Importance...

Hey, kids!

I'm still with you and I hope you're enjoying the podcast! Sorry I haven't written a lot lately. Tons of irons in the fire, as it were. I just had a moment with someone on Facebook and I thought I'd share.

A person wrote in a horror forum I belong to that "everything is misogynistic these days" in response to the original post about someone's lesbian co-worker saying that he shouldn't enjoy horror movies because they're all misogynistic.

 Now, first off, people have been saying this since the Women's Rights movement began (and, really, way before then, because it's true that horror movies tend toward the sexist due to their primary demographic being young men) but things are changing, particularly since the advent of the Final Girl trope, but when I pointed this out to him, his response was "Makes my point no less valid."

 My response at that point went as follows:

 "I mean, saying that something is misogynistic isn't automatically false, either. There's a LOT of anti-feminist material in horror movies even to this day and we do have to recognize that women, even though they make up the larger half of the population, are still mistreated.

Is EVERYTHING about horror misogynistic? Absolutely not. Should we recognize and call out misogynistic cinema and work to change it? 100% yes. If we can call out homophobic, transphobic, or racist material, we should be doing the same for women.

For example, the gay-themed slasher Hellbent. Hellbent contains a scene in which a character is beheaded ON A CROWDED DANCE FLOOR AND NO ONE REACTS TO IT, which displays gay people as shallow, narcissistic, puppets that don't pay attention to the world around them. I don't want that kind of representation, do you?

 I'm not saying "Write me Mary Sue Horror" at all, just make things believable. Write in misogynistic characters but write women strong enough to see those characters either quake in their boots or learn how NOT to be misogynistic. Write in misogynistic situations but then let women side-step or confront those situations in a positive way. Write LGBTQIA characters as actual people and not caricatures of themselves and, for fuck's sake, stop giving me AIDS-era tragedy porn.

We can make better and more positive cinema happen. We just have to make sure that problematic subject matter is written well and handled appropriately."

ANYWAY, kids! Reach out to us! Let us know what you like and what you don't like about the podcast and continue to like, subscribe, rate and review the podcast so that we can TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND INSTITUTE CTHULHU-CULT-LIKE MADNESS!

What Did I Fucking Tell You About Children?

"Oh, hey!  How ya doin'?  Podcasting is going well.  Work is fine.  How's the wife and kids?

Oh, your stepson is the Antichrist.  That's fun to know.  I'll, aaaahhhh... I'll be over here.  Not pointedly laughing at the horrible birthday clown who IS NOW ON FIRE, WHAT THE SHIT, MAN?!?"

And THAT'S the conversation I would be having with Adam Scott in the new Netflix piece, Little Evil, which wins absolutely no awards for having such a douchey name but it's still kinda fun, should I have gone into acting like I always wanted but my lack of any drive whatsoever kept me from pursuing, except I'm ALL ABOUT the casting couch because I am a sex-positive person and if a blowjob is gonna get me some choice parts, I swallow, thanks.

So, Adam Scott is playing Gary.  New stepdad to Lucas, the titular Little Evil, and new husband to Samantha (Evangeline Lilly) who is adorable and lonely and clueless.  She's really not a helicopter mom but she watches out for her boy.  Her boy who was conceived during a cult ritual and she fucking knew it, so her son being the actual Antichrist really shouldn't have come as such a shock to her but, y'know... here we are.

Awww, lookaher... All smiles and adorableness... and stupidity...

Gary, of course, being the stepdad, just wants to be a good guy.  Soapbox derby cars, ice cream, the works.  The kid, on the other hand, has some fuckin' issues.  The most pressing, of course, being that he is literally the spawn of Satan, begat via creepy reverend (Clancy Brown) who moves into town to harvest the goddamn crop.  Gary, meanwhile, is showing this dude property, none the wiser.  He's ALSO getting calls from the wedding videographer who, while taping the ACTUAL FUCKING TORNADO THAT DESTROYED THE WEDDING GROUNDS, noticed that Lucas was untouched by winds that have been known to pick up and toss around cows and trains.

Yo, Damien.  It's past your bedtime, buddy.

So, what does Lucas do to Gary the first day he drives him to school?  Manages to get himself detention and get Gary blamed for it.  Gary, who has to attend mandatory therapy and now has a Child Protective Services agent visiting (played delightfully by Sally Field).  His co-worker, a male-identifying individual by the name of Al (Bridget Everett), is also part of the the group, and they form a bro-bond over the whole thing.  A bond that is as tight as Octomom's pelvic floor.  At least at first.

She has a fantastic eye for sweater-vests.

Suffice it to say that Lucas is so upset at having a new daddy that he buries him alive.  Literally.  Called Samantha from a box under the swingset.  She DUG HIM OUT.  Which upsets Gary which upsets Samantha who puts Lucas in a time-out (seriously?) and proceeds to not believe Gary which almost gets divorce papers signed but flowers and a trip to the water park for Gary and Lucas are all it takes for happy families, I guess.

If this SOUNDS like a set-up, that's because it is.  What do we do with the Antichrist when we find him, kids?  That's RIGHT!  We try to kill him.  And that's when the fun REALLY starts.

No, for real, kids, other than that whitewashed sack of weeaboo fangasm, Death Note (which I'm currently in the middle of and thoroughly hating), Netflix is putting out some good material and, while this is not really Oscar-worthy (and come on, how much do I watch that is), it's actually pretty good.  It funny, it makes good use of its people, it's heartwarming in that "You can be whatever you want to be and I don't want to kill you, anymore" kinda way.  It's actually a decent "family" horror-comedy. 

