What a large body count this zombie film has got…hot bodies, that is

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Daniel

steve-niles-remains-2

How often do you see rippling man muscles in the first 5 minutes of a zombie film? Living muscles, that is. When Steve Niles’ Remains begins, it appears that the few survivors of the zombie apocalypse are spared any cannibalistic tendencies because they are inside—sort of like how the characters inside any metal contraption were spared in the 80s classic Night of the Comet. However, just like pretty much every moment in this movie, it’s never fully verified or explained. So let me remind you—the shirtless male action begins within the first 5 minutes.

stev-niles-remains-stud

And the amount of hot men, several of whom get shirtless, continues. This GOD comes out in a towel after a shower (doesn’t everyone shower during a zombie apocalypse?) and strikes some incredible poses, totally turning on another male character. No really. I mean it. The other guy is a gay character. Take a guess if he survives…. I must say though. These two have some serious chemistry.

While I usually have issue with the introduction of army men or rogue survivor gangs in my zombie films, they only add to the man meat in this film, so I can forgive. At the same time, they do add to the gore and zombie action, and this film has loads of it. While it is a fairly big mess of incomplete scenes strung together, the zombie action is quite entertaining and there are some good jump scares, as well as humor.

Really, the series of half-assed action scenes is the big problem, as are the dozens of wtf moments that will have you rolling your eyes at the decisions of these characters—or the lack of logic of the situations. The characters keep making these escape plans, we don’t know why they make them or what they are exactly, they kind of execute them, get into a heap of zombie trouble, and then are suddenly, inexplicably safe again. For instance, guy and girl being chased by relentless zombie, they drop through a hatch in a ceiling, zombie grabs chick’s head, she gets free…and then zombie doesn’t bother to drop in after them! And they don’t show any concern that he MIGHT.

Have I mentioned the amount of hot men in this movie?

steve-niles-remains-leading-man

But, I have to admit, the film does actually add something new to the genre—lots of shirtless men and no shirtless women. Okay, there’s more. First, we have the fact that zombies fricking come to a dead standstill sleep at night!!! Yep, right out on the street. Oh. And they also pee and poop. Can you imagine what it would smell like if zombies pooped out the raw human flesh they’d eaten…? Plus, the zombies begin eating each other eventually. Oh wait. That happened in another zombie story. Oh yeah. It happened in my novella Zombied Out! So go grab a copy of Closet Monsters from Amazon….

Posted in Johnny You ARE Queer - Gay Thoughts, Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

It’s Christmas. Take the LED out!

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Daniel

Another year, another battle for a return to form when it comes to Christmas lights.

Let’s start with the dreaded L.E.D. lights that make everyone’s houses look like the set of Black Christmas. A few weeks ago as we prepared for Christmas, we headed to Lowes to get lights. So we’re in the Christmas light aisle, and this woman was there with her son and asked the lady who works at the store and was stocking shelves nearby if the set she was holding were ACTUALLY white or if they came out that blue gray color when they were plugged in. Of course the employee barely looked at the customer and was like, “They say white. They’re white.”

It being Christmas and all, and not wanting the customer’s son to get home and be really disappointed (I’m thinking about our beloved children), I pointed to a nearby display of lawn characters that used ‘white’ L.E.D. lights and said, “The ones you’re holding are LEDs like those. So they will come out that awful electric blue gray you’re talking about.”

Suddenly, the employee decided to be ‘helpful’ again and said all environmentally-friendy like (which was not very human-friendly at all), “They’re L.E.D.s. They cut down on energy. ”

I didn’t even look at her and simply said, “Yeah–but they look awful. Get those regular white lights over there.”

I’m never going to be able to ask that employee for help….

The reason we were at Lowes in the first place was to get lights for our Christmas tree. After years of using the little bulbs that have become so popular in the last few decades, we decided to have an old skool Christmas tree with the hardcore large screw-in bulbs. They look awesome on the tree, especially with the tons of tinsel I threw on the tree (that we’re now finding all over the house…). The real problem is the colors. See, years ago in the 80s, the strings used to have red, green, blue, white, and gold bulbs. Somewhere along the line, some genius decided to replace the gold bulbs with BLAZING ORANGE.

christmas-bulbs-orange

Orange is NOT a Christmas color. It makes your tree look like something out of Nightmare Before Christmas. Plus, they are so blazing that they compete with the red. Thing is, you can’t even find gold bulbs in stores anymore. In fact, you can barely find the screw-in bulbs at all, and when you do, it’s always the multi-color pack, so it’s not like you can just buy a bunch of green bulbs if that’s all you need.

That’s where Amazon comes in. I found a 25-pack of ‘yellow’ bulbs online! They look pretty gold in the picture, but even if they are more yellow, it will still look better than orange. Unfortunately, It’s 5 days until Christmas, so I probably won’t get them in time—maybe I’ll get them on Monday after Christmas. Believe me, I will STILL replace those orange bulbs on the 26th just to experience an old-fashioned day after Christmas.

christmas-bulbs-yellow

But there’s one other problem—kinda like the Lowes lady’s revenge. With these awesome old skool light strings on our tree…well…if we so much as plug a cell phone in to a wall to recharge it while the tree is lit…we blow a fuse and the entire house is plunged into darkness. Black Christmas indeed.

