The DAN ZONE

Having almost 40 years of experience watching horror films (I’m 41 and have been watching some form of horror films since I was like 5) I grew up on what are now considered ‘slow burners’: horror films that have about an hour or so of characterization, plot development, and a snail’s pace building of tension, headed for some sort of horrific climax, most often only hinted at in the promos. In essence, this was pretty much the norm for a majority of horror films for decades. This formula not only drew you in while causing your fear to mount, it also prevented an early climax—the premature delivery of the money shot, be it the reveal of the horrific monster previously hidden in shadow or the first drop of bloodshed. Many movies fit into this mold, including Psycho, 2000 Maniacs, The House on Haunted Hill (original), Homicidal, Black Christmas, Night of the Living Dead… I could go on and on.

Naturally, many of these movies gave you short spurts of thrills early on to grab your attention, but after that, it was just little dribbles of fear that carried you along. Not knowing when something was going to happen is what kept you watching. The anticipation of seeing what all the hype was about while actually being tentative about finding out was what created the intense horror movie experience. I mean, after being told that people were puking all over their popcorn while watching The Exorcist, when you sat down to see it for yourself, you definitely weren’t glancing at the clock every five minutes wondering when things were going to get exciting. There was actually a sense of relief that things were somewhat calm, because you were dreading the worst. But that calm was a false calm. You knew it was just the calm before the storm, so you welcomed the dialogue and level of sanity as you were supplied with exposition and character development. When you were finally slammed with the true level of repulsive moments the film had to offer, you were pretty much left damaged for life.

That all began to change, I guess in the 80s after the slasher phenomenon took hold and movie studios began calling for higher body counts and more blood, as if that were a substitute for chills, atmospher and suspense. Take, for instance, the Friday the 13^th series. The original film, released in 1980, had a body count of 9 (four more bodies than in the original slow burning slasher Halloween two years earlier). In 1989, when Jason took Manhattan, the body count was 19…almost double. And let’s face it. In 1980, Friday the 13^th was considered a ‘shocker’ and was actually a scary experience for filmgoers (despite it just being on old lady doing all the killings). By the time Jason took to the streets of New York, it was all a big joke, and he was even facing off against smart-mouthed street hoods with boom boxes. Ooh! Scary! This was pretty much the dark period of horror, which had become a farce, a joke; the audience was in on it, cheering for the evil rather than the well-being of the disposable characters. Then came Scream, which initially celebrated the dawning of the age of the slasher. While predictable and formulaic in terms of slashers (because it was mocking them), Scream was also suspenseful, heart-pounding, and loaded with likeable characters. A barrage of copycat films soon followed, and horror quickly promised to lose its foothold again.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the conclusion studios looking to make money off horror movies came to was that what ‘scared’ people was brutality, extreme violence, and body counts. It was a logical theory based on the success of the resurgence of slasher films. It’s what the latest generation was growing up on. And it’s the reason why we are about to witness the seventh sequel of the Saw series, why kids in the theaters were laughing at even the most grotesque moments of The Exorcist when it was re-released, and why The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is now called out as being ‘overrated,’ ‘laughable,’ and ‘boring’ on message boards.

The real saving grace for the horror genre in the past decade was the infusion of foreign horror films into the American mainstream, beginning with Asian horror. Other countries explored new horror devices rather than recycling the formula that had become so popular in the U.S. The impact of these films on the horror conscience was so strong that they started getting English version remakes, the most successful being The Ring, followed by The Grudge. The funny thing is, what you’ll notice if you watch The Ring is that, in essence, it is a major slow burner. After a fantastic shocker of an opening (in true Scream style), The Ring really turns into much more of a suspense/mystery film, and it is not until the end that we get the most pay off from a horror perspective—but that one taste of it at the beginning is what keeps us glued to the screen. Unfortunately, the whole girl in a white dress with her long black hair combed over her face thing was exploited like slashers had been, and before long, the string of films with this theme were throwing her in your face, all up in the camera so often that she was no longer frightening.

But we have definitely seen somewhat of a revisiting of the slow burner. Eli Roth did it with Cabin Fever, and wouldn’t you know, many people say the film is crap. Rather than being about people getting stripped, tortured and killed for exploitative purposes (as his follow-up, Hostel¸ was) it is an exploration of morality and humanity as friends turn against each other when faced with catching a spreading disease…slowly but surely. And of course, I’ve posted a whole blog about him, but director Ti West is mastering the old school art of slow burners, with mixed reviews from current horror lovers. The Roost and The House of the Devil are two of the creepiest films I’ve seen in years. The characters are slowly immersed in something horrific and unexplained, and we’re right there with them, our hearts in our throats as we wonder What the fuck is going on here?

And that question pretty much sums up the slow burner. It’s the “what the fuck is going on here” question begging to be answered that keeps you watching…if you have patience and relish the prolonging of the terror. If you prefer immediate gratification without any variation of ups, down, slow, fast, you’ll be satiated by modern films that start you right at the highest frenetic peak, providing you with a “this is exactly what the fuck is going on and is going to continue to go on non-stop for the next hour and a half.”

Riding the wave of the slasher resurgence due to the Scream series from1996 – 2000, the 2002 film Miner’s Massacre is a slightly better than average SyFy Original quality slasher (without the sex, blood and bad words cut, fuzzed and bleeped out). It’s cheesy, offers no genuine scares, and simply delivers a bunch of bratty horny young people being killed. You’ve heard the plot before…bunch of kids comes across a nice stash of gold and the original owner wants it back. However, this time it isn’t a little green man spouting one-liners in an Irish brogue. This time it’s essentially a miner zombie.

Aside from typical adolescent backwoods slasher hi-jinx, like a girl doing a striptease for her man or a dude who gets a bad case of the crappers while eating a can of beans by the campfire, this movie depends on some faces you’ve seen before for its horror validation. Apparently there’s a cameo by Jeff Conaway as a reverend. Unfortunately, despite having seen this movie several times on cable, I’ve never noticed him in it, which means I must get bored in parts and start playing fetch with my dogs. Karen Black has a pretty big role as the crazy local lady with all the facts about how the Miner came to be. I love how she doesn’t even like horror movies in real life but she’ll do pretty much any that are thrown her way, although she smartly passed on that piece of torture porn The Devil’s Rejects that marred the legacy of the brilliant House of 1000 Corpses. Meanwhile, in this film, Karen has one extremely burly stunt double (who’s almost as big as she is) doing a scene in which she’s lit on fire…and the filmmakers don’t even try to hide the fact that the stunt double has some sort of protective mask over his face.

The naturally creepy actor Richard Lynch is super recognizable with his white hair, beady eyes and weathered face…one of those actors they call on whenever they need a sleazy bad guy—or the devil. Martin Kove is another face you know when you see him. Butch, hairy, blond and handsome with a nice dimpled chin, he was pretty much passed around every television show in the 70s and 80s and still looks really good—even shirtless as he is in this movie. It’s always nice to see your childhood wet dreams haven’t been hitting the ice cream (as much as you have yourself). Oh yeah, since the franchise is relevant again, Kove was also the bullying competition in all three original Karate Kid movies. And he sure wore an Olivia Newton-John “Physical” bandana well.

Sadly, the makers of this film gave too much screen time to these well-known faces and overlooked their could-have-been diva, the Jersey Shore bitch with attitude at the beginning of the movie. I loved this fiery redhead—she demands her boyfriend stop for a pee break somewhere, then when he pulls up to a derelict house, she says, “Not here! This is the Psycho house!” She could have carried this whole film with witty quips like that. Yet, despite her character being the only one wary of backwoods psycho shit, she bites the dust (and tumbleweeds) first! NoooOOOoooooOOOO! She also happens to be involved in one almost flawless special effect that doesn’t rely on a fake head but instead involves the Miner holding her chopped off head while she’s still making facial expressions. Only one slip at the end of the effect spoils it a little.

Also of note is the sort of play on the Evil Dead series. The Miner, after losing his arm and not being savvy to chainsaw technology, jams the handle of his pick axe into his stump to use as a weapon. But perhaps the most glaring horror cliché ends this film. The survivors blow that Miner away in the mineshaft just as the local sheriff pulls up. He puts them in his car and says he wants to go look around… Can you guess what happens next?

