The DAN ZONE

From the day I first read on the net that Dr. Pepper would be celebrating its 125^th anniversary with a limited edition REAL sugar version of its spicy cola, I was having Pepsi Throwback throwbacks I mean, flashbacks. I was SO excited to once again experience a soda the way it tasted in my youth.

After weeks of stopping at every grocery store, Target, Walmart and 7-11 I passed, I finally found Sugar Doctor—and immediately bought three 12-packs. Once I got them home, I had to try my patience by leaving the Sugar Doctor in the fridge for HOURS before tasting it. See, I will NOT try an all new soda experience with ice, because when warm soda hits cold ice, the ice IMMEDIATELY begins to melt INTO the soda and messes with the natural taste of the soda, essentially rendering the soda flat by watering it down.

So it was around 9 at night that I finally snapped open my first can. The fizzy sweetness touched my lips and…well…I was so NOT blown away. It didn’t taste all that different than the crappy corn syrup version of Dr. Pepper. The only real difference I noted was that it was a bit ‘cleaner’ or ‘purer’ tasting, with no pasty aftertaste coating my mouth. What went wrong? Were my taste buds off? Where was the sugary wonder I’d experienced with Pepsi Throwback? And how cruel are the hands of fate to keep me awake all night with only my disappointment as company while I watched Roseanne reruns on TV Land waiting for the late night caffeine injection to wear off?

It appears that instead of using PURE cane sugar like Pepsi Throwback, this real sugar Dr. Pepper has used a cheaper alternative called liquid ‘beet’ sugar, whatever the hell that means—sounds like nothing more than an alternative corn syrup to me. At least this appears to be the situation based on what I could discern from the crazy people on the net who have nothing better to do with their time than obsess over this ridiculous soda stuff. That’s why I had to have a corn syrup Dr. Pepper/Sugar Doctor taste test with my friends at work the next day!

Yeah, we used the blindfolds and all. There were four of us, me and three females, and the results were absolutely convoluted and inconclusive. One of the females pointed out that it could have something to do with which of them was at which point in their ‘cycles’ and how that affected their desire for sweets. Another problem was the unfair playing field—see, I had the limited edition Sugar Doctor in a can, and the guy who fills the vending machine at my job decided THAT week to stop featuring corn syrup Dr. Pepper cans in its vending machine. I had to make a special run to a deli, where I could only find corn syrup Dr. Pepper in a plastic bottle. And the simply fact is, soda does not taste as good in a plastic bottle as it does in a can. So it would seem that corn syrup Dr. Pepper was at a disadvantage.

And yet, Sugar Doctor didn’t win the taste test. Myself and one of the females both ended up selecting the Sugar Doctor as the cleaner tasting drink with no aftertaste. Yet the other two females BOTH liked corn syrup Dr. Pepper better, claiming it was ‘sweeter’. However, they did detect the filmy aftertaste. Meanwhile, some guy walked by who is a passionate Dr. Pepper lover but has stopped drinking soda, so he wanted to just SMELL the sodas to see if he could detect which was the real sugar variety. Another co-worker later pointed out he had a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but at the time he took the sniff test, we four tasters were in awe that he matter-of-factly pointed to the Sugar Doctor as the one with the real sugar. I still don’t know how, on the soda wagon or not, he didn’t at least TRY a sip of the stuff.

So anyway, we figured we needed a taste tiebreaker, so we found another candidate—again a female co-worker! PLUS, this chick doesn’t even LIKE Dr. Pepper. Anyway, it turns out she actually liked the Sugar Doctor better but only because she felt it wasn’t as sweet as the regular Dr. Pepper with corn syrup.

So I guess we could say three out of five people preferred the Sugar Doctor, even though one of those who ‘preferred’ it simply disliked it less than Dr. Pepper with corn syrup. A general consensus seemed to be that corn syrup made the soda sweeter, which was fine for those who like it sweeter and are willing to suffer the yucky aftertaste. In the meantime, I’m having more friends over this weekend to share in Sugar Doctor with me. Perhaps I’ll be able to score a can of the corn syrup version so everything can be on a more even playing field—especially since there will actually be more men than women doing the tasting.

