If it does not involve pro-wrestling, this is Russ Stevens's effort to create the one stop blog for movies that are cut to the ideal run-time, 90 minutes. This blog may feature films that may range from 71 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, but 101 minutes and up are too long. An hour and a half can justify cutting a film into two chapters and a book into three. Hobbits and Katniss have too many ending, consider this an effort to stop that.
Is it weird to say that director
Kathryn Bigelow is an innovator? She deserves the title being the first
woman to with the Best Director Academy Award, but she was not the first
nominee, and she is best known for her genre flicks "Near Dark" and
"Point Break".
These
genre films are what make her an innovator. Nothing brilliant has come
from the extreme sport FBI genre (Sorry Vin Diesel), but when it comes to the vampire love
story genre, "Near Dark" showed Hollywood how it should be done.
Caleb
is your typical Oklahoman teenager who should be thinking about signing
up for agriculture classes at the local junior college. He drives his
truck, raises horses, and enjoys "exciting" trips into town to act like
the "King of the Hill" gang. Everything changes on one of these trips
where he tries to win over the mysterious new girl in town, Mae. The
only thing she lets Caleb in on is her obsession with the night.
Attached
to this obsession are instincts she cannot resist which results in her
taking a nip out of Caleb's neck. This leave Caleb trapped in a world
that is controlled by the will of vampire Jessie Hooker. Unwilling to
join these killers, he must either find a way to survive and stay with
Mae or find a way to get back to his family and return to the normal.
With
his family trying to track him down, hopefully Caleb will come to terms
with his fate before his father and sister meet his new crew.
"Near
Dark" is the most believable vampire adolescence films produced. It
works as an action movie, a coming of age tale, and an 80's horror
classic.
As long as the
audience has an idea of what small town living is like, relating to the
characters is easy. We understand Caleb's dilemma and Mae's rebellious
nature, and we pull for both to figure this existence out. The Southern
charm also gives is a feel on an American fairy tale like "The Wizard of
Oz".
With that Great
Plains feel, the antagonists are brilliant and the character actors
involved (Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and the rest of the USS Solaco's
crew) are perfect. These West Texas vampires are the right kind of
decadents that Americans can relate too, and show that there should not
be anything romantic about hominus nocturna.
To
further make sure the audience does not respond too much to the
romance, the soundtrack by Tangerine Dream gives the film an
Argento-esque feel that Goblin provided for his most highly-praised
films. Like "Suspiria" it turns the story into a twisted folk tale.
Great
direction, story, soundtrack and ensemble cast make "Near Dark" the
most under appreicated vampire films of the past 40 years. It is a great
early entry in the filmography of Kathryn Bigelow, and it demonstrates
her understanding of what she is filming. If you liked any of her other
films or vampire movies in general, "Near Dark" is a must see.
*Blog post started on December 10, 2020. "It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To" review is from 2009.
"The Velocipastor" is a film so set on being a B-movie, you admire its
audacity to do so. It is a fun 70 minutes about a priest cursed by a
Chinese dinosaur "tooth" who, a long with Carol the pre-med, pre-law
hooker, takes on the challenge of Catholic drug-dealing ninjas.
"It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To": The Catalyst for "Main Event of the Dead".
I
suppose some credit should go to Christopher R. Mihm's "It Came from
Another World" and of course the Drunken Zombie Deadly Double Features
where I saw these films. The point is, when you see a bunch of amusing
pictures that were made by a bunch of friends gathering together to make
a thing, regardless of how nonexistent a budget was, why would you not
think that you could do the same. Thus, I went from writing an indie
flick about blueprints for my in ring wrestling return to what I thought
would be an ode to the fledgling Peoria's wrestling scene.
This
idea was over at Richard's on Main St. (i.e. the middle aged). Too bad the Pekin kids and
Southside stoners never went out to the bars. Social media was also
something that was not a big draw for these types in the early 20-teens.
The Facebook traffic picked up, but the people you wanted to
immortalize would only respond to me if I was calling them out for being
racist assholes or self absorbed and ignorant wrestlers (To be fair,
you can accuse me of being self absorbed, but I have never gone out to
ruin anyone's life or make them feel less for that.).
