Entries Tagged 'awesomeness' ↓

This week at AMC, I have compiled an ever-so-helpful list of the Top 10 Killer Families of Horror. You know, the folks who are all related through both blood and a love of murderin'...those who are usually referred to as some sort of "clan". That word really carries certain connotations, doesn't it? Or is that just me? Anyway, the Torrance family never engaged in any homicidal hijinks together, but I need to post this portrait anyway because it is made of 100% pure awesome.


You know what else is made entirely of awesome? This page, which features ten LEGO horror movie reenactments. The Thing? In LEGO? Yes, please. Oh, if they only had video cameras when I was a wee bonny lass... (thanks for the tip, Bill!)

I can't wait for October. Let's celebrate the season of scares a little early this year, yeah?



Okay, Jan Terri is no Icy Spicy Leoncie, but still.

Depending on how much booze you've had so far today, you may or may not remember that once upon a time, I wrote up a list of 50 Horror Films I'd Love to See. Then I created Ghostella's Haunted Tomb, and made the leap from dreams to reality with a few of those titles: Who's Been in the Herb Garden?, Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear, and Deadly Dress 4: Never a Bride are just a few of the titles turned movie (using that term loosely) that the world can now enjoy (using that term even looser). Who knows, then, what may happen with this list of 15 More Horror Films I'd Like to See? WHO KNOWS? For now, I simply anticipate that it will be read, unless you rightthissecond leave this page, which- let's be honest- would be a bit silly seeing as how you've already read this far.

Anyway.

1. Curds: The Legend of Fungal Joe
2. Children Are the Corn
3. Don't Look in the Pie
4. The Homewrecker, Part 5: Tupperscare Party
5. I Was a Teenage Chupacabra
6. The Devil's Mudflaps
7. Rod Roddy Has Risen From the Grave
8. Supercide Me
9. Death Loaf
10. The Curse of the Haunted Ghost
11. It Only Hurts When You Stab Me
12. I Kill, You Die
13. Death Face 2000
14. Revenge of the Furnituremaker: Bloody Stools
15. The Tell-Tale Vagina

Here's a bonus title that doesn't obviously jive with the genre: Carny Asada

If there's one thing I've learned from writing down these 65 titles, it's that I'm obviously wicked into the idea of horror movies that somehow involve corn.

You will?! Oh, fabulous. It's so easy! All you have to do is:

1. Head over to AMC and read my latest, all about stuff you should...you know, watch. If you left a comment over there, or clicked "recommend", that would make my editor happy. Trust me, it's horrible when she's NOT happy. I'm not going to say she hits me, but she totally does.
2. Wish a happy birthday to Chainsaw Mafia honcho (honchette?), Fangoria Spooksmodel, Ludlow staaaah, and all around super lady Shannon Lark.

What oh what will you get in return, besides that thrilling feeling one only gets when doing a good cyber-deed? Here's what you'll get: a whopping almost ten minutes of awesomely horrible horribly awesome horriblawesomeness from that craptacular flick I recently reviewed, Don't Go in the Woods...Alone! Finally, after all these few days, you can witness for yourself some of the worst acting in the history of ever- and all for just a few clicks. Hooray for everything!

Fangoria online just put up an exclusive clip from the forthcoming film Walking Distance. Writer/direct Mel House is playing it smart- releasing just enough to keep people (well, me anyway) intrigued and all anticipatory, but not enough to really give anything away. In this day and age of meta this and set report that and trailers that you know only show the very best stuff, a little mystery is awfully refreshing.

Check out genre faves Reggie Bannister, Debbie Rochon, and some broad named Shannon Lark in action!

...the waiting really IS the hardest part! Everybody's posting it, so why don't I? The trailer for The Final Destination (or, FINAL DESTINATION OH MY GAHD 3-D!), that is...

The Final Destination trailer


I'd be excited even the film was in a mere two dimensions...but three? Please. California needs to legalize gay marriage NOW so that the expected marriage bedlam will ensue and people can then marry whom- or whatever they want, so I can marry this fucking movie.

Come on, August, what the frig is taking you so long to get here??!

