Yes, I'm still here!

I will totally make this up to you, I swear.

This show is just REALLY important to me.

It's for the CHILDREN!

White Noise

Sorry, kids.  I know today's Wednesday but I can't get you a post this morning.  I can probably get you one this evening but don't count on it.  Bearvillities eats up my life for the next few days.

To explain, Bearvillities is a once a year, one-show-only event to support Camp Sunrise, a summer camp for children affected by or afflicted with HIV.  They work to give these kids a chance to just feel like kids for a week out of the year along with other events like a Prom to give them some normalcy.  It's held at Wall St. Nightclub in Columbus, OH and it's this Saturday, April 20th.  Doors open at 7:3o PM.

If you would like to donate to Camp Sunrise but cannot make it to the show, please let me know.  Every little bit helps.

Spring Break

No, I'm not taking a break.  Even though I'm performing in a charity show in four days and I'm really nervous and I'm 'bout ready to die.

I'm actually talking about Spring Break.  That time of year that lets wild, drunken college kids loose on an unsuspecting society.  The baseline level of debauchery that enables slasher films.  Boobs and booze fuckin' EVERYWHERE!!  The days of illegal narcotics and tourism.

And so begins my review of Alexandre Aja's 2010 B-Movie awesomeness, Piranha 3D.

In a shout-out to Jaws, Oscar™ Winner Richard Dreyfus gives us a cameo as Matt Hooper who is now a belligerent drunk, fishing, humming "Show Me The Way To Go Home" and drinking beer when an earthquake hits Lake Havasu, releasing a school of prehistoric piranha and a huge whirlpool which, for some dumb-ass reason, refuses to actually lower the water level of the lake when it empties into the new set of caverns.  And why the fuck is it called a "school" of piranha?  Because they're fish?  Isn't that all kinds of fish-racist?  Do all kinds of fish look alike to you, Aja?  Is that what you're trying to say?  Henceforth, a school of Piranha shall be known as a "Nibble".  Take that, you racist bastard!

I cutchoo, mang!

So, anyway, as I said, it's Spring Break and the grandson of Steve McQueen is all, "I wanna play, too, but my mom (Oscar™ Winner Elizabeth Shue) is the sheriff and she won't stop invading my privacy while I surf internet porn and thinks that I live to be her babysitter."  He manages to get a gig showing an imported porn king the "sweet spots" of the lake in which to shoot porn.  Underwater porn.  Naked 3D water ballet.  Woo.

So, anyway, people start going missing, the sheriff is called in to investigate, her kid pays her other two kids to cover for him while he enables underwater porn.  The two remaining children go fishing and get caught out on the lake.  Porn boat hits a rock.  Fish mangle tourists.  Eli Roth is one of them.  That gives me a happy.

Ving Rhames with an outboard mower.  You're welcome.

Poster boy for idiotic teenager manages to lure all of the fish to the sinking porn boat.  Coked-out porn dude gets eaten.  We get treated to severed penis.  Because everyone needs severed penis.  Idiot teen's wannabe girlfriend is trapped inside.  He rescues her and manages to rig an explosion.  Piranhas are dead, HOORAY!!

Yep.  Safety harness.  Because that's gonna be on every boat, ever.

Yeeeeah.

This movie?  You would think that I hate it but I totally don't.  This is yet another movie specifically made to be a horror comedy and I LIVE for it!  Remember that the original was meant to be a Jaws spoof, too.

It tosses us pretty much ALL of the "terror on the ocean" tropes and confines them to a lake.  It gives us a mad scientist, and "Oh, no, there are THOUSANDS of them and they're unstoppable!"  It gives us Michael Bay levels of mayhem!  It gives us Elizabeth Shue trying to pay the mortgage!  There's carnage and mayhem and it's pretty much a consistent roller-coaster ride the whole way through.  EXPLOSIONS!!  Aja totally knows how to deliver both the gore AND the shock.

And, for serious, Aja let his inner pervert out to play, too.  This is not only a fantastic, shut-your-brain-off horror flick, he also brought in the throngs of horny teenagers with the lure of boobs which, while it's not exactly NEW, is marketing gold.  Half of the movie is a horrific love letter to "Girls Gone Wild".  'Cause I haven't seen THIS many titties in a horror movie in a LONG time.  Not that I really have a problem with it.  I'm a gay dude but a pretty boob is a pretty boob and I can appreciate them.  

I probably could have done without the underwater ballet but whattayagonnado?

