Who Is John and Why Do We Care?

So, last year I read this AMAZINGLY absurd book that involved extra-dimensional hallucinogens, demons, a couple of deadpan snarkers and a whole lot of naked people.

It is called John Dies at the End.

It has been made into a movie.

And it is absurd and involves extra-dimensional hallucinogens, demons, a couple of deadpan snarkers and a whole lot of naked people.

And it is meh.

This is one of those fanboy things where the book is INFINITELY better than the movie.  This is not to say that the movie is bad, but this is not a movie for everyone.

Now, basically the whole thing is set up as an interview.  Our protagonist, David Wong (which is also the name of the author of the book and considering both of them are really non-Asian, this causes some confusion), is telling the story of the soy sauce (the aforementioned extra-dimensional hallucinogen) to a reporter (played by Paul Giamatti who is awesome as always).  The problem is the movie is so convoluted and hyper-active and super-ball-like that I'm not sure I can tell you anything else about it.

 

That face?  Mine through at LEAST half of the movie.

No, seriously.  One of the core tenets of this movie is that time is an illusion and this soy sauce stuff, which is yet another instance of ferrofluid-like special effects, is the key.  It makes for a twisty ride.  One that involves the ability to use a bratwurst as a cell phone to the dead and finds a use for phantom limb syndrome.

 

Don't get me wrong.  It's fun.  It really is.  It's like Big Trouble in Little China had a baby and considering that it's directed by Don Coscarelli, the man knows his twisty and fun.

 

Yeah, I don't quite get it, either.

The problem is that while the pieces and parts taken separately are amazing (much like Rubber), the pieces-parts put together on film do not make for a cohesive whole.  It's disjointed and awkward and missing something that the book had which is not quite nameable.  A... spirit... of sorts.

This is one of those that I'm gonna say that I kind of liked it but I suggest watching it yourself to make up your own mind.  Definitely a Your Mileage May Vary movie.  I may give it another shot myself to make sure.

No Reason

So, my husband, who hates horror movies, tells me that I need to watch Rubber. 

I think my husband is gonna get a smack in the dick.

Don't get me wrong, there are parts of this movie that are enjoyable and the premise is kind of hilarious.  The fact that it shows us more of the talents of Jack Plotnick (Evie in Girls Will Be Girls) is kind of awesome, too.  But, well, it's hard to explain why I kind of hate this movie.

Let's take a look at the plot, first.

 

I'm lookin'... I'm lookin'...

So, first we get this sheriff guy coming out of the trunk of his squad car to explain to us for ten minutes that some things happen in movies for no reason and then a bunch of people are given binoculars to watch "the movie".  The movie is, apparently, watching a tire (named Robert in the credits) inexplicably come to life and destroy things with its psychokinetic powers.  Trust me when I say this movie is kinda gory. 

So... in addition to this and the sheriff being both inside and outside of the action of the film, there's the accountant (Plotnick) who's trying to end the movie early by poisoning the audience and a wily man in a wheelchair keeps avoiding it somehow.  Ultimately, Robert is killed and reincarnated as a tricycle who then raises an army of tires to descend on Hollywood.

 

Weirdest.  Mexican Standoff.  EVER!

No, I don't care that I just gave away the ending of this movie.

Now, as you know, I'm perfectly OK with foreign films and I will actually use that fact to defend Alien: Resurrection (much to everyone's chagrin) but this is just some strange-ass existential shit right here. 

I get what Quentin Dupieux was trying to do and, frankly, his ability to get a tire to, for lack of a better word, emote, was genius but the whole thing just seemed like an hour and a half of cinematic masturbation.  YES, I understand that the entire movie exists for "no reason" but you still have to give the audience a reason to maintain interest.

 

And this guy is not that reason.

Now.  That said.  I don't think it's a bad movie.  I just think it's a movie that lies to us.  It TELLS us that it happens for no reason and gives us a vapid, B-movie plot but then delivers itself in a manner that takes itself entirely too seriously which just ends up being confusing and off-putting.  This is kind of the antithesis of Hobo With a Shotgun which really didn't take itself seriously at all.