Tonight was the second episode of the new sitcom Hot in Cleveland on TV Land. And although the comparisons to The Golden Girls were inevitable, tonight it seemed like the writers were actually tipping their hat to the classic show. There may not have been any cheesecake involved, but the girls all gathered around the kitchen table to talk about female issues–and sex. And here we have Betty White, almost a decade older in real life than Sophia was supposed to be when The Golden Girls first premiered, sitting on a chair in a corner of the kitchen behind the main table where the other girls were talking, just as Sophia used to sit on a stool at the carving counter behind the main table on The Golden Girls. And there was even more familiar territory when Wendie Malick’s character began telling a story about something that happened to her character, an actress, on the soap opera on which she used to star. When Jane Leeves made a comment to the affect of “Go on, finish your story because we’re not going to be able to stop you anyway,” it was like witnessing a St. Olaf story all over again. Perhaps this was just a one-time homage to the other series, but it’s very welcome and I have no problem with this sitcom  imitating one of the best….

Of course, the comparisons got me thinking…are these women supposed to be the same age as Dorothy, Blanche and Rose on The Golden Girls? Although age was never specified, it was implied that Blanche was the youngest, and probably in her early 50s when the show began. In real life, Rue was the youngest at 51, while Bea and Betty were both 63. While age isn’t specified on Hot in Cleveland, in real life, Jane Leeves (who Betty White keeps calling the slutty one on the show) is the youngest at 49…Valerie Bertinelli is 50, and Wendie Malick is actually a decade older at 60! And all I can say is DAMN these women look good. I know plastic surgery has become big in Hollywood, but even the oldest of these three women looks like a MILF, while The Golden Girls looked like GILNFs (Grandmother’s I’d Like NOT to F*ck).

This gory little b-movie is one I’d forgotten about until it was recently mentioned on the horror message boards. When I saw it back in the 80s on VHS, it was titled Return of the Alien’s Deadly Spawn, but the DVD release simply uses the original title The Deadly Spawn, which they apparently changed to cash in on rumors that there was going to be a sequel to Alien. Even though it’s not a sequel to anything, somehow Return of the Alien’s Deadly Spawn works so much better with the b-movie sci-fi/horror feel of this 80s treat. It was originally released in 1983, one of my ten favorite years of the 80s.

I can not believe how bloody red gory this film is, with plenty of awesome fake body parts (mostly heads) and the giant Deadly Spawn’s slithering, sperm-with-teeth offspring (which love to eat head, ironically).

The opening has two young guys camping out in the woods together (gay!) when they see a meteor fall to earth nearby. They go to investigate but one guy goes back to the tent for a flashlight. This is classic. He starts calling out to the other guy because he can’t find the flashlight…but the guy apparently has no name, because he’s calling out generic things like “Hey! Where’s the flashlight! Hello! Can you hear me? I can’t find the flashlight!” Not only are these guys gay, but apparently they’re turning tricks with strangers in the woods! And those who are gay shall pay, so both dudes fall victim to the giant alien sperm machine.

After some absolutely awesome synth-drenched creature feature music over the opening credit, we arrive at the house that is predominantly the setting for the remainder of the movie. It’s not explained, but somehow, the giant Deadly Spawn has worked its way into one of the dankest flooded basements I’ve ever seen. This thing looks like a sewer, and is apparently the perfect temperature to keep sperm-with-teeth thriving.

So in this house lives a couple, their older son who is some sort of science major, their younger son who has a room loaded with iconic horror merchandise (I can totally relate), and visiting relatives—an aunt and her psychotherapist husband.

Mom and dad both end up in the basement (they’re having electricity issues they need to check on), and the gore is superb, although the giant Deadly Spawn, revealed pretty much from the start, is almost comical in its look—sort of like a more gruesome and evil Audrey II with great big eyes. But the real comedy is that when everyone else wakes up in the house, they have no idea of the horror in the basement (even though the cat tries to tip them off) and just go about their daily business. The uncle intends to sit down with the little horror freak to psychoanalyze his obsession, while auntie is off to an old lady tea party—and she conveniently leaves a sign on the door that the electrician should go round back and into the basement. Dunh! Dunh! Dunh!

You can guess what happens next. However, our little horror freak decides to slip on one of his masks and go scare the electrician after he arrives. Instead, he witnesses some serious head chomping by the sperm-with-teeth. And for pretty much the remainder of film, we keep cutting back to the kid just standing in the basement taking in the Deadly Spawns feasting on the heads of his mom, dad and the electrician while being totally ignored by the main monster.

In the meantime, auntie’s tea party gets NASTY. The sperm-with-teeth have escaped the basement, and one ends up ground into the salad in a food processor. Yum. But what happens next is awesome. It’s an old lady army as the sperm-with-teeth attack and grannies strike back, beating them down with umbrellas and other elderly apparel!!! These senior actresses totally get into it, crawling on the floor with sperm attached to them, blood gushing from their arthritic joints. Totally awesome.

At the same time, the science major gets a visit from some of his friends (it wouldn’t be an 80s horror film if teen characters weren’t thrown in there just to raise the body count). These fellow science geeks have found one of the nasty critters on the street and are dying to examine it. Dying being the operative word. Let the killings begin as the Deadly Spawn manages to climb its way out of the basement to chase the kids around the house! It’s so awesome to watch this three-headed moving monster model being pushed around the house by hidden crew members—I’ll take that over CGI any day.

Naturally, it’s not the science majors who figure out how to take down the sperm machine, but the little kid who is totally into horror. In the aftermath of the carnage and the defeat of the Deadly Spawn, we get like 5 lame minutes of the authorities hunting down the remaining sperm-with-teeth through the woods, and it feels like they’ve just ruined an awesome flick with a horrible ending. But what follows after the 5 minutes of filler is one of the most fricking AWESOMELY unexpected endings you’ll ever see. If you thought twist endings began with The Sixth Sense, think again.

I don’t remember adding the1982 film Midnight to my collection…but there it was as I continue my A to Z rewatch of all my horror DVDs, so I popped it in not recalling anything about it until as soon as it started. I assume I purchased it after seeing it mentioned as a film from 1982 on a message board. Since it is horror and came from the 80s, I’m obligated to own it. Yes, obligated. It’s a rule of living in the Dan Zone. I’m just shocked that I absolutely never saw this movie before I bought it on DVD. It must have been like the one 80s horror movie that we didn’t carry in the video store I worked at in the 80s.

Getting the important horror trivia out of the way, this film is written and directed by John Russo, the man responsible for writing the original Night of the Living Dead. When the film begins, it seems like it’s going to be a real bad low-budget flick but once it gets off the ground (and that takes a while), there are actually some great horror elements.

The film has a ‘prologue’ involving a mother and her children catching a little girl in an animal trap in a field, beating her and then taking her home to sacrifice her. When the little girl is sitting with her leg in the animal trap, she sounds and looks like she was directed to merely scream—without any direction as to the kind of pain and terror she would be in if she was actually caught in an animal trap. Not a good sign.

It only gets worse when we flash forward and meet Nancy, a tomboyish looking chick who somehow ends up being the objective of every man’s ‘affection’ in this movie. First thing, her drunk old stepfather cop comes home and tries to molest her, so she hits him over the head with a tape recorder (totally 80s!) and runs away, leaving him passed out on her bed and…snoring. I kid not.

Once she takes to the streets, she’s immediately offered a ride…in exchange for sex…by some perv in a car. She gets rid of him and is then picked up by a couple of buddies in a truck, a black dude and a white dude (who is hot for her—but she’s not hot! I don’t get it!!!). As they drive off, things go really downhill and make me pretty sure this film was filmed in the 70s but not released until 82. We are treated to a melodramatic, soft rock track by a female singer, with the main lyrics being “you’re on your own.” Wow, this is bad.

Meanwhile, back home, stepdad cop is telling his wife that her daughter ran off and that Nancy has been trying to seduce him! What a disgusting pig!

But back to more of “You’re on your own” as the truck trio makes its way through a small. At a gas station, they meet a black reverend and his daughter who tell them there have been a lot of murders in the town over the past few years that the locals are calling ‘accidental deaths’ because they are a bunch of racists. Wow. Didn’t see the racism angle coming. Anyway, the reverend and daughter hitch a ride in their truck and are dropped off at a cemetery to pay respects to the reverend’s dead wife. The daughter decides to walk home (home seems to be pretty close to the cemetery), and once she’s gone, this bearded fat guy in overalls comes out of the woods with a knife and kills the reverend! Soon, the fat guy is at the reverend’s house, and things don’t turn out so well for the reverend’s daughter.

