot tall demon will hunt you down and rape you. This is a story telling element that has been used in most of my favorite horror movies, such as Clive Barker’s Candyman and Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves. The movie begins with Ed as a little boy witnessing Pumpkinhead killing a suspected child murderer. Years after this frightening encounter, Ed is a middle aged single father, who owns a convenience store in the middle of nowhere. A group of teens drive across the country with all terrain motorcycles and an endless supply of beer. When the asshole of the group accidentally kills Ed’s son while driving his dirt bike drunk through the desert, Ed craves for penance to be paid with of a pound of flesh. That’s when the demon comes in to slice some throats. My favorite death is when Pumpkinhead grabs a female victim by the hair and presses her face against a glass window of the hut where her friends and her are camping out. He taunts the kids inside as well as the girl, giving his victim one last glimpse of her friends before smashing her head through the glass, killing her.

Looks like Macaulay Culkin after his mother threw him off a cliff...Oh wait...That's from "The Good Son"

I know I can be a little snarky (to say the least) but if you were to ask me who my favorite monster was, the answer wouldn’t be myself; it would be Pumpkinhead. The thing is awesome. It’s such a huge creature, easily overpowering anyone gutsy enough to stand before it. It has big powerful limbs and long, sleek, reptilian fingers with sharp nails protruding from each digit. Its head is rather swollen, but is not actually a pumpkin. The legend of the beast doesn’t even incorporate the shape of its head as the reason behind its name. They call it Pumpkinhead because it comes from the old “pumpkin Patch Graveyard”. The only other backstory we get about this graveyard is from a bit of exposition from Haggis. She tells us that the graveyard is actually called “Razorback Hollow” and it’s the place where Mountain folk used to bury his kin in there. “Kin they’s ashamed of,” she says. The demon requires a vessel to enter this plane of existence, so his body is actually a possessed corpse dug up from the graveyard, transformed into the creature’s demonic manifestation. This is the one thing I can say that I have over this creature; he requires help to cross through other worlds and astral bodies and I can travel through closets.

This movie’s art and lighting departments are really stellar. I can actually get sucked into this world because the environment looks and feels real. This is because the lighting and art department worked as a team to create the film’s customized feel and suspense. The scenery, props and (as stated before) the monster are all wonderfully stylized works of art, but what makes it all feel as authentic as it does is how little we see of it. This was achieved with a plethora of shadow play and an overall high contrast for most of the suspenseful sequences. But shadows aren’t the only tool the DP is uses to create suspense; he also uses an interesting color pallet to make the setting distinctive. This includes a great deal of oranges and reds for interior shots and blues and blacks for night exterior shots. This use of color and forced perspective allows the audience’s imagination to run wild. What is the back-story to this creepy ass graveyard? Do all demons look like Pumpkinhead? How did this evil witch get so evil? And despite these questions, I am still thoroughly entertained. That is the sign of a good movie to me; it takes me somewhere, brings me back, gives me at least a chill and leaves me satisfied, but still wanting more.

Pumpkinhead is one of the most under rated horror films I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and get a copy. But heed my words, avoid the sequels. They have nothing to do with this gem and only serve to muddy the franchise. If you'd like to get yourself a good Pumpkinhead fix, read the Dark Horse comic book Pumpkinhead, the Rites of Exorcism. It was a direct spinoff of the movie. Only two comic books were released, even though it was written as a four parter. Because of this, it ends on a cliffhanger, but I gotta say it's well worth the incredibly short read for any die hard fan. But for you real hardcore die hard fans, here is the original poem, which sparked the creation of this wonderful movie.

Keep away from Pumpkinhead,

Unless you're tired of living,

His enemies are mostly dead,

He's mean and unforgiving,

Laugh at him and you're undone,

But in some dreadful fashion,

Vengeance he considers fun,

and plans it with a passion,

Time will not erase or blot,

A plot that he has brewing,

It's when you think that he's forgot,

He'' conjure your undoing,

Bolted doors and windows barred,

Guard dogs prowling in the yard,

Won't protect you in your bed,

Nothing will, from Pumpkinhead.

~Ed Justin

Eloquent words, if I do say so myself.

The Company Of Wolves Review

2011-07-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

For as long as anyone can remember, Werewolves have been a very popular literary element for myths, legends, fairy tales, books, comic books, movies, music, puppet shows and every other form of storytelling ever invented. They can represent the frightening changes that one feels in their bodies as they develop from children into fully-grown adults. They can also represent the dark and suppressed desires of man that may erupt uncontrollably at any given time and without remorse or respect. Who hasn’t felt the call of the wild at some time or another? On a full moon in a clear, black sky, who doesn’t suppress the urge to get on all fours, bay to the night and rip apart the person standing next to you? I know I have.

For those of you who have ever enjoyed either werewolf mythology or fairy tales the way they are supposed to be told (you know: dark, gritty and full of death), there is little reason you would not enjoy this film. The Company of Wolves is a series of tales about Werewolves told through the nightmares of Rosaleen, a young woman living a suppressed and unfulfilling life. In her nightmares, she lives in an ancient forest town with her mother and father and spends much of her time with her Granny (Angela Lansbury). Granny takes a particular shine to Rosaleen due to the recent death of her sister, who was eaten by wolves. Granny knits Rosaleen a bright red shawl and tells her folk tales of the dangers of wolves and men whose “eyebrows meet”. The biggest critiques I have for this film all stem from the technical aspects of the production, specifically, bad lighting and cinematography. Despite this, the acting, writing and special effects are pretty spot on. I like to tell people this movie’s heart is in the right place, because of its frank and authentic respect for its subject matter. Most importantly, like all good fairy tales, it captures an intrinsic message about the natures of good, evil and the call of the wild within all humans on a subliminal level. If I do say so myself, this film seizes the essence of a Grimm Fairy Tale better than any other film I have ever seen (feel free to throw me some recommendations for others…I’d love to see them).

