Mace + Fanboys = Sanity

Do you know what happens to movie franchises when fanboys get ahold of them?

They mutate.

 Not like this.  That would be awesome, though.

They change into forms almost unrecognizable.  They try and take on ALL of the attributes that we love and turn into a steaming pile of suck.

Yes, kids.  Today, we discuss the hilarious awfulness that is Freddy vs. Jason.

Let me first say that y'all bitches know me and you know that I'm going to rip this apart because I actually enjoyed it but I did NOT enjoy it because it was stellar film making.  I enjoyed it because of the black hole of stupid that was this movie.

Hollywood?  Whenever someone comes to you with a script that requires that two franchises merge and you're going to have to spend a LOT of money getting the rights to at least one of the characters in question, RUN!  Yes, we know that people wanted this in 1987 but, frankly, if it had been done THEN the movie would probably be better instead of this whole MTV Quick Cut editing that we're forced to endure these days.  16 years, $6 million dollars worth of rejected scripts and the squicky idea of Freddy having molested Jason as a child (because potato head children need love, too, I guess) tossed out the window later, we're stuck with this crap.

See?  Even Kelly Rowland hates it and she had to suffer Beyoncé's diva moments.

When I first heard about this, I was all kinds of excited because who didn't want to see Freddy and Jason duking it out?  Mano a mano.  Glove vs. Machete.  Brain vs. Braun.  And then I got to the theater.

I remember that there were some good kills and I remember that they had to get this miracle wonder drug that kept them from dreaming and I remember that the parents had to force an entire town to NOT remember He Who Shall Not Be Named (no, not Voldemort... wrong franchise) and if it took locking your kids in an asylum to do it, well, then, so be it.  And I remember Skut Farkus in a bathtub.  What I do not remember is pretty much anything else.  

I watch it from time to time because it makes me laugh while I watch it but then I forget where I am and wonder why I'm lying in a kiddie pool full of Greek yogurt and ferrets when it's over.

This is what happens when fan fiction meets the silver screen, kids.  It hurts us and causes holes in our memory.  It's a weaponized form of Alzheimer's.  STAY AWAY.

Oh, and what the hell is it with raves in fucking cornfields, anyway?  Are they held as an annual sacrifice to He Who Walks Between The Rows?  Are they meant to flush out unwanted children?  The world may never know.  

Everybody knows that the best raves are held in abandoned warehouses or properties known to be haunted and full of rats.

Please Share What You're Smoking.

When I was 10 or so, the local Creature Feature ran a little known TV movie called Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (also known as Nightmare) and it creeped my shit out.

My siblings and I decided to call the little goblin things "Strawberry Shortcake and friends" in order to mitigate the creeps because, really, it's a made-for-TV movie that had no right being as scary as it was.  No TV movie prior to 1986 or so should be allowed to be anything but laughable.  But, noooooooo.  Spooky, spooky shit.  At least to a ten-year-old.

These guys.  These guys right here.  Nightmare fuel.

Apparently, this film has reached cult status and for good reason.  It's well done and it's rightfully scary and who doesn't love a potato-head monster?

Mmmmm.... potatoes.

This brings us to 2011, in which one of the most brilliant directors currently working updates the cult classic with his own twisted vision.

There's a problem, here.

He turned it into a dark fairy tale.  I LOVE fairy tales, dark or otherwise, but he took a truly horrifying movie and tamed it.  The man who gave us Pan's Labyrinth made a kid's movie.

Don't get me wrong.  On its own, it's quite enjoyable but I'm one of those nerds that finds it hard to divorce the source material from the movie and while I always enjoy watching a child get needlessly tortured, the only thing saving this movie is the special effects and the art direction.  They're WONDROUS.

Also?  Nightmare fuel.  Kinda.

The rest of the movie is just... blah.  I mean, yeah, it's great that Katie Holmes escaped from her basement to make the movie and she was good but she didn't have a lot to work with.  "Ooh, I'm the only good stepmother in cinema and/or fairy tale history and I have to save the little girl from creepy things because I'm the only person that believes her.  Remind me to fire my agent and stomp on Tom Cruise's balls for a while."

Seriously, I really don't have a lot to say about this one.  The original is better, but this is OK.  Your mileage may vary.

Keep It In Your Pants!

Today's study is an oldie but a goodie and I like to call it "Super Sexy Dead Time".

Everybody knows that the minute you have sex in a horror movie, you open yourself to stabby badness.  Seth Grahame-Smith, in his book "How to Survive a Horror Movie", blames this squarely on boobs (and the sounds they emit when not safely ensconced in a thick sweater and a couple of parkas that only murderous psychopaths can hear... you really should read the book, it's hilarious) but as we've seen an increase (by precisely one) of gay-themed slasher movies (Hellbent... ugh) boobs are not the root cause, here.

