Entries Tagged 'VHS rules' ↓

When I think of Warner Home Video (and believe me, I often do), I think of a specific VHS package design the company introduced around 1981 (OF COURSE it was 1981, 1981 rules). Their entire catalogue got the same treatment:

• Mmm, hard clamshell packaging
  
• large photo on the front, often pulled from the film's poster
• a big dot on the cover & spine indicating genre
• 2 small photos on back
• copy that's actually worthwhile: rather than some grammatically-incorrect nonsense typed up by a PR person who doesn't give two craps, WHV films featured critical notes and smart copy; a predecessor to today's often-stellar DVD liner notes
• the cool black & color stripey background

The part of my brain that's OCD (7%) absolutely appreciates the uniformity of the WHV line, and the part of my brain that's nostalgia (36%) gets many warm fuzzies whenever I spot one of these hulking plastic cases on a shelf. I'm not gonna deny that my love of VHS is rooted firmly in nostalgia- I've certainly talked about it plenty of times before. Neither will I deny that DVDs are superior in a few ways: durability, convenience, picture quality. But for horror geeks who came of age in the 80s, there's no beating VHS. The tapes are more than just copies of movies- they're tangible experiences; trust me, I know how corny this all sounds, but it's true. That pattern in the background of a Warner Home Video can instantly bring to mind 50 memories, of the films themselves and so much more.

All of this means: I heart Warner Home Video. I have a hard time fighting my collector impulses whenever I see one of these- I want to take them home, even if I already own the movie or the movie stinks. I want them expressly for the purposes of sitting on a shelf, looking uniform and pretty. I know how stupid that idea is, so I let them go and then I have these mild pulses of regret. Should I go back and pick up Dressed To Kill? Why oh why did I let The Exorcist II slip through my fingers? At least I have Humanoids from the Deep to console me.

I'm so lame. But Warner Home Video box art sure isn't!

Some of these are courtesy of Basement of Ghoulish Decadence and some are courtesy of Slasher Index. Others, from random places like eBay. This post needed some serious digging. I feel like Indiana Jones! No wait, Lara Croft.

Ha ha ha, see what I did with the post title? I bet you're thinking "Oh no, she's going to write about sports!" Well, guess again, sucker! The balls in question are actually the Sentinel Spheres of the Phantasm series, the shiny silver orbs that zip around at The Tall Man's behest, merrily lobotomizing victims with a drill as they go. Ha ha ha, I made a joke!

All of this leads me to Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998), or, in the interests of streamlining, Phantasm OblIVion. At any rate, it's the last film in the series which pits The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his trandimension dwarf labor force against a bunch of regular dudes. Or former regular dudes, I guess I should say. Quoth the Reggie, "I was an ice cream vendor by trade. Now I'm a soldier."

I haven't seen Phantasm parts II or III. I know...I know. The original 1979 has always been good enough for me- while I think the supremely creepy Tall Man is a worthy villain, I never felt the need to check out his further adventures. Slasher movies lend themselves best to the franchise treatment; the killers have a story but not to much story, and it's rather inconsequential anyway. Change the setting from film to film, perhaps, line up some characters for the kill, and repeat ad nauseum. Don Coscarelli, however, crafted a nearly perfect little slice of surrealist horror that leaves viewers reeling. Questions are raised and there's plenty of room for thought and discussion when it's over, but the movie is completely satisfying as an isolated experience.

So why am I jumping straight into the fourth film in the series? Well, because I found the tape for a buck. What're you gonna do, you know?

The "same ol' same ol'" approach of slasher franchises means that viewers jumping around in the series chronology won't be confused for long, if, in fact, they are at all. "Oh, Jason's dead now? No wait, he's alive. He's in New York? Okay. No wait, he's in space." In other words, it doesn't take long to catch up. Although I must say, I can't for the life of me remember if it's ever explained how Jason went from getting melted by toxic sludge in a Manhattan sewer to...wherever he was at the beginning of Jason Goes to Hell. Did that film start in New York? Bah, best not to waste precious brain power!

Unfortunately, Phantasm IV doesn't follow the rules associated with any subgenre and thus it was pretty confusing most of the time. As best as I can figure, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), and Jody (Bill Thornbury) spent the duration of Parts II and III going head to head and/or toe to toe with The Tall Man. Jody got smooshed down and transformed into one of those infamous spheres, as was the fate of his brother Mike. The process got interrupted somehow, and now Reggie and Mike are...driving somewhere. Separately. To do something. And Mike is, like, half-man, half-ball. This means that sometimes he has balleyes instead of eyeballs. SPHERES.

Mike has stolen The Tall Man's magic hearsemobile, which drives him out into the middle of Death Valley. There, he fights an transdimensional dwarf here and there, and I learn two things: 1) when scuttling around the never-ending tan landscape of Death Valley in their brown robes, transdimensional dwarves are not at all unlike the Jawas from Star Wars, and 2) it's best that we never see the faces of the transdimensional dwarves, because they look not at all unlike brown versions of that Ghoulie who busts out of the toilet on the cover of Ghoulies. As Phantasm proved decades before Part IV, less is so much more.


