awesome movie poster friday- the SOME OF MY FAVORITES edition!

it's that day

Dear y'all,

Today's the day that seems to divide people even more than such hot button topics as gun control or the episode of The Facts of Life where Natalie lost her virginity: yes, it's Valentine's Day. People who hate it seem to want February 14th to disappear from the calendar completely in a mushroom cloud explosion of hate and pain, while people who love it want every day to be Valentine's Day. They also maybe want a Journey Heart Pendant, available at your local Zales for under $200.

NOTE: Should anyone ever get me anything so hideously retarded as a Journey Heart Pendant from my local Zales for Valentine's Day or, for that matter, any other day, I would...I would...I would be so mortified and angry that I would figure out a way to somehow become temporarily Sicilian so I could put a hex to end all fucking hexes on whoever gave me the thing to begin with.

Yes yes, it's the thought that counts...which is exactly why such a vehement reaction would be necessary.

Dammit! There goes all my Zales advertising dollars.

Anyway, I don't know what the point of all this is. If you like Valentine's Day, good for you. I hope you have a lovely time. If you loathe it, okay. Don't worry, it'll all be over soon.

Am I trite enough to watch My Bloody Valentine at some point today? Why yes...yes, I am. It's a great fucking movie. Am I lazy enough to simply repost the screencaps I used last year? Why yes...yes, I am. Happy V-Day, my babies!

like, more stuff and stuff

So remember a while back when I posted pictures of all those paintings I did? Well, last night I was a machine and I polished off all the remaining canvases in the house. And this time I even cleaned up the photographs to make 'em all purdy!



I created a 'paintings' album over at my MySpace profile which includes all the other monster paintings cleaned up all nice-like, plus some older pieces like THE SPICE GIRLS. Fuck yeah. So click and go look or something. Then buy some paintings so I can afford more canvas and get back to work!

DISCLAIMER: idea for "painting" totally stolen from cavemen at Lascaux

The boy in the lake urges you...

The voting for Dead Lantern's 1st annual Splatcademy Awards ends tonight! Clicken ze click click and make your voice heard! Especially if your voice is saying "I want Final Girl to win in the best blog/website category!"...otherwise...quiet, you.

That's a joke. Kind of.

No, really. Whatever.

Anyway, this is the last I will speak of this thing. Unless I win, in which case there simply will be no living with me! Come to think of it, that applies if I lose, as well. Hmmph. Guess we're all damned if we do, damned if we don't, huh?

The same can be said about pizza.

Shut up, that makes sense to me.

Holy fucking crap, I'm tired.

wrong wrong wrong

An A for effort maybe, but in every other regard, undoubtedly an F. Times fifty.

I admire that he went the extra mile and combed his hair and shined his shoes for school picture day, but stabbing with a machete? Come on now. Moron.

monsters in the morning

My mentioning monster cereals and Count Chocula over at AMC* (me me me! pay attention to me!) prompted a bit of a conversation with a MySpace (me me me! add me!) fake cyber-friend about the monster cereal mascots. He asked who I thought Boo Berry was before he died, which got me thinking...who created Frankenberry, and to what end? Who bit Count Chocula and Fruit Brute and turned them into monsters? Who was Fruity Yummy Mummy before he died and who mummified him? Were they all cereal fanatics before they turned and/or shuffled off this mortal coil? They're all just sad, lost souls, really, but that never seems to get them down. I'm totally going to remember that the next time I'm feeling sorry for myself because I hate all of my clothes.

I feel a bit like a hack stand-up comedian saying it ("Remember having toys? What was up with that?"), but come on...how fucking awesome were the monster cereals? They combine three of the greatest things in the world (monsters, sugar, and the 1970s), they leave you with flavored milk when you're done, and even if they made you poop red**, the monster cereals were completely essential breakfast time chow. Aaannnnnd they had the coolest toy prizes inside.


Would I like a free monster disguise kit? Umm...holy crap, YES. I don't know that giving yourself a fang moustache is going to fool anyone into thinking that you're actually a vampire, but it's worth a shot. Undoubtedly, the chances of successful deception would rise exponentially if the fang moustache were coupled with the glow-in-the-dark vampire t-shirt, don't you think?