Give it a shot.  It's cute. 

CCRB: The Podcast!

IT'S HERE!!!

CCRB:The Podcast is finally here!

We're hoping to have episodes up weekly and we're just waiting on iTunes to approve the feed so we can get it out that way.

In the meantime, enjoy our delightful conversation about Kong Cock.

Nobody ever said we were classy.

A WOOKALAR!

It's time to step into the Wayback Machine and have a jolly trip to 1980... or, rather, sometime before 1980 but it's not quite clear in which decade our "jaunt into Horror-Adjacent City" pick for today, The Private Eyes (not to be confused with the 1976 Jackie Chan flick of the same name), occurred.

We DO know that it's in the early 20th century and we ALSO know that Inspector Winship (Don Knotts) and Doctor Tart (Tim Conway) are morons that managed to get exiled from America and are now working for Scotland Yard because that always happens to people that get expelled from their own country for being a fucking hazard to themselves and others.

Seriously.  Tart invented a gun that fires itself but only every hour on the hour.  What the fuck use is that?  Comic relief, that's what the fuck use that is now hush and let an old man reminisce.

You would think that she would at LEAST wait for the opening credits...

Winship and Tart are at the Morley Manor, a quaint English mansion, to investigate the murder of Lord and Lady Morley.  Among the suspects?  Their adopted daughter, a homicidal butler around whom you cannot say the actual word "murder" (Bernard Fox, best known as Dr. Bombay in Bewitched), creepy German head of household affairs (fans of the American remake of The Grudge will recognize Grace Zabriskie as Emma, a psychic dementia patient) who rules the staff with an iron fist and the quickest knee to the groin East of the Pecos, a racist portrayal of a samurai chef, stereotypical busty maid in short frilly uniform, hunchback groundskeeper with no tongue, and racist depiction of a gypsy groundskeeper.

Ready for inspection.

 This is 1980, kids.  Malice-free racism was still in full swing.  We're working on it.  Be thankful we didn't get a legit African witch-doctor up in here.

ANYWHOSAWHATZIT!  This plays out pretty much like your standard Agatha Christie "And Then There Were None" mystery as the staff is dropping off like flies while our resident morons try to figure the whole thing out.  In case you all were wondering, this type of movie is the definitive forerunner to what we now call slasher flicks which is what lands it in the "horror-adjacent" category. 

Poor Dr. Bombay.

As for our leads, Winship is the serious one but that doesn't make him any brighter than Tart, our addlepated but lovable moron with a penchant for harboring differently-abled pigeons.  Watching these two bumble their way through this mystery farce is a master class in fucking stupid.  From they way they accidentally find themselves in hidden passageways to they way they fight over lighting a goddamn candle, you can smell the dumb coming from your blu-ray player.  It's a strong stench but not an unpleasant one.

Why does the dumb one have A) the writing duties and B) a fucking doctorate?

I gotta say, kids, I love this movie but that probably has more to do with nostalgia than anything else because by any professional standards, this movie sucks on toast.  Watching it again brought up some very nice memories of my childhood watching this kind of thing with my Mom.  It's got a simple story but it's funny in that Sheckey Greene kinda way where pratfalls were king and dad-jokes reigned supreme.  It's no Clue by any stretch of the imagination and, frankly, if we're looking for any kind of intellectualism in our horror-adjacent comedies, neither of them hold a candle to Murder by Death, but it's a fun way to spend a couple of spooky, but not scary, hours with the family and a bucket of popcorn.

You might want to ask your little kids something to distract them at around this time, though, because the "boobs are not pockets" concept is definitely a "teen" conversation.

It does make me sad to know that this was the last movie Conway and Knotts made together (not counting a cameo in Cannonball Run II) but those two had a comedic rhythm that was unstoppable and I miss that sort of thing.  I haven't seen any kind of comedy duo, lately, that compares.

But, YES!  I still recommend this one, preferably as part of a theme night with the aforementioned Clue and Murder by Death.  Because they're all awesome in their own ways.

Just beware the dreaded Wookalar.

Boo.

James Franco got paid HOW MUCH for this?

HIYA!

Wanna go exploring?  I sure as hell don't.  I don't like the outdoors at the best of times and the thought of doing something no one else has done in the great outdoors makes me want to vomit a little .  Wanna know why?

Because exploring the great outdoors is one step closer to exploring outer space and, as cool as that would be, I would be the very first to get a face full of alien dick.  Don't get me wrong.  Living in a Ridley Scott film would be awesome but I like my face and organs where they are, thanks.

All of that being said, let's look at Alien: Covenant.

So, after the events of Prometheus, which were never really explained to the folks on Earth, it seems, the Covenant is out to colonize a whole new planet and, in the process, get a radio signal from "planet number 4".  Turns out it's Doctor Shaw singing old John Denver tunes all creepy-like.

These people are all stupid and shouldn't be the founders of a new home planet.

Since our crew is full of cinematic morons, of COURSE they go to investigate and thus our mystery begins.

Since this is super new, I'm not going to get too deep into the events because I DO recommend this film and I'm gonna tell you why.  I mean, you're here, right?  That's what you wanted, yes?  Is good?  Is good.

A TON of folks went into this film thinking, "AWW, YEAH!  Ridley's gonna melt our faces and we're gonna get back to the straight-up horror from Alien!"  Those people are presumptuous assholes and need to sit the fuck down for a sec and really watch this movie.  Because while we DO have the horror of the first film and the action of the rest, there's more to this film than meets the eye.

