I think I heard a shot

Look, I get it. You're all numb. I'm numb. Everyday I'm smacked in the face with corrupt politicians, leaked emails, bankruptcy and scandal, swollen pigs with coke-sniffles grabbing pussies, etc. It's all too much. We let it wash over us and feel nothing. It's a self defense mechanism. We're living in a world that is falling apart as we watch, collapsing down around us. And there's not much we can do. We sign petitions, we use hashtags and we hope it's enough...or tell ourselves that it is. We want to help, but we don't know how. And we're all so fucking tired. What good does any of it do? Nothing ever changes.

So I'm going to keep this as short, as simple and as to the point as I possibly can. Please try and stay awake while I tell you this tale. I'll be brief and won't use big words. I promise.

Wake up. 

The powers of corruption and greed want you to stay asleep. They are using your disillusionment, your weariness and your numbness as weapons against you. They are banking on the fact - literally - that you are too tired to care anymore. They are no longer trying to hide what they are doing. They are blatantly stealing, raping and destroying right in front of your faces, because they know you don't have the energy to fight back anymore. They are literally spitting in our faces and daring us to try and stop them. They have money and power on their side. And we're all so tired, so used to being plowed over and ignored. You've got to wake up now or you may never wake up again.

Long story short: A bunch of obscenely rich oil magnates in Texas decided to build a pipeline 1,168 miles long, costing $3.8 billion dollars that would transport 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Texas to Illinois. They used loopholes to get the project greenlit as fast as possible, and kept it all very hush hush.

Unfortunately, they neglected to inform the indigenous peoples whose lands they were planning on ripping up and destroying in order to make this ugly money funnel.

That's illegal.

From Crave:

In a nutshell, the government basically told the indigenous people to go fuck themselves. They were rich and powerful and were going to do whatever the hell they wanted, and use whatever means necessary to get it done...the faster to fatten their wallets, my dear.

Understandably, the Tribes got pissed, and decided to protest. They do so peacefully, without weapons, without threats.

The U.S. Government began unleashing dogs on them. They were shot with rubber bullets. They were arrested, despite the fact that they had done nothing wrong. Americans have a right to protest peacefully, but the government wants this to go away, quickly and quietly, before anyone else can see what's happening. They want you to forget, and go back to sleep, and submit to their power and force. They are afraid of us. They know that, despite their weapons and money and power and authority, they are outnumbered, and if we were all to wake the fuck up and see what's happening, and finally, at long last, stand the fuck up and say: "This is wrong! This is against the law! This is a violation of human rights!" they may actually be forced to listen, and back off.

So why is it so hard? Why can't we say something, do something, take a stand against the bullies? How long are we going to hang back and pretend this isn't happening? They are basically telling us all that we have no rights and no say. Is that correct?

This is every arrogant male sexually assaulting a woman. This is every white supremacist shoving black to the back of the bus. This is every schoolyard bully driving a classmate to suicide. And we are complicit when we do nothing. We, by our silence and our despair, are allowing the gang rape to happen, the beating to escalate and the injustice to multiply. How much is enough?

At the very least, SIGN THE PETITION.

EDUCATE YOURSELF!

Is that so much to ask?

Don't Breathe (2016)

K, let's get the obligatory shit out of the way.

Don't Breathe
Year released: 2016
Starring: The guy who got tied to a wheelchair and set on fire after having his lips bitten off in Manhunter, the chick who just did that fucking awful remake/reboot of Evil Dead, some scrawny geeky white kid, some guy who wants to be black but isn't, a really slobbery rottweiler and a turkey baster.
Synopsis: Three dead end kids in present day Detroit make living by robbing houses and set their sights on reclusive Iraqi war vet with a rumored buttload of cash stashed in his dilapidated house, conveniently situated in an abandoned neighborhood. Oh, and he's blind so this should be totes easy. Except he's got a fucking arsenal, good aim, an aggressive dog and a girl tied up in his basement.

