But on my second viewing, I paid attention instead of doing five million other things while ‘watching’ it, as I did the first time. Sure, the film feels like vampires invading the 90210 remake at first, but if you stick with it, there are some very campy and funny lines sprinkled throughout, even if they are too sporadic for the film to fully reach its camp potential. This is also definitely not a sterile flick, because, despite the pretty faces and polished production value there is some great gore and impressive nudity.

The story is simple. A young guy and his sister move to a seaside community after losing their parents. All it takes is one party (complete with face-sucking lesbians) for them to get involved with the latest tribe of motorcycle gang vampires. Along comes “Eddy Frog” to warn them of the vampire threat, Eddy being none other than Corey Feldman. Your knee-jerk reaction will be to laugh out loud at how cheesy he sounds when he delivers his first lines in a froggy voice, but once his role gets off the ground (and if you can flash back to his character in the original film), it’s kind of endearing and nostalgic. One character even makes a reference to the great film The Goonies, a not-so ‘in’ joke for all us Gen-Xers who know that Corey Feldman was in that movie. Another nice throwback is the use of a pretty good rerecorded version of the awesome theme song from the original Lost Boys, called “Cry Little Sister,” a dark and atmospheric song that has the children’s chorus singing “Thou shall not fall.”

There are also a couple of awesome cameos. First, horror effects master Tom Savini has a nice gory cameo in the opening scene. And then, of course, the late Corey Haim makes his appearance in a short scene after the credits begin to role. Those of us who watched the reality show The Two Coreys know that Haim was not asked to reprise his role for the sequel and was very hurt over it. But by throwing him a bone and putting him in this miniscule cameo at the end, they gave Lost Boys fans what we were, um, thirsting for: the potential for a full-on Corey vs. Corey sequel. But now, sadly, that second sequel will never happen and Corey will never have his second moment in the spotlight.

On a much bigger level of despicable, there’s the ABC situation here on the east coast. ABC wants more money from cable (which inevitably means our cable prices will go up), so just in time for the Oscars, ABC decided to play dirty and remove the channel from our service until it gets what it wants. I’m so happy that the Oscars are fricking boring and that I didn’t get invited to one of those super gay Oscar parties. But Oscars aside, I went through my head trying to think of what shows I watch on ABC. The truth is, since ABC sux and canceled Better Off Ted and Eastwick, as well as destroying the legacy of Scrubs, and since I never dedicated myself to Lost, so no love lost there, the ONLY show I watch on the station is Desperate Housewives, which happens not to be on tonight because of the Oscars. And if I don’t have the wives back by next Sunday, I’ll just catch it on the ABC website. Screw ABC. Who needs it?

Two city boys, a dark haired cutie and his blond friend, hop in their car for a night of gallivanting through the countryside. As their journey gets underway, the film keeps cutting to some mysterious plaid-wearing dude digging a grave. But back to the boys. As night descends and they, of course, end up on a desolate dirt road in the mountains, they run into two females who are heading to a party—and look like they’re heading for a Madonna concert in 1985. The boys even ask if it’s some sort of 80s party, and one of the girls claims it’s going to be ‘rad’ and then expresses her interest in their car, which appears to be a make she’s never heard of. Hm….

Anyway, the boys start to follow the girls to the party, end up in a car accident, losing the girls they’re following in the process, and are soon trekking along the dark country road with just a flashlight. Gee, I think I recently reviewed another film with this same exact setup. Anyway, this begins a chain of events that has the boys being chased by ‘the locals,’ a bunch of ominous, ‘deathly’ white trash guys in a pickup truck.

The film is intriguing and keeps your attention, with some tame suspense, limited gore, and little in the way of actual ‘horror’, other than the supernatural premise that unfolds. Still, it’s definitely an entertaining viewing, and actually has a melancholy payoff, which is where the Spielberg-esque twist comes in. If only there were a swelling orchestral John Williams score, your eyes would probably well up a bit.

My only major complaint about the film is the extreme use of bright lighting in the all-outdoor location! That sure is some strong moonlight! As a result of the saturation, it looks ridiculous having the lead character running around with a flashlight. You can barely see the beam because the lighting is so bright! Ugh! I expect so much less Hollywood lighting when I watch a low-budget flick!

