NOTE: This Region 1 Prom Night cover is especially heinous (not just ugly) because it uses a photo of Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween H-fucking-20!
Of course, sometimes Region 2 gets it very, very wrong.
If you’re anything at all like me, then Halloween trumps all as the most wonderful time of the year (that’s right- in your face, Escalator Safety Awareness Week!). There are scary movies on TV ad nauseum, cheap horror DVDs appear in the unlikeliest places (I picked up Salem’s Lot at my grocery store; it was displayed next to the frozen pizzas, and for just a moment I thought maybe I’d somehow passed into The Great Beyond and didn’t know it), and there are rubber-n-cardboard decorations everywhere. Walking past fake cobwebs on my way to find the Q-Tips makes me feel like my local CVS is haunted, I swear. “Mayhaps it was built on an Indian burial ground!” I say to myself, often followed by something like “Ooh look! My shampoo is on sale. Thank you, kind spirits of the underworld!”I mean, it's certainly not the greatest thing ever written (that honor belongs to the novelization of the film 9 to 5, or at least so I thought when I was a wee bonny lass and I saw the paperback in the grocery store and I just had to have it), but it's definitely Final Girl-flavored.
Also, if you’re anything like me you can’t eat raisins for too long because after a while you start thinking that they’re not really fruit at all- they’re actually bug bodies- and you get grossed out. That, however, is a discussion for another time. We’re here talk about how you- yes, you!- can make this the most leztastic Halloween ever! I mean, above and beyond bobbing for fanny packs and eating Peppermint Patties until you burst, even.
If you’re a horror fan like me, then Halloween trumps all as the most wonderful time of the year. Sure, there are plenty of awful movies out there, but I'm an optimist when it comes to horror films. I simply love a good scare and the adrenaline rush it provides. Even better? There are tons of horror flicks (and a few TV shows) with lesbians in them.That's why I've put together this handy guide to lesbians and bisexual women in horror.
From the tried and true (Buffy, of course!) to the rare and scary (Robert Wise's The Haunting, for instance) and everything in between (including an almost-forgotten appearance by Amanda Bearse in Fright Night), this guide takes you beyond the lesbian vampire and into the gory world of murdered sorority girls, slumber party massacres and lesbian camping trips gone very, very bad.
So light up your jack-o-lanterns and get your spooky punch ready, because now you can make this the Best. Lesbian. Halloween. Ever.
See? That's what'll get ya steaming orifices. There are words- sentences- WHOLE FUCKING PARAGRAPHS- there that I did not write. "Spooky punch"? Spooky fucking punch? I would never in a million years type those words except for right there where I typed them to make the point that I would never type them.
What's the point of posting this when the article in question is well over a year old and isn't it a little ungracious or unprofessional or something besides? None! There is no point whatsoever! Except that apparently it's a pain that will never ever leave me, much like The Clap. Not that I have The Clap or even know, really, what it is- is it short for chlamydia?- and whether or not it is, in fact, painful. It's just that no one really talks about The Clap anymore, and I think that's a shame.Yet another shame is the fact that I've now spent half an hour writing this diatribe instead of what I'm supposed to be writing. Damn you, old ire!
Two girls lie on the ground in a bloody pile. One of them dies, one of them ends up in the hospital with a concussion and amnesia. Was it a suicide pact? Why is the dead one hanging around the largely-empty hospital, showing off her scabby face? How does her boyfriend tie into all this? Flashbacks fill in all the predictable blanks, but unfortunately it all happens a bit too fast. There's no build to the story, and there's little tension- just a few jump scares. Honestly, 1413 had me dreading the hour-plus I still had to slog through in Visits; I'm happy to say that the stinker of the bunch was out of the way first.
Sam receives a phone call from her childhood friend Anne, during which Anne imparts that she's recently broken up with her girlfriend and as a result her world has gone to hell. Her ex isn't returning her calls, how did things go wrong, she can't live with out her, blah blah usual breakup drama blah. Soon Sam can't get a hold of Anne- until she finds Anne wandering down a lonely road late one night. Anne has nowhere to go, so Sam takes her in. Anne sees clammy feet in Sam's closet and splits, and only later do we learn her fate.