Needless
to say, I do not think the word had ever gotten to them that there was a
chance to be covered in pasty makeup and Karo Syrup. More importantly,
their in ring skills were to be documented and viewed by lesser
film festivals and top level indie wrestling promotions. How can you say
no to promoting yourself?
That
sums up the Peoria wrestling scene. It is all about friends doing
favors for other friends. Who needs merit and effort when you just have
to score some boys some weed, make the high ones chuckle, or just kiss
ass to the biggest and most obnoxious marks? As long as you are not
looking for a pay day or show ambition to make a name for yourself, you
are in.
It
is coming up on 10 years of trying to live and die by this script. If
you want me to have a New Year's Resolution, I suppose I will get my
pilot script out for an idea that has been rattling in my brain the past
four years. Too bad I feel gratuitous nudity is needed. That idea
prevents YouTube from allowing me those producer and director
credits I have been craving.
If
you do not have a budget, bare skin can make up for those shortcomings.
Too bad I do not know how to add zombies into the pilot idea.It leaves me short of presenting a classic like:
"It's My Party and I'll If I Want To" (2007): The Review
Tom
Savini's hard nipples, a comic book opening with an eight-bit motif, a
budget that was seemingly solely spent on scary contact lenses, and an
Elvira costume-sporting, ginger karate expert with stunt tits are what
Scotchworthy Productions delivers with their Halloween-themed clusterfest,
"It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To."
Sarah,
a switchblade-wielding over achiever is down because it seems that all
of her friends have forgotten her birthday. This is not the case because
they are planning a wicked party for her at the abandoned Burkitt
Manor. The mansion is infamous for the 15 murders that occurred there
over the past 70 years. Little do they know that after Uncle Tom
(Savini) turned the power on to the joint, evil has awoken.
"It's
My Party..." story eventually gets all jumbled and, aside from the
survivalism element, makes no sense once the action kicks in.
Fortunately, there is plenty of gore to make all of the violence
worthwhile.
Everything
that Tony Wash's film has is over the top which is essential for
an awesome B-Movie. Character generalizations, gratuitous nudity, and
attempts to be clever: This picture knows what is is and wants to excel
at.
Having
not seen "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead", this maybe the best
no budget flick to have played Peoria (At least until "The Drunken
Zombie International Film Festival" brought us the Soska Sisters' debut
feature "Dead Hooker in a Trunk"). As long as you can deal with the low
body count, "It's My Party and I'll Die if I Want To" has something for
every fan of B-Movie horror. Rarely, do all the bloody pieces fit so
well.
And
with that said, I may as well address recent championship title changes
in pro wrestling. "Bad Taste" is in the title of this blog post, and
that is the general consensus of what people think the fans of that
industry have. My personal taste says we fans should lean into that
more, but when I suggest the Katie Vick was a fun angle, that opinion
maybe disqualified.
As
a horror and occasional raunchy comedy fan, I respect when the creators
take something further than what the audience considers far enough. If
Triple H did not toss the brains at the end of the funeral parlor
segment, my thoughts about the angle would be that it was in poor taste.
Once that poor taste has been taken to the bad realm, the imagination
of the audience has been destroyed. To gain that kind of control is
something I admire.
Three-on-one handicap match against the champion versus a dog collar
blood bath: Cody's title victory is the superior than Zayn's.
A
blood bath serves as a perfect transition into how I finally got around
to Peter Jackson's debut directorial effort, "Bad Taste". The prior
night, I revisited the failed lesbian take on the already pretentious
"Dead Poets Society", Canada's "Lost and Delirious". It ended up being a
downer of a film on top of that, so I needed something to cleanse my
pallet. "Young Adult" is still a disc that I need to open, but as a
depressed writer, I did not think the feature was right to bounce back
from patriarchal bullshit (The only valid thing about "Lost and
Delirious outside a Graham Greene supporting role is that it took place
in the current day, so making it about accepting teenage lesbians at an up tight boarding school a good premise.).
As
I looked through my unwatched DVD's and Blu-rays, "Young Adult" was the
only film under 97 minutes. Anything purchased on iTunes was either
foreign or experimental, so I did not know if I had the attention span
for those. So I turned to Amazon Prime's offerings, and "Bad Taste" beat
out "Night of the Demons" as my choice to add to my 90-minute movie
data base.