A hip young couple have hooked up to travel the English countryside. When they stop for directions, the fun begins. The man goes off to talk to some agriculturists experimenting with a radiation machine that provokes insects into devouring one another instead of precious crops. Uh-oh! If I were the one asking these guys for directions, I’d be like, “Dudes! You’re just begging to make people start feasting on each other!”

Anyway, the woman, waiting back at the car, suddenly feels a pair of eyes on her. Excellent zombie viewpoint and raucous music/zombie ‘sounds’ accompany the appearance of the first of the living dead. A recently drowned man (it was in the local paper) turns out to be the only zombie hiding in the shadows of this desolate town for most of the movie. And yet, the tension remains high despite the seemingly limited threat. As the body count rises, the local detective begins to suspect that the couple is actually committing the murders—you know, the disemboweling and gutting. At one point, he even gets nasty with our male hero, criticizing his long hair and “faggot clothes.” Awesome. Why worry about zombies when there’s a guy with faggot clothes threatening the safety of your town?

A mandatory visit to the cemetery finds the couple trapped in a basement with the main zombie and his friends, who rise from nearby coffins to join him, including a FREAKY old lady zombie who looks like a witch. These zombies are no slouches. In fact, they’re pretty strong (they can unearth a tombstone and throw it) and they climb ladders! This scene delivers, and the director isn’t afraid to let darkness be darkness, a quality in horror films that has been lost in polished, sleek Hollywood films of the new millennium.

Quite a bit of the movie takes place in a dreary hospital, which is where the film reaches its climax and largest zombie count and human slaughter, including a totally ridiculous strip down of a nurse by the zombies. As the film nears its end, you think the director is copping out and stealing the twist right out of the original Night of the Living Dead. Think again.

This morning, the Today Show did one of their TV show reunion segments, and the focus was on the cast of Eight is Enough. And I’ll be damned if Grant Goodeve, who played oldest brother David Bradford, hasn’t become one distinguished daddy! When the show began in 1977 and I was only eight years old, I saw those blue eyes, that thick feathered head of hair, that open collared denim shirt revealing a fuzzy chest, and I was like, “I want HIM to be my big brother….” Now that I get what those thoughts were all about, I still want him to be my big brother…from another mother, of course.  Lord, Grant me one Goodeve with him!

Last year, this 1971 film was finally released on DVD, allowing me the chance to experience it once again as an adult. The first thing I realize about this film is that kids back then must have been a lot more attentive, because this movie stuck with me, and yet, it’s a typical 70s slow burner where nothing major really happens until the last half hour, including that scene that scarred me for life. However, attentive kid or not, it’s still easier to understand the plot as an adult.

It seems Jessica was in a loony bin for a while, and now she, her husband, and their good friend are going to live in an old house in a quiet town so she can ‘rest.’ In usual 70s fashion, this film is kind of trippy. It begins at the end, with Jessica sitting in a boat on a lake, narrating in her mind. The scene seems like definite inspiration for the final scene in the original Friday the 13^th. Next, we’re taken back to when the weirdness begins, with the trio mentioned above driving to their new home town—in a hearse, their only means of transportation. On their way, they stop at a cemetery so Jessica can capture tombstone art on pieces of tracing paper. Apparently, it’s a hobby for this nut job who is grieving the loss of her father about a year ago: a hobby her husband allows her to pursue. Jessica sees a mysterious girl in white in the cemetery, but the girl disappears and Jessica (whose head we are usually in as she talks to herself to assure herself she’s not crazy) is afraid she’s still having whatever kind of episodes got her committed in the first place.

When the trio gets to the new house, they discover some free-spirited, homeless flower child hippie chick has been camping out in the abandoned house that the trio now owns. She seems nice, so they ask her to stay—and she soon suggests having a séance! Once again, Jessica’s husband lets his crazy, grieving wife participate! And so the creepy fun begins. Is Jessica seeing things and hearing voices? Is their new female houseguest evil, or perhaps even a ghost? Why are the only people in town elderly men, all of whom have mysterious bandages on one part of their body or another? Is Jessica’s husband part of some cultish plan to ‘scare Jessica to death’? Don’t expect to have any of those questions answered if you watch this atmospheric chiller.

