Day 23: "He's family."

Sex has played a large part in horror films virtually since the inception of the genre: Frankenstein's monster wasn't around very long before he needed a Bride, Dracula and company are all about romance and seduction...if a slasher film doesn't feature a set of boobs somewhere, audience disappointment will be noted. From Slaughter High's awesome "Tits...screw..." sweet-talk to the gentle petting of your favorite 70s lesbian vampire movie, sex in horror is generally meant to titillate, make us laugh, or simply put characters in compromising positions to the advantage of the killer.

Then there are movies like Pin (1988), which explore sexuality in ways that make the audience squirm uncomfortably for 90 minutes. Hooray!

When we meet Ursula and Leon, they're small children growing up in a wealthy, strict household. Mom is a wackadoo clean freak, and dad (Terry O'Quinn!) is a pediatrician who quizzes the kids before bed and is generally a no-nonsense guy. Both parents withhold affection from Ursula and Leon, and the only real emotions on display are anger and frustration. Has this approach to child-rearing ever resulted in well-adjusted adults?

"Pin" is a life-sized, anatomically correct medical dummy that Dr. Dad keeps in his office. Using ventriloquism, he makes it seem as if Pin is alive- Pin talks to the patients and explains things to them, providing a calm, reasonable voice to assuage any fears the kids may have. Ursula catches her father's lips moving during one of Pin's lectures and figures out the secret. To Leon, though, Pin is alive...and a friend, providing advice or sometimes just listening.

Leon sneaks into his father's office after hours to spend some one-on-one time with Pin; one of the doctor's nurses stays late for her own special kind of one-on-one time with Pin- he's anatomically correct, after all. One can only assume that Pin is also anatomically excited when the nurse pulls the dummy over to the examining table and...well, she humps him for a while. Poor Leon is trapped in the corner, forced to watch (and listen to) his best friend used as a gigantic sex toy. He reacts pretty much the same way any of us would (or do, as we're watching this film).

The kids become high schoolers and, as you may expect, they've got some issues. Ursula, at 15, has become what my gramma would call "the town pump"- she's got a well-deserved reputation at school for being easy. Leon doesn't cope well this and beats up anyone who goes near his sister.

By the way, my gramma also says that only whores have pierced ears...just so you know.

Leon still doesn't know that Pin isn't actually alive. He lashes out at anyone who dares call the dummy a dummy, and he spends as much time in dad's office as possible hanging out with his friend. They have long, soulful talks and do math (heh..."do math") together. They're just like anyone, except, you know, one of them is a mannequin. Before you judge, you should remember how that idea worked out for Andrew McCarthy. Wait...did it work out? I've never actually seen Mannequin. Anyway.

Doin' math

When dad catches Leon and Pin hanging out, he realizes that his son may have an unhealthy attachment to his lifeless pal. He realizes that his son may, in fact, be...a kookadook. He grabs Pin, stuffs him in the car, and decides he's going to donate him to a medical foundation. But...is Pin alive?

As they're driving along, mom seems to think Pin is moving around in the back seat. Is he? Or is dad simply taking corners too fast? Whatever the truth is, the car crashes and Ursula and Leon find themselves orphaned.

Having given up her randy ways (an abortion will often do that to ya, at least for a while) Ursula gets a job in the library while Leon gets weirder and weirder. He insists that Pin be treated as a member of the family, going so far as to dress the dummy in one of dad's old suits. He also gives Pin a wig and mask, just to complete the extremely fucking creepy ensemble.

Leon is also working towards his dream of becoming a writer; when he's not hanging out with Pin, he's penning poems about raping his sister. But, you know, that's totally fiction!

Ursula knows there's something extremely wrong with her brother, but she thinks he's ultimately harmless. They're wealthy, after all, so Leon couldn't possibly be mentally ill- he's eccentric. When Ursula brings home a boyfriend, though, it throws off the family dynamic. This guy not only thinks Leon needs help, he thinks Pin is just a dummy! This cannot stand.

So is Pin alive, or is Leon projecting? Writer/director Sandor Stern (Amityville IV: The Evil Escapes...oh fucking YEAH) manages to maintain the mystery throughout the course of the film until its bizarre (and bizarrely awesome) conclusion. Pin is a movie that manages to feel extremely sleazy without its ever actually being sleazy, if you know what I mean. The undercurrent of incest (or at least unspoken incestual desire) is enough to make you feel squidgy. Then there's the whole medical teaching dummy-as-sex toy scene...aaaah! In the end, this Psycho-esque little flick is a real perverted treat.

Day 22: "It's the hour of dogs and wolves."