Posted in Tell You What's On My Mind (Pure Energy), The Dan Zone Files - Just the Facts | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Who’s afraid of the big bad Fright Night remake?

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Daniel

fright-night-remake

Right off the bat, the Fright Night remake did some things incredibly right, at least for me. Hot off the many heels of The United States of Tara, it cast Toni Colette as the mom. I’m amazed she even did it, but glad she did. It cast Colin Farrell as the vampire. Not saying he is in any way better than Chris Sarandon in the original—but he looks hotter than he has in years and it’s not a stretch to imagine him sucking on your neck. And speaking of Chris Sarandon…he has a cameo. AWESOME.

Of course, there are just some things you simply cannot top from the original’s legacy. What is Fright Night without Herman’s Head guy as the lead, the Married With Children lesbo as his girlfriend, the freaky gay porn star kid as his best friend (although the Super Bad kid in the new one is good casting), and Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent? The Peter Vincent character is my least favorite part of the remake. Don’t get me wrong. While the Doctor Who guy is quite good in his part, the character of the horror host is written as this cliché goth rock type. Yawn.

Now, I have to say, the opening scene, while using typical slick modern horror opening scene conventions, is quite suspenseful. It definitely could have been longer, and from what I can tell, this is the scene that appeared in the trailer with the vampire hovering right above the bed while the kid is hiding underneath it. That clip didn’t make the cut in the finished product, despite being hot. Bummer. The scene also demonstrates in detail how it’s okay to keep a gun in a home filled with kids as long as you have a lock on it. I’m guessing the NRA sponsored this film…

Fright Night remake is pretty nonstop in its action from start to finish with a bit of humor thrown in, so it definitely keeps you interested. Although, I could have done without the Twilight reference (too soon! Like pouring salt on an open wound). The most blatant problem is the overuse of CGI. Even so, when Colin turns all demonic, it looks pretty sick—and I hate to say this, but he kinda looks like John Travolta in his ghastly form! Sorry John. Still love you in Grease!

In the small part she gets to shine, Toni Colette rocks as the mother—my mom probably would have believed me just as quickly if I told her there was a vampire living next door, because she was cool that way. Also, there are some awesome creepy crawly vampires that move in true Ring 2 fashion, and watch out for the man-on-man kiss (in lieu of the freaky gay porn star kid, perhaps???).

Fright Night 2011 will never rival Fright Night 1985. But it’s watchable. Personally, I think its biggest flaw is the absence of the theme song performed by the J. Geils Band, which I have on 45 RPM vinyl but which was completely ignored by pop radio in 1985 because Peter Wolf had already left the band. Lights Out. I mean…Peace Out.

Posted in Living in the 80s - forever, Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, Sound Check - The Songs Stuck in My Head, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Subspecies sucks good—until it sucks bad

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Daniel

subspecies

The Subspecies franchise starts off awesomely cheesy, intriguing, creepy, campy, and gory all at once. But it begins to fall apart at the halfway mark. When it first came out in 1991, it was premature for the exposure the internet can offer…so every time customers came into the video store I worked at and asked if we had this movie, they left disappointed. It just wasn’t mainstream enough to be worth the 90-dollar price tag (can you fricking believe VHS tapes used to cost 90 bux???).

In an effort to attract horror fanatics, the first Subspecies featured an appearance by Angus ‘Tall Man’ Scrimm of Phantasm fame. And by appearance, I mean, you hardly know he’s in it. He has about a 2-minute cameo and is sporting this bizarre white afro. The plot is simple. There’s this king (Angus) who has 2 sons. He is in possession of this bloodstone thing. His ghoulish vampire son Radu wants it, but it’s going to instead be given to Radu’s sexy brother Stefan (who looks like a member of Duran Duran circa 1982). So Radu kills dad and plots to do the same to his brother.

Enter into Transylvania two clueless American chicks (actually, they’re not clueless….they’re well-educated, in the country on a grant to do studies). They get, um, sucked into the crazy world of this vampire sibling rivalry. If for no other reason, watch this vampire film for Radu, the scariest vamp I’ve seen since Salem’s Lot. He’s got a gruesome face, super long fingers and press-on nails, eerie eyes, a pervert’s husky voice, and a pervert’s constant drooling problem (although, he drools blood). Plus, the setting of sweeping hillsides and castle ruins are stunning, totally upping the atmosphere.

Favorite horror clichés abound, including organ music, candelabras, drafty dungeons, moonlight and fog, vampiric women in flowing white dresses, and vampire coffins that seem to be lit from beneath. Just pay no mind to the ridiculous claymation-like demon trolls that are Radu’s minions, and in my case, also beware the gratuitous boobage. And speaking of boobs, Radu sets up a literal ‘booby’ trap to capture his brother Stefan! Plus, there’s a super grizzly beheading. But the best part of the series is only hinted at in the first film—the vampire shadow.