Meanwhile, how awesome was it when that Jim Morrison reject said that the judges didn’t give him any constructive criticism about changing up his image until after he performed for votes the first time–and they cut to Simon as he was mouthing the words, “That’s true…” Awesome. That’s like the closest we’ll ever get to Simon admitting he was wrong! And just in the nick of time, considering he’s leaving the show.

Ke$ha will probably get slammed by the onslaught of web crawlers who love to bash anything that isn’t ‘art rock’ or ‘smart music,’ a definite plague that has resulted from the dawn of the internet age. We’re talking those who scathingly refer to pop as throwaway and forgettable, despite the fact that this is the very music that has proven time and again that it gets stuck in your head and has huge staying and comeback power. Not sure why they even bother wasting their precious holier-than-everyone time attacking music they’d never listen to—and I can’t imagine what would have been posted about the music I loved as a kid had the internet existed. Those who don’t like dance and pop music shouldn’t–you know–bother talking about it so much. If you don’t like a certain music genre, then why would those who DO like that genre really CARE what you think? Don’t quite get that.

Having said that, let’s get into the adolescent pop dance perfection that is the Ke$ha CD. Forget the hit singles “Blah Blah Blah” and “Tik Tok”—those who love party pop and dance music will go wild for this album. Imagine if Avril Lavigne recorded a dance rock record ripe with electronics and you pretty much have Ke$ha, who covers everything from puking at parties to ragging on ‘old’ men who look at her and think they’re going to get some. Straight up rocking dance tracks include “Your Love Is My Drug,” “Take It Off,” the adrenaline rush “Kiss and Tell,” the electro punk “Party at a Rich Dude’s House,” the more moody dance tracks “Blind” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” (no, not a cover of the Ultravox new wave classic), “Boots & Boys,” and “Animal.” “Stephen” sort of takes the classic upbeat girl group pop sound of the 60s and gives it a modern twist. “Hungover” and “Back Stabber” are the closest thing you get to actual Avril Lavigne pop rock. And then there’s the quirky, almost Tom Tom Clubish “Dinosaur.” But it doesn’t end there. The UK edition of this CD has two must-have bonus tracks. “V.I.P”. is a sleazy sexy electro dance rocker with attitude and atmosphere. “Dirty Picture Part 2” is a surprisingly hardcore electro house track. What I want to know is, where is “Dirty Picture Part 1”???

The remake also has a prank gone wrong, a house mother (awesomely played by Carrie Fisher) and sorority chicks getting killed off one by one, but this film seems to be more of a ‘sister’ to I Know What You Did Last Summer than the original film from which it gets its name (there’s not even a pool!). This film is actually more a throwback to those late 90s slashers that followed in the footsteps of Scream (can you believe the 90s are like 20 years ago now?).

The film isn’t particularly scary or suspenseful, but it is enjoyable. There are plenty of cute frat boys, sometimes shirtless, a lot of slutty chicks for straight guys, also sometimes shirtless, there are some fun and unique kills, and there’s an awesome lead character. With her rough mannerisms and husky voice, she reminds me of Jersey Shore’s J-Woww (minus the boobieliciousness and the hair) and is very likeable, even if her character makes some decisions later in the film that are contradictory to how the characters is presented in the earlier part of the film.

The real show stealer is the stereotypical hot blonde bitch (doesn’t every teen film need one?), who has some of the best one-liners. But for some reason, most of them are delivered within the last half hour of the film. It felt like it took that long for the film to find its voice as a witty, campy slasher. But it’s all good, because the last half hour of the film really needs that dose of camp because that’s pretty much when the film falls apart. It suffers from one of those ridiculous ‘twists’ in which the writers select the most irrelevant character in the film to be the killer just so that viewers will never guess who it is—and, um, still find it hard to buy even after the lame motive is revealed.

Definitely don’t go into this film expecting a high quality slasher or a horror comedy. It doesn’t succeed at either and is somewhat generic, yet it’s still somewhat endearing, mostly because of the unique kills and some extremely charismatic actresses. Also, it should have captured its more campy tone earlier on, because once it does, it really finds its stride.