We're Gonna Get You...

One of the advantages of living in a college town is that we get some cool shit.

And sometimes that cool shit includes ADVANCED SCREENINGS OF EVIL DEAD!

That's right bitches.  I saw the Evil Dead remake last night it was GLORIOUS!!!

I went to this movie with horror movie veterans and we screamed and laughed and "oh shit what the fuck"ed our way through the whole damn thing!

Now, because this is a remake, I'm going to assume, since you're reading this blog, that you've seen the original.  That being said, this is a fairly true remake with some updating and, sadly but not too sadly, a removal of a lot of the humor that was present in the original (and the sequel/first remake... Evil Dead has a strange history).  That's mostly because the plot in the first one was "two couples and one dude's sister go camping".  This one is "two friends take a third, somewhat estranged, friend's little sister to the woods for a cold turkey detox session and big brother's ditzy fuck toy comes along for the ride". 

We know how this works.  Even the commercials give it away to those who never saw the original.  The kids get to the run-down cabin and discover a book of vile darkness in the basement.  Like idiots, they read the book and unleash unspeakable evil.  This evil inhabits their bodies, in one case via the auspices of tree-rape (what have I told you about going into the woods, kids?), and makes them do things that normal people wouldn't.  Like, oh, I don't know, carving open their faces with shards of mirror.

You can't see it but half of her face is on the floor.

Attacking their loved ones with syringes.

That is a hypodermic needle.  Under his eye.  eeeeeeeee...

Locking their possessed sisters in the basement where they can toss Exorcist-like insults at you, drag you in there with them and bite your hand so you have to cut off your arm with an electric knife to stop the evil from spreading.

 Soooo many screams at this one.  College kids are fuckin' wusses.

Oh.  My.  Gawd.  This was INTENSE!  It was a BEAUTIFUL gore-fest.  It wasn't deep, but we don't want deep with our Evil Dead.  It was a hell of a lot bleaker than the original but I'm OK with that.  It had SOME humor to break it up but it still left me holding my gallon of Diet Coke with a vice-like grip.  I loved every fucking minute of it.

Of course, there were a LOT of shout-outs to the original which, seriously, is a hallmark of any good remake.  Mia, the lead girl, is found sitting on the car from the original series.  There was a fight scene in the flooded basement reminiscent of the fight in the well in Army of Darkness.  The barbed wire wrapping the book in this film makes a shape like the face on the original book.

There are twists, though, that I think even the fans of the original will be happy with because, seriously?  Big brother is an idiot and Ash in the original series is a smarmy ass.  Love you, Bruce Campbell, but even you have to admit that Ash isn't exactly likeable as a human being.  Fede Alvarez isn't afraid to switch things up and he does it RIGHT.  Not only right but RESPECTFULLY.  Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell chose their new director wisely.

One of the cool things about this is that there is NO CGI in this movie.  None.  At all.  Not even for missing limbs in summer dresses.  I want to see a "making of" feature on this because DAMN!  Pure, gory, gorgeousness.

Ubiquitous chainsaw.  WHEEEE!

I really think that THIS is the film to make remake-haters eat their words.  And I want to be there when they do it.  To smack them with a Hello Kitty ankle sock full of nickels for being idiots that don't rate movies on their own merits.

April 5th, kids.  Go.  Give me a call.  I might go see it with you because it deserves multiple viewings.

Emoticons Are of the Devil

The internet.  A wondrous thing.  From ARPANET in the 60's to BBSs to MUDs to Hypertext Markup Language to XML and MMOs, the internet connects us to the world outside our stinky basement lairs in ways we could never have imagined a hundred years ago.

And then some asshole makes a horror movie about video chat.

Smiley.

Really?

Seriously?

So... there's this internet legend (kind of like an urban legend but on the internet, like the Nigerian prince email and all of those stupid "hit Like and we'll give you an iPad" things on Facebook) where if you type in "I did it for the lulz" three times in video chat, you get to watch this Smiley fucker come in and murder the person you're talking to in Chat Roulette.

Because murdering complete strangers is a hobby EVERY internet user needs to cultivate.  It's like stamp collecting, only horrible.

 Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?