The vampire shadow is the star of Subspecies II: Bloodstone. Radu is back. He looks different, but he’s the same actor, Anders Hove, whose credits also include time on General Hospital in the 90s! Also back is the lead female character Michelle from the first film…now a vampire, and played by a different actress! Although it’s supposed to pick up right where the first one left off, the lead chick’s bull dyke hairstyle from movie 1 is now a long curly bush of beautiful auburn locks. I guess your hair not only continues to grow after you die, but it grows instantly.

Anyway, Michelle is on the run from Radu, who is officially her master. She’s got the bloodstone now, which, like her hair, has magically quadrupled in size over night. She’s not adjusting well to the vampire lifestyle (it isn’t a choice, but you’re also not born that way….), and fricking calls her sister to Transylvania to help her! When her sister arrives and you first see that dyke haircut, you’ll be convinced the chick who played Michelle in the first film is now playing the sister in the second movie. But it’s not her, it’s actually—William Shatner’s daughter! I’m not even kidding.

The sister is the focus this time, and her love interest is a cutie I recognized immediately as the love interest in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (I love my scream kings). But like I said before, the star is Radu’s shadow. With just the simplest of lighting tricks, this movie is loaded with visuals of Radu’s presence as gnarly shadows stretch to huge proportions against walls and sides of buildings, accompanied by an eerie whooshing breath sound. Once you’ve witnessed this completely overused effect, you will be sold on this film. It doesn’t even matter what the plot is, just as long as they continuously exploit the shadow, which they so do. The shadow seriously makes part 2 better than the first film.

And then there’s one last addition to part 2. The zombie momma! Yep, we get to meet Radu’s mom, and she is this nasty little zombie bitch who is seriously the perfect bride for the crypt keeper. And wait until you see her twirling fire dance at the end of the film. Zombie momma is a hoot. And she also sets the stage for the third film….

Subspecies III: Bloodlust picks up right where part 2 leaves off. The police raid the tomb, Shatner tells them about vampires, they don’t believe her, she sneaks in to the tomb—and sees zombie momma bringing Radu back to life. This undead dude just won’t die!!! This is when things start to fall apart. A lot of nothing happens in this one, and the eeriness of the series starts to falter. There are way too many ridiculous changes from day tonight. I barely exaggerate when I say it’s almost like someone will turn a corner in daylight and when they round it, it’s nighttime. And the creepy shadow effect has become this silly giant skeletal hand puppet that appears on walls—and even over the moon!

This movie also introduces heavy use of the vampire needing to rip off a chick’s top to show her tits before he feeds on her. It’s not vampire erotica at all—Radu’s face looks like shit and you don’t even want to imagine it latching onto a nice big tit-tay! It seems like an attempt for the weakening series to keep male viewers’ attention. Amazing how I’ve been devoted to horror for 42-years despite it being predominantly loaded with boobs, yet straight male viewers will give a horror movie one star if it doesn’t feature any (trust me—I see tons of postings of this nature on message boards).

A small group of heroes raids the castle to save Michelle at the end, manage to get the bloodstone from Radu and toss it out of the castle…and then throw that sucker over a wall into the sunlight and onto a bunch of wooden spikes. As he burns up, they drive off…and then the little claymation demon trolls return. COME ON. REALLY?

Apparently, the creator of the series began to realize how lame those little devils were getting, because when Subspecies IV: Bloodstorm begins, the trolls don’t appear to revive our vamp as setup in the previous film. Instead, Radu’s BBQed bod falls off the spikes…and into a puddle of water. Yep, his fire is put out. And it so happens the bloodstone they tossed out of the castle in part 3 is sitting on the ground right next to him, allowing him to suck its nutrients to repair himself!

Meanwhile, our group of heroes that drove away at the end of the last film, with Michelle (still played by the second actress) in a body bag to protect her from the sun, had a deadly car accident! A woman driving by stops and finds Michelle ‘alive’ in the body bag. This woman happens to be a doctor, so she brings Radu’s fledgling to a nearby hospital, where the sleaziest, creepiest doctor ever has plans for her vampiric existence…setting himself up for a serious problem with the incredibly possessive Radu.

The shadow trick is now nothing more than a stick figure shadow on the wall and then the vampire materializing like Scotty beamed him up. Boobage is in high count with every feeding, there are a bunch of wacky new characters in the mix, and Radu suddenly has an entourage of vamps, including male vamp Ash, who has apparently been his fledgling all along. This character is to become the lead vampire in the fifth film. So you know what that means for Radu. FINALLY. But boy is it a weird finish to the official Radu story. The movie ends so abruptly with little fanfare.