A word of advice to the fine folks at Genius Products (because I'm sure they're reading this): I understand that you're trying to horn in on the Asian Horror market dominated by Tartan/Palisades. That's swell- more product for we humble horror hags is always welcome. However, as I noted in my review of Black House earlier this month, you sure are mis-marketing this shit. The covers are super duper misleading, which is only going to drive away customers for two reasons: 1) People expecting something extremely violent based on the Photoshopped grotesqueries you slap on the box are going to be disappointed when the films aren't extremely violent, and 2) People are going to be driven away by those covers because they don't want to watch something extremely violent (or the same old same old that Asian horror is getting a rep for)...and those folks are gonna miss out on some really fantastic films...like Voice (2005). I mean, get a load of the DVD cover art:

I don't know what kind of impressions that gives you, but I certainly wasn't expecting a terrifically moody and artistic examination of friendship and death...but that's what I got.

Young-eon (Ok-vin Kim) decides to stay late into the night at school to rehearse her singing; her best friend Seon-min (Seo Ji-hye) reluctantly leaves her behind. Before long, Young-eon hears a voice harmonizing with her. She promptly gets freaked out and decides to split, but a shadowy figure in the hallway stalks her and kills her- with a piece of sheet music. Yeah, it sounds ridiculous, and it probably is, but by the next scene the implausibility is forgotten.

The next day, Young-eon is missing from school, but she's trapped in the school as a spirit. Confusion turns to slight relief when she figures out that although she can't be seen by anyone, Seon-min can still hear her. The two continue their friendship as best they can while they try to figure out who killed Young-eon and who's behind that voice she heard the night she died.

Differences in...you know, living status put a strain on their relationship. Young-eon is intensely jealous when Seon-min becomes friends with the class weirdo, Cho-ah (Cha Ye-ryeon), who can also hear Young-eon's voice. Secrets are revealed and nothing ends up the way you think it's going to, especially if you think Voice is simply going to be another run-of-the-mill ghost girl movie.

Though it's not billed as such, Voice is actually the fourth film in the Whispering Corridors series, all of which are related only in that they're set in South Korean girls' high schools. Voice is a strong entry in the series; while not the most violent, it's the most thought-provoking. It's a frank look at the relationships between young women, which often skirt the line (or dart back and forth over the line) between friendship and romance. The idea that we keep loved ones alive after they're gone as long as we remember them is heartbreakingly familiar to anyone who's lost somebody. When Seon-min begins ignoring Young-eon after she decides that all she can do is move on and live her own life, Young-eon literally begins to lose her voice as she starts to disappear. Voice packed an unexpected emotional wallop, bolstered by strong performances across the board.

As a horror film, it's not the slam-bang, visceral flick that Genius is pitching it as, but there's definitely plenty of blood and chills to be found. However, the action doesn't truly pick up until after the one-hour mark; the film never dragged, but it's more akin to a drama with tinges of horror than the other way around. I wasn't bored even for a moment- I was sucked into the mystery and loved the movie for what it was.

The color schemes, at times, recalled another school-bound horror film: Suspiria. Yeah, I said it! While Voice isn't nearly as stylized as Argento's masterpiece, director Ik-hwan Choe and cinematographer Yong-Heung Kim clearly have an eye for art.

I loved this. In fact, it was so good that I can only imagine how bad a Hollywood remake would be.

Day 21: "I don't know if this is life or death."

10 years after The Blair Witch Project, writer/director Daniel Myrick has left the mysterious, cruel woods of Burkittsville for the mysterious, cruel desert of Afghanistan. The result is the engaging and enigmatic sci fi/war thriller The Objective, film that raises far more questions than it answers.

In the weeks following September 11, 2001, CIA agent Ben Keynes (Jonas Ball) is sent into Afghanistan to investigate a radioactive heat signature picked up on surveillance photographs. He's embedded with a small groups of Special Ops soldiers (which includes Blair Witch's Mike Williams) as they head off into the remote desert mountains- of course, the soldiers don't know the true motivation for this trip. They believe they're seeking an esteemed religious figure who can help the U.S. turn the local populace against the Taliban...and while that is one facet of the mission, there are government secrets at play here. There's a very good chance that they're on a one way trip to the middle of nowhere.

The soldiers are ambushed by the resistance and soon find themselves wounded and running dangerously low on supplies with no backup coming. The human threat gives way to the unknown, and the platoon dwindles rapidly in the face of a faceless enemy. Exactly what does Keynes hope to find? Will he find anything?

The Objective succeeds tenfold in raising expectations. As the men draw closer to the source of the mysterious signals, the curiosity about what they'll discover becomes almost unbearable. Bright lights dart around the sky and vaporize soldiers in a flash- is there some sort of alien force holed up in the desert? The Afghanis call this area "sacred"- what do they actually know? The questions that will cross your mind during the film are not all be answered, which, while not completely surprising, is almost satisfying. Unfortunately, it's in the resolution that the movie falters- a problem some audiences had, in fact, with The Blair Witch Project. Undoubtedly this is a film that will be best enjoyed by those who find just as much pleasure in the journey as they do the destination.