Reggie has lots of fightin' to do as well, on the road to find Mike. He's pulled over by a cop who's not actually a cop, but a...I don't know, some kind of skinless monster posing as a cop. Rather than just walk up to Reggie's car and kill him, the not-a-cop goes through an elaborate ruse wherein he takes Reggie's license and registration back to his cruiser. This ruse and the eventual battle serve to allow Reggie plenty of time to work in lots of cheesy action-hero one liners. After all, he's a soldier now, not some hippy guitar-playing ice cream man!

Thanks to a series of contrivances I can't be bothered to explain, Reggie ends up in bed with some random ex-stripper. Then this happens:

So, you know. There's that.

Mike finds one of those giant tuning forks/dimensional gateways out on the salt flats; he steps through it and lands back in a time before The Tall Man was The Tall Man. His name was Jedediah, and he was "obsessed with death". Then somehow he builds a steampunk machine and dimensional gateway and gets evil and turns everyone he meets into a Sentinel Sphere or a dwarf slave and we don't know why he decides to do any of this or how he does it or even why he's obsessed with death or anything at all it's all just explained half-assedly meaning it's not explained at all which means I'm way more confused than I was as a wee Final Girl back in 1979 and run-on sentence arrrrrgh.

Phantasm works because you get what's going on, but not what's really going on or why it's going on and that's FINE. The movie is more about feeling than about reasoning, and when that works in a movie it's magic. Phantasm IV expands the mythos of The Tall Man into...well, into nothingness. Fine, he used to be Jedediah. Then he walked through the tuning fork and became The Tall Man. ...okay? What do I do with that? I mean, if you're going to open that can of worms and try to explain, then fucking EXPLAIN. Why does he need to have a transdimensional dwarf labor force? What happened that turned him evil and gave him all sorts of powers? For that matter, why didn't Sphere Tits kill Reggie the moment she saw him, rather than trying to do so hours and hours later? Was she a monster, or was she possessed? Oh Lady in Lavender, I miss you so!

Mind you, everything could be laid out plain as day in Parts II and III. That would be swell. Perhaps I'll find out, so long as they don't cost more than a buck.

Oh, and about 95% of this movie takes place in and around cars. Of the remaining 5%, 3% is unused footage from 1979, forced into awkward "Hey, remember that time...?" flashbacks.

Also, it seems that there is room in a human skull for both a fully-functioning brain AND a full-size Sentinel Sphere.

Also, you can apparently build a nearly-fully-functioning Sentinel Sphere from your carburetor.

Also, boo Phantasm IV. BOO I SAY.

When I bought a VHS copy of The Birds II: Land's End (1994) for a dollar, I was pumped. Not only was it, you know, a dollar, but this wholly unnecessary sequel has the reputation of being a big pile. "It's supposed to be terrible," I told a friend. "I can't wait!" She thought that was an odd reason to buy and/or look forward to a film, and on the one hand I agree: I mean, I do want horror movies to be good. On the other hand, though, bad animals run amok movies are my soulmates. Directing duties on The Birds II are attributed to Alan Smithee, which had me even more excited. In case you don't know, "Alan Smithee" is a pseudonym used by directors who want to disavow any involvement with the film s/he directed for reasons that, per the rules of the Director's Guild, cannot be disclosed. The man behind the Smithee in the case of The Birds II is Rick Rosenthal, who also helmed Halloween II. Use of the pseudonym was abolished in 2000, and frankly that's the only reason I can think of why Rosenthal wouldn't use it to distance himself from the abysmal Halloween: Resurrection, which he wrought upon the world in 2002. But! That's neither here nor there.

Ohhhhhh how I want to punch Halloween: Resurrection in its stupid Michael Myers Dot Com face despite the Katee Sackhoff and Busta Rhymes-ness of it.

Sorry, it's just that Resurrection is one of those movies that makes my blood pressure rise. For the good of both my health and staying on topic, I should really start talking about The Birds II.

The film begins as an official-looking man pulls a bird of the water that looks like a leftover from the Exxon Valdez disaster. He gets out some official-looking beakers and vials and starts to do some science, but he's interrupted by a brutal bird attack. They take his eyes and his dignity as action music blares; the music and the copious blood remind us that we're not in Hitchcock territory anymore. Of course, you may have assumed that from the start.

Brad Johnson stars as Ted, patriarch of what is surely the most irritating family ever to walk the Earth. His wife May (Chelsea Field) is alternately angry and insipid. Their daughters Something Starts With 'J' #1 and Something Starts With 'J' #2 are straight-up brats. They fight, call each other names, and bitch about having to spend time at an old house on the beach at Land's End. Even the dog in this family is annoying. Really, Ted is the only one who's fairly tolerable, and that's because he spends most of his time quietly moping about their son who died five years ago. At any rate, they're all at Land's End on some sort of "work vacation" for mom and dad. The "How was your day?" questions and the incessant whining of the girls were a constant reminder that family life is a fucking drag.