This is where things get confusing. The unofficial fifth film is simply called The Vampire Journals. But, from what I can tell, it was released a year before Subspecies IV, so I’m not sure if that’s where it belongs in the timeline. This film is pretty much a redo of the original Subspecies. Ash, from Subspecies IV, is the lead vampire in this film who becomes drawn to a specific woman he wants to seduce (just like Radu in the first film). Problem is, he’s not of Radu gnarliness. He looks like he would be the lead singer of some bad 80s hair band—wait, I take that back. There’s no such thing as a bad 80s hair band. They all rock.

Meanwhile, there’s this ‘good’ vampire named Zachary who is trying to protect the new heroine from him (just like Stefan tried to protect Michelle in the first film). This time, there are also no creepy decrepit castles. This takes place in the high society world of the arts. And it’s BORING. Too many characters and too much plot (kinda like an Anne Rice vampire movie adaptation), plus actors from past series, some in the same roles, some as completely different characters. In fact, there’s an entire opening that SEEMS to be a quick recap of the Radu/Michelle story, with different actors. Unless it’s not supposed to be them—I don’t even know for sure. The lame shadow/materializing effect from Subspecies IV is used, and the excessive tearing open of shirts to expose boobs seems to be a last ditch effort to make this film interesting to the right kind of viewers. Dare I say that for me, it was the last nail in the coffin of this once captivating vampire series?

Posted in Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dance Dance Revolutionized on the Wii

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Daniel

dance-dance-revolution-wii

After over a decade and 3 generations of gaming systems, it seems Konami has NEARLY gotten it right with the two latest DDR titles that have hit the Wii—simply going back to basics by titling then Dance Dance Revolution Wii and Dance Dance Revolution II Wii. No ‘extreme’ or ‘hottest party’ subtitles. I’m the kinda way over-aged kid who wants to just jump in, select a song, and dance till I can’t dance till I can’t dance no more. But over the years, numerous variations on the series on numerous game systems has featured idiotic things like story modes and journey modes, bonus rounds, challenge songs—dance this mess around!

That’s where these two new volumes come in—with volume 2 being an improvement even over the first one. The BIGGEST difference here is, for the first time ever, you actually get to choose to dance to a mere segment of a song (which has always been the case on DDR games), OR to dance to the ENTIRE SONG!!! WAHOO!!! And what’s even better is that both volumes are loaded with full-length original hits by the original stars! I know, I sound like a K-tel album advertisement, but the fact is, on past versions of the games, many times we were bombarded by cheesy hi-nrg and techno cover versions. Not here. You can dance to entire songs by Bananarama (love a good banana ramming), Natasha Bedingfield, The B-52s, Justin Bieber (anyone who got his start selling his goods on the internet is okay with me), Kelly Clarkson (the original American Idol), Miley Cyrus, Jason DeRulo, Duran Duran, Everything but the Girl (the way I like my porns…), Goldfrapp, Human League (I do want you baby, on DDR…and now I’ve got you), Ke$ha, Kool & the Gang, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga, Leona Lewis, Martha & the Vandellas (always feel at home in ‘Mo’ Town), Bruno Mars, Jason Mraz, Nelly (gayest rapper name ever), New Edition, Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Selena Gomez & The Scene (love my Disney pop stars), Sister Sledge, Jordin Sparks, Spice Girls, Donna Summer (the queen’s queen), Train, and Yaz (80s synthlicious). I get giddy just pointlessly listing them all! That’s six decades worth of dance music that gets this 42-year-old tween’s feet twitching faster than a bottle of Excedrin.

Being able to dance through an entire 3 to 4 minute song really intensifies the cardio. Maybe they’ll have a Dance Dance Gay Revolution edition loaded with 10-minute club anthems next time around. Unfortunately, there are more ‘stat’ screens after you complete a song than ever before. Stepping on the ‘A’ foot pad to skip through them all is like a whole other dance. Yeesh! Who cares about dance stats? Just let me pick the next song already!

Indeed, as if to balance out the longer songs, they’ve given us two left feet by throwing in all these extra screens between songs. In fact, once you’ve picked your song, you are sent to a load screen that ends in a freeze frame—forcing you to have to step on A to proceed to the song! Sure, that’s great if in the two seconds between picking your song and going to the dance screen you realize you have to pee. Otherwise, you end up standing there waiting for the song to start until you finally realize progressing to the song is all in your hands (or feet, in this case).

Then there’s the random “bonus challenges” or whatever the hell they are. You’ll be shakin’ your groove thing, finish a song, and then all of a sudden get notified that you have a challenge song. When you’re sent back to the song select screen, that song is automatically selected on the wheel of tunes. For someone as anal retentive as me who systematically, methodically, and OCDally progresses through the songs alphabetically, it’s a hassle. You can choose not take that challenge song, but when you finish the song you opted for instead, you get yet ANOTHER screen informing you that you totally FAILED the challenge. How did I fail it? I didn’t even TRY IT!!! And don’t ask, because I have no idea what the reward is for completing the challenge. If it’s that you don’t have to ever have one of these challenges cut in to your dancing with yourself, please let me know and perhaps I’ll take the challenge.