Not counting the things that will snatch that eye right out of your head.

I'm sure you've noticed that each of the films in the Alien franchise has a very different feel and theme.  Regardless of whether Mr. Scott envisioned any of this for his original intellectual property, each person that has come on board has brought a very different flavor of film to the series.  Aliens went super-patriotic and blended that with a woman's need to nurture.  Alien 3 told a story about the mistreatment of prisoners.  Alien: Resurrection went totally off the rails and gave us the horrors of genetic engineering.  Prometheus started giving us a very religious feeling about the whole thing.  What are our origins?  Where do we come from?  Are we part of a vast experiment?

And, now, Covenant, where we describe our relationship with our "gods".  David, our android pal from Prometheus has moved on.  He found the Engineers' homeworld and, because he is our resident fallen angel, has displayed a decidedly antagonistic attitude about it.  David is, for all intents and purposes considering that he is NOT a human being, insane.  Insane and full of hate.

And well-armed.

Not only does he hate humanity for not treating him as the living thing he believes himself to be, but he hates the engineers for fucking up their own process.  For not coming back and finishing the job.  Because he thinks he's better suited to it than they were.  He cannot create biological life on his own (see the Biblical character "Satan") so he must tinker with the life that is there.  Which is why we're seeing such rapid shifts in the xenomorph biology throughout the course of the film.  We go from the spores that the Covenant crew are infected with to the neomorphs, pale and sickly-looking, as our "natural" infection straight to the facehuggers and familiar xenomorph shape due to David's ministrations.

'Dorbs.

So, not only is David our representation of the origin of evil but we can also throw a full-on fear of GMOs in there, too.  I mean, a potato isn't scary but people seem to think that one that was bred to be heartier and maybe had it's DNA tweaked to resist fungus is.  A neomorph is a bit more of an immediate threat, really.

But what I noticed in reading other reviews the most is that people didn't care for the atmosphere of the film.  They didn't want it to be deep and insightful.  They didn't want it to be the mystery/thriller it was.  And it WAS a mystery.  We kind of knew that David was shady but we didn't know what he was really doing until the end.  We had to cope with a fucking "evil twin" plotline, which I'll forgive BUT JUST THIS ONCE.  We needed to watch this misotheistic Machiavelli hatch his evil scheme so that we could move forward towards seeing the things we're used to.

Like this.

Frankly, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I liked that it was much more nuanced than the main franchise and I like that it kept the flavor of Prometheus while adding the tiny twists and turns.  I like that it wasn't just straight-up face-murder.  I mean, it was a little predictable but when you're dealing with prequels, some of that is to be expected.  I fully expect the third prequel film to have David ruling an entire planet of xenomorphs and plotting to spread them throughout the universe in an effort to rid it of all biological life or incorporate the best of all species into a single, deadly, organism, because that's how the xenomorphs work, kinda like the Borg in Star Trek.

If you haven't seen it, do.  You may not like it the way I did or see the things that I did but I like to think that a little post-horror needed to find its way in here and Ridley Scott succeeded beautifully.

Welp... That's All Wrapped Up...

In the interest of saving my reputation as someone who watches bad movies for pleasure, I have suffered through another couple of hours of celluloid trash for you.  I do this because I love you.  It's for your own good, really.

Today's shitheap?

The Mummy (2017).

Because, really, we needed to take all of the humor and fun out of the Brendan Frasier 1999 version, move it to the present day, add a few new characters and references to other classic movie monsters so that audiences have "easter eggs", and gender-swap the whole thing so that it LOOKS like a whole new movie but, in all truth, it's really fucking not.

That face says it all, really...

SO, the deal is that Tom Cruise plays Nick Morton, an utter dickhead who spends his life an an antiquities thief in the military who, for real, just should have ended up incarcerated for the shenanigans he pulls with his buddy, Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), at the very beginning of the film because he deserted his unit hunting for a town that's basically named "Curse".  That's even before they found the tomb that was a giant health and safety hazard because of a whole shit-ton of free-flowing mercury (which was used because it supposedly holds evil spirits at bay).  We get introduced to Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) as part of the aftermath of the drone strike that opens up the tomb.  She hates Nick, too.

As we all should.

See that hole?  Just fill it right the fuck back in.

Moving forward, Nick does something monumentally stupid and raises Ahmanet, our titular Mummy (Sofia Boutella)... yes, she's female, no that's not meant to be punny... unless you want it to be, I guess I can't stop you.  Rude.  ANYWAY, as part of this whole schtick, Nick gets saddled with the curse.  The curse of Ahmanet choosing him to be her vessel for Set, who, according to people that really didn't do their fucking homework, is basically the Dark Universe's (Yes, that's what Universal is calling their remakes of their classic monster films... I don't know why their team couldn't have gone cooler but the logo is nice, I guess) Egyptian Satan.  And possibly her baby-daddy because she gets ALL up in his grill a number of times throughout the film.

Yeah.  Because moldering linen, missing flesh, and the ability to summon sand and vermin are so fucking hot, right now.  She also kills Chris and keeps him around to haunt Nick into doing more stupid shit, a la Jack Goodman from An American Werewolf in London.  YAY, hallucinations and what very little humor they left in the film! 

And double irises.  Thus confounding cosplayers FOREVER!