How to even begin with this 1990 (aka:late 80s) horror film that I just pulled off my DVD shelf for a viewing? I guess you could call it Snow White meets Carrie. Sounds horrible, I know. But somehow, it works for a 1990 (aka: late 80s) horror film.

For starters, the movie begins with girl on girl action—and by that I mean, girl on girl slashing! In front of a mirror. And it’s brutal. Now that’s my kind of movie. But naturally, this is just the prologue. It’s when we get to the actual story that the fun really begins. First, there’s the presence of scream queen Karen Black and laugh queen Lily Munster (who racked up a couple of good horror movie credits in her later years). Recently widowed Karen and her daughter are moving into the house where the mysterious mirror resides. Lily Munster works at some sort of antique shop and wants to take all the old items left in the house by the previous tenants for her shop. She leaves the mirror, probably because she’s too distracted by the books she finds on black magic and the occult.

This mirror is the perfect centerpiece for the bedroom of our female lead, Megan. Megan looks pretty much EXACTLY like Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, which is why all the popular kids at school end up treating her like she’s Carrie. Luckily, Megan makes at least one friend, and no, it’s not her gym teacher. Typical high school bully stuff goes on, making it clear that Megan is going to need to tap into the evil within the mirror to get some nice brutal revenge on her antagonists. In fact, it’s really the mirror that ‘taps’ Megan when she essentially gets her sexy on with her own reflection as the mirror drips blood. When the mirror is done with her, it has magically transformer her into what looks like that sexy 1990 one hit wonder Alannah Myles (if Megan had grabbed a hairbrush microphone and started singing “Black Velvet” into the mirror while shaking her new perm, my life would have been complete). Once she’s gotten the Olivia Newton-John Grease finale treatment, Megan has the power to make the popular jock boy fall for her, which leads to a very The Craft moment—but, you know, with a mirror.

Megan’s metamorphosis into an evil and sexy murderess is just icing on the cake when you have Karen Black around. As usual, this be-otch is crazy! Karen has some awesome lines in this film and deserved more. Let’s see, first, right after they move, she’s on the phone with the family therapist, and when he asks how her daughter is coping with the death of her father and the move to a new house and school, Karen’s eyes get all Cookie Monster googily like they do and she barks, “I’m talking about me doctor, not my daughter!” And when Karen finds her dog dead (after it was sniffing around the mirror), she cries “First your father now this.” When a shocked Megan stammers, “It’s not the same thing,” Karen responds, “You never liked him, but he liked you!” She’s definitely a dog lover after my own heart. Later on, when a quickly evil-turning Megan gets all demonic on her mother’s ass, Karen goes “I’m going to the store Megan. Do you want me to pick you up some Midol?” PRECIOUS. Karen even ends up hooking up with the guy she calls from the Pet Sematary (I mean…cemetery) to bury her dog, which results in a very bizarre bug-hater’s nightmare of a family dinner.

But all that gay campy shit aside, there are two genuinely creepy moments in this film: a visit from Megan’s ‘father’ in the middle of the night as well as what eventually comes out of the mirror alone could support a much freakier horror film if the moviemakers had opted to exploit those elements (which is what would probably happen if this film were remade today). Other than those two scenes, while the film has a great creepy atmosphere and pretty excellent gore scenes, it’s not essentially a scary movie. And the ending scene—oh man, I was having flashbacks to the end of The Exorcist II: The Heretic, when Regan returns to her home where she was possessed and there’s bright blue light shining through all the windows, crap flying everywhere, doors banging, and the entire house rocking on its foundation. All that’s missing in Mirror, Mirror are those darned locusts. Which, you know, is the one thing that saves Mirror, Mirror from having a totally busted ending. That and the freaky thing that comes out of the mirror. You simply have to see this film if just for that ending.

Ever heard of Rolfe Kanefsky? I hadn’t either, until I discovered that I have not one but FOUR of his horror movies in my collection. So I guess that means I’m a fan.

Funny thing about Rolfe, he had a huge window for a lawsuit when Scream premiered in 1996. Four years before Randy gave us lessons on the rules of slasher films, there was David, the lead character in There’s Nothing Out There, who spouted the rules of surviving a horror movie every chance he got. That’s right kiddies. Randy the video store clerk is a total poser.

