GORE-A-THONNNNNNN!!

Remember, kids!  Tonight at Midnight, the Ultimate Gora-a-Thon begins!


9 Blogs enter!



Ummm... 9 blogs... leave... and junk...

Just be there!  It'll be awesome.

Blood Sucking Geek - http://bloodsuckinggeek.com/
MK Horror - http://www.mkhorror.com/
At the Mansion of Madness - http://atthemansionofmadness.blogspot.com/
Deep Red Rum - http://initforthekills.com/ 
Gorror - http://goreworld.wordpress.com/
Movies at Dog Farm - http://moviesatdogfarm.blogspot.com/
The info Zombie - http://www.theinfozombie.com/
Disturbing Films - http://www.disturbingfilms.com/

Deconstruction? What's That?

I have sinned against you.

I have gone for MONTHS without talking about one of the best horror-comedies ever made! 

BAD BLOGGER!  BAD!  No cookie for you.  Until you go buy them.  'Cause you're out.

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil starts with a news report that sees a reporter getting attacked by a mysterious burned figure.  Sounds all ominous and shit, right?

Then, after the credits, we're introduced to the ubiquitous gaggle of college students.  All of them young and pretty, all of them dumber'n'a box o' rocks.  Except for one girl.  But we'll get to her, later.  Their leader, Chad, has issues that become apparent later, too.  You kinda want to slap him right off the bat.

He's the one in the smug blue polo shirt.

And, finally, we're introduced to our heroes, Tucker (Alan Tudyk who seriously needs to get more high-profile work because he's fucking amazing) and Dale (Tyler Labine who is in constant danger of death by cuddling 'cause he's fluffy and adorkable).  They're really well-meaning and eminently unlucky hillbillies who are out to fix up their "vacation home" and they wind up at the same gas station/general store because they need beer and power tools.  This causes problems because Dale gets all twitterpated with Allison (Katrina Bowden) and is all "I cain't talk to no girl, she'll hate me, I ain't worthy." and Tucker is all "You just need confidence!" and sends him over to talk to her with a mouthful of pickled egg and a blank stare.

Yeah.  This doesn't bode well.

So, that night, Allison goes swimming but ends up falling in the water and hitting her head.  Dale rescues her but the kids, thanks to Chad, get the idea in their heads that Tucker and Dale are kidnapping their friend to eat her or something... because stringy starving students make for the best barbecue.

And for the next hour, we get to watch idiot teenagers toss around words like "Stockholm Syndrome" and kill themselves off in some of the most amazingly hilarious ways possible.  It doesn't make Tucker and Dale look good in the eyes of the soon-to-be-deceased law but it's awesome to watch.

Well... maybe not for these two.

Not since Scream has any film been MORE self-referential and NO film has been a better deconstruction of the killer hillbilly sub-genre.  Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil gives us a smart script and, considering it takes place in the woods which, one more time, still want to kill everyone, it's slick.  It's a thrill-ride that I will gladly take again and again.  And, to top it all off, it's all "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" when it comes to the humor of the piece.  

Humor's been a part of horror for a LONG time.  Something about black humor just puts us at ease and when it's done right, you can turn your audience's fear on and off like a lightswitch, as evidenced by An American Werewolf in London.  Eli Craig needs to give us more of this.  I don't know what he watched as a kid but I'm figuring that it contained a lot of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Abbott and Costello because this loving throwback to The Comedy of Terrors and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is spot fucking on.  

A little club soda'll get that right out.

Finally, there's real heart to this one.  You really do want to give Dale a cookie and tell him that he is kind, he is smart, he is important and send him off to play with his buddy, Tucker.  They're friends who look out for each other and Tudyk and Labine are a perfect pair.

If you haven't seen this, I'm not even sure I KNOW you, anymore.

No Nutritional Value, Whatsoever...

Ohhhh, kids.  You have no idea how long I've been waiting to write this.  I'm getting goosebumps.

Tuesday, my entire life of watching bad movies for ironic entertainment value reached its peak.

For Tuesday, I watched Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

We all know the story of Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Atherton).  The trip through the forest, the getting lost, the candy cottage, the witch, the oven, right?  Well, this movie takes it a bit further.  I'm sure you probably knew that.