WHY IS THIS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO ZUIIKIN' ENGLISH?

I assure you, it will not be the last.

Baby, sometimes bad movies just hurt so good! Over at AMC today I've listed 10 of my favorite bad horror movies, so check it out! I've talked about most of them before, I think, but it never hurts to spend some more time discussing Rumplestiltskin.

OR DOES IT?

When the trailer for Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus began making the rounds a couple of weeks ago, it spawned an internet boner heard 'round the world. How could it not? Among the tantalizing highlights are a mega-shark chomping the Golden Gate Bridge, a mega-shark leaping into the air to chomp a commercial airliner, and the promise of appearances by Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah Gibson. If there's that much awesome packed into a two-minute trailer, then surely the other 90 minutes of the film will be so awesome that Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus will rip through the very fabric of space and time and create a new universe all its own, right? Well, those were my expectations, anyway, and I really don't think they were too high.

The fact that MS vs GO comes from The Asylum is either a cause for alarm or for celebration, depending on your tastes. The Asylum, see, is the Designer Imposter Fragrances of the movie world: they're the ones responsible for Snakes on a Train. When The Day the Earth Stood Still hit theaters, The Asylum rushed to release The Day the Earth Stopped. Michael Bay's Transformers, meet The Asylum's Transmorphers...and so on and so on. They're shameless, and I kinda dig that. However, my grudging admiration doesn't mean their films are actually any good; rather they're an orgy of awful: bad acting, bad CGI, bad green screen, and bad writing combine to form a sweaty miasma of- you guessed it- bad movie awesomeness. Suffice it to say, Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus had a lot to live up to.

If there's one thing I learned from my beloved Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (and believe me, I've learned way more than one mere thing!), it's that nothing gets the blood pumping like hot, hot underwater mini-sub throttle action. Right off the bat, MS vs GO doesn't disappoint: Deborah Gibson and a pal are tooling around in a mini-sub, looking for...stuff...and there's plenty of button-pushing and throttle throttling to satisfy even the most cynical movie fan.

What's perhaps most magical is that sometimes Deborah Gibson is wearing goth nail polish, and sometimes she's not.

Let's get this out of the way: I love Deborah Gibson in this movie. I like the fact that she's got some years on her. She's earnest, a bit charming, and she manages to say lines like "There's poetry here!" in a way that doesn't completely make you want to kill yourself. Bravo, Asylum, for casting her. I hope she's in every movie ever made from now on, amen.

Some Army dudes or something or other drop some sonar something something...eh, it didn't make much sense. Just know this: the mega-shark and the giant octopus were frozen in place as they were grappling (presumably) to the death (the Ice Age came on fuckin' fast, y'all), but now they're free! Free to grapple! Free to fight! Free to be you and me KILL!

And kill they do, sort of. Frankly, the trailer shows all the best bits, like when the mega-shark takes down the Golden Gate Bridge...

...or when it inexplicably leaps...what, 15,000 feet into the air to take down a jumbo jet:

Besides the OBVIOUS amazingness of the sequence, the shark vs plane scene provided another moment that will live forever in my heart of hearts: as the plane hits some turbulence, a stewardess asks a man to take his seat. The man replies, "I'm getting married in two days." It makes no sense- did he then expect her to respond with "Oh, sir, we had no idea- in that case we'll go around the turbulence!"? I assume it's supposed to add some poignancy to the man's imminent death at the mega-teeth of mega-shark, but all it adds, in the end, is more nonsensical awesomeness.

These positively mysterious deaths cause Deborah Gibson and her cronies to DO SOME SCIENCE. Apparently they work at the Kool-Aid Institute for Underwater Studies, as their "research" involves pouring one colored liquid into a container of another colored liquid, then frowning at the results.




My oh my, I love it when people do science in movies.

After she has sex with a co-worker in the employee breakroom, Deborah Gibson has an idea: they should use pheromones to lure the mega-shark and the giant octopus into some kinda traps! It's a foolproof plan, I tells ya! Lorenzo Lamas shows up as some sort of...err, Army guy, I guess, whose job it is to have a ponytail and to glower.

