90-Min. Rewatch - "Jigsaw" and Trading Control for Trauma (The @cb27words Agenda).

*Blog post started on July 23, 2020.

I think I might have my finances in order, so I am more stressed out than ever. This proves that I am not an optimist because I am obviously waiting for the other shoe drop. You cannot expect someone who got the "things cannot get any worse" speech only to witness a man set himself on fire and then fail to grab the nearest fire extinguisher (To my credit, an extinguisher was grabbed.) to think any differently.

Blood sugar was higher than I have ever seen it, and since it will take a month for me to figure out how truly shagged my wallet is, perhaps I can swing that into a medical marijuana card. At least I am always up on how to season a shit quesadilla (I have never heard of anyone throwing seasoning on a sandwich. My quesadilla's at home get a little chipotle pepper thrown in no matter how seasoned the meat is.).

I have also discovered that I am either more mature than I thought or have never been too desperate. The last time I was desperate because of my finances, that was because I had inadvertently committed check fraud. This was from my infamous summer of 2006 where my inevitable bankruptcy declaration was hurried because I did not want Carrie Clifton to be desperate for her heroin fix.

When I reviewed the blog that I have a link to above, I see I had referred to her by name, so I think it is best to not put that back into Pandora's box. The guys responsible for the sexual assaults from the wrestling industry that I had endured best feel lucky that it took ten years to register that trauma.

Being desperate opened up a friend to invite some trauma. It sucks that our society is not forgiving of sexual expression because for her safety, the exploitation should have been at a strip club or fansonly.com. Damn how COVID-19 has fucked everything up, but we should be cheering on regulation when going into a questionable situation seems more acceptable than profiting from nudity. What started as a kissing flesh transaction for a low figure escalated into a need to clean off the effected areas.

Upon her return, she stated she felt weird and cheated by the agreed payoff. Give the situation a half hour to allow that amount promised to more than triple in her Venmo, it became a celebration about how she got that money. Everything I was suggesting about paydays from my experiences in strip clubs (I have paid for sex once [She did not say it was a transaction until after she provided service.] but have paid to be in places where the likely hood of action was greater more than a handful of times), was irrelevant because it is better to have some money than hold out to make the money you should have.

Oh the times they are a changing. It use to be you stripped so you would not whore. Now, it is better to not be seen exploiting yourself than to own up to it. I suppose it is kind fitting when you look at our society right now.

A Tweet from @CatBusRuss:

If DHS operatives are going to jump out of windowless vans to kidnap protesters, they should at least offer candy before hand. Pedophiles have more class than Trump.

A response form Samuel C Winchester

He (I) should read the Patriot Act that Joe Biden voted for.

Instead of denouncing the harm our president is doing, Trump's supporter find a way to blame the victims. As long as it protects their wallets and churches, the evils of the actions are warranted. That may be thinking too highly of the right.

They voted a fellow sociopath into office, know he is ruining our country, but as long as it hurts the people they dislike, they have been rewarded. In America, it is all about the payday, regardless if Yackoff Smirnoff can now emigrate to Canada to revive his career because of it.

In Republican America, police protect and serve themselves.

I know it is a crime to wish death or harm on a sitting president, but what about being put in a Jigsaw trap with Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared Kushner? In the last few films, the primary traps allowed for everyone to survive. If he can be an ideal person, death or hindering harm should not befall him.

So that is my pitch for "Saw 10". I would like Twisted Pictures to know that I would take everything into consideration from the previous films to make it work. Perhaps the writers of the last of the series to be released at this point should have tried to direct that feature as well to ensure the continuity was considered.

movieposters2.com

Jigsaw (2017) - 1 hour 32 minutes

It has been 10 years since John Kramer, the mass murderer known in the press as Jigsaw, died, but a desperate criminal informant claims that there is a new game. There are five players and if he does not initiate the game, he will be killed. Not soon after he is critically wounded by a barrage of police gunfire to prevent the proposed game, joggers discover a corpse dangling above a path, head stuck in a bucket. Well, half a head as ME Logan Nelson and Detective Halloran would soon discover.

The corpse also featured the Kramer trademark of a piece of flesh being removed in the shape of a puzzle piece. Being a thorough examiner, Logan finds a flash drive left in the wound. It has a label on it which states that "Now there are four" and it contains an audio file. When the file is played, it says the games have started again and demands the police do their job and provide justice so these contests will no longer be necessary. This voice sounded like and is soon verified as Kramer's.