ANYWAY!  So, after discovering through their FIRST encounter with a witch (that bore a VERY close relationship to the witch in Army of Darkness) that the magical powers of witches don't affect them, 'cause that's extra handy and shit, the kids spent the rest of their time rescuing children from the clutches of kindly old ladies who just want a fuckin' snack... errr... I mean kid-eating magical monstrosities. 

And apparently there's a damn infestation of these ladies.  They're all OVER the fucking place.  The towns-people in multiple municipalities are constantly losing kids.  It's a wonder there's any population growth at all!  When we get to our main point of action the Sheriff (Peter Stormare, who is ALWAYS awesome) has found a witch and is in the process of sentencing her when the Super Siblings show up and convince the townspeople that she is not, actually, a witch and inform them that they were hired to find a witch that has, thus far, captured several children.

 

Is it the porn-stache that makes him bitter?

The Sheriff is PISSED at this, by the way, because he wants to run the town but he doesn't.  The Mayor hired H&G, Inc. behind his back so he spends the rest of the movie being a complete prick and getting his face smashed in by Gretel and a few choice others.  During a meeting with the Mayor, Hansel has to take a time out and give himself an injection.  That's right, kids.  Hansel has the diabeetus.  It's a plot point thing.  YAY, the hero weakness!  Sugar is Hansel's kryptonite!  

So, what with the bickering and the squabbling and the hey-hey-hey, we, first, get to watch Muriel, the Big Bad (played by Famke Janssen who, barring that whole X3 debacle (Bryan Singer, you OWE me) is a delight to watch in just about everything) kill off all of the Sheriff's men but one whom she sends back as an exploding telegram and we meet the world's first obsessed fanboy.  He's endearing in a creepy sort of way and doesn't have a whole lot to do but he does it admirably.

You'd think she'd be thicker, what with all of the scenery-chewing.

We also discover that the girl they rescued at the beginning of the film actually IS a witch but she's a good witch so they weren't able to detect her through their normal methods.  There's also a troll who is so reminiscent of Ludo from Labyrinth that I'm surprised they didn't deliver a cease and desist letter on camera but he's kinda fun in that "lunk-head" kinda way.  And through their powers combined, they find out that the blood moon is on its way and Muriel is looking for a "special ingredient" for a potion that can only be made on that night.

You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round...

OH.  MY.  GAWD!!!

So, the story that I told above, as lacking in details as it is, is pretty much it.  This is some sub-par action movie bullshit right here but it's the WAY that Tommy Wirkola, best known for Dead Snow which is, also, COMPLETELY unintentionally hilarious, gives it to us that makes H&G:WH one of the most awesome reasons for a drinking game, EVER!!

For realsies!  Except for Gemma Atherton and Peter Stormare, EVERYBODY walks through this movie like they're high.  This is not "Sharon Stone in Catwoman" lackadaisical.  This is "Could you at LEAST have spent the money on some fucking Visine for your actors?  That "red eye" shit is distracting."  But it's not distracting in a bad way.  I just kept expecting a running tally of munchie breaks.
  

You know those diabetics.  Gotta keep up their blood sugar.

But from an artistic point of view, I really have to give Wirkola props for refusing to do a lot of this on a set and wanting to work in the European forest so that it feels authentic.  Well, as authentic as a candy fucking cottage can get.  It was obvious that he had a real vision and,  for the most part, he carried it out faithfully.  

If you're looking for depth, though?  Fuggedaboudit.  There is no depth to this movie.  None.  This is a popcorn fantasy flick that gives Hansel and Gretel automatic firearms.  You go in, you turn your brain off and you watch the pretty colors go flying across the screen.  WHEEEEEE!!!  This movie is a handful of cinematic lead paint chips.  It's SOOOOOOO bad for you but it's EXTRA fuckin' tasty.