So, this girl does the whole internet Bloody Mary gig with her friend and she's freaked when the chat pertner is stabbed repeatedly but the girls decide not to go to the cops.  Because they're fucking dumb.  And then they go to a party where Idiot Girl gets drunk and runs into Smiley whereupon she wigs the fuck out and goes to the police only, duh, the police don't believe her and her friends are dropping like flies.

Only...  not?  YES, I'm giving away spoilers.  Suck it.  Yeah, this is all a big fucking "Anonymous-like" hoax designed to scare people.  Nobody dies except one girl at the end who's talking about Smiley since she was one of the idiots pranking Idiot Girl in the first place and we can't even confirm that.  Idiot Girl is shown to be alive after the end credits, anyway.

Instant slasher killer.  Just add mask.  Now in flesh tone!

FUCK ME, this movie was bland.  There was a fantastic idea, here, and Michael Gallagher, who needs to stick to directing YouTube shorts, did absolutely nothing with it.  Nothing.  There's not enough gore for the gorehounds, there's not enough suspense for the suspense fans, the action goes "murder, cops, denial, murder, cops, denial" for about an hour and a half and the fact that there's a group of spoiled internet "hacktivists" committing fake murders has less bite than any other Scream imitator, ever.

For realsies, I like Final Destination 5 better than this barker.

I blame this kind of lazy film making on permissive parenting and "everybody's a winner" upbringings.  You're not a special unicorn princess, Michael Gallagher.  If you want a successful film, you actually have to work for it.  Just because Mommy will hang this trash on the refrigerator doesn't mean it's good.  In fact, it makes me want to take your juicebox and squirt it in your face and take the Twinkie out of your lunchbox.  I would never DO that because I hate bullying but I WANT to and that makes me sad.

Asshole.

I NEED AN ADULT!! Or not...

I GOT IT!  TROPEFEST!  That is what I will call Wednesdays!  It only took me 6 months, which, by the way, was LAST week.  HAPPY 6 MONTH ANNIVERSARY TO ME A WEEK LATE!

Anyway, now that THAT'S out of my system, today on TropeFest, we discuss the role of adults in horror movies.

That role is "Asshole".

That's right, Nancy's mom.  I'm talkin' to you.

Now, it seems pretty fuckin' obvious that horror movies are, 9 times out of 10, made for young adults (and maybe that asshole who likes to watch smarmy teenage whippersnappers get a whuppin'... like me).  Adults tend to avoid them because we've already experienced the real-life fears that go into, y'know, becoming an adult.  Unfortunately, that really does bring into horror that old 60's adage "Never trust anyone over 30".  Thanks Jack Weinberger.  How's bein' 73 treatin' ya?  Ass.

That being said, if you come across an adult in a horror movie, odds are that adult is going to be just fuckin' useless.  In some cases, that uselessness extends itself straight into villain territory.  Nightmare on Elm St. is the prime example.  No, don't pay attention to the stories your kids are telling you.  Send them straight into danger.  That's your job as a parent, right?  RIGHT?  Good parents don't actually DATE VAMPIRE LORDS, RIGHT?!?

 Diane Wiest, you dirty whore.

Adults in horror films will never in a million years believe the kids who are being hunted in a gory Most Dangerous Game.  It doesn't matter if they're being chased down in dreams or in an abandoned summer camp, if kids bring their stories to adults they will either be dismissed, ignored or brought into custody on suspicion of criminal activity.  Cops are adults, too, in case you haven't guessed.  Even Dewey from Scream didn't believe his little sister at first.  And Sheriff Sabin in Shark Night?  Actually working with the douchebags populating the lake with sharks.

Yes, horror films are FILLED with placeholder adults that are incapable of breathing without instructions.  I'm really very surprised that the film makers don't just show them in the beginning of the movie falling over, twitching, and then just move on with the plot.  Let's take, for example, the remake of Prom Night.  The stalker that the cops are supposed to be looking for, ACTIVELY looking for, evades them by PUTTING ON A HAT.

Fuckin' magic.

But WHY are adults useless?