Alright now, I sat down and watched it and now I has questions, please.

~~~HERE LYETH MAJOR SPOILERS~~~

#1 - These kids are good at what they do. One of them is the son of the guy who owns the alarm company that installs the state-of-the-art anti-theft devices in these people's homes, so they have an easy in. They wear gloves, they don't take cash, they're not professionals but they're no slouches either. They're all terrified of being caught and going to jail...so the main guy thinks absolutely nothing of jacking off all over the hardwood floors and leaving a cum puddle right out in the open in front of God and everyone. Am I the only person who watches Forensic Files and Homicide Hunter? DNA, you genius fucksock. Just saying.

#2 - The Jerker Offer is a guy named Money. Seriously, his name is Money. How original. I'm changing my name to Pants. Nothing specific, just Pants. Or maybe Tissue. Anyway, Money is not black, but he's kinda made up to look black: cornrows, street slang, etc. I thought he was black throughout the entire film, but admittedly, the lighting on the copy I watched was shit. Anyway, because he's the closest thing to Black we have in this film, of course he dies first. Of course he does.

#3 - This is the other guy, whose name I think was Alex but I thought of him as Weenie Boy. Weenie Boy has a not-so-secret crush on Rocky (our cute, blonde tough girl, who is only Doing This so she can save her sweet kid sister from a life of trailer park trash-mom squalor and spirit her away to California so she can surf and live happily ever after) and must now be The Hero and get them both out of Crazy Blind Guy's fortress-like house. At one point, Weenie Boy defenestrates the hell out of a second story window, crashes through some plate glass and gets stabbed with the Biggest Fucking Pair of pruning shears I've ever seen in my goddamned life. Seriously, you could castrate four elephants simultaneously with those things. Anyway, Crazy Blind Guy slams the shears down into his face/throat region and walks off. But Weenie Boy miraculously gets up a few minutes later, clear headed and able-bodied. Wtf?

#4 - So, it's been firmly established that the character of Cindy Whateverhernameis is a rich girl who avoided jail time by paying off Crazy Blind Guy in a tidy settlement after Cindy accidentally killed his daughter in what I think was a car crash? Anyway, she's chained up down in his basement, but rich white girls don't really Go Missing without everyone knowing about it. Wouldn't the cops have been swarming all over the house of the one guy with the most motive to do her harm? Also, she's pregnant with Crazy Blind Guy's baby. More on that in a minute. He's promised to release her once she gives birth and replaces the child she stole from him. Yeah, and how does that work again? You think she's not gonna tell? Dude, you didn't really think this through, did you?

#5 - Okay, so Cindy gets caught in the crossfire and dies, Crazy Blind Guy is full tilt boogie bananas now because that was his baby in her belly, so he catches Rocky and decides he's going to impregnate her. With a turkey baster full of sperm. His sperm. Which he keeps in a refrigerator. Does that actually work? And even if it does, do you really need the WORLD'S BIGGEST TURKEY BASTER to inseminate her? And how the fuck much do you masturbate, because that's like 400mLs of cold sperm you got there, buddy. You could knock up an entire congregation of Republican spinsters with just a fraction of what you have in that thing. Holy shit, do you whack like 47 times a day? Is it normal for you to shoot off 20 gallons of cum at a time? Is your cock actually Mount Pinatubo?

#6 - Rocky, saved by Weenie Boy in the nick of time, does not get impregnated. After a fierce battle, she gets away...by setting off the fire alarm in the guys house and momentarily deafening him. Regardless of the fact that the guy has been firing guns at close range all fucking night and reacts not at all. I mean, I know those alarms are ear-splittingly, sound-barrier explodingly, horrifyingly banshee-fucking-a-Syren-while-a-car-alarm-symphony-serenades-them loud af, but still...he's been firing guns all night. Guns that momentarily deafened Rocky, for shits sake.

#7 - Money and Weenie Boy both die. Rocky escapes with the loot and we see her with her kid sister at the bus station, getting ready to leave forever to California. The terminal TV broadcasts a live report on the fatal shooting of two armed hooligans who broke into a former War Hero's house. Crazy Blind Guy survived and is en route to hospital. He did not mention Rocky, or the cash she stole, allowing her to get away scot free. But...aren't the cops going to find that dungeon downstairs? And the cum collection in the fridge? At some point? Maybe? And even though it's her sister, isn't Rocky technically kidnapping? I mean, even though her mom is a trashy, Wal-Mart off-brand whore with a sentient dumpster for a boyfriend, doesn't she still have legal custody? Even if she doesn't report it, won't the absence of Kid Sis and Rocky eventually be noticed by a neighbor? Or the school system?

This is the shit that keeps me awake at night.

Parasomnia

 (I first posted this review online in 2010 and almost immediately received an email from director William Malone, who was not at all happy with my review. Tough shit. I stand by my review, and since Trump's "Pussygate" is still ruling the headlines, I think it's more important than ever to address the issue of women portrayed as one-dimensional sex objects in any media. Time to stop romanticizing sexual abuse, guys.)

Remember the furor that erupted within the vehemently Anti-Twilight crowd upon learning that sparkly vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen was little more than a common stalker who followed Bella wherever she went and even went so far as to sit in her bedroom and watch her sleep every night? Well, Parasomnia takes the “stalking is romantic” premise several thousand steps further, beyond the realm of creepiness and straight into “buy everyone involved with this film a paperback copy of Gavin de Becker’s book The Gift Of Fear IMMEDIATELY” territory.