OH!  And I've been hearing stirrings among the pagan community that there are some people that are afraid that this movie will make Wiccans look bad.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

This is not "The Burning Times".  You are not descended from 15 generations of Wiccans because Wicca has only been around for 50 years or so.  The Brothers Grimm did not write Hansel and Gretel as anti-witch propaganda.  You do not get to whine away a cultural, and VERY fictional, representation of a monster that has frightened children for CENTURIES because you think it reflects badly on you.  Unless you are in the habit of testing the tensile strength of gingerbread and candy canes and swapping infant-kebob recipes with the neighbors, you have nothing to worry about.  If you REALLY think that this movie is going to have people gathering firewood, rope and lawnchairs to watch your screaming death, you need to reevaluate some life choices.  (Although if you continue your irrational whining, I'll give you something to whine about.)

Get over yourself and just watch the fuckin' movie.  It's FUN! 

Empty calories via celluloid.  WOOHOO!!!

I'ma go get me some gingerbread and put M&Ms in my popcorn!!

NEVER ENTER THE VALLEY!

Well, here it is.  Wednesday again.

What shall we talk about today, kids?  What kind of trope-itude shall I subject your tiny, yet awesome, minds to?

Ooooooooh.  I know.

Let's take a field trip to the Uncanny Valley!

For those of you who didn't know that there was actually a NAME for this (and since you're on the internet, it shocks me that you DIDN'T), the "Uncanny Valley" is a robotics hypothesis that basically posits that a human replica that looks and acts almost, but not perfectly, like a real human being makes us want to drive away very fast, clutching at the dashboard and shrieking like a cheerleader.

The phrase itself was coined in 1970 by Masahiro Mori and is backed up, somewhat, by the work of Ernst Jentsch and Sigmund Freud.  Freud's essay was called "Das Unheimliche".  I mention it because it's funny to say.  No, seriously.  Say it in your head.  Sounds awesome, right?

ANYWAY!

So, yeah.  As an artificial being approaches human appearance, it seems to do OK until about the point when we have robots with faces that are supposed to be human.  Then our love of our potential robot overlords goes completely to shit. 

GAH!!

There are a bunch of theories that have been put forth to try and explain the phenomena.  Scientists have posited that it could be anything from "Mortality Salience" (a fear of death, mutilation, loss of bodily control, or replacement) to religious concerns to the same violation of human norms that makes us fear clowns.

Now, for all intents and purposes, this is an entirely visual (and subjective) trope.  It can be mentioned in literature or otherwise written about (for example, the Galateids in the New World Of Darkness game Prometheus: The Created are described as evoking this trope which is the primary source of the "disquiet" they exude.) but to get the full scope of this horror, you need to see it and you need something to compare it to.

There's this trend, lately, of grown women with entirely too much time on their hands and an inability to let go of a deceased child collecting what are called "Reborn" dolls.  They look like this:

KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

These lumps of cloth, plastic, paint and hair presumably let these woman cope with loss and, if it works, more power to them but DAMN they're creepy.

And this adorable real child agrees.  He gets a cookie.

On the other hand, NOW, there are women who capitalize on the creepy and make dolls like this:

AWW!!!  Look at her little baby fangs!  ADORABLE!!

See what I mean?  They've added a layer of utterly NON-human and it climbs back out of the valley.  Only, hopefully, not really because we don't need some Twilight mom going all Team Infant on it.

Fuckin' creepy-ass Twilight moms.  You know those are the same women that bitched about men being happy when the Olsen twins made it to legal age, right?  Hypocritical bitches.

But, I digress.

In film, this usually haunts animation and it can be traced back to the rotoscoping used on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  Trying to animate a real face over the real actions of a real person leads to some freaky looking movements.  Just watch Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings.  Every one of those characters was cringe-worthy, regardless of how good the movie actually was.  Nowadays, we have CGI and motion capture to contend with and it's almost always very obvious.  This trope is the reason a LOT of people hated Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, Beowulf and Polar Express.

Sorry, sweet and avuncular Tom Hanks, but no.  Just no.

In horror movies, we mostly see this in facial prosthetics (like the Wayans brothers' makeup in White Chicks) or in anything constructed to look human (which is usually stabbed or blown up half a second later).  Chuckie in the original Child's Play evoked it because he was literally a doll.  It wasn't until the later films, when he started to develop more human features like a receding hairline, that we weren't as squicked out by looking at him.  In Evil Dead 2, we have Henrietta and the dancing skeleton of Ash's dead girlfriend.  The nurses in Silent Hill were made to deliberately invoke the Uncanny Valley with their movements and human beings shot in stop-motion, such as in the remake of House on Haunted Hill, with their twitchiness were, again, deliberately shot that way to make people shit themselves.

