Knowing Best

   If you hadn’t noticed I am pretty much a nerd. Now, I am not going to get into a silly argument about HOW nerdy I am or how OLD SCHOOL I am because really, who cares? What does it matter? What matters is I am nerdy. Beyond that it’s just trying to impress you and, again, who cares? Personally I lean more towards a movie nerd, and specifically a horror movie nerd BUT I love all manner of nerdery.

And what is nerdery, to me?

Nerdery is the deep seated passion for any old particular thing to which you border on obsession. You can be a sports nerd, craft nerd, comic nerd, whatever. To me it’s the passion, the obsessive passion to know that thing in and out that makes you a nerd. Keeping the word ‘pure’  by saying that it is only if you like comics or games or toys or science that makes you a nerd is silly. Being a nerd isn’t shameful, though it isn’t that cool to people outside of others interested in the same things. Come on though, you will never convince me that the person that knows sports stats and plays fantasy sports that they are not nerds. They are, they just act as if what they love is somehow more legit. It isn’t. It’s still nerdy.

The thing nerds want and need more than anything is to feel that their passion is not abused or taken advantage of – you hate to invest yourself into a thing only to have it changed to such a degree that it takes your interest out of it. That’s where a lot of drama comes up in the nerd realm – finding the line of how far something can be pulled from what you fell in love with before you walk away altogether.

I had a strange moment recently when I was watching IRON MAN 3 where as a nerd I felt that Marvel had gone too far. They had left the path and to such a degree that they left me behind. Now, the movie is a huge hit and beloved by millions, and that’s swell. I have no issue with that. And I am not the type that will cry SELL OUT when something gets popularized. I didn’t grow up on Iron Man comics so maybe I am not a great example here but I do dig the character and have read enough stories about the fella that I feel attached to him. The thing with IM3 was that it felt like Marvel felt so self conscious about fan blowback about the second film (some of that legit, to be fair) that they felt they needed to really up things for the third film. That’s fine. In doing so though they seem to have hired a director that didn’t want to tell an Iron Man story but wanted to tell a Robert Downey Jr. story and a Tony Stark story. Well, that’s fun, I guess, but when you start to play fast and loose with established tropes like the roles major villains for that character play it starts to bother me. It felt as if Mr. Black, the director, didn’t so much want to tell a story about the Mandarin but felt he had to. Just as Sam Raimi didn’t want to tell a Venom story in SPIDER MAN 3 but was compelled to so he did a lazy job of it. Same thing here. The main thing that the first two films had been building towards was barely touched upon to me, and thus created what felt like a waste of a story arc that had been established clearly from the outset of the first film. It was a wasted opportunity and a waste of two films.

I get the passion to want to tell your own story. To give things your own spin but you need to do so by taking into consideration the history of the characters you are working with and the fans that are invested in the work. And some of the failing comes from DC and Marvel themselves, who keep waffling on what they want their comic characters and stories to be and reflect. They want them to be fun fare for the fans but then they want to appeal to a new generation of readers. I can get that. But it seems silly to pander to people by changing the sexuality, the race, and the intent of established characters. ‘Hey, look, you’ll like this guy, he’s just like you now, he’s – fill in the blank’. Instead of creating new characters that can be NEW, that can start with a new slate and can be whatever color, creed, religion, sexuality, and gender you want the notion is to fake it by taking established characters and making them something they weren’t – which panders to the new folks and alienates the established fans. Just because you don’t like a villain don’t force them to be something you want them to be if they have an established past. Yes, evolve the character, add to their mythology, and make them reflect a modern world but to pull their teeth and change what and who they are and what they represent is like spitting in the faces of the fans.

DC and Marvel have no guts. They claim they want to make these GRAND and SWEEPING changes to their comics but never do. Not for good. No character is dead forever, no choice is ever long lasting, and nothing really changes. I love both companies and a lot of the work that has been done but they never make bold moves. Let some of the old characters go. Don’t kill them for a couple months for ratings but let them go. Let them retire. Let them die. You want to evolve? You want to grow? Don’t force change on established characters but create new characters that better reflect a changing world. A gay Batman doesn’t make you a noble company making brave decisions but a pandering company out to make headlines and with no respect for the established fanbase.

