Last week, my girlfriend Jo and I were treated to the schlocky, stupid, silly Shockwaves. This...movie...is an example of how a bloodless horror movies does not work, plain and simple. This week's Monday Night Movie was a GOOD example of a bloodless horror film. The original The Fog stars veteran actors including Hal Holbrook(Magnum Force,Wall Street) Janet Leigh(Psycho), Adrienne Barbeau(Swamp Thing, Creepshow), and a young Jamie Lee Curtis at the height of her scream queen fame.
Set in a Northern California fishing town called Antonio Bay (the real locations were Bolinas, California, Inverness, California, Point Reyes lighthouse, Point Reyes Station, and the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre, California). The town is about to celebrate its centennial on April 21, and are having a celebration led by Kathy Williams. However, the centennial is also marked by ominous events, including the appearance of a glowing fog that spreads over land and sea and moves against the wind.
The night before the town's celebration, a group of children are entertained by a ghost story, told by 'old' Mr. Machen (exactly at the stroke of midnight), the resident elderly fisherman. The story being told is indicative of the history of the town's formation, which is being discovered at that exact moment by the local priest, Father Malone, when he finds the diary of his grandfather (who was also the town's priest). The diary later reveals a dark secret unknown to the current inhabitants where, in 1880, six of the founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone's grandfather) deliberately sank and plundered the Elizabeth Dane, a clipper ship owned by Blake, a wealthy man with leprosy who wanted to establish a colony near Antonio Bay. The six conspirators lit a fire on the beach near treacherous rocks, and the crew of the clipper, deceived by the false beacon, crashed into them. Everyone aboard the ship perished. The six conspirators were motivated both by greed and disgust at the notion of having a leper colony nearby. Antonio Bay and its church were then founded with the gold plundered from the ship.
The mysterious fog contains the vengeful ghosts of Blake and the clipper's crew, who have come back on the hundredth anniversary of the shipwreck and the founding of the town to take the lives of six people (symbolic substitutes for the six conspirators).
This same night, three local fishermen, Al Williams, Tommy Wallace, and Dick Baxter, are gruesomely murdered by supernatural attackers after the fog covers their boat. Just prior to their deaths, Al and Tommy are standing on the deck of the boat and can see a ghostly looking ship pulling along side theirs, through the dense, but glowing fog.
At the same time, Nick Castle drives down a country road and picks up a hitchhiker called Elizabeth. While the two drive towards town, the radio and headlights of the car start to fail, as the windows of the truck are blown out. At the same time, various odd phenomena begin to happen around the sleeping town (chairs move, television sets turn themselves on, gas stations seemingly come to life).
A short time later, Nick and Elizabeth have arrived at Nick's coastal home and are relaxing when a heavy knock is heard at the door. Making his way to open the glass, front door, Nick sees an odd light shining outside, illuminating a shadowy figure. The clock strikes 1AM, and it's face suddenly cracks, just as Nick opens the door, only to see there is no one there, and the fog has dissipated.
The following morning, while in her bungalow next to the beach, the local radio DJ Stevie Wayne is lying in bed when her young son, Andy, returns to the house showing her a broken plank of wood he has discovered. It reads "DANE." Intrigued by the piece, Stevie keeps it and takes it with her to the lighthouse, where she is preparing for her next show and listening to various promotional tapes for her station. Stevie sets the plank on top of the tape player that is playing the promotional spots, and while she is momentarily distracted, the plank begins to seep water. The water spreads and causes the tape player to short. Suddenly, Blake's voice emerges from the tape player swearing revenge, the words "Six Must Die" appear on the plank, and the plank bursts into flames. A shocked Stevie immediately extinguishes the fire. Afterwards, Stevie checks the plank only to find that it once again reads "DANE."
Nick and Elizabeth search the boat where the fishermen were killed, and Elizabeth finds the eyeless corpse of Dick Baxter, the youngest of the three fishermen. They then take Baxter's body to the local coroner's office to be examined by Dr. Phibes. Phibes, who is perplexed by the body's advanced state of decomposition, takes Nick aside to ask him about the circumstances of the body's discovery and leaves Elizabeth alone in the autopsy room with Baxter's corpse. The body becomes momentarily re-animated, rises from the steel autopsy table, grabs a scalpel, and walks over to Elizabeth. As Baxter's corpse moves closer to Elizabeth, she screams, and the body drops to the floor, lifeless once again. Elizabeth's screams bring Nick and Phibes rushing back into the autopsy room, where they see that the corpse has scratched the number "3" into the floor with the scalpel.
The Antonio Bay centennial celebration begins in the center of town. At the same time, Dan, the local weatherman, and Stevie talk over the phone. Stevie expresses her apprehension about the strange glowing fog that is moving toward the town. Dan then hears a knock at the weather station's door and leaves Stevie on the phone while he goes to answer it. Dan is killed when he opens the door and one of the ghosts impales him through the throat with a hook, and Stevie listens in horror.
As Stevie begins her radio broadcast, the ghosts of the fog cut the town's phone lines and electricity. Stevie begs her listeners to go to her house and save her son when she sees the fog roll up to it. Nick and Elizabeth hear this and go to help. Meanwhile, a strange knock comes at the door of Stevie's home. The elderly babysitter goes to answer it and tells Andy to go to his room. When she opens the door, the ghosts emerge from the fog and impale her on their swords and hooks; they then turn their attention to Andy. However, Nick arrives just in time to save him, escaping with Andy in his car.
As the celebration comes to an end, Kathy and her assistant drive home in the same car. When they turn on the radio they hear Stevie repeatedly telling people to stay away from the fog as it is dangerous. When the fog appears, they drive away from it. They then hear Stevie saying the only safe place is the church, which they go to. Nick, Elizabeth and Andy hear the same message and they too go to the church. They all meet in the church as well as Father Malone, and they hide in the small back room. While they are in the room Kathy and Father Malone find the stolen gold, which has been melted into a cross. Blake's ghost and his crew begin to break into the room. Knowing he is the offspring of the last conspirator, Father Malone confronts the ghosts with the golden cross in an attempt to sacrifice himself and save everyone else.
Back at the lighthouse several of the ghosts try to attack Stevie. She climbs onto the roof with the ghosts in hot pursuit. The ghosts slowly close in on her and get ready to attack.