Look, I'm gonna save both of us a lot of time. A bunch of nothing happens, and then the birds get frisky. They start dive-bombing people here and there, scratching a forehead or biting some hair. Ted thinks is this wholly unnatural behavior and he should know- he's a high school biology teacher. He tries to warn the Mayor that something hinky is going on, but in typical politician in an animals run amok movie fashion, the Mayor won't do anything about it because doing so may negatively affect the town's Fishing Industry Parade Festival and economy. However, two people believe Ted: a weird old dude who live in a lighthouse, and Tippi Hedren. Well, not Tippi Hedren, exactly, but rather Helen, the character she plays. That's right, Tippi Hedren is in The Birds II, and she's not portraying Melanie Daniels. I hate when that happens.

The birds increase their numbers and get more and more bold. Flocks of them enter The Ted Family's home (sorry, they don't have a last name) and make with the pecking and the scratching and the nom nom nomming. They cut the phone line and the power, and the scene is not at all unlike the siege scene you've seen in any number of zombie movies- it was rather Night of the Living Dead, actually. There's a bitchin' dog vs. bird fight, and later the weird old dude falls from the lighthouse sans eyes after a bird attack.

In typical politician in an animals run amok movie fashion, the Mayor learns too late that the threat is REAL- like, he finally gets it when hundreds of birds take on hundreds of people near the marina. He tries to assemble a shotgun-wielding posse, but it's an idea that was doomed from the start. The Ted Family takes a little boat in an attempt to get back to the mainland, but then the birds take off and try to beat them to it. The (abrupt) end.

Now, I realize I haven't made the best case for The Birds II: Land's End here. Surely Rick Rosenthal's use of "Alan Smithee" doesn't make a good case for it, and neither do the ubiquitous reviews that give it 1.5 stars at most. I got it expressly because I thought it was going to be terrible, and yet...I did not find it to be terrible. Why is this? Hmm. It's a question I've been pondering since I rewound the tape. Earlier that that, perhaps, for even as the birds were doing their thing, I found myself shocked at the fact that what I was watching wasn't making me laugh or want to kill myself.

Is it because mere days ago I saw Birdemic: Shock and Terror, surely the worst movie ever created, and now I've gone numb? This may be a part of it, especially considering the fact that both movies are about [SPOILER ALERT] birds.

Aside: I'm going to write about Birdemic, but I'm not sure exactly what yet, nor am I sure where the writing will end up. I will say this much: if it ends up at a theater near you, GO. You think Troll 2 is the worst movie ever? Think again. You know how I've thought for YEARS that Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is as amazingly good as bad movies get? I WAS WRONG. There's a new King.

Aside Over: On the other hand, there's no denying that The Birds II isn't actually much good. There's far more melodrama and talk than action, but still- I found that enjoyable in a made-for-TV sort of way. I was most pleased at the fact that the birds were not made out of computer. Imagine that! Animals run amok movies may be more popular than ever thanks to the schlock churned out by the SyFy Channel, but I get tired of the CGI-ness of it all. These were real honest-to-goodness birds a-peckin' and a-flappin', and I was thankful for it.

Because I am really in the minority regarding the merits of The Birds II, I can't really recommend it: after all, your brain not be as soft as mine apparently is right now. Honestly, I hope Birdemic has ruined all moviekind for me, raising my tolerance for crap to the point where everything is shrugged off with a casual "Well, it wasn't as bad as Birdemic..." I don't know, I might be way too forgiving of animals run amok movies for a time. We'll just have to wait and see. I know enough, however, to say that I realize The Birds II isn't good, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it...and that's okay. A dollar well spent, I say!

Gather 'round, yon children, as the Final Girl Film Club takes a wondrous trip back to a time when black & white was where it wuz at and Sid Haig had a hairless face! Lo, my friends, let us watch and discuss Jack Hill's 1968 blackcomedisploitation classic...SPIDER BABY! Or, The Maddest Story Ever Told. Hey, whatever floats your hereditary neurological disorder.

It's on Netflix instant watch and available for cheap in all the world's finest stores. Why, I got a copy on VHS for the low, low price of one dollar! Or, The Maddest Price of One Hundred Pennies.

EDITED TO ADD: You can download Spider Baby for free from the Internet Archive. Now you have no excuse not to participate. For that, you can thank reader The Dreaded Rhubarb!

The film: Spider Baby
The dude date (typo that stays): Monday, April 12

Man, I tells ya. My friend Eric runs Spudic's Movie Empire and it's a VHS lovers paradise! I can't resist his $1 sales- I walk out with a boxful everytime. If you live in the Los Angeles area and you love BROWSING- and let's face it, only jerks don't love browsing- you owe yourself a trip. He does mail order too, so you have no excuses. NONE I SAY.

AnyIhavetoomanymovies, you can see that on my last trip I got a fucking great haul. Monsters ahoy! My favorite poster is the first one, the Deep Rising poster that calls the special effects team the "Special Effects Team". Why the quotes? Does that mean the FX were done by, like, the director's mom and her quilting club? 'Cause if that's the case, now I wanna see it even more!