Oh, and another time consumer? You know how I said it’s so great that you can do an entire song? Well, EVERY time you choose a song, you have to choose whether you want to do the entire song or just a segment as WELL as choosing your difficulty. In past games, you just chose your difficulty on the main song select screen, which would become the default choice, and if you felt like changing it, you would do it there before choosing your next song. That SHOULD have been the option here for both song length and difficulty.

Despite its flaws, the game still has another positive: songs unlock based on how much dancing you do. That used to be the way it worked, but then somewhere along the line, they began to add these ‘journey’ modes with some ridiculous plot that forced you to compete in certain challenges to progress. Fail the challenge, song remains locked away. ANNOYING. But here, after every handful of songs, you get a new song added to the list. Hot.

And finally, Konami tried to introduce a new mode into the game with volume 1: hand dance moves using the Wiimote and Nunchuk. Blech. DDR has always been about the feet. Let those obnoxious dance games for the systems on which “you are the controller” have the monopoly on the hand movements. I’m a DDR purist. Not to mention, when you use two controllers that are connected by a wire to dance, there’s a REALLY good chance your hands are going to go in opposite directions at some point and your going to rip that wire right out of your controllers. I’ll never understand how those glow stick twirlers at the techno clubs in the 90s did it.

Good news is, Konami seemed to realize it didn’t stand a fighting chance against the ‘you are the controller’ technology, dropping hand movements completely for DDR II Wii. Call me old fashioned, but I still buy all my music on CD and play dance games with a dance pad. The big question is—which of those formats is going to be phased out first….?

Posted in Sound Check - The Songs Stuck in My Head, What I'm Doing With My Joystick | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Dear Zombie Diary, torture porn has infected the living dead genre!!!

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Daniel

zombie-diaries

While George Romero was busy writing a Diary of the Dead, another little ‘found footage’ documentary style zombie movie was keeping Zombie Diaries. Different titles, but pretty much the same book: people filming their experiences as the world is overrun by the undead. In this case, the footage is presented as vignettes of several different ‘diaries’ about various groups and their situations. However, just like Romero’s film, Zombie Diaries also comes complete with a musical score—although, no character explains its presence like the film student narrator did in Diary of the Dead.

There are some really creepy moments in the first Zombie Diaries. The camera POV and flashlight beam as the only light source works incredibly well in creating pockets of terror (particularly in the first ‘diary’ excerpt)—and there’s also a zombies in the cemetery scene! Indeed, there are several excellent short films trapped within the opening and closing credits if this full-length feature. Other than that, I’m sorry, but I can NOT get past these found footage films putting characters in horrific situations—and yet the person behind the camera never puts it down!!! I refuse to suspend disbelief. If you were in fields surrounded by zombies and paranoid common folk shooting guns like they were at an NRA family picnic, you would NOT be looking tunnel vision through a camera lens. This has been a major flaw of these films since that stupid bitch in The Blair Witch Project wouldn’t put down the fucking camera and ended up making her cute chubby friend invisible witch dinner.

It is notable that the characters struggling to survive the aftermath in this film go through a lot of the same motions as characters in most zombie celluloid, such as sneaking into deserted towns looking for supplies, fearing the drinking water is contaminated if zombies are in it, and, of course, the moral dilemma of shooting a loved one if they’ve been bit (personally, that would NOT be a conundrum for me…sorry loved ones.). And then there’s the conflict of interests as the lives of various groups of survivors collide. Why can’t the few who still live ever get along in these movies??? Unfortunately, this is where the first film begins the torture porn that is later fully exploited in the sequel. Nope. Not even a zombie apocalypse is a wake-up call for the scum of the earth. Raping, pillaging, and killing abounds. And suddenly, I see the light. Oh gosh. Maybe the humans are the real monsters…not the zombies. How could I have been so blind?

zombie-diaries-2

Zombie Diaries 2 tries a new approach. Instead of several individual stories that eventually converge, we spend the whole movie following a small cluster of military soldiers. And man does it get repetitious. It’s essentially a video game: a mission-based first person shooter that you don’t get to play. They spend the entire movie going from one location to the next while fighting off zombies. It’s a shoot and escape action game. The unique aspect of this film is the periodic flashback clips of how the military men were responsible for executing civilians in an attempt to control the infection. What innovative commentary on society.

I will say, the opening scene has one of the best zombie scares ever. I nearly pooped myself even though I totally knew it was coming. It’s also the only scene not related to the remainder of the film. It’s essentially an epilogue showing how the initial outbreak affects the general population (harkening back to the opening of the first film). And the sequel does have some of the same creepy moments as the first film involving tight spaces and just a night vision camera.

Plus, there is continuity, as characters from the first film return—in particular, the crazy dirt bags, back for extended raping, pillaging, and killing. The sequel seems to forget it’s a zombie film at this point, and it’s downhill from there. There’s even a part that appears to show the gang of sickos screwing a zombie. They are doing her from behind against a barn wall, and she is moaning and convulsing before they shoot her in the head, so she may have been human, but that’s not the impression I got. What do you want from me? I’m not exactly experienced in distinguishing the difference between a live and dead woman having sex….