Inside the church, Blake's ghost seizes the golden cross, which begins to emit an eerie glow. The church rumbles as the light emanating from the cross becomes brighter and brighter. Nick manages to pull Father Malone away from the cross only seconds before it disappears, along with Blake's ghost, in a blinding flash of light and a thunderclap. The apparent demise of Blake's ghost causes the other ghosts to disappear as well. The fog also vanishes, and it appears that the townspeople are saved. Later that evening, Father Malone is alone in the church. In a moment of guilt, he asks himself, "Why not me, Blake?". At that moment the fog reappears, along with Blake and his men. Blake swings his sword at Father Malone's head, decapitating him, as the screen fades to black.
This movie works for because, while the kill scenes are sparse to begin with, there is a tension, a dark atmosphere reminescent of black and white horror films. There are some great jump scares, Jo definitely leaped in the right places so I knew it would work for me. The ghosts are shot mostly in shadow or against a foggy backdrop making these killers creppy and dark. Perfect, if you ask me.
The only real problem I saw was how Adrienne, playing a radio dj in this film, could see what was going on with the fog when no one was calling in and she was broadcasting at her lighthouse radio station along the shore and of course the tacked -on it's-not-really-over final scene. Needless to say this movie was remade in 2005 and features Smallville's Tom Welling and Maggie Grace in the starring roles. I haven't seen it and I have no plans to see it. Just do yourself a favor and watch the original, I think you'll enjoy a bloodless horror film.
8/10
V-A first season review
I am a huge fan of the original miniseries and its sequel. I even enjoyed the t.v.show though it is rather cheesy. Original V , like Star Wars, lives in the cornerstone of my imagination and I think indirectly influenced my sci-fi world of Beta City. When I discovered V was to be 'reimagined', I winced. Oh sure, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica had success with being reprocessed but there could be no way V with itsallegorial overtones could ever be good. Being a fan of trainwrecks, I had to watch to see if my gut was right. I'm half-right.
It all begins with 29 ships from a galaxy far, far away,(no it's not the Yuuzhan Vong, kids) coming to Earth, promising us peace and a better way to health care and the like. The Visitors claim to only need a small amount of Earth's resources, in exchange for which they will share their advanced technological and medical knowledge. As a small number of humans begin to doubt the sincerity of the seemingly benevolent Visitors, FBI counter-terrorism agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) discovers that the aliens have spent decades infiltrating human governments, businesses, and religious institutions and are now in the final stages of their plan to take over the Earth. Erica joins the resistance movement, which includes Ryan (Morris Chestnut), a Visitor sleeper agent who over time developed human emotions and now wants to save humanity. The Visitors have won favor among the people of Earth by curing a variety of diseases, and have recruited Earth's youth — including Erica's son Tyler (Logan Huffman) — to serve them unknowingly as spies.
Ok, so the premise is solid. As a fan of takeover scenarios, I don't need to be hit in the head with a sledgehammer to watch. Yet, here is the problem as I see it. This show is so hellbent on jumping from plot to plot, it doesn't take the time to show the little battles within the big battle. There has to be more than four people looking to put an end to the resistance. There is very little emotion-other than in one episode where a war veteran explains his love for the visitors and Anna's breakdown in the season finale- and little subtley.
Speaking of the season finale, I felt it lacking. Nothing is answered other than it's apparently easy to be assimilated back into the Vistor way of thinking as was the case with Ryan Nichols. Very disappointing. I'm hoping this show can find it's leg and grow a beard as happened with Star Trek:The Next Generation. We shall see come November.
My two special friends....
A quick shout out to my literary sibs Jen and Ang. You two inspire in ways I cannot imagine.
Politics-
One question for Democrats...How can you say you are for choice when everytime I turn around you take it away from us?
One questions for Republicans...How can you say your for life when you have no problems sending our boys off to wars run from Washington D.C. then in the field?
Just curious, no flame war here.
The Cinema Snob-
The following movie the Snob has posted is BAD!!! I mean not Shockwaves or Titanic bad. I mean Crazy Fat Ethel II bad. It's funny yet disgusting at the same time. Viva Las Vegas Bloodbath.
The Snob's final sentiment says it all for me.
Please note: The postings maybe fewer and far between for the time being. I've readjusted my schedule to accounting for additional writing time. Don't worry, I'll still post at least once a week. Happy Memorial Day.
Is it my mistake or are the Pirates playing some semi-decent ball right now? O sure they're 18-22 but then again this could be the year...ummm ok nevermind....
Another Descent Into...
The Back-Up Plan(2010)-
Well I saw a chic flick. Readers, don't be alarmed, it was with my girlfriend. Surprisingly, I was drawn into this little tale of decision making and togetherness. It begins as the one and only J-LO decide to become artificially inseminated. From there, she has her cab taken from a guy(Alex O'Laughlin) and then it all begins.
You see, all around NYC, someone is searching, searching for her. The entity goes through all those who oppose it. As J-LO and Alex begin to fall for each other, the entity finds them on his cheese farm upstate. Through the cloak of night the entity comes to steal her baby...well make that babies since she is carrying twins.
Needless to say, they take off and the entity persues them. Well they come to find out the entity is J-LO's father who ran off when her mother passed away from cancer. Turns out he feels she's not worthy of children since she couldn't find a good man to begin with. Naturally, people die. From cheese guy's former crush to J-LO's nana..
It comes down to a final showdown between one half of Bennifer and the entity(played by Mr. C himself Tom Bosley)....I must say for a chick flick this was something I can enjoy.. The action...the explosions...The final lightsaber duel at the end...It's not a perfect film, there is the typical sappiness when Cheese Guy gets dumped but the blood and gore more than make up for it....
Ok, so now that I've given my fake review. If you're girlfriend likes these kinda movies, she'll like this....
For Gals 7.5/10
For Guys 0/10
Shock Waves(1977)-
Ok, Shock Waves, help me get rid of this perfumey stench of J-LO and her evil twins out of my head. You're about a group of Nazi Zombies come to life. You have Grand Moff Tarkin for christsakes...You should be good...
BUZZZZZZZZZZ
WRONG!!!
This movie is BORING!!! The action is laughable. The acting is ehhh to say the least. If there is no blood in a horror film, it doesn't automatically disqualify it from being a terrible film but you'd better have a good story to make up for that deficency. This movie doesn't to it. It's tedious to view. Towards the end, the action picks up a little bit but not much.