Related reviews: He Knows You're Alone, Dead & Buried

Going into a flick called The Nail Gun Massacre (1985), well, I suppose I should know what to expect: some deadly nail gun shenanigans, a fine patina of sleaze, and a distinct absence of quality. Sure enough, my expectations were met! The only shock I suffered was that in the end, the movie wasn't nearly as lurid as I was expecting.

The movie begins with a gang rape. It's not explicit, nor is it terribly long...but as it literally opens the film, it's a propos of nothing. A woman is surrounded by a bunch of workers at a construction site while a peppy '80s synth tune plays, and it's all so sudden that by the time you've processed that yes, Nail Gun Massacre opens with a rape, it's over. It's not traumatizing for the viewer- it's probably the only instance of cinematic rape where I've claimed that- and one can only assume that it's going to provide the impetus for the titular nail gunning to come.

And provide the impetus it does, in the very next scene! A hairy slob is yelling at his wife (who's outside hanging laundrey on a line) when he's visited by someone dressed in camouflage, wearing a duct taped motorcycle helmet, and wielding a massive nail gun. Judging by the figure's diminutive size and vaguely hourglass figure, it seems this is the rape victim out for a bit of pneumatic-powered revenge.

But is it revenge? Is the hairy slob one of the construction workers who raped that woman? We don't know. We never really know any of the people killed in Nail Gun Massacre- their names, how they may or may not relate to anything that already transpired in the film...it all seems completely random. Oh well, might as well just roll with it.

After the hairy slob is killed and his wife runs off into the woods with her baby, we're treated to the opening credits sequence, which surely ranks among the worst credits sequences of all time. Plain text slowly gives the names of cast and crew while the theme song...isn't a theme song at all. There's no music, only someone's voice filtered through a vocoder, going "muaa...MUAA...MUAA...MUAA" ad nauseum. It turns out that this voice belongs to the killer. Nail Gun Massacre then quickly establishes a pattern:

1. People you don't want to watch engage in sex engage in sex
2. Ample bare bottoms and bare boobs are on display
3. Nail Gun Killer arrives
4. BANG BANG BANG goes the nail gun
5. UHHNNN...NO...UHHNNN goes the victim
6. Nail Gun Killer cracks wise through via vocoder (eg, "Oh, don't you just hate headaches?")
7. Sheriff arrives, is perplexed by the body, calls the doctor
   
8. Doctor arrives in a Camaro, clad in a tank top, says the victim died "hours ago"
9. They both suspect "Old Mrs. Bailey" of the killings

Add a heaping vat of inept filmmaking, a dose of a horrible script, atrocious acting, and repeat, repeat, repeat.

If anything, Nail Gun Massacre proves that decent slasher movies are much more than the sum of their parts. Though there's nudity, blood, and a masked killer, this is far worse than even the weakest entry in the Friday the 13th series. You've got to have a modicum of skill in at least one essential area (writing, directing, FX, acting) for the movie to work, and Nail Gun Massacre fails on all fronts.

Mind you, this doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the damn thing, because I did. I think the moment it won my heart came during a scene set in a grocery store. An elderly clerk is adding up an order (apparently without the aid of a cash register), and the actress is clearly reading her lines from a script on the counter. She fumbles over a few sentences, and when the scene is finally over...she looks directly at the camera with a look that says "Is that it?" According to imdb, the woman isn't an actress at all, but the director's grandmother, who actually worked at the store- she filled in when the actress originally cast didn't show. I loved her, and it filled me with a sort of "Aww, none of these people are professionals...they're just making a movie, how sweet!" Of course, this doesn't make the affair any better, or really worth your time. It basically endeared the awfulness to me because that's how my brain works.

As I said, it is awful. Another "highlight" occurs during one of the film's copious sex scenes, where a couple is trying to have it off in a 2-seater car. It's not working because there's no room for them to maneuver, and at one point the couple stops moving around completely...while the car still bounces up and down as if they're humping away. The shadow of the person repeatedly pushing down on the car is clearly visible on the hood. The killer soon arrives, prompting the man to ask "What are you, a cop?"- I don't know, how many law enforcement agencies wear camouflage jumpsuits, duct taped motorcycle helmets, and wield nail guns? Maybe things are different elsewhere in the country. At any rate, Ol' Naily makes short work of the couple- the man dies immediately after being shot in the elbow with a nail.


The killer drives a massive, golden-puke hearse and leaves it on the road whilst off wielding the nail gun; the sheriff encounters this hearse many times in many places, but thinks nothing of it. Eventually, he and the doctor stop blaming "Old Mrs. Bailey" (whom we never meet) for the crimes...the sheriff finally begins to think that the rape victim from a few months back might have something to do with this, but the doctor remains unconvinced. After all, he spoke to her after the rape and "She never showed any signs that the rape pushed her mind into a state of killing." The state of killing is so dangerous.

Still, the men go to talk to her...there's a lengthy Camaro vs Golden-Puke Hearse "chase" sequence, and all parties end up at the gravel pit. The killer is soon revealed to be...the rape victim's brother. Yes, despite the fact that the role has been played by a woman throughout the entire film, it's actually a man under the helmet. Uh huh.

