I have not voted today, nor do I plan to. Back in September, I wrote about how, because of the anxiety it was causing, I had gone on a news embargo. The only news that I got of the outside world and its politics came from seeing random headlines that happened to be on websites I visited. I ignored the local papers on the rack at the corner bodega, and chucked the copies of the Times delivered to my door every weekend, still wrapped in plastic, straight into the bin. Bookmarks for news sites on my computer were ignored. Since then, I’ve slowly been able to reintegrate myself with current events, but only in an uncommitted fashion. Because I care so much about what happens in this country and the world, I cannot care about it. Put another way, I was damaging my psyche to such an extent by investing myself emotionally in politics that the only way I can feel comfortable being up to date is by being a dispassionate observer. Continue reading “A Voter’s Lament”
Author: capcom
October Horrorshow: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Woe be to the viewer when a film series becomes tired. At first there was innovation, followed by repetition. Afterwards comes mediocrity, before, finally, the series descends into total and utter garbage. Such is the case with the last film in this year’s Horrorshow, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. From the opening scene through denouement, the sixth entry in the Halloween franchise is a tedious affair. So tedious, in fact, that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay enough attention to this movie to write about it. It was a close call. More than once while I was watching a text message would come in or I would want to look up a member of the cast or crew on the internet, and any deviation in my focus threatened to derail my comprehension of on screen events. How could I possibly write a review of this dog if I couldn’t remember what I just saw? I’ve stopped watching films after fifteen or twenty minutes and still written reviews, but the difference between those films and this one is that, although I only spent a short time with those films, I was able to keep my focus. Halloween 6 was a struggle from beginning to end. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers”
October Horrorshow: Blood Glacier
One of the reasons I like films in other languages is the subtitles force a viewer to pay attention. I’m just as bad as anyone else at juggling their technological experiences in the 21st century. I’ve been conditioned by products and my own indulgences to never be satisfied with just sitting still and watching one single thing. While watching football games or movies in English, I can keep up the pretense that multi-tasking is possible, as my attention wanders to whatever device is at hand. I can convince myself that listening provides the same experience as watching, even while my attention shifts completely to a website or messaging app. But not with a movie that has subtitles. If I want to have any sort of understanding of events on screen, I have to read those little lines of translated dialogue or I’m completely lost. Idea: watch movies in English with the sound down so low I have to use captioning. That should keep me interested, right? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Blood Glacier”
October Horrorshow: Hellraiser
Clive Barker has a sick little mind. There’s no other explanation. His idea of a dimension of pure pleasure becomes twisted into a place of unending pain, and thus are birthed the Cenobites, cinema’s most inventive sadomasochistic villains. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Hellraiser”
October Horrorshow: Willow Creek
Oh, no. Not another found footage horror flick featuring amateur filmmakers traipsing around the woods. A big part of me, bigger than I would like to admit, wishes that filmmakers would just stop with this nonsense. Found footage is a grossly overdone gimmick in horror films. Consequently, the bar for success has been raised so high that only the most talented of filmmakers can hope to produce a film that adds anything to this tired method of storytelling. So, sorry in advance, Bobcat, but I did not go into your film with the highest expectations. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Willow Creek”
October Horrorshow: Sleepaway Camp
This film is a horror cult classic. It’s one of those flicks a person’s friends tell them about in high school. The teller’s eyes get big and mature elocution disappears. “Oh, man! You have got to see this movie. The ending is crazy!” No further details are given. The line has been drawn. Those that have seen the movie are in an exclusive club, while those who have not are on the outside, looking in with envy. Then the moment comes when a person finally sits down and sees the slasher flick with the shocking twist ending...and it’s a piece of shit. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Sleepaway Camp”
October Horrorshow: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
I love it when a sequel plays around with its original idea...with caveats, of course. Tweaks are good. Wholesale re-imaginings can be taking things too far. Take The Highlander, for instance. That film lays out some neat ground rules for both protagonist and antagonist. For some supernatural reason, seemingly random people throughout history have been rendered immortal, their purpose in life to track each other down and cut each other’s heads off, all to earn a mysterious prize which will be given to the last man standing. The film spent a substantial amount of time on its hero’s origin story in the Scottish Highlands. The film wrapped up the story so completely that the filmmakers may as well have put a bow on it. But, when it was time to make a sequel, all that backstory was retconned, and the immortals turned into fricking aliens. ALIENS. Audiences hated it. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge”
October Horrorshow: Hatchet II
I judge sequels and remakes a bit more harshly than other films. I cannot help but compare further entries in film series to their predecessors. It would be ideal if I could judge something like Aliens or Jaws 2 on their own merits, but I find that impossible if I have seen the earlier film. The associations in my brain are just too strong to ignore. That’s not a problem today. I have not seen Hatchet, the first of writer/director Adam Green’s ongoing story of murderous freak Victor Crowley, but I did just watch Hatchet II, and now I think it is time...
Ahem!
Ladies and gentlemen, my Loyal Seven readers, I present to you Hatchet II, the official film of the 2014 Missile Test October Horrorshow. This flick represents just about everything I love in a slasher flick. There’s loads of gore and buckets of fake blood; all the killing is done in the woods; in Danielle Harris, it stars a legitimate scream queen; and it looked like it had a budget of about a nickel and a half. Oh, and best of all? It’s 85 minutes long. We love reasonable run times here at Missile Test. There’s nothing more interminable in a film than bloated length, so when I catch a movie that doesn’t hold me prisoner past the start of the eleven o’clock news, I’m thrilled. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Hatchet II”
October Horrorshow: Odd Thomas
Odd Thomas is the anti-Cole Sear — he’s a youth untroubled by his ability to see dead people. Thomas (Anton Yelchin) is a psychic hero for the comic book age of American cinema. He rolls with the punches with endless optimism. Without flinching, he uses his gifts for the betterment of the fictional desert town in which he lives, Pico Mundo. Like any good comic book hero, he has a support network of people who are aware of his gift, and its import. Thomas is a flawed human being, capable of very weird behavior, yet he is universally liked by all those who meet him. Were it not for all the murder happening in town, what a utopia it would be. Thomas is indeed odd, yet never shunned or avoided. He even has a hot girlfriend. Thomas’s life is almost annoyingly good for someone so strange, but, this is fiction, after all. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Odd Thomas”
October Horrorshow: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II
This movie may have a hell of a title, but a title like Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II also betrays itself as 1980s schlock horror before a viewer sees a single frame. But, so what? The ’80s were a second golden age for horror, when it seemed every week brought something either new or outrageous. Prom Night II, from 1987, is a sequel to the Jamie Lee Curtis flick from 1980, but it owes allegiance in title only. None of the characters from the original appear, and this movie takes place at an entirely different high school. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II”