Things only get more eerie when under the first victims fingernails is Kramer's blood. Despite his death, THE Jigsaw is the prime suspect. Halloran cannot accept that and is certain that it is either Nelson whose Iraq War PTSD must have gotten the best of him or Nelson's assistant and Jigsaw fangirl Eleanor. Impulsive and brash is not how anyone should handle a Jigsaw scenario, so it seems the other four players are the only ones who can save their selves provided they will purge themselves of their sins.

Hopefully 4K Blu-ray sales will pick up so that resellers like Disc/Mega Replay will encourage customers to sell them. "Jigsaw" might be the first I would sell. This may have been a result of a thorough third/fourth viewing. It came with a digital copy, so what would I be losing.

I assure you that I did genuinely enjoy this film. After my disappointment in "Saw III", I know you cannot straight up buy these films, so I used a discount code at Red Box to judge this feature first. The eighth entry features a clever story which harkened back to my favorite installment "Saw II" and the traps are as ingenious as ever. That felt very refreshing being a devotee to the series and having missed domestic torture porn the past seven years.

If you are into this series for the formula, this is definitely worthwhile. There are not really any strong performances, but we never expected those in these films after Tobin Bell's John Kramer had been working from beyond the grave (sorry Costas Mandylor and Sean Patrick Flannery). The gore is toned down, but the climax makes it up to all those sickos who focused on that instead of the stories. Disappointment only kicked in after multiple rewatches because someone decided to ditch the past stories.

I will not get into the time frame of the original seven films which concluded in 2010. If everything wrapped up in the "Saw" world in 2007, so be it. The film's twist ends up being too clever resulting in continuity errors and ignorance of the Jigsaw associates that were established after the second film. This is a major flaw because the story flows to quickly, and to leave out the concept of Jigsaw followers results in impossibilities playing out. There is too much for our primary character to do and make this tale seem believable.

Besides for asking of an extra effort to disband disbelief, you catch during rewatches that the games do not play out the same way. I know the latter half of the heptalogy focused on the importance of predicting the actions of the players, but the predictions Jigsaw made are far too on the nose. He could only do that if he is interacting with the players which is a no-no. You end up realizing why they are not repeating this format for the franchise's next feature, "Spiral".

"Jigsaw" is definitely worth a rent for any horror fan. It is a mandatory view for any fan of the "Saw" series, but like the weaker entries in the series, the viewer cannot be overly scrutinizing. This results in it being a hard fit in terms of series continuity, thus a wrong piece for your "Saw" home media collection.

If you choose to purchase it, be sure to redeem that digital code A.S.A.P. Universal and Sony are cracking down on expiration dates.

90-min at $9.99 - "Rambo: Last Blood", Stallone Is a Sad Liam Neeson

90-Min. Prime Video - "Stage Fright:" The Stylized Slasher for the Stage

*Blog post started on July 27, 2020.

I must be placing too much pressure on myself to be something worthwhile. To make sure I had new content for today's post, Amazon Prime was activated as was my drinking habit. It started with "StageFright Aquarius" to determine whether "Screen Drafts's" number three giallo film of all time was actually part of the genre (As it turns out, I did not need to write this blog till Wednesday). Two drinks were not enough after the film concluded, so I thought it made sense to wrap up the first season of "The Boys".

The conclusion to the first run of episodes ran a little longer than anticipated. Drunk quesadilla grilling and toast with remnants of Domino's garlic sauce caused a couple of pauses. Deciding that I needed to get a back bump in for old time sakes led to a delay in the viewing. Skimble even put a stop to the broadcast when I went to pet Eva after I lectured him about being codependent towards me. Perhaps I need to be afraid of his need to love me because his accurate pounce on the Apple TV remote to return to the main menu was impressive. This one-eared fluffy monster must have been a rodent killer at some point.

I apologize for being stressed and depressed my feline friend. There are just times I need to register that and receive fewer boops. Reading my old Adrian Tomine journal led to me realizing how my life SEEMS about the same as 10 years ago, sans my stripper friends to distract me. At least my alcoholism has improved. How drunk did I get at the defunct Peoria Theater for the "Drunken Zombie Double Feature"? Was my five hours in front of the TV triggered by my decade old scribbles? Glory days?

In the end, I am glad that I am blogging now as opposed to journaling. Reading my past works, my life needs to be told in a narrative instead of free-flowing. If I have moments where I cannot make out what I was trying to say, it feels like I failed myself. On the plus side, my life does not FEEL as messed up as it once did.