Let's look at this historically.  Really, this trope didn't appear on any kind of a regular basis in movies until Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, although it had been appearing in mythology for ages and literature for a short while.  For example, Matt Hooper died in the novel JAWS after having an affair with Brody's wife.  And the affair part is kind of key, here.

See that face?  Tasty, tasty shark bait in the book.

See, this trope is used primarily as an admonition against sex (BOOOOO).  In mythology, the "wrong kind of sex" often had serious consequences.  Turned into a tree... infertility... tearing out your own eyes... suicide...  And even the Bible listed death (usually by way of a whole lot of rocks) as a consequence for sex that was not procreative in nature.  Most scholars these days, Biblical or otherwise, believe this to be because of that whole "nomadic desert tribe trying to increase its population" deal because other civilizations in the area at the time really didn't give a crap about sex and were having it all over the place (which led to sticky floors and self-righteous Abrahamic religions).  That and a belief in precreationism (the idea that the male "seed" actually contained a tiny human being, that it was a finite resource and that the womb was only for incubation purposes) told the Jews, "MALACHAI!  YOU GET YOUR HAND OUT FROM UNDER YOUR ROBE RIGHT NOW AND LEAVE SHEB ALONE, HIS BUTT STILL HURTS FROM LAST TIME!!"  

Now in jumping to the modern horror film, there are a lot of folks who believe that the link between premarital sex and junk-related machete incidents is actually a veiled attempt by the religious right to push an "abstinence-only" agenda on America's teenagers.  Thus far it hasn't worked.  In any case, some of the best deaths come out of this trope.  Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th, anyone?  The acid moonshine in 2001 Maniacs.  The bathtub castration in I Spit on Your Grave.  Shannon Elizabeth being raped to death by a snowman in Jack Frost.  And just to prove that you don't actually have to SEE the death to know it's awful, the "Lust" killing in Se7en.

And you want that to go... where?

Another theory behind the trope, since it showed up in spades in the early 80s, was that it was an allusion to the (then very new and frightening) AIDS epidemic.  The unfortunate link between HIV and sex as an immoral act were further solidified, whether intentionally or not, by the fact that people were now connecting sex and death in real life.  This connotation continues today.  In Cabin Fever, we get the couple who WILLINGLY have unprotected sex in the middle of an outbreak of a fast-acting flesh-eating virus, the symptoms of which appear during the scene itself.  Eew.  Just FYI?  Cabin Fever?  REALLY, REALLY BAD.  Screw you, Eli Roth.

Mostly, though, and my personal opinion on the matter, is that sex in horror cinema, specifically marketed at teens, symbolizes the death of innocence.  The transition from the carefree days of youth to the drudgery of adulthood.  This is probably best shown in Hostel where one of the kids disappears after going off to have sex.  They never see him again.  This is representative of the childhood friends you leave behind as you build your own adult life.

This trope, much like many others, is so pervasive that it's become a joke.  Hell, in Jason X (IN SPAAAAACE) they lure Jason into a trap with a computer simulation of a couple of teen lesbians saying loudly "I LOVE premarital sex" after which, Jason starts killing them WITH EACH OTHER.  The self-referential Scream pointed it out quite clearly as one of the things that will kill you in a horror movie (and then promptly ignored it when Sydney not only has sex, but has sex WITH ONE OF THE KILLERS... oh, hey... spoiler).  Sex in horror movies is one of the reasons that B-horror and cult films get to be popular.  Because teenage boys, horror's main audience, like boobs.

Suffice it to say that we know that sex won't really cause someone to visit a short, sharp demise on us in real life (unless you happen to be boinking a serial killer, in which case, you're on your own) but it does play pretty well in a scary situation.  In fact, I'm fairly certain that sex is just fun.  

GO, TEAM SEX!  (stab, blurble, gasp, choke)

Kristin Stewart Can Die In A Fire

Today, you get TWO, TWO, TWO posts... dammit I was gonna say TWO POSTS IN ONE but that really doesn't work.

You DO get two posts out of me, though because I'm pissed.

Pissed that American literacy standards have decreased to the point that Twilight is a best-selling series.

Yes, I've been pissed about this for a long time.  Sue me.

THIS, people, is just fucking wrong and I hope to hell it's photoshopped but for some reason, I doubt it.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?!?!

OK, bitches.  Seriously, you have no fucking clue what you're doing.  You've either decided that your child is a My Little Fucking Pony or you have placed entirely too much stock in Stephenie Meyer's teenage slave porn and in the process you are now guilty of child abuse by proxy because you KNOW this kid is gonna get beat up so hard at recess.