Danny Sloan is a loser. And I don’t like to throw the word “loser” around vicariously, unlike some bosses I've had. But Danny really is an insipid, crudely drawn loser of a boy who, as the film opens, has just been dumped by his exasperated girlfriend who has finally gotten tired of Danny’s utter failure to respect her feelings. But Danny soon finds a replacement for the high-maintenance ex in the form of a semi-comatose sleeping beauty who is currently a patient at the same hospital where his dorky best buddy is drying out.

Kidnap in progress.

 Fortunately, Danny has stumbled upon the one hospital in the United States where you can wander freely about, happy-assholing your way unobserved and unescorted through the psychiatric wing, despite the fact that every psych-ward I’ve ever seen is triple locked from both sides and heavily guarded to boot, mostly to prevent the patients from escaping and running amok. Look, don’t ask how I know, I just do.

Danny is also lucky enough to find a chatty doctor who doesn’t give a single shit about patient confidentiality and gladly fills Danny in on Sleeping Beauty’s condition. Her name is Laura and she suffers from a rare condition called parasomnia. Laura has spent most of her life asleep, but fortunately is never without lip gloss or ivory bisque foundation. She’s also scheduled to be moved to a different institution in a few days, where a medical staff awaits to play with her brain.

Laura is the perfect girlfriend: she’s dumb, sleeps a lot and is pretty. So Danny does what any budding psychopath would do and kidnaps her, returning with her to his squalid dump and eagerly bathing and fondling her while she sleeps. Ew. Oh, and she also pees herself and crawls around on all fours with a dog's chew toy in her mouth. How cute. She's a girlfriend, she's a pet, she's both of those things and so much more! Gross.

Too bad Laura already has a boyfriend of sorts, and he’s far more psychotic than Danny could ever hope to be. With the Svengali-esque serial killer/boyfriend stalking Laura in her dreams, and cop Jeffrey Combs closing in on Danny, it’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the proverbial fan. And I mean “shit” in the very literal sense of the word.


This.
Movie.
Hurts.

It’s not so much “bad” as it is just very lame and excruciatingly creepy. Watching Danny treat Laura like a sex doll is not entertaining or amusing, and it sure as hell isn’t romantic. It’s sickening, and I have to wonder about the mind that put this shit to paper; specifically, how did they squeeze scriptwriting into their hectic schedule of sending love letters written in peanut butter and urine to the hapless girl who works the night shift at the Burger King on the corner?

I had hope for this film. Maybe not high hopes, but reasonably elevated ones. The trailer led me to believe that I was in for a candy colored carnival sideshow steampunk spectacular, rich with nightmarish landscapes and childhood horrors. There’s some of that in there, mostly towards the end, but it’s not worth the wait. Throw in the fact that William Malone recycles his stick-monster from the Masters Of Horror episode “The Fair Haired Child” and honestly, the whole thing left me feeling profoundly gypped.

Parasomnia definitely made me shudder, but for all the wrong reasons. I shuddered for the girl who might view this and come away believing that kidnapping and molestation equals true love, for the guy who thinks stalking is healthy and acceptable, and for Jeffrey Combs, who deserves better than this.

I wanted to like this. I really did. It had everything going for it: a unique look, a decent cast and a story which, if not totally original (see the silent classic “The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari” if you don’t believe me) was at least different from the thousands of shitty slasher films still getting churned out on a regular basis. But ultimately, Parasomnia is just a cringe-inducing mess. And no, I don't care that this was Malone's pet project, written and financed all by himself out of love. It's sick. It's vile. It's fucking insulting.

I do not, and will never, understand the ass-cheek polishing this one got from so many critics, male and female alike, although I suspect an unwillingness to dare and insult anything done by an official Master Of Horror was reason #1 - plus, shitty reviews don't usually snag a featured spot in Fangoria. And this is why I no longer write reviews for anyone but my own damn self.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go clean out my vagina with a wire brush and some industrial strength Ajax. Just…yuck.

The Oregonian (2011)

(Repost of a review I wrote five years ago, because someone on FB just asked me what had been released in the last five years that was worth watching. I'm still not sure if I liked this one or not.)

The Oregonian.

It stars that chick who was in “The Fair Haired Child” episode of Masters Of Horror (which, to date, remains the only thing ever done by William Malone that I didn't hate, although I'm pretty sure that William Malone still hates me for that review of Parasomnia I wrote). It takes place in Oregon. Things happen. Look, do you know how hard it is to review a movie which, at its base core, is a diarrhetic explosion of everything Alejandro Jodorowsky ever consumed?

So, there’s this girl. I thought she was living with her dad, but apparently it’s her boyfriend, which is what happens when you allow your impressionable child to watch too much Grizzly Adams. Her bf is either drunk or dead, so she decides to take advantage of the situation by gassing up the station wagon and peeling out of the gravel driveway, bound for glory. Instead, she somehow manages to crack up about three feet down the road and is violently thrown into a purgatorial nightmare world where giant muppets violently masturbate, an omelette addict pisses an entire Skittle spectrum and some guy who looks like Gorgeous George displays an O face not unlike a rabid wombat experiencing an exceptionally painful bout of torrential diarrhea. There’s also some half naked hippie guys running around making daiquiris. I fucking hate daiquiris. Goddamned glassful of moose sperm with a fucking paper umbrella in it. Gross. Fuck that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Our heroine really wants to get to a phone and call for help, because she’s hurt, and she might have hurt some other people too. But no one really seems to care. After a while, she doesn’t seem to care either. I’m not sure if I cared or not. I was too busy saying things like “the fuck?” and “the hell?” and “are we out of Xanax again?” The Oregonian made me very uneasy. Not in a profound, what-is-the-meaning-of-life kind of way, but rather in a “I just ate a quart of yogurt that might have been past the shelf date and I’m miles from a toilet, what do I do?” kind of way.