I'll admit, Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus was a somewhat rollicking good time up until this point; then everyone piled into a submarine and the proceedings came to a big, fat, grinding halt as there was about a half an hour of this:

Deborah Gibson looking concerned, the...uh...submarine driver looking nervous, the captain saying "steady!", and Lorenzo Lamas hiding his face in shame. Seriously, this went on forever.

Eventually, the mega-shark and the giant octopus resume their battle, and I have to wonder what happened between them that caused them to hold a grudge for millions of years. I bet it involved infidelity. Somehow, in my dreams, a weave is also involved.

The biggest fault with Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus is that there's simply not enough mega-shark vs giant octopus. That's what folks wanna see- these two CGI behemoths duking it out. We want to see more ridiculous, impossible outrageousness. If the shark took down the Golden Gate Bridge, then why couldn't the octopus go after the Statue of Liberty? It's all made out of computer anyway, so the filmmakers should just balls-out go for it. It's not about making it real, it's about making it fun. Unfortunately, the fun to not-fun ratio in this film is roughly 1:5. I expect those odds to improve in the sequel. Yes, the ending sets up for one, and yes, I'm already looking forward to it- especially if Deborah Gibson is back to do more science!

...which, of course, can only mean one thing: I've got a new column up at AMC! This week, feast your eyes upon 10 kickass horror movie taglines! Chime in with your own favorites, but don't get all up in my grill with stuff like "How could you not include The Thing?" because, yes, I agree that "Man is the warmest place to hide..." is a fantastic tagline and I did include it, but the list I submitted was culled from 25 taglines to 10. Oh, these crosses I bear!

In other news, I went to a screening of Drag Me To Hell last night. There's an embargo on reviews for another couple of weeks, but...umm...it was fucking awesome.

I recently made a short horror film called Ludlow, starring Shannon Lark and Elissa Dowling. I thought I'd share all the boring details about how that came to be, because...you know...sharing is caring and if there's one I thing I do, it's care. Part one of the saga is here, part two is here, and part three is here.

We awoke in Baker a day behind schedule but still psyched: we could check into the rooms at the motel in Ludlow around 11am, and then we could start shooting this movie in earnest. Off we drove.

SHANNON LARK: But not before pointing and laughing at the world's largest thermometer, which, like I said, appears to be a gigantic erect cock.

The return trip to Ludlow was uneventful but beautiful. Driving through the Mojave Preserve is an unforgettable experience; the park is a gorgeous, desolate expanse covering over a million and a half acres, replete with joshua trees, boulders, and massive sand dunes. While the reservation fuck up in Ludlow was a massive pain, I was thankful that our solution sent us north through this amazing wilderness.

We arrived at the Chevron station in the late morning and in a shocking turn of events, our reservations were still intact! Our two rooms soon became one, however, when my debit card kept getting declined, despite the fact that I had more than enough money available to cover the costs. In a few days, Shannon Lark would work her magic and get some bank representative on the phone for me- apparently getting a hotel room in Baker and then one the following day in Ludlow is cause enough for the bank to freeze my account, putting me on fraud alert. A minor-ish hassle, but typical of the many obstacles we’d come to face as we attempted to make this fucking movie.


Shannon and I quickly unloaded into the room and set about to start shooting. I was well-organized, Shannon brought the performance, and we didn’t fuck around. By 1pm, we’d cranked out about 4 scenes out of the 28 we had slated for the week. We worked fast, but didn’t sacrifice quality. We were on a roll.

We decided to take a quick break so I could think about the next set up. Shannon stayed in the room while I ran across the street to the Chevron to take advantage of the complimentary water and coffee and soda we got as guests of the luxurious Ludlow Motel. Upon my return to the room, Shannon mentioned that the light had suddenly gone out while I was gone.

In fact, ALL the power was out.

SHANNON LARK: I was eating almonds and boom! The power went out. I looked at our dinky lights and couldn't quite believe that they had thrown out the power for the entire building.

After fifteen minutes or so, when the power still hadn’t started up again, I headed to the Chevron, hoping to find out if we’d blown a fuse or the circuit breakers needed tripping or…whatever. The clerks behind the counter were…shall we say, less than helpful.