I was always most partial to Boo Berry, that strange poltergeist who sounded an awful lot like Peter Lorre. Again, who was he before he died? My fake MySpace friend posited that he was a car salesman. The hat and tie really speak volumes, and I'm inclined to agree he was indeed a seller of something or other. He cuts quite a Willy Loman-esque figure, doesn't he? Looking at him with the eyes of an adult (as opposed to those of a kid all cracked out on sugar), it seems obvious to me that Mr Berry was simply overwhelmed by life: he was depressed, tired, done with it all, and most likely addicted to quaaludes.


In later years (the monster cereals all debuted in the early 1970s), parent company General Mills tried to revamp Boo Berry's sad sack image with disastrous results. The late '80s/early '90s incarnation, with the ridiculous Freddy Krueger-esque arms and decidedly "doy doy" expression, left Mr Berry looking a little...well, shall we say a little simple-minded?


And, quite frankly, the less said about the subsequent Casperization of Boo Berry, the better***.


Thankfully this wussy version of Boo Berry didn't last and General Mills issued an order to his troops to return the ghost to his former luuded-out glory, and once again he gazes at us from the box with that classic vacant stare we all love and remember so well.


Frankenberry, that monstrous creation (no, really, which mad scientist wanted to play Notorious G.O.D. and created Frankenberry? And why for the love of Charles Nelson Reilly give him strawberries for fingernails?), was my second love despite his foppish voice. Count Chocula, though undoubtedly the scariest-looking cereal mascot, never did it for me, pitch-perfect Transylvanian accent or no.



My memories of Fruit Brute are vague at best: the cereal was discontinued in 1983, only to be resurrected (HA HA HA) a few years later with the name Fruity Yummy Mummy.


Look at the Fruit Brute box: a coupon for 7 lousy cents off Lucky Charms! Why, 7 cents wouldn't buy you a single yellow moon with today's prices, never mind a blue diamond. Back in my day...gripe gripe gripe my back hurts and why is it so cold in here?

By the late '80s I think the monster cereal craze was pretty much over. F.Y. Mummy was pushing up daisies again by the early '90s, and today it's getting more and more difficult to find the remaining monster mascot triumvirate in stores. Just as TV stations trot out scary movies during October, though, Boo Berry, Frankenberry, and Count Chocula are easier to find come Halloween time.

What gives? Why are the monster cereals, in all their awesomeness, so scarce? Has it been decided that downing a giant heaping bowl of sugar and marshmallows maybe isn't the best way to start the day? I certainly hope the scarcity of monsters in the morning isn't because kids like monsters any less than they did back in my day. I'd like to think that the children are our future, not that they're a bunch of jerks.











* I would just like to point out that even though I said "...except Count Chocula" in the interview, I have nothing against the Count personally. He's rad. I'm simply not a fan of chocolate cereals: I have never, in fact, gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, Fruity trumps Cocoa in the Pebbles department, and Cap'n Crunch can take his Chocoberries or whatever they're called and shove 'em right back where they came from. Regular Crunchberries and the Cap'n's Peanut Butter varieties are, however, the shit.

** Yes, the dye originally used in Frankenberry made kids poop red. You didn't think Stephen King came up with that idea on his own, did you?

*** Everyone knows that Casper is better when Casper is a scary ghost, anyway. Friendly, shmendly.


In totally unrelated I'm feeling all nostalgic now and so I'm looking up stupid shit I remember on YouTube news, you don't even know how much I loved this song when I was a kid. Seriously, if it had ever come out on vinyl, I would have bought 9248675 copies and made it number one with 10 bullets.

awesome movie poster friday- the GEORGE ROMERO edition!

For more Romero-flavored posters, check out the AMPF SOME ZOMBIES and BARBEAU editions.

friday is fabulous!

Hey, I'm reminding you about the Dead Lantern Splatcademy Awards and how Final Girl is, like, nominated for a "Spooky" and stuff. If you'd like to vote for...you know, whoever (a-HEM), then you should do so ASAP, as I believe voting will end soon. Seize the day! Tell someone you love them! Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty! Let me tell you about my grandchildren! My other car is a broom! Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy!