In order to retain whatever professionalism I might once have had, I will say this: The Oregonian is well shot. It’s a gritty, mucky, earth-toned Kodachrome creation. As it stands however, I feel like I just got back from a poverty stricken carnival, where a cancerous clown with facial warts and sticky fingers violently molested me behind the camel tent, then smiled and gave me a nickel and threatened to kill my entire family if I ever told.

Not all of the grungy visuals work, but a fair amount of them do. That Chick From The Fair Haired Child has some legit acting chops. She’s also very pretty, but never once gets naked. Not that I’m into that sort of thing, but if you are – just saying. I can see the appeal of the film: fans of the aforementioned Jodorowsky would probably dig it. It might appeal to the cult followers of Begotten.  It’s not my thing at all, but hey – maybe it’s yours.

Songs in the Key of Apocalypse

Just in case that gibbering, unnaturally orange, butthole-faced, narcissistic, shit-flinging, brain damaged howler monkey and coke-bloated Hitler-Barbie-Doll model manages to get elected as President, I decided we needed a proper soundtrack to accompany the burning of this totally fucked and corrupted nation.

You're welcome.
(click the song titles if you want to listen)

#1 - Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums
Performed by: A Perfect Circle

#2 - Goodbye Blue Sky

Performed by: Pink Floyd

"Did you see the frightened ones
Did you hear the falling bombs
Did you ever wonder
Why we had to run for shelter
When the promise of a brave new world
Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky."

#3 - Ænima

Performed by: Tool

"Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see Armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cause
I sure could use a vacation from this

Stupid shit, silly shit, stupid shit...

One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.

Learn to swim."

#4 - Armageddon Days Are Here Again

Performed by: The The

"If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
He'd be gunned down by the C.I.A.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart."

#5 - White, Discussion

Performed by: Live

"...and as the final sunset rolls behind the earth
and the clock is finally dead
I'll look at you, you'll look at me
and we'll cry a lot
but this will be what we said
this will be what we said

Look where all this talking got us, baby."

#6 - The Man Comes Around

Performed by: Johnny Cash

"Voices calling and voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
Its alpha and omegas kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn trees
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks

Till Armageddon no shalom no shalom."

#7 - Zero Sum
Performed by: Nine Inch Nails

"And I guess I just wanted to tell you, as the light starts to fade,
That you are the reason that I am not afraid.
And I guess I just wanted to mention, as the heavens will fall,
We will be together soon if we will be anything at all.

Shame on us, doomed from the start
May God have mercy on our dirty little hearts
Shame on us for all we have done
And all we ever were. Just zeroes and ones."

Because

I am angry.

Truthfully, I've been angry for a very long time. Decades. But I am female, and as such, I have been instructed and trained in the fine art of suppression.
"Don't blow it out of proportion." 
"Control your feelings." 
"Anger is ugly." 
"You're fine, it's not the end of the world." 
"Other people have it much worse than you, stop making a big deal out of nothing."
"Take it as a compliment."
"You're overreacting."

I am 46 years old now, old enough to no longer give a shit what other people think of me, least of all men.

I've been suppressing and keeping quiet and ignoring and blowing off and not saying anything for well over thirty years. But I can't stand it anymore. Guys, sit down. I gotta get this off my chest, and you need to really focus and listen. Don't interrupt or justify or make excuses or gaslight me. Just this once, please, shut up, sit down and listen.

I'm tired. I've been more tired in the past year than at any other time in my life. I'm tired of the Brock Turner's and the Elliot Rodgers' and the Bill Cosby's and the Donald Trump's. More than that, I'm tired of the eternal question which always pops up when these guys are finally exposed: "Well, why did their accusers wait so long to speak out?" As if the accusers in question were simply sitting, biding their time, plotting their strategies and waiting for the most profitable time to act, to thrust themselves into the national spotlight and reap their rewards, attaining fame and fortune and adoration with which to feather their nests well into old age.

Guys, it doesn't work like that. Allow me to explain the Domino Effect.
Imagine that something horrible has happened to you. Something shameful and degrading. Doesn't even have to be rape. Just a situation in which you were briefly stripped of your power and forced to submit to someone who had gained control of the situation. Someone stronger than you physically, someone in a position of power over you, someone armed. Whatever.

Now, you have been raised to believe that "making a fuss" isn't proper behavior. You don't want to draw attention to yourself. You've been taught to be polite at all costs, no matter the situation. You try to extricate yourself from the sudden mess you find yourself in. You didn't think it was going to turn into a mess. You didn't willingly step into it. Suddenly, a person who seemed rational just moments ago - and 9 times out of 10, is someone you knew prior to this - is behaving in a way that is not logical. You've lost control of the situation, but you also see it as your duty to appeal to this person's basic human decency. Surely, if you reassure them, everything will be alright. People are basically good and trustworthy and nonviolent. Right?