We also get introduced to Prodigium.  A secret society, led by Dr. Jekyll (Yes, that Dr. Jekyll and portrayed by the always UNFH-worthy Russell Crowe... seriously, that man can wreck every inch of it, for real.  Call me, Russell.  Call me.) that exists to hunt supernatural threats.  Because of COURSE it does.  It's absolutely amazing that these things can cause such massive amounts of property damage and loss of life that no one knows they even exist.  These folks must have some Men in Black level memory-erasing bullshit to deal with every fucking window in London being broken down into sand and flung willy-nilly, blinding and choking the entire fucking city.

So, yeah.  This movie got pretty much nothing but negative reviews from everybody most fucking deservedly because it's in that grey area between Action and Horror that nobody likes or wants.  As an action film, it was middle of the road.  As a horror film, it was not enough.  Just because you throw in a soul-sucking dead thing who can create more dead things to follow her command and her goal is to stab Tom Cruise (which... seriously?  I'm down) making him the living embodiment of fucking DEATH, does not mean you have a horror movie and, listen right the fuck up, Universal, these ARE horror movies.  Stop fucking pandering to the lowest common denominator and fucking scare us.  I know you can.  You've done it before.

Oh, look.  Evil fan service.  Her lack of nipples is disturbing.

For me, I didn't hate it.  It's not a great use of your time.  You COULD be volunteering somewhere or walking with children in nature but if you feel the need to spend a few bucks and get out of the Summer heat, you could do much worse.

But, I didn't fucking like it, either.  I am not a fan of making the utterly devoid of human compassion jerkface the main protagonist (and this is brought up a few times without any tangible glimpses of redemption on the part of Nick).  I don't like that they took what could be a very strong female character and made her simper at the man who saved her life for the remainder of the film.  I don't like that they took the villain and made HER simper at the man she wants to turn into a god.  She HAD the power.  She didn't HAVE to do anything but wreck shit and rule Egypt for fucking ever  (and, y'know, pay Set back for his part of the bargain).  But, no.  Let's take a being that can literally sand blast the pyramids to dust and make her vulnerable to a fucking poison dart so we can entomb her alive for 5000 years to come back to wave her decrepit genitals at Tom Cruise, The Tiniest Scientologist.

I'm not going to say that you should skip this one.  There ARE elements of this movie that I enjoyed greatly.  There are a metric ass-ton of Easter eggs that it's fun to watch for (like the Book of the Dead from the Frasier flicks popping up and all sorts of delicious nasties in glass jars).  The special effects are decent and I actually really liked Sofia Boutella's performance.  I liked that they basically gender-swapped the entire story.  I liked Russell Crowe in a well-tailored suit, and WHO DOESN'T?!?  None of these things make up for a lackluster story with too many extraneous elements and a complete lack of judgement when it comes to time and distance.

It's not good, it's not bad.  It's just meh.  Bland.  Not necessarily boring.  But bland.  Salt required.

And I SWEAR TO GREAT BLOGATHOTEP, IF YOU WRECKED MY CHANCES AT A REMAKE OF CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, TOM CRUISE, I WILL ENSURE THAT YOU SPEND YOUR ENTIRE LIFE REGRETTING THAT YOU SIGNED ONTO THIS PICTURE!!  Seriously, bitch.  Run.

The World’s Biggest Trigger Warning

This title is not a joke. This post is without pictures for a reason.  If discussion of rape in fiction, or in general, upsets you due to personal reasons, I do not blame you for an instant and would much rather you skip this chapter than find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. This chapter will be as snarkless as I can make it because when it comes to this subject, I. Do. Not. Play.*

Barring murder, which is a crime that really won’t go unreported for long, rape is probably number two on our list of heinous things that human beings can, and sadly will, do to one another. Rape statistics, though, can be wildly misleading depending on the country one is in. Inconsistent definitions of rape can take 0.2 reported instances per 100,000 people in Azerbaijan to a whopping 132.4 per 100,000 reporting rape in South Africa (oddly, one of the countries with very progressive laws regarding rape in several circumstances which came about due to local superstitions claiming that having unprotected sex with a virgin will cure AIDS which caused grown-ass men to rape BABIES, sick motherfuckers).

It is a supremely under-reported crime and this is what makes people think that it isn’t actually a problem. Statistics can’t even really be considered accurate because there are SO many reasons why it will go unreported. Fear of retaliation. Not wanting to get the offender in trouble (Wait, what?). Unsure if a crime was actually committed or if the local laws will consider it rape (many countries will only recognize “male-female” rape and almost NO studies have been performed in regards to “female-female” or “male-male”). Not wanting others to know because of shame and stigma. A lack of trust in local law enforcement. Not knowing HOW to report the crime.

And, as a big detractor. in many countries, a person who reports rape but cannot prove it will suffer criminal penalties themselves (alongside those countries where extramarital sex has its own set of punishments, thanks, self-righteous Abrahamic religions). In Africa, several countries have laws that institute the death penalty for consensual sodomy so if a victim cannot prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they were raped and not a willing participant, guess who’s on the chopping block?

The statistics I found in regards to the US (https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=240972) can also vary based on the circumstances of the incident. Was the victim forcibly raped? Was the victim drugged against their will? Was the victim otherwise inebriated or incapacitated? Was the act violent or coerced? Those statistics tell us that nearly 20% of women in the US (and 11.5 percent of women in college) have been raped based on surveys and only 16% of those crimes were reported to law enforcement.

Keep in mind that I am deliberately mostly sticking to figures regarding women, here. This is because there is one trope used in several kinds of fiction that disturbs me on a number of levels. The child born of rape.