In other me news, there's a little interview with...uh, me up at AMC's Monsterfest Blog. So, like, go read it if you want to know how I answered some questions and stuff. Or don't. See if I care. Jerk.

In other not me news, I can't wait until April 8, when The Nanny is released on DVD. No, I'm not talking about the Fran Drescher vehicle series (although if I were, would you hate me?)...I'm talking about the 1965 film featuring Bette Davis as an eeeevil nanny. Did I just say "Bette Davis as an eeeevil nanny"? Yes...yes I did. Which is why I've already picked out an engagement ring and when The Nanny comes home I'm so totally popping the question. Do you think I should do it in a public arena, like at a sports game? I think the added pressure of public scrutiny might guarantee me a yes and The Nanny and I will soon thereafter be bound in most unholy matrimony!

The Fabulous Moolah agrees, this Friday is indeed fabulous. But then, every day is fabulous for The Fabulous Moolah because she is fabulous. Although, perhaps things aren't so fabulous now because she's dead. Or maybe...just maybe...things are even fabulouser for her now because she's dead. Think about that.

The Blair Zombie Project

I saw Diary of the Dead last night, and now I'm gonna talk about it. I'm sure I'll be giving away lots of spoilers (which, quite frankly, I always do here at FG) so if'n that ain't your bag, turn away now like a little baby. Go on! Git!

Side note: I like the idea of The Blair Zombie Project, and I'd like to see the franchise expand even further, to wit: The Blair Dracula Project, The Blair Lepus Project, The Blair Blob Project.

Now then. Any of you who are my MySpace fake friends (and why aren't you if you aren't? MySpace is totally hip and happening and so very now amongst the kids and 'hackers', and I know this because Diary of the Dead told me so!) who happened to read my blog over there know that the DotD trailer didn't particularly get me all a-touchin' mahself with anticipation. There were plenty of you who were excited about it, though, and sometimes that can be infectious. Before the movie last night, I was ready. Romero is calling DotD "...a whole new beginning for the dead". I was all "Zombies. Romero. Independently financed. Free screening. Yessssss." And then...

...I kind of disliked it. Scratch that- I really disliked it. Diary of the Dead didn't work on any level for me, and that really bums me out. I adore Romero, and even though I don't always adore his films, he's made some of my absolute favorite horror movies. Hell, I even liked Land of the Dead when I saw it in the theatre...though not so much when I watched the DVD at home a few months later. So what happened with Diary that left me feeling like a crusty old woman, all bitter and dead inside? Unfortunately...everything.

Photo by: Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company, 2008.

A group college kids are off in the woods filming a no-budget mummy movie when they hear reports on the radio about a few dead people returning to life and making with the chomp-chomp on the living. The kids are unsure what to think, but they decide to stop filming and head home. They pile into a Winnebago and have various wacky and gross zombie-laden adventures all caught on camera by mummy movie director Jason (Josh Close), who can't put down the camera because he is the voice of truth!

I'm not one to nitpick a film, really I'm not. Unless there's something glaringly obvious that doesn't gel (like, "Wait, didn't his head just get cut off? How is he walking around?"), I'm a pretty forgiving movie-watcher. After Diary of the Dead, though, I found myself going "Well, what about this? And that? And why did that happen?" because if you look at the film on anything deeper than a "zombie eat people! me like!" level, it all falls apart.

I know that The Blair Witch Project has its detractors and it always has. No matter how you feel about the content of that film and whether or not it scared you, there's no denying that the movie felt real...basically, because it was. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez handed lo-fi cameras over to Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard, and Mike Williams and the result was as verite as verite can get. Though Diary purports to be shot in the same way (every shot in the film is accounted for and explained away: it's this camera, it's that security camera, I found it on YouTube) (yes, YouTube. And MySpace. And Panasonic. I guess the references are supposed to make it feel real?), it's too slick to ever feel authentic. Romero is still very much in charge and the man has been making movies for 40+ years...it's gonna look professional. The characters talk about editing, talk about their shots, blah blah blah, but it all feels like a conceit.

