ONE HORROR FILM A DAY! "The Monkey's Paw" and "Gargoyle"

New Slerky & Pick is up at the Patreon page. You can read it NOW by going here and parting with the teensy- but much adored- sum of one dollar a month! More... more is nice, too...

So I saw- FUCK, am I behind on ONE HORROR FILM A DAY!? This ALWAYS happens! I've actually been falling asleep on the couch to a lot of them lately; not out of boredom (except in the case of C.H.U.D.) but because of this. LOOK at this. Are you actually aware of how many PTUs* this little bastard pumps out?

 

*puppy thermal units

Well let's catch up with "The Monkey's Paw" which is a modern retelling of the old classic tale in which... well, let's put it like this. Say you want a puppy as adorbs as Max Damage up there, so you wish on the titular animal's titular severed appendage. How the paw will likely work is that while you're at work, a plane will crash into your house; when you dig frantically through the rubble and fire and debris for any survivors whatsoever, you'll discover beneath a fragment of burning wing the only one: a nine-month-old shepherd-beagle mix safe in his pet caddy. Neat, huh? Takes place in Nawlinns, which is always beautiful to look at and concerns a young foundry worker getting the paw. Wish #1 is "boy I'd like that car", Wish #2 is "please bring my friend back to life", Wish #3 is... well, Wish #3 takes about an hour and ten minutes to fulfill because our hero chucks the wretched thing away- which irks the friend, now a homicidal zombie who kills a lot of people who really don't have anything to do with the plot. This makes the movie far too long, but hey: it's pretty and has the great flair of NOLA. And the accents all seem legit. 3/5 industrial press kills.

Oh yeah, and I saw "Gargoyle". Oh, how could I forget "Gargoyle". Because there's a gargoyle in it. He shows up in the first like, two minutes... way to keep your monster hidden, Jim Wynorski! Oh, and he also has an egg chamber unlike anything you've ever seen before, except for maybe the one on LV-426. Michael Pare is FBI agent Eddie Wilson- no, "Griff" Griffon investigating a mob death in Romania and he runs into the PS2-rendered monster. There are excellent scenes where people do not properly interact with the CGI monsters they share a screen with, as well as a scene involving a SWAT team which I swear Pare slides directly into the line of fire of his partner's shotgun. That guy is always fun to watch, and always fun to quote saying "Hey, lemme TELL ya sometin'!" which I'm convinced was the only line anyone ever spoke in Streets Of Fire. Seriously, it's like Jack Torrance, but instead of All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

it's Hey, lemme TELL ya sometin'!
Hey, lemme TELL ya sometin'!
Hey, lemme yeah you get it. 1/5 devil worshiper dance clubs with the least Goth-people on the dance floor ever; fuckin' tourists...