But what you don't know is that this person is aware of the fact that you have been raised to be polite and non-resistant. They know you don't want to make a scene or draw unwanted attention to yourself. They're banking on it. They're going to use it to their advantage. So they shift blame. "You made me angry. You dressed in a way that provoked me. You gave me mixed signals. You led me on. You brought this on yourself."

And, as beings habitually cowed and brainwashed, we question ourselves. Did we do those things? Self doubt and shame are swift to kick in, even if you know for a solid fact that you did not intend to bring this upon yourself. Maybe you did behave in a way that you shouldn't have. Maybe you said something that could have been taken wrong, in a tone of voice you maybe shouldn't have used. You start to apologize. You try to explain that you didn't mean it, whatever it was. But it's too late. They've already penetrated the chink in your armor, the ingrained belief that we must always be polite and graceful and nice, no matter what.

Then something happens. You are belittled, or robbed, or raped, or beaten. You are groped or slapped or called a disgusting name. You have "gotten what you deserved" and your attacker walks away smug and self satisfied, knowing you won't breathe a word of what has happened. Shame keeps you from thinking about it. Fear of being seen as weak or stupid prevents you from telling, because a small part of you continues to insist that this really is your fault, you did bring it on yourself, and any attempt to talk about it - as if you were a victim and not an instigator - is eye-rollingly self pitying. After all, you're still alive. It couldn't have been that bad. Other people have been through worse. Just drop it and move on, why do you keep wallowing in it?

Time passes, and you pretend you're okay for the sake of others. You don't want to bum them out by sniveling about it and constantly casting yourself as the tiresome victim. But then one day, you overhear another person, or the friend of a friend of that person, talking about what happened to them at the hands of the very same person. You are not the only one it has happened to. And it's like a light coming through a stained glass window in a cathedral and shining down upon you. You are not the only one. You were not at fault. You did nothing wrong. And you find your voice again.

You seek this other person out and say, maybe hesitantly "Hey, this happened to me too." And when they tell you their story, you are vindicated and relieved. A third person overhears you and approaches, and with each story you hear, the strength you thought you'd lost forever comes back a piece at a time. Your fear and your shame and disgust is replaced by something else: rage.

This is why we "wait so long" to come forward with our stories. Because we're afraid. Because we've been made to believe it was something we did wrong and indirectly brought upon ourselves. We're not waiting to cash in. We're not waiting at all. We've been sitting here, drowning in guilt and shame, maybe drinking too much, maybe suffering from crippling low-self esteem, believing that were were the only ones and, as such, must somehow be at fault. And when we suddenly realize we're not, and never were, we are quick to stand beside the brave ones who finally stood up and spoke out, reaching for them like life preservers, speaking when we couldn't and didn't even know we had that option. It's called "solidarity."

And you know what remark from Donald Trump disturbs me even more than the whole "grab 'em by the pussy" thing? His dismissal of his female accusers as being too ugly to grope in the first place. His assertion that they would "not be his first choice." He's not denying his misconduct! He's dismissing their credibility by calling them ugly.

Let me tell you fuckers a story.

When I was still a reasonably young girl, I came home from work one night, walked up my stairs to the front door of my apartment, tired and looking forward to sleep. My neighbor's door, directly across from mine, was open. He was a white guy, unemployed, almost always drunk, covered in scabs, reeking of smoke. He saw me come up the stairs and began speaking in a normal tone of voice: "Hey. Hey c'mere. Hey. C'mon over. Got some beer. Hey, you wanna say hi?"

To be honest, I didn't really even hear him, didn't even realize he was talking to me. I thought he was on the phone, or talking to someone else in the house with him. Until I heard his next statement: "Fine, you don't wanna say Hi, fuck you, you're ugly anyway." I heard the "fuck" and the "ugly" and turned around to find him staring right at me. He was sitting on the couch in his underwear, drunk, picking at his toes. And yet I was the ugly one.

I was used to this shit by now, but still I stared at him open mouthed, unable to believe how fucking rude he was being, how apish and disgusting. Finally, I turned around and slammed my door as hard as I could. And double locked it. A while later, he walked by my window and yelled "BITCH!"

I yelled back: "COWARD!"

And my immediate thought was: "Perhaps I shouldn't have yelled back. Maybe I've made it worse. I should have just ignored it."

And that's when I realized how fundamentally fucked up the whole world was. Because that was my first reaction - to second guess myself, to feel guilty about defending myself, to fear the repercussions of my actions when I knew damn right well that that toe-picking ambient fungus next door wasn't at all sorry for what he'd said, did not see the irony in calling me ugly and had shifted responsibility entirely over to me, justifying his actions with: "You didn't say Hi, therefore you are a bitch and deserve to be told so."

I could sit here and excuse the behavior of men by saying: "Well, they're not women, they don't know what it's like, they've never experienced abuse the way we do." But I know that's not true, and it's just another excuse. Because men do know what it's like, whether they want to admit to it or not. Guys, I know you've been humiliated by your boss, your coach, your dad, your brothers and uncles. I know that at the very least, you've had your ass kicked by some guy you thought you could handle - is it something you tell your friends about? Do you ever talk about that emasculating, embarrassing moment to anyone? Or do you pretend it never happened to save face? No, of course not. Why would you want to admit to something that shames you to this day?