But, there's a lot you can do to a normal human being to land them in the Valley, too.  

Number one way to do it?  Shave your eyebrows.

Eyebrows help us read facial language and when you remove them, we lose a good portion of our emotional connection with a person.  Grima Wormtongue gave a whole lot of folks the wiggins in Jackson's Lord of the Rings. 

Or you could just be a fantastic actor.  Elsa Lanchester's utterly blank face, unblinking anime eyes and birdlike reactions make her DELIGHTFULLY creepy as the Bride of Frankenstein.

All of this being said, the Uncanny Valley is not a place I like to visit.  Not one bit.  I'd rather deal with unsettling towns with ancient, tentacle-filled secrets than try and interact normally with things I know aren't normal.

Not that I'm "normal" but you know what I mean.

So, THIS Is What Shame Feels Like...

I've been around a few months, I know, and some of you have gotten to know me through other venues but for the new folks, I have a confession to make.

As much as I rail on about PG-13 horror...

I really liked Dead Silence.

I can hear you all now.  "*AUDIBLE GASP*  NO, BOB!  Say it isn't so.  Don't do it.  You have so much to live for."

And TRUST ME when I say I wish it wasn't the case.  Cause this was NOT a good movie by a long shot.

It is my secret shame.  Well, that and an inordinate fondness for the smell of gasoline.  And the Spice Girls.  And America's Next Top Model.  And SHUTUPYOU'RENOTTHEBOSSOFME!!

 

Have some gummy bears and hush your hate hole.

You know the drill.  We have to talk about the story first.  No dessert until you've eaten your dinner.

Jamie and Lisa, a young couple living in the city (Ryan Kwanten pre-True Blood and Laura Regan who has her own nerd-cred) get a package in the mail.  Some sick fuck sent them a creepy ventriloquist dummy.  Because no person in their right mind would present another person with a ventriloquist dummy unless that person specifically requested a ventriloquist dummy.

Totally funny thing?  When I was a kid, I ASKED for a ventriloquist dummy and nobody gave me one.  I'm assuming my father, who used to run around with a werewolf mask frightening his children for no goddamned reason, refused to have one in the house.  I KNOW they wigged my mom out because she'd seen Magic but I like to pretend that my dad was afraid of SOMETHING.  LET ME HAVE THIS!!

*Ahem*

ANYWAY, so wifey-poo reminisces about her town's urban legend and then Jamie goes to get dinner.  When he comes back, Lisa has had her tongue removed because even though she can remember the rules that come in a cute, little, ominous childhood poem, she can't fucking obey them.

 

See what you get?  On the upside, she MIGHT have a career in barnyard porn.

The police (as represented by former teen pop star Donnie Wahlberg who can't stand that his little brother has a better career than his), of course, suspect Jamie, because a normal person would totally do this, and start stalking him, and in the process Jamie discovers that the dummy belonged to the old homestead's resident harpy and serial kid killer, Mary Shaw, who REALLY liked her puppets.  (This is PG-13.  Let your mind roam where it may.)  So he goes back to the small town from which he came to get away from it all.

So, minor things happen, he ends up talking to the crazy mortician's wife who convinces him to bury the puppet in Mary's puppet graveyard.  Yes, there is a puppet graveyard.  Why?  Did you even read the previous paragraph?  When you're inordinately fond of wood and felt, anything's possible.

Then there's this flashback to the mortician as a kid attending one of her shows where she does turn of the century ventriloquist stuff and bores the hell out of her audience until a kid picks a fight with her until she displays her awesome ventriloquist powers which shuts him up.  Then the kid goes missing and Mary gets blamed and the town lynches her and tears out her tongue.  Her last request is to be turned into a ventriloquist dummy herself and buried with her puppets... in the puppet cemetery... because she is now a puppet... and apparently a ghost, too, because the mortician also knocked over her casket before she was buried and she tried to kill him but couldn't because he didn't scream.  This is important.