Speaking of video stores (still hot in the 90s), let’s start with the opening of There’s Nothing Out There. A blonde chick in a hot pink miniskirt and tank top is working in a video store and is suddenly attacked by a crazed killer. As she writhes and crawls with pouted lips and heaving chest across the floor of the video store (make love to the camera, baby!), we are bombarded by the cover art of VHS tapes on the shelves—classic horror titles that feature artistic drawings of curvy, busty, scantily clad women looking somehow horrified and horny at the same time (hornified?). Keep that in mind—because Rolfe likes to make films that are, in part, a discourse about the intercourse between sex and horror.

Turns out video store blondie is only dreaming. She’s actually asleep in her car—and is immediately attacked by some sort of alien with octopus arms! She drives until she crashes…

Dissolve to David…and his teenage friends. They are headed off for a weekend at a summer home. When they see police investigating a crashed car on the side of the road, David immediately pipes up worriedly, claiming this is a clear warning sign telling teenagers on their way to party and have sex that they should really go back. When they arrive at the summer home, Randy…um…I mean…David, warns them not to skinny dip, not to go off into the woods alone, not to go in the basement, to beware the cheap cat scare tactic…you get the picture. David is Randy, four years before. David’s character tries continuously to warn the others that they are in the midst of a horror movie, but they don’t listen until most of them have been slaughtered at the hands of an alien that looks kind of like the lovechild of Basket Case and that big pile of talking poo from Weird Science. David has all the answers. He’s the one who knows how to survive a horror movie. Hell, not even Randy made it past the first sequel.

Even though it was released in 92, I have a feeling There’s Nothing Out There was completed at the tail end of the 80s, because it’s more 80s than 90s. Most of the songs used in the soundtrack are very new wave sounding (nothing famous), there’s a group of punks who come to skinny dip in the water behind the summer home, and all the girls look like members of Poison, only, you know, not as pretty…

There’s Nothing Out There is low budget, extremely funny in all its familiarity, and clearly made by a lover of the genre. Rolfe also serves up the sex—and based on his imdb page, it appears he’s no stranger to ‘non-mainstream’ movies, if you will. In fact, several of the actors in this, his first film, appear in some of them. Here we get a gratuitous shower scene with a blonde chick and sex scenes galore. And Rolfe gives us a nice bit of balance when the cutest guy in the film tears of all his clothes to go skinny dipping at night. And boy is there a full moon out!

There are plenty of nods to other horror films. The slapstick humor, which is laugh out loud at times, is straight up Evil Dead, as is a face melting scene. Random blue and red lighting is thrown in that has Dario Argento written all over it. There are abundant references to stomach bursting scenes from alien horror films. And they even try to burn the alien in the oven in a very Trilogy of Terror moment. Not to mention, there’s a watery basement scene that I would swear is an ode to the film Return of the Alien’s Deadly Spawn that I just reviewed recently.

To add to the fun, there’s one guy who has total gay face. I’m sure this dude has to be gay in real life, because every line he delivers sounds somewhat queeny, not to mention that his only other credit in film on imdb is as a dancer in the original 1988 Hairspray. And not once, but TWICE in this film he lashes out against pussy—first he throws a poor little pussycat to the alien to save himself, and second, he knees one of his ‘girlfriend’ in the va-jay-jay when she is possessed by the alien after it shoots green lasers at her eyes. Yeah, There’s Nothing Out There is definitely my kind of horror film.

12 years after his first horror film (and clearly a fun time making adult entertainment), Rolfe returned to the genre where he got his start with another goody. This time around, the major inspiration seems to be the Night of the Demons series.

A bunch of college kids, including b-movie scream queen Tiffany Shepis, are involved in a hazing (imagine that) on Halloween night that involves them stealing a demonic book for a scavenger hunt from their crazy teacher (scream king Brad Dourif—you know, the guy whose soul jumps into Chucky), then spending a night in a creepy mansion. Well, the demonic book ends up in the basement, Dourif ends up in a coma, and the kids end up getting possessed by his spirit one by one when the hole to hell opens. Hole-y Night of the Demons! The long shots of dark hallways, the glowing fire in the main room where the kids are hanging out and the zooming camera signifying the rampant demonic spirit looking for a new body to inhabit are straight out of my favorite horror film of 1988.