How the zombies die is laughable to say the least. GIMME A BREAK! It's a good thing Peter Cushing had a bit more success with his next film otherwise I fear he would have died penniless. This movie can and should be put in the ground and buried along with House of the Devil. Underground classic, my ass!!!
2/10
15 Things You May, May Not, or Don't Care to Know About Me-
Last week, I wrote ten things about myself. Well here's 15 more....
1. I was 6th grade class vice-president
2. I was a member of the safety patrol(sixth and seventh grades were magical years of my youth)
3. The first album I ever bought was Def Leppard's Hysteria
4. I played three years of Little League
5. I am NOT related to President James K.Polk
6. I have met and had my picture taken with Mick Foley a.k.a. Mankind
7. I rather domesticated. I can cook, clean, and do laundry all on my own
8. I didn't get my driver's license until this past March
9. My first favorite toy was a stuffed Oscar the Grouch my grandpa bought for me.
10. I am 1-4 in Pittsburgh Pirates games I've attended
11. I'm working on a full-length police procedural novel entitled A Primitive Glow
12. I believe there are extraterrestrial beings
13. I don't believe any -ism is the path to success.
14. My favorite author is Stephen King
15. I am a chessecake whore
The Cinema Snob-
Want to know the worst movie ever made other than Titanic? Well The Cinema Snob reviewed a few years back. Enjoy
Now that you've wondered if I really need that medication, here's this week's episode,Deathrow Gameshow. Warning, Snob gets naked...again....gawd help us....
My dad watched this film upon its release to VHS back in the late-80s. He said he ROTFLMAO. Ok, dad I'll take your word for it. A fairly good review from Senor Snob. I think he's within a gnat's eyelash from Jillian,his wife, signing over the insanity papers to the state.
A long, long time ago in space, the final frontier...there are those who believe that life here began out there....
Another Descent Into...
Star Wars:The New Jedi Order-Ruin
I am usually not a fan of media tie-in stories(i.e Novelizations of movies, t.v. shows, etc.) The problem is they are just too confined with in a certain template. There are notable exceptions. The Eugenics Wars trilogy from Star Trek, a few post-series TNG and Voyager tales for example. And now, I'd like to add this: The Star Wars Expanded Universe New Jedi Order series.
The series revolves around the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy 21–26 years after the events depicted in Return of the Jedi. Who are these beings, you ask? A sentient race from the Unknown Regions of space who are deeply religious, technophobic, and are blind in the Force. They're warrior-like and use living creatures for their weapons and ships.
I have just finished reading the third in this nineteen story series. Here's what you missed so far....
The Galactic Empire has ended the war with the New Republic, but the galaxy is far from at peace. Unrest is spreading everywhere, and threatens to destroy the New Republic's tenuous reign.
Into this fragile moment comes Nom Anor, a mysterious and charismatic firebrand who is sowing seeds of mistrust and anger through his call for a simpler time. Little do his followers know the truth which hides behind his words.
When ExGal 4, a scientific outpost on Belkedan, discovers an odd comet-like object coming through the vast distance between the galaxies, astrophysicist Danni Quee takes it upon herself to investigate. She journeys to the Helska system, unaware of the danger which threatens the survival of the entire galaxy: the Yuuzhan Vong.
Jedi Masters Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker, along with the Solos and Chewbacca are thrust into the middle of the danger once more, forced to fight with all they have to save the galaxy.
Sadly, a major character dies...but I won't tell if you don't know who by now it is....
In the second story...
Reeling from the initial incursions of the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong, the forces of the New Republic regroup to Coruscant, where former Chief of State Leia Organa Solo addresses the Galactic Senate and finds the members divided on how to deal with the Yuuzhan Vong threat. The Yuuzhan Vong's beachhead on Belkadan undergoes Vongforming while Jedi Master Luke Skywalker endeavors to unite the Jedi. Also Han and Leia's daughter Jaina accepts a place in Rogue Squadron.
A very disturbing twist of events...
So now we come, reader, to Ruin...
Trustant of the Caamasi Remnant, Elegos A'Kla is dispatched as an emissary to the Yuuzhan Vong as their main battle fleet penetrates into the galaxy's Outer Rim. A'Kla dies in his attempt as Corran Horn and the Yuuzhan Vong commander, Shedao Shai, duel over the fate of the planet Ithor (home to the "Hammerheads" from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) -- a conflict that ends with Ithor's destruction.
This is a great middle story. The fact that Luke plays hardly a meaty role in this tale makes all the better. I enjoy stories that don't use the main characters to advance a story along all the time. We see a great character development in Jacen and Anakin Solo along with Jedi Corran Horn. If you like post-ROTJ, then you'll love this story.
No significant flaws really to be had other than some clerical errors...8/10
Ten things you may, may not, or don't care to know about me-
Initally, I was going to do 25 but that's just overkill.....
1. I am not an alien, lol. I was actually born in suburban Pittsburgh.
2. I have a Pittsburgh Steelers tattoo on my right bicep
3. I am an old school metalhead
4. I have lived in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, West Virginia(2x), and California
5. I am the author of the short stories Rhapsody in Black and From A Serpent's Kiss...
6. I love Louis L'amour tales
7. I only watch one current t.v. show, V
8. I hopped on the X-Files bandwagon seven years after it went off the air, lol.
9. Growing up, Mario Lemieux was my childhood hero
10. I had aspirations to become a pro wrestler
Memories...pressed between the pages of my mind....
Another Descent Into...
The Pittsburgh Penguins-
And so Pens fans, we are stuck with the memory of last year's awesome Stanley Cup final against Detroit. This year, let's face it, from March on, the boys in black and gold ran out of gas. They looked anemic at times, lethargic, etc. The two years of Cup final runs took their toll, coming to a head last night in their 5-2 loss to Montreal in Game 7.
Of course, I can and will lay some blame Marc-Andre Fleury's way. Gimme a break flower boy! That was disgraceful giving up a goal 30 seconds in. Sid and Evengi both bit the root all series long but give credit to the Montreal Canadiens for not being intimated. They give the fight to 'em and the Pens just folded:-(
Congrats Montreal.