The cinematography is simply stunning. The desert (Morocco masquerading as Afghanistan) feels like another character here, watching the men and waiting for them to falter so it can pounce. The word "remote" doesn't do justice to the sense of isolation that comes across here: this is a truly unforgiving and dangerous landscape.

Keynes uses a special infrared video camera on the journey to relay images and data back to the CIA, and as he draws nearer the target,we're treated to some creepy imagery- even if we don't know exactly what we're seeing. Though the "character with a camcorder" has been overutilized (and has lost most of its potency) in horror these days, it's effective in The Objective, as it adds to the mystery.

The Objective defies easy categorization- there's not much by way of "horror" here beyond a relentless feeling of the uncanny. Sci fi purists may bemoan the lack of...well, sci fi. The film is an intriguing exercise in "less is more", although for some less may simply be not enough.

it's wednesday!

Yes, it's true: it's Wednesday! That means I've got a column up at AMC...and this week, I'm talking about a little something something called Night of the Creeps, which is getting a DVD reissue on the 27th. AWESOMESAUCE.
Over yonder at the mysterious parts known as "Horror Blips", there's a roundup of horror bloggers revealing what incessantly scares 'em in genre cinema. If you would like to find out what I said...and/or what everybody said, then make with the click click!

Day 20: "You'll grow to like it here."

Man, I shoulda reviewed Haunting of Winchester House last night right after I watched it, rather than waiting 24 hours. While it was playing, I was kind of...into it, or at least feeling generous enough to pretend I was into it. There I was, aware of all its faults (and oh, there are plenty), yet thinking that there was finally a film from The Asylum that was actually successful. Now, picking out screencaps and going back over the whole thing, I have to wonder if I was, in fact, wasted last night. Perhaps someone snuck into my house and laced my Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice Holiday Tea (LIFE ON THE EDGE) with PCP or something. I suppose it's possible. Therefore, I'm going to suggest that if you're going to give Winchester House a go, you consider taking PCP to enhance your experience. Wait, that's probably an irresponsible thing to put out there on The Internet...ah! You should consider drinking Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice Holiday Tea before watching this movie. Hugs not drugs and all that.

Haunting of Winchester House opens with one of the most horrendous CGI shots I've seen in a while. It's a little difficult to make out here, but trust me- it's an "epic" sweeping establishing shot that starts out looking like a plastic diorama but ends with shoddy computermanship: the back end of the box truck is warped out of perspective, and I don't even know what's going on in the sky.

Ah, The Asylum.

Anyway, we learn in a prologue that the house is haunted when some broad's chalk circle and cries of "You are not welcome here!" don't prevent her from getting bitch slapped by some malevolent force. Later, a family rents the property; they receive their keys in the mail, and we never do learn who currently owns the mansion. Oh well.

The large house is still obviously made out of computer. In the few shots where characters have to interact with the exterior in some way, such as going through the front door, the shots are framed so tightly that you can't tell what the structure really looks like. This would be a clever way around budgetary restraints if only the long shots didn't look so damn fake and the trickery wasn't so obvious.

The eeeevil spirits residing within soon make themselves known, and they don't waste any time in kidnapping the daughter of the family. It's up to mom and dad to figure out what's going on and to find her; luckily for them, a paranormal investigator likes to hang out on the property and he offers to lend a hand with their problem. He explains the difference between Level 1 and Level 2 poltergeists, and why some spirits are mean...he's like Tangina, but he's a regular-sized black dude. He wields a blessed implement as he busts ghosts- I realize it's just a plumb bob, but I preferred pretending it was a giant pewter tampon (what was in my tea last night?).

During their quest to find their daughter, the couple learns a bit about the history of the house via that ol' cinematic chestnut, The Newspaper Clippings Tucked Away in Boxes- the proprietress was Sarah Winchester, inheritor of the Winchester rifle estate and prime kookadook and WAITAMINNIT. This was the point when I realized that yes, the filmmakers intended for us to think that this movie was taking place in THE Winchester Mansion. Here's a little history lesson for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story:

Sarah Winchester married into the family that created the famous Winchester Rifle. Her grief over the deaths of her only child and her husband caused her to seek the services of a spiritualist, who told her that the family was indeed cursed by the spirits of those killed by firearms manufactured by Winchester Arms. She was told to build a new house for herself and the spirits...and to never stop building it. So, 24/7/365 for the next forty years, she spent her sizable fortune adding onto a farmhouse until the structure became a twisted, hulking thing- what's known today as the "Winchester Mystery House". The construction was done at Sarah's whim without the aid of architectural plans; in order to trick and elude the angry spirits, the house became a puzzle with stairways to nowhere, doors opening into walls, and windows between rooms. The number 13 is woven throughout the building, whether it be 13 circles in a stained glass window, or the 13 bathrooms or what have you. It's a fascinating place and a fascinating story, and it seems ripe for the cinematic picking.