Simple.  Kids are supposed to be learning how to take care of themselves.  It's not like the adults don't CARE.  They, most times, do, unless they're importing Great White Sharks for the purposes of filming shark attacks for the Discovery Channel.  And most times the adults DO want to protect the kids in their care but, seriously, the teenagers, like idiots, often actively remove themselves from adult supervision so the adults CAN'T do anything for them.  It's also not like these people live in a town named "Horrormovieville" and have a quaint sign saying "No Slasher Movie Fatalities since 1972".  Adults, and police in particular, cannot be expected to believe that a machete-wielding maniac is hunting your stoned, half-naked friends and if you show up in front of them covered in blood and screaming, you should probably expect to have some questions asked.  There may be handcuffs involved.

Best.  Arrest.  Ever.

But back to that "taking care of yourself" thing, kids are going to make mistakes and horror movies, like it or not, are morality tales on a very basic level.  This isn't exactly new.  Christianity has had "Passion Plays" for centuries, now.  You do bad things, you have accept the consequences.  Adults know this already, or, at least, they should, and they are now leaving teenagers to make their own mistakes.  It's all educational and shit.  Occasionally, adults get a taste of their own medicine, though, like Nancy's mom in Nightmare on Elm Street.  She got hers at the end of the movie, even if she thought she had done the right thing. 

Another HUGE lesson to be learned here, even if it isn't readily obvious, is that they aren't "useless" per se, they're just incapable of protecting kids from everything that might come their way.  Sorry, kids, but your parents are human beings and they cannot stop all bad things from happening to you.  Suck it up.  Deal with your issues or let them overwhelm you. 

It's all on you, Sparky.

What Did I Tell You About The Dead Broad?

Gather 'round kids while Uncle Bob tells you a little story about one of the most fucked up movies he's seen in a long time.  It's got drama.  It's got intrigue.  It's got teenagers.  It's got an abandoned mental hospital.  It's got Noah Segan.

And it's got necrophilia.  Eew.

So, like any good coming-of-age horror story, the movie begins by introducing us to Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Segan), two slackers that apparently can't get with the ladies.  Because in Hollywood, the nerds are attractive.

And because these two are kind of immature, they spend their afternoon playing hooky and rooting around in the abandoned mental hospital.where they find a naked woman wrapped in plastic and chained to a table.  At which point, I would call the police but these two are fucking idiots.

Call.  The POLICE!  Assholes.

J.T., who apparently is a sicker motherfucker than we at first imagined, decides to keep her,  Like a pet, only the kind of pet that's chained in a basement and fondled inappropriately.  He discovers that she is not quite alive through the auspices of trying to kill her.  Because J.T. is, again, more twisted than a forkful of linguini.  He nicknames her "Deadgirl".

Over the course of the film, we find that J.T. is pimping the zombie out and he gets himself scratched after Rickie lets one of her hands free.  It's at this point we find out that whatever this chick's got is contagious.  Because what fun would it be if it wasn't?  Ain't no point in a zombie apocalypse if'n there's only one zombie.

ANYhoo... While J.T. sticks his dick in the corpse, without, I'm sure, the benefit of douching, Rickie asks the lovely and unattainable JoAnne (Candice Accola) out.  Her boyfriend then proceeds to beat the snot out of Rickie and Wheeler (Eric Podnar), the other dude that spends his spare time poking the corpse with dicks, who proceeds to blab his fat fucking mouth about Deadgirl at the top of his lungs.  He refers to her as "our own fucking whore" which I'll get into later.

Yeeeeeaaaah... that's attractive...

Long story short, J.T. and Wheeler decide that this one's worn out her welcome and they need to make a new Deadgirl and they pick JoAnne because revenge, duh.  

SO.  Let's dig into why this movie is awesome, shall we?

First off, this is SUPERBLY acted for an indie film.  Noah Segan always plays a razor-sharp crazy.  

Second, like all of the great zombie movies, it examines a few societal horrors that SERIOUSLY need discussion in this country and, really, the world.  It touches on bullying and the role of outcasts in our youth and doing stupid things as kids that we wouldn't get away with as adults (which leads to JoAnn telling Rickie to "Grow up" at the end) and all that touchy-feely crap that a lot of horror movies already examine but what it focuses on, with a fucking microscope, is rape culture.  

The fact that these kids, and, yes, they are children, feel that it's OK to take advantage of what they think is a helpless woman is utterly abhorrent.  The fact that she carries a fuckin' zombie virus is the director telling us that these kids WILL be punished for their actions and since that virus won't allow a person to die, they will suffer for a very long time... or at least until they get the double-tap to the head.

