Not Cool

Explaining the meaning of the slogan, Raimondo said "young people ought to think about coming to Rhode Island, visiting Rhode Island, starting a business in Rhode Island because we're cool and we're hip. We're entrepreneurial, and it's warm."

 Cooler and warmer. That's our new state logo. Designed to bring the tourists flocking to our tiny little state and pump their much needed greenbacks into our struggling economy. It's hip and it's mod, it's what all the kids will be saying soon. Yeah. Wow. It's the bomb diggity, or some such shit.

Frankly, if it had been up for public vote, I would have gone with The Home Of Mobsters & Lobsters. Or, if we're going for bald faced truth, how about: "Where the Streets Have No Name." Or "New York's Ashtray?" 

All smartassedness aside, I love Rhode Island. I have to - I live here. But recent attempts to drive tourism haven't exactly been a rousing success. One recent article, which ticked off the weirdest attractions of all 50 states, offered Mercy Brown's headstone as Little Rhody's draw. The grave of a teenage girl who died of tuberculosis. Wow, yippee. Clearly, whoever wrote that probing piece of fluff has never heard of Nibbles Woodaway, the Big Blue Bug of Providence. Or fucking Ghost Hunters. Or, hey, how about H.P. Lovecraft? You know, that guy who was born here and died here and is buried in Swan Point Cemetery? Wrote all those short stories that got turned into huge sci-fi horror flicks? Oh wait, that's right - he was a racist. Imagine that, a white guy who was born 126 years ago being racist. Everybody, Ssh! We can't possibly drive tourism by drawing the nation's attention to a racist guy who's been dead for 70+ years. What would the neighbors think?

Yep, think it's time to drag out that article I wrote about Lovecraft when his likeness was stripped from the World Fantasy Awards...

Eccentric. Xenophobic. Anglophilic. Racist. Introverted. Every devoted fan of Howard Phillips Lovecraft has heard these terms applied to the acknowledged father of cosmic horror at one time or another. No one denies that these rumors are most likely true. Quite frankly, I'd be shocked to learn that Lovecraft - a white male born in 1890 to a staunch, upper crust New England family - was anything other than a racist. He spent his childhood in seclusion, subjected to his deranged mother's Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy abuse and, as a result, ended up a reclusive adult with no self esteem who wouldn't venture outside of his own house until after dark. I'm pretty sure that Lovecraft hated and feared everyone - white and black, Jewish and Christian, male and female, etc. He hated himself.

But to say that we can no longer have an award named after him because he was a racist? Because, by comparison, hypocrisy is so much more acceptable? Come on people - this is just getting fucking ridiculous.

Yes, Lovecraft was a racist. But what white man wasn't a racist back in the late 1800s/early 1900s? Was it right? Hell no! But it was a different time and, as such, an entirely different world. Things have changed. Lovecraft himself changed as he got older and made more friends and - gasp! - fell in love with and married a Jewish woman! Had he lived long enough to see the stock market crash of 1939 and the second world war, perhaps his ingrained beliefs might have changed and softened. We'll never know. But that isn't the point, anyway.

If you're going to strip an award of its name because you disagree with the author's admittedly antiquated beliefs, then you'd better take a good, hard look at all of the other awards and their namesakes.

The Hugo Award - named for Hugo Gernsback, described by writer and editor Barry N. Malzberg thusly:

"Gernsback's venality and corruption, his sleaziness and his utter disregard for the financial rights of authors, have been so well documented and discussed in critical and fan literature. That the founder of genre science fiction who gave his name to the field's most prestigious award and who was the Guest of Honor at the 1952 Worldcon was pretty much a crook (and a contemptuous crook who stiffed his writers but paid himself $100K a year as President of Gernsback Publications) has been clearly established."

The Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award - Do I really need to go into graphic detail about the generally accepted belief that MJ was a pedophiliac freak?

Edgar Allan Poe (The Edgar Award) - The undisputed master of horror. He was also a drunk, a drug addict and married his thirteen year old cousin when he was 26.

The William Faulkner Award - Amazing writer. Drunken sot. Notorious philanderer.

The O. Henry Award - named for William Sydney Porter, a man who lost his job as a banker after being indicted for embezzlement. He fled to South America but was later arrested, tried and convicted for his crime and sentenced to five years in prison.

The Nobel Prize - named for Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite and whose family made a fortune from the manufacture and distribution of armaments.

And why stop there?
If we're calling out all of the racism, sexism and anti-Semitism in the entertainment community, let's also make the following Verboten.

Disneyland - nope, you can't go there anymore. Not unless you want to be seen as a sexist, racist, Jew-hating bastard. Walt Disney was a founding member of the anti-communist group Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators andlabor union organizers as Communist agitators. He was a woman-hating bigot whose own grandniece confirms rumors of his prickishness.

Bugs Bunny - no more Saturday morning cartoons for you. Bugs Bunny made fun of Native Americans, Asians and African Americans, depicting them all as ignorant savages who were easily outwitted. He also insulted drag queens and insinuated that extraterrestrials in general and Martians in particular, were idiots in comparison with the Almighty Inhabitants of Patriotic Planet Earth. No more Loony Toons for anybody, ever again.

Aunt Jemima Pancake Syrup - have fun eating your dry, naked pancakes from now on, you wanna be Grand Dragon of the KKK.

And don't even think about watching Gone With The Wind anymore. How dare you view a movie which depicts all black people as happy darkies singin' in the cotton fields all dee livelong day? Let's track down and burn every copy of the movie in existence, because it is offensive. Now. In the day and age where we live. Because Heaven Forbid we should see what ideas and behaviors were once considered perfectly acceptable and have now been discarded as we supposedly grow and change as a society and learn to embrace our backgrounds and cultures.