Totally. Horribly. Ridiculous. And yet, I could not bring myself to be angry with Nail Gun Massacre. I mean, I'm the one who popped it in the VCR and should have known what to expect. What I didn't expect was that the director's gramma would steal my heart!

Seriously...watch at your own risk.

Audrey Rose (1977) is a film that's long been in my brain. From the undeniably creepy poster art to that time in art school when I was talking horror movies with a classmate and she told me she that the most terrifying film she'd ever seen like, ever, was Audrey Rose...well, it was always a film I had to see. My art school days, however, were the days before The Internet (yes, there was a time before The Internet) and DVDs; this little movie was difficult to find and so I relegated it to "I'll get around to it" status and that was that. After I began Final Girl in earnest and started really diving into the world of horror movies, reading about them and researching them and really just enveloping myself in them, I never forgot about Audrey Rose. It was still a fairly rare film, despite the advent of DVD, and I found it odd that no one seemed to talk about it much, given that that one girl that one time assured me it was pee-your-pants terrifying. So it was glee- glee, I tells ya- that I was feeling when I found a megacheap VHS copy recently. What's the verdict after all these years of searching and waiting?

Umm, if Art School Girl found Audrey Rose to be the most horrifying film in the history of ever, then her head would surely explode within 10 seconds of watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. That's not to say it's a bad movie, but to my great disappointment, this isn't some lost classic unknown sleeper gem that everyone should see right this very second. If anything, it's more drama than horror- which is fine and all, but it's not what I was expecting...and everything should be exactly as I expect forever and ever!


Audrey Rose begins with a fiery car crash on a rain-slicked road in Pennsylvania, then quickly jumps to Manhattan eleven years later. A man in full-on weirdo beard mode (Anthony Hopkins) engages in some lite stalking of the Templeton family: he follows dad Bill (John Beck) to work, he waits outside the school where mom Janice (Marsha Mason) picks up daughter Ivy (Susan Swift)...he never engages the family, but he's always lurking in corners.

Weirdo Beardo isn't the only problem facing this happy little family, however: as Ivy's birthday approaches, she becomes increasingly plagued with nightmares she cannot remember upon waking.

Eventually Weirdo Beardo contacts the Templetons and explains why he's been passively harassing them: his name is Elliot Hoover, and eleven years prior he lost his wife and daughter Audrey Rose in that fiery car accident. After years of talking with psychics and delving into Indian mysticism, Hoover became convinced that his daughter was reincarnated; what's more, he believes that Audrey Rose's soul resides within Ivy, who was born two minutes after Audrey Rose died. Ivy's nightmares are the result of her soul wrestling with its dual nature. Bill and Janice are skeptical, but when Hoover calms Ivy's sleep-yelling by calling her "Audrey Rose", Janice begins to have her doubts.

Then begins a cycle:

- Ivy has a nightmare
- Bill is either absent (working late) or simply can't calm the girl down
- Hoover is present and can calm the girl
- Bill and Janice argue over what's happening and what should be done about it

...repeat, repeat. Oddly enough, Audrey Rose becomes a courtroom drama towards the end, wherein the possibilities of reincarnation are discussed- what rights does Hoover have if Ivy has a piece of Audrey Rose's soul lurking within her? There's a bit of science vs religion that ultimately results in an ending that's supposed to be uplifting, I suppose, but really isn't.


Don't get me wrong- Audrey Rose isn't a terrible film. It raises plenty of questions (though it falls squarely on the pro-reincarnation side of things) and provides lots of food for thought. The entire affair is helmed by the venerable Robert Wise (The Haunting), so to call it competent filmmaking is a bit of an understatement. It's bolstered by some fine performances, particularly from Marsha Mason (this is really her film, after all) and Susan Swift, who's largely given the thankless task of screaming and whining ad nauseum. Anthony Hopkins is serviceable, though he manages to be simultaneously dead-eyed and twitchy as a man fighting to save his dead daughter's soul. I even managed to overcome my deep and abiding loathing of John Beck, who appeared on Dallas as Mark Graison, a guy who I suppose was nice enough but totally came between Pam and Bobby solely due to creepy, wealthy persistence.

No, the problem with Audrey Rose is that it's been miscategorized for decades, largely in my head. The Exorcism of Emily Rose comes to mind as a descendant, though that film is far more flashy and horrifying than its predecessor. In short, it's worth a watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon, perhaps, but take it from me: don't let it haunt your brain!

My dearest dudes, dudettes, and whatevers,

It's time to choose another movie for the communal experience known as The Final Girl Film Club. I am super duper triple dipple wicked mega excited about October Shocktober's pick...almost as excited as I am about Shocktober itself! I'm heading back to my slasher roots to pick a movie I've talked about here at The Old FG Place many times, but I've never properly reviewed...folks, please give it up for...