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way. It has been a long time since I have seen a film with this high a budget and this level of blatant misuse of lighting and cinematography. The entire time I was watching, I struggled to believe that the scene took place on anything other than a set built on a sound stage. Interestingly enough, the set looked really cool. What killed the illusion was the over use of master shots and the incredibly harsh and unrealistic lighting. So who is to blame? That was a very tough question to answer but damn it if I wasn’t not going to try. My first instinct was to blame the director, Neil Jordan. Neil is a veteran writer/director in Hollywood and was the mastermind behind such films as In Dreams, The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire. He is also the man most responsible for making the film, having co written it, directed it and pursued the writer of the original short story, Angela Carter, to achieve the rights for it in the first place. Despite that over half way through the movie the production value increased, the majority of the film is flat, fake and unimaginative with its visual storytelling. Isn’t the director the mastermind behind every aesthetic and creative decision on a film production? Surely he is the one to blame, I thought to myself. But as I was busy grinding my axe and readying myself to pay Mr. Jordan a visit at his home, I decided to give the film a second chance.

On my second screening, I realized how unfair I had been for laying the blame on Mr. Jordan. After all, it wasn’t really the film as a whole that was a problem; it was the technical aspects. So I got to thinking, who is the head of the lighting and camera departments? The answer is the Director of Photography, Bryan Loftus. I have never seen this man’s work before in any other movie, so I am not in a position to bash his skills as a cinematographer. But I feel more than privileged to condemn the job he did for this picture. Perhaps at the end of the day Mr. Loftus is not the cinematic devil of film making (cough, cough, Tommy Wiseau. Cough, cough). For all I know, he could have excelled to cinematic excellence since the 27 years this film was made. But I get the feeling that with a better DP, Mr. Jordan would have made a much more classic and memorable piece of cinema. Finally, I won’t spoil it, but the ending definitely leaves you wanting more. Perhaps this is a good thing, but I found myself scratching my head a little longer than I wanted too. Oh well. This is an early Neil Jordan piece, and that is evident specifically from the costume and makeup designs. It looks like the characters are prototypes for Jordan’s 90’s mainstream classic, Interview with the Vampire. Specifically, their style of dress and the long flowing hair on top of the heads of the rugged mythical beasties make them look suspiciously like Louis and Lestat. But this isn’t really a bad thing.

The movie had some stellar special effects. It’s chock full of decapitations, werewolf transformations, mutilations and fairly innovative visual effects. It is clear that Jordan was profoundly inspired for the transformation sequences by the two heavy weight champions of the modern day interpretation of the Werewolf, The Howling and an American Werewolf in London. However, he makes the sequence unforgettable by adding his own creative spin to it, which to my knowledge had not been used before (the werewolf clawing its way out of the mouth of its human form). The only flaw I saw in any of this was that I sometimes saw too much of the transformation. Looking at an animatronic for too long takes away It’s believability, and as such, I wish the werewolf transformations were masked just a tad more with slightly dimmer lighting and less inserts of the effect (once again, I blame bad lighting and bad cinematography). The decapitations were awesome. My favorite gag is when the husband of a young woman chops off the head of a werewolf and it falls into a bucket of milk. The wolf head is completely submerged in the milk and bobs back up as a human head, all in one shot. Classic. Though to be fair, I should mention I raised an eyebrow not once but twice when I saw Rosaleen’s childhood toys come alive and attack her sister when she shrinks down to their size. Those costumes are laughably bad. But this sequence was simply not enough to make me hate the art department.

The writing was very impressive. The story was fairly intangible and may not sit well with major blockbuster audiences. But it offers a great deal of insight into the mind of young people, specifically young ladies. We watch Rosaleen learning to cope with the darkness of the world as she grows from her innocent self to a more sophisticated and in some ways, corrupt individual. I have definitely seen more linear stories about the loss of one’s innocence, but this fairy tale reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass (the original literary piece, not the Disney movie). The environment is dream like and fantastical, but it is frightening and dangerous as well. The allusions to Little Red Riding Hood are very clear and speak to the post-punk young teen audience of the 80’s effectively, and even many young people today. Ironically the only thing to make this movie dated is the bad mother fucking lighting and bad mother fucking cinematography!

The cast oozes with talent. We’ve got David Warner, Angela Lansbury, Terence Stamp (playing THE DEVIL!), Stephen Rea and a million other celebrities from across the pond. I don’t know what it is about the British, but they have a great deal of integrity in every performance they put on, no matter how silly the film they are in may be. Perhaps it is because they understand the implications of coming from the land of the immortal bard and wish to live up to that standard. But such a speculation would be a digression to this review, perhaps saved for a future blog (or to be forwarded to a professional, like this blogger I once read from with valuable insight on Shakespearian history and acting http://blackswanditty.blogspot.com/).

Do yourself a favor and see this movie. If you like such dark fairy tales as Legend, Labyrinth, the Dark Crystal, Mirror Mask and The Never Ending Story or if you like Werewolves or the werewolf genre at all, this is going to be worth your time. Sit through the bad parts, they are mostly clustered in the beginning. You might even benefit from a second viewing. I know I did. Remember, the ending is far better than the first half. It picks up fairly quickly and the payoff with Rosaleen and the Wolf is awesome.

These Are Not You're Groupies For Team Jacob

Brain Damage Review

2011-07-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is an old review I wrote for another blog. I polished it up and wish to share it with all of you. Enjoy.

Brain Damage is a film about a young man living in New York City who throws all of his aptitude in the local gutter by becoming horribly addicted to drugs…and when I say drugs, I mean a hallucinogenic secretion pumped into his Medulla Oblongata by a brain-sucking parasite. This film is particularly rare, as its topic of choice is mature, but the execution of the film and the subject matter is pretty silly and over the top (in a sadistic sort of way). Though to be fair, despite the silliness, Brain Damage does a very good job keeping a straight face with its dark tone and consistent reminder that our main character suffers from a very common and down to earth disease; addiction. In all my years, I can’t imagine anyone not comprehending the feeling of addiction; to want something so much that it becomes the only thought on your mind. Time literally stops, because nothing can distract you from your craving. But this film allows you to take a back seat to your addictions and see how ridiculous the compulsion truly is. We see the truth that what most people are addicted to is not only unimportant, but also incredibly harmful to them in every possible way, whether it be alcohol, cigarettes, cupcakes or brain sucking leech juice.