Look, I'm not saying that racism is ever okay. It's not. Not in this day and age. But what's done is done, and trying to cover up history is every bit as harmful as letting it continue unchanged.

So Lovecraft was a racist, So the fuck what? Why must I be forbidden to enjoy an artists creations simply because their personal beliefs are considered reprehensible by the greater percentage of society? Did you know that mystery author Anne Perry is a convicted murderess? Are you going to stop reading her books now? Varg Vikernes is the biggest fucking scumbag in the world (in my humble opinion) but I still like the song Dunkelheit and I make no apologies for that.

Lovecraft was a human being - flawed and molded by his time, his surroundings and his circumstances.

Lovecraft's writing could be clunky, clumsy and offensive. Even in the 1920s, his writing was archaic and not to everyone's taste.

But he created a sub genre, like it or not. He was the first writer to blend science fiction and horror successfully. He launched the Cosmic Horror movement.

If we have to cease appreciation for every single person who has ever had an idea, a thought or an expression that someone somewhere in the world found offensive, we would never read another book, look at another painting, see another film or award another prize to anyone. Where do we draw the line? When do we finally admit that no one is perfect - never has been and never will be - and try to overlook their flaws in favor of their strengths? I said overlook, not ignore. Acknowledge that he was a damaged person with prejudiced ideas - ideas that were the norm at the time in which he lived. Add a new award named after Octavia Butler, by all means. In addition to Lovecraft's award. Don't try to erase his failures as a person from the annals of history: stand his likeness right next to Octavia Butler's and acknowledge that this never could have been possible if we had not evolved as people and grown more accepting of one another. In uniting them, we acknowledge the past and progress into the future.

But by banishing Lovecraft and his works, by burying the things we are ashamed of, we admit we have not grown or accepted any responsibility at all, but simply wish to pretend it never happened. And that is childish, pointless and utterly fruitless.

PS - our new state logo really sucks. Just saying.

Let Us Prey

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

~Mark Twain

It's a well known fact that the Devil often goes down to Georgia, looking for a soul to steal. But even the Devil has standards, and swindling cornpone Republican dimwits out of their sweaty cracker souls doesn't provide much of a challenge after a couple hundred years. So, come 2014 and Ol' Scratch decides to wander up Scotland way, as far north from the Mason Dixon line as he can possibly get without being subject to a steady diet of lutefisk.

There's not much call for chickens in the bread pan, picking out dough up north, so instead the D-Man makes a dramatic entrance on the rocky coast, vomited up by the deep blue sea and escorted by a veritable murder of crows. For some reason, he looks exactly like Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight and official Hand to King Stannis Baratheon...who isn't even a king and doesn't deserve to be anyway after allowing his daughter to be burned at the stake because the night is dark and full of terrors or some such shit. But I digress.

Liam Cunningham, aka Davos Seaworth, is our unnamed main character, neither protagonist or antagonist, just cool as fuck, striding through the Scottish countryside like a total badass, chainsmoking and squinting harder than Clint Eastwood in a dust storm. The tiny cobblestoned village he wanders into has no name and an approximate population of fifteen people, fourteen of whom are serial killers...including three of the four members of the local police force. The fourth one is a block faced rookie named Rachel, who achieved small town celebrity years earlier by being the only survivor of yet another serial killer/child rapist. Now she's a haunted, straightlaced, by-the-book beat cop, whose presence is resented by the other three cops: her boss, the closeted gay Jeffrey Dahmer-esque captain, the slutty female cop and her piggy partner whom she spends most of her night shifts banging in the back of their squad car. When Rachel arrives for work, already having arrested a troublemaking teen for drunk driving, her efforts aren't appreciated or rewarded and into the drunk tank goes her catch, locked up along with a high school teacher who beats his wife. Jesus, the cast of Trainspotting had more promise than this fucking town.

Anyway, they are soon joined by a local doctor who has viciously slaughtered his entire family, small children included, and Liam Lucifer up there, who appears to have been a hit and run casualty at first, sporting a superficial head wound and remaining stubbornly mute. He seems content to sit and stare at Rachel and give everyone else a walloping case of the creeps. Eye contact with him proves lethal as he seems to know everyone's deepest, darkest secrets and drives all of them to homicidal rage. Pretty soon, everyone is killing everyone, or plotting to kill everyone, or getting ready to kill everyone after killing everyone else. Everyone except Rachel, that is. She's trying to stop everyone from getting killed by everyone and trying to avoid getting murdered by everyone except for Liam, who doesn't seem the least bit interested in harming anyone. He's too busy levitating matches, plucking black feathers from the air and driving his cellmates to confess their ugliest sins. He never comes right out and says he's The Devil, but he drops enough hints along the way. He also has a habit of popping up out of the shadows whenever there's a deceptive lull in the narrative, all Exorcist-Eyed and freaky.

Honestly, the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the characters are wild caricatures, the events that unfold comparable to dropping acid and getting lost inside of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for an hour or so and the probability of so many people in the same vicinity being so skullfuck batshit crazy so farfetched that I gave up trying to take it seriously about 20 minutes in and decided to view it as a Marvel Comics version of a fable by Aesop. Liam Cunningham makes it entirely, enjoyably watchable simply because he's not Vin Diesel or someone similarly slimy. Cunningham is intensely likable, even as Satan, and though his relationship with Rachel is and remains somewhat muddy, we don't really give a shit. He's the only likable character in the entire film. Think about that a second - Satan is the only character in the entire film that you care about and want to see triumph. I haven't welcomed the presence of a cinematic Satan this exuberantly since Peter Stormare showed up at the end of Constantine to save us all from the blandness of Keanu Reeves.