It doesn't help, either, that the acting was dreadful. Part of this, I think, is a result of the script: a lot of the dialogue felt completely unnatural and the characters were all unlikable. Seriously. I wanted them all to die, right across the board- especially the "director", Jason. Despite the fact that the world was falling apart around them, despite the fact that the dead were returning to life and killing the living, despite the fact that they had to, at times, kill loved ones who had 'turned', no one was emotionally affected by anything for more than a few seconds. The girl who had to shoot her undead boyfriend was all "Don't mess with Texas y'all! Can I have this lipgloss?" an hour later. The girl who was attacked by her own undead family brushed it off with little more than a "Phew! Okay, where to now?".

Diary of the Dead takes place over a 3-4 day period at the very beginning of the zombie outbreak. Romero makes sure we know the film is jam-packed with Katrina and 9-11 symbolism, but none of the reality of those terrifying situations, none of the confusion and fear and urgency of those events comes across on screen. The world has fallen apart so very much and so very quickly that a hospital is completely empty a few hours after the first zombie attack? That's a frightening prospect, if unbelievable, but our plucky filmmakers encounter little more than a few zombies here and a few zombies there as they make their way across Pennsylvania. The real footage spliced in- of car crashes, of Katrina aftermath, of riots in some vague Middle Eastern venue- feel completely out of place and unnecessary. They don't add to a sense of "the world is fucked" because the actual goings-on in the film don't add to a sense of "the world is fucked". Jason's "the government is lying to us and holding out on us and I have to keep filming because I am the voice of truth!" reasoning just doesn't...well, it doesn't ring true when the zombie outbreak is 4 hours old and he's one of a group of privileged college kids traipsing across Pennsylvanian back roads in a nice camper with no sense of imminent danger. Had the perspective been that of a poor, inner-city family with no alternatives and no way to escape the danger, then Romero might have been on to something.

Photo by: Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company, 2008.

Everyone likes to talk about how rife with symbolism Romero's zombie pictures are, yes? I suppose they are. Night of the Living Dead can be seen as a statement about race relations, but according to Romero himself that was never the intent: Duane Jones was cast because he was the best actor who read for the part of Ben, not because of his skin color. Thanks to its shopping mall setting, Dawn of the Dead is a parable about consumerism, but let's face it- the symbolism really stops at "zombies in a mall". And that's fine. The audience can glean whatever meaning they want from Romero's early zombie films, interpreting the night away. The key is, Romero left it up to the audience. Whether his messages were intentional or not, he got them across with a light touch. In Land of the Dead and, to a much greater extent, Diary of the Dead, the audience is absolutely fucking bludgeoned to (un)death with symbolism and meaning and metaphor. The photo montage at the end of Night of the Living Dead, where human bodies are tossed into fire like so much trash, is disturbing, haunting, and silent. Here, we're literally asked "if we're worth saving". And please, don't get me started on this bit:

"It used to be us vs. us. Now, it's us vs. them. But they are us."

Obviously, that should read:

"It used to be us vs. us. Now, it's us vs. them. But they are us. Which means...it is us vs. us. Gah! Never mind. I don't know what I'm talking about."

Regardless of how...well, how silly the line is to begin with, I have the same problem with it that I had in Tom Savini's NotLD remake: if you show me that humans are no 'better' than the very monsters we're fighting, I'll dig it. If you just say it, laying it all on the table with a big fat proclamation and little else to reinforce it, I'm gonna sigh. Are people so stupid that they need everything spelled out for them? I certainly hope not, but maybe I'm overestimating things.

The biggest offense of all, in my opinion, is that Diary of the Dead comes up short even on its most basic level as a horror film. Yeah, there are a few jump scares. Yeah, there are some cool shots. But there was never really any tension, never any urgency, never any creepiness or real sense of danger. These kids get a handle on the situation pretty quickly and have no problem dispatching the undead in a variety of fashions, even their loved ones. No one is particularly bothered by anything, and no one is ever grossed out. Why is no one horrified or disturbed when a head gets blown off right in front of them and they end up covered in viscera? I'm not saying it needs to occur throughout the entire film, but one "That's disgusting" can go a long way. I can't even deal with a squished bug, never mind seeing someone's guts spill out onto the floor (yes, the infamous guts-to-the-floor shot from Day of the Dead is pretty much recreated here...to far lesser shock effect). Everyone is blase about everything, which just ain't right.