We all know that rape is often written into a fictional work as a power-play. It’s mostly (read “99.9999999% of the time) unnecessary but can provide tension and a cause for a rape-revenge scenario. In works by female artists, it’s used as a cathartic move. In works by men, it can be either sympathetic, created out of solidarity toward women, or just a sick fantasy. (Seriously, this is the one kink I will actively shame someone for. Yes, I get that it’s impossible to rape someone who refuses to withhold permission but there are going to be those times when you say no and if people don’t expect it, there’s gonna be a problem.) A lot of times, particularly in bad Mary Sue fanfiction and despite what some politicians would have you believe regarding the human female’s ability to “shut down” a pregnancy, that fantasy extends to a child born of a violent and unnecessary union.

As a sub-trope, though, the child of rape can bring us to some interesting places. Most often because the child of rape is largely portrayed as the evilest evil thing that ever eviled evilly.

We all know that marital rape is actually a new concept and even serial killers don’t always have horrible childhoods so we know that "rape children are evil" REALLY isn’t true. Thing is, though, it does provide a thought-provoking facet to an otherwise two-dimensional character’s life, whether the victim or the child. In Night of the Demon, a girl is raped by Bigfoot and bears his child. Even the Final Girl isn’t immune, as seen in The Prey.

In terms of just the children, though, on the heroic side, we have those characters that are wholesome and good despite their parentage. Of course, on that same side, we have the character that wants to white knight for their wronged mother and slaughter the son of a bitch that hurt her. And, on the other hand, we’ve got the villains.

Oh, yes, the villains.

The ones who kill for fun. The ones whose parents treated them as if they were a curse. The neglected and abused children who, through no fault of their own, get back-handedly blamed for the crime committed against their mother and grow up believing that they are monsters so they act like it.

We all know that Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm St) was called “The bastard son of 100 maniacs”. The deformed murderer in Dario Argento’s Phenomena is a product of such a union. The killer from Cherry Falls was the child of a woman that the local police chief (and father of our Final Girl) and his jock buddies decided to “have a little fun with”. Eleanor from Byzantium, while not technically a villain, is still a vampire. In rare cases, because fiction usually assumes that a rapist is male, the child is the result of the mother raping the father, such as La Morte D’Arthur where Mordred is the result of Arthur being tricked into getting Morgan Le Fey pregnant and in Black Christmas where jaundiced and yellow-eyed Agnes was conceived in much the same way.

It may not be right to almost celebrate rape with the enjoyment of these characters but their origin does give you something to think about no matter how bad the rest of the movie is. Would they be different if their parentage was legitimate? What if they ended up being adopted and lovingly cared for? Are characters like this written as a subtle means of promoting a pro-choice message? Why did the creator imagine them with this particular origin?

I mean, I get it but of all of the different means of becoming a villain, why is rape kind of a go-to? Why does an innocent child have to be written with that stigma. Is the pathos worth it? If the writing is well-handled and the actor doesn’t go off the rails with it, sure. As long as it’s not a cheap shot to the nuts, go for it. If the rape itself is treated with the respect an actual crime is due then, by all means, give us the goods.

Just don’t sell us on a crappy character with this background being shitty based solely on the shittiness of their conception.

*If you are a victim of sexual assault and need someone to talk to, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or use their online chat at https://ohl.rainn.org/online/. Hell, I can be reached on Facebook and Twitter if necessary.*

You In Danger...

AT LONG LAST!  I have seen the brilliance that is Get Out and I have things to say.  Things that may seem like I didn't like it.  Things that may seem as if I'm tearing down this utterly fantastic film.

Are you new here?

All strapped into your comfy chairs?  Are you ready for this?

Let's begin.

So, I'm sure you've heard all about Jordan Peele's horrific vision of the face of modern racism.  Even if you only saw the commercials, you got the gist of what was happening.  Interracial couple goes home to get the black boyfriend introduced to the parents.  You expect the sobbing and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth all Guess who's Coming to Dinner style, right?  The girlfriend being super-positive and "They're gonna love you!" while our guy, played with a sassy smirk throughout the whole film by Daniel Kaluuya, is all "But... I'm black.  You told them, right?  They know what's coming, right?"

The 'Rents are looking particularly white, today.

They DO hit a deer and get racially profiled on the way there and that freaks our hero out, but otherwise the trip to the house is uneventful.

I'm going to do my best to not spoil this but it gets SUPER-weird from here on out.

So, Dad is a neurosurgeon and Mom is a licensed hypnotherapist who REALLY likes her tea.  She has that same cup in her hand throughout the whole movie, kinda like Sharon Stone in Catwoman but without the booze and smug satisfaction of doing a film for the sole purpose of buying a pool.  Sharon was the best part of that movie (which I love for its utter horribleness).  I didn't realize you could actually get paid in highballs.  BOOZE, kids!  The great motivator.

Awwww... he looks so proud of his new token *ahem* potential son in law.

There's a party but that's almost not the important part.  The important part is MOM IS A GODDAMNED HYPNOTIST!  And she's SHADY about it.  Like, doing it without you realizing it until it's too late.  But at least he can quit smoking, so, bonus, I guess.

Oh, and did I mention the Stepford servants?  The ones they say are just like family?  Yeah... hold that thought.  You'll need it at the end.

"Why, no, I didn't make a concerted effort to strand you in Upstate New York with the rich, white folks at ALL!"

There's a twist.  It's a BIG twist.  A twist so audacious, you don't even see it coming until it fucking steamrolls you into a popcorn-filled pancake.  A twist that, had it been used in ANY other manner, would have earned Jordan Peele every Razzie in existence. 

First of all, let me say this.  Holy.  Fuck.  This is fucking AMAZING!