Repeat after me, kids.  Twilight is nothing more than a Mormon dating primer set in a world where vampires sparkle and fully grown whatevers romantically imprint on unborn fetuses.  Where the main fucking character is never fully described and has no flaws except that she's "clumsy" until she gets married and turned into a vampire where she's finally described as "hot and no longer clumsy".  Keep in mind that she was turned into a vampire to SURVIVE THE ABUSE OF CARRYING A VAMPIRE PREGNANCY.

Think about that.  They KILLED her (and forced her to a damned unlife drinking the lifeblood of others) so that the BABY would live.  TELL ME that's not some kind of sick Mormon anti-abortion message.

Just so you all know?  It is my life's mission to get my hands on time travel technology so I can make sure that Stephenie Meyer's mother gets a complete hysterectomy at age 9.  Barring that, Stephanie Meyer is SO gonna get stranger-punched if I ever see her in the street.

Stranger-punched right in the pussy.

On Widowers and Poor Dating Habits

Today, we step overseas for a trip into J-Horror-Land.

Japanese horror has a certain richness to it that American horror does not because we Americans are not a subtle people.  I don't have a problem with that, per se, but sometimes I like to watch something that makes me think.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not one of the great philosophical works of our time.

When we think of J-Horror, we often think of the American remake.  The Ring.  The Grudge.  That's all well and good and these two are probably the best of the American remakes, but what about the movies that don't get to be remade?  We're missing out on a whole lot of great cinema, here.

This brings me to today's review:  Audition.  Or, in Japanese, Ôdishon.

Holy shit.  Audition. 

Takashe Miike is a sick motherfucker.  If you watched the Masters of Horror episode "Imprint", you know this.  This was the one episode of that series that did not actually get aired on Showtime because it was TOO dark.  In Audition, he gives us an extreme look at what is known in Anime circles as "yandere" (pronounced Yan-dé-ré), a word best used to describe Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction.  (Yandere is a pormanteau of the Japanese words "yanderu", meaning mental or emotional illness and "deredere" meaning to show affection. )  Yandere characters are, often times, INTENSELY deranged and use extreme violence and brutality to express their emotions.  And in Audition, you get to watch it coming.

I'm going to warn you, now.  Audition is not only a slow burn but one that you really have to pay attention to.  NOT a movie for the ADHD crowd unless they're up to date on their Ritalin.

Audition starts with a lonely widower, Shigeharu Aoyama.  His son and friends want to see him happy again and in Japanese culture, this requires a woman and not, oh, I don't know, therapy.  Because Japanese men are sexist bastards and it's no wonder they have negative population growth.  His buddy, seeing an opportunity for misled poon, says "Oh, hey, we can hold a fake audition to see if you want to date a young, vulnerable wannabe actress because they're TOTALLY sane and not prone to violence in the least."  Because Japanese men are stupid and it's no wonder they have negative population growth.

Enter Asami Yamazaki, a former ballerina and source of enchanting emotional depth to Shigeharu who starts a whole bunch of weirdness when her resumé turns out to be at least partially faked but that's OK because he doesn't need to actually hire her.  He just wants her to take his dead wife's place.

Shigeharu, you idiot. 

So, anyway, we get additional glimpses into Asami's life.  Or what might loosely be called a life by anyone who was even remotely sane.  Woman lives with a telephone and a sack.  She has little other furnishings and she spends 4 days literally sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring.  When it does, the sack gets spooked.

Wait, what?

Yes, that's right kids, the sack does not contain furniture, it contains her pet.

So, yeah.  They get together at a motel and do the horizontal nasty even though she's all "I was abused as a kid" and Shigeharu goes all "I love you, you pretty, damaged flower, I will fix you because I am a Japanese man and you are a woman who cannot fend for herself."

Do you get where this is going, yet?

So, yeah.  Back to that resumé thing.  He finally gets a couple of hits.  The first being a ballet instructor with two prosthetic legs who shares the name of Asami's abuser and the second being a bar where she worked that was closed down after the dismemberment of the owner, the crime scene of which they found 3 extra fingers, an extra ear and an extra tongue.  GAH!

And here's where Asami starts getting REALLY weird.  Bitch breaks into Shigeharu's house and finds the picture of his dead wife so she poisons his liquor decanter and hides.  Then, in a flashback, we find out that her pet is a person (that wasn't news, really, was it?) that is missing an ear, his tongue, both feet, and three of his fingers.  When he begs for food, Asami vomits into a bowl for him and he dives in with no qualms whatsoever.

And this is where, yet again, I wonder who the hell is supplying the psychopaths with injectables because SOMEHOW Asami got her hands on a paralytic that keeps the nerves alert.

I will not go into detail but Asami is just not a nice person and Shigeharu learns his lesson about lying to get a date.  And, you almost feel bad for Shigeharu but then you realize that, instead of actually going out and being sociable, he treated dating like a business deal and that was his downfall.