The
Astro Investigation and Defense Service (a joke that may have been
ahead of its time) is investigating the town of Kaihoro, New Zealand.
There seems to be no locals present, just a group of men in identical
blue work shirts and jeans. Barry and Derek are the advance team.
Barry
is quick to capture one of these men while Derek is being tracked by an
axe-wielding simpleton who he destroys with his magnum. Based on the
reaction the two have received upon arrival, Barry is certain these are
not friendly aliens with glowing fingers but extra terrestrials who
intend to end humanity. It is a good thing their action-loving team
members Frank and Ozzy (Is this a Muppet joke?) are en route to this town.
With
all this ruckus, a gang of these aliens mount a counter attack which
results in Barry taking a fall that leaves him with a compound fracture
of the skull. The team writes him off, but the persistence of Barry
allows him to figure out ways to keep his brain matter in his cranium,
but perhaps at the cost of his sanity. Unfortunately, our heroes cannot
leave because a charity collector, Giles, had arrived before Frank and
Ozzy could block the roads into town.
Giles
is soon captured, so the boys are set on rescuing him. As they
infiltrate the alien base, they discover what has happened to the town
folk. The aliens represent Crum's Country Delights and they have decided
that human beings will be the dish that will make them competitive in
the intergalactic fast food market once again. Kaihoro maybe lost, but
there is no way the AIDS team is going to let Lord Crum and his cronies
introduce this new menu item to space car hops.
"Bad
Taste" is a very cheap slash-stick comedy which is very amateur in
nature, but successfully shows there is a great director behind it.
Peter Jackson shot this film over four years on weekends and the New
Zealand film board took notice of his dedication. The result is a great
exercise in practical gore effects while being more amusing and easier
for the squeamish to stand than the similar efforts of Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead".
This
film was a passion project of Jackson who knew this feature just had to
get made. He was going to give audiences a bad film though, so his
clever direction allows us to forgive the features shortcomings. It is
more than apparent that Jackson lacked the means to produce high art,
but his short cuts allow the audience to be in on the joke that these cheats
are.
Until
the finale, the action starts as being a little too sloppy for its own
good. It starts to feel long, but the once a chainsaw-wielding
psychopath is introduced, it finds its groove and becomes a ball until the gory
climax that was repeated in "Dead Alive" and was missing from all of his
features after (I may need to rewatch "The Frighteners" and "Heavenly
Creatures" to confirm the lack of rebirth sequences.). Darn PG-13 and
its limitations.
Excellent
gore, a John Carpenter styled soundtrack, and the sheer absurdness of
"Bad Taste" make this feature a classic. The film becomes more polished
as it moves along (probably because of the New Zealand government
funding), so it feels like you are learning about film makings alongside
the great auteur Peter Jackson. It also leaves you missing the gory
beauty that he was producing, but would you trade it for "The Lord of
the Rings Trilogy? With the sheer amount of false endings in "Return of
the King", perhaps.
This is a fun vampire flick, but it shows the limitations of John
Carpenter. His direction seems stretched by the quest elements of the
tale and without one of his go to actors in the lead, it loses some of
the feeling his classics have. He was best in the mid 80’s leaning in to
his regulars. I wish he would be more insistent on doing that. Still, the
FUN is there and James Wood is great. On to Bon Jovi taking over the
franchise.
I
suppose I am stretching out the weekend technically. This was probably
watched on Wednesday, but I am in the midst of a 13-day stretch between
both jobs, so time is kind of lost on me. "John Carpenter's Vampires" is
almost an appropriate place to start as I am trying to use meal
replacement shakes for 50% of my meals (I skip breakfast, unless I wake
up before the alarm. Wendy's is killing it.). Sucking the blood out
of someone felt like a reasonable means of recovering from the lack of
sleep
that "Cyberpunk 2077" led to.
It
did not help when a coworker goes home because they were not feeling well. I
work for a big box store, so you know they have COVID-19 protocols for
their employees. If you passed the screening for the day, you got to work
your shift. The argument can be made that it is flu season so not
everything is corona virus. How you can suddenly change symptoms in two
hours is my counter to that?
Fuck food poisoning. That is why I skip breakfast. I need to make the proletariat look good.