From this day forward, you have no more excuses guys. And this is not up for debate. Talking to women like this is wrong. Talking about women like this is wrong. It is not cool, it is not something that "all boys" do, it is not something that should be expected and/or dismissed as something that "all boys" do, it is not a rite of passage, it is not acceptable, and we have never liked it. Take responsibility, learn the meaning of class, act like a man instead of an ape. Are Eee Ess Pea Eee See Tea, find out what it means to me and every other woman on the face of the Earth.

And stop fucking asking us what took so long to speak up. Because the answer is "YOU." You and everyone else who helped you to build up this level of tolerance over the centuries with your ridiculous rules for us, your double standard bullshit games, your endless excuses. Your behavior is not our fault. We're done, do you fucking hear me? You can only taunt and bully and poke and pester and rape and kill us so much for so long, and you have the nerve to look surprised when we finally snap and turn on you and scream: "FUCK YOU!" and claw your eyes out and slam our feet into your groin? Really? Because if this reaction in any way shocks you, you are definitely part of the fucking problem.

Believe me, guys - we've already doubted our own stories and our own motivations, our version of events and even our own culpability. We've questioned the worth of "bringing this up after so long" whether it's been three days or thirty years. But some wounds won't heal unless you rip them back open again. And some shit won't change unless you speak the fuck up.

I am fucking angry, and I don't care if you don't like it.

PigHeaded

Yeah, so, my life is weird and somehow, the subject of pig heads in horror movies came up the other day. I think my BFAM (Brutha Frum Anutha Mutha) Erik asked me if I'd seen The Butcher Boy, which I haven't because it's on my ever-growing list of "Movies I Want To See Before I Die But I'm Always Too Fucking Busy." Then, when I went to work the next day, my boss asked me if I'd ever seen Motel Hell, to which I responded: "Like, yah, duh! It's totally awesome!" And then, like, it totally turns out that she'd watched it because, like American Horror Story is doing this, like, total thing this season about a guy with a gnarly pig head and I was like "No way!" And she was like "Iknowright?" And we were like trippendicular like omg all over the place, fer shure.

(EDITORS NOTE: I am drunk. Narrangansett White Ship, bitches, all up in here...or whatever.)

So, without further a-doo-doo, Imma list all the movies I can think of that feature people wearing pigs masks or pig heads, because I can. And yeah, I'm sure I left out several dozen but feel free to write your own damn list.

The Dancing Pig
Year released: 1907
I have no idea what this movie is about and I don't really care. It features a guy in a full pig costume dancing around all a-jiggly. Pretty realistic pig costume considering it was over a hundred years ago.

Haxan 
Year released: 1922
This movie really has nothing at all to do with pigs. It's about witches, and what stupid people in Ye Olden Days used to think they did for funsies, like sucking goaty devil cock and/or eating babies. But there's at least one scene in it where...well, duh, look at the picture. It's two guys in pig head masks. And it's obvious they're totally Satanic. Because pig heads.

Motel Hell
Year released: 1980
Meat's meat, and a man's gotta eat. It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters and, frankly, there's too many people in the world and not enough food. Now this takes care of both problems at the same time! Although Vincent sometimes wonders about the karmic implications of his actions. As well he should, after admitting to using preservatives.

Butcher Boy 
Year released: 1997
Ireland. Drunk people. Catholic priests molesting little boys. For fuck's sake Francie, no wonder you've got a feckin' pigs head on yer neck stump!

Saw
Year released: 2004
Incredibly unlikable people are smashed over the head by what looks like Cher in a pigs mask, then wake up in locked, windowless rooms with a puppet on a tricycle. Memorable as the only half decent film by James Wan, who would go on to do the wretched Insidious films.

Pork Chop 
Year released: 2010
I have no idea what this movie was about and I can't even be fucked to go look it up on IMDb or Wikipedia. I don't care. It has a guy with a pigs head in it. Done.

The Blood Lands
(aka White Settlers)
Year released: 2014
Something about a yuppie couple relocating from London to a farmhouse in Scotland and blahblahblah, Pig Mask. 

Berkshire County
Year released: 2014
Not to be confused with Madison County. What is it with Bumblefuck cowtown Counties and people in pig masks?

Madison County
Year released: 2011
I know I watched this film but I can't remember fuckall about it, except that it's an unimaginative slasher with a tepid plot and paper doll characters. There are also no bridges in it. Just a guy in a pigs head walking around with an axe, killing people for whatever reason guys with axes and pigs heads kill people. Should have starred Kane Hodder axing Clint Eastwood to death while Meryl Streep watches. 

Necromentia
Year released: 2009
Weirdo Hellraiser ripoff about weird people conjuring weird demons to kill other weird people and another guy who gets turned into a demon for reasons I can't remember right now because I saw this film eleventy thousand years ago and all I can remember is a really, morbidly obese man nicknamed - of course - Mr. Skinny, doing a weirdly seductive dance on a slightly creepier version of Peewee's Playhouse on channel 666. Oh, and he's wearing a pigs mask. With nasogastric tubing shoved into his snout holes.

The Butcher
Year released: 2007
Fucking disgusting and totally pointless Vomit-O-Rama pseudo snuff film about a bunch of creeps who earn a sordid living by kidnapping random people off the streets, strapping POV cams to their heads and then raping and torturing the shit out of them for a while before finally slaughtering them and selling the films to people like Charlie Sheen or something.

The Bunny Game
Year released: 2011