The title of this movie didn't click in my head because...well, this is the Winchester Mansion, as it stands today:

A little different than the CGI monstrosity up above. None of the enigmas of the mansion's interior- those creepy staircases and doors, for example- are in the film (in fact, all the action takes place in one of three rooms or a single hallway). I suppose it's got to do, once again, with budget constraints. Maybe there's some legal issues and the actual house couldn't be recreated even with pixels. I have no idea...but if that's case, then why use the real story? Why not call this movie Haunting of Shminchester House so all the inaccuracies don't affront my precious brain cells? Or am I just being too picky? It's a famous real place and real story, though...I mean, it wouldn't be very smart of me to make a movie about how Jimmy Carter was haunted by the ghosts of peanuts past or some shit while he was President, and then when I show him at the White House it looks like this:

On second thought, that may be the smartest thing I could ever do with my life, ever.

Historical inaccuracies aside, how did Winchester House add up in my cold, sober post-Celestial Seasonings eyes? Mehhhh. It probably is the best thing to come out of The Asylum, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement- although I have noted my perverse love for Asylum flicks before. Writer/director Mark Atkins wisely keeps the spirits in the dark as much as possible; in fact, about 4/5 of this film takes place in the dark. That's good, 'cause when it's bright enough, you can see things like, oh, obvious latex applications and the such.

Come on, no one saw that huge line and took the time to fix it?

There's a few instances of WTF? when footage is sped up for no reason, and the acting and dialogue are par for the course terrible. There's some successful sound design, I'll say that, and a few sequences are genuinely creepy. Still, the dark figure walking quickly through the frame jump scare is used about 14 times, which is 13 and a half times too many. The score, while dark carnival-appropriate, is too overpowering by the end of the movie. The music just. Never. Stops. Why are some filmmakers so afraid of silence? Turn off the music and the scenes with people walking around in the dark will be at least 65% scarier, and that's a scientific fact I just made up.

I still would have said all these things last night, even with my tea goggles on...I would have ended it all, however, with a "But it was surprisingly good!". Today, I'll end this with a "But it was surprisingly not terrible!"...although I fear it may have actually been terrible. Or maybe not. I can't tell anymore.

By the way, the DVD features a 3D version of the film as well, although I don't think there was anything spectacular in the movie that would really benefit from having an extra dimension. Then again, can't everything benefit from having an extra dimension?

Day 19: "His mind went berserk...he flipped out real bad!"

Oh, Film Clubbers, I'm guessing that some of you (if not all of you) had a hard time making it through Slaughter High (1986). It's not a great movie by any means, or even good. However, it has a special place in my heart and of this I am not ashamed. I'm not ashamed I tells ya!

Marty Rantzen is a high school nerd who's picked on and humiliated by all the cool kids. An April Fool's joke goes about 50 miles too far, and Marty ends up in the hospital covered in horrible burns. Ten years later, the cool kids all receive invitations to a class reunion...and one by one, they all die die die.

I'm not going to delve into gobs of details recapping the plot, because Slaughter High follows the standard slasher movie formula: a traumatic event breaks someone's brain, then that someone seeks revenge on the perpetrators of said event. The film hit towards the end of the slasher heyday, and it's undoubtedly a fairly lethargic entry in the genre. Still, as I said...I kind of love this movie. Those of you who've seen it may not understand how that's possible, so I'll make with why:

• The score is by a slumming Harry Manfredini, who utilizes his famous Friday the 13th work for a sting.
• Slaughter High comes to the world courtesy of the Sultan of Sleaze, producer Dick Randall...who also gave the world a little something called Pieces. That should tell you all you need to know before you even press PLAY! Randall briefly appears in Slaughter High as film agent Manny, who's got a Pieces poster on the wall of his office.
• The "prank gone awry" in the film is one of the most horrible in all of slasherdom: after being lured into nudity with the promise of sex, Marty is photographed and laughed at by his classmates...then he's subjected to some mild electrocution...then he's given a swirly...then he's given a fake joint that causes him to barf...then he's burned with nitric acid and fire. You can't really blame him for being a little pissed off.
• This movie features the most egregious use evarrrrr of actors far too old to play high schoolers as high schoolers: Caroline Munro, for example, was 36 here- a couple of decades beyond her school years.
• Not only are the actors too old for their roles, they're too British. Bad American accents abound, while their native accents peek through from time to time.
• These characters have got to count amongst the stupidest in all of horror movie history. There's a killer on the loose, but they're constantly separating and spending time having sex and taking baths. Their big escape plan involves riding a fucking tractor to safety- surely the killer could never catch up to a vehicle traveling 5 miles an hour.
• The sex scene is AWESOME. Stella, who's a leopard print-clad Markie Post-by way of Jersey-type, seduces Frank with this hotness: " I wanna go to bed with you, Frank." It works, and when she asks for a little mid-coital dirty talk, Frank responds with "Uhh...tits...screw...tits..." It's the best sex scene EVER.
• The aforementioned bath-taker is Shirley, who gives one of my favorite bad line readings of all time when the gang first arrives at the reunion: "C'mon you guys, let's par-deeeeeeee!" I want to make it my ringtone and my unholy life partner. Is that possible?
  

• One of the elaborate killings involved a poisoned can of beer, which causes the drinker's guts to burst through his abdomen Alien-style. Never mind trying to figure out what kind of poison could possibly do that- let's try to solve the mystery of how the poison got inside a sealed beer can!
• Oh yes, the deaths in Slaughter High are indeed elaborate. Running acid through the sewer lines just in case someone decides to take a bath (good thing that panned out!), the poisoned beer, a bed rigged to electrocute whoever's in it just in case someone decides to sleep or have sex (good thing that panned out!)...the set ups are so complicated and impractical that they make Final Destination jealous.

Now, all these bullet points are either going to drive you to the hallowed halls of Slaughter High, or leave you yelling "Fuck that noise!" I suppose it has to do with tolerance levels and the like. Me? I've got a pretty high one. Read on to find out what the rest of the Film Clubbers think...lots of first-timers this month, which is awesometastic. Now let's par-deeeeeeee!

Film Club Coolies, y'all!
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Mr. Cellophane
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Movie Reviews and Everything Else
Kill Everybody in the Whole World

Don't forget!

Tomorrow's Film Club day, y'all... email me links to your reviews of Slaughter High (stacieponder at gmail.com) and don't forget to mention Final Girl!

Day 18: "Nothing is forgotten."

At times, I'm pretty easy to please. Throw the words "TV movie", "1977", and "Lee Grant" into the same sentence and I know I'm gonna be in for a good time. I'll admit, though, I have no idea why the prospect of seeing Lee Grant makes me happy- she's always so damn cranky in every movie, but not in an Adrienne Barbeau delicious sort of way. Grant is just plain scowly and never particularly likable...maybe I like that? I don't know. Maybe she's the female J.R. Ewing for me- I love to hate her. It's very complicated, as you can tell.

Anyway, all those keywords I dig come together to bring me- and the world- The Spell, the tale of an "obese" teenager who strikes back at her tormentors with the mysterious powers of her mind.

Hey, maybe that's it! Maybe Lee Grant has mysterious mind powers, and compels me to watch her films.

The Spell opens during gym class, wear all the leotard-clad girls are picking on the oversized sweatsuit-clad Rita for being a "tubbo" (let's ignore the fact that Rita actually isn't particularly fat, shall we?). The teacher pairs up the girls for a little rope-climbing competition, and while Rita fails miserably at the task, her bitter arch-enemy Jackie has clearly enrolled in Advanced Cirque Du Soleil Theory...or, she moonlights at The Doll House or some such.

While Jackie spins and flips defies gravity and thinks she's so big, the camera repeatedly zooms in on Rita's face to the tune of several musical stings. When Jackie falls to the floor and lands in a broken heap, we can only infer that Rita has eerie mental powers.

Home life is just as much a drag for Rita as is school life. Her father also picks on her for being fat, perhaps as a way to overcome his insecurities regarding his obvious hair loss...or, perhaps, he's simply a dick. Mom Marilyn doesn't pick on Rita per se, but she's not very nice, either; then again, she's played by Lee Grant, so what do you expect? It's difficult to tell when she's not supposed to be a cooch. Rita's younger sister Chris (a little baby Helen Hunt) is pretty and popular though dim, but since looks are all that matter to this family she's the favored daughter. Sorry, Rita, it's tough being 15.

The fact that Rita is hounded by her father for being grossly overweight when she's not raises a question that pops up in my brain place, especially when friends of mine are expecting: what if you just...don't like your kid? What if you do your best to raise them right, and then they turn out to be racist, or homophobes, or Paul Reiser fans, or they hate everything you like, or they're just plain jerks? Even worse, Rita isn't really any of those things- she simply doesn't fit in with her family. Granted, her dad is a total a-hole - when his wife suggests they send their daughter to a shrink, he responds with "Or a firing squad!" - but still. You can't like everybody, and what if you don't like somebody you're supposed to? It's a depressing thought, and The Spell is probably the most depressing Carrie rip-off in existence.