Again, Rolfe loves camp and comedy in his horror, and there are plenty of good one-liners in this film, the kids battling each other as they turn into demons—only one at a time in this film compared to the demon party in Night of the Demons. Tiffany Shepis gets some awesome support from the blonde ‘bimbo’ in the bunny costume, who has a few surprises up her sleeve. And then there’s the absolutely adorable Parry Shen in the male lead. Parry is like the go-to guy if you want an adorable, boyish Asian guy in your film. He has also appeared in the campy horror Hatchet as well as Shrieker. I just hope he keeps making these kinds of horror movies because he totally rules.

On top of all that, there are also creepy mannequins, men in women’s clothing, Tiffany Shepis’s boobs and butt, a chainsaw, a long tongue, a creepy floating red balloon, darts, and a picture perfect Bruce Campbell cameo. And then there’s the basement ending hell hole ending, which is like something out of Amityville-3D.

Too bad Tiffany Shepis was too young to be in movies in 1992, otherwise she would have been in EVERY Rolfe Kanefsky film. Corpses, while campy and low budget, runs a little long in my opinion, but it still has its moments—and plenty of Argento lighting, plenty of gore, and plenty of undead. In fact, it starts immediately with disembowelment—on a baseball field—which leaves you with a lot of high hopes.

An evil undertaker is bringing the dead back to life in the basement of his funeral home using a special embalming fluid. His assistant happens to be Tiffany Shepis’s cute boyfriend (whose nipples she likes to squeeze—hard—after sex in a coffin). Tiffany happens to be the daughter of the Sheriff. The sheriff happens to now be marrying the ex-wife of the evil undertaker, and the ex-wife is trying to get his funeral home shut down so the city can build a mall there (and yes, there’s a reference made to Dawn of the Dead). So the undertaker is going to use the undead to fight the powers that be and get his ex-wife back. But that’s when things get gory and the undead wreak havoc.

This film seems to draw its inspiration from Re-Animator as well as Dead Alive and, of course, Evil Dead. Fun moments include a horny zombie with a constant erection because he died of a Viagra overdose and a bunch of zombies ripping of Tiffany Shepis’s clothes, to which she comment “Is that really necessary?” Jeff Fahey takes a Bruce Campbell stance to battle the undead, but the real comedy show is the MILF playing the stepmother. She totally steals the show.

Just note that this is one of those films that ‘continues’ after the credits. But the content is more like the ‘special features’ because it’s approximately 15 minutes of alternate scenes and endings! WTF?

Moving on up to the big time, Rolfe’s 2006 film Nightmare Man landed in the Afterdark Horrorfest. And people HATE this movie, which shocks me, because I think it has everything going for it. It’s scary, creepy, suspenseful, laugh-out-loud funny, gory, and has Tiffany Shepis in her best scream queen role ever. This time around, Rolfe deeply explores the fine line between hard-ons and horror.

The first half hour of this film is like a mini horror film in itself, with fantastic directing that keeps you on the edge of your seat. A woman having problems getting pregnant with her suave Italian boyfriend orders a fertility mask, but instead gets a seriously hideous looking black mask with gnarly teeth, evil eyes and devil horns. She plans to return it. When she hears someone in the house, the lights go out and she goes to look for her Italian Stallion, who calls to her from the attic. She goes up there…and…EEK!!! Fricking scary scene.

Next thing you know, Italian Stallion is driving her to some sort of nut house. Their car runs out of fuel so he offers to leave her all alone in the middle of nowhere while he walks back to a gas station. It just so happens that, to help with her therapy, one of her doctors has told the Italian Stallion to bring along the mask she thinks is coming to life as the ‘nightmare man’ when she doesn’t take her medication. So now the mask is in the trunk of the car, it turns to night, and we are treated to another fricking SCARY scene. This is what a horror movie is supposed to be. Our infertile femme fatale runs off into the woods, being chased by Nightmare Man.

