Jul 26, 2006

Pyramid Head comes home!

Alright, so the film version of Silent Hill was by and large style over substance. But what style! What panache! What grossosity! I liked it, I tells ya, and I just can't wait for the DVD release so I can watch it again. Lucky for me, I don't have long to wait- the DVD will hit shelves on August 22. From the scant info I've read, there will be documentary upon documentary upon makings-of...but no word (that I can find) on deleted scenes.

Now I will try to leap light-years forward and post a video here...one of my favorite cutscenes from the first Silent Hill game. The character made it to the big screen; the awesomeness, sadly, did not. Bask in the grody CGI goodness, my people. Will this work? Am I technologically advanced enough to post video? Let's see...



I feel so fucking cyber!

Jul 24, 2006

a match made in heaven


I hope the zombies in Romero's next movie are decked out in capris and polarfleece vests. Magic, fly me to the Land of the Dead!

Jul 20, 2006

Oh, I'm a happy camper...

Both Fangoria and Bloody-Disgusting have the lo-down on the progress of the upcoming Return to Sleepaway Camp, the 4th film in the series.

From what I've read, the filmmakers (including Robert Hiltzik, returning as writer/director to the franchise he began) want to make the fourth entry more like the first Sleepaway; that is, to make more of a straight-up slasher flick and move away from the...err, campiness of the second and third films.

The plot is shockingly original and will not only break new ground but will dig up old ground just to spit on it and make fun of its clothes:

It's summer at Camp Manabe...and then people start to die.

Hey, "cutting-edge" has its place, and I tell ya, it ain't at Camp Manabe. I say, no matter! Sometimes you want foie gras with a nice bearnaise and caper sauce garnished with arugula and pretty pretty edible flowers, and sometimes you just want a burger. Me, I always want pizza. I'm eating some right now, as a matter of fact. I don't even know if "foie gras with a nice bearnaise and caper sauce garnished with arugula and pretty pretty edible flowers" is something anyone wants, but those were all the fancy food words I could come up with.

I digress.

Return to Sleepaway Camp has been "in production" for years now. In fact, there's some footage from it available on a bonus disc if you buy the Sleepaway Box Set. I haven't seen any of it because, of course, I bought my Sleepaway Box Set about 20 minutes before the extra-special version with a bonus disc hit shelves. I have a knack for doing that sort of thing, you see. I always buy a video game system 20 minutes before they announce a price drop and 6 times now I've adopted a baby 20 minutes before I find out I'm pregnant.

I digress yet again.

Apparently they're putting finishing touches on the movie and aiming for a DVD release later this year. Tons and tons of gore will be added to existing footage, from rats chomping on bodies to spears through eyeballs to skinned victims. Sounds like a real grody-fest. There's one quote, however, from the Fangoria article that has me really excited about this movie. Sayeth FX artist Jerome Thelia, "There's a scene in which one of the characters basically explodes..."

Aah, yessssss...preciousssssssss. You know how I love a nice explosion in my horror movies.

No one's saying Peep One about Angela making a return appearance, but a Sleepaway Camp movie without Angela is like foie gras without pretty pretty edible flowers. It simply doesn't work!

Jul 18, 2006

Blood Suck-er

As some of you know by now, I'm a comic book inker. Currently, I'm working on the book BloodRayne, based on the video game about a half-vampire chick who is a vampire hunter. Here's a page from the upcoming 3-issue mini-series, Plague of Dreams, which launches this August:As some of you may ALSO know by now, a couple of weeks ago I was parked behind a table at
Heroes Con
. When people found out that I'm working on BloodRayne, the number two question I was asked was "Have you seen the movie?"...the number one question, of course, being "Are those Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing?". I always had to answer 'no'to the movie question, although I'd heard it's terrible (it IS a Uwe Boll movie, after all) and I'm 100% sure that the comic book is better.

I figured that since it seems everyone else has seen BloodRayne and I am working with the character...I'd might as well prepare myself and watch the damn movie. I've seen Uwe Boll's other movies, so I pretty much knew what to expect- not much. He's really the modern day Ed Wood Jr., isn't he? I will admit, though, that House of the Dead was so unbelievably bad that I enjoyed it for all its wretchedness. In fact, there was this one zombie in the background who walked across the screen in such an absurd way that I had to rewind the DVD at least 8 times to see it- it filled me with the very heights of glee! If I ever meet you, remind me to show you how the zombie was walking because I love to imitate it.

