Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#587

This week, Des welcomes Tony Wash of Scotchworthy Productions to discuss his films The Rake, Skeletons In The Closet and the upcoming High on the Hog, featuring Sid Haig, Joe Estevez and the final performance of The Greatest Chin In Genre Cinema, Robert Z’Dar (apologies to the great Bruce Campbell, but Z’Dar’s chin was Epic).  It’s over an hour of chatty goodness as only Dread Media can serve up...

The trailers are below, as is a music video from Twiztid & Blaze Ya Dead Homie featuring Sid Haig and Kane Hodder.

Listen to Dread Media #587 here

TOM’LL FIX: The Dark Universe

I used to be really into wrestling.  Where my loyalties lay in regards to which promotion I was into tended to shift with the times--I used to stay up to 3, 4 in the morning on Fridays when MSG used to run ECW in the wee hours--but I was familiar with all of them, more or less.  In my deepest mania for wrestling, I got involved with Fantasy Feds, where you would create a wrestler and fashion storylines, matches and skits online as if it was a real wrestling federation.  These feds had weekly ‘TV’ shows that were posted online, and the storylines and skits you created that week would dictate if you won your matches or not.

I bring this up because, in the wake of my enduring 2017‘s The Mummy as part of my Halloween Horrorfest this year, a friend of mine opined that the ‘Dark Universe’ was doomed from the start because the Universal Monsters were lame.  I disagreed with him, pointing out that the Universal Monsters were the original shared universe when Larry Talbot came across the Frankenstein Monster in 1943‘s Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man.  The idea of an extended universe featuring these iconic characters wasn’t bad; the problem with The Mummy is they were trying to force such a universe into existence instead of letting it develop organically over time.  This friend then challenged anyone to make a compelling cinematic universe, specifically utilizing The Wolf Man and The Creature of The Black Lagoon.

I’ll take that challenge.  It’ll be like in my Fantasy Fed days, only with movie franchises!

Let’s start with the skeleton of that 2017 misfire.  There are elements that could work--it’s been proven before, with 1999‘s The Mummy, that using that monster in an action/pulp setting can work.  The idea of two different parties contending for the same item is also good; I can work with that.  Because I like Sofia Boutella (she’s luuuurvely), we can keep the idea of a female mummy.  Now since this is supposed to be the start of an extended universe, I’m going to allow for the idea of an organization investigating the supernatural...although I’m going to alter that conceit quite a bit.  For the purposes of this exercise, I’m choosing to call this organization The Eden Foundation.

So...our new mummy movie has a similar first act--there’s a rugged American relic hunter (played by a younger actor than Mr. Cruise to make the possible romantic subplot less icky) and a learned, clever and maybe-more-knowledgeable-than-she-should-be European archaeologist (I envision whoever the equivalent of Julie Delphy is these days), and they both converge on a curious Egyptian tomb where there shouldn’t be one.  They discover a sarcophagus inside and there’s some tension as to what they should do with it.  As our archaeologist tries to figure out what this sarcophagus contains--utilizing resources that seem...out of place for a academic--the relic hunter starts going into these fugue states where he interacts with Hottie Ho-Tep (this is where we learn about her background, not an exposition dump right before the story starts).  These fugue states compel him to return to the dig site and release Hottie Ho-Tep, and our archeologist must fight to reclaim the relic hunter and, with knowledge he has gleaned during his interactions with the mummy, return Hottie Ho-Tep to her tomb permanently.  At the end of the movie, the archaeologist explains that the experience he’s had may have changed him...and she works with an organization that can help him come to terms with what he’s learned.  That organization is The Eden Foundation.

So what we have is an action-intensive horror-themed adventure film that’s in keeping with the tone of the 1999 film.  More importantly, the film has some connective tissue but it would stand on its own.  If Universal decided not to go forward with any more films, they haven’t drawn attention to their extended universe ambitions.

The next film I would make is The Creature of The Black Lagoon.  I would make very few changes to the orginal, save for maybe updating the tech...and having the expedition to investigate this intriguing fossil that leads to the protagonists finding a living gill-man in the aforementioned Black Lagoon funded and sponsored by The Eden Foundation.  Maybe we have some scenes where our protagonists interact with an Eden Foundation rep, maybe even the Head of The Foundation, a large gentleman named Adam Newson (I cannot picture anyone but Javier Bardem for reasons that will become apparent later).  There’s no other connective tissue, there’s no stopping the story for an exposition dump on Who The Eden Foundation Is And Why They Matter, it’s just there.