At the same time, Tiffany Shepis and her friends are partying it up at a summer home in the woods (sound familiar?). It’s only Tiffany, her boyfriend, her female friend (with whom she’s had a secret lesbian relationship), and her now hetero girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Believe me, this hottie could turn anyone from dyke lover to dick lover. Anyway, this group is playing truth or dare, and when the ex-dyke is dared to do demonstrate having an orgasm, Rolfe juxtaposes her gasping and moaning performance over the infertile femme fatale’s screams and gasps for air in the woods, once again exploring the sex and horror theme he first considered way back at the beginning of There’s Nothing Out There.

Naturally, our infertile femme fatale makes it to the house, beginning the reign of terror on this gang of friends. But is Nightmare Man real, or just a figment of this crazy be-otch’s imagination? Is he a symbol of man’s power over women’s bodies? Is he just her husband in a mask? Is he her physical manifestation of everything she fears about men? Well, whatever he is, people start dying, until only Tiffany Shepis and the infertile femme fatale remain. This is where Tiffany shines. Her dialogue exchanges with the crazy bitch are perfect, bringing in the camp and comedy aspects of this film. And just when you think the twist (a lame one) has been revealed, the film delivers a perfectly demonic second twist that’s like something out of…you guessed it. Evil Dead or Night of the Demons.

These aren’t the only films Rolfe celebrates again. He also throws in Argento lighting and…in fact…totally celebrates his own movie There’s Nothing Out There. For starters, one of the characters is wearing a t-shirt that says… “There’s Nothing Out There.” Awesome. There’s another gratuitous shower scene, and also a blatant close-up of a big glass jar of M&Ms being smashed during a fight, something that also happens blatantly in There’s Nothing Out There! On top of that, there’s a bit of dialogue in which Tiffany Shepis references a mysterious sound being the cat, but when another character asks her if she has a cat, she says no. I’m telling you, Nightmare Man is for There’s Nothing Out There fans what the self-referential Was Craven’s New Nightmare was for A Nightmare on Elm Street fans. But even if you haven’t seen Rolfe’s first movie, Nightmare Man is a rollercoaster ride of horror fun that has sadly fallen victim to the negative free-publicity that the online world offers awesome horror films way too often. For me personally, Nightmare Man has me hoping for another Rolfe Kanefsky film to come along.

Probably the first disaster movie I ever saw was Earthquake in the theaters, in ‘sense-around.’ If you don’t know what ‘sense-around’ is, allow me to explain. It was this short lived cinema novelty in the 70s (hot on the heels of the 3-D fad) in which a huge hulking machine set up in the middle of the rows of seats actually SHOOK the entire theater during key moments of action movies. Naturally, a novelty such as this added a tiny bit of excitement to an otherwise ‘disaster’ of a movie.

Nowadays, we have Surround Sound and CGI to make everything better. But it really doesn’t. Not when Hollywood puts out a movie like 2012. Next time you snicker at one of my reviews about one of my favorite low budget piece of crap horror movies, go watch 2012 and then apologize to me for doubting my taste in movies.

This has to be the biggest disaster I’ve seen since Twister ,the classic in which a group of thrillseekers races across country to get into the eye of a twister,  where they scream and cry hysterically for God to save them as they face death head on—and then jump back into their truck to chase the wrath of the twister all over again once it passes. If you thought that was the biggest disaster  of a film ever, then you haven’t seen 2012.

I watched this near three hour movie on cable tonight—well, actually, I watched the first hour before I discovered that the movie had another two hours to go, at which point I essentially checked out and began playing on my computer with the movie playing in the background.   I wouldn’t even know where to begin with this one. It’s pretty much every cliché from every disaster film all rolled into one—Poseidon, Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact...  And, it’s family friendly!  Yes, this one is loaded with hokey slapstick comic moments—including an awesome ‘crazy apocalypse theorist’ performance by Woody Harrelson (too bad he doesn’t heed his own advice so he could have kept us entertained for the entire movie). But the funniest thing about this film is that John Cusack thought that Better Off Dead made him look like a fool and believes that now he’s a serious actor…