Also, she looked like this.  Worst.  Barbie.  Ever.

So, yeah.  This movie is ridiculousness on a stick.  It's got that schlocky feel that most teen horror movies have and it almost feels like James Wan kind of phoned it in since he was more concerned about his SUCCESSFUL franchise at the time.

But here's the thing.  This movie could be SO much more.  It has that Japanese Revenge Ghost quality to it that everybody ignores.  It's closer to The Grudge than anything and hokey plot device or not, a lot of people think ventriloquist dummies are creepy as fuck.  I, personally, don't have a problem but since Magic, as mentioned above, I've always liked the thought of a ventriloquist villain.  It's TOTALLY Batman in its over-the-top-ness.

Here you go, kids.  Clowns AND ventriloquist dummies all in one!  Sweet dreams!

I say "your mileage may vary" a lot on here because, seriously, this is my blog and your opinion may differ from mine, but I really do suggest people give this one another try.  It's got a subtle awesomeness underneath the bad script and jumpy plot.  

Yes, I'm recommending a movie on concept alone.

Don't judge me.

It's So QUIET In Here...

Before we get started, let me just remind you that the Ultimate Gore-A-Thon starts next Sunday!!  The linky thing gives you all the details about who's participating and what you can expect.  I'll be covering Remakes, Remakes and More Remakes (with Trope Wednesdays) and you MAY see a guest post or two.

'T'will be awesome.

ANYhoo.

So, apparently smart, remade horror gets to show at Sundance.  Who knew, right?  I'm not quite sure Silent House qualifies but, whattayagonnado?  I'm pretty sure the fact that it contains the last surviving Olsen sister made it a rarity they couldn't pass up. 

The Olsen Twins aren't dead?  Could have fooled me.  They both look like zombies.  Maybe if they invested in a damn sandwich from time to time.


The story goes like this.  Our heroine, Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), is trying, with her father and her uncle, to fix up the family's lakehouse to sell it.  There's some petty bitching.  It ain't pretty.  Uncle leaves to get tools, Dad storms off upstairs and there's a knock at the door so Sarah goes to get it. 

Oh, hey!  It's a childhood friend that she doesn't remember being all creepy and stuff.  Don't you LOVE when that happens?

Nobody deserves creepy childhood friends.  Not even an Olsen sister.

So, she has her chat and returns to her work and suddenly... and inexplicably... there's someone in the house and the doors are locked and she can't get out.  She finds her dad but he's got a concussion and isn't good for a whole lot of anything.  More chasing ensues.  Sarah finds evidence of squatters in the basement which is INSANELY huge for some reason.  Did they keep a minotaur in there or something?  I'd need to hang up signs to find my way out of that cellar! 

So, yeah, she gets out through the cellar door and Uncle is back.  She wants to leave.  Uncle says they have to go back for Dad.  Hilarity ensues.  Twist ending that I'm not gonna tell you.

PLUG IT UP!!  PLUG IT UP!!

The neat thing about this film is that, like Alfred Hitchcock's Rope the movie appears to have been shot in a single, continuous take.  It totally WASN'T but we can thank a good editor for that.  Barring the blood patterns on her sweater and tank top, we hardly notice the continuity goofs.  There is no excuse for the visible microphone late in the film.

From a plot standpoint, though, even though the film was supposedly based on true events in the 1940s in Uruguay that nobody can corroborate, the movie is simple until it gets to the end and then it all goes to shit.  Yes, horrific things happen and HAVE happened but they're jumbled.  I did like the very gothic feel of the movie and it had that sense of "campfire story" that always makes for a good time but it felt just a hair too "Blair Witch" to be truly effective. 

Ultimately, this is one of those movies that is too ambiguous to be "love it or hate it".  I don't think anyone can really do either.  There are fantastic things about it, like the fact that I can watch an Olsen sister in a movie without wanting to tear out my eyes and run screaming into the night, but there are bad things about it, too, like the lighting which COMPLETELY sucks and actually serves more as a distraction than a mood-enhancing device.

So, there you have it, I guess.  Watch it.  Your mileage may vary.  Eat a sandwich while you're watching.  Nobody likes a skinny Santa.