Not as amazing as this guy.  I hate cardio.

This, kids, in the guise of a horror film with some deep comedic roots that knows when to dial back the silly, is "cultural appropriation" writ large and in fucking charge.  The line is obliterated at "appropriation" and sends you screaming straight into cultural PILLAGING.  When you watch the trailers, you think this is all about some kinda slavery thing or some way of forcing the black man into assimilating into white society but it's so much fucking worse than that.

See, these people LIKE African-Americans.  Like, a LOT.  They want to know and understand their culture.  They think that hanging out with "the coloreds" is cool and they're INCREDIBLY impressed with their physical superiority.

Wait, whut?  They did this because white men can't jump and black don't crack?  THAT'S what they got out of repeated viewings of Roots?  Fuck, Peele, you went in DEEP.

You hurt my feelings, man...

ANYWAY!  There are times, watching this film, that made it hard to remember I was watching a horror movie.  That's good.  I complain about being lulled into a false sense of security but it obviously works or filmmakers wouldn't keep doing it.  In this case, you almost expect this to go off-track into a Key and Peele sketch but it doesn't.  Those little detours are what make the actual horror pieces slap you right in the goddamn nuts and say "PAY ATTENTION!"

And pay attention you fucking should because this is, to date, the most culturally significant horror film, in regards to race relations, to come along since Night of the Living Dead.  Socially CONSCIOUS horror is a fantastic thing and this one gets the job DONE.

Go.  Watch.  Now.

Night of Something... I Don't Know What, But Something

I'm really going to have to stop watching things my roommate tells me I should watch because this shit is getting ridiculous, yo.  For today's little fun run, let's take a look at Night of Something Strange.

Words cannot adequately describe the revulsion I feel for this film.  Remember how actual, real, paid critics used to say that horror had no redeeming social value?  Yep.  None.  None at all to be found here.  Negative social value is the watchword of the day.  The director, here, needs to be beaten with an oar and pay US for the opportunity to do so.  Because his shit is weak.  Weak and off-putting.  I would rather put my dick in a blender than watch this again.

Because it all starts with this guy:

Jokerface McCorpsefucker

First off, asshole, if you're GONNA fuck a corpse, at LEAST read the toe tag if you're not the actual cause of death.  It says right there that she died of an STI.  But, noooooooo.  You and your creepy-ass face just neeeeded to get your dick wet.  Probably because no one else was gonna touch you.  I bet you belong to a Men's Rights group and believe that raising a daughter is the ultimate in cuckoldry because you spend 18 years spending money on a girl for other men to have.  Grooooooooss.

SO, yeah.  It all started there and, like all shit, rolled directly downhill, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 (or, rather, $3500 in today's money which I could totally use because I like nice things, go buy my book).  

Oh, and OF COURSE we have teenagers getting ready to graduate and going on a beach trip with no parental supervision.  Teenagers who can't stop at the side of the road to pee and, instead, have to use the gross toilet that Necro-Dick pissed blood and pus into AFTER eating the used tampon that was in there because we ALL needed to see that, right?

Awww.  Poor teenager in old-age makeup making sure she gets a last drag in before she cacks it.

AND THE FUN CONTINUES with everyone slowly turning because the one chick just HAD to go and she fell into the gross toilet, the fat kid finally getting laid (and getting his first STI AND his first anal experience in one go, bless him), the disgusting rimming jokes and other super-homophobic bullshit like the dude getting literally stuck in Chunky's asshole.

No, children, I cannot recommend this even as a horror-comedy (which is what it's supposed to be, I guess).  I would not even recommend watching this with a shitload of weed because it's just not that funny.  Maybe if it relied less on toilet humor, I wouldn't have a problem but, as I age, kicking and screaming, toilet humor does nothing but make me want to throw things at my very expensive monitor and that, kids, is a very bad fucking thing. 

Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE bad horror but it either has to be the kind of bad that doesn't think it's bad or the kind of bad that knows it's bad but uses the awful to it's advantage.  This movie is neither.  I mean, seriously.  If you're going to give me dick jokes, at least give me some dick and NOT the hideous fucking puppet you so graciously provided.

Don't watch it.  Just... don't.

Crime Doesn't Pay

I'd heard good things about today's piece.  The House on Willow Street is supposed to be this new, edgy, South African horror flick that's sweeping the nation via OnDemand and IFC Midnight.  I mean, LOOK at this poster art.  It's delightfully creepy, right?

So I watched it.  I got my snacks and my drink and I settled into some demonic shenanigans.

Nope.  Nope.  Nope.

So, here's the thing.  These 4 career criminals (refugees from the foster care system from the sounds of things), who all seem to be related spend WEEKS coming up with a plan to abduct and ransom a teenage girl which, for all intents and purposes, goes off without a hitch.

There's a bell.  WHY is there a bell?  Is she part cat?

Of course, this being HorrorMovieTown, this is not quite as simple as they would like it to fucking be.  (Because it never is.  It's better to learn this lesson, now, kids.  Don't take the easy way out.  EARN your shit.  If you work hard for it you don't have anyone else to blame when things go tits up but you don't have anyone to thank but yourself for the cool shit, either.  Just a tip from your old Uncle Bob.) ANYWAY, their target is all legit possessed by a demon who can project your deepest fears and has a SUPER need to physically manifest.  I'm guessing because it's dying for a Pinkberry but I could be wrong.

So, these four douchebags (yes, including you, sole female member of the team) spend the rest of the movie getting chased by people they thought were dead, getting infected with "Tha Evuls" via spiky penis tongues and generally making use of the hastily rented abandoned warehouse .