When
my manager asked me to stay an extra hour (We could not get rid of the
customers till a half hour after the Semisonic moment.), it seemed like
the ill-feeling one was not a full-time employee. This means they did not
have any time to use to make up the lost wages. If your lungs
have not been overtaken by the pandemic, that really is the only reason to leave a job early. Use the sick time or lose the
sick time. I can understand that proposition.
But
on the flip side, at my bank job, we have one employee who uses the
time that has been allocated to them while the coworker who should get more than six
days of paternity leave cannot use his sick time to spend more time with
his child and the kid's worn out mom. Should I rant about the corporate
structure (Thank the gods that there is not really any right-leaning
charities in Champaign. I would be judged for not participating in
casual days for charity because of the not-for-profits that dominate the
rest of Downstate Illinois [Christian pregnancy support groups, United Way, etc.].), or management at this location for not
covering for the most senior banker here:?
If
wanting to drain the employee who left with two opening to closing
shifts is the only drama I have right now, things are pretty good. There
was some hesitation about reviewing two James Woods movies because of
the conservative moron he has become (I wanted to see the Democratic
Party be destroyed after the Clinton impeachment trial, but I was an 18
year-old Mortonite. With experience, I learned who the bad guys truly
are.), but everyone knows that the works of great directors should take
precedence over the whom the producer believes will put butts in seats. Maybe this
double-feature will let me get over my reservations and buy the Hades
from "Hercules" Funko Pop. You cannot have Zeus without the douche.
And
that reminds me, we need to bust our asses to get Tiny Lister into the
WWE Hall of Fame this year. We must influence WWE programming some how.
The WWE video arena must be conquered. Death to the McMahon family's
Videodrome. Long with the new flesh.
Videodrome (1983)
Max
Renn is one of the three partners who operated Channel 83 in Toronto.
Their goal is to provide viewers with something they cannot get from
traditional and regulated television stations. They must not be the only
content providers with that goal, so when exploitative foreign entertainment seems
to be too tame, Renn begins to search for programming that is down right
sleazy and horrific. Luckily for them, their satellite technician
Harlan is the master of television piracy and has discovered a show out
of Pittsburgh called "Videodrome", an arena for torture, exploitation
and murder.
Because
of the signal scrambling, Channel 83 cannot just go air it. This leads
Renn on a mission to find the people behind the show. With every clue he
obtains, he starts experiencing violent hallucinations. Most of these
involve his sadomasochistic girlfriend, Nikki, who has also made it her
mission to "star" on "Videodrome". As he absorbs more of the shows
content, the visions of his body becoming a means of distributing the
content are the most prevalent.
He
can neither make heads or tails of what is real or not. As far as he
can tell, someone is manipulating him into becoming an organic VCR who
will act on whatever tapes they insert into him. Is Renn a slave to
Videodrome or is he the evolutionary link between television and
humanity?
"Videodrome"
gives you an almost incomprehensible concept and demands that the viewer
sense of it. David Cronenberg is such a talented director that the
audience wants to put this puzzle together while the violent and
sexual themes suggest that they should be examining who they are.
The
casting of James Woods is perfect because of his cynical and
self-righteous demeanor many of his previous (and most of his latter)
works have had. His characters tend to think that he is smarter than
everyone, thus he can handle questionable material without being
influenced by it. If you want a person who seems amoral, Woods was the
go to. Renn starts out as the caricature of Woods and you become
enamored with his journey from being amoral to trying to find meaning in
a world that is falling apart.
Cronenberg
keeps the atmosphere ambiguous enough that it is even hard for the
audience to tell what is suppose to be real in this world and what is
only in the head of the lead. By the third act, everything that happens
has to be accepted as real if you hope to make any sense of it, but you
know in the back of the mind, it cannot be.
Geiger body horror is never
going to be a real thing. It is something that is so traumatizing, you
want to believe that it cannot be real. This is the feeling that makes
this film a classic.
If
there is any shortcoming, it could be an under-developed supporting
cast. Then again, if you add more characters to muddle Renn, the
visceral discomfort might be lost. The impact of the body horror would
be stretched so thin that the impact of it might be lost. Debbie Harry
as Nikki and Jack Creley as video guide Prof. Brian O'Blivion are great
avatars to ground Renn's journey without taking the focus away from
the insanity.