Sicko pervy scuzzface truck driver kidnaps coke-addled prostitute, drives her out into desert, chains her up, tortures her, forces her to wear a bunny mask and himself dons a black leather sado fetish zipperhead hogs mask. Because Creepy. Seriously. I talked to the guy who played the trucker in this movie. Once. ONE time. He freaked me out without the pig mask. I don't know how Roddie did it, but damn.

AM1200

Well this was a nice little find for a rainy Sunday. And thanks to my crazy, motorcycle metal moshin' kangaroo man Craig for making me aware of this film, which I had never heard of before today, which is weird because it's Lovecraft inspired and how the hell does someone make a Lovecraft film without my knowing about it? This came out, like, three years ago and I'm just now hearing about it. I have fallen out of the loop, big time. 

However, in my defense, I have seen all of the other films on this list, the link to which Craig posted earlier today. Well, all but one, the one called Nobody. Never heard of that one either.

Anyway...

Potato-faced, balding businessman Sam Larson has just embezzled the shit out of some Silicon Valley bigwigs or something and bugs the fuck out of Dodge after his partner in crime sticks a gun under his chin and repaints the ceiling tiles. Sam is guilt ridden, but not so very badly that he considers turning around Marion Crane style and turning himself in. Shit, who'd miss him anyway? He has all the sex appeal of an orphan sock, his solid whitebread body about as memorable as a Pink Pearl rectangular eraser, the kind of guy who habitually wears khakis on his day off and has no clue how weird his butt looks.

After driving into the foothills of Northern California, Sleepy Sam nearly blows a guardrail due to the lack of Braille Bumps on the old dusty highway. Striking out on foot after stalling his car, he comes upon this radio station:

Now, Sam has just heard a distress call being transmitted from this very radio station not five minutes earlier, begging anyone within earshot to respond to an immediate medical emergency. Sam couldn't possibly care less about anyone's well being and has no plans to respond to anyone, emergency or no. However, the radio station has a phone, and Sam needs a tow truck STAT. Sam, who apparently knows nothing about ancient oceanic deities or anagrams,  heads on up the hill instead of staying inside of his locked car and waiting for daybreak.

For those playing along at home, Mount Zephon is mentioned in the Bible and was/is the home of a storm god. Also KBAL = cabal, and the use of "our" should immediately alert the astute that this ain't no fucking Happy Sunbeam Bible camp shit going on around here.

Moving on.

Sam gets to the radio station and finds this:

A seemingly dead DJ handcuffed to a chain link fence. Except he's not dead. Unfortunately, he's also not Rush Limbaugh. But he comes to and starts blathering incoherent, psychotic drivel... which means he may actually be Rush Limbaugh after all. He's insistent that none of this was his idea, or his fault. He didn't want to do "this." The transmission has summoned something. Power surges and psychic shockwaves rumble through the building. Undead DJ Dude becomes a possible threat. Sam is on the defense. And the Something that's been summoned is getting very hungry...and tired of waiting. 

I need a better term for the type of intestinal distress this movie, and other well made films, inflict upon my bowels. I call it "diarrhea panic" because that's exactly what it does. It builds and builds, and the unease creeps in through your navel and lodges in your colon and squeezes it, and you sit there thinking:"Am I going to make it through the movie, or will I be forced to pause it for a bathroom break?" It's a feeling that precedes many a slasher movie jumpscare, but the major difference here is that the jumpscare never comes. This film is only 40 minutes long, and it doesn't have time to waste on cheapshit sucker punches. It's a Lovecraft film, and as such, it rightly prefers to slowly, inexorably build and never once releases. It's an exercise in Dread. And I don't mean it as an insult when I say that it's plain, simple and straightforward. It has a story to tell and does so efficiently. 

I haven't been this creeped out by a radio station since Pontypool. 

Remember kids: AM Radio is evil. 

The Neon Demon

"Fuck smiley glad-hands
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses."

Tool - Ænema

Wow. Apparently, nobody wants anybody to like this movie.

In his review for The Neon Demon, Rex Reed called it "pretentious" and "dumbfoundingly awful." Strong words coming from a walking Danish pastry who wears too much Maybelline and still thinks fat jokes directed at women are not only hilarious, but still socially acceptable. To be honest, I find Rex Reed himself to be pretentious and dumbfoundingly awful as well, so I guess we're even.

I had ample warning beforehand that this was the sickest, most misogynistic, sexist piece of crap ever to glorify the sickest, most misogynistic, sexist industry in the world: high fashion modeling. Runway heroin storks trotted out in two dimensions, displaying their numb pussies and Xeroxed facial expressions, furiously masturbating itself in its attempt to be as nauseatingly shocking as fucking possible without actually handing out barf bags beforehand.

Am I the only person here who saw Black Swan?

No, you weren't.

So, Darren Aronofsky can make a movie about a bisexual virgin driven to insanity by her overbearing mother, abusive male teacher and slutty stand-in, who nevertheless manages to attain perfection right before she fucking dies, and everyone - critics and fans alike - cum all over it, calling it gorgeous and sublime and yadda yadda blahblahblah. But Nicholas Winding Refn makes a film about supermodels literally devouring each other, and it's formulaic, plotless trash? Granted, Rex Reed hated Black Swan too, but Black Swan passed relatively unscathed through the festival circuit. God knows why. Black Swan was every bit as superficial and shallow and contrived as everyone is saying The Neon Demon is.

Look, you want pretentious? I'll give you fucking pretentious.
I'm going to give you the most pretentious and convoluted review of what I felt The Neon Demon was trying to say. I hope Refn reads my review and wonders what the hell film I'm even talking about, because he sure as shit never made such a stupid, symbolism-laden film in his life, ever.