And making me continually give you the thousand-yard Cheech-stare because I thoroughly blame drugs for this movie.

Oh, come one, now!  Really?  Truly, kids?  You can't do better than this?  I thought IFC Midnight was supposed to have GOOD taste and they distribute this pile of steaming, corn-filled shit?

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

First of all, this has already been done and been done WELL.  Take a gander at Tales from Halloween (because it's awesome) and check out the segment called "The Ransom of Rusty Rex" and you'll get a much slimmer, much more intense, and actually FUNNY version of this movie.  This movie makes me wish I made better choices in life, for real.  It was a bland, boring mumble-fest.

Save yourself the two hours and go walk in nature with children or something.  At least then you've done something worthwhile.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

You all may have noticed that there are some things missing from the site as of late.

Specifically, the Tropefest posts.

Well, there's a reason for that.

Those posts have been compiled and published in my very first book!

Tropefest!: Attack of the Killer Cliches is now available on Amazon!

This has been such a labor of love.  I hope you all enjoy it!  More Tropefest posts are coming.  I promise!

Don't Think It, Don't Say It, Don't Watch It

Is it just me or is horror just going straight to shit these days?  Because I just (and I cannot tell you why) watched The Bye-Bye Man and thought to myself, "Y'know what, Bob?  You deserve everything that's coming to you.  You brought this on yourself."

What kind of drugs were Stacy Title, Jonathon Penner and Robert Damon Schneck on when they decided this was going to be a good idea?  What have I told you about drugs, kids?  DON'T DO DRUGS!  If you do drugs, you end up with assholes like Scott Baio being insensitive dick-faces all over the landscape when you kick it.

And former A-listers clogging your drains and making sure you don't talk about Mommy Dearest.

So, yeah.  The movie starts with Leigh Wannell on a shooting spree because that's always a good start.  Blah, blah, blah, cut to present day when three college students rent out a full-sized fucking mansion because college students can afford the rent on this place really and for truly.  It's furnished, which is great because with the rent on this place there's no way they were going to be able to afford furniture.  They still won't be able to eat.  I suppose that's OK because they'll just fit right in with Hollywood's unhealthy standards of beauty.

So, yeah.  They find a nightstand with writing all over the drawer.  The writing says "Don't Think It, Don't Say It" again and again along with one large note "The Bye-Bye Man".

This bitch...

Now, are you gonna sit there with your bare fucking face and tell me that you didn't stop to think "Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't, oh, I don't know, WRITE THE GODDAMN NAME OF THE THING I SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT ALL OVER THE FUCKING LANDSCAPE?"  (It's amazing what you can spread all over the landscape, really.  Writing.  Insensitive assholery.  Shit.  Truly fascinating.)

Now, what has daddy told you about the stupid people, kids?  That's right.  They're stupid.  And without them we wouldn't have a movie.

That's where you should be smacked repeatedly.

So, yeah, they start thinkin' it and sayin' it and, of course, all sorts of forgettable dumbness occurs.  Like the lady in the records department, with whom the lead has a full-on conversation about TBBM as if it were all "Ho-hum, it's Tuesday", silently killing her entire family off-camera and then coming for the lead.  I wish she'd been successful.

Oh, and the psychic friend that murders her roommate and then decides she wants to take a walk on the train tracks.  That was fun.  But, at least they used her to bring us some Carrie-Anne Moss.  She and her super-frowny-face just waltzed through this movie like "gimme my damn paycheck and fire my manager".

You and I had a deal.  I would be a second-string character in your movie and it wouldn't suck.  You OWE me.

For real, kids, just don't waste your time.  I fully expect this to be on the next season of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  It's THAT bad.  I actually feel horrible for Doug Jones because he had to sit through hours of makeup and cope with a CGI dog for this piece of shit.  I literally had to watch this in 3 sittings because I could NOT sit still for the boring, lackluster, what-the-fuckness that is The Bye-Bye Man.

Skip this bitch with a song in your goddamn heart unless you want to make sure that Faye Dunaway has a few years worth of Botox money.  Poor thing.

Sneak Peak: You MONSTER

The following is a sneak peak at the first chapter of TROPEFEST II: Return of the Killer Cliches. The format of this article will likely not be the same as in the book because I can't afford the rights to the pictures.   Enjoy, bitches.

***

From the beginning of storytelling time (or at least back as far as Edgar Allen Poe), there has always been that one villain that is so utterly unhinged, so deranged, so apathetically mean, that their actions, regardless of the payoff at the end, are cruelly random and absolutely unreasonable.

These characters, as TV Tropes so eloquently phrases it, are doing this “for the evulz”.

Ya don't fuckin' say...

This portmanteau of “evil” and the internet slang “for the lulz” basically means “I don't need a reason to do what I'm doing, I'm evil. Suck my dick. And this stick of dynamite.” Kinda like the Trump presidency. Fuck you, Trump.

We have to bear in mind that this doesn't have anything to do with a similar trope in which the character just does something because it amused them (see the home invaders in The Strangers). In this case, the character is in full fucking possession of their morality and they deliberately choose to perform acts of evil based on that trait alone. One more time for the folks in the back, the Trump presidency, ladies and gentlemen.

And whoever made this piece of trash.

Whether or not the character gets any actual enjoyment out of their actions is also questionable. They don't NEED to enjoy dangling your scrawny ass over a shark-filled aquarium with a laser pointed at the rope holding you there while waiting for whichever tights-clad paragon of fucking virtue (nerd) to show up and rescue you, but it's sometimes nice, I suppose. No, they do it to inflict their own suck-ass life on you to share the pain. They do NOT give a shit if their actions hurt them, too.