Our protagonist’s name is Brian. He is a young man with a loving girlfriend named Barbara, a supportive and jealous brother named mike, and an addictive personality. Brian meets up with a creature who looks like a googley eyed leech named Aylmer, yet encompasses the suave mannerisms of the Devil himself. Its weapon is rational and seductive persuasion. It doesn’t need to intimidate or frighten Brian because he has his drug, which he knows Brian cannot live without (now if only I could put my borders on my chopping block so willingly, I’d be on easy street! Too bad their fucking kid can’t stop crying every time I sneak into his room from his closet with an ice pick). Once Brian discovers the grizzly nature of his new friend, he struggles to quit the drug despite the futile helpful hands of Barbara and Mike. However, the plot thickens as Brian sinks deeper into his addiction and Mike begins to make moves on Barbara.

I’d be comfortable with saying that 90% of the time, a good film in this genre is measured by its antagonist. Aylmer is one of the most charming and likeable of demonic abominations I’ve seen in a very long time. I mean, look at him, with his smug face and unblinking soulless eyes. It takes a very charming personality to get you to look beyond this creature’s hideousness and trust the things he says. Without the smooth talking and hauntingly imposing voice acting of Horror Host John Zacherle (the Cool Ghoul is in this film!) this monster would have absolutely no power over anyone. The best part is that they give him enough screen time that you don’t feel like you have to be sifting for gold.

I love this movie because it manages to avoid talking down to me despite the fact that it doesn’t try to hide its obvious message. Its beauty comes from its simplicity; the protagonist is addicted to drugs and the drug is blatantly unhealthy (I mean, come on! Have you really looked at the turd-leech with the fangs parking itself on the back of your neck!?). But if one were to truly take themselves out of one’s body and look at the world from a wider perspective, it would become very clear that all recreational drugs are blatantly unhealthy in a very similar way. The basic fact is that no matter how good a drug can make you feel, consistent use of any substance will over time deteriorate your body and your mind. This isn’t to say that I am against you humans taking drugs. Be my guest, so long as you don’t judge me for snorting the ground up finger bones of my victims. You gotta get your kicks somehow. I get mine from murder. But whether taken with a grain of salt or not, Brain Damage paints a very common picture of a scenario we see all the time in the real world. A fairly likeable human being becomes dependent on a substance not indigenous to his body chemistry and goes through a metamorphosis for the worst, which affects everyone around him in a very negative way.

Some have told me that they cannot take this film seriously because they refuse to believe that anyone would trust a talking leech, no matter how persuasive he can be. But I really must beg to differ. As I stated before, this sort of thing happens all the time. I know most drug dealers aren’t necessarily the snake eyed monsters many of the 80’s and 90’s PSA’s would have us believe. But seriously, unless you were buying heroin from your grandma, why would you ever trust a stranger on the street to keep your best interests in mind? The truth is that Brian needed no persuasion to take drugs. We see clearly how his downward spiral begins not from the persuasion of a monster, but from his desire to get high. That is where the true horror lies. Though I must admit, this film is a lot sillier than I am giving it credit for. Not since Return of the Living Dead have I seen such brain consumption. There’s monster fallacio, spaghetti and pulsating brains, blue leech juice and a never-ending fountain of blood, and oh so much more. This film does suffer from a fairly miniscule budget and does indulge in the occasional illogical, yet visually amusing gimmick or two (how does a leech the size of your forearm hide inside of one’s throat without impairing one’s ability to speak or breath?). Still, if you happen upon this film and enjoy a good horror/exploitation romp like I do, I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.

Notable Tidbits

-Kevin Van Hentenryck from the movie Basket Case makes a cameo as Duane Bradley from that same film. Frank Henenlotter is the director of both films, which both take place in New York City and both involve young and healthy men whose lives are bogged down with the unfortunate burden of a needy monster.

-There are inconsistencies with the spelling of the monster’s name in the credits. They specifically introduce him half way through the movie as Aylmer (pronounced like an ailment) however; they spell his name E-L-M-E-R in the credits. There is actually a scene in the movie, which goes into minute detail of his name and the meaning behind it.

Care for some sqashed octopus?

Uncle Sam Review

2011-07-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

July 4th is here and that means its time to light those fireworks, boil them hotdogs in Samuel Adams and pull out your favorite film to celebrate this wonderful holiday. Or, if you’re feeling brave, guzzle down some vodka and pop in Uncle Sam, because there is no mere mortal alive who could possibly stomach watching this movie without at least a blood alcohol content of %0.1. This film has all the shit; bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, bad lighting and very bad pacing. What makes it such a shame is that the concept of a murderous Uncle Sam is intriguing enough to make me want to watch it. Little did I know that I would be so frustrated by the end of the screening that I felt the need to kill my Border’s son and wrap the remains in an American Flag*. It’s enough for me to open my door and shout out to the streets, “I hate you, Uncle Sam!”

Why do I knock this film so much when I’ve given brownie points to Ice Cream Man and Monsters Crash the Pajama Party? After all, these movies suffer from bad writing, acting, directing, lighting and pacing too. Well, the answer is that Uncle Sam wasn’t entertaining. What made those films good was their level of slap-in-the-face absurdity. Bad films are fun to ridicule, the more absurd the film is the better. Whether its level of absurdity is accidental (like in The Room) or completely on purpose (like in the Rocky Horror Picture Show), you get the feeling that the filmmakers had such passion while making it, the experience of watching it becomes enjoyable. Although there are a few occasions in Uncle Sam where you almost feel like the filmmakers are cutting lose and having fun, it does nothing to live up to its full potential of silliness. The majority of the film is slow and vapid, making it a complete waste of my time. Because watching this movie made me feel like an asshole, I’m going to tear it a new one.

Just for fun, let’s talk about what makes this a bad film. All the characters are idiots and frequently behave in inconsistent ways. The protagonist is a young man named Jody (who the hell names their son ‘Jody’?!) who is in love with his Uncle Sam Harper, who was gunned down by friendly fire in Desert Storm. Jody won’t shut the fuck up about how heroic his Uncle was and how he wants to grow up to be just like him. However, it turns out that Sam was actually a cruel individual, who verbally and physically abused his family and friends every chance he had. Jody’s fascination with Sam puzzles me. I understand Jody barely knew his uncle and never got the brunt of his cruelty, but why does he feel so attached to someone he doesn’t know? He even goes so far as to defend Sam when people talk about how cruel of a person he was in life, proclaiming he doesn’t “believe” what they are saying. This kid’s one-dimensional personality annoyed the hell out of me so much that I couldn’t help but punch the TV screen every time it showed his smug face. And now my fist hurts. Thanks Jody.