R.I.P. Mellon Arena
The Cinema Snob
This week the Snob heads back to the future as he reviews Video Violence 2. Before you watch that, reader, watch this....
Now, see how many differences YOU can spot
LMAO! Oh what a moment when Snob chats with past self. So much happened to him in 3 years. Let see, his clashes with youtube, his dvd collection gets stolen, he moves to better digs, gets married, fights with himself, danced around in a black box.
I wonder if this will be a continuing storyline. It would be real cool if past Snob visits once in awhile. It would make for great comedy.
If you would like to be interviewed for My Breakfast With segment, shoot me an email at redpenguin24_m@yahoo.com
Oh wow...can't believe it's been a week since I lasted posted....Real life is sometimes a good thing...
Another Descent Into...
The Pittsburgh Penguins-
The Canadiens are who I thought they'd be. They are riding the hot goaltender in Stephan Halak. Yet, the Pens are up 3-2 thanks to a 2-1 win last night in game 5 of their best of 7 2nd round. Why? Mainly, it's because we are riding a hotter goaltender in one Marc-Andre Fleury. This boy has made saves he should have no business making. If not for that, in all honesty I don't see the Pens getting as far as they have. Crosby is snakebit...Malkin is anemic and the offense Game 1 aside is weak. Let's hope tomorrow, they can crush Montreal's will and head to a 3rd straight conference final.
Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
And so here we are, reader. Once again, I am about to review a remake of a classic horror film. This time it's Nightmare on Elm Street starring Mr. Kelly Leak, Jackie Earle-Haley as the razored boogieman. Try as he might, Jackie is no Robert Englund.
The problem with this movie is the same problem with most of the other remakes that have come out over the past few years. There is nothing new going on. With Star Trek, J.J. Abrams at least had the common sense to put his universe in a different contiunity than the original. With Elm Street, it's as if original Freddy never happened.
The motives for Freddy's kills are a helluva lot more disgusting than original Freddy, I'll give it that. New Freddy is very sinister but also a one-liner spouter. I rolled my eyes as he dropped pun after pun. There are a few decent death scenes.(The first one gets major bonus points with me..sorry Twilight kids...) and for about ten minutes, I really thought the 'something new' dynamic would happen but I got rused. The ending is bleech as hell.
In the pantheon of horror remakes, New NOES isn't Friday the 13th or The Stepfather but it's not Halloween either. E for effort, C- for execution....6/10
Alice Sweet Alice (1977)-
On to a better movie, 1977's Alice Sweet Alice marked the debut of Brooke Shields into the world of cinema.
Catherine Spages (Linda Miller) and her two daughters 9-year-old Karen (Brooke Shields) and 12-year-old Alice (Paula Sheppard) who both attend St Michael's Parish Girl's School, are visiting Father Tom (Rudolph Willrich). Karen is preparing for her first communion and Father Tom gives her his mother's crucifix as a gift. A jealous Alice puts on a creepy, translucent grinning mask and terrifies Mrs Tredoni (Mildred Clinton), Father Tom's quirky Italian immigrant housekeeper.
Later on, Alice steals Karen's porcelain doll and lures her into an abandoned building with it. She jumps out and scares Karen with the grinning mask and locks her in a room. When she lets her out she tells her that if anyone finds out she'll never see the doll again.
On the day of the first communion, Karen is attacked and strangled to death by a person donning a translucent mask and yellow rain coat in a back room as the children enter the front of the church. Her body is dragged away by her right arm and the fiend dumps her into a bench compartment and sets her on fire with the candle, but not before ripping the crucifix from her neck. Smoke begins to fill the church. Meanwhile, Alice enters the church, carrying her shiny yellow raincoat. She kneels in Karen's place to receive communion but a scream is heard. A curious nun had entered the back room where the confessionals are located, and finds Karen's body. Members of the mass run in, horrified. Catherine is inconsolable.
After Karen's funeral, Catherine's ex-husband Dominick "Dom" Spages arrives in town to help track the killer down. Also, Catherine's sister Annie DeLorenze (Jane Lowry) moves in with them to help Catherine through her grief. It is then apparent that Alice and Annie both despise each other, as seen when Annie implicates Alice in Karen's murder and when they get into an argument after Alice spills a glass of milk.
Catherine tells Alice to deliver a rent cheque to Mr Alphonso (Alphonso DeNoble), their obese cat-loving landlord. After he tries to fondle and molest her, Alice kills his cat and goes down to the basement, where she lights a candle and puts on her grinning mask.
When going down the stairs to go shopping, Annie is viciously attacked by the killer in the yellow raincoat and grinning mask, stabbing her in the knee, foot, and thigh. At the hospital, Annie cries to her husband Jim (Gary Allen) that Alice tried to kill her. Catherine says that Annie is only accusing Alice of murdering Karen to divert attention from her own daughter Angela (Kathy Rich) who was absent at the time of the murder. Alice is put in a mental institution due to her outbursts.
When at the sanitarium with Father Tom, Dom receives a phone call from Angela herself saying that she has Karen's crucifix and she is in hiding. They agree to meet up at an abandoned building. When at the abandoned building, Dom follows the killer inside and up the stairs where the killer stabs him in the shoulder and is knocked out by a brick and tied up. Dom awakens and sees that the killer is in fact Mrs Tredoni. She killed Karen because she believes that "children pay for the sins of the parents". She reveals that she stabbed Annie because she misidentified her as Catherine, whom she considers a whore. She calls Dom and Catherine sinners because they had been fornicating before marriage. After biting the crucifix off her neck, Mrs Tredoni beats him with a rock and pushes him out of the window.
Upon analysis of Dom's corpse, the crucifix is found and Alice is released. When going out to mass Mrs Tredoni sneaks into the apartment building. Catherine and Alice leave just in time. As Mrs Tredoni bangs on their front door, Mr Alphonso wakes up screaming (Alice put a jar of cockroaches on his belly before leaving). He spots Mrs Tredoni and mistakes her for Alice and grabs her. Mrs Tredoni stabs him twice and runs downstairs. However, a policeman witnesses her running out of the back entrance without the mask on.
Mrs Tredoni goes to the same church as Catherine and Alice where the police are stationed outside. When going up to the altar, Father Tom denies her communion. Mrs Tredoni points at Catherine and screams, "But you gave it to that WHORE!" Mrs Tredoni violently stabs Father Tom in the neck and the police rush in. The final shot features Alice walking out of the church with Mrs Tredoni's shopping bag and looking at the bloodstained butcher knife, glaring at the camera.