I know, that title, right? I was totally all "What the heck is a nodding scoop? Does it involve ice cream? 'Cause if it does, I'm totally nodding yes! HA HA HA!" Sadly, it does not involve ice cream. "Nodding scoop" is a device constructed from a ladle and a wig, and it's used as a sort of Ouija board when people attempt to communicate with the spirits. So, if you were like "Hey dead person, are you here?" and the dead person was, the scoop would, you know, nod. In this segment, which finds some college students filming themselves using the device as they perform a seance, the silliness of the contraption gave way to supreme creepiness. As can be expected, the students really do summon a spirit; the creepiness promptly goes out the window and the plot quickly devolves into nonsense. An extremely disappointing end to a very promising start.
Here we have a security guard who's obsessed with one of the female inhabitants of the apartment building in which he works. He plants tiny cameras in her apartment to spy on her, and his behavior continues to escalate until he's spending time in her home when she's not there. Soon he finds out that she's got a secret of her own.
There's some new art posted over at my website- namely, a commission I recently completed: Miike's Audition.
No, I still haven't seen it. Yes, I'm a wicked big lame. I'd say I'd watch it tonight, but tonight Battlestar Galactica holds my heart and my mind captive.
Shadowline is running thorough the entire Nightmare World series- all 52 stories- for your webcomics reading pleasure. There's goodness to be found in there, and it's all free free free. Read it- it's what all the cool kids are doing! They're also swearing, because swearing is cool.
don't let go don't let go DON'T LET GO!
Laura is soon haunted by fuzzy psychic visions of the brutal murders of her closest friends and associates. Because she's seeing the crimes through the eyes of the killer, she has no idea who the perp is...this means it could be anyone! Anyone at all! Maybe even...Laura herself. Again...deep.
Eyes of Laura Mars is firmly entrenched in its era: the decadent late 70s. The first giveaway that this is a 70s flick is the fact that it's got its own theme song: Love Theme from Eyes of Laura Mars (Prisoner), sung by none other than Barbra Streisand. That's right, this is no B- or C-level theme song by, you know, Kiki Dee or something. Laura Mars hauls out the big guns straight off. Man, every movie from the 70s had its own damn theme song. The only hold out on that trend are the James Bond flicks. I say we bring it back, dammit! I want to see Love Theme from The Hot Chick (Pillow Fights and Strange New Feelings) sung by Marilyn McCoo sprawled across the screen. Are you listening to me, Hollywood? I certainly hope you are.
Aside from said unibrow, I found quite a few things about Eyes of Laura Mars amusing. First, there's Laura's photographs. While they're talked of as "reprehensible", "ultra violent", and "tasteless", they're really quite tame. In fact, most people probably wouldn't use "reprehensible" to describe a photo of two topless models pulling each other's hair. I certainly would, however, use that word to describe their crimped and frizzy hair.
It's a fucking battle wagon! Do we think that Sue Ellen Ewing is glamourous driving around Dallas in her battle wagon? No. Everyone else is driving Mercedeseseses and Corvettes and Porsches and we feel bad for Sue Ellen Ewing. Battle wagons are not sexy. Those are some sweet rims, though.
Essentially, it comes down to this:
VS
Alright, so it's more like "This one was made in the 70s and this one was made last year. I will now compare and contrast them in the hopes of elucidating, perhaps, which is the better film." Well, maybe a wee less dry than that, but still, there's not a "Yo mama" in sight. Thinking about it now, this seems like a missed opportunity, although I'm not exactly sure what a "Yo mama" contest between the Yeti and the Snowbeast would entail. Perhaps something about one's mama being so fat she needs to use an igloo for a tampon or something.
I've written about both films before, but these forthcoming special editions feature footage never before seen by my very eyes, so they're definitely worth revisiting. Friday the 13th is rumored to have a...err...whopping 34 seconds of lost footage added, but My Bloody Valentine promises to be a real treat with upwards of a (for reals) whopping nine minutes of additional footage- largely, all the gore and effects (in)famously excised by the MPAA. Fans (me) have been wanting to see this footage forever, and now all of our (my) dreams have come true. Alright, so not ALL of my dreams. My cat is still unable to scoot around the house like a fat furry hovercraft. I have faith, however, that someday technology will catch up to my deepest desires!
Grindhouse, the brainchild of writers/directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, didn't exactly perform up to expectations at the box office. In fact, it was a bit of a flop- sort of like that scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where Pee Wee goes over to Francis's house in search of his bike and Francis is "having his bath" in, essentially, a pool. The two man-children tussle, and at one point Francis does a big belly flop and slides along the floor; it's not only disturbing (he squeaks), but it looks painful. Yeah, Grindhouse was kinda like that. Or not. Look, all I know is that I saw my tape (yeah, tape) of Pee Wee's Big Adventure on the shelf when I fetched Planet Terror last night, so I've got Pee Wee on the brain. I really love that movie, but I usually forget about it until I start thinking about it (I know, that's, like, the way the brain works)- then I think "Aw, man, I love the Alamo scene...oooh, Morgan Fairchild...Mr Buxton's jumpsuit!" and the fever builds until I have to watch it. So, excuse me for using a clunky Pee Wee simile, but, you know, they can't all be gold.