A good example of a character behaving inconsistent and idiotic is Jody’s mother. She offers to keep Sam’s body in her house until the funeral when Sam’s wife expresses a fear of having it in her house. I don’t blame her; after all, Sam was verbally and physically abusive. She also implies he was sexually abusive. But then why does Jody’s Mom agree to keep it? Can’t they keep the body at the funeral parlor? Unless she was holding a procession at her house, there’s no reason for her to keep the body of a madman in her living room, even if they were siblings. You’d think she would hate to have Sam’s body there, given their violent history. This is bad enough, but the most inconsistent and idiotic character of them all is the Monster. Sam’s body is sent back to his hometown, where for some unexplained reason he is brought back to life to wreak havoc on the unpatriotic citizens. I can believe a story about a zombie ex soldier killing the unpatriotic. But Sam is embittered by his death and subsequently, his experience in the army. The moment he is gunned down, he shoots a fellow soldier who tries to help him just to deliver the witty quip “Don’t worry, it’s only friendly fire”. He even tries to kill Isaac Hayes (yes, the late Mr. Hayes is in this film) for inspiring him to join the army in the first place. If he regrets taking part in defending his country, then why does he go out of his way to kill people who disrespect it? I don’t mind my antagonist doing crazy things; I just hate having to ask myself these questions and never having them answered at the end of the film. I never had to raise my eyebrow at why Freddy Krueger did anything. Or the shark from Jaws.

The technical aspects are also atrocious. Just about every scene has the worst use of voice over ADR put to film. If I had a dollar for every moment I saw someone’s voice completely off sync, I’d be able to buy a new Cannula for my embalming machine. There were technical problems for every department in this movie; The pants on Uncle Sam’s costume changes, wires are clearly visible for stunts, but these particular problems didn’t bother me nearly as much as the ADR. Bad ADR is a pet peeve of mine. watching this movie feels like watching an episode of Speed Racer.

I could forgive all these problems, so long as the film was funny and entertaining enough. Monty Python didn’t make sense either. But Monty Python made me laugh. Uncle Sam is billed as a comedy horror, but there was only one sequence in the movie that made me laugh, and none that made me afraid. That sequence is toward the end, when Uncle Sam sabotages the town’s fireworks to murder a bunch of people. I loved watching the families flee in terror as fireworks were shot off into the air. Some time during this sequence, Sam impales a man on an American Flag. That made me chuckle too. But besides that, there were absolutely no funny jokes, not even dark ones. I’d say all this film needs is a few more ridiculous sequences to get a pass. When I see a gimmicky cult movie, I want it to milk the hell out of its gimmick. The writer of this film is Larry Cohen, the writer/director of It’s Alive. I was shocked to learn this because Larry Cohen is usually very good at milking his gimmicks. His resume encompasses such movies as Phone Booth and Cellular and he’s directed the best Masters of Horror episode ever made. I only bring this up to emphasize a powerful lesson I have to re-learn once or twice a year; good filmmakers can make bad movies. It makes me wonder how different the script may have been from the final cut.

You wanna know the worst of it all this? This film just had a Blueray DVD release. That’s right, in case VHS or DVD is just not good enough, you can now watch Uncle Sam in clear crisp High Definition. Why the fuck hasn’t this movie disappeared into the anus cracks of cinema mediocrity? Look, I can appreciate those out there who were suckered into buying Uncle Sam as kids and now that 14 years have gone by, they keep a copy to capture some of their lost childhood. But I’ve been on this planet for over 800 years and I’ve haunted many houses in my time. I guess I’m just tired of seeing films that don’t do anything. This film did nothing to build from the basic idea that a man dressed as Uncle Sam kills people, offering absolutely nothing new to the genre. I watch films for the same reason I kill people, to have fun. I want to see the passion in my movies that I see in the eyes of my desperate victims. Wasting time on a bad movie is like taking a sip of blood and realizing you’ve just accidentally filled your mouth with fresh clamato juice.

*I couldn’t find a flag, so I poisoned the brat and dressed him up in a little Benjamin Franklin suit and hid him in the closet of his neighbor. I can’t wait to see how Mr. Trumble explains THAT to the police.

Ice Cream Man Review

2011-06-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Many of you may not know the names Paul Norman, David Dobkin, Clint Howard or even David Warner (though Warner is the most famous of the bunch) but every single one of these men share one thing in common…Ice Cream.

I have no idea if any or all of them even eat the stuff. But I do know of a cult movie made in 1995 about a psychotic Ice Cream Man (Clint Howard) who butchers people for the purpose of harvesting their bodies and incorporating them into his tasty ice cream treats. If that doesn’t sound like a party in the PM in your mouth, I don’t know what does.

Paul Norman was the director/producer of this indie gemstone. He is actually a pornographic director, having made such movies as “Intercourse with a Vampire” and “Edward Penishands” under the alias Norman Apstein. One day in the early 90’s, Norman decided to try his hand at making a legitimate mainstream horror film, so he pulled all his connections together and made a film he believed would frighten audiences everywhere. Unfortunately, what he though was to be an authentically frightening movie turned out to be so bad it was actually good. Despite the flaws, though obvious and incredible, this film manages to salvage itself with its over the top attributes, an excellent cast and an amusing concept. Who doesn’t want to watch a man rip the heads off of policemen and doctor said heads into puppets? Not only would I buy tickets to see that puppet show, I’d be inspired to create one of my own. In fact, I did once! The tragedy of this movie is that no one remembers it. This film is easily just as entertaining as such cult films as Troll 2, Howard the Duck, The Toxic Avenger and C.H.U.D. Sure, we all remember those movies. Hell, we even remember Plan 9 from Outer Space and Manos, the Hands of Fate, but nobody remembers the Ice Cream Man? What the Hell?