Meanwhile, our interracial, intergender trio is facing their own harassment by the locals (they’re run out of a bar for having a black dude with them), and the black dude even drops the ‘honky’ bomb after. Awesome! TOTALLY 80s! Right after, the guys inform Nancy that they’ve been stealing food from convenience stores as they travel because they have no money, so she joins in and they steal from another place…to the  mellow 70s sounds of “You’re on your own”! TOO funny.

But this is finally where the real horror begins and we are treated to a backwoods family film that’s half Texas Chainsaw Massacre, half Psycho. After an all-points bulletin is put out for our trio, they are chased by cops and of course make a ‘wrong turn’ into the woods to escape. They soon see the fat killer running around with what looks like a body in the woods. But it wouldn’t be an 80s horror movie if they didn’t decide to camp out in the woods anyway. And if Nancy didn’t decide to take a walk by herself the next morning before the guys awake.

Well, Nancy returns to camp to find that two ‘policemen’ have found her male companions. One creepy guy is a totally androgynous dude (at first I thought it was a woman) and the other is this bulky, bald, goateed leather daddy type! WTF? It’s like something out of a Mapplethorpe photo.

Unfortunately, things don’t go well for Nancy’s friends, and within minutes she’s on her own (the ‘racism’ theme discarded and rendered completely irrelevant for the remainder of the film), running through the woods being chased by the creepy pair and, naturally, right into their sadistic home. This is when it gets really good. Nancy is directed by a nice girl playing solitaire at a table to a phone in another room. Unfortunately, when she goes in that room, she finds the fat killer cutting off some dude’s head with a knife! Within minutes she’s at the mercy of the ‘family’—the two guys in the cop uniforms (which it turns out they got when they killed some real cops), the fat guy, and the solitaire playing be-otch. They make Nancy walk on all fours like a dog into a cage next to some other already caged girl! I was sure this was about to turn into a seriously disturbing exploitation flick, but that never happens.

Instead, it turns out the dirty stepdaddy decides to go find his wife’s daughter and make amends, so he follows clues all the way to the crazy family’s house!!!

While stepdaddy is playing hero and sneaking up for his rescue mission, we get to meet the family’s mommy—a corpse sitting in a rocking chair upstairs. Seems the family needs the blood of three people to perform an Easter ritual at midnight. They hook themselves up with another female victim, who is the first to be sacrificed at an old skool occult ritual including a classic black room with candles, the family in black robes with hoods, inverted pentagrams painted on their foreheads, and dear old dead mom watching the whole ceremony.

Nancy is the star, so she ends up being the lone survivor (stepdad gets killed trying to save her, but we don’t exactly feel sympathy for him, even though he was drunk when he tried to screw her). Nancy takes care of business, knocking off the family one member at a time, and as soon as she sets the last one on fire, the credits begin to roll to the sound of… “You’re on your own”! Didn’t anyone tell John Russo that classics like Night of the Living Dead were classics in part because of their appropriate musical scores???

As cheesy as Midnight is (and actually, the word is actually a lyric in “You’re on your own”), it has some really strong horror moments that make it totally worth a watch. Like I said, it feels more 70s than 80s, so I can’t say it gets points for coming from the 80s. And here’s the real kick. I just discovered that Russo did a sequel in 1993 in which one member of the family didn’t exactly die at the hands of Nancy… I MUST see this movie!!!!

I was in 8^th grade when the television show Square Pegs premiered in the fall of 82 and became an instant hit with the Gen-X crowd. Rather than sending us off to the School of the Performing Arts and thereby implanting dreams and fantasies of stardom in our little minds (which was also a fun escape), Square Pegs was set in our young 1982 realities. It was all the people in my class talked about, and the girls started saying “like” and “totally” regularly, despite the fact that we lived in New York—like, the totally opposite coast from where the valley girl phenomenon began. But add to that the popularity of the Moon Unit Zappa song “Valley Girl” and the movie of the same name, and 82 and 83 would be forever marked as the “Valley Years” in my school history book. Gag me with a spoon—because I totally loved it.

In fact, Square Pegs seems like it may have been the inspiration for so many 80s teen movies, including the John Hughes films that came after it. There are more new wave songs and references used in this short-lived series than there are in The Last American Virgin and Fast Times at Ridgemont High combined. The show’s resident valley girl Jennifer DiNuccio said “gross me out the door” a year before Deborah Foreman played an adorable ‘Val’ in Valley Girl. Jennifer also dropped the geek bomb nearly two years before the release of Sixteen Candles. Johnny Slash was hanging out regularly at a record store four years before Duckie in Pretty in Pink. And of course there are the constant battles between cool and uncool, popular and unpopular, themes also central to, you know, just a couple of John Hughes films (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…)

The great thing about Square Pegs is that all of the main characters are likable and endearing. Jami Gertz is the preppy and snooty yet scatterbrained Muffy Tepperman, who is just as often the brunt of jokes as the ‘geeks’ but a bit more oblivious to the fact. Sarah Jessica Parker is perfectly cast as Patty, who really doesn’t care so much about how popular she is, but mostly humors her embarrassingly desperate friend Lauren, played by Amy Linker, whose delusional daydreams about being popular cause her to make self-centered decisions but also reveal just how insecure she is in her own skin. Marshall is so bad at his comedy act that he is the epitome of class clown (you’re more often laughing at him than with him)—a geek indeed, but so unaware of that it that it actually comes across as cute. Johnny Slash is so cool in his ‘different head’ as a new waver that you find it hard to believe he wouldn’t be embraced by supposedly bitchy Val’ Jennifer DiNuccio and her friends. But Tracy Nelson plays Jennifer as partly naïve and ignorant, which softens her snobbery and also shows that she’s just as flawed as the others. Her boyfriend, proud guido Vinnie Pasetta, is never so tough to be threatening to any of the geeks, and is usually more than willing to talk to them. And Jennifer’s best friend, LaDonna, is the token black chick, totally on top of her game in that role, poking fun at racial stereotypes because she’s self-aware of being surrounded by a bunch of crazy white kids.

So bad it’s funny, or just too ahead of its time?

When I first watched my DVD set, I was shocked at how ‘cheesy’ the show is, although I was absolutely in love with how 80s it is. I still am, having just rewatched the entire series again. But this time around, I listened more closely, and damn does this show have some seriously subversive and funny humor. It was absolutely targeting a teen audience when it was originally aired, but most of its funniest jokes were probably over all our heads back then. What doesn’t help is the ridiculous, inappropriately placed laugh track. The DVD would have been better if they had REMOVED the one-note laugh track. Shows like Scrubs are absolutely hysterical, and we’re never told when to laugh. This series could benefit from the same golden silence. Either that or replace the canned laughs with a REAL audience that could gasp in shock at the truly filthy moments of the show.

So exactly what are these subversive jokes of which I speak? The reason they aren’t so obvious is because most of the time, they are being delivered by teenagers who are not trying to pause for comic effect or to let the joke sink in, but just talking like kids talk. You blink an ear, you miss the joke. There are obvious jokes, of course. In episode 1, we learn the principal’s name is Dingleman, and within minutes, Vinnie is calling him “Dingleberry,” which has Patty pointing out to Lauren how predictable that comment was, because of course an audience of that age was totally thinking it. Principal dingleberry—I mean, Dingleman, refers to a case of vandalism as “VD,” a surefire comment to get a giggle out of an adolescent audience. And in an arching storyline, Lauren crushes on a radical teacher who could very well be Sean Penn’s Spicoli character if he had became an educator, because he’s constantly slipping up and inferring how great it is to smoke pot.

The show is loaded with sexual innuendo not even heard on ‘racy’shows of the time like Soap or Three’s Company. A female teacher pushes for a girl’s football team, claiming it’s a male conspiracy to keep women from touching each other. In science class, Vinnie says he’ll puke if the teacher talks about crabs again. When Muffy solicits “a box with a slot in it” for student complaints, Vinnie throws her quite a perverted and sly look as he walks by. Vinnie suggests that the guys bring the ‘hot dogs’ to a Halloween party. When Jennifer tells Vinnie her Christmas present better be bigger than a bread box,” he hugs her close to him and drops a deadpan, “It is big.” Did we get this kind of humor at 12 or 13 years old? Probably not. Were our parents watching this teen show with us? Probably about as often as parents bothered watching Saved by the Bell with their kids in the 90s. So all this clever ‘adult’ writing was being wasted on a bunch of kids. But that didn’t matter to us, because the adults writing the show were also incredibly tapped into the trends that made kids go gaga nearly 30 years before there was a Lady GaGa.