Why wait?  Douchey haircuts should always earn a double-tap.

Considering the recent Steubenville trials (in which the sentence was woefully inadequate), every person should be watching this movie, right now.  Every, single, last one of us.  We should watch it, not only because it's a superb film, but to showcase rape culture and instill in our society that rape is not, ever, OK.  It shouldn't HAVE to come to a horror movie to do this but if it works, it works.  

Every boy needs to be taught, from BIRTH, that it is not cool to refer to a woman as a whore.  Every boy needs to be taught, from birth, that unless a person gives permission, it is not OK to park your dick in them.  Every boy needs to be taught, from birth, that there is NO situation that alters the last statement.  There are no qualifiers to rape.  It doesn't matter if a person is doing cartwheels nude down the boulevard, if they say no, it means no.

Sorry about the rant but this is 2013, not the fucking Bronze Age.  We, as a global society, need to, as JoAnne says, grow up. 

Watch the movie.  You'll learn something.

I'm gonna go watch something to calm down, now.  

Ooh!  Beetlejuice! 

Here. Have a Slice.

OK, KIDS!  Back on the damn horse.  Please note, I am typing this with a head full of Vicodin and my grammar may go all cattywumpus and run-on sentences may play in heavily.

Netflix, lately, is a grab-bag full of awful.  You reach in and you're lucky if you don't get hepatitis or lead poisoning on the way out.  That's why I was a little surprised to find Slices of Life.

This indie gem does, in fact, bring me the wooden acting and audio problems that I so abhor but it also brings me ex-porn actors in see-through plastic rain gear and since half of my life is led by my penis, I'm perfectly OK with that.

Slices of Life is an anthology which means that you actually get three chances to suck out loud instead of one.  The law of averages says that at least one of these segments will be good enough to talk about but the other two should be bland and boring something fierce.  Please note that this particular set of averages only applies to indie films.  Studio anthologies tend toward the awesome.  Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, for example, wins solely due to the presence of Debbie Harry, because Blondie is awesome-sauce.

I don't have a picture of Debbie Harry so pretend there's one right here.

ANYWAY, this anthology deals with the horror of the everyday.  We find a young woman passed out on the lawn of a motel.  She could be Lindsay Lohan.  Who knows?  We don't.  She certainly doesn't.  Let's pretend she is.  Anyway, she's set behind the desk of said motel because she... runs the place?  Maybe?  And she tries to put together the pieces of her mind with three sketchbooks.  Each flesh-bound book tells a different story.

A/S/L?

Work Life:  A lonely basement-dwelling nerd is trying to find love in all the wrong places and sets off the nano-bot zombie apocalypse.

Home Life:  A young housewife becomes obsessed with missing children and missing children become obsessed with the contents of her uterus... much like Republicans.

Spooky shadow-puppets...

Sex Life:  While escaping sexual abuse at home, a brother and sister look for refuge only to find... ummm... not... refuge...

And all the while Amnesia-Lady thinks she's seeing these people milling about the motel.  WOOOO!  Cheap-ass mind-screw!

Yeah, I kinda wanted a nap, too.

It's not really that bad.  For folks I've never seen before, they do rather well.  They're a little stiff but they're new.  Considering the content I'll allow it.  The audio still sucks, though.  Maybe that's WHY they're so wooden.  They have to emote loud enough for the suck-ass microphone to pick up their lines over the freeway next door because SOMEBODY didn't invest in a fucking microphone cover-thingie.

And, yes, since it's an indie film, there's tits everywhere.  Because for some dumb-ass reason, fanservice is a necessity in indie-horror.  Somebody needs to get in on the fact that there are female and gay male horror fans if you know what I'm sayin'.  Not that anybody needed to see Roger Bart get his tallywhacker whacked in Hostel 2 but I digress...

Made ya look.

ANYWAY, it sounds like I'm complaining about this piece but I'm not.  This did not suck.  I was actually kind of pleased with it.  It made great use of the anthology format, gave us a nifty twist at the end and the stories (except for Home Life which ran slow) were engaging and fun to watch.  

Pay no attention to the slab of beef in the raincoat.  I never expected big things out of him, anyway.  No, really.  Steroid use.  Shrinkage.  No big things, no way, no how.

When you get a minute, give this one a try.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.