So yeah. Let Us Prey - as perhaps indicated by its title - is cartoonish and overwrought and more than a little ridiculous, but it's fun. Bloody and nihilistic, ugly and mean, but entertaining as fuck.

Ceremony (1994)

Once Upon A Time, there were gingerbread castles built by capitalists for the express purpose of luring in movie fans and sucking all of their money out of their pockets. These castles were called "video rental stores" and they were located in the far away never never lands called Strip Malls. Within these video rental stores were rows and rows of shelves, covered in a thick layer of dried soda goo and dust which melded together to create a sticky amber carpet. When you picked a movie off of the shelf, there was an audible sucking sound as the plastic peeled away from the sugartape that had anchored it for months, sometimes years. If you decided you didn't want that movie, there was a perfect rectangular clean spot surrounded by a wall of gray lint, in which to replace the case. And more often than not, if you did rent the movie, you had to rewind it yourself when you got home because whoever had rented it previously never did, because they were Not Kind and did not Rewind. Those people go to Hell when they die and spend all eternity manually rewinding tapes with pencils.

There was - luckily for me - a video rental store right next door to my apartment when I was 18 and was finally allowed to rent R rated movies without a parent present. I worked my way through the horror movie section, and back then it was all dismal-budgeted DTV shit that would never see a DVD release and eventually disappeared into the same dimension where Ren & Stimpy found the
legendary mountain of missing left socks.

Okay, enough set up. Let's get to the point.

 

Ceremony

Year released: 1994
Directed by: Joe Castro
Starring: some girl, Uncle Forry, Freddy Krueger's mom and BoiledEggEyes McRamFace over there.

Synopsis: A million billion years ago, God got all pissy because one of His angels questioned his job title for one second and instead of learning how to accept constructive criticism, He banished her from Heaven forever and somehow she ended up getting imprisoned inside of a cheapshit grandfather clock which is slowly counting down the seconds until she'll be released to wreak havoc and a whole lotta other bad things. Some girl talks her religious study classmates into coming over to her house to confront the angel-turned-demon at the stroke of midnight and make sure she stays in the clock where she belongs. Oh, and some other freaky shit happens like Vampire Jesus, giant tequila worms, blue gargoyles, red boobs, green clovers, blue diamonds and fortified with 12 vitamins and minerals.

I rented this movie for the cover box. I didn't know what it was about and didn't care. It just looked cool. Unfortunately, the demon on the cover has about 3 minutes screen time total, has no dialogue and never gets to screw that chick in the red dress offered up in a circle of ceremonial candles. It's been over twenty years since I last saw this film, I can't find it online and I'm absolutely not going to waste $44.98 on a used VHS copy on amazon. I doubt this whole movie cost $44.98 to make, so fuck that.

I took some really shitty still shots from the trailer. Honestly, the one minute and 7 second long trailer

is as long as the whole movie should have been and features the best parts of the movie.

Forrest Ackerman, who would appear in any horror movie as long as he could wave his Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine around at some point, plays kindly grandpa in a wheelchair here, and he doesn't last long. A slo-mo dream sequence features him erupting like Mount Menstruation all over Virginal Granddaughter's white dress.

At some point, the One Annoying Girl who Freaks Out and threatens to ruin everything gets tied to a chair and left alone in the kitchen after the group has discussed how vitally important it is to stick together and not leave anyone by themselves. Fucking brilliant. She gets possessed by a giant worm which rams itself down her throat in a allegory for oral rape by mutant cock the likes of which hadn't been seen since John Hurt got face fucked by a giant clit in 1979. Or when Craig T. Nelson puked up a maggot with teeth in 1986. Take your pick.

I don't remember how this movie ends. I don't care. It ended and I took it back to the video rental store and rented something good. And despite the fact that it sucked, I rewound it. Because I am a better person than you are.

The 2015 Annie's

Fuck the Oscars. Here's the Sex Pistols The Annie's.

CATEGORY ~ Creepiest, Ickiest, Most "I-need-a-scalding-hot-shower-right-the-fuck-now" Scene.
WINNER ~ Samuel L. Jackson for The Hateful Eight:

Major Marquis Warren: Beggin' for his life, your boy told me his whole Life Story. And YOU, was in that story General. And when I knew me I had the son, of the Bloody Nigger Killer of Baton Rouge, I knew me I was gonna have some fun! It was COLD the day I killed your boy. And I don't mean snowy mountain in Wyoming cold... Colder than that. And on that cold day, with your boy at the business end of my gun barrel... I made him STRIP. Right down to his bare ass. Then I told him to start walkin'. I walked his naked ass for two hours... 'fore the cold collapsed him. Then he commits to beggin' again. But this time, he wasn't beggin' to go home. He knew he'd never see his home again. And he wasn't beggin' for his life neither, 'cause he knew that was long gone. All he wanted, was a BLANKET. Now don't judge your boy too harshly, General. You ain't never been cold as your boy was that day. You'd be surprised; what a man that cold, would-do-for-a-blanket. You wanna know what your boy did? I pulled my BIG, BLACK, PECKER outta my pants. And I made him crawl in the snow on all fours over to it. Then I grabbed a handful of that black hair at the back of his head... And I stuck my Big Black Johnson right down his goddamn throat! And it was fulla' blood... so it was warm. Oh, you bet your sweet ass it was warm. And Charles Chester Smithers sucked on that warm black dingus for as loong as he could. Hahahaahaha! Startin' to see pictures, ain't ya?