I’d have to say that if Hollywood keeps pumping out derivative disasters like this, the world really will end in 2012. We have the fractured family, including John Cusack, his ex-wife, his angry son with abandonment issues, his cute little daughter with pig tails, and tension with the geeky stepfather . There’s a black president, an evil Russian leader who cares only about himself, a little dog whose welfare is supposed to concern us more than that of any human in the movie, and the disintegrating  planet earth that seems more intent on hot pursuit vengeance than the shark in Jaws: The Revenge. 2012…this time, it’s personal! You have to see it to believe it as the Cusack family out drive, fly, swim, run, and jump Mother Nature as she follows them relentlessly, shooting lava balls, bringing down buildings, causing tidal waves, sinking the earth…. I’m all for mindless rollercoaster ride action, but what’s the point of such over-the-top visual spectacles if you spend the whole time blinded by tears of laughter??? I kept looking around, embarrassed to be watching this film, and heaved a sigh of relief each time I discovered that I was alone in my living room and not in a theater with witnesses. Yet I was still embarrassed.

I also felt like I was watching one long 3-hour video game cut scene. You don’t know how many times I reached for a Wii controller to try to steer that plane between two colliding buildings or drive that car over a grand canyon sized crevasse forming in the earth. There were so many cars, people, buses, trains, planes, boats, water and balls of fire flying across screen at all times that I just couldn’t understand how an ordinary family like the Cusack’s could live to tell about it. But do they all live to tell about it? Will we get our happy ending—the real Cusack family healing emotionally and coming out physically unscathed in the face of all this devastating adversity while the intrusive stepdad gets sucked into a CGI abyss? Well, this is a Hollywood ‘family’ movie, so what do you think?

This afternoon, I became that little girl in the Schoolhouse Rock “Interjection” video (see the 1:25 mark above) when I came face to face with a fricking snake in my backyard!!!! I swear to you, I shrieked “Eeeek!” when I almost stepped on it! It was right next to a stack of bricks against the wall of the shed…and it quickly slithered behind the bricks. I’m pretty sure it’s probably living in my shed now, so basically I’ll be getting no yard work done for the rest of the summer because I will NOT be going in there to get any tools.

My friends asked me how big the snake was, and my simple reply was, “Ever seen the movie Anaconda?”

Okay, I’m grocery shopping tonight, picking up soda for a video game weekend with my friend, and suddenly my eyes detect a different color scheme in the Pepsi section of the grocery store. I quickly absorb every image and word on the twelve pack carton to make sure it isn’t some stupid repackaging of their flavors to cross-promote with some lame summer blockbuster. I quickly had to re-read. And the re-re-read. Was I really seeing Cherry Vanilla Pepsi??? REALLY???

Yes really. And I just finished drinking my first can. Now let me say, Cherry cola is my absolute favorite cola EVER (okay, next to limited edition Pepsi Holiday Spice from 2004, but I can’t even really talk about it. Too soon.). Based on what is currently on the market, Wild Cherry Pepsi is my favorite–simply delicious, followed by Cherry Coke–not cherry smooth enough, and then Cherry Dr. Pepper–almost tastes like kiddie cough syrup.

About five years ago, Coke released a Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, and I was a fan…until it suddenly disappeared from stores. Damn you limited editions and brand experiments! Then we got Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla, which was pretty good, but almost sickeningly sweet, despite being a diet soda–which I can’t actually drink because they destroy my stomach. Doesn’t matter anyway, because that also went away. After that, we were treated to Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, and I think that was my favorite cherry vanilla soda so far. So you know what that means…they sent that fucker to Pepsi Holiday Spice land…wherever that may be.

And now, Pepsi returns to the realm of Cherry Vanilla with this latest version, in both regular and diet (which makes me wonder how  different plain old cherry and plain old vanilla tastes compared to BLACK cherry and FRENCH vanilla in the Jazz soda). As for the non-diet version, which I just finished drinking, I’d have to say, it tastes almost identical to Black Cherry Coke, but is a bit sweeter and is unevenly balanced with way too much focus on the vanilla. I can’t even really taste any cherry and I’m highly disappointed. Hell, I might as well be drinking a syrupy sweet Vanilla Pepsi (is that still on the market? Probably, since I hate it). I seriously wish I had a regular Wild Cherry Pepsi floating around the house right now so I could mix it with this new Cherry Vanilla Pepsi to dilute what appears to be a full bottle of vanilla extract that was dumped into this latest flavor’s formula…

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.