Were the 80s that obvious that early?

This is one of those shows that is SO aware of its place in time that it feels like it’s a satire of the decade rather than a product of it. It definitely brings me right back to that era, and what’s so cool about it is that it’s placement on the 80s timeline lands right on the cusp of the explosion of the new wave phenomena on MTV and mainstream radio. When this show began in 82, ‘new wave’ music was mostly heard (by very few) on ‘new format’ radio stations that had just begun taking a risk and daring to be different. The number of new wave songs that had entered the upper pop charts had been minimal—songs by Blondie, The Police, Human League, The Go-Go’s and Devo some of the few, which is why it was so cool for new wave character Johnny Slash to constantly point out that new wave was a “totally different head.” But by September of 83, the one year anniversary of the show’s premiere, artists like Billy Idol, Kajagoogoo, A Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, After the Fire, Thomas Dolby, The Tubes, Men Without Hats and Eurythmics were dominating the charts in the U.S. While many artists of the new music movement would remain staples only of alternative radio for years, the seed had been planted in my generation’s psyche. Even people who didn’t think they were into ‘new wave’ were actually into it. Established artists dating back to the 60s were giving their music a very 80s, very electronic drum and synth based spin to score chart hits. And MTV of course took a foothold in 83, thanks in part to the draw of Michael Jackson.

Unfortunately, this is a landmark that Square Pegs never got to explore because it only lasted one season. By the time “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” were in heavy rotation on MTV in the spring of 83, all episodes of Square Pegs had already aired. In fact, even though MTV premiered in August of 81 and was already a hit with kids, from the day Square Pegs premiered a year later, and through its 19 episode run, it never mentioned the channel once! I can’t imagine they could have ignored its existence if they show had returned in the autumn of 83 for a second season! And would the show have embraced complete dedication to the 80s and worked the giant careers of MJ, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, and Tina Turner into the show if it had continued on a few years more, even though none of those artists were new wave, the show’s defining characteristic? We’ll never know.

The new wave music is just the beginning of how 80s Square Pegs was. The fashions are out of control. Skinny ties abound, although lead character Lauren often sports a fat tie with her suspenders. Johnny Slash has a tail so long sprouting from the nape of his neck that he even has baby dolls hanging from it at times. He even runs for WeeMaWee High Indian mascot with hopes that the principal will finally let him get a Mohawk. Head bands, leg warmers and Ray Ban sunglasses are other major fashions on the show, as well as Vinnie’s tight Jordache jeans. That was a sight for my 13 year-old-mind to behold.

Speaking of, 80s visual stimulation is all over the place on Square Pegs, waiting to tickle your senses. Johnny Slash is always wearing a walkman, and can even be seen manually rewinding a cassette. An entire episode (the third episode) is dedicated to comic-wannabe Marshall becoming addicted to Pac Man when a machine is brought into the school, along with an Asteroids and Star Castle machine. We are treated to authentic screens of the game as he plays, and at the end of the episode, Lauren finds herself drawn to a Ms. Pac Man machine. And what’s more 80s than Jennifer sipping on a can of saccharin-loaded, cancer-causing Tab?

How many 80s references can you count?

Name dropping is another big component of the 80s allure of the show. Muffy envisions a Poltergeist themed Bat Mitzvah, and Johnny references the film, saying “They’re here!” after Marshall’s eyes glaze over from playing too much Pac Man. Lauren and Patty, after playing a prank at school, fear they are going to be grounded until the release of Poltergeist 2 (which would become a film in 1986) or worse, until the release of E.T. part 12 (that film didn’t even get one sequel). And speaking of sequels, Vinnie (who would be the resulting lovechild of a threesome between, John Travolta, Adrian Zmed and Joey from Friends) is eagerly anticipating the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, which is to be directed by one of his heroes, Sylvester Stallone (said sequel came out in the summer of 83, right after the show’s demise). Jennifer tells Vinnie to pick out his own clothes like Richard Gere in American Gigilo. Marshall, of course, ends up with Pac Man elbow, an epidemic that was as real as Rubik’s thumb for teens of the era. LaDonna tells Jennifer she has a lot more to offer Vinnie than Donkey Kong. Marshall imagines Muhammad Ali taking out the cast of The Facts of Life (a jab at what would become the most popular teen sitcoms of the 80s). And Johnny mentions making fish food from Pop Rocks (cruel but funny!).

Just Can’t Get Enough New Wave Hits of the 80s: Square Pegs

If only Rhino had released such a volume in their popular 80s CD series, much like they compiled a Valley Girl soundtrack years later. Square Pegs deserves a soundtrack—because it’s the soundtrack to a generation. Whoever was responsible for the musical decisions made on this show was way ahead of the curve, and the new wave-centric atmosphere could put most John Hughes films that would come a few years later to shame. Before I even get to the classic tracks used in the show, let’s talk about the posters that appear on the walls of the radio station at the school where Marshall and Johnny Slash spin all the hottest new wave records. This is just a list of the posters I was able to note throughout the season’s episodes:

ABC

Altered Images

Laurie Anderson

Toni Basil

Pat Benatar

B-52s

Blondie

Clash

Elvis Costello

Devo

Thomas Dolby

A Flock of Seagulls

Fun Boy Three

Heaven 17

Human League

Billy Idol

Joe Jackson

Killer Pussy (a poster for the song “Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage,” select words carefully covered by other posters for censorship)

Men at Work

Models

Motels

Oingo Boingo

Iggy Pop

Pete Shelley

Soft Cell

Squeeze

Stray Cats

Swinging Madisons

Tom Tom Club

John Waite

Kim Wilde

XTC

The musical references abound as well. When trying to get Johnny and Patty to write a song together for his band to perform at a grocery store, Lauren calls songwriters like Elvis Costello the poets of our time and points out that the Plasmatics sang jingles. Johnny Slash wears a B-52’s “Mesopotamia” shirt. Patty and Lauren translate “Valley Girl” into Guatemalan for the child that Muffy always talks about sponsoring. Muffy is forced to change the location of her Bat Mitzvah due to fear of slam dancing, the same reason Johnny Slash’s band is booted from Saturday Night Live. Johnny Rotten’s name appears in graffiti on a bathroom stall door. Eerily, in a spring episode, Jennifer mentions watching Marvin Gaye on Merv Griffin, which would have been only a little more than a year before his death in April of 84. Johnny Slash mentions knowing a roadie for the Clash, says the crowded diner (simply called “Grease” by the teens) reminds him of the Go-Go’s dressing room, and refers to Debbie Harry as the sexiest girl when asked. LaDonna describes Jennifer as a Pat Benatar without chipmunk cheeks (there were also Pat Benatar look-alikes referenced in Fast Times at Ridgemont High the same year) and complains about being dragged to four Olivia Newton-John concerts by Jennifer (this was just as “Physical” was about to tear up the charts). LaDonna also brings her Grandmaster Flash records to the Halloween party (to which Muffy makes a seriously early jab at rap that still exists today, asking why she didn’t bring any groups that sing). At the same party, Johnny wants to ask a Ouija board what the lyrics are to “Brass in Pocket” by the Pretenders.

It’s not all music talk at WeeMaWee. The new wave songs used in this show could fill a couple of soundtrack and were as important to its tone then as are the songs used in Glee today. Unfortunately, for the DVD release, the rights were not secured for a good amount of the songs used in Square Pegs. Is it really that expensive to license these songs—songs that appear on dozens upon dozens of 80s compilation CDs that sell for like 8 dollars??? This is some spilled milk I absolutely will cry over because many of the original songs have been replaced by generic substitutions. I’ve been able to piece together some of the original titles used in the show that have been replaced on the DVD thanks to Google, but not all of them. First, here are the songs that are retained on the DVD:

The very first episode is pretty crucial, because The Waitresses actually appear on the show, performing both “I Know What Boys Like” AND the show’s theme song “Square Pegs,” both of which are intact on DVD.

In Episode 8, Johnny Slash’s band perform their own ‘original’ song called “I’m Tired,” a pretty cool Devo-esque/B-52’s-esque track. Too bad there never was a Square Pegs soundtrack album released. “I’m Tired” may not be as cool as the awesome new wave song “The Gimme That” performed on Fame by Doris and Montgomery the same year, but it would still be awesome to have in my record collection. (how gay am I?)