"Videodrome"
still makes viewers question the impact that visual content has on them
and consider what the limits should or should not be. It is an
expression of a dream that the audience has to be brave enough to
indulge. David Cronenberg is happy to take you by the hand and drag you
through it, and he rewards you for it. This definitely makes it one of
the top horror films of the 80's, and I would not be surprised if
Cronenberg dominates that list.
All the ratty clothes that I do not want Mom to throw out have been washed. I have yet to open up the vape from my last NuEra
visit, but when you have a bit of liquidity to your finance, further
stockpiling seemed like a wise move. If only it was not next door to my
laundromat, the dispensary might be out of mind. Mooching water from my
places of work has been optimized. This all means that I am ready to
hibernate for the winter.
At
least I am more ready for winter than those Charmin Bears. Get a bidet.
You can use less with Charmin, but the fur must still require more bog
rolls than what I use. Then again, they might be stuck on the product
because of a perineal fixation, but bidet manages that better.
The
hibernation talk is because I am just feeling exhausted. It might
be the diabetes, but the sudden onset of this throws me off. After all
of the reestablishing a relationship with OSF, I think these symptoms
have suddenly become prevalent. Or it could just
be 2020.
2020
is perhaps the year that Trump's America deserved. Too bad they just
reject any kind of suggestion in the name of liberty. Since
we all know they are delusional, it is easy just to ignore them when
their deity will soon be forced off his pedestal. If you consider his
health and skin color, calling him a golden cow is not much of a
stretch. You figure his moronic followers are more aware of the Old
Testament than the new based on the values they display.
If
only they understood irony. If they did, we would not have to worry
about hate crimes before the term ends. I am little bit concerned for
the President Elect with a Friday the 13th coming up. Otherwise, a
weekend with great wrestling and a decent 90-minute flick, it is the
closest I have been to being carefree in a while.
When
a liberal elite's server was hacked, a text thread about a manor in
Vermont was leaked online. It suggests that these elite gather up
deplorable conservatives, take them to this manor, and hunt them for
sport to serve as an outlet for their frustration with them pushing the
racist, homophobic, and antiscience views of the 45th president. The
far right conspiracies' web presences have dubbed it Manorgate.
If
this is happening, the left does not have to worry about their safety,
so no one with any sense takes it seriously. For those who lack that, a
fresh dozen of likely QAnon followers have woken up in the woods in what
seems to be the middle of nowhere. In a clearing, they find a
crate filled with weapons. Once they have all grabbed their firearm of
choice, they soon realize they are the latest guests at the Manor. It is
a controlled environment, so there is likely no escape. Here's hoping
the stereotypes about militia fans are true because their lives depend on those pseudo military skills.
"The Hunt" was the satire I needed to cleanse my palette of the matriarchal suggestion of "The Second Civil War".
It finds the middle ground to judge both sides from and provides a
story where stuff actually happens instead of just trying to be clever
with dialogue. If there is a flaw, it is that the violence could have
been more grindhouse inspired for my taste.
The
humor comes from the absurdity of the situations and the characters. So
I think that calls for absurd violence instead of generally brief (yet
graphic) or implied brutality. Gore is absurd, thus appropriate.
Especially when the film's premise sparked immediate controversy and was
so volatile that the release date got pushed back due to the Dayton and
El Paso mass shootings. If you are going to even release such a
feature, you should go for broke.
Fortunately,
the story itself is solid and involving enough that you could have
almost gotten away with a near bloodless production. The beauty of the
feature is that the viewer cannot like anyone on either side except our
primary survivor who never mentions their politics in the picture. You
want everyone to get their comeuppance except the character with the
live and let live attitude outside the Manor and kill or be killed in
it. Everyone is going to die in a story like this, but it is rare that
you get to applaud every death.
Production
wise, there is not much to complain about. Director Craig Zobel has
some difficulty filming action in closed off environments, but this is a
hunt, so most of the kills are sudden and no one gets to fight back.
Because of this, any director could have taken on this project, but Zobel
was brave enough to do so.
Obviously,
the script is brilliant. It shows the world from a centrist light
and avoids telling the audience how to resolve the issues. Anyone with
an extreme viewpoint is a danger to the masses, so do not become one of
them is the moral. The liberal Hollywood trick to it is that the left in
this film has a point to make. Good satire still needs the viewer to pick a side.