The film opens with a shot of our star, Elle Fanning, as Jessie, a sixteen year old girl from Georgia who may or may not have run away from home, and whose parents may or may not be dead. Nobody knows anything about her past, she just shows up in Los Angeles and immediately gets a boyfriend named Dean, who snaps the above morbid glamour shot of her whilst creepily eyeing her with what may be lust but looks more like anger. With this shot, Refn is showing us exactly how the film will end, right down to Jessie's eye makeup.

Dean is aware of the fact that Jessie is sixteen, but pursues her anyway. He is sexual predator #1.

Everyone who sees Jessie falls instantly, besottedly and desperately in love with her. Everyone. Makeup artist Ruby is Predator #2. Painting models by day and corpses by night, Ruby describes Jessie as having "that thing, you know?" Fill in the blanks. Jessie is pure, a virgin, whiter than milk, fresh and clean as a Daisy douche. Whatever her "thing" is, it strikes everyone in the industry immediately and powerfully.

Predators #3 and #4 are Gigi and Sarah, two ghostly blondes whose legs go all the way up to their perfectly plucked eyebrows. Gigi is a Plasticene Queen, suctioned and sculpted into pseudo-perfection. Sarah is the Salieri to Jessie's Mozart. She would have been Top Hot in L.A. if Jessie hadn't come along and spoiled everything.

Predator #5 is Keanu Reeves, who is never better than when he plays a sociopathic creep. His personality is perfect for the role: void. Unmoved. Even when he encounters a mountain lion in Jessie's shabby hotel room (which he runs like a dirtier, more aggressive Norman Bates), his response is vague amusement and mild annoyance.

The mountain lion (or cougar, if you prefer) has somehow slipped into Jessie's room while she was out. The cornered cat is a metaphor: it's Jessie herself. The seedy confines of a garish city cannot cage a wild animal forever. Jessie herself admits that she has no talents or skills, just beauty. She's going to eat as long as she can hunt, and struggle to survive in a concrete jungle with her only weapon - that "thing" - and she will probably end up as a "cougar" long before her twenties are over and done with. After all, as stated late in the film, this is an industry where one is washed up at age 21. No one wants spoiled milk when they can have fresh meat, as Sarah remarks at one point.

Soon, Jessie is scoring closed photo shoots with the best photographers, winning the coveted show closer position at runway events and generally pissing Sarah and Gigi off. In dreams and hallucinations, Jessie sees a monolithic being haunting her, seducing and reflecting her. This abstract shape is the Neon Demon of the title, glowing a haunting blue as it sucks Jessie in, then turning bright reddish pink when it finally ensnares her. Made up of three inverted triangles, two at the top and one at the bottom, it's symbolism seems glaringly apparent to me: the upside triangle represents the female. Three of them represent the Trinity, and enclose within them the upright triangle, trapping the "male" within. None of the male characters in the film have more than one dimension: they are driven by their urges and egos. They are not important to the story. They do not have "the thing" that is encapsulated by Jessie, but they are drawn to it, worship it, romance it, dress it up, preserve it, and fuck it. They all want Jessie: to pose, to submit, to lie still and swallow what they give her. In a story about vacuousness and superficiality, the male characters prove themselves to be even worse than the women: they define what beauty is, and create the standard to which all women must adhere. It's vagina envy.

Trading her innocence and wholesomeness for the reflection within the neon demon's mirrored walls, Jessie emerges from her cocoon as Butterfly Bitch Queen, embracing her narcissism and flinging her scorn in the faces of those who worship and envy her. She has become the Holy Grail, and she knows it. She dumps Dean, who proves to be a hypocrite. She manages to avoid being raped by Keanu Reeves, only to be almost raped by Ruby. Rebuffed, Ruby turns to her nighttime occupation for comfort, fucking a Jessie-like corpse whose make-up she has also just done. It's not a joyous fuck by any means: it's hollow and sad and frankly as cold and stiff as fucking a supermodel probably would be.

Now completely possessed by her own vanity, Jessie is set upon by the Trinity: Ruby, Gigi and Sarah, who tear her literally to pieces. Ruby bathes in her blood Bathory style, and later expels the old, unwanted blood within her in a ritualistic full moon ceremony, smilingly satisfied as she does so, as if cleaning out the rejection and the hurt that Jessie had inflicted upon her. She is born again, taking Jessie's innocence and hopefulness. Later, she happily lounges atop Jessie's grave, much as she had sorrowfully rested atop the cold corpse in the morgue earlier. She finally has a Jessie that cannot reject her, and who lies still and cooperative beneath her.

Gigi and Sarah cannibalize Jessie's perfect flesh. But Gigi's fake body rejects the actual meat. Her plastic palace will not accept actual young, untouched, virgin flesh. She vomits up an eyeball and kills herself, in full ritual seppuku style, with a pair of scissors. Sarah, having successfully digested Jessie's beauty, now has "the thing." She has absorbed it. She has taken Jessie's place and no one cares. Jessie came from nowhere and will not be missed, especially not in this industry. Sarah is now poised to take what she believes is her rightful place at the top. She has eaten the competition. She's the Queen Cougar now, head of the Pride.

How's that for pretentious, mutherfuckers?

I liked this movie. Actually, I liked it more than Black Swan. I liked Jessie's transformation better than Natalie Portman's puppet-jerking surrender. I liked it more than Starry Eyes, which also features a girl named Sarah killing her competition in an ugly struggle to make it in L.A. I've seen trashier and gorier and more sexist, I've seen shallower and flimsier. I really don't understand why everyone wants to hate this movie and punish it for the truth it tells, resenting it for the pretty way that its ugliness is represented. Everyone is condemning it for being thin, vacuous and hateful in its depiction of women. But isn't that the definition of the modeling industry?