A decade after a cruel prank against a fellow student went horribly awry, eight friends receive a mysterious invitation to a "private" reunion at their now-closed high school, where they come face-to-face with a frightening figure from their past. One by one, the once-popular former students fall victim to a twisted, bloody fate, and the only person laughing now is the one getting revenge.

That's the Netflix description...here's the link for those of you who get your movies in that oh so modern fashion. Me? I'll be watching a cruddy old VHS copy. It's totally appropriate.

Super psyched!!

The film: Slaughter High
The due date: Monday, October 19

As always, email your links to me at stacieponder at gmail.com. Include a link to Final Girl in your write-up and you're GTG!

Hey Wisconsinites, I'm talking to YOU! On Sunday, October 4th you should stop cramming cheese in your face long enough to totally head to the Madison Horror Film Festival where they're screening my short film Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear! It's true.

I'm unable to make it to the festival myself, but I'm so excited about the notion of my movie playing on a big screen that I could just pee. I do so wonder how audiences will react to my magnum Barbie lesbian vampire opus- filmed in fabulous VHS VISION!

Anyway, yeah, you should go. You may also want to go to the festival on Saturday, when they're screening a movie called Re-Animator and conducting a Q & A with some dude named Stuart Gordon. The schedule and deets are here.

Mind you, I would not be in the Madison Horror Festival if I weren't a part of the Viscera Project...so...I don't know. I'm sure there's some sort of lesson in there somewhere. While I try to figure out exactly what that is, you can go listen to The Unrated Hour's recent interview with Viscera/Chainsaw Mafia honcho Shannon Lark. The show starts out with a bunch of weird wrestling-related stuff, so you may feel you're not in the right place, but you are. Eventually they talk to Shannon and more importantly, eventually they talk about me. ME ME ME.

They did not talk about how my kindergarten portrait came to be hanging on the wall of the eerie castle owned the eeeevil vampiress Lady Mortidella, but I suppose there's always next time.

As I walked by my movie shelf earlier today, my VHS copy of The Funhouse caught my eye, and I was struck by the image on the spine. WHAT FRESH BOY GEORGE HELL IS THIS?


It's been a while since I've watched the film, but I most certainly do not recall Alison Moyet playing a part in it.

Yes, it's true- I recently bought these movies on VHS for cheap cheap cheap. Where oh where? Why, at my pal Eric's store, that's where...or as it's more commonly known, Spudic's Movie Empire. Los Angeles locals, it's a great place to browse. Everyone else, you can still get movies from Eric via the magic of mail order. He even does special orders, y'all. Yee haw! I've got some movies to watch, some of which I've (gasp) never seen.

Yes, it's time for another round of pure "eye-popping action and electrifying thrills" (Earl Dittman, Wireless Magazines) that will "leave your head spinning" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) with me, just a gal who's "funny, strong, gorgeous – and ultimately a woman of power and dignity" (Pete Hammond, Maxim)- it's Film Club Choosening Day! Here's what else the critics are saying about today:

“A full-throttle thrill ride.” – Chloe Houser, KPOX-TV
"An intense…riveting…adventure." – Steve Oldfield, FOX-TV
"...nothing less than a national treasure.” - Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

As you can see, you're in for quite a treat. But enough with the suspense! Let's get to it. The next Film Club movie is...dun dun dunnnnn...


Yes, my pretties, this FGFC go-round promises to be positively Satantastic. You may remember The Devil's Rain from that time I talked about buying it and I nerdishly pointed out the grammatical errors of the tagline. Or not. Mayhaps this is the first time you're hearing about this beaut from 1975 and you're all meehhh. Well, if that's the case, I've got a whopping 30 words for you to get you excited for this "delight for the eye, thrill for the spine, laugh for the belly, message for the heart, bonbon for children and captivating pleasure for adults!" (Gene Shalit, The Today Show):

Ernest Borgnine Tom Skerritt Ida Lupino John Travolta William Shatner Anton LaVey Eddie Albert Keenan Wynn and did I mention Ernest Borgnine with goat horns because it's totally in there

WOW. That's apparently the DVD menu, something I will miss out on as I will finally be watching my VHS copy. Those of you interested in the more technologically advanced version can find it on Netflix here.

Now, I realize that the due date is a bit far off and I apologize as we're all now dying to dig into The Devil's Rain. Thing is, I've got Ludlow to finish between now and then, and frankly a goat-horned Borgnine deserves my complete attention. Besides, it gives you whores time to pass around that Netflix copy like it's the Clap...I mean, I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that this film is one the entire world needs to see. The critics agree!

"You will love this movie! " - Sandy Kenyon, WABC-TV
"It will suck you in and rock you to the core. Killer movie!" - Kevin Steincross, KTVI-TV

That last quote is actually about Twilight, just so you know.

The film: The Devil's Rain
The due date: Monday, September 7

...there are movies out there in the world that seem as if they were made for me and for me alone. This is one of them. I MUST SEE IT.

In tangentially related news: holy fucking shit, I had no idea that Chuck Norris is so huge. Apparently the camera adds ten pounds but takes away 250 feet.