Rita, meanwhile, starts to become a little more jerky by the day as she gets a little more witchy by the night, sneaking out at all hours in her finest capery to hone her telekinetic skills with the help of her mentor.

When Rita's face flashes on screen, you know that one of her tormentors is about to be on the receiving end of something or other. This is the case when Marilyn goes to visit a friend who silently chokes and spontaneously combusts as Marilyn looks on, more appalled than frightened (again, this is Lee Grant, folks).




This sequence is without a doubt the money shot of the film.

At home, however, Rita smiles serenely as she embroiders her "Hang in there, kitty!" wall decoration and remains preternaturally calm in the face of hideous nightwear.


The hijinks escalate as Chris almost drowns at a swim meet and dad is almost flattened by a car...and although Rita's not present during either incident, Marilyn begins to suspect that something's hinky with her eldest. Soon it's time for a showcase kitchen showdown for the ages!

Okay, so "for the ages" might be a bit of an exaggeration.

Okay, so "a bit of an exaggeration" might be a bit of an understatement. This is a made-for-TV effort that's fairly tame even for its time period. Again, I can be easy to please, and this bargain basement Carrie pleased me. It's little more than a pleasant 70-minute diversion, and what's wrong with that? Dammit...it must be Lee Grant and her witchy ways compelling me again. But how was I to know? It's not like she was wearing a cape!

For a limited time, you can watch The Spell on Hulu and judge for yourself if you're so inclined.

Day 17: "Make your choice."

The fact that I'd never seen Saw up until today made me feel, at times, like one lameoid of a horror fan. Love it or hate it, the franchise is a bonafide juggernaut, dominating the box office come Halloween- the sixth film in the series is due to hit next week. I'd been loathe to pop it in the DVD player because I have seen Saw III, and I thought it was a big ol' pile of bleeargh. People generally agree with me as they add "But the first one's good!", which is entirely possible. Can you imagine someone neglecting to watch Halloween because their introduction to the series was Part 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers? That would make a person what doctors refer to as "crazy". I'm not crazy, so I figured it was time for me to check out the original film; that way, if I wanted to hate on it, I could do so with an opinion based on experience.

As I'm the last person on the planet to see this movie, I'm sure you know the plot: a mysterious figure known as "Jigsaw" abducts people who, he feels, don't appreciate life enough. He hooks them up to deadly contraptions that are generally timer-based; escaping with your life generally means ending someone else's, or at the least losing a limb or two. Lawrence and Adam (Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell) wake up chained to rusted pipes in a filthy bathroom, and they must comply with Jigsaw's rules or figure their own way out before the clock runs out.

I was expecting...I guess, more from the film in terms of violence and gore. Given that Saw (along with Hostel) is one of the films "responsible" for the "torture porn" genre, I figured it would be much more graphic. There's violence and blood to be sure, but nowhere near on par with what its detractors would have you believe. I appreciated that, although by the third installment it's the traps and the death that are the thing, not the tension raised by the ticking of the clock. However, that's true of most any horror franchise- compare Friday the 13th to Part VII: The New Blood. It's assumed that fans want the outrageousness to grow exponentially with each new outing...and maybe they do. Franchises don't get to six and seven films for nothin'.

The filmmaking style, all jump-cuttin' and seizure-inducing, actually seemed to work here, as if it were an intentional device and not simply an arbitrary choice; unfortunately, director James Wan has spawned a generation of copycats and the aesthetic has been rendered largely pointless and driven into the ground.

I was surprised at how dodgy the acting was at times, although you can't really go wrong with Shawnee Smith and Dina Meyer, even if their roles are but wee. Well, I guess you could go wrong, but not here.

The bottom line? I think Saw has gotten a bad rap as far as its reputation as a slice of degenerate cinema. Though it started a trend that's deeper than a sewer line, way back in 2004 it was a fresh kick in the ass for the genre. I don't think I need to see any more films in the series, but I'm glad I finally gave it a shot. My opinion is now based on experience, hooray!

on pizza, voting, and the undead

So, Round 1 of the Home Run Inn horror movie contest ends tomorrow, and a Top 10 spot doesn't seem to be in the cards, which means no Round 2 for ol' Final Girl and Company. That's fine, because that means I don't have to talk about it every day. Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who voted for my silly little movie. It was fun to make, although the pizza was not necessarily fun to eat: words I never thought I'd say.