I think I need to go watch a real horror movie, now.

What The Fuck Is a "Triffid"?

Today on "Trope Theater", we explore a vastly underrated and underused monster phenotype known as Vegetibilis Man-Eaterus or the Man-Eating Plant.

Horror's fascination with the MEP began with the South Australian Register in 1881.  They printed an account from 1878 by a certain Dr. Carl Liche that described a man-eating tree's attack of a young woman of the Mkodos tribe in Madagascar.  Seeing as how Dr. Liche, the Mkodos tribe and the tree appear never to have existed, the story has since been assumed to be utter and complete bullshit.

Since then, however, the MEP has dominated our collective imaginations.  Most often appearing in literature, authors from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to J.R.R. Tolkein to modern scribes such as Annie Proulx have given us some truly terrifying botanical monstrosities.  Films such as Day of the Triffids, Jumanji, Dinner for Adele, The Lost World, and MY absolute favorite, Little Shop of Horrors have inspired many a child to eat their Brussels sprouts before the sprouts eat them.

Really, Phantom?  Seriously?

But why do they freak us out?

Well, the common assumption is that we don't want to get eaten.  There is that piece of our brain that still says "Things should not be chewing on my face.  It just ain't right."  There's more to it, though.

You'll notice that the newspaper account given above was printed shortly after Darwin's book Insectivorous Plants was published in 1875.  Given that, it's only logical that someone with a fairly imaginative brain would come up with a plant that would mindlessly snag humans as a tea-time finger sandwich.  (TEEHEE!  Finger.)  Given that Darwin's works at the time were being heavily debated, people were afraid that such a thing might actually exist and most people wouldn't take into account such things as "reality" and "the laws of biology and physics".  We still have people today that believe in plant-like cryptids.

You don't want to know what's on that spoon.

And it's the mindless part that gets most people, seeing as how that's the most common depiction.  The plant isn't thinking anything when it gets you.  It just gets you through a series of automatic triggers.

The other part that gives folks the wiggins?  Plants don't normally crunch you up.  The MEP is the master of the lingering death.  On the other hand, the Venus Flytrap, with its tooth-like fringe, has given a lot of folks artistic license to impart plants with the ability to chew (messily... it appears that not having hands kind of forces a lack of manners).  Of course, that same artistic license allows these plants to sing, too, so... yeah.

Don't sing with your mouth full!

In any case, Man-Eating plants, as much as they wrap their grabby tendrils around our fear centers and tug, are most often used as a sight gag or as a minor enemy that just happens to block our protagonists' path.  It's rare in film that we get an MEP big bad.  When we DO get them, though... WHOOOOO boy.

In Little Shop of Horrors, not only do we get a Man-Eating Plant, but we get a classic Faustian bargain as well.  Audrey II (or Audrey Jr. in the original Roger Corman classic) offers poor Seymour a life of fame, riches and the girl of his dreams if he just makes sure that the plant is fed regularly.  In 2008, though, we got treated to some NASTY greenery in The Ruins. The vines in this temple have caused the locals to salt the earth around it so it can't spread.  They don't just grab you.  They INFILTRATE you.  Much like certain tropical parasites, you have to cut them out.  And they whisper to you.  In that "edge of hearing" sort of way that makes you wonder if you're going mad.

I can understand why this trope doesn't get used often, though.  MEPs are hard to use in film without them looking hokey.  There's only so far foam and plastic leaves will take our minds.  CGI helps but we, as the audience, have to be completely willing to suspend disbelief.  The tiniest hint of reality will shatter this particular illusion.

But, if you'll excuse me, I have to go invest in some Round-Up.  Yes, I know it's January.  I don't care.

Welcome to Pleasant Valley

In 1964, horror gained a new sub-genre by way of Herschell Gordon-Lewis, the Sultan of Schlock.

Y'ever wonder where we got Hillbilly Horror?  2000 Maniacs!, that's where.  And the face of horror has included cannibalistic slack-jawed yokels with fewer IQ points than teeth ever since.