So let’s move on to our third film.  Here’s where we enter the part of the experiment where the world building comes more front and center.  Since it was mentioned in the initial challenge, let’s use The Wolf Man.  Here we follow Larry Talbot--it’s a shame Benecio delToro is now aged out of the role as I’m fashioning this alternate expanded universe, as he was tailored made to play a hirsuite monstrosity--as he returns to England after an extended tenure in the states (You know, just like in the original!) to help care for his ailing father.  Here’s where we make The Eden Foundation a more central element...they have their headquarters in the township the Talbots oversee.  Larry meets Adam and his assistant, Victoria Franks.  There are some mysterious deaths and cattle mutilations, and the villagers believe it’s a wild animal.  Larry leads a search for the culprit and comes across the wolfen creature which attacks him.  Two people rush to save him--Adam and a mysterious hunter type.  The hunter trains a gun on Larry as he’s lying there bleeding and is about to shoot him when Adam snatches--and seems to break--the gun before our hero passes out.

When Larry comes to, he’s in a sick bay at The Eden Foundation.  Victoria is there, and informs him that he is Infected with Lycanthropy, and he can’t be let out into the world until they can find a way to arrest and control the spread of the ‘werewolf virus.’  Here we learn a bit about the Foundation and its mission statement to come to terms with the ‘wider’ supernatural world, understand it and find a way to manage the interaction with it.  Larry scoffs at this--until he turns that night and escapes (big action sequence with Wolfy Larry vs. Eden Security).

This will lead to a three way conflict between Larry, the Eden people, and the mysterious hunter, who represents a third faction (not sure what to call these people; let’s just use ‘Helsings’ as a placeholder) whose purpose is to eradicate the presence of the supernatural in the real world.  It ends with Adam fighting to protect the insensate Wolfy Larry from the Helsing, displaying unusual--one would say supernatural strength.

The film ends with Larry agreeing to work with the Eden Foundation and learning Adam’s secret--that he is, in fact, the Frankenstein Monster (see?  Bardem was going to play him in the Bill Condon Bride of Frankenstein remake, and I can’t really see anyone else doing the part.  Well, okay, maybe Ron Perlman, but with Barden we also maybe get Penelope Cruz as the Bride). 

I can see several ways we can go with the Dark Universe from there.  One obvious idea is a second movie featuring the heroes of our Mummy reboot--I like the idea of maybe our duo facing off against a bog mummy (look it up; you’ll be glad you did).  Another idea leads directly from where we left the characters in The Wolf Man, with Adam/Frankenstein telling his story as a period piece.  We could also do a story about the Helsings, with them doing battle with some supernatural terror.  And, of course, there’s also Dracula, who could be the Magneto to Adam’s Professor X, plotting to place the supernatural world into the ascendance.

So that’s what I would do--create the framework gradually to avoid the kind of exposition dumps that stopped 2017‘s The Mummy dead, make the first two movies in the franchise with little pieces of connective tissues, but able to stand on their own, and provide a complete story experience in every film.  I think that, like most of the Marvel films, we cast young, so that the same actor can play the same character over several movies, and maybe we should try to go for less-popular actors so their presence in the role doesn’t overshadow the character itself.

Thoughts?  Any other cinematic or televisual thingie you’d like me to fix?  Let me know.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#586

It’s time to get ritualistic in this week’s episode.  First up, Des and Duane get messy when they review American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice.  Then Rich The Monster Movie gets his Bava on--his Lamberto Bava--with the Argento-produced Demons.  Finally, Des gives his thoughts on the James Newman and Adam Howe novel Scapegoat.  The trailers are below, as is a music video by a band called Scapegoat for a song called ‘Zombies’ and some Thanksgiving horror stories to tide you over this holiday.

Listen to Dread Media #586 here

THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Candidates for 1965

Well, it’s time to start the poll for which movie I’ve never seen before from 1965 I have to watch and report on next week.  I sincerely hope the results of this year comes off better than the last one.  Here are your choices for my first birthday....

DIE, MONSTER, DIE!

I thought this was the first time someone tried to adapt H.P. Lovecraft to film, but it turns out it followed The Haunted Palace, which I did see (and it was released in 1963, before I was born).  This one I haven’t.  It’s a British production featuring Boris Karloff in the twilight of his life, and it’s supposed to be pretty ooky.  I am fascinated with how various filmmakers approached Lovecraft’s singularly odd prose, especially with practical special effects, and I’m intrigued to see how this adaptation of ‘The Color Out of Space’ was handled.


THE IPCRESS FILES

There were three things I grew up on as a little kid: monster movies, comic books and spy culture...so expect a lot of spy movies in the next few years’ choices.  This is the first film featuring Michael Caine as the hero of Len Deighton’s spy thrillers--the character is unnamed in the books, but the series names him Harry Palmer.  While the third film in the series, The Billion Dollar Brain, is readily available (I’ve seen it twice), the first two are relatively hard to find.  I’ve never seen this one, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Harry Palmer so far, so I’d like to see where it all began.

THE TENTH VICTIM

Robert Sheckley was a science fiction writer who had a wickedly good sense of humor.  This is the first film to adapt one of his works, a tale of a world where war has been replaced by a reality TV show where people hunt each other.  Not surprisingly, this was given a kind of spy-culure-y spin by Elio Petri.  It features Ursula Andress, who wears a gun-loaded bra and at one point engages in a weird sexy dance.  It sure is...60‘s.  This appeals to my spy culture affinity, as well as my fondness for Sheckley’s prose.

FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL KILL!

Here’s another of my blind spots....I have never seen a Russ Meyers film.  As a man who portrays a guru of Grindhouse Cinema on The Honeywell Experiment, I recognize how ashamed I should be of this.  I plan of rectifying this, and the Movies of My Life Project can be the excuse for me to do so.  And if I’m going to start with one, I might as well start with one of the most famous of his works, featuring one of the most famous of his muses, Tura Santana.  In an inversion of the poll for last year, this is the only film shot in black and white.

You have one week to head over to my Twitter Page and make your choice.  I will report in on the winner sometime over Thanksgiving weekend.

THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PROJECT PHASE ONE: Carry On Cleo (1964)

If this is any indication for what the Movie Fates have in store for me, this is going to be a painful couple of years.

As the opening act of this project where I will review movies I haven’t seen during my lifetime, I watched this entry from an extremely long-running British comedy film series.  In doing my research before choosing this as one of the four contestants for 1964, I read reviews that claim this is the best of the series.

If this is the best of the series, I shudder to think of what the worst of the series is like.

This was simply a brutal watch.  It’s slow, it’s broad, it’s tedious and it’s interminable.  Even though it’s only 90 minutes, I don’t think I’ve checked the time stamp as frequently in a long time.  I also don’t think I laughed once.  Hell, I don’t think I had much of a reaction other than wincing, thinking that Jim Dale, playing the Costello role, was older than I thought when I saw Barnum on Broadway, and thinking to myself once or twice that Amanda Barrie, who played Cleopatra, was quite an attractive lady.

This isn’t just a case of reacting to what an earlier generation found funny.  I get the humor of Danny Kaye, Hope and Crosby, the Marx Brothers, and they all predate me.  And I don’t think it has anything to do with cultural differences--the films thinks square wheels and bad Roman-based puns and an inexplicable running gag about the phrase ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ and randy old men are the height of hilarity, none of which are specifically British.  It just isn’t. Very. Funny.

There’s not much more I can say about this.  It was just a painful experience.  I can’t imagine British audiences in 1964 finding this funny--but I can imagine John Cleese, Graham Chapman and the other people who would become Monty Python watching it and thinking, ‘we can do better than that.'

I just pray that the film you guys pick for 1965 is better.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#585

It’s time for Des and I to review one of Those Movies--a film that so bad it creates the new film rating of ‘Fuck Y’All’ for us.  Share our pain as we watch the So-Badly-Wants-To-Be-Transgressive ‘extreme haunt’ film Extremity, featuring villains named Bob, Phil and Nell.  Then, in keeping with all the angst that film put us through, Devil Dinosaur Jr. covers the 2015 thriller Angst.

The trailers are below, as is a song by a guy called Angst entitled ‘My Fucking Mind,’ which seems appropriate on all levels for this episode.

Listen to Dread Media #585 here

Introducing...THE MEN OF MOVEMBER FILM FESTIVAL 2018!

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know that I am participating in Movember this year.  The Movember Foundation advocates for men’s health issues such as prostate and testicular cancer.  They also advocate for suicide prevention and mental health issues, which is of particular concern to me as a mentally ill gentleman who has attempted suicide in the past.  The Foundation encourages men to grow facial hair to raise money for these issues.  You can see weekly updates on my own efforts to grow an epic ‘stasche on my social media and my Movember Mospace Page.

...and I, of course, want to do a little more in my efforts to raise money and awareness.  Since I am very associated with movies, I have decided, with the help of my good friend Patrick Walsh of the Scream Queenz podcast (there’s still time to donate to his Pod-A-Thon for New Alternatives NYC, and I encourage you to do so),  to host a series of online movie watch-alongs over the next two weeks and change celebrating some of the greatest Hollywood Heroes and Their Magnificent Mustaches.  I will ask those of you who want to join me to donate $2 to the Movember Foundation for each movie you plan on joining me for.  We’ll be chatting throughout, and overall having a great time watching some good movies, some bad movies, and one excruciatingly awful film where Groucho Marx plays a mod boss called God.

Here is the line-up as it stands.  I will be adding a few new entries before the end of November, as there are some actors--and their mustaches--that I think are essential if this is to be a comprehensive celebration of this masculine institution.  All times are EST.

Wed, November 14th, 9pm: TOMBSTONE! The Platonic Ideal of the Men of Movember is embodied in this 1993 western by George Cosmatos and Kevin Jarre.  Not only does it have one of the true Heroes of Facial Hair, the one and only Sam Elliott, but it seems like everybody--Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Michael Biehn, everybody--rocks some serious lip decoration.  Hell, look at this poster!  I saw it in the theaters and...gasp...didn’t think much of it.  Let’s see if twenty-five years of time has made me change my opinions.

Friday, November 16th, 8pm: THE WHITE BUFFALO! Speaking of Heroes of Facial Hair, this Dino DeLaurentis oddity--it never played in New York City--features Charles Bronson as Wild Bill Hickock teaming up with Will Sampson’s Crazy Horse to track down a supernatural, flesh-eating albino buffalo.  It has a rep of Not Being Very Good.

Saturday, November 17th, 2pm: WILLIE DYNAMITE! What would a celebration of cinematic facial hair without a classic blackploitation flick.  This one features Gordon from Sesame Street Roscoe Orman as a pimp trying to fend off the attention of the police and a social worker played by legendary Hollywood actress Diana Sands in her last role.  There are some Spectacular ‘Staches in this movie.

Sunday, November 18th, 8pm: THE LEGACY! Sam Elliott’s legendary Mo is too epic for just one film, so--thanks to Patrick--here’s the horror movie that introduced him to his wife, Katherine Ross.  That’s the thing that we can take away from it, because it wasn’t too good.

Wednesday, November 21st, 9pm: THE SQUEEZE! Ol’ steely-eyed Lee Van Cleef and his lip hair plays a safe cracker in this comedic Eurocrime thriller directed by Antonio Margheriti!

Thursday, November 22nd, 8pm: SKIDOO! If you don’t want to watch football this Turkey Day, you can watch this notoriously bad ‘psychedelic comedy’ from Otto Preminger about gangsters dosed on LSD featuring Groucho Marx as ‘God’ and Ceaser Romero, the guy too vain to shave off his mustache to play The Joker!

Friday, November 23rd, 8pm: 1990--THE BRONX WARRIOR! Welcome to Planet Fred, as Fred Williamson rocks the 'stache in this Italian post-apocalyptic epic!  Revel in the intensely 80's-ness of  a New York gone feral.

Sunday, November 25th, 8pm: THE OCTAGON! What would a celebration of butt-kicking mo's without the man himself, Chuck Norris?  Norris and Lee Van Cleef team up to stop his half-brother from training terrorists in the ninja-style!

I am planning on adding movies for the rest of Thanksgiving Weekend--there’s one in particular I am having trouble finding--and on a day or two of the week afterwards.  I will update this schedule as it develops.

So come and join me for some cool films and some laughs, and give to the Movember Foundation.  It’ll be thoroughly cool.

Raiders of The Lost Record Crate: 88 LINES ABOUT 44 WOMEN by The Nails (1984)

Jeanie had this nightclub walk that made grown men feel underage
Mariella, who had a son, said ‘I must go’ but finally stayed.

Today I was having lunch and turned on Spotify.  Much like Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services, Spotify has a ‘Suggested For You’ bar.  I usually ignore it.

But this was the day Spotify suggested I listen to The Nails.

I don’t know how much The Nails were known outside of the New York City area, but here in the early 80‘s they were ubiquitous.  They played the clubs in downtown Manhattan constantly--I caught them at The Continental, a small place on 13th Street around the corner from the famous Forbidden Planet genre bookstore--and had a decent following.  They only released two albums, most signficantly Mood Swings in 1984, on RCA before sinking into obscurity.

But they left their mark on the world with this song that literally is what it says in the title: a collection of couplets about various women singer Marc Campbell claims to have encountered.  It was a mainstay of the sole alternative rock station here in the city, WLIR out on Long Island, and apparently had enough of a life outside the tri-state area that its melody was used in a Mazda commercial years later.  That’s pretty amazing given all the references to genitalia, masturbation and sadomasochism--the only other song I can think of that became a hit that made similar references is Romeo Void’s ‘Never Say Never,’ which actually got some airplay on MTV at the same time that this was being played on the radio.

It’s probably the lack of a music video that inhibited this hypnotic little tribute to female awesomeness from being a true 80‘s mainstay.  Don’t get me wrong, I tried really hard to find an official video.  I guess that’s because the song was released independently by a label that couldn’t afford to make a video.  When RCA released Mood Swings, they decided not to highlight the newer, slicker version of ‘88 Lines,’ but a cover of the Hombres’ 1967 parody of Bob Dylan, ‘Let It All Hang Out,’ as its single.  I wonder if The Nails would be more famous if the suits at RCA decided otherwise.

The video below, by Youtube user Haikucoup, is the best of the fan videos I could find.  I almost went with the anime video, though; you can find it if you look.  I’ve also included a live performance of the song.

The Nails deserved better.  But at least we have this song indelibly etched on the cortex of pop culture.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#584

Just because of all the Halloween fun we’ve been having last month, it doesn’t mean we’ve been slacking on current horror films.  We’ve got a trifecta of terrific reviews of recent releases.  First off is Des and Darryl’s thoughts on Nick Cage’s heavy metal revenge freak-out Mandy.  Then Devil Dinosaur Jr. goes retro with The Summer of '84.  Finally, Rich The Monster Movie Kid lets you know if this year’s sequel/reboot of Halloween is a trick or a treat.

The trailers are below, as is a video of Spanish metal guitarist Victor De Andres playing a rocking cover of the Barry Manilow song....

Listen to Dread Media #584 here

Introducing...THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE

Okay, here’s the deal.  I had fun with the Halloween Horrorfest, even though it wore me out.  The most fun I had was conducting the daily Poll which dictated what I reported on.  I started doing that after a disastrous encounter with Zombie Hunter, and I came to enjoy the interactivity and unpredictability of not knowing what I was going to watch every day. 

So what I’m going to do is a biweekly Poll feature.  Starting with my birthyear, 1964, I’m going to choose four films at random.  These will be films I have not seen before, or saw so long ago that I have only the vaguest of memories of.  I’ll be emphasizing more obscure stuff and choosing based more on what intrigues me than on historical importance.  I’ll post the trailers for each along with some descriptions here at the start of each poll to help you make your decision.  And when all is said and done, I will have to report on the winner.

I’m 54 presently, so you figure we’ve got a good two years before this project peters out--especially since I put all the features of this blog on hold for Halloween Horrorfest time.

So, as I mentioned, we’re going to start off with 1964.  If I saw any of these when they first came out, I definitely would not remember it.  Your choices are:

HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE

One of the forgotten sub-genres of exploitation cinema is Hagploitation (a.k.a. Psycho-biddy), a fad that lasted roughly a decade.  You take an aging female movie star, have them play a mentally unstable woman with a tragic past, mix liberally with some lurid murders and family trauma, and stir.  Bouyed by the surprise success of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, this is Robert Aldrich’s follow-up featuring an all-star cast playing Southern Gothic Games on Bette Davis.  I’ve been itching to revisit some hagsploitation and talk about the genre, so that’s why I chose it.

CARRY ON CLEO
The Carry On films were institutions of British Cinema.  This was the stuff that Monty Python and The Goodies were railing against in the late 60‘s.  I have to assume they came over here at some time, but they never showed up on TV as I was growing up, and I would never have known about them until I bought a second hand copy of Leonard Malton’s Movie Guide that included capsule reviews of all of them.  This is supposedly the best (its poster actually appeared on a stamp in 2008 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the series), and I'm intensely curious about them, which is why I chose it.

Incidentally, this is the only color film of the four.

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING

As a Tom Waits fan, I was instantly drawn by the title--but this little, brief (it’s barely more than an hour) black and white sci-fi film was directed by Hammer Horror Mainstay Terrence Fisher.  I’m obviously a big fan of Fisher’s horror work, and am curious to see how he handles the science fiction trope of an alien invasion.

MURDER AHOY!

Given that we just had the umpteeth Hercule Poirot feature in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on The Orient Express, it surprises me that there’s only been six films featuring Miss Marple.  Four of them were comic adventures featuring Margaret Rutherford, of which this is the last.  It’s not based on any Agatha Christie novel, and probably pissed off Christie something fierce.  As a fan of mystery fiction, I’m curious about this little alleyway of detective cinema, and that’s why I chose it.

I promise you it’s a coincidence that three of the four films are British.

So there are your choices.  Take a look at the trailers, read up on them and vote on what you’d like me to write on.  You have until Friday to make your decision.

Halloween Horrorfest 2018: BLUE SUNSHINE (1977)

So our final stop on the Halloween Horrorfest, based on the Back From The Dead Grand Finale Poll, is this low-budget cautionary tale on the horrors of Bad LSD.  Those of you who raved about Drive Angry when I first started this journey cannot tell me you didn’t have plenty of chances to vote for it--you had four times in the regular poll, the Grand Finale and The Special CAR-Nage Poll.

Watching this again--I’ve owned a copy of it for some time now--I’m struck by how this really isn’t a pure horror film.  Oh, it’s considered a horror movie.  Google the title, and they all refer to it as a horror movie.  But it’s obvious to me that writer/director Jeff Lieberman wanted to make a political thriller in the tradition of such joints as The Parallax View.  The low-budget nature of the artifact (I’ve seen some articles refer to it as ‘TV-movie grade’) is obvious, but you can tell from the shot choices, the pacing and the procedural nature of the script that Lieberman was interested in Making a Statement and Opening Our Minds, Man.  That’s why there’s loads of time devoted to Zalman King (who would go on to create Red Shoes Diaries) doing what is a dunderheadly bad job at investigating these bizarre murders where people lose all their hair and go crazy.

And one of the things that really makes this film so watchable is how weird our hero is.  As Jerry ‘Zippy’ Zipkin, King is a twitchy type who has a habit of getting real intense, sometimes shouting, with people he needs cooperation from.  When he interacts with his...girlfriend?...Alicia (played by Deborah Winters), it’s particularly strange because when they’re not kissing we find out she’s just as strident as he is.  Jerry bulls around California and pretty much accomplishes nothing.  Even at the end, where Leiberman informs us about other potential Blue Sunshine Victims throughout the country, it’s made very clear that his efforts to expose the situation are for naught.

There are three Blue Sunshine attacks, and a fourth done through presenting the after-effects while the audio plays; the implication is that Jerry is envisioning the crime in his head, a rather odd choice given the otherwise straightforward narrative.  The problem with these attacks is that they’re kind of silly--someone pulls at a Blue Sunshiner’s hair, causing the whole damn thing come off as if it’s a wig or, in the case of one woman, she pulls the hair off herself.  Leiberman makes a big deal out of focusing on our victim’s bulging eyes as if they’re terrifying, but they’re really not.  There’s also the fact that Leiberman apparently didn’t believe in reshoots, which results in one scene where a menaced child giggles while reciting ‘You’re hurting me’ in a tone of voice that implies she’s enjoying a game of Let’s Pretend.

I am marginally going to recommend this film.  It’s not very good,

and it’s not bad in the lunatic, energetic way The Howling II is.  But it’s a strange sort of curiosity, partially because of King’s performance and partially because its nihilism and political leanings are so specifically 70‘s that it’s a great artifact of its time.

Since I am now done with the journey I started on October 1st, I am going to take a brief vacation from thinking about films, and about horror films in general.  However, as I enjoyed the randomness of the Daily Movie Poll, what I’m thinking of doing is a Bi-Weekly Poll where you can choose something for me to watch.  In my head, I may take four movies at random from a certain year and have you vote.  Tell me your thoughts on this idea and maybe we’ll meet again soon.

Phase TWO of...THE HONEYWELL EXPERIMENT!

My experiment with teaching some ignoramus about Grindhouse Cinema continues just minutes before Halloween ends.  Since it’s Halloween, I charged Chris with watching the made-in-1989-but-released-in-1992 paranoid Lovecraftian thriller Society.  This was apparently a labor of love for director Brian Yuzna, and is probably best known for Screaming Mad George’s special effects.  But my victim and I discuss the story surrounding that absolutely mental final act and how it holds up.  And if Honeywell doesn’t comprehend the significance of this piece of socially political horror I place before him, I’m going to shunt him into a school of trout!

You can listen to the podcast here