This movie came out in the pre-slasher movie, just right before the original Halloween would blood-stain the screen and while at times I felt as if I were watching a soap opera, overall this wasn't bad. Alice is a pure bitch in this film. So much so, you really believe she was capable of committing those murders. The acting is beyond overdone, into the world of char-broiled yet I found the killer's motives satisfying.
This will remind one of the Italian giallos that populated the horror world around this time. For an Americanized effort, it's rather decent. Worth a view....7/10
A Mother's Day message-
I'm going to break character for a moment, reader. Please indulge me for a few minutes if you could. Today is, of course, Mother's Day. You may also notice I have yet to wish my mother a happy one. There is a reason for this.
You see the truth is, I have not spoken to my mother in over twenty years. Before I was born, ,my mother was a drug user. Acid and heroin mainly. She also had manic depression coupled with paranoid schizoprhenia. She did manage to get clean before my birth but sadly her mental illness was never treated.
There was a time when she tried to kill my father in his sleep but he narrowly missed the butcher knife heading for his skull. My mother was taken away afterwards and I was sent to live with my aunt out west. My mother made out to see me and try to patch things up with my dad or at least work on an appeasement for my sake.
It didn't work and my final memory of her was her being carried away by two burly gentlemen. Her eyes were dead, her long black hair drapped her face. I said, "Bye, Mom." and she looked at me as if she didn't know who I was. This is when I was 7 years old.
For years, I hated her. She was the butt of my dad's jokes. She was the punishment if I didn't behave. The older I got, the more I realized how truly in pain she was. A few years ago, I let go of my hatred and anger towards her. I haven't spoken to her and I have no intention to. She has her life to lead and I have mind. But Kathleen Marie Depner, if by some miracle you're reading this, understand one thing.
I forgive you. While you chose to seal your own fate, I now understand that a person has to fall many times before they can stand on solid ground. I don't hate you anymore. I can't love you but I don't hate you. My intelligence, my artistic side I owe to you. For that, I am forever grateful. Thank you, Mom.
Ahhh...I stand on the summit, the precipice, of another weekend. The miracle of time.
The Pittsburgh Penguins-
So...I turned with a weary eye towards the Pens-Habs Eastern Conference Semi-Finals this past Friday, scared the #8 seed from Montreal would deep-fry my boys the way they did Ovie and Das Capitals. Well,at least for game 1, the fryer shut down. Thanks to a 4/4 power play night, the Cup champs tcb'ed with a 6-3 victory. Other than a five minute stretch and the injury to Jordan Staal, the Pens played a near-flawless game. They pressured, they hit, they did the things they didn't quite do against the Senators. For me, game 2 of a playoff series has always been a pivotal turning point in these tournaments. Pens win, driver's seat, they lose, it get's interesting.
My friend Chris-
Well, my friend Chris is about to get married to the man of her dreams. I was going to go into an elaborate, funny take but I'm not going to do it. I'll keep it brief and simple. Nathan, you are a very lucky man to have this woman in your life. Love, honor, and cherish her. She deserves it. Chris, I am so happy for you. I know you had a fear and that you were able to overcome it. The two of you deserve nothing but pure happiness.
Congratulations.
I feel this dedication is appropriate now and will be appropriate twenty years from now...
The Cinema Snob-
Before I post the latest Snob entree, I would like to show you an episode of a show entitled Kung Tai Ted. Kung Tai reviews kung fu-xplotation films with an irreverance matched only by The Cinema Snob. Could they be one in the same?
Inspired, The Snob reviews Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky(original title, btw). Omg, the ending is pee-your-pants worthy. I waited for You're The Best from Karate Kid to pop out at anytime. Enjoy.
And so, like all good times, my mini-vacation comes to an end and it's back to bizzaro world, ugh :-(
Another Descent Into...
My Breakfast With Chris Jacques-
*In James Lipton voice* I would like to share with you reader a recent blog post from my next guest. I feel as if this one of the most heartfelt, passionate writings I have read in quite awhile.
I hate to beat a dead horse, especially when that dead horse is my father. For a single man, a man who didn’t do a ton while he was here and a man who lived a rather short life, I sure do write about him a lot. But he has to be here, this time at least, as he figures into this story, too. He figures into a lot of them, it seems. I guess that, despite not living a life full of the fame and grand importance he wanted, he did live one of being loved by his friends and having an incredibly keen sense of dramatic entrances and exits.
Well, this story begins with one of his exits. He died on the 11th of August, 1992…or maybe the morning of the 12th, about 1:45 am. That, I don’t remember. We had the funeral, and Mr. & Mrs. Winston both showed up…
…quick aside: for the 2nd 1/2 of my 4th grade school-year, and all of my 5th grade school year, I was plucked out of the public school system and placed in a school called Samaritan House for Boys. It was a Christian school for wayward and unruly youth, where corporal punishment was dealt with glee. Mr. and Mrs. Winston were the housemasters there, along with their little poodle, a cute black pup named Deuteronomy.
I got sent there because I might very well have been an absolute monster of a child, although the years pass and it seems more like the coincidence of my arrival at the school and our family’s conversion from the Catholic to Lutheran faiths (and the connection that our Lutheran church had with this school) was much more expertly orchestrated than I could have imagined.
Simply put, in 1990, my family went bankrupt. My dad was super sick and needed over $3000 of medications to keep him alive each month. My mom was a hard-working nurse with an insurance plan, but insurance has and always will only cover so much. The family doctors helped with free samples. The pharamacists helped with programs, generics where they could, bargains, running tabs, small, credit card-free monthly payments…and it still wasn’t enough. Dad had disability, Mom worked so hard that she gave up dreams of a great life (which she deserved and still deserves) to work her job and take care of the man she loved. She didn’t re-marry. She loved being a nurse with all of her heart, and she loved my father with more than that. She’s the best woman I’ll ever know, and she was ultimately powerless to do anything but watch him die that night. She stood there, screaming and crying and my father turned as pale as any flesh I’ve ever seen. He died, and she lost. Powerless.