I miss Tom Savini. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Greg Nicotero (DotD's Special Make-Up Effects Producer) as well, but the effects are almost all computer-generated now. I'd rather sacrifice a wicked cool shot to have some organic FX...and I'm sorry, but Savini produced plenty of wicked cool shots with karo syrup and latex.

It all comes down to good idea, exceedingly poor execution. It hurts me to say so, but I wish I had more thumbs so I could give Diary of the Dead more thumbs down. The more I think about it, the less I like it...so I'm just going to stop thinking about it.

Here's hoping that the other "keep the camera rolling" zombie movie, [REC], gets it right. Now that's a trailer that's got me all a-touchin' mahself with anticipation!

vision problems

Yesterday I was tooling around in my car for one reason or another and I passed by a business with an ornate sign out front that read BEAUTIFUL HAMS. This made me very happy. Upon closer inspection, however, I found that the sign actually read BEAUTIFUL NAILS. This was a disappointment. What I thought I saw and what I imagined to be were so much more exciting and bizarre than the real thing. It's always such a downer when that happens- particularly with movies, as happened last night with The Nesting (1981). Sadly, yesterday was a day when none of my expectations were met. Well, except when I had a Diet Coke. That turned out pretty much as I thought it would.

I read this on the back of the giant clamshell box for the film:

Robin Groves stars as Lauren in The Nesting, a basheroo of a tale about a bordello that became a haunted house...Gloria Grahame is a madam phantom who leads a silky entourage of poltergeist prostitutes in their bloodcurdling day of vengeance.

and holy crap was I excited! 1981! Poltergeist prostitutes! "Basheroo"! I was sure- like, 10,000% sure- that I was about to watch the greatest movie ever made. Just like those BEAUTIFUL HAMS, however, this was simply not meant to be.

"I may be sick, but I am NOT retarded."

Lauren is an agoraphobic novelist from New York City who decides that a dose of country livin' is just the ticket to get her past her writer's block and her personal demons. She finds a strange octagonal house in the middle of nowhere, rents it, hears noises, has weird dreams, disrobes and fondles herself in front of a mirror, gets stuck on the roof, sees ghosts, and doesn't write a single word...though not necessarily in that order.

The Nesting still sounds awesome, doesn't it? It sure does...but it sure ain't. This film is one of those Tiffanies I talk about from time to time; it coulda been so beautiful, it coulda been so right. Unfortunately, The Nesting is a bloated affair that overstays its welcome by a good half hour and squanders any creepy sequences- and there are definitely a few creepy sequences- by...well, by being incredibly boring.

The idea of an agoraphobe being trapped in a haunted house is a good one, but then Lauren is only truly agoraphobic when the plot absolutely demands it- otherwise she's driving around, chatting with locals, and doing her thing. I always like a ghost story, and I thought I'd love a prostitute ghost story...but there's no consistency to these prosti-ghosts. They cackle and leave their high heels around the house, but to what end? Early on they help Lauren fend off the advances of a creepy handyman, but when Lauren figures out their story they decide they hate her. There's just no pleasing a spectral hooker, I guess.

Padding a film is never, ever a good idea, but The Nesting is filled with endless sequences of Lauren walking around the house doing a whole lot of nothing. There's even an interminable car chase, the highlight of which comes when you realize that there's only one tire-squealing sound effect and it's played on a loop.

That said, when The Nesting gets it right, it really gets it right. The octagonal house is indeed spooky, the few killings are well-done and a bit gruesome, and I'm always a sucker for creaky, creepy noises emanating from darkened corners. Somehow in the end, though, none of it adds up and the movie is nothing more than squandered opportunities. This bums me out even more than realizing that there is no store called BEAUTIFUL HAMS. Man, yesterday was a drag!