I'm gonna tell you right now, this movie is almost 50 years old.  The statue of limitations for spoilers is WELL past.  Bite me.

So, over the course of 15 days in 1964, the town of St. Cloud, Florida was transformed into the quaint and horrifying Pleasant Valley, Georgia, a town celebrating the centennial of the day Union troops destroyed it.  To assist in their jamboree are 6 Yankee tourists detoured into town to be the guests of honor.  It's rumored that the entire town was more than happy to help out during the filming.

He ain't smart, but he's clever.

The tourists are quaintly separated from one another in a series of banjo-accompanied diversions that ultimately prove to be fatal.  Among these diversions are an axe-dismemberment, a drawing-and-quartering, one man's turn in the barrel (a little kinkier than the version you're used to hearing about in the dirty jokes), and a boulder dropped from a dunk-tank like contraption.  

Now, this one might not go over well with the young'uns but this right here is classic splatter.  It's cheap, it's badly written, it's got absolutely NO redeeming social value and it's DELICIOUS.  Herschell Gordon-Lewis may not have been the best director in Hollywood (mostly because he was based out of Chicago) but the man knew what he was doing.  This bloody Brigadoon is hokey, nowadays, but that fantasy/ghost story element is what makes 2000 Maniacs! amazing.  

We'll have a barrel of fuuuuun...

Oddly, considering HGL's other works, the acting in this one isn't bad.  It's a little over the top but considering what he had to work with (an actor hired only for his ability at accents and a Playboy bunny), he did good.  If you want BAD acting, watch The Wizard of Gore.  Holy shitballs, that's some painful line delivery.

And, really, this film is kind of an important piece of cinematic history.  During the Civil Rights Movement, TV and film tended to aim toward the comedic interpretation of the redneck because serious depictions of race relations didn't do so well with the ratings but even though race relations are never actually discussed in the film, that vision of the "negro-hatin' Southerner" was quite clear.  With the redneck ghouls lynching the Yankee tourists, we're treated to the nation's view of the South's stubborn refusal of desegregation, perceived social primitivism, history of not-quite-so-legal violence and abject denial that they had, in fact, lost the Civil War.  That's right, South.  You lost.  You can put away the Rebel flag, now.  You're not allowed to secede. 

In any case, 2000 Maniacs! (and the remake, 2001 Maniacs!) should be a part of any good horror fan's library.  

Because those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

SPEAK UP!

Sometimes, being stuck on your couch for a weekend can be a good thing.  For instance, I got to watch a ton of movies this weekend so that they're fresh in my Jaeger-quil (the "nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy-head, fever, wake up in a loincloth and a snorkel with a new tattoo and a leather-clad biker named Jim" medicine)-addled mind.

Some of them are still undeniably forgettable, though.

The story goes a little something like this:

A guy who has just been released from prison decided he wants to run a restaurant and goes to get a loan for which he is pretty much immediately shot down.  He decides that the best way to get his down-payment is to participate in a kidnapping with his former criminal cohorts.  Because that just SCREAMS responsibility.

Does this haircut say "victim" to you?

So, he gets the kid and they all trundle off to a cabin in Maine whereupon the kid goes all Omen on them.

And there's your movie.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not a bad watch.  Even if you go into it knowing that it's a creepy kid movie, it still has some moments but ultimately, it's shallow and EMINENTLY predictable.  It's like Dionne Warwick is sitting right next to you during the whole thing being your personal Magic 8-Ball.

Creepy Kids On Ice!

The acting, though, given a completely blah, "I wanna be O. Henry" script, was good.  It wasn't award-winning but it was entertaining enough.  This should be expected since the film stars Blake Woodruff, Joel Edgerton and Sarah Wayne Callies, all from The Walking Dead.  Also, keep an eye out for Cory Monteith from Glee.

This is, yet again, another "turn your brain off" movie.  Not much in the way of gore.  Some creepiness.  A couple of characters you want to slap around for being idiots. 

Same-old, same-old.