Right, right, right... so I watched "Carrie", the 2013 remake with Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role, and Julianne Moore as her craaaaazy mom. You know the story: Carrie White gets mercilessly picked on by everyone, and just when she's having the dream date of her life and is made Prom Queen, she is drenched in pigs' blood. She then dons a purple wig, calls all the students "cunts" and fatally punishes them with batons and machine gu- no wait, I mean- she uses her telekinesis, which employs a lot of tai chi gestures- along with pyrokinesis and telepathy when the script demands. I don't know... I can't say this film was all that necessary. Moretz is waaaay miscast; the pressure with which she crushes her textbooks into her chest simply can't hide the fact that she isn't weird-looking enough. Any high school guy would spark up a conversation with her. I also felt like Julianne Moore was phoning in her performance- and I love her. Even sans makeup, I discovered. Of course, the final fates of Billy and Chris are much more satisfying, and there is fun to be had with Judy Greer as the kindly P.E. coach- especially when you hear Archer's Cheryl/Carol in her lines. 3/5 self-inflicted scratches in Margaret White's leg.
Then I saw "13/13/13" by The Asylum- yes, who ELSE would make a film called 13/13/13 besides The
Asylum; it's them again and I think the only reason I watched this is because Chris Pallace is sick to death of them. This is the film that answers the following questions: 1) How can one shoot an apocalypse film that looks to have cost less than Robot Monster? And 2) What would 28 Days Later look like if no one wore any infected prosthetics? It's apparently the 13th day of the 13th month during the 13th year of the Mayan calendar, and everybody everywhere goes crazy-pants-pants-carzy... UNLESS you were born on February 29th, which is immediately deduced by two clueless survivors in the following exchange:
"Why didn't this affect us?"
"Well, are you a leap year baby? I was born on a leap year!"
The rest of the movie is crazy people talking to other crazy people- yes, they still keep their voices. So if they talk to each other, you're watching a bad improv group re-enact preschool, and if they threaten the protagonists, it's like watching very, very bad professional wrestling promos. I fell asleep. But it stars someone named Nihilist Gelo ("jello?"); he seems like a wonderful wackball and I'd like to meet him someday. 0/5 "whip crack" noises made by one's bachelor friends.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
O'Reilly's McRaiders, Telgahr, and Cerberus
New Perky and Slick is up on the Patreon page. If you're pledging, which you can do for as little as $1 a month, you already know what Bill O'Reilly and this McDonalds employee are talking about. Otherwise, it's the purgatory of Thursday for you! Don't be unhip: become a patron today!
So as my Twitter pic has betrayed, I recently reestablished my old position of dog owner. Max Damage is a faithful little Shepard mix, and one of his buddies is Telgahr:
I'll have a clearer picture up soon; I wanted to get the word out. The lack of focus means that this is a fairly big figure, and it bears repeating: this is the only one like this OUT there. So if you want a unique handmade guardian of the underworld signed by a crazyman, head down to LUX this Sunday night and buy enough raffle tickets! All proceeds go to Telgahr's very costly knee surgery, which is something puppies shouldn't need... I'll also bring AMPUTHEATRE to Millennium Games this Friday night (the 10th) and the Cerberus will accompany me to promote more awareness.
If you can't make the event but want to help out Telgahr, his GoFundMe page is here. Max has just brought me something else he isn't supposed to be eating, so I'll see you this weekend.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
ONE HORROR FILM A DAY: "Long Pigs"
A Canadian cannibal documentary Man Bites Dog-style? Sign me UHHHP!!
So Long Pigs concerns Anthony McAllistair, a cannibalistic serial killer who lets two filmmakers (always in quotation marks in the film) follow and document his life and killings. It's undeniably chilling; one of my big complaints about cannibal movies is how long it takes for them to tell the audience what they've already figured out (to wit: THEY EAT PEOPLE) but this film tucks right in: fifteen minutes have elapsed and I've already learned to tie off the anus of the next overweight prostitute I prep for Thanksgiving. There's also a great sped-up sequence where Anthony turns a victim into freezer stock to The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies. And the guy they got for the role is dead on; he plays the courteous cannibal with a terrifying calm.