There is also a sub-trope of this where the villain is an actual personification of evil. That's where we're looking at characters like the Loc-Nar (not a person but sentient, it counts) from Heavy Metal, Evil (yes, that's really the name of the character, thank you David Warner and Terry Gilliam) from Time Bandits and, in a kind of lame-ass attempt to explain how he comes back every few years to torment Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Myers from Halloween.

Nui Harime from Kill la Kill, ladies and gentlemen.  Shoot on site.

Now, as I said earlier, this trope does go back to at least Edgar Allen Poe. The Black Cat gives us a protagonist who hurts people and animals out of the “spirit of perverseness”. This didn't just extend to the people and animals he harmed, it also encompassed himself. He just didn't care and was driven to do things that he KNEW were wrong and did them anyway, seemingly out of pure spite. He hanged the titular kitty because “I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense; hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin “

But we also have characters like EVERYBODY'S favorite Batman rogue, The Joker. Not only does he do things specifically because they're funny but he tries to wax all philosophical about it and shit. In The Killing Joke (now an animated feature), he (SPOILERS, BITCHES!) shoots Barbara Gordon (AKA Batgirl), paralyzes her, and kidnaps Commissioner Gordon, strips him naked (Well, hello, Daddy...), and tortures him with photographs taken of Barbara's broken, nude, helpless body. It's assumed that J-man raped her but that's not canon. Why did he do this? Because it's fun AND because he wants to prove that all it takes is one bad day to utterly ruin your life and make you take the short bus to cuckoo-town.

And in video games, we have the myriad of games wherein you, the player, get to decide if you're going to fight on the side of the angels or wreak havoc because you can. Infamous is pretty much the forerunner, here.

In horror specifically, we do have the aforementioned Michael Myers (although he doesn't seem to enjoy it, he DOES take the time to artfully display his victims like some kind of demented Macy's window dresser) but we also have such interesting characters as The Captain in Byzantium (who seems to just like raping little girls and sending them off into slavery), The Gremlin in Twilight Zone: The Movie (and the television episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet) who just wants to destroy the plane because it's all kinds of fucking funsies, and the Indomitus Rex from Jurassic World who, for all intents and purposes, is a giant, dinosaur sociopath. It hunts for sport, unlike the other big bads in the previous installments.

SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKERS!!

This trope is SUPER fun but it can also go down some idiotic fucking roads. If you play it too far one way all you have is a cackling, petty, dumb-ass super-villain that's too stupid to live (and won't... because they're stupid). If you don't play it up enough, all you get is “Doomsday Guy”. Laziness is usually the cause, here, and it tends to happen in sequels because, as mentioned in the my first book, screenwriters do not understand the care and feeding of cash cows. I find that smacking them with a newspaper generally gets them to stop shitting all over the paper.

We Hurt the Ones We Love. LET ME LOVE YOU!

My roommate has been hounding me for MONTHS to watch his new favorite movie, The Love Witch.  I finally gave in but only because I like my roommate and I also like mid-to-late-60s retro Technicolor schlock.

Anna Biller's latest, The Love Witch, is a throwback to films like Hammer's Dracula, Blood and Black Lace, Black Eye, and Barbarella.  Super-saturated with color, marinated in pure sex, and melodramatic to the extreme, these films are EXTRA-cheesy and I love the fuck out of them.

That's it, mama.  Smoke up that classic convertable.

Elaine, our lead and played delightfully by Samantha Robinson, is a recent widow/divorcee/not-really-sure fleeing from a past she'd rather forget but also starting to weave her own little web of debauchery in her new digs.  Digs where her old coven seem to know exactly where to find her at all times.  (This is important, somehow, but I still haven't quite placed my finger on it.)

Yeah.  SUUUUper-weird.

Her schtick?  She's addicted to love.  Like a reject from a Robert Palmer video, she gives us garage-door eyeshadow and a tasteful coral lip to get what she wants and what she wants is a man to love her forever.  Except she keeps getting it wrong and either having to kill them or just watching them die.  Horribly.  Not in the way of "Oh, that death was gruesome", more like "Oh.  No.  I'm.  Dying." hilariousness.

You heard me, bitch.  DO.  BETTER.

During the course of this, the police are catching up to her, she falls in love with the lead detective and all kinds of wackiness ensues.  Like rituals:

So much unsexy nude in this movie.  I mean, it wasn't all bad but damn.

And impromptu horseback riding that leads directly to a pop-up renaissance festival starring all of her coven friends that are itchin' to hold a wedding for the two people that literally started dating a day before.

CLOWN!!

 For real kids, this is some DELICIOUS cheese.  Like a fine aged cheddar or smoked brie.  Biller obviously knows and loves her schlock and I need to meet her and thank her for this.  Mostly because I watched it reeeeeealllly fucking high (weed is not a drug, it's a plant) and that's the best way to watch it.  You don't need acid to feel like you're hallucinating.  Just some skunk weed and this movie.  Fantastic.

I may have to give this one a try sober but I feel that I may have been spoiled myself for choice this time around.  I think it would still be fun but not AS fun.  Still, this is one of the best instances of unintentional comedy-horror ever made.  (The director prefers that it be known as a melodrama but she's wrong.)

Anyway, bust out those go-go boots and fringe dresses, spark up a blunt, get yourself some munchies and check out The Love Witch.  You won't be disappointed.