One of the things that I liked about this movie is that even though we were privy to the actual torture, we were more focused on Asami's enjoyment of it.  People call this one of the most disturbing movies of all time and, frankly, they're right.  This movie puts bunny boiling to shame and gives us the hobbling that Misery should have. 

I love this movie.  I hope it never gets remade because it is a neo-classic and it shouldn't be touched.  It should probably be kept in a locked cabinet out of reach of children, pets and the elderly, but it should never be remade.

Plus, it reminds me why I don't date women.  A dude'll punch you but a lady will cut off your junk and serve it to you in the form of an elaborately arranged plate of thinly sliced sushi with a delicate white wine on the side.  And you'll LIKE IT.

Betamax Shoulda Won

Kids and their damn "found footage" movies.  I tell you what, after Cloverfield, I was done with them.  Mostly, this was because Cloverfield is the best found footage movie ever and no one will ever be able to top it.  Some may disagree, but this isn't their blog, now, is it?

This brings us to today's video tidbit, V/H/S.

Do moviegoers even remember V/H/S tapes anymore?  Do kids these days know the joy of putting tape over that silly tab to record over stuff ?  Be kind, rewind, anyone?

DAMN KIDS!  GET OFFA MY LAWN!

Ahem... sorry. 

ANYWAY!   As much as I'm so completely over found footage movies, this one intrigued me.  It seems very much like guerrilla film-making at it's finest but there's a polish to it that makes me kind of love it.

Unlike other found footage flicks like The Blair Witch Project or The Poughkeepsie Tapes, this is an anthology and that probably helped it along.  You didn't have an hour and a half of a single story to pick apart.  You had 5 stories that gave you enough action and decent acting to ignore the flaws.  Yes, some of the segments went on a little too long but who hasn't watched a home movie that meandered a bit?  I can forgive that, here.

The first segment BY FAR is the best.  If you ever get to a bar and the person you're hitting on just keeps staring at you with Bratz doll eyes and saying "I like you" over and over again, it's probably best that you don't take them to a motel with you and your friends for a drug-fueled orgy.   It will only end in tears.

There are all sorts of nifty twists and turns in here that make it fun to watch and a lot of them turn genres on their heads.  We have demons, slashers, haunters, paranoia, what look like aliens... there's something for everybody!  FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!  Only... you know... not.

The wraparound story is what bugged me the most about it.  I mean, people break into a house because they were paid to find a specific tape and you're never quite sure if this is the tape they're looking for because they just keep pulling tapes and watching them.  How the owner of these tapes got them is beyond us.

I say give this one a watch.  You may not love it but it'll definitely creep you out.

Weekend Update: Mr. Whiskers

Normally, I wouldn't post on a weekend but I had to share.  Trust me, it's relevant.

The hubby and I went to see Frankenweenie with some friends last night.  Scott was a little hesitant but he knew I'd been waiting for it.

Anyway, GO SEE IT!

It's the tale of a boy and his dog.  And the desecration of corpses.  And perversions of science.  And weird girls who dig in the kitty litter.  And an entire school full of goth kids.  And blackmail.  And the Dutch.

Sorry.  Tangents.  Can't avoid them sometimes.

Anybody who digs Tim Burton knows that this is the concept that got him fired from Disney.  It was too dark.  Now, Disney has embraced the spooky, I guess, because this movie is kinda awesome.  It gives us a glimpse of the director as a young boy (because we know that at least part of the story is autobiographical) and lovingly teases the classics like Godzilla, Frankenstein (obviously), The Mummy (poor Colossus), that weird ubiquitous hunchback... and I would seriously be having Children's Services look into his parents because no modern child gets a hunchback like that without at least a trip to the doctor and a plastic brace that inevitably gets magnets stuck to it during lunch.  Stupid scoliosis.  And gives us mutated sea monkeys.  Because monkeys are awesome.

Plus?  It freaks out my friend.  Weird Girl (she has no other name) should justifiably haunt the dreams of everyone who glimpses her and her spooky-ass clairvoyant cat.  And bitch better wash her hands first.  I don't want no poop-stains on my subconscious.

DO NOT, by the way, take the little ones.  Older kids are fine but even though the movie stays on the cutesy side of things, the end gets pretty intense and if you're going to take ANY kid with whom you haven't had the "Death Talk" with, yet, be prepared to do so either before or after the movie.  This generation hasn't had it's Mr. Hooper, yet.  Oh, hell, who am I kidding?  Anybody under the age of 30 hasn't had their Mr. Hooper, yet.  Thanks, PBS.  You traumatized a generation.

4.5 stars!  Wait... am I doing that, now?  Oh, HELL naw.  Go watch the movie.