What Iron Man 3 represented to me, as fun as it was at times, was how fast and loose Marvel is willing to play with their long established tropes. I have read over and how Mandarin was a racist character that needed to disappear or change. See, the thing there is that if you are paid to write a film in a series you find ways to make the established themes, characters, and story work. Maybe you make changes, make you evolve them but you don’t throw those things out because it is difficult to make the things work. You think harder to make them work.

I love comics and have loved the current comic movies. There is some great stuff out there. The thing is that the films can be their own universe as long as they stay true to themselves. IM3 can be its own thing but it has to play by its own established rules and it didn’t. And there’s the problem with modern superhero comics in general – the rules are fast and loose and serve only to continue the money machine. There are some good stories still but the only surprises come when there needs to be a bump in revenue, not as a natural progression of the story, the character, and the brand. Maybe if the major comic companies put the same care into their comic franchises as they try to put into their movie franchises. Me, I’d set out a long term arc and retire characters and stories and work to create new brands to reflect ideas that are more modern.

Or don’t.

Whatever.

Just don’t spit in the faces of your fans, and your characters and then cross your arms and fall back on the old line of – fans just don’t want anything new. We do. We WANT to be surprised, but we want to be surprised within the worlds that YOU already established. By writing and rewriting and ret-coning stories it just alienates the fans and creates the deadzones that have plagued comics time and again in the past.

BOOM!

- c

www.meepsheep.com

Losing Our Touch

   I think we’re losing our touch, we who tell the tales meant to make you shiver. We that cling to the darkness and lurk under beds. I think we’re losing our touch. Horror, when done right is a flirtation, is foreplay, is the romance before the consummation and it only goes all the way when the moment is right.
And we’ve lost that.

From haunted houses to horror movies and outward from there we have lost what it means to create fear and to draw out terror. Too often there is no romance, no tension, so that modern horror becomes a sort of porn (the term torture porn, a term I detest, is a great example of the way people are looking at the films now) – all pretense is stripped bare and it’s straight for the jugular. Once upon a time that worked, as audiences grew bored with the pace of older films. It made sense. It was another tool to use, like gore, but when you begin to rely on something too much it becomes not a tool but a crutch, and that’s a problem. We have had our run of slow paced films, gore films, slasher films, and on and on, and horror’s reliance on the newest trend has hamstrung the effectiveness of the genre. We are losing the romance. And this doesn’t mean I am clamoring for a ‘return to glory’, not at all. The future isn’t in the past, that’s silly, it isn’t in aping the films of other decades but is in learning from those other films and books and the rest. You hear all the time how ‘everything’s been done’ , yet, there are always new ways, different ways to tell those same stories. New ways to explore old themes. And I can’t help but be disappointed to see how some movies fail to rise above the easy scare, the jump scare, the gore scare, and fail to really tap into anything deeper. The best example I have of late is that yet another TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake is hurtling towards us and yet again it seems like the lessons of the original are being forgotten. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am. But it sure looks like the notion of tension over bloodshed isn’t going to be on tap.

And we’ve lost our way.

We have bred and audience that only wants the jump scares, and wants the quick cuts and awful soundtracks. There is so much talent out there and none of it is being utilized to its full potential. One of the great things about horror is that it can be a proving ground for filmmakers with ambition and ideas. Horror doesn’t take a ton of money behind it to be effective, heck, you can make the argument that the scariest films are the ones with the lowest budgets. Things have changed though.

Too much money is being spent on horror with too little evidence of return. Every film seems as if it is set up to be a franchise, and that’s fine, IF IT WORKS. But not every film is meant to BE a franchise. I love the SAW films but did we really need seven films to tell that story?

Uh, no.

Same goes with the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films. A series I rather like but which is spinning its wheels as it slowly doles out nuggets of information. It’s time for that series to end. It’s time for MOST to end. We need a fresh slate. We need direction. We need as much passion and foresight to go into horror that the superhero films are getting right now. We need a plan. And we need the terror to return.

Icons like Freddy and Jason and the rest CAN return, but give them a rest, and when they return give them an arc and after that arc let them go away again. For a while.

And we need new icons. Again, with a plan. With a reason. And with a reason for us to be afraid of them beyond their killing.

We need the scares brought back. We need to feel as if there is more going on than gore, and sex, and self referential humor. We need more than nihilistic murders and meaningless death.

We need it all to mean something.

Something.

There is still good, no, great horror out there, it’s just a shame that so much of it feels derivative and empty, like eating fast food for every meal. Once in a while we want something that really gets us, and gets us at our core.

I for one am dreaming for a return to that type of horror, the kind that goes to bed with me and follows me into my dreams.

That’s the horror I love.

What about you?

c

Showing Restraint

Sometimes too much is just too much.  There’s a line, an invisible thing that serves as our marker that states Here There Be Monsters.  And through our lives we’ll dance close to the edge on some things, and on others we’ll pull far, far away, and sometimes, sometimes we stride over it to stretch ourselves, test ourselves and to remind ourselves why it is we have the line the first place.  But there are lines, unseen but there that crisscross our lives and remind us of the things we believe in.  One of the things Art is meant to do is to blur that line, to intentionally cross it and dare you to cross as well.  Sometimes though, the line exists for a reason,  and those that cross it do so only because they see no better way to make a point that can many times be made more subtly.

In writing this my thoughts are on so many films that fill the horror genre (though I can honestly think of examples in comedy as well, and could go out from there if I wanted I suppose) that gleefully remove the lines of restraint in order to prove a point that they feel is important to prove.  Sometimes these are decisions that, while unsettling, prove out the point of the film – IRREVERSIBLE, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and SERBIAN FILM all fall under this category for me – films that have something to say and don’t want to say it, your mores and issues be damned.  These are movies (movies that I already know people debate me on regarding their artistic merits but so be it) that are but examples of what is out there, movies that have a vision and refused to be penned in by the rules of cinema and society.  Ah, but there are other movies that refused to follow the rules simply because they choose not to, and you know, so be it, that’s part of being an artist, making those choices, but I can’t help but feel like that with some restraint the message, if that be what it is, can be made with less blunt force trauma.

A notorious example of this, though one that, again can be debated pretty strongly, is the use of animal killings in the Italian cannibal films.  These films were the Italian’s answer to America’s growing realism and violence in their art house horror films and the zombie movies that were becoming so popular and so gory.  The cannibal movies were an answer to America’s darker turn in the horror genre and was a turn towards a hyper-realism that was influenced by the States and influenced the States as well.  These were hyper-gory, nasty stories about people playing with things they didn’t understand and opening doors best left closed.  Most are not much more than curiosities but there are a couple at least that are pretty darned good.  The problem I always had though was that the Italians wanted to up the ante in these movies and the intensity and so they used real animals for scenes where they were fed to other animals, or killed and slaughtered, and these are scenes that, truly, are unnecessary and needless.  Scenes that take you out of the story and out of the message and are there just for shock value.  They are so over the top that you lose the thread of the film for a few moments.  Even if you were into that sort of thing it would take you out of the narrative.  That’s just what happens.

Now if you consider that example turning the dial all the way up you can turn it down a little and get some of the gorier films out there (I think you can safely exclude the underground horror movement because this stuff is nasty on purpose and it speaks to and sells to a certain segment so let’s leave them off of the list because they know what they’re doing and they’re doing it on purpose so well, it is what it is) that push buttons and go far because they can.  You see a lot of this in the indie market and the up and coming filmmakers who are making a name for themselves.  They want to stand out and to appeal to the diehards and so they go that extra step, they take the governor off and go full bore and often leave the story behind.  I have seen it too many times where the film isn’t bad necessarily but the need to show graphic nudity, and graphic violence take center stage, the filmmakers forgetting that with an ounce of subtlety you can oftentimes make a lot darker of a point.  Sure, even the established directors do this, go further than they need when the path of restraint may have been more unnerving, and that’s a shame because the story should always be the master, and the film should serve the story completely.  And believe me, I know too well the lines that can be crossed as a writer.  You make a decision as to what you want the focus to be on, the moment or the overall piece.  What do you want people to leave the theater talking about with these films, or when they turn the movie off at home – one moment or the overall piece?   And that is what is lost.

And far be it for me to say that I don’t like some gory movies and gore, usually, is pretty needless and mostly excessive.  But there is a line there too, and there are definitely movies that I still am very fond of that forget themselves and go further than they need to and harm the story.  But in the end it all has to serve the story.  And there will be stories that are extreme and need to go to extremes for you to appreciate the gravity of what they are saying – I just watched a film like that actually, SNOWTOWN – but I am seeing far too many movies that eschew storytelling for shock and awe and for essentially trying to see how uncomfortable they can make the audience and in so doing losing the point of what they set out to even say.

c

www.meepsheep.com

THE FIELDS – Movie Review

THE FIELDS – Movie Review

Childhood, for many, is a magical time full of laughter and games and time spent playing with friends, but for some childhood is no refuge from the stresses and terrors of adult life. Such is the case with the young boy in THE FIELDS, whose mother and father are embroiled in their own domestic drama that constantly threatens to boil over and scald their son. But then, no one ever promised that any age, or any place is safe from the violence of a world that often goes mad.

It is Summer at the edge of the glory days of the ‘60s just as reality began to return to a generation of optimists. A young boy is caught in the middle of a war between his mother and father and he is quickly growing up. When the boy’s mother takes him to his grandparent’s home in the country so mom and dad can figure themselves out, what should be a fun and relaxing vacation becomes something far more terrifying when he finds the body of a dead woman hidden in the corn rows behind the home. When he tells his grandparents they think he is just a young boy with too much life drama and too big of an imagination but when he starts to see other things, like someone at his window, and hear people in the field he starts to realize that he isn’t imagining things at all, but that someone or something deadly is coming into play. And slowly, as the strange occurrences mount grandpa and grandma become aware of the danger they are suddenly in, danger that may stem from the hippies that have been camping out past the fields, out where no one would bother them. But now that they see the danger too, now that they have heeded the boy’s warnings, it may be too late.

THE FIELDS is a very effective little chiller that is all about atmosphere and terror. The performances from the seasoned vets like Tara Reid and Cloris Leachman are a bit over the top (though not horrible by any means) but the reserved acting by the lead, the boy, is wonderful. He brings an every-kid aspect to this – a kid that will do things they aren’t supposed to but more out of an adventurous spirit than a malicious one. There is a point in the film where things begin to come to a head and he does something very rash but very brave, something a lot of kids might do in similar circumstances, and I thought that was pretty good filmmaking. This is not a large film, in any way, but a small, quiet film full of dread and What If, and set in at the autumn of the Peace and Love generation. This movie is all about the distrust the hippie movement had sown in the baby-boomer generation and the real danger that lay at the center of certain circles of that movement. The acting is effective, if overt, the direction is very well done, as are the sets, and overall the tone is nailed dead on here.

THE FIELDS is not a horror film, per se, but is a much more effective version of the home invasion films we’ve gotten a lot of in recent years. Which is not at all to say that those films and this one are the same in subject but more in tone, which this one really gets. This is about the slow burn, and the buildup, and when it’s all over, there still enough tension to take you into the credits without feeling false. Now THAT is effective! Not a classic but a very solid film and one to give a look.

7.5 out of 10

HEY, I write books. Check them all out at www.meepsheep.com

The Horror Movie As Gross-Out Joke

   There is something about horror, extreme horror, that plays a bit like a classic gross out joke. Oh, you know the kind, the baby in blender sorta jokes that kids tell each other on the bus ride home. The sorta jokes that you tell when an adult isn’t around because you know they won’t understand how funny it is, not knowing that some of those same adults made up these creepy dead baby jokes. Horror and humor are really close to one another. Really similar. Both are all about the delivery and the punchline. They just go in different directions because of the tone. Tell a joke about a clown standing in the middle of the street with a pie in his hand at mid-day and it’s funny, tell the same joke and it’s midnight and it suddenly becomes unnerving. There’s the rub. So, seeing how close these things are, it’s  no wonder that there are horror comedies that come out from time to time, mostly to poor reviews and reputations. Horror and humor are hard to do, especially when you mix the two. Ah, but the gross-out joke, well, that’s something a little different. A gross-out joke is quick and dirty, nasty and mean, and it is never going to be well received by the masses.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Human Centipede: Full Sequence, the ultimate gross-out joke.

   Now before you laugh at me, hear me out!

I have been avoiding watching Human Centipede 2 since it came out. As soon as people began seeing the film the reviews were all over the map but mostly were bad. And not JUST bad but horrible. Everything I read really worried me. I liked the first film all right, it wasn’t amazing, but it was a fun movie and was a lot funnier than disturbing, something I hadn’t expected. What I was reading about the sequel though reeked of pretention and absurdity and someone out to just top themselves. Little did I know that these reviews were accurate yet wrong.

So wrong.

What you have with HC2 is the horror film as absurdist gross out joke. This is a film that plays both as a joke and as a middle finger to people who were so appalled by the first film, a film that, truly and in the same way, Goodfellas plays as a comedy. There is a point in ‘realism’ and in realistic films where things become SO real, SO horrific that it becomes comedic. It isn’t funny to see Spider, the hapless go-for in Goodfellas, get shot and killed but the way it plays out IS funny in that world. It is funny because it is absurd. So too is HC2 funny because director Tom Six doesn’t take this nearly as seriously as his critics do. He is making films that are brutally tongue in cheek. Now, that isn’t to say that he’s a genius and auteur so much as he is a teller of dirty jokes, and honestly, pretty decent ones. The second film is his answer to critics who 1. thought his first film went too far and 2. to people who question what might happen if someone ‘sick’ were to take horror and extreme films too seriously. So plays HC2, as a ridiculous cautionary tale of a man so obsessed with the first film that he decided to make his own human centipede. The film is shot in black and white, is absolutely dripping with pathos and explanations as to WHY the man is how he is, and the film is far, far more disturbing in how the centipede comes together yet…it’s all so funny. It’s so over the top, so overly-‘real’ that you cannot help but laugh. And if you have doubts just wait until the climax of the film. This film plays the gross-out card so strongly that you realize he is playing it for comedy. The first film was so effective because it was pretty restrained, yet he still got lambasted for his over the top themes and ideas. So why not go all the way to ‘11’? Give the people what they want.

And that is the beauty of this film. This movie is ALL about the audience, and all about giving them what they wanted. They wanted a bizarre, disgusting film and so he gave it to them. And then he essentially flipped them off. And honestly, Six got what he wanted. Got such a reaction that the thing was haphazardly banned for a moment. He wanted to make a sensation and did. He made a movie so cinematic and ridiculous (and well made, he is an awfully competent director) that people really thought it was this abomination that would fog minds and stain the culture.

Yet…

It’s a joke.

The entire thing.

This film is meant as a lampoon of his original film. It plays in a way that is similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, a film that had nothing new to say so it said the same thing as a joke. And that is why I liked HC2. Because sure, he is still going to make a third film (though it’d be funnier if he were always working on it but never releasing it), but there never needed to be more than one. And he knew it. I would never claim HC2 is art but it is surely not the trash people purport it to be. It’s essentially one long, dirty joke that people will either have a taste for or not. This film does not re-define horror, does not endanger society, and i t surely doesn’t pee all over cinema. This is a movie, nothing more, nothing less, and the more weight people ascribe to it only serves to prove out the point of the film, that we get too darned uptight about movies. That sometimes a movie is just a movie, and doesn’t need to be more, do more, or say more.

   Sure, you don’t have to like the film, you don’t have to even see the film, but people need to get it into their heads that, well, it IS just a film after all. And one that isn’t medically accurate. It even says as much.

Art, the great Art that people will talk about for ages, is around us, all the time around us, and it isn’t for us to decide what will last the test of time and what will be Great and impactful to the people generations ahead of us, but let’s let them decide if this film is great Art, great Trash, or just a pretty fun movie. We have better things to worry about, like how the heck you can make a fifty person centipede. My mind boggles at that one.

…c…

(I write stuffs other than blogs. Honest! www.meepsheep.com)

FHC Presents – Dr. Macabre’s Musical Massacre

After a very disappointing setback with our previously planned event the FLINT HORROR CON has a new event planned for April 7th in Downtown Flint

KIDNAPPED – review

   For some reason I am inherently drawn to movies that people say are ‘brutal’. Not the ones that are just gore for the sake of gore because that was done in the ‘80’s and then more realistically in the ‘90’s. I mean the movies that supposed screw with your head because they are so dark and gruesome. Films that take you to a place you don’t want to be. For me it’s looking into the darkness, or a mimic of it, and seeing if I can take what I see. And sometimes it’s good to be shocked, to be outraged because it reminds you where your line is with art and films, and why you feel that way. So this is what lead me to watch Kidnapped, which I found streaming on Netflix. I had read about how brutal it was and was curious. So here we go.

   Kidnapped is the story of an upper middle class family in what I can only assume is Spain (Portugal maybe) as they settle into a new house. While getting adjusted they are going to celebrate their new home but struggle with convincing their daughter to stay in for the night. As they go through their squabbles their lives are torn apart by the intrusion of three masked men who break into their home to rob them. As the night goes on the terror rises because it seems that it isn’t just money these men want and suddenly the teenage daughter becomes the focus of one of the men. It is left to the family to save themselves, if they can, because there is no help coming, and hope is running short.

Here’s the thing, if you have seen one home invasion/home under siege movie in the last twenty + years you have just about seen them all. Last House set the template and Straw Dogs set the bar. Outside of that the modern ones are all pretty much the same – dumb family, cute daughter/woman, an over-brave/stupid husband (take your pick because they are either or with no real arc from one to the other), and drug addicted sadists as invaders that usually have rape in mind. Sure, sure, there are some that are different (The Strangers came close to being different and good and scary but it was so DUMB that it hurt me inside) but the template is set and that is it. Sometimes the victims survive, sometimes not, but in the end it’s an examination of suburban terrors. And it’s interesting, and it has its power but it is one of those subgenres that has never evolved.  The movies have gotten nastier, meaner, but aren’t really different. Enter Kidnapped, which trades new ideas and themes for interesting (almost daring) direction and a reality that wavers at the end.

The film is done in very few shots so that you have a sense of the urgency and terror of the family but this is broken up, as the tension, when the camera switches from one perspective to the other – from mother and daughter held captive by two of the men at the home to the father out with the third getting money from ATMs. Had the film kept the viewer as in the dark as the family is it would have made the film that much more powerful and haunting as our  minds ran out the rope of what could be happening that we are not seeing. There are some interesting turns in the film but like most of the others the family is too bold at the worst times and too cowardly at the worst times and it takes you out of the film as you want to scream out at them for being so stupid. What killed me though was a turn at the end that seemed just ridiculous for what it had established. This was a matter of choosing brutality over sense and it’s a shame. I like darkness as much as the next person but in some cases enough is enough.

And there’s the rub, the persistence of so many movies and filmmakers to cling to this brutality over story. In a movie like Serbian Film it has poignancy and adds to the heartbreak of the story, here though you never know the characters, never care for them so it plays like a bull fight where it is just violence for the sake and art of violence. A red play on a barren stage. Without the investment it means nothing. In the end the intention of the film is like so many other modern films and it clings to a black nihilism and fatalism that seems to say that these intruders are like Lovecraft’s Old Ones, gods that care not for us but to use and destroy us as they will or ignore us if they care to. And to a degree that is violence, but movies like this seem to want us to cower in fear from The Other that can invade and destroy our lives and not fight when we have no choice.

This is a well made, horribly dubbed film that will play to the crowd that is interested in this sort of fare. It is brutal, it is dark, and it gets very,very nasty. For me it all amounted to nothing. In a movie like Irreversible there is persistent darkness but the most horrifying scene in the film is overshadowed by a subtle, quiet, beautiful scene later on that, because of what we know, serves to press the point of why that earlier attack was made even more horrible. That is the power of films like this. Not to push our nose in excrement to prove a morbid point.

So sure, this is brutal and grim and all of that but in the end we’ve seen it before. Too many times. And I am ready for something different. I am hoping the next rash of home invasion films gives me that.

6 out of 10

my books – MEEP

SUMMER OF MASSACRE – review

­Summer of Massacre

          Ok, now I have seen everything.  It took a while but we finally got a horror movie trying to be Sin City.  Sort of.  The charm of Sin City though lay with its characters that they all intersected and interacted and lived in the backdrop of a surreal city where reality wavered.  Summer of Massacre though is one of those movies where they took the conceit of live film with digital backgrounds and effects and well, put them in a garbage disposal and hoped for the best.

Summer of Massacre is an anthology with four stories and a sort of a wrap-around.  The stories are dark, hyper-violent tales of murder and madness and rely heavily on digital special effects to push the boundaries with gore.  None of the four stories intertwine but are instead stories in their own place and time, though I would imagine that the idea is that all of this horror is happening during this ‘Summer of Massacre’.

The first story tells the story of a man out for a simple late night run who is horribly beaten and robbed by three men.  The men disfigure the runner and leave him for dead, though he is in a deep state of shock.  When another runner finds him and tries to help him he attacks and brutally murders her and then goes on a killing spree throughout the town.  There is no method to his madness, just a deep bloodlust.

The second story we have is about a fractured family perched on the edge.  When one of the daughters is forced to take her two siblings with her (all of the ‘kids’ are adults playing teens) her deep-seated anger bubbles to the surface.  Her handicapped sister is dying and disfigured and the sister decides it might be time to rid the family of her burden.  What she doesn’t anticipate though is what would happen if her disfigured sister should live through the murder attempt.

Our third tale is the most interesting of the bunch and focuses on a man about to make a deeper commitment in his relationship and so he decides to tell her about his past, a past that has been haunted since childhood by a monstrous figure bent on tormenting and killing him.  What he finds out though is that this thing is still hunting him and is getting closer than ever to finally having him all to its own.

The last story is a literal campfire story told at a religious camp about the legend that haunts the forest.  When the legend turns out to be real though the last survivors must find a way to escape or they’ll only add to the areas grim legacy.

See, on the surface the shorts sound interesting.  On the surface that is.  Sadly there is no beneath the surface here.  While each story could add nuances and subtleties it just isn’t there.  These are as straightforward as you could get, the focus being on the gore and violence.  The acting, what acting there is, seems almost improvised, and consists mainly of screaming.  The gore that is so prevalent throughout is made to be ridiculous because of the overuse of CG.  It’s this aspect that is so confusing about the film.  At first I thought the digital gore was to push the envelope and really go over the top but as the film progresses I started to wonder if this wasn’t just a gore comedy I wasn’t getting.  A joke that was beyond me.  The effects make me think that, the lack of story makes me think that, and the overall tone of nihilism makes me think that but, honestly, if this film is a joke, or a series of jokes, they fall flat.  Really flat.

This is one of those movies that made me hate reviewing films.  There was just nothing here for me to latch onto.  It is meanness and gore for the sake of meanness and gore and if you watch all the way through the credits the nihilism plays out to its seeming inevitable, albeit nonsensical, conclusion.  And that is the problem here, that there is so little logic that the film plays like a cartoon.  Again, maybe that was the point, but if so it didn’t work for me.  I never laughed, I never cringed (save for the performances and writing), and I never connected on any level with the film.  Clearly it wasn’t made for ‘me’. This is extreme party gore made to play to crowds of gorehounds who will laugh at every exploding head and evisceration. To me the movie played like a very juvenile exercise in extremes.  There is all but no plot, little acting, not much direction, and downright awful digital effects.  A lot of people will tout this as being ‘arty’ and that it is pushing the boundaries but really all it is doing is playing to the lowest common denominator and proving how bad horror films can get.  I admire the ambition of director/everything else Joe Castro to do so much on this film but in the end it’s an emotionless eyesore of a film that is memorable only for how bad it is.

1 out of 10

Sassy Press Releases From BEYOND!

This is the press release and info behind our next Flint Horror Con show. SASSY!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 17, 2012

 

CONTACT: Publicist Darlan Erlandson

(For interviews, bio, photos etc.)

                        (517) 214-4592

                        publicist2011@gmail.com

 

CASEY – 30 YEARS LATER!

Coming to Flint, Michigan for ONE NIGHT ONLY - Cult horror and off-beat Theater collide as the Flint Horror Convention presents – Casey – 30 Years Later, starring Chesaning native, Beverly Bonner.

For one special night the Flint Horror Convention presents a celebration of the film Basket Case during its 30th Anniversary.  On Saturday, April 7th fans will be able to relive the laughs, the shocks, and the gore of this cult classic film as it is screened locally for the first time ever. After this special screening Basket Case actress Beverly Bonner will present her show Casey – 30 Years Later!  Casey is a live epilogue to the film which serves as a perfect way to catch up with beloved character Casey. Join Casey and her ‘Ladies of the Night’ and other crazy fun characters for an evening you’ll never forget. After the show join Ms. Bonner for a Q/A session and find out more about her acting career, her comedy, and her life since Casey.

Ms. Bonner is excited to return to Michigan with her beloved character Casey for a celebration of the 30th Anniversary of cult horror classic Basket Case.  Beverly has become a mainstay for Basket Case director Frank Henenlotter and has appeared in all of his films, the Basket Case trilogy, Frankenhooker, Brain Damage, and his most recent film, Bad Biology. She is a comedian, actress, playwright, producer, and director and has become a fan favorite at horror conventions and appearances over the years.

Consider yourself cordially invited to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of one of horror’s timeless classics and join Casey for a night of stories that would make Belial blush.

General Admission – $12.50 in advance and $15 at the door.

VIP Admission – $25.

Tickets – https://www.ticketriver.com/event/2796

http://www.casey30.com

Casey – 30 Years Later!

Saturday, April 7, 2012, 7:00pm

Doors Open at 6:30pm

Flint Masonic Temple

755 S. Saginaw Street
Flint, Michigan 48502

Due to the film’s rating and evening’s tone, parental discretion is advised.

FLINT HORROR CONVENTION

Flint Horror Convention is a collective of friends who are driven to bring events, art shows, conventions, and film showings that showcase the horror genre to the Greater Flint Area.  With a dedication to low cost events for the people of this area the goal of the Flint Horror Convention is to create affordable fun for an area that has never had many offerings outside of the mainstream.

The Flint Horror Convention was created in 2011 with the intention of creating a local horror convention to celebrate the beloved films, actors, and artists that work in the horror industry.  While putting the convention together several other cultural events were created as well to help promote local artists, local filmmakers, and to highlight the many forms the horror genre can come in.  These events that lead up to the horror convention were Art Fear, a celebration of local artists and filmmakers, and It Came From The Kiva!, a night of free independent horror films show at the University of Michigan-Flint’s KIVA.  In October of 2011 was the first ever Flint Horror Convention, which brought fans together with the people that work in the horror industry.  Actors, filmmakers, artists, writers, vendors, and more came together to meet the fans and to showcase their talents in a first ever horror related show in the Flint area.  With a day full of independent horror films, question and answer sessions, and ample opportunity to meet some of the genre’s talented creators there was a lot to do for the 500 fans that came out for the convention.  As successful as things were for a first year it was only the beginning of what both organizers and fans hope becomes another Flint tradition.

The Flint Horror Convention

www.flinthorrorcon.com

http://www.facebook.com/flinthorrorcon

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Blackwood’s Guide to Dangerous Fairies – REVIEW

   EEE! I love books like this.  The strange tie in books you never hear about but which add a layer to another work, like a film.  I had a similar experience with the Blair Witch books that came out.  Books that created another layer of creep to an already scary story.  Here we have the journals of a character discussed and briefly seen in the recent horror film and in these journals you find out why the things in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark are so very frightful.  The guide is as much the story of Algernon Blackwood’s descent into obsession and madness as it is a guide to dangerous fairies but as you get into the book you realize that these two tales are really one in the same.  After being sold the remains of creature Blackwood cannot categorize or imagine he delves into the world of fairies and other creatures that lay hidden at the base of history.  In the book we are given illustrations and examples of many of these dangerous fairies but woven into all of it is the story and obsession of the ‘toothbreakers’ or ‘tooth fairies’, one of which is the body he had found.  But in his obsession with these things the tooth fairies begin to become aware of him and suddenly Blackwood has crossed a line that was not meant to be crossed.

   A very fun, very scary little book, this was a quick, fun read and is a great stand alone book as well as a fun companion piece.  There is also enough chills here to leave you with the lights on for a night or three.

Great read.

4.5 out of 5