Despite my gush, it’s more than fair to trash the writing of this movie. To be blunt, it’s illogical and stilted. Am I wrong for saying that good writing sucks you into the story and doesn’t pull you out of it? Take the beginning for example. A little boy watches the death of his favorite ice cream man as he is gunned down in the street by mobsters (why?) So what does he do? He sits down on the pavement to carelessly suck on his favorite flavored ice cream pop. Such unrealistic events are peppered throughout the film. Characters behave unrealistically, the police are completely incompetent (though personal experience dictates this is not too far from the truth) and clichés run rampant every 10 minutes or so. There is a scene in which we learn that the inmates of an insane asylum have not only taken over but have been running the place for years. Are you trying to tell me that for years, no one has ever bothered to keep tabs on this government owned facility to make sure the psychotic inmates are kept in check? Sure, why not? Because it is a completely nonsensical plot point that makes me laugh, not cover my eyes and scream in terror! There’s an episode of Tales From The Crypt all about this idea. How more tongue in cheek can one get?

Lumpy Adams from the Adams Family? What are you doing in this movie?

This film has no define plot whatsoever. I understand some movies solely thrive on the relationship of the characters, but to tell you the truth, even these characters were laugh out loud bad. Is it a contradiction to say that the acting was good but the characters were horrible? You’d think. I don’t even know if I can explain my thoughts properly here. While watching this movie, it is easy to tune out what the characters say; yet I can’t turn off the movie. Clint Howard and David Warner are to blame for this. They are very charismatic actors. I bet anyone could think of a million bad movies both these men have performed in, but can anyone recall a performance of theirs that wasn’t captivating? Maybe I’m a horrible monster who sucks the vital fluid from children for fun, but I just can’t think of any myself. If they only played minor parts, I’d probably be singing a different tune. But I’d say collectively, both these actors take up about 80% of the film. That’s enough for me to watch it. Thank you Paul Norman.

It’s time to talk about the star attraction of this film; Clint Howard. For those of you who don’t know Clint Howard, you are missing out. I have absolutely no idea what his acting training has consisted of, but if I were to guess, it probably was a couple of acting classes throughout his childhood. Clint shines in all movies that are tongue in cheek. He has the ability to bring a level of silliness and class to any film, especially with a micro budget (with an unfortunate exception to Uwe Bole films…not even Clint was able to save House of the Dead. But his scenes were still worth watching). Though Clint has worked on more movies than God (a very special shout out to his brother), he has never really had a decent opportunity to take the limelight, except for in this film. I recall back in the 90’s Ice Cream Man getting a great deal of publicity mostly for the creepy smiling bald man playing the main character. Given Clint's track record, I am probably wrong but I am pretty sure this is the only movie he has ever played the staring role in. His range is surprisingly phenomenal. He is able to play an awkward killer, and a passionate eccentric in the same movie. I am a monster who hates to gush, but I feel obligated to in this case, given that this man has so much talent and no body seems to acknowledge it. My favorite example scene of his is actually close to the end, at the 1:08:32 mark. Clint is teaching this kid he kidnapped about the philosophy behind being an ice cream man. The kid gives an analogy to him about how the ice cream man is like the pied piper and the look in Clint’s eye changes for about a split second. We suddenly see Clint as a man who has a passion for something that no one in the world could ever understand. Hearing this analogy from this kid makes him finally get the chance to share a conversation with someone who understands his passion for the first time. Like I said, the writing is shit, but the performance is spot on…you gotta believe me! I’m actually not making fun of this movie!

David Warner with stigmata is just too damn pretentiously classy for a movie called Ice Cream Man.

If you like cheesy horribly made, yet entertaining schlock made in the backwaters of Hollywood, and you like throwbacks of the 1980’s slasher genre, you will most definitely enjoy this film. I don’t think you will have an easy time finding it on DVD at your local video store, but I bet you can find a copy no problem for under $10 on either Amazon or Ebay (half.com works nicely). Check it out.

I have a wonderful time watching weird films with awkward unrealistic sequences, but I couldn’t ever manage to take any of them seriously. I brought up earlier that the tragedy of The Ice Cream Man was that no one remembered it. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Paul Norman wanted to make an authentically scary movie; not a cult movie. This is what makes me so critical of this film. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much I enjoy watching it. The director failed to move his audience the way he wished to, therefore failing to make a genuinely good film. This basic fact is a real shame, because if he could only comprehend the happiness this movie brings people and monsters alike, he might have had a very successful career in the cult genre. Imagine what other movies this man could have made; gyne-KILL-ogist, Nursery Ghoul, I Spit on Your Grave 2? I bet he’d have made a mint with Lloyd Kauffman or Charles Band. Unfortunately, Ice Cream Man would turn out to be the first and last attempt of Paul Norman to make a legitimate film. For all anyone knows, he is still making pornography today.

Good night Paul Norman, wherever you are.

Pssst...He's in here...Why don't you come inside and take a look?

Rapture Aftermath

2011-05-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

I was just awoken by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and guess who it was? That's right...It was my borders, the Groves. They can back with a horrible temper, and I can only imagine that it was due to the lack of a rapture. Mr. Grove sent his exhausted son to bed and climbed the stairs, tucking his incredibly flaccid looking sexual organ in shame after taking a well deserved scolding from his very attractive wife. Logically, I did the only thing a person of my character would do...stab the family repeatedly until they stopped moving and poured myself a cup of chamomile tea. I now have this cup of tea (sweetened with the blood of a little boy) and am about to take it to bed, as I am sure most if not all you will be doing yourselves. Let this be a lesson to you...If someone comes to you with the prophesy or prediction of the second coming of Jesus Christ, just walk away and forget the conversation ever happened.

~Uncle J.

The Great Rapture Meme: My Retrospect On The May 21st, 2011 Prophesy

2011-05-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

My little brother Timothy didn't need a Rapture to come back

Last night I was awoken by the horrible yelling of my current Borders, The Grove Family of Burbank, CA. (Just a quick note, I am residing in their closet). In the midst of their inane squabbling, I heard a few words being thrown around that really do not belong in a family squabble; “Rapture” “Armageddon” and “May 21st”

With curious eyes, I watched the Grove family through the crack of the door under the stairs awkwardly scramble their things together, grab their son and rush out the front door. I heard their car pull out the driveway, leaving me alone to ponder this mysterious (albeit amusing) scenario. Logically, with no answers at my disposal, I turned to the Internet to solve this confusing conundrum.