To make a long story not-so-short, I watched the debacle that is BloodRayne last night and decided to do a cartoon review. The cartoon was drawn on the fly as I watched the movie, so forgive my unruled panel borders and general sloppiness. I hang my head in deep, deep shame.

And yes, I still stand by my claim: the comic is definitely 100% better than the movie.



Jul 15, 2006

Shredded Cheese

Is it hot where you are right now? 'Cause it's hot where I am right now...and I tell ya, it's not just because my new shampoo has my hair bouncin' and behavin' like it's never bounced and/or behaved before. I mean it's like totally Kenny Rogers Roasters-style hot here, man. Like, it's totally I feel as if I'm wearing a jumpsuit made out of asbestos and I live in a hibachi that's on fire AND dangling from the sun at the same time-style hot, man. Now that's hot!

Incidentally, if you click on that Kenny Rogers Roasters link up there, you'll see that their motto is "It's the wood that makes it good". Just thought I'd point that out.

What, oh what is one to do when it's oh so hot and sticky out there? How does one cope with the heat and the so-very-thick air? Yes, yes...we've all crammed frozen Stouffers French Bread Pizzas down our pants to cool off, but what else is there to be done?

Fear not, my disgusting sweaty friends, for I have the solution! To battle the heat, we watch a movie about a crazed skier who dresses all in black and kills pesky snowboarders, that's what we do! Yes! We grab a big, frosty glass full of Mountain Dew or SOBE or some other hip snowboarder-friendly drink. We feel refreshed, we feel "with it"...and we settle in to watch the blood run down the snowy slopes in...SHREDDER! Ah, I feel less disgusting already, don't you? Like I'm taking a bath in York Peppermint Patties...or something that gives a similarly cool sensation.

The story here is as old as the hills themselves, kids: a young, mostly horny group of "teens" heads to an abandoned ski slope- Rocky Summit, a haunted abandoned ski slope!- for a weekend of booze, boobs, and getting killed.

Oh, yeah, sure...there's a big silly story about how the townies hate snowboarders and tried to ban snowboarders from Rocky Summit but then some snowboarders showed up anyway, right? And they totally got wasted and went snowboarding, and they made some little girl who was skiing all nervous, right? Like they were bullying her? And she smacked into a tree and died! And yeah, so the ski slope is all closed and haunted and everyone totally hates snowboarders.

Warnings and scoldings aren't enough to stop our rad group of shredders from heading up to Rocky Summit, though! They've simply got to shred! Shred 'til they're dead! I learned that term, 'shred', and how to apply it to the sport of snowboarding whilst watching the movie. I officially feel 68% hipper than I did before I watched Shredder. No more "purple stuff" for me, homies, I'm ready for Sunny D!

Our garden-variety stock characters (from the uber-annoying "funny" guy to the slut to the...other slut) soon arrive at the slopes for some of the aforementioned young-people type activities. Before you can say "Cowabunga, dude!", however, the killer (looking like the Winter Olympics edition of the black clad killer in Night School) starts doing his slalom of death!

One by one the illicit 'boarders are dispatched...and I must admit, I was entertained. Characters were killed in ways that frequently made me laugh, from the giant icicle-through-the chest to the poor girl who accidentally hung herself from the chairlift. Much time passed before anyone found her body, so the audience gets treated to many a shot of her lifeless body spinning in the cool winter breeze as it hangs from the lift...there she goes, up one side of the mountain and back down again. Maybe it was the late hour or merely the heat of a July night affecting me, but lawd almighty, it filled me with glee.

So what's the final verdict on Shredder? Hmm. That's a tough one. Well, I can't honestly say that it's a good movie, and though it's a nice throwback to the slasher heyday of the 80s, the tongue is firmly planted in cheek here. Most likely, Shredder could be classified as a horror/comedy...and while I'm not usually a fan of that sub-genre, I was damn entertained by this flick. On one hand, the acting isn't very good and it's certainly not scary. On the other hand, however, the blood flows freely and some of the kills have that "ooh, cringe" factor. It's oddly fun and there's even some wonderful lines, like my favorite: "I'm not gay, I'm just horny!" And boy, after watching this movie, I feel more in touch with Generation Y than ever! In fact, it's quite possible that I myself live only to shred now.

Before checking out Shredder, I prescribe a healthy dose of beer and/or some brain softening via exposure to intense summer heat...then crack open a Sunny D and enjoy! I give it 5.5 out of 10 eternally dangling hos.