12 days later, school had just begun, I believe. I was wearing my dad’s clothes to school (as I know I’ve mentioned before) because I got very fat very quickly. My mom didn’t even take time to grieve; she went right back to work after only a few days, right back to the hospital where we took my father, her husband to die. School had just begun, but they shut us down and were looking to evacuate the area, because a Category 5 hurricane called Andrew was heading straight for us.
The trajectory, as it had been for days prior, was for the eye to eventually make landfall over Jupiter, FL, which is about 35 miles south of where my family has lived for almost all of my life. My mother took me to work with her, as she’d undoubtedly have to work non-stop, should this hurricane hit. With no electricity, with scarce supplies and death everywhere, she’d have had to work to help the sick. If she was sick, injured, she’d have had to patch up and help everyone else…and she would. I don’t lie, and I don’t exaggerate when I say that my mother is the best woman I’ll ever know; she has since retired from nursing, but in her day, she did it all, and she loved her job more than anyone I’ve ever met in any job they’ve ever performed.
We were staying in the Port St. Lucie Medical Center, the local hospital, and it was rated to sustain a Category 3 hurricane. We were expecting a 5, but I suppose the logic is that it’s somehow better to be in a place that might not completely blow over than one that will become toothpicks in the wind. I don’t remember sleeping that night; I remember my mom trying to sleep, but my eyes were glued to the Weather Channel. I do believe that this was the beginning of my obsession with the news, and with being a bit of a weather hound. For as awful a time as we were about to face, seeing that giant green doppler blob of death was strangely calming.
Eventually, I must’ve fallen asleep, though, and the next morning came. We weren’t ducking under anything, we weren’t hiding. I was being a cutesy boy with the nurses on staff and my mom was probably making her rounds…or maybe just sneaking a smoke break away from her son, Capt. Annoying! Either way, we weren’t dying…Homestead was. Overnight, and really within just a few hours, the storm took a sharp turn to the south-west, and that was that for Homestead, who was absolutely decimated by Andrew. If my hometown of Port St. Lucie, FL, still has visual remnants of the damage left behind by hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, a Cat. 2 and Cat. 3 respectively, Homestead must still have some obliterated sections of town…I hope not, but they weren’t a wealthy town from the start. We dodged a bullet, but that bullet still had to hit someone.
That was the first time I felt powerless. My dad died, and I thought that I just hadn’t prayed enough, hadn’t called in time, hadn’t given him the right meds, or enough of them. I feel like I did things wrong, like others might have done things wrong. I felt like we could’ve saved him…as much as he made me feel like an awful human being, we could’ve saved him, and I would have wanted that.
But Andrew had no conscience. I couldn’t even see the “God” in Andrew. It was a big, mean, unfathomable force of nature that was going to take everything anyone I knew had ever known and turn it to rubble, to ash and garbage. It turned south, just enough, but had it not, I could easily be dead. My mom, sister, so many people I had crushes on or loved…all could’ve been dead. And there was. Nothing. I could do.
Praying? How do I pray, with a clear conscience, for the hurricane to not hit us? That’s basically a prayer that asks for the storm to kill someone else! Who am I to pray for another’s murder?!? It’s out of the question…I still did it…but it’s out of the question.
No, I was powerless, and I’ve felt that way for plenty of storms since. I felt that way when I got cancer and didn’t know what kind of cancer I had. I feel powerless every time I step up on a stage and try to make people laugh, or cry or think or feel with my work. I barely even feel like I have a speck of power as I careen down the highway at 75 mph, just like the rest of the monsters with nowhere to go and only 5 seconds to get there.
But this week, this week was the worst. I have a friend. He or she remains nameless here, but I have a friend. My friend has a life that certainly leaves me dumbstruck and awestruck as what you’d definitely call a “rare” life, a “tough” life, a unique life on so many levels.
My friend had a decision to make this week, one of the hardest decisions a person can make. My friend, he or she had to give so much of what he or she is in making this decision that the decision alone could incapacitate a person. Not her or him; my friend lived through it, dealt with it, and is already following the plan set before him or herself.
Immediately, I offered my support. I’m a friend, a person who loves my friends and loves some of them more than most. This guy or girl is so close to me, so crucial to the composition of my heart that I don’t know what I’d do if this person were to be so drastically altered, changed, hurt, destroyed in any way…God forbid anything worse.
His/her choice was made, after careful consideration and steady, strong debate. That choice is now something in the past, something that lives every day but can not be revoked. It simply can’t be undone, untold, unheard, unexperienced. It, for lack of a better term that conjures up less sickening views than does the movie named after this word, is irreversible.
And there was nothing I could do. If it was a money thing, I didn’t have it to help. If it was an address, a physical support, I couldn’t make it in time. I’m currently unemployed; if I wasn’t, if I’d had the money, I’d have been the fool who gives his friends money to keep them afloat and help them succeed. Man or woman, money is not worth much to me when I have it. When I do, it’s there to make for good times with myself, my friends, my family. It’s there to help those I love. It’s there to be used to initiate change or simply just to plain ol’ buy some fuckin’ painkillers if I can score them, because Vicodin is awesome and I have no shame in saying that. Those…those don’t make me feel powerless. I can’t come to save my life on them, but I’ll have a boner that’d last through a stutterer’s reading of War and Peace.
I had none, so I gave him my support. I was broke, so she got my encouragement and the knowledge that I have her back, would get in a fist-fight and go to jail for a night for him. There was so much more than that, though.
I became 12 again on Monday night, into Tuesday. I, the man who feels pain in believing that there’s a God in this world, got down on my knees and prayed. I offered my legs to God, because I want my arms to be able to right and touch the faces (and occasionally boobs) of the people I love). I offered my stake in that friendship: if God would just save him, save her from what was about to come, I’d never talk to that person again. If it was me, God, I’d have let you put me through so much more pain. I’d have gone to Hell if you’d have let my friend know true Heaven.
I said something I haven’t said in a long time, and I meant it more than I ever have.
“Save *******, God. Save ******** tonight and I will lay down my life for you. Take it, or ask me to live as a preacher of your word. I will give you everything of me. Please God, just don’t let this happen!”
I’ve never felt so powerless in my life. I knew that the wheels were in motion, that just like when I was powerless to save my cat’s life in 2002, because I was broke and couldn’t afford the tests that would need to be run on his frail, sickly body, I couldn’t save my friend because I was broke. Again. A decade later, and I still didn’t have the simple fucking quantity of money to save my friend, and as a result, everything I’d never want my friend to experience was on the nearest horizon.