Finally, I DID pay the $13 bucks to see this in the theater.  The 3D for this felt right.  It wasn't tacked on and the creature effects were kind of amazing.  I'm not quite sure how those fish would actually swim but they worked for me.  They had an almost intelligent malevolence to them.  I like them. 

This is silliness-on-a-stick and I adore it.  You don't gotta.

What Part of "No" Do You Not Understand?

In 1989, Stephen King and director Mary Lambert brought us yet another tale of family terror.  One that still resonates today because undead children are just fuckin' creepy.

Pet Sematery is a tale of adult fears.  It examines those things we, as adults, face every day.

It starts with the Creed family (Louis, Rachel, Ellie, Gage and their cat Churchill) moving into their new home in Ludlow, Maine.  They befriend their new neighbor, Jud Crandell, right away and settle in.  Much beer is consumed by the new buddies and Ellie and Gage basically gain a new set of grandparents.  Because children need as many people around to manipulate with cuteness as they can get and old people are gullible.

Louis is a doctor and he has a new job at the University.  A young man is brought in with severe injuries and, because he's apparently a dick, provides the doc with a prophetic warning to stay away from the pet cemetary.  And then he shows up in a dream to warn him again and Louis wakes up with dirty feet.  I'm sure that pisses him off because who wants that on their sheets?  Stupid sleepwalking.  Not being concerned about hygiene and shit.

Then their asshole of a new neighbor takes them to the homemade pet cemetary in the woods.  Kids have been burying their dead pets there for DECADES, it appears and Jud warns them not to try and climb the pile of dead trees in the corner.  You would think that Louis would pay attention but noooooooo.

It doesn't LOOK haunted...

Not only do we have to deal with Louis' weird dreams but Rachel is terrified of death.  Like, serious, irrational, whoa-hold-up-bitchfest, do not expose my daughter to death, phobia.  It's understandable since she watched her sister Zelda die of Spinal Meningitis while her parents were away.  And Zelda is quite possibly the scariest character ever portrayed on film.  She freaks my shit right the fuck out.

Anyway, did I forget to mention that they live on a not-well-lit two-lane highway that's notorious for killing pets because tanker trucks use it constantly?  It claims the life of poor Churchill.

This is where Jud tells Louis about the Micmac burial ground past the deadfall at the pet cemetary.  They bury Church there and he comes back.  He comes back wrong.  He comes back evil.  He comes back stinky.

TAKE A BATH!!

So, other than stinky cat, things go great until Gage is also killed by an oncoming truck.  Rachel's father blames Louis.  There's a fist-fight at the funeral.  Rachel goes nuts and takes Ellie to Chicago where Ellie starts having disturbing dreams of the student that died on Louis' watch.  Louis exhumes Gage and buries him in the Micmac burial ground.  

And now he wants to play with yoooooooouuuuuu.

Scalpels are TOTALLY child-safe.

Seriously, when it comes to Stephen King adaptations, this is one of the best, even though the novel isn't one of his better ones.  Mary Lambert managed to cram a whole lot of novel into the movie which was totally appreciated. 

But the reason this is such a good movie is because of the adult fears I mentioned above.  Kids are afraid of losing pets and adults are afraid of losing children and spouses.  They say that to be a parent is to live every day in fear.  Frankly, I have enough fear in my life so I don't really WANT to be a parent but I can imagine what losing a child must feel like.  The imagery of Gage's poor little foot in his baby sneaker bouncing along the road was chilling.

Worse than fingernail torture.

Losing a spouse is just as painful and Rachel's return was horrific.  We KNEW that he was cheating death and was going to pay the price.

And turning a sweet innocent child into a demonic villain is another fear that many parents must face.  Because puberty is a bitch and parents often have to deal with mental illness and obstinate children all the time.  Granted, Gage doesn't fit the puberty/mental illness profile but, as above, Louis was cheating death and he really should have known better after that damn cat.  He REALLY should have expected some kind of Night of the Living Dead bullshit.

It also has the distinction of having a female director.  Mary Lambert isn't the first female horror director but she's certainly the best and she made a fantastic choice in making this her second film.  I'm kind of sad that her career has been relegated to Urban Legend sequels and Syfy Original films.

All in all, this isn't a great movie but it IS quietly awesome in it's own way.  With its Lovecraftian themes (which are common in King's work), it's complete avoidance of the infant immortality rules and its understated examination of death and how we, as people, handle it, it's certainly a welcome addition to any horror fans library.