Maybe it's too much like an actual documentary for its own good. There really isn't much of a narrative- none of the scenes really build up to anything. Bookending the footage of Anthony's life are dialogues from a late-night radio host and interviews with a police detective and a serial killer profiler, but they never truly gel. When the profiler mentions how "visionary" serial killers are the most dangerous of all- yet Tony neither has nor develops airs over what he does- we begin to believe that arbitrary roles have been given out to friends of the filmmakers. Speaking of which, if you're going to make a mockumentary, you might want to get some older actors... The detective can't be more than 30, so "in all my years on the police force" got a chuckle. Tony's Alzheimer's-afflicted mother in the nursing home (a subplot that goes nowhere) is only glimpsed between the shoulders of restraining orderlies for a very good reason- and her doctor! I hope he's aware that they're filming on a school night!
This is all nitpicking however; the performances are quite strong and Long Pigs pulls off a lot from its meager budget. 4/5 kittens in the pig entrails.
So Long Pigs concerns Anthony McAllistair, a cannibalistic serial killer who lets two filmmakers (always in quotation marks in the film) follow and document his life and killings. It's undeniably chilling; one of my big complaints about cannibal movies is how long it takes for them to tell the audience what they've already figured out (to wit: THEY EAT PEOPLE) but this film tucks right in: fifteen minutes have elapsed and I've already learned to tie off the anus of the next overweight prostitute I prep for Thanksgiving. There's also a great sped-up sequence where Anthony turns a victim into freezer stock to The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies. And the guy they got for the role is dead on; he plays the courteous cannibal with a terrifying calm.
Maybe it's too much like an actual documentary for its own good. There really isn't much of a narrative- none of the scenes really build up to anything. Bookending the footage of Anthony's life are dialogues from a late-night radio host and interviews with a police detective and a serial killer profiler, but they never truly gel. When the profiler mentions how "visionary" serial killers are the most dangerous of all- yet Tony neither has nor develops airs over what he does- we begin to believe that arbitrary roles have been given out to friends of the filmmakers. Speaking of which, if you're going to make a mockumentary, you might want to get some older actors... The detective can't be more than 30, so "in all my years on the police force" got a chuckle. Tony's Alzheimer's-afflicted mother in the nursing home (a subplot that goes nowhere) is only glimpsed between the shoulders of restraining orderlies for a very good reason- and her doctor! I hope he's aware that they're filming on a school night!
This is all nitpicking however; the performances are quite strong and Long Pigs pulls off a lot from its meager budget. 4/5 kittens in the pig entrails.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
ONE HORROR FILM A DAY: "Awakening Of The Beast"
For some time now I've been curious about the Brazilian horror hero Zé do Caixão, Known in America as "Coffin Joe", he's been terrifying movie-goers a good twenty years before Jason Voorhees sliced up a counselor or Michael Myers loomed behind a screen door. And unlike Freddy Krueger, his long nails are real: actor/creator/director José Mojica Marins grew his fingernails icky-long and kept them that way for public appearances. Bluck.
So on Frightpix they've got a couple of the Coffin Joe flicks, and I started with the most recent one on there: "Awakening Of The Beast". A round table of psychiatrists investigate claims of a connection between drug use and sexual deviancy, with Marins playing himself in the proceedings. A couple of sexploitation vignettes precede the Coffin Joe segments; these touch on themes such as deflowering, whoring, and a group orgy in which a co-ed dies from being penetrated by a wooden staff wielded by a Christ impersonator- edgy stuff for a B/W 1970 film. The denoument is an acid trip into Coffin Joe's world which is filmed in color and feature weird-ass butt monsters, naked people falling down stairs, mass whipping, and other imaginative imagery.