That side characters could be flawed and awful, but their message is
still valid.
All
"The Second Civil War" did was just say identity politics are going to
ruin the nation. It did not dare say that there was away to avoid it.
Otherwise, it is a great cast delivering dialogue that can offer funny
premises, but nothing is done with them. "The Hunt" delivers on the
absurd nature of both sides with the moral of do not let you politics
make you a douche. "The Boys" has a similar message at the end of the
second season, but I got to be careful with my C-bombs.
"The
Hunt" provides the audience with a crazy premise and delivers on the
promise of a high moron kill count. Both sides can enjoy it and
reflect on who they really are as people, provided they have the
patience and stomach for the feature.
As
a straight satire, I had as much fun watching "The Hunt" as I did
"Doctor Strangelove". If a director of Kubrick's skill had directed
this, it would be a modern masterpiece. But we all like looking over Da
Vinci's sketches, so give this a view.
I
think we will get into the post's movie review rather quickly (Spoiler: So I thought.). Yes,
Trump is starting to accept reality, but it has only been a day since I
knocked out my review for the tragic misuse of the North American
treasure, Keanu Reeves, in "Siberia".
If there is a video game titled with the same pronunciation of your
movie title (As I verified that on Wikipedia, I found out that "Cyberia"
was also the title of a UK-based industrial act called Cubanate. At
least one positive came out of that $0.55 rental.), we are not expecting
romance to trump the diamond smuggling drama.
It
is actually appropriate that I finally opened my first Netflix DVD of
the billing cycle, "Slither", because I just got word today of a
COVID-19 outbreak at my parents' house. At least Mom (Negative while older sister and Dad are positive.) will appreciate
that this feature is from the guy who brought Rocket and Groot to the
big screen.
The
more I think about, the more spooked I get. Dad has beaten cancer thrice,
survived a heart attack before those scares, and successfully held off
the diabetic diagnosis for nearly 70 years (about twice as long as I
did). He even won a trivia night at The Fox Pub when a
kidney stone decided to it needed to be passed during the game. If anyone can beat the disease it is him, but I worry that
writing about it is just going to jinx him.
And
when I take into account when his father died, the patriarchy fell
apart. Grandpa went, the truth about his prejudices came out, and then
the subsequent families started feuding. The last couple of years have
left me pondering some of his (or Mom's expressed through him) biases,
but I cannot help but wonder if the four children and wife will be
warring. Regardless of my differences with my folks and younger siblings
(I shared a room with my brother from his birth until the little sister
went to ISU. My first roommate upon moving out was my little sister.),
we have always gotten a long. If I look back at my mom and her family
when my great grandparents passed, it just seems like everything can (will) go
to hell with a loss in a family (A bitter sibling of Mom's came back to our life upon their mom's death.).
If
I would have gotten the news about yesterday, "Slither" would have been
the ideal, ironic distraction. But, it is Tuesday. "AEW Dark" just cannot
muster a card up to take the edge off and you know my unwatched movies
are all a little too far on the dark side to relax to. Did I enjoy "Slither"
enough to purchase it on iTunes (It was $4.99 and yes, it was purchased)?
Slither (2006)
Wheelsy,
South Carolina is so busy getting ready for deer hunting season, no one
notices a meteorite that crashes in the nearby woods. If there is any
noticeable drama, it is the gossip about the relationship between the
prettiest biology teacher at the high school, Starla, and her wealthy,
older husband, Grant. Sheriff and codependent childhood friend of
Starla, Bill suspects and accepts that it is a marriage of convenience,
and trusts she made the best decision while he still longs for her.
Unfortunately,
if there was any flame, it is waning. Feeling rejected, Grant decides
to go out to a bar and flirts with Brenda, a fellow classmate of Starla.
They drunkenly end up in the woods. He thinks better of pursuing an
affair, and had the perfect way out of the situation. The two have
stumbled upon the meteorite, and Grant chooses to investigate the slime
that is trailing away from it. In an inebriated state, Grant ends up to
close to the larva like organism and is stung. After regaining
consciousness, he has only one thing on his mind. Meat.
Beyond
Grant's carnivorous obsession, everything seems normal and perhaps
better in terms of his marriage. That is until his cravings lead to him
skipping out on the Deer Cheer Dance, a celebration to kickoff hunting
season. It turns out he skipped out to kidnap and impregnate Brenda with
his parasite. When Starla finds him at home after the dance, he is
starting to mutate into something alien as well.
Bill
is investigating the disappearance of Brenda while Starla is trying to
figure out what Grant is hiding. After Grant catches Starla snooping
around, he seems intent on killing her, but Bill and his fellow deputies
arrive on the scene. Grant transforms into something that is halfway
between squid and man and escapes. Three days pass, and there are a lot
of dead live stock and pets littering Wheelsy. The impatient mayor and
Bill gather a posse to hunt down Grant, but it turns out Grant was
laying a trap for them.
When
they locate an alive but beyond bloated Brenda, she explodes into thousands of
slugs. These slugs enter their victims through the mouth and allow Grant
to control them. The town is quickly infected, and wanting to reconcile
with his wife, Starla is kidnapped. It is up to Bill and Kylie, a high
schooler who seems to have success fighting these slugs off to save the
day. Here is hoping a grenade compensated from some passing fishermen
will be enough to end this nightmare.
"Slither"
is a close to perfect horror comedy for adults. It features the body
horror you typically see in David Cronenberg features while always being
aware that you may just need to laugh in the face of the ridiculous, no
matter how horrific it maybe. In a way, this feature is "Gremlins"
without the constraint of a PG rating. The story has a lot of elements
that are laid out wonderfully, leading to a roller coaster scream of
joy.
With
having so much rising action, the audience may get annoyed that there
is not gore through out, but the audience is treated to great
performances from Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, and Michael Rooker
that give you the expectation that when it hits the fan, it must be
spectacular. The only annoying thing about any of the acting is that
with the exception of Rooker, the southern accents are not to authentic (What is one to expect from a mostly Canadian cast?).
But it is a comedy and James Gunn knows that the audience is coming in
feeling smarter than his characters, so this serves to let the audience
know they are all in on the joke.
Regardless
of the jokes, the gore effects and rejection of the boundaries of good
taste allows the audience to still be shocked and horrified. The humor
allows any audience to stick with it to the end, but the graphic
violence makes sure that horror fans are quite appreciated. The finale
is a bit overly drawn out, but if you are horror aficionado you will
just admire everything Gunn is playing homage to, including his Troma
roots.
If
you are trying to introduce someone to horror who swears they have a
sturdy their stomach is, "Slither" is the perfect flick. The humor will
keep any audience involved while shocking non-genre and amusing the gore
hounds. It is almost sad that this cannot cause the damage that
"Gremlins" did to 80s' kids. I got over that trauma after 30 years.
It
is a bad time for this nation to be in a holding pattern. A part of me
wishes Donald Trump would do something dramatic, like when H.W. Bush
found a reason to bomb Iraq before 1992 ended. In other words, I finally
gave into buying a microphone to podcast with. If there is not any
drama, what is there to podcast about?
There
are too many wrestling podcasts out there. An idea for one just came
into my head as I pondered, "Are there too many movie podcasts out
there?" Gods know that I do not want to give that away. Either
direction, a host for each episode is kind of essential. Unless I wanted
to try and become the liberal version of Alex Jones that is.
Is
that what I should put down in my Tinder, Bumble, Coffee Meet Bagel,
and OK Cupid profiles (Zoosk and Plenty of Fish have lost their
usefulness.)? Single chonk male looking for podcast cohost.
Or
maybe I just need a lawyer to go after "Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies". Too
bad my pair back in Peoria are for bankruptcy and criminal defense. But I will say, you
should research the Library of Congress for what screenplays have
copyright protection before moving ahead with your project. Scripts revolving around your own personal wrestling
experiences are unique. B-movie versus flicks, not so much. All I am
saying is, "Tokyo Zombie" and "Land of the Dead's" zombie combat scenes
made me happy that the government approved my script instead of calling me a thief.
What
it comes down to is did the "Pro Wrestlers versus Zombies" start up
before I got the copyright for my script and before I launched this
blog. To his credit, director did Cody Knotts did get his Kickstarter
going before the MainEventOfTheDead.com. Or at least I think he did. The oldest date listed on the page is 11 days behind my domain registration.
I
guess my first podcast could be an oral history of "Main Event of the
Dead" and the Fangoria-panned "Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies". Do not take my
noting of a negative review as a personal attack Mr. Knotts. My
bringing up the name of the most famous/infamous horror movie magazine
is being used as a transition to the following movie review, The
Fangoria co-production, "VFW", a more horrific and authentic story of old
soldiers kicking ass.
VFW (2019)
The
opioid epidemic has further evolved. A new drug called Hype has hit the
market, but with limited supplies, junkies know as hypers are quick to
becoming homicidal to get their score from whomever they can. This has
lead to such an influx in crime that the police have taken to sheltering
in place leaving the public to fend for themselves. Fortunately, if you
do not have much worth taking, the criminal element leaves you alone.
Thus, Fred and his Vietnam War buddies can kickback and relax at VFW
2494.
Well,
they could just chill out as the world burns, but a young woman with
$500,000 of hype barges is as she runs from a couple of machete-wielding
drug dealers. This assault results in Korean War vet Doug being critically
injured and Fred quickly responding with a shotgun barrage that leaves
one of the assailants minus a skull and the other retreating. It turns
out that the girl, Lizard, has stolen the drugs to ruin Boz, the kingpin
responsible for her sister's death.
If
that is not enough motivation for the hypers to attack the VFW, Boz's
brother is the thug who lost his head. This leaves our crew of 70
somethings and an Army Ranger who has just returned from the longest war
in a position where they cannot negotiate their way out of
it. Too bad for Boz that being under siege is where this crew feels most
comfortable. Fred's crew is quick to make the bar into a trap the
Vietcong would admire. When the opponents army is a bunched of crazed
junkies, placing a bet on the Veterans of Foreign Wars seems like a
sound one.
"VFW"
scratches itches for lots of genre fans. The gore hounds will be happy
with the effects. Grindhouse fans will love the aesthetic and style.
Action aficionados will love the legendary line up and the brutality
they express. It could have been a little more tongue-in-cheek for my
taste, but how ridiculous can a feature safely be?
My
favorites features in this grindhouse revival (outside of "Death
Proof") are the Soska Sisters' "Dead Hooker in a Trunk" and Jason
Eisener's "Hobo with a Shotgun". I am just a fan of the gimmicky nature.
You can still be visceral, but the audience knows the humor is always
present. "VFW" does not have the same, "This is a joke" nature so you
are applauding the ridiculous over the top violence. Some may say that
the audience is seeing humor from the craziness (Like when Edward
Norton's Narrator demolishes Jared Leto's Angelface in "Fight Club"),
but crazy is not
always funny. If you watch this film without focusing on finding humor
where it is not, "VFW" is a nice change of pace from the overtly
outlandish genre.
The
visual style fits perfectly with the grindhouse genre. It is grainy and
dirty. There are times where a little light could have helped the flick
out, but when you are paying six legendary performers (Stephen Lang, Fred
Williamson, William Sadler, Martin Kove, David Patrick Kelly, and George
Wendt), interior lights can be considered a budgetary luxury. My only issue with the
budget is they did not give John Ratzenberger a seat at the bar. Maybe
Pixar said no.
To
accompany the grime, you have a John Carpenteresque score. I may need
to rewatch this after stating that because outside of the action, there
is a lot of generic metal on the soundtrack. For the director, Joe
Begos, this is the best compliment I think I can offer. It felt so much
like "Prince of Darkness" or "Assault of Precint 13" that my brain going
to a synthesizer default means you have captured greatness with this
homage.
The
most important thing about "VFW" is that it looks like everyone is
having fun. There have definitely been better Sadler, Williamson, and
Kelly performances, but this is not high art. It is a payday and
probably a brief one at that. I find that it can be very charming for a film
to feel like they just went out and shot it and were then done with
it...
There
are a lot of features that try to gather a bunch of once beloved stars
together to make some bank solely based on nostalgia. About 50% of the
time, they decide to just give these actors a check but no screenplay.
"VFW" is not one of those features.
"VFW"
is aware that it is putting great and always competent actors in a
place where there charms can carry the ridiculous. This allows everyone
an in when it comes to watching this film. After they are in, be it
gore, nostalgia, or action, everyone will find something great and
should leave happy. You leave really wishing that blockbusters focused
on being instant classics instead of being risk-less cash grabs.
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.