As I said, there's no denying the fun of this movie. The colors are luscious, the action is over-the-top, and the gore flies freely- it's as if rather than trying to recreate a true Grindhouse -style movie (which would have about 1/1000 of Planet Terror's budget), Rodriguez created a pastiche of everything he loves about those films. With its perfect synth score and liberal use of lights and smoke, this flick is akin to an American reinterpretation of an Italian interpretation of a John Carpenter movie. It's truly an outrageous sight to behold, and if you're not wearing a big, goofy grin when Cherry Darling flies through the air in front of an explosion and launches rockets out of her rocket launcher leg, then I have to wonder what kind of movie would give you a big goofy grin.
My biggest complaint with Planet Terror is Rose McGowan, who...well, I'm not sure exactly if her performance is so stilted purposefully (this is, after all a Z-grade movie on a big budget), or if the countless Restylane injections have not only frozen up her face but also her acting abilities. With that machine gun leg, Cherry Darling has the potential to become a real action/horror movie icon; with McGowan's flat performance, however, she's just a girl with a machine gun leg. Which, I'll admit, is still pretty fucking awesome. I just wish she'd been a little less self-conscious and a bit more fun, like the rest of the cast.
A big complaint about this film is that all that dialogue and yammering gets in the way of the action, and sure, it does. Tarantino isn't simply paying homage to the Grindhouse movie here, he's making one. Check out Unhinged, or hell, even Halloween: horror movies of yore were largely dialogue and yammering. Girls talk...and talk...and talk, and then 40 or 50 minutes in, something happens. Keeping this in mind, I was totally on board with the first half of Death Proof. Tarantino lays out all the hallmarks of the slasher film (weekend getaway, etc), epitomized in the scenes where Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) keeps noticing this creepy black car that seems to keep noticing her. That shit is straight outta Halloween y'all.
In related news, Vanessa Ferlito is pretty fucking terrific in this movie.
Exhilarating hell. Once Stuntman Mike gets his death proof on, the car crash is phenomenal and decidedly not CGI. At this point, Death Proof absolutely lives up to its tagline: "A white-hot juggernaut at 200 miles per hour!"
The car chase is fantastic and again, CGI-less. It's filmmaking of a type you don't really see on screen anymore- there are no frenetic edits. Tarantino goes for lengthy shots that up the tension, and again, it's exhilarating. It's too bad, however, that this fantastic sequence is mired in so much bullshit.
This is me in my special cyberroom, where I "jack" "in". Yes, I'm just as beautiful as Julie Christie. What, you didn't know?
Once the sitch at Harvardville Airport is under control, Claire and Leon decide to find out what the eff is going on. They team up with some rookie special forces-types and head off to this place and that, this house and that lab, encountering a few more zombies and beasties along the way. It's all, you know, like, totally action-packed and stuff.
I'm not gonna lie- I dug this movie...but then, obviously I was predisposed to. My biggest disappointment is that the moment never came where I was supposed to pick up my controller and get my Claire Redfield on- and that's exactly the reason why I'm dubious about how the general horror movie lovin' audience will feel about Resident Evil: Degeneration.
I suspect that large chunks of that plot will be confusing and/or inaccessible to non RE-heads, as a basic knowledge of some characters, Raccoon City, and Umbrella Corporation are assumed. Terms like T-Virus and G-Virus are tossed around, and unless you're a nerd like me you probably won't know- or figure out- the difference between the two.
So yeah, comics. Updated Tuesdays. If I do any that are specifically horror-related, I'll post about 'em here. Otherwise there's a link in yon sidebar. I'll be doing them for a long time, I ho---ooh, what's that over there?
...dolls representing the finest in Hag Horror...
Seriously, does it get better than this? THERE EXISTS A DOLL OF JOAN CRAWFORD IN A WHEELCHAIR. And that Bette Davis is totally about to bust out some "Butcha AH, Blanche..."
I'm sorry, but "removable veil of gore" is undoubtedly the best phrase ever committed to pixelization.