I drank a lot that last Monday night. I did an episode of The Four Horsemen Podcast with some of my closest friends, and we had a great time. I stayed up the rest of the night, drank bottle after bottle of wine, didn’t get drunk, then went to work and the doctor’s office later that next day. My blood pressure was fantastic. Work was fantastic. I was anything but. I was powerless, adrift in the first breezes of a maelstrom that was coming to kill me, and I stayed up for over 2 days before my body would finally let me sleep.
I woke up the next day, and things were a little better. With each day, they’ve become better yet. Through it all, I have to remind myself that my friend is an adult, and adults don’t need to be saved. Maybe they need advice, people who love them, and people who will tell them the truth without destroying their hearts…but they don’t need saviors. And if they do, I have to resign myself to the knowledge that I can’t be that savior.
I saved one woman’s life, one time. Her name is Marie. I haven’t seen her in a decade, but I still think about her all the time. I can’t be the savior I want to be because I can’t take the weight on my heart of being responsible for rescued victims for the rest of my life. I am, after all, here to live a life of my own, too. And maybe, just like my friends and I never knew it, I don’t want to be saved and they might not want it, either. What’s better? Protection or peace?
1. Your recent blogpost was, without question, one of the most heartfelt pieces I've read in awhile. What is your take on the current healthcare system in America? Do you feel the recently passed reforms will make any impact?
I assume that the post in question was "Powerless," and if so, I really appreciate your opinion of it! Whether the quality is up to par or not, if I read or hear the word "heartfelt" in response to my work, it makes me very happy!
It wasn't hard to write, once I committed to finally throwing it down, I ran through and pounded it out in about 90 minutes or so, very few edits. I'm sure it shows all over my style, but I don't edit much. But then, that's not the question here, is it?...
...My take on the healthcare system is much like everyone's, I'd say, or at least like everyone whose current healthcare setup is sub-par, barely-affordable or non-existent. We do need radical reform of the healthcare system in the U.S., but I really feel that what was finally passed isn't going to do much of any good for anyone. I really hope I'm wrong and that it works as smoothly as the very best government programs ever have...one has to allow for that inefficiency! But overall, I think that the Democrats crafted a terrifying plan, and the stubborn Republicans did nothing to fix it, everything to fill it with pork payoffs, and then went into a corner to pout about it. It was a classic example of politicians doing their very best to COLLECTIVELY be the biggest assholes in the universe. They succeeded, and that just means that we the people get another big failure in our lives. So it goes, and so it sucks.
2. Tell me and my readers more about The Four Horsemen podcast. What other topics have you covered on the show? What are your future plans regarding the show?
The Four Horsemen is a project that makes me feel very fortunate. I've known the other guys in our team--Jerry Dennis, Jon Medina and Phil Grech--for half a decade at the very least, and we've always had a mutual admiration for each other's points of view and various passions and the way we wrote about them. Jerry's our podcasting mastermind, doing two other podcasts every single week, and The Four Horsemen came about as a result of a podcast Jon used to do a couple of years ago. Jerry loved it because it was free-form...we all loved it for that. So we put it together, Phil was the final piece of the puzzle, and that's us.
We'll cover everything, but so far we've covered music, movies, dealing with stress, coping with the death of loved ones, Brooke Shields, having sex with Simon Birch, politics, reflections on Columbine, 4/20 and the Oklahoma City bombing. And we're just getting warmed up! We're open to absolutely everything, so the future plans are very amorphous. I think we're all very comfortable with that.
3. What is that you LOVE about Philadelphia,if anything?
There's a lot to love about Philly! For the arrogance and a bit of stupidity that can make life here sad and tough on occasion, it's an awe-inspiringly beautiful city. The history here is as much as one will find in the U.S., pretty much, and it's an amazing thing to see. The rich people are definitely shitty and out of touch with the world; or not!
They talk only to each other and don't really care if we hear their conversations or not. It's in the news and on TV, and the only real info we middle-class folks get from the major media is dumbed down and interjected with more opinion than fact. It's weird like that, but it underestimates the undercurrent of very thoughtful, bright people with strong senses of a decent, yet truly human morality that are all over this city. This city focuses on its dumb, macho jerks, its mindlessly arrogant upper crust and its abject social failures. But for all of that, there are a lot of really cool people in this town. They have to be sought, but that's a fun thing about living here, too. Wow! Sorry about the rambling there!
4. Who influenced you to write? What are your favorite novels?
My mom influenced me early on, actually by being disinterested in my stuff. I felt I had a knack for it, and really just loved putting a pen or pencil to paper and writing until my hand was sore...then giving myself a minute to rest and doing it again! I don't know if she's come around to actually liking what I write, but she at least likes the fact that I write now, and I'm not going to press my luck any more than that!
As far as really getting motivated to make writing the love and the real work of my life, though, I have to thank Mr. Tickner and Dr. Trew, two high school English teachers of mine. Mr. Tickner always supported the fact that I was a different writer--whether my work was stunning or stunningly awful--and encouraged me to search for the writing voice within me, introducing me to stuff like ee cummings that really got me thinking. I don't particularly care for ee cummings, but his work was definitely a motivation for my desire to constantly play with the language, however I could.
Dr. Trew, on the other hand, introduced me to Beowulf. It remains my favorite story, though I love all manner of horror authors, love Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Tobias Wolff, Albert Camus, a touch of Ayn Rand, Hugh Nissenson, Terry Pratchett. I basically like drunks, dreamers, losers and lovers, and I think all of these folks fit those bills a bit, in one way or another.
5. Why atheism?
For me personally? I don't know. I suppose it's a convenient answer when the topic of religion comes up (or I forcefully bring it up) in conversation. More accurately, I'm trying to take a permanent vacation from God. When I was in high school, they called that "willful disobedience," and I got suspended for it a couple of times!
Basically, my experience has been that my belief in God is very childish. I used to pray, and I really thought that someone was up there, listening to me, who was going to help me. Time after time came, horrible thing after horrible thing, and those prayers never got answered. Not a single one, not ever. It wore on me, to the point where I felt I truly hated God. And then, I started saying I was an atheist, meant as a dig of sorts at God.