I just wanted to raise the point that many people have gotten in touch with me about: the website's wonkiness, and the difficulty in voting 15 times per day, or sometimes voting at all. Check out these comments left on the HRI site, my Facebook page, etc:

• "The site doesn't work very well at all. It's hard to share and I'm very uncertain that my vote counted."
• "It doesn't allow me to vote for you more than once!"
• "Only let me vote 8 times."
• "I went there and it immediately told me 'Thanks, vote again tomorrow.'"
• "Today, after only voting ONE time, I got the 'thank you for voting, please come back tomorrow.'"
• "Today the link isn't going anywhere..."
• "I've tried registering with three different emails. Two never even got the confirmation message you have to get before you can proceed (not in spam either). The third did, but when I tried to then set up a password (the next mandatory step), the site crashed. And now it won't let me complete that account set-up either."

Umm...I think the site is buggy. I have no problem losing this contest or any other for whatever reason, but the site needs to work so people can vote so I have a fair shot. I entered a couple of weeks after it began, so I know I had a lot of ground to make up and thanks to you, I did. Still, as someone pointed out elsewhere, I wonder how I can be so far ahead in terms of votes- I'm ranked number one with about 27,000 views while the entry ranked number two- the leader in terms of votes- has less than half that. I'm a girl so I don't really get math, but I have to say, that doesn't really compute with me. Their site sucks.

I called the tech support number a few times to try to say as much- it's the only way to get in touch with them- and it just rang. Even their tech support sucks! For the record, this isn't sour grapes, believe me. Just noting the site's wonkiness, and that I tried to tell them.

Well, at least I made a 2-minute zombie movie about pizza with my friends, because creativity is never a waste. And at least many of you awesome peeps clicked away as often as you could. For all of you who are commenting about Mr. Zombie and how adorable and fantastic he is...you're right, he is! His name is Pete Loughran and he's a killer musician working on a new CD; I've gotten a sneak listen and it's gonna rock your face off. Give him some love!

Happy Birthday, Margot Kidder!

One of my favorite actress-type ladies turns 61 today, hooray! As you know, Margot and I have been best friends for years now and to honor her honor I think I'll get down with something Kiddertastic. But what, oh what? Sisters? Black Christmas? Should I waste away again in Amityville? Shall I watch her play second banana to Superman? How about Common Ground, wherein she plays Brittany Murphy's homophobic mother (ehhh, issue movies can be such a drag)? Or Someone is Watching, the made-for-TV movie wherein she stars opposite Stefanie effing Powers? Decisions, decisions. So many ways to celebrate the awesomecrazysauce!

Day 16: "I hope this is not Chris's blood..."

Okay, so for today's dose of SHOCKTOBER madness, I'm cheating a little bit. Rather than simply watching & reviewing a movie, I decided to talk about a subject near and dear to me old ticker: horror-based video games. It's been a while since my last big installment- three and a half years, holy crap- so I figured it was time to run down a few of the titles that have sucked me in and consumed hours of my life in the last few months.

BioShock

BioShock is one of the most fascinating, best-looking games I've seen in my long, long life. The alt-history underwater city of Rapture is an art deco paradise lying in ruin; the utopia based on the philosophy of Objectivism crumbled as gene-splicing became a way of life, transforming the city's inhabitants into hideous mutants. In this first-person shooter you're Jack, a man with no memory who made his way to Rapture after an oceanic plane crash...and now must find a way out in the face of Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and all other manner of psychos. Ayn Rand, stem cell research, body modification, morality...fun for the whole family!

Dead Rising

Yeah, I know I actually reviewed this game once upon a time, but you know what? I'm still playing it, and it's still all kinds of awesome. Zombies, zombies, zombies...so many zombies in the mall. There's also creepy-mask-wearing, knife-wielding cult members and psychotic clowns with chainsaws and and and...Dead Rising is like a love letter to my crusty old horror movie-loving heart.

Dead Space

I have one major complaint about Dead Space: it's too damn short! I want more more more! This game is like Resident Evil meets Event Horizon, and it's absolutely one of the scariest games in the history of the history of ever- yes, it's that scary. You've got to repair your disabled ship while fighting off mutated crewmembers- of course there's an alien flu bug goin' 'round. Standard stuff, eh? Well, Dead Space utilizes sound and light like no other game since Silent Hill, and it's downright terrifying, to the point where I hit 'pause' on more than one occasion just so I wouldn't have to continue on into a pitch-black hallway where something was moaning. The score sounds straight outta Kubrick's The Shining, and it helps sink you into a never-ending state of heebie jeebies. Oh, if only there was more of it...ooh, there's a new Wii-bound prequel, a 6-issue comic mini-series, and an animated feature film prelude, as well. Sigh, I suppose those will have to do.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

While it wasn't a major hit, this oldie but goodie Gamecube release is a favorite amongst nerds in the know. Explore the mansion that belonged to your recently-deceased grandfather as you try to unravel the mystery of his death. Find chapters from the "Tome of Eternal Darkness" and engage in a little time-travel...and then Eternal Darkness really starts fucking with you via the "sanity meter". The more scary stuff Alexandra encounters, the nuttier she gets...and the nuttier you'll get. You'll be in the middle of a boss battle when suddenly your controller no longer works...or the game cuts to the title screen...or Alexandra ends up on the ceiling- the game really messes with your head as a player. There's nothing else like it. Hey, now you're a nerd in the know!