The Modern Noah

What I found took me on a surprisingly diverse roller coaster ride of enigmatic thought. Mr. Harold Camping, the author of the book 1994? (The book in which he predicts the rapture) has studied the bible for roughly five decades and finally cracked the correct code to determine the (new) precise date and time of the end of the world, and that is May 21st, 2011 at 6 pm. At this precise time, a massive earthquake will literally shoot the dead out of the ground and bring the deceased back to the world of the living. Billions of people all over the planet will die a slow and horrible death only to end up rotting in the pits of hell as the truest of true believers ascend to line up along the heavenly gates.
My first thought as I read this giggle inducing tripe was that of an old acquaintance of mine, Edgar C. Whisenant, whose book “88 Reasons” explained how the rapture was to take place some time between September 11th – 16th during the year 1988. His adamant stance on the subject came off to millions as both passionate and sincere for he claimed that the only way for his prophesy to be false would be if the bible were false as well. When his prophesy did not come true, he continued to adjust the date of the rapture through the 1990’s, until his death in 2000.

As you can imagine, all this reminiscing brought me back to another memory of an even older friend. My friend Edgar Cayce, a “psychic” who once told me (I think it was back in the late 30’s early 40’s) that the end of the world would happen at some point in 1998. He told me of the great Sphinx in Egypt and how it’s right paw was the location of a hidden hall of records for the ancient civilization of Atlantis. The discovery of this hall would take place soon before the beginning of a great apocalyptic battle that would take place in the spirit realm over the period of one thousand years our time. He also mentioned that the Earth’s poles would shift in 1998, causing the beginning of the end for this planet.

Finally, my mind took me back to the 80’s, where I recalled watching another good friend of mine, Billy Murray, perform a scene in his fairly decent hit sequel Ghostbusters II. Bill’s character interviews two false prophets about their beliefs on when the world would come to an end. As to be expected, both have completely different answers. However, even though one of these two psychics is close on his prediction, he still ends up being wrong (for those of you who haven’t seen the movie...just do it).

These two particular “prophets” are not the only individuals to have predicted/calculated the end of the world. I can’t honestly say how many have made the claim of knowing the year, date and time of the rapture, but I can assure you it’s a high number. I suppose I am not a good individual to be taking council from regarding this topic (after all, I am not a creature of God or the Devil and have no stake in the end of the world). But I can assure you as this sacrificial kitten I hold in my hand lives and breathes that all those individuals who have given up every last cent of their life savings to purchase advertisement billboards to warn people of the rapture date will be kicking themselves in the face the moment their designated 11th hour has passed.

I'm not kidding. People have given up their life savings to fund these

Now I like a good laugh just as much as the next psychotic abomination, and I found an amusing little tidbit I’d like to share with you all. A group called the Seattle Atheists has gathered a fairly decent lump sum of money to use for after the rapture as a relief fund to all survivors of the supposed devastating earthquake. However, if by some odd happenstance the prophesied rapture does not happen, they have promised to donate the money to an organization called Camp Quest, which teaches young children about the importance of science and critical thinking. This made my belly jiggle in delight (or perhaps it was the neighbor’s dog still digesting in my intestines...either way, my insides rumbled). What better way to say, “You are just plain unintelligible and your ideas are wrong” than to raise hundreds of dollars to teach kids to avoid you and your silly prophesies? Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t a direct bash at faith. I myself am a devout follow of the great Beelze-Bathtub and have much faith in the great ideals of cleanliness next to godliness. In fact, many of my fellow fiends all have their own personal religious beliefs. But I am authentically impressed with the Seattle Atheists for taking something they found to be inappropriate and creating a constructive retaliation plan to fight it and prevent such a thing from happening again. It’s not too late. If you’d like to donate (and I’d suggest you do it quickly!) You can go to their site here and help the relief.

I also stumbled upon a facebook event entitled the Post Rapture Looting party, in which the survivors of the rapture plan on pillaging the local stores and houses of the recently raptured individuals. Hey, if you’re going to go to Hell, you might as well do it in a La-Z-Boy recliner with an electric Gibson Guitar in your hand and the amp cranked up to 11 and an HD flat screen TV in your living room. Wanna be a part of it? You can find the group here. They’re already up to 427,014 attendees (as I post this current blog).

So if the world were to end, how would you spend your last day? For me, it really wouldn’t make a difference. I’d do what I do everyday; kill my borders (the Groves) in some horribly brutal fashion and get my Voodoo Priest friend to raise them from the dead (That way I don’t need to pay rent for this beautiful house). Some would say live life to the fullest, but that’s the great part about being a monster, that’s our job. If you don’t believe me, watch the movie Little Monsters starring Fred Savage and Howie Mandel. Sure it’s a poorly written piece of schlock, and sure it comes off as a pedophile’s wet dream, and sure the monsters in the movie only pull juvenile pranks and the monsters (like me) in real life kill people and eat large animals, but the basic idea is sort of kind of correct. Ok, not really, but we enjoy what we do as much as the movie tried to make us believe those monsters did. Either way, sit tight and watch the fireworks on May 21st, 2011 as we celebrate not the end of the world, but the complete double face palm failure of a prophesy that is slightly more credible than the reputation of the fame monster herself, Lady GaGa.

BAZIIIIING!

Ziggy Stardust is rolling in his grave...or he will be when I get to him

* I've been informed of these two wonderful websites that I simply had to update you all on.

There is a supposed "Pet Watching Service" a group of Atheists are creating for those who wish to ascend but are worried about the horrible fate of their precious pets. Good thing I'm not a member. I'd just eat them. Check it out here.

A giant counter billboard has been built in the Bay Area that will count down to the rapture, and will make an official announcement for a Post Rapture Party held in the West Coast, where various prominent Atheists speakers will be attending. You can read about it here.

A special thanks to Mr. Aaron Gray, my very loyal reader, for finding this information for me.

And finally, a very special reminder to all of you who think Big Bad Jeffrey Macabre is a mean ol' atheist who hates religion. Like I said, not so. I am simply playing the part of a mildly opinionated journalist. All Hail Beelze-Bathtub.

War of the Worlds Retrospective and Parody

2011-05-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

For those of you unfamiliar with H.G. Wells and his work, I suggest you begin familiarizing yourself immediately with such literary classics as The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and most notably, War of the Worlds. War of the Worlds is my personal favorite* of Well’s literature.

*Ok fine, War of the Worlds is my second favorite just behind The Island of Dr. Moreau…I have a soft spot for mad scientist “furries” (I think that’s the meme…) hell bent on conducting experiments that society chooses to deem as “unnatural”. I myself have taken the time to borrow my current border’s cat, Cubby, and turn him into an unspeakable abomination. I still haven’t managed to clean that mysterious viscous excrement off of the walls. But I digress. (Pictures to come).