It's Marins' self-defense in cinematic form; he poses that he's no more crazy than anyone else, and that drug use only induces perversion if you're perverted in the first place. But I wish I watched any of the other movies first; a clip played during At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul showed me what I wanted to be seeing. Pretentious, but still thought-provoking, and it gives you a glimpse into both censorship issues and the difficulties of filmmaking in Brazil- at least circa 1970. When Marins needs to round up four drug users from "all walks of life" for his final experiment, he looks directly into the camera and says "I know where to find some". 3/5 severed heads laughing on a man's outstretch arms.
So on Frightpix they've got a couple of the Coffin Joe flicks, and I started with the most recent one on there: "Awakening Of The Beast". A round table of psychiatrists investigate claims of a connection between drug use and sexual deviancy, with Marins playing himself in the proceedings. A couple of sexploitation vignettes precede the Coffin Joe segments; these touch on themes such as deflowering, whoring, and a group orgy in which a co-ed dies from being penetrated by a wooden staff wielded by a Christ impersonator- edgy stuff for a B/W 1970 film. The denoument is an acid trip into Coffin Joe's world which is filmed in color and feature weird-ass butt monsters, naked people falling down stairs, mass whipping, and other imaginative imagery.
It's Marins' self-defense in cinematic form; he poses that he's no more crazy than anyone else, and that drug use only induces perversion if you're perverted in the first place. But I wish I watched any of the other movies first; a clip played during At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul showed me what I wanted to be seeing. Pretentious, but still thought-provoking, and it gives you a glimpse into both censorship issues and the difficulties of filmmaking in Brazil- at least circa 1970. When Marins needs to round up four drug users from "all walks of life" for his final experiment, he looks directly into the camera and says "I know where to find some". 3/5 severed heads laughing on a man's outstretch arms.
Friday, October 3, 2014
One Horror Film A Day: "An American Ghost Story"
Yeah, I'm already behind. But I'll remind you of my rule towards One Horror Film A Day: so long as I total 31 movies by Halloween, I get to make up for lost time by watching two movies in a day. Not taking two days to watch a movie, which is what I did with "Revenant". What? You haven't heard of "Revenant"? You don't know what a revenant is? Why don't we call it "An American Ghost Story"? Oops! Did you mean to watch "American Horror Story"? Well you see... your money's already in the machine and I'm not authorized to open it; if you want it back I can give you a form to fill out and a guy will come by in... two, three weeks maybe?
So Paul and his girlfriend Stella knowingly move into this haunted home which can't be more than 60 years old, but nevertheless has had nearly thirty families live in it over its life. Paul needs a ghost to punch him in the dick so he can get the cred he needs to become a successful paranormal writer. That sentence isn't far off the mark in describing the plot, so Stella moves out after cabinets open at her menacingly. More like leaves the film. Then there are jump scares involving teddy bears and ghosts running around in sheets- which actually is somewhat effective, but only if it reminds me of the scene in Halloween where Michael Myers wore the sheet.
I've read comments on IMDb praising this film- and for the record "I've never written a review on IMDb before" is 1337 for "I am either friendly with or related to someone from the movie". I can forgive a low-budget, but I can't forgive wooden acting, a thread-bare plot, stilted dialogue, and no characters to speak of. And I thought that a revenant only went after the people who killed it; these are more like poltergeists... 1/5 murder house histories that The Amityville Horror told us we could use...
Hey: First Friday at The Hungerford is today! Come see us!
So Paul and his girlfriend Stella knowingly move into this haunted home which can't be more than 60 years old, but nevertheless has had nearly thirty families live in it over its life. Paul needs a ghost to punch him in the dick so he can get the cred he needs to become a successful paranormal writer. That sentence isn't far off the mark in describing the plot, so Stella moves out after cabinets open at her menacingly. More like leaves the film. Then there are jump scares involving teddy bears and ghosts running around in sheets- which actually is somewhat effective, but only if it reminds me of the scene in Halloween where Michael Myers wore the sheet.
I've read comments on IMDb praising this film- and for the record "I've never written a review on IMDb before" is 1337 for "I am either friendly with or related to someone from the movie". I can forgive a low-budget, but I can't forgive wooden acting, a thread-bare plot, stilted dialogue, and no characters to speak of. And I thought that a revenant only went after the people who killed it; these are more like poltergeists... 1/5 murder house histories that The Amityville Horror told us we could use...