As in the first film, it’s just as ridiculous that the cameraman—in this case, a cameraman for the military—never puts down the damn camera. And when the good guys are eventually taken hostage by the bad guys, the bad guys grab the camera and start filming. Why exactly is everyone so obsessed with capturing everything on camera??? So they can have matinees on weekends where zombies get in half-price?

Interestingly, with absolutely no logical reason for the lone survivor to be filming anything since there’s NO ONE left to film, the filmmakers suddenly opt to convert to a third person perspective for the finale scene—just in time to set us up for the promise of a trilogy…

Posted in Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

This is HUGE: another lost 80s slasher finally on DVD

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Daniel

humongous

1982’s Humongous is yet another Friday the 13th rip-off I saw on cable back in the day, and I’ve been waiting over a decade for it to be released on DVD. I can’t wait until the day I have EVERY 80s slasher on DVD and can do an 80s horror marathon, watching them all in chronological order based on their release dates. Now that is a trip through the 80s I’d love to take, maybe when I’m retired and have the time. And I’ll do it. I swear, I will. It’s on my bucket (of blood) list.

Directed by the man who brought us Prom Night two years before, Humongous came a year too late to feature Jamie Lee Curtis, who’d already moved on to bigger (but not better) things than slasher films. However, it has a noteworthy cast (at least, noteworthy to me), including a dude who was also in the 1983 slasher Mortuary, which STILL hasn’t been released on DVD, a chick from the Jamie Lee Curtis slasher Terror Train, and as the lead female character, actress Janet Julian, also known as Janet Louise Johnson, who replaced Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew in 1978!!!

It’s not Halloween or Christmas or even Friday the 13th, but it is a special occasion as this movie opens with a 1946 prologue. It’s Labor Day!!! So we officially have a horror movie commemorating the holiday!!! There’s a big party at a house, this woman is looking at all her dogs in a pen in her yard, this dude comes over to hit on her, she runs into the woods to escape him (instead of into the crowd of people only feet away from her), she stops to smoke a cigarette (dumb bitch—smoking kills), he catches her, and he rapes her. Right about the time he unzips and tells her he’s going to give it to her good, I was wondering if this is where the name Humongous originated. It just so happens the hottie playing the rapist is none other than the guy from the HBO series the Hitchhiker! Sadly, we don’t get any great shots of his jean-clad ass in this movie. But her dogs get a good bite of it….

Flash forward to 30 years later, which would be 1982. Awesome. Clearly the pinnacle of the slasher era, with big boobs, feathered hair, a boom box, dark blue Jordache jeans, and a cassette featured in the first five minutes. A bunch of kids are out on a boat in the fog and they crash into a rock on an island where some old lady is supposed to live alone with all her dogs. The kids are stranded since their boat catches on fire.

The cool thing about Humongous is that it borrows the realistic dark lighting of the original Friday the 13th. However, this conveniently makes it pretty impossible to see just how deformed our killer ‘Humongous’ is throughout the entire movie. He’s ALWAYS surrounded by a creepy halo of light. The film also manages to keep most of the kills cloaked from our view. It’s really not that gory—although there are some nasty scenes of gut remainders being devoured by rats and bugs.

The film has plenty of 80s and slasher goodness, including killer POV in the woods, body reveals, a long chase sequence, the killer popping out of the lake, a Mother Bates moment, and even our final girl doing a Halloween over the banister flip. Then there’s the straight-up Scooby Doo plotline. Unfortunately, there’s no Scooby, because any dogs that were on the island are dead. However, we get a blond guy as Fred, Nancy Drew as Daphne (ironic, isn’t it?), and a short and clever chick with glasses as Velma. Seriously, they start to piece together clues they find around the house to solve the ‘mystery’ of Humongous. I was expecting them to start running back and forth through doors in the hall while Humongous chases them to a rockin’ 60s surfer song. But that doesn’t happen, and they fail to figure out why the movie is called Humongous.

One possibility for the film’s title comes from one of the most classic of 80s moments. One of the friends is hurt and shivering on the beach, and the chick who’s watching him comes up with a perfect way to warm him up: she whips out her huge boobs and lays on top of him—a blanket and pillows all in one. Only in the 80s…

Posted in Living in the 80s - forever, Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is Blade in the Dark a euphemism—or are you just happy to kill me?

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Daniel

blade-in-the-dark-and-macabre

In true Italian-horror-movie-of-the-80s fashion, director Lamberto Bava, son of director Mario Bava, proves that the creators are more psychosexually messed up than the characters in their films. I’m taking on 1980’s Macabre and 1983’s A Blade in the Dark, not because they are both by Lamberto Bava, who also directed two of my favorite horror movies of all time (Demons and Demons 2), but because they are on a double feature DVD I own. And I’ll say right off that this is spoiler-free…as in, I’m giving away free spoilers because there’s no way I can have fun talking about these movies without completely ruining the endings for you.