But despite my friends who I think are so bright, despite the women who have passed through my life that I wanted to have sex, relationships, love with so badly that I'd have said just about anything, including a booming decree of my untrue atheism, I do believe in God. I chalk it up a bit to just being raised in a Catholic, then Lutheran household, having a lot of religious talk in our house and just being immersed in the Christian culture as a child. But then, I do feel a little something more, something I can't explain...
...and that's ultimately where the "permanent vacation" begins to make sense in my life. I don't know for sure if I have an eternity somewhere else after this life. I don't know if I'm reincarnated, if my life energy takes another form, if I become a unicorn's foreskin or become a part of God him/her/itself. I have so many questions, so many doubts, and so many options in this world that I realized that nobody really knows what they're talking about with this stuff! We're all right! We're all wrong! We're all both, or neither!
Whatever the case, the "permanent vacation" is that I'm going to finish this life, living as though it's the only one I'll ever have. I want to focus my love on people who are here. I want to focus my energies on making this life, this world and my time here work as well as it possibly can. And worrying about the nature of a God, what that God has in store for me, questioning its will or, worse, spending time being angry or hurt by that God, are all things that take away from the loads of things there are to do here and now, both work and play. I doubt more with each day that, if there is a God who created us and all of this, and never came down to hang out with us in two millenia, or only gave us the vaguest clues...
...If God couldn't even come down and do a book tour or some autograph signings, I just really doubt that God wants us to think about what's going on beyond this life. And besides, if there's a Heaven, wouldn't you want it to be full of really awesome, loving, caring, cool, open-minded, bright people who made the most of the opportunities they had when they had them? I know I would; if Heaven is full of the fundamentalists of any religion I've seen, then I think my soul is actually begging to get sent to Hell right now!
Thank you very much, Mr. Jacques
Nightmare on Elm Street(1984)-
Knowing I have planned on seeing the remake within the next week or two and the fact that I only have four movies in my HOF, I hit good ol' Netflix and instant streamed this 1984 Wes Craven-directed American classic. What is not to love about this film? It gave the sagging honor genre a much needed kick in its rotting rear end, it spawned seven sequels, a t.v. show, a crossover(Freddy vs. Jason). If there is ever an icon of 80's horror if not mainstream 80's culture-and I know there are many cases for many figures-it would have to be Mr. Freddy Krueger.
Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) has a disturbing nightmare in which she is stalked through a dark boiler room by a mutilated figure with distinctive razor-sharp knives attached to the fingers on his right hand. Just as he catches her, however, she wakes up screaming, only to discover four razor cuts in her nightdress identical to the cuts in her dream.
The next day, she finds out that her friend Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) experienced a similar dream involving the same sinister figure, but Nancy is convinced that all is well. That night, Tina, Nancy and her boyfriend Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) have a sleep-over to make the distraught Tina feel better, as she is still troubled by her nightmare. Tina's rebellious boyfriend, Rod Lane (Nick Corri), crashes the party. He and Tina have sex in her mother's bedroom. However, Tina has another nightmare, and this time the killer catches her and murders her brutally. Rod wakes up to find Tina being cut open by invisible knives and then dragged up the wall and across the ceiling. Rod, being the only other person in the room at the time, is accused of the murder, flees the house and is caught the next day.
Nancy then has three violent nightmares in which she is viciously stalked, then attacked, by the same terrifying figure who attacked Tina. These nightmares cause her to talk to Rod in jail, who tells her what he saw in Tina's mother's bedroom, and also remarks he had a nightmare involving the fiend with the "knives for fingers". Much to the dismay of her mother Marge (Ronee Blakley), Nancy becomes increasingly convinced that the figure appearing in her dreams is the person who killed Tina. Nancy and a skeptical Glen rush to the police station late at night to talk to Rod, only to find that he's been strangled by his own bedsheets. To everyone except Nancy, it appears to be a suicide.
Nancy's mother takes her to a Dream Therapy Clinic to ensure she gets some sleep. Once again, she has a horrendous nightmare. This time, her arm is badly cut, but she finds that she has brought something out from her dream: the killer's battered hat. It arouses concern, but also other feelings in Marge, who is clearly hiding a secret. Eventually, while drunk, Marge reveals to Nancy that the owner of the hat, and the killer, was a man named Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), a child murderer who killed at least twenty children over a decade earlier. Furious, vengeful parents burned him alive in his boiler room hideout when he was released from prison on a technicality due to an improperly signed search warrant. Now, it appears he is manipulating the dreams of their children to exact his revenge from beyond the grave. Nancy's mother, however, reassures Nancy that Krueger cannot hurt anyone, pulling Krueger's bladed glove from a hiding place in the furnace as proof. Eventually, Marge installs bars on all the windows and begins to lock the door as "security".
Nancy and Glen devise a plan to catch Krueger, but when Glen falls asleep that night he is pulled into his bed and regurgitated as a spew of gore and bone. Nancy is left alone with Krueger after pulling him out of her dream into the real world. She runs around her house and forces him to run into booby traps she had set earlier. After setting Krueger on fire Nancy locks him in the basement and finally gets her father, police lieutenant Donald Thompson (John Saxon) and the rest of the police to help. After discovering that Krueger has escaped and that fiery footsteps lead upstairs, Nancy and her father witness Krueger smothering Marge with his flaming body, disappearing to leave her corpse to sink into the bed. After sending her father away, Nancy faces Krueger on her own and succeeds in destroying him by turning her back on him and draining him of all energy.
The scene changes to the next morning as Nancy gets in a car with Glen and the rest of her friends, on their way to school. Krueger possesses the car just as she gets in. The car drives away with Nancy screaming for her mother, and Marge being pulled through the door window by Krueger's bladed hand.
I know everyone and their brother has scene this movie so I'm not going to go into what worked and what didn't, we all know. For me personally, I see this as a girl's descent into(no pun intended) maddness. I mean you have this All-American gal who by the end of the movie is a couple sandwiches short of a picnic. I didn't pick up on this until I just watched the movie again this evening. Oh sure, Freddy is the one people talk about, but it's Nancy who provides a perfect countermeasure to Krueger's evil deeds.
10/10
I declare Nightmare on Elm Street as the fifth member into the exclusive fraternity that is my HOF.
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