CATEGORY ~ Frylock's "Clone something too many times, and the molecular structure will break down" Award.
WINNER - Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension.

Seriously. Stop making this movie over and over and over again. Just...stop it.


CATEGORY ~ Most Garbly, Unintelligible Line of Dialogue Delivered by Tom Hardy.
WINNER ~ Tom Hardy for The Revenant.

This is from The Revenant, right?

What he actually said: "You came all this way just for your revenge, huh? Did you enjoy it, Glass?... 'Cause there ain't nothin' gon' bring your boy back."

What I heard: "Goo kimb oll fway jis feyoh venge rrugh? Joo injowit, Glz? Cuzair nt nuddn gun briner bobeck."


CATEGORY ~ Break Out Role in the Latest Star Wars Sequel/Prequel/Remake/Update.
WINNER ~ Sadie Swenson, aka Billie Lourd, daughter of Princess Leia and Charles Manson, for Scream Queens.

"I have bathroom shame issues. I always wait until everyone is asleep and then I sneak down to poop in the little powder room downstairs. That way, no one will disturb me. I usually wait a week or so between movements so it can be kind of an intense workout. I sweat a lot."

CATEGORY ~ The Most Unnecessary Horror Remake That Nobody Bothered to Watch Anyway.
WINNER ~ Poltergeist.

Sorry kid. Nobody cares.

CATEGORY ~ Best Vampire Who Doesn't Sparkle, or Wear Velvet, or Speak with a Romanian Accent, or Spout Poetry, or Look Like a Calvin Klein Underwear Model.
WINNER ~ Stephen McHattie as Vaun in The Strain.

Setrakian: You're the idiot brother of the man child who stole my clock.
Gus: (indignant) I gave you back your clock.
Vaun: Okay, shut up. Let's go.

CATEGORY ~ Best Trailer
WINNER ~ 10 Cloverfield Lane

Alright Va-JJ Abrams. You've already managed to fuck up 11.22.63, so do NOT fuck this one up. There had better be a giant insectoid Godzilla monster in this flick or you are fired from life.


CATEGORY ~ The Most Headdesk, Facepalm Display of Stupidity in a Horror Movie Committed by Characters Who Know Something is Wrong but Decide to Poke it with a Stick Anyway.
WINNER ~ We Are Still Here.

Female Characters: "Okay husbands, we are leaving for a while to buy some alcohol, because getting drunk in a house where demonic ghosts are hanging out is such a great idea. NO SEANCES while we're gone!"

Male Character to Other Male Character: "Hey, they're gone! Let's have a seance!"

CATEGORY ~ Best Actor
WINNER ~ Black Phillip, aka Charlie the Goat, aka Satan of The Witch.

aka Wahab Choudry, aka holy SHIT YES, I will remove my shift and smear myself in butter for a chance to live deliciously with you, lovely horny goat man. Guide my hand, baby. "What dost thou want?" Seriously? You can't guess? Hummina hummina hummina. I wanna be a Witch! Sign me the fuck up and give me a goat!

The Witch (2015)

Hype

informal
noun
1.
extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion.
a deception carried out for the sake of publicity.
promote or publicize (a product or idea) intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits.

Hype is a mutherfucker. Hype has ruined more movies for me than bad CGI, wooden dialogue, recycled storylines, cheesy jumpscares, derivative plots and disposable characters combined. I blame Hype for my disappointment in such films as The Babadook, It Follows, the remake/reboot/whatfuckingever of The Evil Dead and every single thing James Wan has ever violated with his sticky, whorey little fingers. And yeah, it is my own fault for believing the hype for even a fraction of a millionth of a second, for getting suckered in time and again. But I can't not watch a horror movie. It's a lifelong addiction. Every once in a while I even get rewarded: Kill List, Pontypool, the remake of Maniac. But mostly, I just sit in front of whatever new movie is being touted as the best and most stunningly brilliant Grail of Holy Amazeballs ever to impact the horror genre, and I'm all like: "Huh? Meh. Zzzzzzzz."

I was prepared to be let down by The Witch as well. I'd purposely avoided reviews. I did not seek out a synopsis. I watched the trailer, of course, but it ended there. I wanted to believe that this one would live up to the Hype. Maybe even surpass it. All of my most hardcore, horrorheaded, impossible to impress, wallowing in the horror mud puddle like happy piggies friends swore up and down that this was the new standard to which all other horror movies would henceforth be held. Even my dear friend Gavin Baddeley said it was the best thing he'd seen in a while (I'm paraphrasing, because I'm too lazy to go scrolling back through his FB feed to find out exactly what he said, but he did like it). But I avoided any articles about it. I wanted to go into the theater as ignorant as possible and discover the film for myself. I would not be seduced by Hype again, goddammit.

And guess what?
The Witch absolutely, wholly, thoroughly and utterly deserves every grain of Hype it receives.

I won't ruin it for you. This will be a spoiler free review, rest assured. But I will say this much: Holy SHIT and about fucking time! A horror movie that doesn't rely on stupidity, or sex, or ever more convoluted plot twists and turns. There are a few jumpscares, but they aren't sprung on you until the final moments, and they are not cheesy - they are real, and they are vital rather than childishly teasing.