Macabre is a greatly sleazy film in which there are no redeeming qualities to any of the characters, including the blind guy you should feel bad for as he pines over a woman he can’t even see yet is somehow completely turned on by.

Psychosexual horror plots don’t get any better than this. This whoring mother leaves her kids alone at home so she can go to the apartment she rents to screw her lover. The old lady landlord for no apparent reason lets the mother whore come into the bathroom where her blind adult son is bathing to say hello, which is really uncomfortable for everyone involved—and by that, I mean me watching and the actors having to play the roles (at least, I HOPE it made them uncomfortable).

Mother whore gets all the glory of her lover while her daughter back home has all the guts—of her little brother. This crazy little bitch kills her baby bro! Mother whore gets a call he’s dead, she’s in hysterics as her lover drives her home at full speed, they get into a horrible accident…and her lover’s head goes flying.

A year later, mother whore is out of the mental home and moving into her old apartment now that her hubby has dumped her. The blind guy’s mom died, so he’s the landlord, who now listens regularly as mother whore has imaginary sex with the lover she still imagines is alive. Well…not quite. The whore keeps his head in the fricking freezer and takes it out at night and makes love to it!!! Oh yeah. This is some messed up psychosexual shit.

Her crazy little bitch daughter comes to visit, finds the lover’s head, cuts pieces off and cooks it for mother whore for dinner. So mother whore freaks out when she munches on an ear at the dinner table instead of nibbling on it in bed, crazy little bitch admits she killed baby bro, mother whore drowns the crazy little bitch, blind guy fights mother whore and torches her face, and then he climbs in bed with what remains of the lover’s head…which leaps up and latches on to his throat for one last shocker! The end.

Fucked up, right? It’s all worth it just to get to see one guy giving another guy head.

In comparison, A Blade in the Dark is just another typical 80s slasher with amped up cringe-worthy gore.

The opening is incredibly intriguing. Three boys come to a scary house—and one of them is the blond bowl cut kid from House by the Cemetery that everyone loves to hate. But really, it’s not his fault. It’s the English dubbing. Anyway, he’s being bullied, the other boys repeatedly calling him a girl until he goes down the steps to fetch their ball. Brings back such fond playground memories. So he goes down, the ball flies back up and smashes against a wall, leaving a bloody print. Break to awesome creepy 80s soundtrack music. This movie HAS to be a winner…I assumed.

But alas, that opening is just a clip from a horror movie our lead character, a musician, is scoring! Bummer. So the musician moves into a house to get privacy—and spends the entire movie fending off women who just show up at his house trying to get it on with him! WTF is this movie? And this dude doesn’t take what’s being served up!!! But the women get split in two anyway. They’re all sliced and diced by a switchblade, which is by far the star of this film, getting the most camera time. Meanwhile, our musician spends a lot of time walking around shadowy dark halls (it’s very original Resident Evil video game), the score he’s composing working as the soundtrack for the film. He has one male friend who comes to visit occasionally and a caretaker who’s supposed to be creepy and a suspect, but he’s too young and cute for it to be believable!

What it all comes down to at the end of the film is that the real threat to women in society is the gay/gender confused/cross dressing/female hating man (and no, it’s not the musician). Despite the twist of showing a young boy dressed in women’s clothes, even when this film was made in 83 it wasn’t an original idea: Psycho, Homicidal, Dressed to Kill, etc. But obviously, this simply HAS to be the reason why a man would mutilate beautiful women! No straight man would ever do such a thing!

Who would have imagined that 30 years later a former lesbian turned heterosexual man would be one of the most popular contestants on a show called Dancing with The Stars? We really have come a long way. Would it be wrong to say I miss the old days sometimes???

Posted in Living in the 80s - forever, Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Silent Night, Zombie Night…not all is bright

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Daniel

silent-night-zombie-night

When I came across this 2011 film, I was way psyched to add my first zombie Christmas film to my collection of heart-warming Christmas horrors. Make that heart-eating Christmas horror…. Great title, cover image looks campy/action oriented, AND it’s a Christmas movie! I was way surprised—and disappointed—when I watched the full film (it’s only an hour and twenty minutes) to find that it takes itself really serious for the most part, with the most ‘campy’ scenes being not particularly humorous moments such as zombies being beaten with a baseball bat by our hero as “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” plays. Lame.

Let me interrupt though by saying that there are some notable things about this film. For starters, the two lead males are both cute, with the hero being really cute with a sweet bod and some nice big ol’ nipples on display when he gets shirtless. I know what I’d be chewing on if I were a Christmas zombie. Another highlight of the film is the casting of Felissa Rose. Whodat, you ask? Why, it’s Angela from the ORIGINAL Sleepaway Camp. Great to see her in a different role, but it comes near the end, and personally, I think she doesn’t get enough screen time!!!