Episode 9 is dedicated to Devo, who perform at Muffy’s Bat Mitzvah, so their songs are presents. Johnny listens to “We Are Devo” while dying his hair pink and the band performs my all time favorite Devo song, “That’s Good,” at the party, with the entire cast actually dancing in rhythm to the song! Hot.

In Episode 12, Marshall is spinning in the radio station and introduces the song “He Could Be the One” by Josie Cotton (better known for her track “Johnny Are You Queer”), and the song is actually used on the DVD.

In the final Episode (technically Episode 19 since the Christmas episode was an hour and considered two episodes), several of the songs from Berlin’s awesome Pleasure Victim EP are featured, including “Sex (I’m A)” (just the intro), “World of Smiles” and “Tell Me Why.” That’s some major exposure for the band. Billy Idol’s “Come On, Come On” is also used in the episode, and the rockabilly band Jimmy and the Mustangs performs two songs (they never made it big even on the new wave scene, although they did have a record released).

That’s the good new wave news. Now for the bad no wave news. Here are some of the songs missing from the DVDs. If anyone has any info as to what I’m missing with these tracks, please leave me a comment to let me know. Thanks.

In Episode 1, there was originally a B-52’s song played outside the dance. Not sure what song was used (it may have been “Private Idaho,” my all time favorite song by them).

In episodes 2, 10, 14 and 17 there are scenes at the Grease that had different song playing when the shows originally aired, replaced on the DVDs. Don’t know what the original tracks were.

In Episode 6, Marshall introduces two different songs by punk band Armed Response. I’m not sure if either is actually by Armed Response because I’ve never heard anything by them. In another episode, he introduces a Minor Threat track, but the track is not used on the DVD.

In the Christmas episode, “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses was originally used. WHY they secured the rights to the two songs in episode 1 but couldn’t include this Christmas classic makes no sense.

In Episode 13, a song has been replaced in a hallway scene. Many have noted that the song on the DVD sounds like the Cars (it totally does), but I can’t imagine them getting the rights to a song by the Cars any cheaper. Or maybe it’s one of the Rick Ocasek solo tracks from that era. I’d have to listen to the song on the DVD and then skip through EVERY one of my Cars CDs to see if I can find it. Knowing me, I’ll probably end up doing that.

One scene at the Grease in Episode 14 originally used “Hot in the City” by Billy Idol, replaced by an unknown song on the DVD. Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” was used three times in Episode 16, now replaced. Again, they used one Billy Idol song on the DVDs (in the final episode) so why not get rights to all of them? The worst offender is replacing “Dancing with Myself” in Episode 17 with a slower song. If you watch the DVD, you can clearly see that the kids are all doing the typical white person skip-dance to the faster tempo of the Billy Idol song.

In Episode 18, the use of “The Metro” by Berlin during a scene at the Grease is replaced on the DVD, but again, WHY, considering they used nearly every other song from the Pleasure Victim EP in the final episode on the DVD? Was “The Metro” really that much more expensive to use???

Who didn’t have Vinnie Fever? (and other sexy boy moments of Square Pegs)

Yes, my 13-year-old mind was hot for Vinnie and his hot Jordache jeans when Square Pegs originally aired. The show definitely tried to paint him as the next Vinnie Barbarino (Welcome Back, Kotter) or Arthur Fonzarelli (Happy Days), with references to both John Travolta and the Fonz made in the show. Whenever Vinnie does something involving his body on the show, all the girls on screen hoot and holler. We get to see Vinnie pumping iron, and more importantly, dance around in a skimpy Indian costume when he is in the running to be the new WeeMaWee mascot. And in the Devo episode, Vinnie slips into some serious leather and chains! Wow. I’m surprised there was no reference made to the movie Cruising!

Not to be out-studded, our modest Johnny Slash also tantalizes with the flesh. He looks more like Billy Idol in his ‘Indian’ outfit, with leather pants and a black tanktop, but he is much more revealing in an actual boys locker room shower scene in which we see him showering from the chest up! This may have been the first boys shower room scene ever on a TV show! It definitely feels like something right out of an 80s teen movie.

Maybe these ‘square pegs’ were just looking for sympathy?

If the ‘bullying’ done at WeeMaWee High was the extent of it in the high school experience, there would never be any school shootings. I mean, Jennifer and LaDonna were incredibly easy-going bitches. Lauren just seemed hyper-sensitive from the start. Hell, I would guess that her insecurities are the very things that caused LaDonna to refer to her as the ‘that fat girl’ and to Patty as ‘that fat girl’s friend.’ In the final episode of the series, when patty asks LaDonna if she knows their actual names, LaDonna openly admits she does (although she pronounces Lauren’s name wrong). Even though the writers may have not known they were writing the SERIES finale and not just the SEASON finale, they did a really good job of tying things up—the snobs prove not to be all that exclusionary, but definitely exclusionary enough for the Lauren and Patty to realize maybe they don’t need to hang with Jennifer’s crowd to be cool because they have each other, Marshall and Johnny Slash, who has enough connections to score them a private party with the band that played at Jennifer and Vinnie’s anniversary party—the party they were not invited to but so desperate to get into.

Simply because she wants to fit into the ‘high school experience’ and on the heels of that, because she hates being teased for being fat and having braces (neither of which was real on actress Amy Linker, who wore fake braces and fat pads), Lauren spends the whole series trying to become popular. Most often, her plans for popularity involve Patty as the pawn because of her strengths and talents like singing and writing (and constantly removing Patty’s glasses—a ‘geek’ symbol that can be taken off, unlike her own braces). Ironically this isn’t a sign of Lauren just using Patty’s friendship, but points to Lauren actually being proud of her, respecting her, and looking up to her. At the same time, Lauren is blinded to how she treats others just as she doesn’t want to be treated, as she is constantly looking to shun the unconditional friendship of Marshall and Johnny Slash—who seem to have crushes on she and Patty, respectively. She kind of realizes her hypocrisy at the end of the season, but surely if the show had continued, she would have fallen back into those old habits. After all, she’s a teenager who desperately wants to be liked.

The truth is, Lauren inflates the bullying to something it really isn’t. I’ve never seen such pleasant bullies in my life. I mean, let’s be honest. While they’re always SAYING they don’t want to be seen around Lauren and Patty, Jennifer and LaDonna talk to them in every episode and usually end up at the same social gathering as them! Hell, when I was in school, cliques didn’t interact AT ALL and there was some very cruel loathing involved, plus plenty of vicious treatment of the kids labeled as the geeks. However, what’s great about Square Pegs’ flawed concept of cliques is how it demonstrates that while there are desperate Lauren-types who want to fit in, in reality, the majority of a class is comprised of the non-popular or non-geek kids who really don’t give a shit about the ‘popular’ crowd, much like Marshall and Johnny (and usually, Patty). The hang up in this show is almost exclusively Lauren’s. Patty’s laid back nature actually does draw people to her. She nearly scores with a very cute senior from week one as a freshman, and there are also some intense moments with none other than Vinnie, who seems to have a place in his heart for her. Her slightly veiled confidence shines through and makes her attractive, glasses or not! I’m sure if the series had continued, they would have created some complications involving a secret fling between she and Vinnie (which would have been a great storyline), but in the end, I’m almost positive Patty would have ended up with Johnny Slash. Unfortunately, I don’t know that Marshall would have ever stood a chance with Lauren. We can only ponder the possibilities of the characters’ futures and simply rewind season one again and again (okay, reinsert Disc 1 and start over—I was going for a retro VHS moment there).

HALLOWEEN XII: the ultimate Square Pegs episode

Being me, I need to explore the brilliant Halloween episode of Square Pegs as its own entity. Why? Because it’s a blatant homage to slasher movies that was 14 years ahead of Scream. While it uses the 1978 film Halloween as its main source material, we all know that Halloween is an unofficial 80s film, because it literally was the mold from which all 80s slashers were created. When the Halloween episode of Square Pegs aired, slashers were all the rage. We’d been bombarded by dozens of them in a two year span, including three Friday the 13^th films, Halloween II, Prom Night, Terror Train, Happy Birthday to Me, My Bloody Valentine, and various other knockoffs. The creators of Square Pegs either loved slashers as much as they loved new wave music, or did some serious homework to pretty much generate the slasher rules Randy would claim as his own 14 years later.

Once again, Square Pegs seems so attune to trends. Who could have predicted that when they playfully titled this episode ‘Halloween XII’ that we’d be close to that many films in the franchise thirty years later? Then there are some FREAKY coincidences. While the class is watching a school filmstrip about Halloween safety, Marshall says to Johnny Slash, “just keep telling yourself it’s only slideshow,” and soon after, their teacher, Ms. Loomis, with a sadistic look in her eyes, scratches her fingernails slowly down the chalkboard!!! WTF??? A Nightmare on Elm Street wouldn’t be released until two years after this, with Freddy’s infamous fingernail scratching and Johnny Depp telling Heather Langenkamp to just keep telling herself it’s only a dream so she’ll wake up!!! Cue the Twilight Zone theme!

But back to the Halloween episode. LaDonna has one of the best lines when she tells Jennifer that “white people in sheets isn’t my idea of a good time!” But the rest of the freshman class laments that they are too old to Trick or Treat (ah, I remember the conundrum well). Muffy suggests that they all have a slumber party at their ‘lonely’ teacher’s house (the slasher Slumber Party Massacre would be released a month later!). So their teacher Ms. Loomis agrees. How CONVENIENT is it that her last name is Loomis, considering that was the name of Donald Pleasance’s character from Halloween!!! Awesome.

All the Halloween conventions are present. Vinnie tells Jennifer “Halloween’s a scary night. Better watch out for the boogeyman” before the gathering. In attendance are Patty and Lauren, Muffy, and Jennifer and LaDonna. Once the party is started, we see the Loomis home through the eyes of the ‘killer’s’ mask. It’s all so familiar to Halloween fans, right down to a Jack-O’-Lantern sitting on the front porch. Before long, Vinnie calls to scare the girls with some ‘heavy breathing,’ then the lights go out. A knock on the door terrifies all the girls before LaDonna has her second classic line of this film, when she nonchalantly makes a social comment on black people talking to the screen in horror films by exclaiming, “Child, you better grab that knife!” Again, this is like two decades before this kind of joke became a cliché in dozens of horror films and satires like Scary Movie. Patty smartly responds, “He probably brought his own.”
But alas, it’s only Marshall and Johnny at the door, who announce themselves before they are invited in by calling the girls ‘babysitters’. Marshall is dressed as one of the then hugely popular McKenzie Brothers (you hoser!). But Johnny definitely gets prize for best costume. In true Michael Myers style, he is wearing a sheet and glasses—Ray-Bans, that is! And conveniently, since one of his favorite words is “totally,” he drops it immediately, upon entering…and it just so happens that’s the same word Linda uses repeatedly in Halloween. Of course, she wasn’t so ‘new wave’ until the actress who played her, P.J. Soles, starred in Rock N Roll High School a year later–although, the Ramones are more like punk than new wave. And that’s a totally different head. Totally.

Once inside, Marshall reveals that a patient has escaped from the mental institution, the teacher pulls out a Ouija board, and Marshall turns on ‘Creature Theater.’ In true haunted house style, thunder and lightning strikes, leading Johnny to claim that “God’s bowling!” Holy!!! That parental lie is SO a memory of my youth!!!

Finally, Vinnie shows up at the party. With the gang all present, there’s one last knock on the door. Lauren sees this as an opportunity for her and Patty to gain cool cred by bravely answering the door. As she drags Patty to the door, she promises her that the killers never kill virgins!!! How fricking unoriginal is Scream??? The girls throw open the door to find the ‘killer’ tangled up in some outdoor wind chimes. And the killer turns out to be…oh come on. Haven’t I spoiled it enough already with every last detail of the entire episode?

Before I even get into this week’s episode, I have to just comment on everybody being atwitter about a Tweet put out there by ex-American Idol castoff Elliott Yamin. This is pretty much what he said:

“Can someone please xplain what the big deal is with #Glee ?..what’s so entertaining about watchin actors lip sync 4 an hour?..I don’t get it…oh…so…this is what really goes on in HS nowadays?…kids walk around lip syncin 2 auto tuned radio garbage? ..not hatin,just dont get it”

Well, for starters, I have to say, this is why I don’t Tweet—because I much prefer the ability to actually stay as close to English grammar as possible, so blogging allows me to re-read what I’ve written and at least correct the occasional typo. Plus, rather than the knee-jerk reaction to stimulus that Tweeting is (the kind that leaves you looking all jerk, without the knee), blogging offers you time to RATIONALLY think about what you’re saying before you say it.

As for Yamin’s comments, doesn’t Elliott expect people to watch and like his lip synced videos on MTV Hits??? Judging a show simply as the one with ‘the lip syncing high school kids’ (which many haters on message boards do with this show) is incredibly shallow for someone like Yamin, who claims to be an artist. As an artist, he should recognize the aristry that goes into the show–there’s a whole lot more than just lip syncing going on here. The writing is complex, there’s characterization, human emotions and social experiences are explored, and the humor is fantastic even if not everyone’s cup of tea (all humor is subjective—how else would Russell Brand keep getting jobs?). Most importantly, despite lip syncing during filming (something that’s been done in movie musicals since their inception–is  West Side Story a piece of garbage?), just like Elliott, these kids are going into recording studios to actually sing this stuff first, where there may be some fine-tuning of vocals, just as there is with every recording artist. But on top of that, these kids are learning lines, acting and emoting, spending hours learning choreography, getting fit into costumes–yeah, sure. This show is just a bunch of hacks being autotuned for a living…

But on to last night’s episode, a perfect demonstration of why this show is loved and appreciated by so many. The show was all about the struggles of being who we are, saying what we feel, and the masks we wear to hide the painful truths and our own insecurities. Musically, it was all brilliantly captured through the music and personas of Lady GaGa and Kiss (who would ever have imagined this kind of combination?). Sure, the girls’ (and gay’s) performance of “Bad Romance” was fun, and the boys’ performance of Kiss’s “Shout it Out Loud” a hot mess. But a song like “Poker Face” took on a totally different meaning when being sung as a duet between Lea Michele and her TV mom Idina Menzel—revealing that while the two women were claiming they weren’t ready to be mother and daughter, what they were feeling inside, behind their ‘poker faces’ was a totally different story. And how brilliant of the writers to pull back on a story that seemed to be propelling forward way too fast. That’s a not-uncommon practice on the show, which often feels like it’s giving you the money shot way too fast, but then gives the ‘predictable’ storyline a complicated twist that is far being resolved. Sure, Rachel and her mom have called off a hugs and kisses reunion for now, because that would be too easy. Instead, the show is opting for realism. This is going to be a slow burn.

And then we have the harshly realistic tension that has arisen between Kurt and Finn, even if the circumstances are kind of ridiculous with their parents deciding to move the two families in together and force the classmates to share a single bedroom as if they are brothers. For starters, if Kurt’s house is so much bigger than Finn’s house with two and a half bathrooms, why the frick do Kurt and Finn have to SHARE a room—the basement, no less? What exactly is the rest of the house comprised of? A kitchen, living room, dad’s bedroom and two and a half bathrooms? But, whatever. Because the results of this new living arrangement are painfully real—especially on Finn’s part. And my only problem with the whole storyline is that it’s so unbalanced. Two teenage boys have to share a room—one straight, one gay. Why is it that the straight boy is the only one who has to learn to deal with it? When Kurt makes their space look like something out of The King and I, Finn flips out and calls some of the décor ‘faggy.’ Kurt’s dad goes ballistic and makes a heart-wrenching speech about expecting more from Finn and the true homophobia that using that word reveals in a person. Kurt, just like most gays, is so used to hearing the word, often simply as a synonym for ‘not cool,’ so he tries to defend Finn’s usage. But in the end, it is Finn who is pretty much told he just has to deal and accept that he’s a homophobe. But that’s not reality, and that’s not really the full extent of Finn’s side of the story, which is where the writing became one sided.

The fact is, in high school, everyone is uncomfortable—with their bodies, with their sexuality, with the thought of changing in front of their peers in the locker room. All the gay guys I know were the ones who were incredibly uncomfortable with stripping down to their undies in front of other boys. And let’s be honest. What straight teenage boy wouldn’t be uncomfortable in an intimate setting like sharing a bed and bathroom if he knew the boy he is sharing with is gay AND has a crush on him? Finn’s feelings are perfectly natural and he has every right to express them, even if they way he expressed it wasn’t particularly PC. And it doesn’t help that Kurt is so stalkerish in his feelings for Finn. It would be more realistic if Kurt was awkward and uncomfortable around Finn rather than trying to devise a plot to get them to be roomies. The whole plot makes his character seem way too calculated and, you know, like the stereotypical gay predator. Considering the majority of the creators behind the show probably ARE gay, it’s surprising that they would paint him this way and then berate the straight character for being an ‘insensitive,’ homophobic bully. It feels to me like they’ve written themselves into a problematic situation that is only managing to present both characters involved as two-dimensional stereotypes. In the end, it is Finn who sees that it is HE who is completely in the wrong, so he comes to his senses, admits he has a lot to learn, and protects Kurt from other bullies. Well, when is it Kurt’s turn to learn to respect others? Sure, he claims he got over Finn a long time ago, but that’s way too easy an out for him. He also needs to learn that straights have feelings that are just as real. Hopefully the creators are going to work on that.

But one more smart moment stems from the boys’ new living arrangement—which began weeks ago in the ‘Home’ episode, which included the song “A House is Not a Home” being sung by Kurt and Finn. The thinking ahead that must go into this show, because continuing the Kiss theme, Puck sings Kiss’s “Beth” to Quinn in reference to what they are going to name their baby, but Finn takes over for one verse—a verse that includes the line “our house just ain’t a home,” which he sings while looking directly at Kurt. Wow. Yeah, these Glee people are a real bunch of hacks.

The cover art of the film The Final from After Dark Horrorfest 4 makes it look like a creepy horror movie, featuring a young girl with her black hair all down over her face like something out of a Japanese horror, bloody handprints on the papers littering the floor around her desk, and the words “I will not kill my classmates” written on the chalkboard behind her.

The cover art is totally misleading. What we have here is a vigilante justice film. Select kids in a high school who are bullied endlessly get together with a bunch of guns, dress up in creepy clown costumes, Nazi regalia and other dark themed disguises, drug all the mean kids at a party in the house in the woods, chain them all up together, and then proceed to torture them one by one. It’s kind of like the Columbine tragedy meets the Saw series. There’s nothing ‘horror movie’ scary here, just the disturbing nature of a situation that could really happen—how targeted kids can be turned into monsters.

That’s the strong point of this film. The dialogue in The Final examines the psychological damage high school bullying can do, and how many of these school massacres that happen in real life could be the result of a domino effect that pushes tormented souls to the breaking point. At the same time, it sort of comes across as defending the violent actions of the vigilantes, just as the Saw series tries to steer the audience to want the victims to be tortured. To me, that’s not a horror movie in the traditional sense. It’s not a scary thrill ride, not a film involving situations or characters to which I can relate, and not a movie I can see watching more than once. It kind of bangs you over the head repeatedly with its social commentary, and the bottom line is, you don’t sympathize with any of the characters.

In terms of its ‘torture porn’ clout, the ‘pain’ really all that impressive—and most of the actors fail to deliver any genuine realistic emotions or reactions to the situation in which they find themselves. There’s some goop rubbed on a chick’s face that’s supposed to eat her flesh off—something we never see happen on screen. One guy is stuck with a bunch of needles that look like they’d be used for acupuncture. Some fingers are cut off, a guy’s spine is severed…but none of it is gory, all just suggested. There are quite a few people shot with guns (yawn). The film wants to be vicious, but it fails to make you curl your toes or feel an aching in your groin like the Saw films do. Add to that a weak ‘racism’ subplot involving one black dude who escapes the party and is then harassed by some red neck ex-military guy while trying to find help, and the film falls flat on all counts other than its probing dialogue. It’s pretty safe to say this movie could be aired on SyFy or the Chiller network virtually unedited—but in both cases, it wouldn’t really fit into the format of the network. It’s not horror, and it sure isn’t science fiction.

So let’s get the CD out of the way first. WAHOO! Volume 3 came out yesterday—which is more like volume 3.5 taking into account The Power of Madonna EP released last month. The catch with volume 3—the ridiculous catch—is that there are TWO versions of the CD: the standard edition and the ‘deluxe’ edition. The difference? The deluxe edition has 6 more songs for a dollar more. What a quandary for consumers! CDs aren’t selling as it is, so the record company pulls this kind of stunt? WHO in their right mind is going to buy the standard edition??? I guess they are counting on oblivious fans buying the standard edition before finding out about the deluxe edition and then double dipping. Either way, there are going to be a whole lot of standard editions taking up space in a land fill pretty soon. F*cking music industry. Anyway, all the must-haves of Season 1 Part 2 are on here, including the Olivia duet of “Physical”.

Last week’s poignant downer of an episode about Kurt’s continuing conflict with his dad and Rachel visiting a paralyzed boy before she realizes that she’s more than just her voice—the upside of the episode being Puck’s rendition of “Lady is a Tramp” (you know, just because it was more screen time for Puck. Yum!)—has been balanced by this week’s showstoppers. First there’s an always welcome guest star in the can-do-no-wrong Neil Patrick Harris. He rocks Aerosmith’s “Dream On” in a duet with Mr. Schuester, and supplies a knowing audience with a great wink-wink moment when he and Sue Sylvester (played by fellow gay Jane Lynch) explode with sexual lust for each other.

Stepping into the spotlight for a change—literally—is wheelchair-bound Artie, who dreams of being able to dance. In this episode he gets his chance in a dream sequence that is possibly one of the absolute best visual performances the show has delivered yet. Doing a fantastic cover of the Men Without Hats 80s classic “The Safety Dance” in a Tiffany-like mall setting to keep with the 80s theme, Artie and a parade of dancers pull off some serious choreography that is perfectly in step with the equally choreographed camera work, which offers all the right angles and moves, the viewpoint often jumping to the perspective of mall onlookers filming on their cell phones. It’s a very ‘Flip’ camera commercial inspired moment. This is one of those numbers you can just watch over and over again (aka: the full Season 1 better be released on Blu-Ray A.S.A.P. so I can watch it all summer long!)

But of course, the most crucial dream of this episode is Rachel’s dream of finding her mother. Are the creators really giving the fans what they’ve been dreaming of all along? Is Broadway star Idina Menzel, who bares a striking resemblance to former Broadway actress Lea Michele, really Rachel’s long lost mother? Or is this very emotional storyline, complete with a duet between the two women of the Les Mis classic “I Dreamed a Dream,” a red herring that’s going to have a cruel twist, perhaps revealing some sort of dastardly plan by Idina’s character to have her choir win the competition by distracting Rachel from performing her best with a false tale of being her mother? Who knows? And either way, it’s going to have viewers on the edge of their seats for the few remaining episodes of this season! I hope she IS Rachel’s mother simply because I want Idina to be a somewhat regular cast member!!!

WARNING: this post is totally spoiler-FILLED.

I saw Rob Zombie’s Halloween and my confused reaction was, “What was he trying to do to such an iconic film?” I saw the Friday the 13^th remake and thought, “Whatever. Another Jason film. Fun while you’re in it, but pretty forgettable (yet totally rewatchable every time it’s on cable).” Now I’ve seen A Nightmare On Elm Street and all I can think is, “How in the hell could they blow it so bad when drawing from such a frightening original source?”

The weakness of this film perfectly illustrates the brilliance of Wes Craven’s 1984 original. Even when 2010 tries to toss in favorite moments from the original (Tina’s wall crawl death, Glenn’s blood bath scene, Nancy’s near bathtub ‘fingering,’ Tina’s body drag through the school hall) they feel like afterthoughts or pale imitations that fail to impact viewers the way they did in the original.

That’s not to say 2010 doesn’t have its moments, even if some of them do rely on CGI. There’s a frightening scene in the “Tina” character’s attic (not named Tina this time around). When Nancy sees the Tina character’s body calling out to her from the body bag, the horrific imagery is intensified in the remake. Although loved because it’s a classic camp moment, the final kill (Nancy’s mom) in the original is so cheesy that even with the use of CGI in the remake, a similar bye bye to mom is a visually gore-iphic blast. And what is implied by Freddy’s speech to one of his victims about how the mind lives on for several minutes after death perfectly echoes much of what made the first film so great—the power of suggestion over the actual spelling out of every detail.

That’s what we have here. For starters, Freddy is only kept in shadow for a tiny bit at the beginning of the re-imaging before his face is constantly being slammed right up in the camera, accompanied by the blaring sound of slashing knives for cheap jump scares. 20 minutes into the film, we’ve seen him at least three times in brightly lit close-ups for long durations that reveal how much less frightening his look is than the ghoulish appearance of Robert Englund’s Freddy. Instead of looking gross and freshly burned, Jackie Earle Haley’s Freddy comes across as a dirty pervert who caught on fire and lived (in dreams) to tell about it. He’s just not scary. And he’s WAY too conversational with his victims from nearly the start, something the original Freddy didn’t do until later in the series when he became more of an iconic anti-hero than a horrifying monster. In the original, Freddy’s sadistic persona spewed short taunts like “Watch this!” (cuts off his fingers) and “I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy!” (sticks his tongue through the phone to lick her mouth), and performed gruesome acts like letting Tina peel his face off during a struggle to reveal his heckling skull or calling out to Nancy in Tina’s voice while wearing a “Tina mask.”

Freddy’s torture of kids in the original is a mind fuck, but it still suggests that when he was a living, filthy child murderer (as Nancy’s drunken mother describes him), he did perverted things to them. However, the focus is on him in the present—a boogeyman that kills teenagers in their sleep. In the remake, Freddy’s whole identity is reliant on his past as a pedophile. It’s all spelled out for us, right down to the discovery of naked pictures of children in his secret room, Freddy telling Nancy how she smells different now and dabbling in some disgusting sexual foreplay with her on a bed. The subject of pedophilia is repulsive for sure, but there’s a good chance that viewers of this film won’t be able to relate to the threat. And those who can would most likely never make it through the film because it would bring back too many horrible memories. The bottom line is, a burned pedophile (the new Freddy) just isn’t terrifying to people who were never sexually abused, but a hideously disfigured monster that kills people in their sleep with finger knives (the original Freddy) most definitely is because he’s not as discriminating. Anything goes—or rather, anyone goes.

Then there are the ‘teenagers’ in the remake. They lack the youthful innocence demonstrated by Heather Langenkamp in her frilly pajamas and Johnny Depp with his raging teen hormones in the original. In 2010, from the very start Nancy is portrayed as a gloom-and-doom, depressed, moping, pretentious artsy outcast, as is a majority of the other teens. As the film progresses and the truth is revealed, I guess we can accept that they are all fucked up because of their repressed memories about being molested by the school maintenance man when they were just children, but why is it that all these kids have repressed their memories? A dozen people do not handle childhood trauma exactly the same, yet NONE of these kids can remember that they were molested!!! Really???

Yes, that’s the connection the new film goes for to ‘change it up.’ In the original film, Freddy’s ‘motive’ was to make the parents who burned him alive suffer by killing their children. In this film, Freddy is killing the very children he molested to get revenge on them for breaking their silence years before (and then forgetting they told on him?). In the original film, the suburban parents were the ones who were a mess (sluts, alcoholics, white trash) as a result of keeping the secret of what they’d done to Freddy. In 2010, the parents seem to be living life fine and oblivious to the toll the situation has taken on their children. Plus, Nancy’s father is not the police chief in this film. In fact, Nancy doesn’t even HAVE a dad. That’s right. There is never any mention of her having a father, living or dead, married to his mother or divorced from her. Talk about plot hole, especially when the very same character’s father had such a prominent role in the original film, and considering Nancy is the ONLY character to have the same name in this remake.

Instead, it is the father of the “Glenn” character who plays the authoritative role in 2010, which I guess explains why it is his son who has a dream in which he witnesses the lynching of Freddy, led by his father. Why does Freddy force just this one victim to dream the truth with the most vivid of details? Can Freddy really project a specific dream in your head like a movie rather than just enter your dreams now? And what purpose does it serve other than to allow the entire torching to play out on screen instead of simply being related by a character, as it was by Nancy’s mom in the original? Again, it’s being spelled out for us, and melodramatically at that, with the parents surrounding the building into which they chase Freddy (his old boiler room isn’t referenced in the re-imagining), Freddy inside yelling “Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do it!” and the parents outside barking “Come on outta there Freddy! We’ll get you for what you did to our kids!” Why bother with the chit-chat when they actually have canisters of gasoline in the trunks of their cars? And why did they take justice into their own hands without even reporting the horrible things the man had done to their children to the authorities? At least in the original they torched Freddy after he was able to walk free due to a legal technicality—and they sort of had the law (Nancy’s dad) on their side to cover up their illegal act.

An extremely glaring problem with this re-imagining is why Freddy has his iconic glove at all! Freddy, as far as we know based on the new script, never killed any of his victims, just molested them. So what purpose did the glove serve? It’s shown to have left scratches on one child’s back and ripped her dress, but if it had inflicted any major damage, she would have required some serious medical attention. Did he use the glove to bully the children into submission or scare them into silence about what he’d done to them? Did he really create that weapon as part of his molestation practices? Or did he know that he’d someday come back in dreams and would need some nifty nightmarish weapon to kill with?

There are a few more crucial aspects to Wes Craven’s film that demonstrate his genius, and it is all pretty much summed up in the title of the film. Craven has said that he titled the film as he did because most people know of an Elm Street in their town, which helps him in bringing the nightmare into modest suburbia so we all feel vulnerable. You truly feel like you’re in a small, close knit town: Nancy can walk to and from school just as easily as carpool with friends; she can communicate with Glenn simply by looking across the street from her bedroom window to his bedroom window; the police station where Nancy’s dad works is only walking distance from her home. Hell, the town is loaded with rich green lawns and trees, blue skies, and bright sunlight. The remake fails to capture the intimacy of the community or demonstrate the fracturing of a suburban utopia, instead relying heavily on the cloak of night and jumping from one disjointed location to another: a drug store, the diner, Nancy’s house, the school.

Craven further knocks down the walls of security through his nightmare sequences. The kids are not even safe in their bedrooms, classrooms, or backyards—take into account the subtleties of Tina being frightened by a rogue garbage can cover and then crashing onto an outdoor table in her yard and pulling the tablecloth over her head to escape Freddy only to have him crawl underneath there with her. Or Nancy waking to find she has dragged pieces of rose trellis from her own front yard out of her dream and into her bed. There are no such domestic details in the remake. Nancy even finds over-the-counter ‘stay-awake’ pills in her bathroom medicine cabinet in the original, while in 2010, she has to stop at a pharmacist so her friend can refill a sleep-deprivation prescription while she’s in the drugstore aisles discovering she can pull things out of her daydreams.

Even when Nancy goes after Freddy for the last time, in the original she’s tucked away in her own bed with her hair cascading over her own pillow, a pot of coffee on the nightstand beside her bed to keep her awake. In the remake, Nancy is lying on the disgusting, filthy bed in Freddy’s secret room where she was molested when it’s time to fall asleep and bring him into her ‘world.’ His dirty quarters are her world? And forget coffee. Nancy needs to get slammed in the chest by her boyfriend with a syringe full of adrenalin, Pulp Fiction style. On top of all that, gone are the nuances of real dreaming that are so perfectly captured in the original. The inexplicable appearance of a goat running by in Tina’s dream touches upon how illogical they can be, just as Nancy finding a door in her basement that leads conveniently right to Freddy’s boiler room demonstrates the random teleporting we do in dreams. And there’s that brilliant moment when Nancy tries to run up her stairs to escape Freddy, only to find she can’t move her legs quick enough because she’s stepping in some sort of gummy substance that impedes her progress (the visual translation of a sensation most of us have experienced in dreams). In the remake, she instead falls into a goopy mess that looks like a hallway full of blood. While Craven incorporates our actual lack of control over dreams into the fear in his movie, the re-imagining filmmakers exchange those highly relatable details for literal movie moments and generic horror situations.

Generic is the operative word here. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 will not leave a lasting impression on anyone and it will not scar this generation’s children for life as the original did to its generation (in fact, kids were laughing at the remake in the theater). Remember films from this past decade like The Boogeyman, Pulse, and One Missed Call? This film has more in common with those films than it does with the iconic, influential film from which it gets its name. It’s a film with a promising premise that fails to live up to its potential. Sure, there may be a couple of creepy moments, but it lacks cohesion, so all we’re left with is a couple of ‘good parts’ instead of an entire start-to-finish horror experience. And what’s worse, it may be just successful enough to spawn a couple of even more generic and forgettable sequels.