I'm, like, totally in "post-production" on Ludlow. Since I went way overboard with the info sharing regarding the shoot, I figured, you know, why not indulge myself and share way too much info during the entire process of putting this movie together? It's what The Internet is for. Well, it's for sharing too much information and it's for LOLcats.

So, WARNING: this is all about me and my big ideas for Ludlow and seriously, it’s so boring, I’m falling asleep whilst typing ittttttttttwiooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh, if you have no idea what the fuck a "Ludlow" is, click here and catch up. Or don't and remain clueless. Whatever, man, that's totes your beeswax.


If you’ve watched any of my previous…uh, let’s call them “films” for lack of a better term, shall we?…then you may or may not be surprised to find out that they’re all edited on l’il ol’ iMovie5. See, I’m always about 6 or 8 steps behind the curve when it comes to computers due to the fact that I’m not a millionaire. It’s true! Though I exude exquisite class and glamour all over The Internet, I am little more than a humble pauper.


As such, I plod along all humble pauper-style working with programs from 5 years ago and everything’s generally cool; I’m a big proponent of the idea that your equipment doesn’t entirely matter, but rather it’s all about what you can do with it. *sexual innuendo, wakka wakka* The point is, geez… the first three episodes of Ghostella’s Haunted Tomb were shot on VHS, and they’re…largely coherent, at least.

SHANNON LARK: Stacie never gives herself enough credit. "Lack of a better term?" Her movies are wonderful! And they actually make sense. Especially her latest with that wedding dress-thing.

In related news, did you know that NOBODY uses VHS anymore? Weird, right? I just don’t understand this modern world! VHS is so cool. Why I remember the day I stepped up to VHS from using this thing. Oh, what a day that was. Electric Youth!

I’ll readily admit that top of the line equipment would be swell to own- after all, there’s no arguing that stuff shot on the Red One (fancy, expensive) looks better than stuff shot on VHS (not fancy, obsolete). But again, I’m not a millionaire and thus I make do. Sometimes, though, you just gotta bite the bullet and upgrade your crap to crap plus.


Sometimes, upgrading is all about ease. After those first three episodes of Ghostella, I dumped my VHS camera for a cheap (but kick ASS) mini-DV camera. In addition to superior picture quality, this meant I could simply import footage directly from the camera into iMovie rather than burning a DVD from the VHS tapes, extracting the footage from the DVDs, converting the file types, and THEN importing to iMovie. I still make out with my little camera every night as my perverted way of thanking it for saving me so much time and hassle. The making out is also my way of letting it know that I think it’s pretty.

SHANNON LARK: I agree that you should make out with your equipment. It makes it function better (as long as no saliva hits the mother board) as the good vibes permeate its mechanical consciousness.

I’m trying to make a…well, a GOOD MOVIE here with Ludlow. Relatively speaking, natch. I want it to look beautiful, and I want as much as possible to avoid the deadliest of pitfalls that frequently lay waste to no-budget movies: shitty audio. Whether or not I’ll achieve these goals remains to be seen, but to give myself a leg up I used Shannon’s fancy-pants camera to shoot the film (although not wanting to neglect my own beloved camera, I brought it with me to capture behind the scenes shenanigans and, you know, to make out with). The second part of this mathemagical equation involves post-production and my decision to…dun dun dunnnnn…upgrade from iMovie 5 to Final Cut Express 4. This is roughly the equivalent of upgrading from sitting on your ass all day to going all nutcake and doing the Ironman Triathlon in under an hour.

I don’t know if that makes any sense, or whether doing the Triathlon in under an hour would indeed indicate a level of nutcakedness, but perhaps you get the point.

What? No, I’ve never done the Ironman Triathlon. BIG DEAL. It’s not like I’ve never done ANYTHING. I mean, this one time I stayed up for two days straight and lemme tell ya, it broke my fucking brain! It was during a road trip with my friend Jim, and the highlight of the trip was probably the moment when my mind completely melted and I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant where we’d had breakfast. The restaurant was called Country Pride (gross, awesome), but the closest I could get to calling it that was to blurt out “Purity Face”.

SHANNON LARK: Hahaha! I went to a place like that recently. It had a giant pig in front of it, which I rode.

Anyway.

Look, I’m not trying to knock iMovie Version From 5 Years Ago, believe me. I’ve done some cool stuff with it, if I do say so myself (and clearly I do say so myself). However, the program is largely aimed at people who want to make a “movie” of their kids pooping at the beach and Ken Burns-style photo montages set to the tune of Jim Croce’s “Time In A Bottle” to give as a gift to Nana and Pap Pap for their 60th wedding anniversary- and that’s…you know, mega-cool. But for Ludlow, I want more control than iMovie can provide; I want to filter audio and correct colors and all that deluxe good-time jazz. Lo, I say unto thee, this is a story about control. Control of what I say, control of what I do- and this time, I’m gonna do it MY way. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. Are we ready? I am- ‘cause it’s all about control…and I’ve got lots of it.

NnnngaaaahhhhhJANET JACKSON GET OUT OF MY HEAD.


Sorry, wait…mmm. Err, where the fuck am I going with this?

Oh yeah- so I upgraded my computer and now my stupid big fat scanner is no longer compatible with my system (it sits, useless and mocking) which means I can no longer scan in…you know…STUFF FOR MY LIFE which includes COMICS and I’ve got Final Cut Express but it’s super complicated and I don’t know what I’m doing and I hate not knowing what I’m doing and I feel my self-imposed deadline looming and I’m totally freaking out.

SHANNON LARK: Girl, you are gonna get the freakin' stupid editing system BLAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Just keep working at it. You are super smart and you do things and you have the BESTEST blog on the intarweb where people send you fanmail and some of them even try to look up pictures of me naked just because you have let me go blablabla on your blog about masturbation and Ludlow. This is just Ludlow trying to bring you down, man. Fuck Ludlow. Fuck it with an iron fist and conquer this program till you hit yourself in the face cause your fist goes right through it, all transparency-like.

SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP did I really write all this just to bitch about how my new editing program is OH SO HARD and WAH WAH WAHH and IT’S GOING TO TAKE ME SO LONG TO LEARRRRRRRRNNNN? Hmm. I guess I did.

Well, I SAID it was boring…and YOU read it anyway! SUCKER!

Sorry, that’s not very nice at all. I’m going to go make an iMovie video featuring a Ken Burns-style montage of all our favorite Final Girl pictures from over the years, and I’ll set it to the tune of Icy Spicy Leoncie’s “Man! Let’s Have Fun” as my way of apologizing.

Actually, that video sounds pretty cool. Wow, I should be a jerk more often!

And please don’t remind me that I’m bitching about editing movies on my computer while the world is riddled with people who have no homes or clothes or perhaps not even eyes, because I feel guilty enough about my meager entitlements already. I BID YOU GOOD DAY.

1989 certainly has it high points in horror cinema- Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer, Bad Taste, and Pet Sematary to name a few. However, the closing of the decade saw the genre lapse into a crap coma. Despite the endless hand holdings and the whisperings of "Are you in there? Can you hear me? What's a coma like? Does my new haircut make my face look too boxy?" by fans, horror would lay fairly lifeless until Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson kicked it awake a few years later with Scream.

I don't know whether or not Pet Sematary is actually any good, but I swear I've seen it a zillion times. Much like Jingle Jugs, my Zelda impersonation ("Rachel! You'll never walk again!") is the life of any party. Somehow, every time I see the film I remain thoroughly convinced that Zelda is played by Amanda Plummer, even though that's never, ever the case.

Anyway, 1989 was truly the year of underwater horror and lousy sequels.


Greg Evigan and Sean Cunningham, yeah? I keep meaning to watch this one, I swear.

Wow, that was truly fucking insightful.

Oh yeah, this also stars Nia Peeples. When I was young, I used to think it was funny to call her "Pia Nipples".



I can't believe I can find fault with a movie where someone gets his head punched off, but F13: VIII stinks. It's one of those films I keep thinking will get better with age, that maybe I misjudged it, that maybe I'll find some new appreciation for it the more I see it, but...no. Still, someone gets his head punched off.



I've only seen this once and I remember thinking, "Well, that certainly wasn't The Fly!", which is perhaps some of the most pointed film criticism ever thought. I know I'll see it again someday because it stars Daphne Zuniga and eventually I'll get pulled into her Jo Reynolds-flavored clutches.


I don't like thinking about Halloween 5 because thinking about Halloween 5 causes me to think about the "quirky" Tina and her zebra-striped pants and thinking about "quirky" Tina and her zebra-striped pants causes my heart to pound (in a bad way) and my blood to rage white-water-rafting-style. Therefore, I choose a life of willful ignorance where Halloween 5 doesn't exist. It's for the sake of my health!


I've had a VHS copy of this sitting on my shelf for a looooong time now, and I've never mustered the energy to watch it. I'm sure that says something or other about some kind of something.



I wish Lords of the Deep was some sort of water-related dance extravaganza going on in Las Vegas starring Tony Danza and Debbie Reynolds. Alas, it's just Roger Corman's attempt at cashing in on '89's underwater horror craze.



I don't think I've ever seen this; I gave up on Freddy after catching Part 4 in the theatre. Therefore, it could be amazing for all I know. My Spider Sense, however, indicates otherwise. Still, great poster.



Now, y'all know I loves me some Angela, big time. This love doesn't blind me to the fact that Sleepaway Camp III is really, truly awful. Except the first 15 minutes or so, where that trashy girl is yelling at her mom, all whiny-like: "Today's the day I'm going ta caaaaaamp. Ya heah me? I'm goin' ta that camp today!" and then she goes outside where a bewigged, stolen garbage truck-driving Angela runs her over. Those fifteen minutes are cinematic gold, my friends.



I've only seen the first two films in the Silent Night, Deadly Night saga- yes, even though I know one of the later sequels stars Mickey Rooney as some evil toymaker or some shit. Someday when I hate life in general, I'll marathon the series.

So...1989. Whatchoo tink?