Why can I not appreciate semi-charmed kind of life? It was pretty much the theme of my senior year of high school. Oh yeah, I did not care for high school. Since that album was released in 1998, that means it is associated with two years of narrow-minded Christian classmates. My mind was not exactly woke, but wide enough to women who did not wear long denim skirts were not sluts and the pitch that only Christians go to heaven was bullshit.

Fear of being totally alone has been consuming some hours of my time. There are times that I miss my recent ex, but my codependency never allowed me to be comfortable. Since there are many people who do not want to live alone, it seems like making a connection will be trickier. My method to avoid loneliness was to be chasing some kind of goal, but I have never caught anything, so I should rethink that approach. What I want right now is to try is some truly great hallucigenics to make sense of it all this. Why am I feeling like Stacia is calling me?

It is tough right now because the last three paragraphs was me just trying to make a connection with you, the reader. This is the first time I do not have to edit the middle of the intro rant when I republish this a third time on ninetyforchill.com.

The read on this experience is tough. Am I getting better with my structure or am I still practicing fruitless acts? I can still segue though because I am feeling a bit like a desperate actor trapped overnight with an owl-masked serial killer.

StageFright (1987, 90 minutes)

Everyone is desperate to make this new musical about a serial killer work. With rent coming due, each performer and the director, Peter, need a hit. The problem with the production is primarily Peter. Insistent that his vision be realized, he excepts no excuses for any shortcomings, even injury. This includes his lead actress Alicia who can barely walk let alone dance.

The play's wardrobe woman Betty decides it is best that she get Alicia's injury looked at, so she sneaks her off to the closest hospital for relief. Any doctor should be able to handle a bum ankle, so who cares that it is a mental institution? It is only fitting because a fellow actor is residing there, Irving Wallace. Wallace is responsible for 16 murders and he is awaiting a psychological evaluation before he goes to trial. Relief for her injury or not, Alicia will have an interesting story when she returns to the set.

Things become interesting back at the soundstage because Betty and Alicia had inadvertently provided Wallace a chance to escape and a ride to a place he knows very well. It does not take long for him to go back to his most recent practice as he dispatches Betty within minutes of arriving. The authorities and the press are quick to the scene, and just as quickly, Peter and the producer, Ferrari, have a plan to capitalize on this very recent event.

They decide that as long as the police will be stationed outside the sound stage, the script can be retooled and rehearsed all night. Their retooling is incorporating the fresh on the public's minds killings of Irvin Wallace. There is one problem. The actor portraying Wallace can not find his owl-headed costume. When the rehearsal resume, the scene has the villain ready for to perform, but why does he have a knife when it calls for strangulation?

It is apparent that Wallace is out to kill the cast and crew, and his most recent victim was told by Peter to hide the keys to the soundstage so everyone has to stick around to get this play ready for opening night. The cops cannot hear the going on inside, so it will be up to the crew to decide to fight a prolific and ingenious murder or find some other way to escape. No one will come to open the stage for 10 hours. Can they last that long?

The length of "StageFright's" plot synopsis would seem appropriate for a dime store yellow-novel (a giallo in Italy that inspired the name for the Italian horror/mystery genre), not a slasher movie. This feature lacks the mystery to be anything but a slasher, but when you take inspiration from Dario Argento when it comes to the kills, you are going to have a unique cinematic experience.

"StageFright" left me pondering if Darren Lynn Bousman was inspired by this film when he created "Repo: The Genetic Opera". Music plays a great supporting character in this film and all of the set pieces are fun. Director Michele Soavi has some difficulty with the wider shots, but what is going on in the shot keeps the audience amused. All the kills are up close and personal, and serve as the perfect, brutal reward for the viewer's patience.

This may be one of the most brutal slasher movies before the end of the century. I do not want to spoil anything, but we do have a pregnant couple featured in the film. Slasher movies tended to be a little more shy (or were forced by the MPAA) when it came to presenting brutal death when compared to giallo. Because the Italian director is a product of the latter genre, he stretches out the length of the murders with strong camera cuts and close ups. It is trickier than it sounds since we get some powertool kills, the seemingly most efficient weaponry in slashers. Nothing is off limits in terms of violence, so every murder finds a fun new way to present discomfort.

This perfect merging of giallo style and slasher formula only suffers from budget hinderances. The film is literally filmed on a sound stage, when a theater would have been appropriate. Nothing is done to look like an opera house or even a college theater, so no thought is put into placing the audience in the right atmosphere. In a sense, it feels like a knock off of Dario Argento's "Opera". When I take that into consideration, the lack of intensity through out pushes it further from being considered an example of giallo.