Interestingly enough, War of the Worlds appears to be the World’s favorite of Well’s literature, seeing as it has been adapted, parodied, referenced and sequelized more times than anyone can really count (including unreleased fan boy parodies/homages). Probably the most famous adaptation of this classic piece is the October 30^th, 1938 American radio broadcast, directed and narrated by Hollywood personality Orson Welles. This broadcast was a special Halloween episode to an ongoing radio show and aired as a series of News Bulletins to create the illusion that the Martian invasion was actually happening. The broadcast was especially frightening, since the script was written as a modern day adaptation of the literary classic. As expected, this famous broadcast triggered a journalistic uproar, with many newspapers and reporters slamming the episode for its frightening deception. Adolf Hitler himself cited the broadcast and the following hysteria as evidence of the supposed degradation and perversion of Democracy as a system of government. Today, the broadcast carries with it connotations of horror, as the reported hysteria varies in levels of intensity, depending on how much stock you put into the reports of the local newspapers at the time. I recall the incident as being particularly amusing, but I never got a good look at the public’s reaction myself; I was a tad distracted that year (I was residing then in the closet of Hollywood Actor Owen Moore. He’d get the most adorable frill on his eyebrows every time I woke him up by throwing Dixie cups at his face. The poor man really needed to check his blood pressure more often. He would get so mad).

Pot to kettle...pot to kettle...come in kettle...you're black

Anyway, the other day my good ghoul friend Voodoo Roberre (not “girl friend” you perverts. I’m not the crypt keeper. I don’t make puns) forwarded me a splendid little parody of the 1938 broadcast. Like Welles' adaptation it modernizes the alien invasion, leaving us with a very reminiscent ending to the infamous film Dr. Strangelove. Something else worthy of note, the recording pokes a great deal of fun at the unfortunate drinking habits of the late Orson Welles during his biter twilight years. I don’t know if any of you have seen those classic recordings of the esteemed and inebriated Mr. Welles awkwardly slurring his speech on the set of the commercials for the now defunct Paul Masson Champagne, but if you haven’t they are a scream. Allow me to forward the link to you here.

Voodoo Roberre

This parody is worth a listen. It was written and directed by a Mr. Aaron Gray as a school project for his audio class. It stars Aaron himself, a lovely up and coming voice actress Nique Rose and someone else playing the part of Orson who I wasn’t able to get the name of (I apologize to you sir). I encourage any and every one of you who like such topics to take a listen.

You can find the recording on Soundcloud here. Orson Welles would be proud.

Special thanks to Dr. Macro for his cordialness of my theft of his image.

Monsters Crash The Pajama Party

2011-05-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

Good Midnight to You.

Being a psychotic monster, I love a good scare. Also, being an unholy abomination that has walked the earth for hundreds of years, I love things that are nostalgic. Believe me when I say that living as long as I have, there is much to be nostalgic about. However I am not a sentimental creature, so it would have to take something special for me to start pining over the good old days. Nonetheless, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party does a splendid job capturing the feel of my 20^th Century nostalgia. The movie is an example of the types of flicks people would feature at the old spook shows in the 1960’s, but it was shot and edited to incorporate a live interactive performance during the screening. Various horror themed illusions were also performed, including decapitated head levitations, apparition manifestations, staged eviscerations and various other depictions of monstrous carnality (yes…mammarys were involved as well. But it was tasteful). The end result was a fantastic mix of a David Copperfield stage show, a William Castle film, and a deadly romp through Frankenstein’s Laboratory. To tell you the truth, I never understood why such performances ever became so extinct. Sure, you may find an obscure theatre company that gets their hands on an old public domain film and choreographs a fun interactive performance, but such things are fairly rare in this day and age (unless you wish to go to an Alice Cooper concert, but even those don’t really capture the essence of the Spook Shows of days of old).

Am I supposed to make a joke about this picture?

Because I don't think there's much to say.

This DVD is pumped with special features. In fact, I’m pretty sure anyone who bought it did so just to watch them. The total runtime for the title film is approximately 31 minutes and feels stripped (but is totally worth watching with both the commentaries). But this is to be expected because without a fully propped, paid and costumed interactive cast, the film is only a portion of a much bigger show. The film is about a group of thrill seeking “teenagers” who have taken refuge in an old (not so) abandoned mansion in hopes of getting laid…I mean, having a fun filled night of fright and adventure. I can’t say I blame them, as I tend to get my kicks by breaking into people’s houses at night myself. However, I do so to sketch the sleeping inhabitants and frame the drawings on my bathroom wall. Little do our sleepover party princesses know that the house is actually inhabited by a mad scientist, a ghoulish young woman and a cheeky bumbling fool of a gorilla . The film becomes particularly zany as the mad scientist kidnaps the girls to turn them all into gorillas (because…). As the girls are rounded up, their boyfriends run off to collect dollar store Halloween costumes to frighten them, completely oblivious to the kidnappings. Somewhere towards the end of the movie, a giant laser cannon blasts a hole through the screen, and this is where the real fun is supposed to begin. In a true live spook show presentation, this would be the part where costumed creeps step through the screen and attack the audience members, collecting them for the Doctor’s insane experiments (they'd all be actors, of course).

I know this all sounds silly and the production values are very poor, but this was clearly intentional. Everything about this film screams camp. If you’ve never had the whole Spook Show experience firsthand, you can only use your imaginations to comprehend the entertainment value of the true live performance. Thankfully the producers of this DVD have worked pretty hard to give you a simulated experience. The menu screens are all interactive, filled with Easter Eggs and video clips of obscure films and home movies. There is even another film tucked away in the recesses of the menus (a supernatural thriller called Tormented). The inside sleeve is actually a short bio on the Spook Show circuit, lovingly written by Jim “The Mad Doctor” Ridenour. There are also two old-fashioned 3D glasses provided for you to enjoy one of the Easter Egged segments with.

Though I do love this DVD, it leaves much to desire. The content is mostly a lot of fluff and I wish there were more films to watch; Spook Show related or otherwise. I also wish there was a little more information about where the mysterious Easter Egged segments came from. I suppose it really does not matter. It’s a great experience to watch and I would highly recommend purchasing it at your local DVD store. Though I understand that most stores probably would not hold it (being so obscure), you can purchase the DVD for $9.95 at the Something Weird Video website, here.

Part of the fun of this DVD is finding the hidden Easter Eggs yourself through persistent exploration (though I suppose it isn’t all that hard of an excursion). But if you just don’t care for treasure hunting, or are looking for a particular segment and don’t have much time to sift through Easter Eggs, I have taken the liberty of typing up a cheat sheet for you in order to get the full experience without missing anything.

The very beginning is a really nifty spiral, which actually does mess with my visual perception if I stare into it for a while. Some kooky narration plays over the spiral, warning us that we are about to become transported into the “dark sepultures of this mysterious night”.

1^st DVD MENU

We begin immediately after being hypnotized; dropped into a cartoony graveyard in the middle of the night.

-By clicking the owl, we begin the title film, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party. A narration opens the film delivered by the Mad Doctor. He breaks the 4^th wall, warning the audience that we must remain in our seats, despite the horrific things that may commence during the screening of the film.

-The large tombstone offers us two commentary tracks. One narrated by Harry “Dr. Jekyl” Wise and the other by Philip “Dr. Evil” Morris.

-By clicking the small tombstone to the right a slideshow begins of horror movie flyers while radio spots for horror shows of the decade play throughout. (19:34)

-The third tombstone to the right brings you to a new menu.

~Successful Spooking in 10 Easy Lessons is a step by step manual to creating your own interactive Spook Show illusions. You can navigate through the pages using your DVD remote.

~The Man Buried Alive teaches how to promote a specific spook show act, where you bury a man alive. It helps you with your level of theatricality and your ability to promote yourself.

~Girl Frozen Alive teaches the same lesson learned in The Man Buried Alive, but for a different publicity stunt.

-By clicking the sky in the top right corner, a ghost appears. You are taken to a short video of spooky faces and masks from decades past to horrific organ music. (1:12)

-By clicking the treetops, a bat that appears. You see a video clip of a man in a gorilla suit grimacing at the camera. (0:18)

-By clicking the bottom left hand corner of the screen, an arrow appears. It takes you to a new DVD Menu.

2^nd DVD MENU

We are still in the graveyard, but are now facing a crooked old house with windows like eyes, and a front door like a gaping mouth. The moon rises high in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

-By clicking the bottom right hand corner of the screen, an arrow appears. It takes you back to the 1^st DVD Menu.

-Clicking in the top right hand corner of the screen, in the moon, a flash of lightning appears and a PSA for Free Television plays. (0:52)

-Clicking the front door of the house will take you inside, and the 3^rd DVD menu screen.

-By clicking the bottom left hand corner of the screen, an arrow appears. It takes you to the 4^th DVD Menu.

3^rd DVD MENU

We are inside the threshold of the crooked house. A black silhouette hangs by its neck in the right hand corner of the screen. A bat dangles next to a lamp hanging from the ceiling. A black cat sits in the doorway to the living room and a skull hangs menacingly from the wall.

-By clicking the face of the hanging man, you see a series of music videos made by “Horror Home Productions" set to original music by the Dead Elvi. The music videos are all homemade micro budget scenes of famous golden age horror monsters, such as the Vampire from London After Midnight, The Mummy and Mr. Hyde. There is also some home movie footage of suburban Halloween decorations from the 1950’s. (16:20)

-By clicking the Hangman’s feet, a creepy hand pops up and a quick clip from the movie Tormented plays. (0:04)

-By clicking the Bat, a 3-D homemade video plays. It’s time to pull out those glasses! (6:22)

Ok, let me get this out in the open. Crappy 3-d does work, ok? It might look like shit, but putting on those 3-D glasses does create the illusion of a third dimension. If you really want it to work though, watch it in the dark, not in the light. Otherwise, you might not get the desired effect

-By clicking the cat, a few old music videos play. One is of the Brian Sisters, singing the Boogie Woogieman. Witchy silhouettes and grinning pumpkins surround the three girls as they huddle together to sing. The next song is the Delta Rhythm Boys performing Them Bones. The video is of the singers performing the song in a room standing around a piano as a dancing skeleton harasses a janitor outside. The last song is a rare recording of Anita O’Day singing The Walls Keep Talking. The video is of a black couple entering a haunted house, then bolting the moment they realize the place is swarming with ghosts. (7:58)

-By clicking the skull, you get the delight of watching a PSA about fear, called “Don’t Be Afraid”. It teaches you the basics of fear, how and why the natural stimulus is caused and what the human body goes through while experiencing it. It’s aimed for kids in the 1950’s so it’s not as fascinating as it sounds. (11:19)

-By clicking the bottom left hand corner of the screen, an arrow appears. It takes you back to the 2^nd DVD Menu

4^th DVD MENU

You enter a mausoleum. Once inside, you see a corpse lying in a coffin with a bat flying above. A cartoon figure with a Jack-O-Lantern for a head tries to scamper up the stairs, back outside. There is a giant face of a woman screaming on the right hand side of the screen.

-By clicking on the pumpkinhead figure a clip plays of a man struggling through a spider web with a woman mouthing words of warning, and shape shifting into various monsters. The man touches the woman’s face, and blood pours out of her skin as he makes contact. If anyone knows where this clip is from, please let me know in the comments. (3:38)

-By clicking on the eyeball of the face a video plays of a werewolf encounter at a drive-In. (3:26)

-By clicking on the bat, the film Tormented by Bert I. Gordon plays. It’s a 1960’s supernatural horror movie. (01:15:00)

-By clicking under the coffin, a skeleton appears and another clip from the mysterious movie plays. The man is harassed by the woman (who appears to be supernatural). (:12)

-By clicking on the head of the corpse, a clip plays. We see through the perspective of a customer riding through an old-fashioned spook house, with a woman screaming in reaction to the monsters attacking the camera. (1:09)

-By clicking under the coffin, a spider appears and a list of credits for the music and some of the Easter Eggs pops up.

-By clicking next to the head of the corpse, a candle appears and a slideshow of spooky pictures begins with an audio recording that says “girls, do not come alone, bring your boyfriend to protect you when the lights go out”. (0:05)

-By clicking next to the pumpkinhead cartoon, an arrow appears that takes you back to the 2^rd DVD menu.