Hey: First Friday at The Hungerford is today! Come see us!
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
One Horror Film a Day 2014! 10-1: "The Collection"
So last night; yes... I saw "The Collection". This is part of the ONE HORROR FILM A DAY! celebration that I do every October. Every October. Even the Octobers where my co-worker's wife is in labor and I have a puppy and there's a new comic due and First Friday is this Friday and the Vertex Goth Garage sale is on Sunday and I have to make a Halloween costume and Pressure is the enemy of creativity! Thank you, Joel Hodgson...
Right. "The Collection". Netflix said I'd love this. I dunno. I'm guessing it's a sequel to "The Collector" which I haven't seen, but I'm guessing The Collector is this serial killer who likes to murder an entire buildingsworth in the most Hollywood way possible, like with a huge thresher wheel shaving the top of a crowd of ravers, and then take one survivor to lock in a box or something. I don't think this truly makes him a serial killer in the traditional sense, but... Anyway, it's like Saw, but without any of that troublesome insight or poetry that Jigsaw infused into his deathtraps. So it's the sequel, so the survivor from the last film (I'm presuming) is wrangled into rescuing someone's daughter, and he's escorted by a paramilitary unit, and they all talk tough, and they all point their guns, and they... they... YAAWWWWWWWWWWWNnnnn, I confess to not making it all the way through this, and probably made a New Years' Resolution sometime back to sleep through any "horror" movie where the victims are all macho paramilitary. 2/5 appearances by Bubbles from "The Wire".
Right. "The Collection". Netflix said I'd love this. I dunno. I'm guessing it's a sequel to "The Collector" which I haven't seen, but I'm guessing The Collector is this serial killer who likes to murder an entire buildingsworth in the most Hollywood way possible, like with a huge thresher wheel shaving the top of a crowd of ravers, and then take one survivor to lock in a box or something. I don't think this truly makes him a serial killer in the traditional sense, but... Anyway, it's like Saw, but without any of that troublesome insight or poetry that Jigsaw infused into his deathtraps. So it's the sequel, so the survivor from the last film (I'm presuming) is wrangled into rescuing someone's daughter, and he's escorted by a paramilitary unit, and they all talk tough, and they all point their guns, and they... they... YAAWWWWWWWWWWWNnnnn, I confess to not making it all the way through this, and probably made a New Years' Resolution sometime back to sleep through any "horror" movie where the victims are all macho paramilitary. 2/5 appearances by Bubbles from "The Wire".
Monday, September 29, 2014
Ewww, there's like an OLD COCOON in here...
Facebook is getting tiring, that's for sure. Oh, I'll be there again and again, but nothing sucks the steam out of your witty little humorous post of the day like your up-to-the-minute Facebook feed churning out news of a plane crash or a school shooting. It's why Louis C.K. goes to the doctors for the results of his check-ups, instead of them running up to him on the Palladium's main stage. And then, there was this little moment of hooray:
This is me at Scare-A-Con 2014, with Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu of both Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Cinematic Titanic, posing with the miniatures of TV's Frank and Dr. Forrester I made them as gratitude for all the laughs over the years and the years to come. Here's a close-up of the figures:
Regarding AMPUTHEATRE: I'm a hell of a lot more done on the revised rulebook than I previously thought. I'm taking out the rules on Cheat Burns (the idea of just throwing Cheats into your die rolls) and just making far more useful Cheats. All it needs is a few more illustrations and formatting, and we're gold. I thought about adding a Glossary to the book, but... I don't know; maybe that can just go up on the website. The book is averaging like 50 pages now... I know that will turn off players, as if ripping off heads and arms won't turn off players...
Anyway. First Friday at The Hungerford is coming up, and I have chili to cook. And a new cartoon to start scripting... ya know, I love that panel of Slick whispering to Perky. That's likely going to become a meme in the near future.
-Gil
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Perky & Slick 2014-9-15: "Slender Man"
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