Based on folktales collected from New England's puritanical past, The Witch is the purest horror film I have seen since the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It isn't metaphorical, or allegorical or Freudian or any of that condescending crap. It's called The Witch, and it gives you a Witch. It makes you wait, and guess, and dread and sweat and squirm uncomfortably. But it doesn't have any Shyamalanic climactic moments or overpowering incidental music to let you know when to be scared. Instead, it has class. It's a combination of the manic religious hysteria of The Crucible and the paranoia of The Thing - who is The Witch? It could be any of them, it might be none of them, perhaps it's all of them - each of them embodying a different cardinal sin and together conjuring an elemental - but you're going to have to wait patiently to find out.

No, dear, impatient, instant gratification-afflicted children - there is no sex. The nudity on display is not of the scintillating variety. You will not see any car chases, explosions or gunfire, nor will you hear any swaggerriffic techno tunes accompanying our Uzi toting Pilgrims as they stroll casually away from a burning helicopter, shades donned and expressions set to Badass Neutral. As a matter of fact, the dialogue can be difficult to decipher until your ear tunes up: the accents are English and the dialect is archaic, stuffed full of Thee's and Thou's and such. But there is a nifty goat named Black Phillip, who struts and dances and steals the film. Apparently, he was also a bit of an asshole on the set, determined to gore the living shit out of actor Ralph Ineson, who plays the head of the family and whose Pride has brought them all to ruin.

Newcomer Harvey Scrimshaw (what a great name!) is nothing short of stunning as Caleb. This is only his third acting credit, but he's a seasoned Shakespearean pro already, walloping you right in the face with a forceful climactic scene, the details of which I will not reveal here because I don't want to ruin it for you. No less mesmerizing is Anna Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, accused of witchery, guilty of teenage unrest and bridling at her parents strict expectations, beloved nevertheless and so fair as to tempt Satan Himself.

Every frame of this film haunts: the stillness of the woods, the deepness of its shadows, the half-glimpsed and out-of-focus snatches of things which might be unspeakable, or perhaps just misunderstood. Even a lone, wiggly-nosed bunny rabbit with soft brown fur becomes absolutely terrifying here. Evil is everywhere, cloaked in the guise of innocence and Nature itself stands ready, perfectly willing to accept the patriarch's challenge to be beaten and controlled.

Be prepared for an ending you cannot prepare for: a swift punch and a revelation so chilling that surely it was penned by Grimm. And then, horrific beauty, savage gorgeousness. Is it redemption or damnation? You'll have to decide for yourself.

Friends, you have no idea how happy it makes me to recommend a movie so wholeheartedly. I don't get paid for this, I'm not famous, nor do I wish to be. I just want to watch horror movies and tell you, fellow horror fans, which ones are worth your precious time and which ones aren't.

This one most definitely is.
You may feel free to believe the Hype this time.

Vaun was a Sure Shot

(and anybody who gets that title reference gets a gold star)

So, remember about a year ago when I shit all over The Strain? Well, I never did get past the third episode...until last week. Actually, I ended up watching it all over again from the first episode because I finally picked up a secondhand copy of the book in late January, and then I got stuck with jury duty in early February, the first day of which was six and a half hours of sitting in the jury lounge with nothing to do. I read the entire book in one fucking day, that's how long and dull it was. The day, that is, not the book. Those of you who own a paperback copy of the book know that it is roughly the size, shape and approximate weight of a brick of heroin. Yeah, I read the whole thing in one day. Be impressed by me, dammit.

So after I read it, I decided "Okay, Scream Queens is over. Dead Files season 8 is nowhere to be found streaming and Ash VS. The Evil Dead just flat out sucked. I'll try watching The Strain again." And so I did. And I still wasn't impressed. Sure, there were some cool moments here and there. The six foot python tongue being pulled out of the dead vampire was a particularly lovely, gag-reflex-testing moment. But the only character I really gave a shit about was Gus, the Hispanic ex-convict thug who loves his mommy. Everybody else annoyed me.

Until this fucker showed up.

"Come to me."

Right in the middle of an upper class suburban afternoon, when stereotypical Jamaican (or Haitian, or whatever) big nanny momma and her Americanized adult daughter attempt to remove rich whitebread kids from their home so bitchy, overly-permed lawyer mom won't turn them into vampires. Right when you think everyone is about to be turned into lunchmeat, in walks this guy in full SWAT gear and mows down every single mutherfucking python tongued, worm infested asshole in sight. He's got a face like dried library paste smeared all over an uncooked hamburger patty and then run over repeatedly by a Humvee, an overlapping lizardy Joker mouth and two hamster teeth right smack in the middle of the whole mess. But he's got a fucking Uzi and he's a total badass ninja Unabomber-hoodied half vampire slayer who stops the scary gunfire long enough to reassure the frightened children and send them safely on their way...and then blows Americanized, disbelieving daughter the fuck out of this universe with a single, lightening fast shot. No fucking around with the pew-pew-pews here, just WHAM, thunk, shut up mom. Your daughter was infected, now she's not. GTFO and take the kids with you.

And I was immediately in love.

And why the hell wouldn't I be? Mr. SWAT black ops vigilante vampire dude has swagguh.He doesn't wear velvet and lace, spouts no poetry, never fucking sparkles and really doesn't give a shit what you think about him. He doesn't kill people, only vampires. He's blunt and doesn't waste time bullshitting or posturing. Just shut up and follow him if you want to live. He's the goddamned Daryl Dixon of the vampire plague apocalypse.

He partners up with Gus, recruiting both him and Setrakian into his personal army of Master hunting, vampire slaughtering badasses, but only after bitch slapping Gus to the ground and casually telling Setrakian to shut up. He speaks for The Masters, three ancient master vampires who live underground and sleep a lot. He's hip, he's cool, he's The Bomb Diggity as the kids like to say. He's gearing up to be a strong, vital member of the band of survivors currently cowering in Setrakian's pawn shop. I finished season 1 and eagerly clicked on season 2. I couldn't wait to see the cast's reaction to this humanized immortal.

WTF you guys, I thought you liked me?

And Season 2, Episode 3, they fucking killed him off.

The best and most interesting character with the most potential and a backstory yet to be revealed, and they incinerate him in episode 3, just as we're getting used to him, starting to really like and respect him, anticipating the expansion of his role and his quippy dialogue.

You assholes. HE WAS THE ONLY REASON I WAS GOING TO KEEP WATCHING YOUR MEDIOCRE SHOW!!! Now I'm done. And no, I don't care about Quinlan. He's not Vaun. Fuck all of you writers for killing him off. Yes, even you Guillermo del Toro, whom I loved with all my heart up until last night. You blew it BIG TIME!

You all had better find a way to resurrect Vaun or I will hate you forever.
The end.

Aaron Aites

An urgent message from filmmaker Audrey Ewell:

Filmmaker and musician Aaron Aites (Until The Light Takes Us, 99%, Iran) is in the fight of his life.  He has been diagnosed with an aggressive kidney cancer. Aaron is my soulmate, filmmaking partner, and fiance, and we are asking for your help in beating this plague.

Aaron and I met 18 years ago in San Francisco. We became friends when he got a job at the environmental nonprofit where I worked.  Then we started making films together.  In early 2001, while shooting our first joint documentary film, Until The Light Takes Us, we fell in love. We’ve been together ever since, making films, and taking care of of one neurotic but sweet rescue pup and three badly behaved cats.

Aaron is my life partner, my creative partner and my best friend.  He has a sweetness that comes out especially with those in need, and a quick inquisitive mind.  He explores the world through his art, in his films and with his band, Iran, and other music projects. We’ve grown together as people and artists, we’ve grown apart at times, but we’ve always found our way back to each other, for the simple reason that we deeply love and choose one another as our life partner.

On January 15, we found ourselves in the emergency room. Aaron had been feeling so sick for the past several months that he’d taken a lot of time off work. He’d lost over 40 pounds in that time. His doctor told him it was just bronchitis. But he got sicker and sicker, and he kept going back for answers, for help.  Each time, she said it was nothing. Well she was wrong. After five hours in the emergency room, the ER doctor came in and quietly shattered our world with the news that Aaron has a very large tumor in his kidney.

Just three days before  that, I'd lost my job. Nothing quite like being kicked while you're down.

Biopsies revealed that it was renal cell carcinoma. It’s aggressive. Very hard to treat.  Statistically, it's a quick killer. It’s terrifying.

But we refuse to give up.  There are things we can do. A small percentage of people beat the odds and go into extremely long term remission. So: OK. We’re going to be in that group, and Aaron’s going to live. He’s way too young, he has way too much left to do, and honestly, I can’t imagine being in this world without him, so we’re going to fight this with all we’ve got, and do every last thing we can to improve his chances.

We’re smart people, we know how to research the hell out of a problem, and we're used to doing the impossible. Our last film was 99% - a collaborative film we founded and helmed about the Occupy Wall Street movement and the escalating inequality that destroys lives, unfairly stacking the odds against everyday people. We took on that project because it was important, even though it meant 100-hour work-weeks and brutal workloads. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, a festival that gets over 12,000 submissions and programs less than 200, and from there we placed it with a great distributor, Participant Media, who bring socially relevant films to light. We’ve beat the odds before and we can do it again. We also, unfortunately, went through our savings making that film.  Since Aaron can’t work, and I was laid off, we haven’t had normal income in a couple months, and none at all for a month. Aaron only has state insurance, as he hadn't yet qualified for it at his new job.

I'm now researching treatment options, calling doctors and clinics, taking him to the hospital for procedures, dealing with his terrible insurance, negotiating to get us in to see out of network specialists, and simultaneously researching alternative treatments that have shown results (and separating them from the metric ton of quackery and charlatans clogging up research channels). We’re trying to quickly learn meditation and other stress-reduction techniques, to help Aaron deal with his overwhelming fear and anxiety. Research has shown lowering stress leads to a better response to treatment.

We want to explore all treatment possibilities, in addition to standard options like surgery and then drugs which are essentially poison. Possibilities like accessing cutting edge personalized oncology medicine that has the potential to improve any future outcomes and extend Aaron’s life. There are new drug trials taking place all over the country, and there’s one new drug that’s particularly promising. Or doing targeted biopsies to test for genetic drivers of the cell mutation. That might point us in a better direction faster.

We have to move fast. Right now, the cancer hasn’t spread to his bones, brain, or other organs.  There is a possibly tiny amount of metastasis in his lungs. This is, overall, good news. But our lack of funds limits the decisions we can make about pursuing Aaron’s care options.  This is where your help makes all the difference.

To save Aaron's life, we need to be able to work with the most current surgical and immunotherapy techniques available.

Aaron is strong - I’ve never met a stronger, kinder or more compassionate man - but he needs help. Even when his acerbic humor masks it, he’s always the first to help someone in need, to take in a bunch of abused animals and nurse them back to health, and with his art?  Aaron tries to give something of truth and sustenance to the world.  Now we’re using Aaron’s strength to help him heal.

We need to get going on this, right away.

If you have ever listened to Aaron’s music, or seen his films, and been moved by it, taken strength from it, or even just had it enrich your life for the time that you enjoyed it, please help. If Aaron’s work or life has ever touched yours, please help. Please help Aaron beat this cancer. I’m doing everything I can on my own, but I need help too. I can’t lose him. I won’t lose him. He has a lot more to do in this world. We have been working on a new film and we WILL make it.

In the midst of all this, there is joy: We’re getting married. I proposed to him, the night we got back from the emergency room. We were huddled together in bed, wondering what the future holds for us, and I told him it held at least one thing: our wedding. He’s wanted to get married for ages, and after 15 years, I’ve decided he’s a keeper. And we will have a future. Together. We ask that any gift you might otherwise have given us please be made here instead. 

Please leave messages here telling Aaron that you care. If you love him, tell him. If he’s mattered to you, please tell him. It will give him strength to get through this crisis.

We really appreciate your help.  If you know anyone else who may be interested in helping, please share this.  Every little bit counts.

Please repost this. Please donate if you can, or just show support. Aaron is a good guy. Nobody deserves cancer, least of all him. And please visit the GoFundMe page!!!

11.22.63

The Short Review: No. No no no no no no no. Double nope. Ultra mega hella uber triple dog Nope. As in "Fuck No" times a jazillion and multiplied by 3812000. Fuck you right in your face with my bigass Nope stick.

The Long Review: Man, I loved the book 11/22/63 by Stephen King and I give no fucks what anyone thinks about that. Call him a hack, a mass producing horror machine, whatever. You cannot deny that the man has written some of the most important stories ever to be turned into some of the best horror films of our time. The Shining, Carrie, The Dead Zone, 'Salem's Lot, etc. Unfortunately, there have been more abortions made of his stories than there have been happy births: the remake(s) of The Shining, Carrie (I speak of the Angela Bettis abomination), The Dead Zone, 'Salem's Lot, etc. Ugh, did anyone see the heap of steaming hairball that was Sleepwalkers? I have to mention that one anytime I talk about bad Stephen King movies because I never recovered from that one. Dude, it fucking hurt. It reeked. It stung like hot cat piss in an open paper cut.

I'm not going to waste anyone's time - mine included - in reviewing the book 11/22/63 because the fucking thing is 30 billion pages long and if you had a million or so copies you could logistically construct a shelter capable of withstanding F5 force winds.

I will say this much about the book: I think it's the best thing King has written thus far. It's beautiful and terribly human and more intricate than a scrimshaw sculpture. I love the way it overlaps with the world of Derry created by King for his as-yet-unfilmable It. (Sorry, Tim Curry aside, that miniseries for It was wretched.) I especially loved the small culture shocks experienced throughout the novel, just tiny things highlighting the differences between the 1960s and the 21st century, like the simple mixing of cola syrup and seltzer water to make a Coca-Cola, instead of just pulling the ring tab off of a fizzily hissing aluminum can. I love shit like that.

So, with a remake of It in pre-production, and a golden opportunity to spark interest in it by featuring Jake Epping's month long stay in the cancer ridden mill town and his meeting with Bevvie and Ritchie, what does JJ Abrams decide to do? Move the town of Derry, Maine to Bumblefuck, Tennessee for no fucking reason at all. Well, there is a reason - Tennessee is closer to Texas than Maine, and there's a thing called "compressing time through editing" because nobody has the patience to sit through two prologues and four years worth of build up.

cough Game Of Thrones, cough The Walking Dead, cough six years and still going strong.

But hey, whatever, I'm not the big Hollywood wheeler dealer who knows how this shit works, apparently. Fine. Just chop the shit out of the show and turn it into a literary car chase and see if I give a fuck.

Why was it necessary to have Jake drop out of the clear blue sky into a crowded 1960s street? Why have him attract so much attention to himself by blundering into the past with a goatee and a rock shirt, instead of planning (like he did in the book) and cultivating an Everyman appearance? Why have him attract so much attention to himself at all? For fucks sake, James Franco may as well have gone in naked, clothed only in dayglo body paint, juggling flaming bowling pins and shouting "I'M FROM THE FUTURE!!!" He sucks at blending in. He's not even trying. He's rude and combative and pretty much adopts a "Come at me, bruh" posture for all of the woefully ignorant corn shuckin' past dwellers of Bumpkinland who don't know shit about crap because they lack Google and YouTube and Nokia phones.

Why does he have to meet Sadie while she's still married and months before he takes a job as a schoolteacher? Why burn down the boarding house? And why - why the FUCK - partner him with someone? I know we haven't gotten that far yet, but I know it's coming and I disapprove, goddamn it.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hasty. Maybe I should watch more than one episode before I jump to any conclusions. But hey, maybe the makers of the miniseries should have tried harder to catch my attention first time out. And you know, I get it. I do. I understand that adaptations from book to film have to be edited, condensed and changed just a hair, otherwise book fans would be stone bored.

Or would they? Have any of you Big Cheeses ever considered trying a straight adaptation? Maybe we'd like it. Maybe those of us who loved the book could be catered to, just once, instead of the hordes of illiterate lazy assholes who can't sit through anything that doesn't shove a fistful of pyrotechnic candy and sex sugar in their crybaby little faces right out of the fucking starting gate.

Dark Was The Night (2014)

Alrighty then! Sunday morning and more snow on the way, Groundhog be fucked. I'm still in my pajamas and don't plan on leaving the house until tomorrow, so I say it's movie time. My friend Christine recommended Dark Was The Night, which she described as underrated. My friend Sheena described it as "meh" so let's see what I think.

Directed by the guy who produced Bone Tomahawk. Which I haven't seen yet. So I'm not sure why I'm bringing it up.

Starring Lukas Haas? Oh god.

Also starring Kevin Durand, who I know I've probably seen in some other stuff, but right now I find his face kind of annoying. He looks like he just polished off a whole tin of pot brownies by himself and can't remember where he left the TV remote. He's playing the Sheriff of Northern Podunk, recently separated from his wife and sharing custody of their son Adam. Haas is his deputy. Podunk's primary industry seems to be the clear cutting and complete deforestation of Maiden Woods.

So, whilst the little town slept, something big walked through it, leaving behind muddy footprints that are almost as freakishly large as Haas's ears. Seriously, if the wind picks up, little Lukie is at risk of becoming airborne.

Anyway, the footprints are, like, big. Really big. It's bipedal and hoofed. And it's eating horses, deer and dogs and loggers, oh my. My guess is: a really large faun, a velociraptor or Krampus. Possibly Ents. Or maybe Joe Don Baker.

The town's population has gathered at the local grocery store to worry about things and stare at the Sheriff. Does this town not have cable or internet?

So far, I am reminded of such films as Prophecy, Wendigo, The New Daughter, Predator, the book of Exodus and that really horrible movie with Katie Holmes about the fairies and the baby teeth.

Cue ancient Indian legend, via the quarter Shawnee bartender.

So apparently the Sheriff had another son, who died six months previous. Not sure how yet, or how it pertains to the creature in the woods, or even if it does. It does, however, explain why everyone gets quiet when the Sheriff walks in/by and stares at him like he has an extra foot growing out of his face. Because that's how you deal with grief stricken people: stare at them like they have the plague.

K so, the other son died in a freak accident while Daddy Sheriff was watching him and he blames himself and that's why he's all messed up inside and possibly getting a divorce that neither he nor his wife really want. But wait...how do you hit your head on the bottom of a kiddie pool and die? Aren't those things made out of inflatable plastic? Was the kids head made out of cotton balls?

Wendigo! Totally called it! Boo Yah!

Hang food in trees out of reach of bears.

Severe weather bulletin: there is a huge and deadly winter storm heading straight for Maiden Woods, the entire population of which must evacuate immediately to avoid being killed by the subsequent snow, ice and cold winds. And by evacuation we mean, dawdle around and go about your daily routine and ignore this emergency weather bulletin. Thank you.

So no one has reported those loggers from the prologue missing? Nobody found the blood splattered SUV and the severed arm? Nobody noticed that those hunters never came back?

How is it even possible that Larry Fessenden isn't in this?

Oh okay, the loggers were slaughtered in a different county. Gotcha. My bad. I wasn't patient enough.

Movie, I am gonna punch you right in the pancreas. There's a bigass monster in your house, and you're like pretty sure it's gone, but you tell your only surviving son to "Stay here" and "lock the door behind you" because you'll be "right back?" Why don't you just put him in a mini skirt in high heels and tell him to run for it? I don't even care that it worked out in your favor. You never say such a thing in a horror movie!

Sheriff decides that the whole town - all 16 of them - should spend the night in the church. Not sure yet who's been elected to hang a sign outside the doors saying: "ALL VICTIMS CONVENIENTLY GATHERED IN ONE SPOT! ALL YOU CAN EAT MEAT!"

No kid draws or prints this neatly. Sorry.

Teary eyed admission of guilt, forgiveness from loving wife = time for the monsters to start pounding on the church doors, aww yeah.

Whaddaya MEAN you won't all fit in the basement? You got room for a fucking sock hop in here! And a weenie roast. AND a forty piece band! You could rent out the corners as luxury condos!

Other movies that this movie is reminding me of: Jurassic Park, The Fog, The 13th Warrior, Pumpkinhead, The Unnameable, Ninja Assassin, Three Coins in the Fountain... I may have made a few of those up.

What the fuck is that? The Hulk with a turtle head?

Well, I definitely wouldn't put this in with the worst movies I've ever seen, but I wouldn't put it in with the best either. Still not sure what the dead kid had to do with anything. Was the family drama subplot an attempt to make us feel more sympathy for the white people whose clear cutting practices and industrialization of every last inch of virgin land led to the destruction of the natural habitats of thousands of indigenous species, thereby forcing this normally reclusive creature out into the open where it reacts with justifiable anger, much like a bear who has been poked with a stick? Because it didn't work.

Therefore, I relished the final scene of this film, which reveals the existence of dozens of these turtle faced fuckers, crawling all over the church and eager for some Yokel face munching. Good riddance and the hell with every last one of you. I hope you all end up as Wendigo doo crapped out all over the forest floor.

Oh well, whatever, never mind...

So last weekend, on Episode 6 (or was it 7?) of Fear Of A Dork Planet, Erik and I each chose five songs from our youth which forever changed us - for better or worse - and the way we looked at the world. Being GenXers, Erik went almost totally punk while I leaned into the grunge.

Oh and I just checked - it was definitely Episode 7.

Anyway, Erik flew solo last night and came up with Episode 7.5, in which he plays not just our choices, but a couple of fan favorites as well!

We also discussed the documentary Soaked In Bleach, focusing primarily on the utter, vile skankiness of Courtney Love and her ability/inability to mastermind the murder of her husband Kurt Cobain the Grunge God.

Just a heads up for the 3 or 4 people who actually follow our show - Erik and I are partner swapping next time out. Erik will be running a special episode of FoaDP with his friend Michael. They're going to discuss the film Dredd and its Indonesian copycats The Raid and Raid 2. I've seen Dredd. I loved Dredd. But Michael and Erik are the uber geek experts, so...yeah.

I'll be popping up on Astro Radio Z with my friend Derrick Carey to discuss remakes of horror movies that did NOT suck. It will be quite the soiree. I will personally be bringing the remake of William Lustig's 1980 film Maniac to the table.

Stay tuned!