Fallout 3

I'm tempted just to write "Fallout 3 is effing AMAZING, go play it!" and leave it at that. Here's the wiki synopsis to further tempt those of you who haven't become completely absorbed by the game:

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after the nuclear war between the United States and China that devastated the game's world in an alternate post-World War II timeline. The game places the player in the role of an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect a small number of humans from the nuclear fallout. When the player character's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, he or she is forced to escape from the Vault and journey into the ruins of Washington D.C. to track him down. Along the way the player is assisted by a number of human survivors and must battle myriad enemies that now inhabit the area now known as the "Capital Wasteland".

Your morality is up to you as you travel the wasteland and encounter religious wackadoos, raiders, mutants, ghouls...I can't even begin to adequately describe how massive- and how massively awesome- this game is. Fallout 3 is effing AMAZING, go play it!

Haunting Ground

Here's another game that got little attention, but horror fans should definitely bust out their PS2s and give it a whirl. At the start of Haunting Ground, you wake up in a cage (!!!) on the grounds of Castle Belli, and you've got to figure out what the eff is going on and how you can escape. Eventually you team up with a white German Shepherd named Hewie to solve puzzles and defend yourself as you search for a way out. What sets Haunting Ground apart from other survival horror games is that your character wields no weapons...just about all you can do when confronted by an enemy is run and try to find a good hiding spot. Sometimes these hiding spots work, and sometimes they don't...but you can never use the same place twice. It's incredibly tense to be crouched behind a curtain while someone is in the room, actively looking in all the corners for you. While there's definitely too much backtracking (and man oh man does the story get a bit perverse), Haunting Ground boasts one of the greatest, scariest video game villains ever in Daniella, the creepy-ass maid (pictured above). I'd say they should stick her in a movie, but we all know how movies based on games tend to go...

Left 4 Dead

Surviving the zombie apocalypse has never been more fun. What Dead Rising is to George Romero, Left 4 Dead is to Zach Snyder. These walking dead aren't walking at all- they're running really fast because they want to eat your face. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, along with "special" zombies, upgraded with all sorts of new ways to kill you. My favorite is the Witch, the goth-looking chick who sits around in her underwear, crying...until you get too close, and then she's up and clawing your eyes out in a flash. Reminds me of college!

Resident Evil 5

I've told you time and time again, I loves me some Rezzies. I'm gonna admit, though, Resident Evil 5 was a bit of a disappointment. On the one hand, it was a delight for an RE nerd like myself (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker are all present and accounted for) and the co-op gameplay was cool. The graphics were amazing and the action was non-stop...but that was, perhaps, the problem. Since the incredible Resident Evil 4, the series has been moving away from the solve the puzzle and read the diary in the dusty, zombie-filled house angle that I love and geek out on so much. The developers should bring the series back to its roots because I want them to. Who's with me?

Silent Hill: Homecoming

It pains me in my heart place, but I'm starting to think that the Silent Hill series may be on its last legs. I enjoyed Homecoming, but it felt like more of the same, you know? Somehow it's missing the magic of the earliest games in the series- it feels like an imitation. The franchise was handed off from Japan to America, but that can't be the only reason why it's stale. Maybe it's just stale altogether...ugh, it hurts to type that. And who am I kidding? Silent Hill: Shattered Memories hits next month, and I'm sure I'll pick it up...and it'll be okay, but I'll have the sads 'cause it's just not like the Silent Hills of my yoot. Then I'll cry, then I'll play something else, repeat until I'm dead.

The Thing

Did you know that there's a video game set right after the events of John Carpenter's The Thing? There is, and it's pretty good! You can imagine how it goes: after contact is lost with MacReady and company, the military sends teams to investigate...alien parasite hijinks ensue. While you've got to battle the creepy-crawlies, you've also got to battle the rising worries of your teammates as they become increasingly paranoid: no one trusts anyone. Dudes get scared and they kill themselves, or they try to kill you. You may have an infected teammate in your party. It's a lot like the game, except no one wears weird, giant sideways cowboy hats- and that's a pity.