“Yup, the power’s out.”

“But it’s not out here…”

“The gas station and the diner run on one generator and the rest of the town (!!!!) runs on another.”

“Has the outage been reported? Does anyone know what the problem is?”

“Could be the weather. Maybe someone crashed into something.”

“So…what do we do?”

“This happens all the time, and in the 9 years I’ve been working here, they’ve never given anyone a refund.”

I headed back to the room in a daze. I relayed the tale to Shannon and we just sort of sat there, unsure what to do. The interior was too dark for filming. We couldn’t really do much except wait it out. We ran lines, I worked on my storyboards…and we waited. And waited. And waited.

Shannon was convinced that the clerks at the Chevron could do something to help our situation- she was envisioning some scenario where they’d supply us with extension cords and let us tap into the diner’s generator; she stormed over to the gas station but in the end, didn’t have much more luck than I did. She did, however, get them to at least promise to refund our money if we decided to leave.

SHANNON LARK: By that time, I was getting pissed. $55 a night and no power? I was absolutely certain that they would at least run an extension cord across the parking lot so we could power a couple lights. Stacie went with me and the guy told me they didn't even "own" extension cords. I demanded for the owner (who owns all three businesses in town, that bastard). The manager rushed over to the diner, where the owner was hiding, and came back with a big fat NO. No, we will not give you light. But we will refund your money....

Clearly, we were in a bind- should we stay? Where else could we go? The sun was already sinking lower, and unless the power returned as suddenly as it’d disappeared, another day would be toast. We decided to go over to the diner and grab some chow. We convinced ourselves that this change of scenery would somehow do the trick, that when we returned to the room we’d have lights and we could start filming again. Several hours and two green chile cheese omelettes later, we walked back to the motel in darkness…

…and in darkness we remained. Still no power.

SHANNON LARK: I wandered around in the trailer park before we hit up the diner, determined to get to the end of this with the locals. I love trailer parks. I grew up in a series of them and love the vibe they give, it's a feeling that's better than sex! Three kids were walking back to their trailer and I asked if they knew anything about the power outage. They said that the town turns it off sometimes, to preserve power. I fiddled around with a box that said "Hotel Generator" but it was covered in spiders. That's when that bastard of an owner rode up in his truck, carrying some dude who was all smiley. "I'm sorry hun, but the power is fer the businesses," he said to me as he rolled up. Like I'm supposed to know who he is. This is the motherfucker who wouldn't lend us extension cords to his generator that we could see from our window. He drove off thinking he was hot shit, and probably made comments regarding banging nails out of a piece of wood.

Shannon got her Encyclopedia Brown on and tracked down the power company responsible for coverage in Ludlow. The Powers That Be were aware of the problem, but had no idea where it was located, never mind what fixing it would entail. Newberry Springs, a good 30 miles to the west of Ludlow, was also without power. Somewhere out in the Mojave there was a downed line, or…you know, like the clerk said, someone had “crashed into something”. They had no idea when the power would return.

So there we sat, sharing a flashlight, another day lost. Our four-day shooting schedule was now reduced to two.


Sometime after midnight, Shannon passed out. I stayed up, staring at the road atlas, trying to make a decision, trying to figure out what to do if the power was still out when we woke up. Should we head back to Baker and give the Bun Boy Motel a try? Should we head south to Joshua Tree in the hopes of finding a new location? I told the universe very nicely that I’d really appreciate it if the power was back on in the morning, but if it wasn’t, I decided that we’d head back to Baker to try our luck- at least it was a known quantity and we could reshoot the few scenes we’d finished already. I set the alarm for 5:30am and fell asleep.

SHANNON LARK: I fell asleep after one beer, muttering about what we'd accomplished that day. I knew that cramming four days of shooting into two was going to be intense, but the anger over Ludlow's lack of professionalism would fuel my desire. HUZZAHH!!

It's Friday. Man! Let's have fun!



I watch this, like, ten times a day.

Idunkarrr ifu havean aero-plane-uh!