Intensity only comes with action, so that space between the premise establishment and the kills is void of emotion. It leads you to wish something tragic to our expecting couple or our antagonist lets us in on his lore to start pulling on some heart strings. The writers must have been aware of this because you get one of those.

"StageFright" is a slasher movie that delivers because of its unique approach. Besides inspiring ridiculously-premised films like "Repo: The Genetic Opera" and the "The Wizard of Gore (featuring the Suicide Girls), the stylized approach to violence can be seen in most European horror that came at the turn of the century. This film is what "Friday the 13th" if it was handled by an adored indie director. 

"StageFright" has vision and gore. Who could ask for anything more? Well, perhaps trained dancer. It could use some rhythm.

beyondhorrordesign.blogspot.com

"Heroic Duo": Lacks the Excitement and Benefits of a Black Lives Matters March

90-min. Prime Video - "Split Second": Plot Decisions, Action, and Kim Cattral's Boobs

*Blog post started on April 13, 2020.

It turns out my supposed wealth of rediscovered content may be for not. The memo pad I am transcribing right now has many movie reviews, and they all seem prepared for publication in the ICC Harbinger. When I look at how long it can take to get through an article from The Ringer (granted they use a much larger font), these are not nerdy website ready. They work great for 2002, the year of my web designer certification, but I cannot stay so far behind the times.

The first review I transcribed was for the Brian Cox prison break movie "The Escapist", so I feel that I cannot really release it until I come up with another jail movie or a very British flick. Unfortunately, since Rutger Hauer cannot deliver a British accent, "Split Second" does not qualify.

Split Second - 1992

By 2008, global warming has left London's streets below the water table. With the United States still refusing to do anything about climate change, let alone pollution, the air is so congested with smog that the world is in a state of near constant night. Needless to say, when you create the same environment as "Highlander 2: The Quickening", the people of the world will go nuts. Fortunately for the people of London, Detective Harley Stone has been that way since his partner was murdered by a heart-ripping serial killer who he seems to have a psychic link to.

The London Police Service frowns on a little chocolate donut and coffee-fueled cannon-toting member of the force to be out on his own, so they assign him an Oxford-educated rookie in Dick Durkin to be his partner. Durkin is fascinated by the preemptive knowledge that Stone has and thinks that with his education will crack the case. That all falls apart after the killer attacks Stone's girlfriend Michelle. She survives, but the DNA the attacker left contains that of sewer rats and all of its past victims. Take that in consideration with the wounds and Satanic messages it leaves, Durkin and Stone both determine they are going to need bigger guns.

"Split Second" aspires to be a Roger Corman film, but has no idea what would be the best film(s) to rip off. Decisions on where the film should be taken seems to change after every scene. It seems like it starts as "Cobra", then the latter half of "Lethal Weapon 2", and ultimately "Alien". You can even throw in some "Tango and Cash" and "Remo Williams".

If the actors did not acknowledge with their performances how stupid the film is, it would be unwatchable. The worst offense the film commits is wasting Peter Postlethwaite to be an additional person for Rutger Hauer to bully. A lesser offense would be Kim Cattral deciding not to commit to a British accent (She may have just needed 20 years of practice because it is acceptable in "The Ghost Writer".). With Hauer failing to attempt a British accent, one may assume that they decided to try and make the film not seem to be British. If it worked in "Lifeforce", why would it not here?

Saying that this film is what would happen if "Lifeforce" and "Highlander 2" had a baby would be accurate, except the direction is totally lacking. That is quite a feat to fail worse than Russell Mulcahy. Since the camera hardly moves and there are only two action sequences, there seems to be no effort made. With a lack of clever dialogue, Tony Maylam cannot claim to be ahead of "The Office" in terms of this style. The climax is a bit clunky, but fun since the actors approach had not changed and "Blade" director Stephen Norrington's quickly produced "Alien" knock off monster fits in to the mood. It is the only scene that works, and the credits explicitly tell you Ian Sharp was the director responsible.

What really hurts the legacy of "Split Second" is that it is too aware of its silly nature. This means I would not suggest the Rifftrax crew to give it their time. This could work as a "How Did This Get Made" podcast because you can experience it, but not have to get involved in improving it. You can be amused by the mediocrity, but maybe it is better for this one to be lost. Rutger Hauer has worked with Albert Pyun in the past, so we can afford to edit his filmography for his legacy sake.

Pinterest - Martin Riggs

90-Min Netflix: Survivor - And Parenting to be Social - 2 More Bad Ideas