It’s also important to note there are some juicy gore scenes and the zombie makeup or masks or whatever it is holds up pretty well, even in the predominantly daytime setting. And if there’s one winning moment in this film that marries Christmas and flesh eaters, it is NOT the predictable moment when a zombie comes on screen dressed as Santa. It’s actually one of the few nighttime scenes, in which our juicy-nippled lead comes downstairs to find a zombie just standing in the glow of the Christmas tree. Just STANDING there, kind of swaying sleepily as if waiting for Santa to arrive so he can eat him. Such a creepy moment in an otherwise bland film.

The plot is typical zombie leftovers. Action begins immediately, with people getting eaten in a suburban neighborhood, our two cops having some post-Christmas party fight, and the lead cop’s wife showing up to join forces with them in a house as the outbreak begins. Aside from too many daytime scenes, the film also lacks holiday spirit despite plenty of Christmas lights—because it was shot in a warm climate! No snow!!!

The majority of the film focuses on the fight between the two friends and the failing relationship of the couple. Seriously, that’s the majority of the film. A zombie chick flick. The hero eventually goes zombie hunting, finds another survivor in an attic of another house, and then our favorite transgender be-otch arrives on the scene with her clan of survivors to liven up the action a bit. The movie feels like it’s about a half-hour too long.

However, having said all that, this zombie film should get an award for one of the best reaction lines EVER after getting bit by a zombie: “Half my face is in that thing’s mouth!!!!”

Posted in Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bereavement—apt title for the prequel to the awesome slasher Malevolence

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Daniel

bereavement

I just went back and read the blog I wrote about the 2004 slasher movie Malevolence. Man, did I love that throwback to the original slasher era that is clearly inspired by the 1978 classic Halloween. So it’s no wonder I completely blind purchased the 2011 prequel, Bereavement.

The good news is that I stuck with the entire film. The bad news is that I don’t have any urge to ever watch it again or to even keep it in my collection. I will hold on to it in hopes that the planned third film in this ‘trilogy’ somehow elevates it’s existence, but unfortunately, I don’t know if the third one will ever get made after a letdown like this.

Malevolence was a slasher with a short intro about a little boy forced to witness the atrocities of a killer—which then flashes forward ten years to new blood that we can only assume is falling victim to the scarred little boy all grown up. Bereavement takes that prologue from the first film and expands it into an entire movie—an entirely too long movie. We didn’t need almost 2 hours of our time to show us how this killer repeatedly strings girls up, speaks philosophically with them before gutting them, then blames the little boy he kidnaps at the beginning of the film each time. That’s it. That’s pretty much what happens over and over and over again. The film has none of the tension, suspense, atmosphere, or even the great score of the original film. With no signs of 80s inspiration this time around, the film instead relies more on the relentless brutality of modern horror that spells out all the pain for viewers instead of celebrating the fear and filling them with a sense of dread.

So yeah, the kid gets kidnapped at the beginning. Fact is, he can’t talk and he has a condition that leaves him with no sense of touch—so the killer can just stick him repeatedly like a pincushion and the kid just stares blankly. And that’s exactly what the killer does in front of all the girls he kidnaps, just to screw with their minds: look at how much fun it is to stick a knife in this little kid just like I’m going to do to you! The killer’s identity is never kept secret—he’s just another plain old hick hanging out in an abandoned meat factory. No human flesh mask, inbred deformities…nothing. Although, he does worship and talk to a bull skull. And yet, as disturbing as that all seems, as vicious as the kills are, and the constant stabbing of the boy, the idea that this guy is deranged STILL doesn’t come across! It’s all just a bunch of bull…worship.

To propel the story forward, we’re introduced to some teen girl whose parents died, so she’s come to live with her uncle and his family. She starts to get involved with a local boy. She also jogs past the old meat factory and is convinced she sees a little boy in there. So eventually, she goes in. At this point in the film, I was praying the killer would just gut her too so the movie could end. Instead, she finds newspaper clippings explaining the boy’s disappearance. Imagine that. The killer keeps newspaper clippings in a scrapbook about what he’s done. Anyway, the killer snags her, tosses her in a freezer with all his dead bodies, her uncle comes to look for her, the killer blows him away with a gun, her new boyfriend almost gets her out of the freezer, the killer shovels him to death. WHY? WHY??? Someone just needs to find her so this film can end already!

At about this point, I started watching the video for the number one Billboard Dance Chart hit “I’m Still Hot” by Betty White on my computer. But the corner of my eye reported back to me that the chick gets away, takes the boy with her and heads to her uncle’s home, the killer gets there first and stabs the aunt while her daughter goes and hides, there’s a puppy I didn’t even realize existed that I then prayed would be the only survivor—and, it seems that the filmmaker knew this would be the only way to redeem the film, because that’s exactly what happens….

I understand not wanting to make the same formulaic film twice in a row, but I simply cannot BELIEVE this movie was made by the same man who made Malevolence. I still hold out hope that there will be a third film—and that it will restore my hope in the director who made an awesome debut film.

Posted in Movie Times & Television Schedules - Staying Entertained, The Evil of the Thriller - Everything Horror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment