Herschell Gordon Lewis double feature

Late Halloween night Turner Classic Movies ran the two earliest "gore" films from Herschell Gordon Lewis, which I TiVoed. I've seen a couple of Lewis's films, but never these: Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs!. I finally got around to watching them yesterday. Well, not watching so much as fast forwarding to the gruesome parts.

Blood Feast, the first and most infamous of Lewis's gorefests, is about an Egyptian caterer who hacks off an assortment of body parts from various women so that he can eat them and make sacrifice to his Egyptian goddess... well, something like that. The script doesn't make a damn bit of sense. It's completely incompetent, as are the acting and directing; the whole film is difficult to enjoy, or even sit through, even from a campy, ironic POV. But the gore: oh my!

The brutal, explicit violence in this film is every bit as shocking and disturbing as what you might see in one of the so-called "torture porn" releases of the past few years, such as the Saw or Hostel franchises. In fact, it's more disturbing, for a couple of reasons. For one, it was released in 1963, a full forty-five years ago, and has the look of its era, a look which I associate with a more innocent brand of filmmaking, a look similar to, for example, early color episodes of Dragnet, a look in which it is jarringly incongruous to see a man rip a woman's tongue out by the root. And two, due to the incompetence of the script and direction, there is next to no suspense, characterization, or any other attempt to disguise the fact that the film exists purely for the exploitation of grisly violence perpetrated against women. The movie opens with a woman coming home and getting ready to take a bath. She has no dialogue; she interacts with no one. A radio report warns of a criminal on the loose in the area, which suffices entirely for the build-up. And then all of a sudden a dude is cutting out her eyeball and chopping off her leg in the bathtub. The blood is copious; bone and gristle are luridly on display. And it is on display purely for the sake of being on display, serving no purpose other than to titillate, as did the nudity in Lewis's earlier "nudie-cuties."

Now, don't think I'm complaining or judging. At least, I'm not judging the violence or titillation. More titillating violence, that's what I always say! It's the overwhelming ineptitude of the entire film's production that is more offensive to me. If you're a fan of horror, this is a milestone you'll probably want to see at some point. But you might want to see it the way I did: finger on the fast forward button, skipping long stretches of static and poorly-framed shots, painfuly bad acting, and agonizingly dull and ludicrous writing.

Two Thousand Maniacs! at least has going for it a clever story: the Southern town of Pleasant Valley (pop. 2,000, of course) was destroyed by Union soldiers during the Civil War. On the centennial of that massacre, the locals divert unsuspecting Northerners into town, and the entire population exacts their gruesome revenge. At the end, the town disappears, with the promise that it will return to do the same in another 100 years.

The violence is once again copious and explicit, but this time there is a modicum of character development and set-up before the blood begins flowing. The acting and directing, sadly, both remain atrocious. Also, there's an acoustic folk trio, for some reason. I kept my thumb on fast forward through most of this film, too.

Were these films worth seeing? No. They're very bad, of interest only for their place in horror history. As a horror buff, I had that interest. If you don't: man oh man, avoid these movies.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Hollywood to be born?

Disaster Movie, the latest cinematic abortion produced by writer/director/crapmasters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, opens today, and if you actually pay to see it in the theater, you are a bad person. There is no wiggle room here. Seriously. This is a Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll-level indictment of your worthiness as a human being.

Friedberg and Seltzer are the pathetically talentless duo responsible for Epic Movie, about which I had a thing or two to say, and Meet the Spartans, which Slate's Josh Levin eviscerated in one of the funniest negative reviews I've ever read:

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Awesome. "A bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it." That immediately joins the grand pantheon of brilliantly vicious pans, which also includes:

Roger Ebert on North: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it."

Bloom County's Opus as movie critic: "George Phblat's new film, 'Benji Saves the Universe,' has brought the word 'bad' to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene. Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness."

Family Guy's Cleveland on Skeet Ulrich: "There is nothing good about who you are or what you do."

James Downey on Adam Sandler in Billy Madison: "Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Me on Committed: "This show is bitterest poison. It should be banned by the protocols established by the Geneva Convention. I hate it. I hate everyone associated with it, I hate myself for watching it, and I hate you for reading about it."

Although truly no invective foul enough exists to adequately describe how awful Friedberg and Seltzer and their movies are. And I'm sure that will hurt their feelings, if they happen to read it in between rolling around on their giant piles of money.

MOVIES: Alone in the Dark

Yesterday on the Mark & Brian show, Christian Slater called in promoting his new film, Alone in the Dark. Here is how he described it:

"It's like Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Matrix meets Aliens*."

Let's take a moment to absorb that.

Now, I realize that no matter what film you're plugging, you're forced to spew the same hyperbolic, mealy-mouthed promotional garbage regardless of how you actually feel about it. You can't just say, "It's crap, but it paid well."

But people. This is Alone in the Dark he's talking about. Alone in the Frickin' Dark. A movie whose description at IMDb begins, "Based on the video game..." And as Mike** has recently, and accurately, said, there has never been a good movie based on a video game. In fact, there has never been a not terrible movie based on a video game. (And this is from a Jean-Claude Van Damme fan!)

This thing was directed by Uwe Boll, the auteur responsible for inflicting House of the Dead on an unsuspecting public, which is quite possibly the shittiest movie I've ever seen. And if it's the shittiest movie I've ever seen, then in all likelihood it's the shittiest movie ever made. (I've seen a lot of bad movies. For example, all the ones starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.)

My point is, when you're promoting a low-rent horror film based on a video game, and co-starring Tara Reid -- a movie which in all fairness I can not say will suck, because of course I haven't yet seen it... but let's face it, it will suck, long and loud -- you might not want to compare it to three of the most popular and influential movies of all time. Maybe you might want to dial it down just a notch, there, Kuffs.

A final note -- I usually beat up on the idiots who post at IMDb, but I loved this line from a review on the Alone in the Dark page: "If anyone were pondering what Ed Wood would be like today if he were armed with foreign financing and computer effects, look no further than Uwe Boll." Which, frankly, is extremely unflattering to Ed Wood. But it's still funny.

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*I may be misremembering the third one. He named a classic monster movie of some kind; it may have been Night of the Living Dead, or something else along those lines. But he definitely said the first two.

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**EDIT: I was wondering why I couldn't find the quote about no video game movie ever being any good in Mike's archives. As he points out in the comments to this post, that's because it was Dorian who said it. And he said it about Alone in the Dark: "It's based on a video-game. There is no such thing as a watchable movie based on a video game." Too true, Dorian, too true. Sorry about the mix-up!

POTPOURRI

TV: Celebrity Poker Showdown is back on Bravo, and host Dave Foley is as drunk as ever! And that to me is funny. During his first season with the show, he was so drunk he routinely slurred words, and often had trouble focusing on the camera. I guess the producers had a word with him, because all through the next series of games, he seemed to have sobered up. But with the new season, which started this week, the cork is out of the bottle! He's back, baby!

As for the poker -- oh, man. I've watched a lot of cards on TV over the past couple years, and I have never seen the best player at the table beaten time and time and time again by sheerest, stupidest luck as Sara Rue was this game. And did Sara not look cute as all git-out? (And by "cute," I mean "smokin' hot.") Boy, she's lost some weight since she played last season. Not that she wasn't hot before; I'm just making an observation.


Yeah, she's just adorable. But adorable don't cut it, because Brad Garrett was pulling cards out of his ass. Sara's got two pair? Brad fills the straight on the river. Sara's got a straight? The board gets the same straight, meaning she and Brad split the pot. She should've knocked him out of the game about 87 times, and he just kept winning. It was brutal. And great TV. Good start to the new tournament.

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MOVIES: In all my Oscar foofaraw, I neglected to mention the Razzies, which also announced its nominees on Tuesday. This may be the first year I haven't seen any of the films nominated for Worst Picture. I tried -- I saw Butterfly Effect, after all. And The Grudge! If those movies aren't bad enough to make the list, then I ain't never seein' Catwoman!

Wow, they hate Ben Stiller. He got nominated as Worst Actor for a record five films: Along Came Polly, Anchorman, Dodgeball, Envy, and Starsky & Hutch. (I think when they nominate someone, they just name every film he's been in that year.) Now, come on! He was kind of good in at least two of those films. I mean, I've grown sick of Stiller's frequently repeated nebbish-who-gets-caught-in-humiliating-situations roles, too, but at least he was doing something different in Dodgeball and his cameo in Anchorman. I thought he was great in both of those.

And the Razzies went after Dubya, too! Multiple nominations for his appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11. My favorite: Worst Screen Couple, for "George W. Bush & EITHER Condoleeza* Rice OR His Pet Goat." I never thought I'd say this, but: he's got my vote!

*It's actually spelled with two z's guys, but that's okay; it's a tough name, and it's not like she's been in any news stories recently that would allow you to check the spelling.

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The second I talked up I Read the Comics So You Don't Have To, Josh goes and changes the name to The Comics Curmudgeon. Man! Now I have to change my sidebar links again!

While I'm being all self-referential, I'd like to thank Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings and Augie De Blieck of Various and Sundry for throwing links my way. Now, Augie is a fairly conservative fella, with, presumably, a majority of fairly conservative readers, where I, on the other hand, hate America. Oops! I meant, "am liberal." Oh, what a giveaway! My point is -- and I'm not saying the one thing has anything whatsoever to do with the other -- the thing is, the total elapsed time between Augie's link, and the first ever really bitchy political comment left on my blog, was two hours and fifty-three minutes. That's a funny little coinky-dink, innit?

MOVIES: The Cannonball Run

I've always had fond memories of The Cannonball Run, so when I saw the DVD in one of those budget two-packs (with Caddyshack) at Best Buy, I decided to pick it up. And oh my lord, that is one of the stupidest damn movies ever made. Why did I used to like this?

First of all, there's no character development, there's no story, other than the big race. Nor should there be, really; it's a light road comedy, you want to get to the action as quickly as possible. But still, how hard is it to go, "Here's Burt Reynolds' character, J.J. McClure; here is what makes him human; here is why you should give two shits about him." But that doesn't happen, so unless you're still living in 1981, and are so fully invested in and charmed by Burt Reynolds as a person that you love him no matter what character he's playing, you just don't care about him or his antics at all. And he's the most fully fleshed-out character.

Other participants in this train wreck of a movie:

• Roger Moore, playing Seymour Goldfarb, Jr., a man who thinks he's... Roger Moore. A Roger Moore who has all of James Bond's gadgets and women. But James Bond is never explicitly mentioned. In fact, in one scene, you can see by lip-reading that Moore is talking about the film The Spy Who Loved Me, but what you hear is The Fly Who Bugged Me. Think they were threatened with a lawsuit? (Another strange dubbing moment on this DVD: one character very clearly forms the words, "Slicker than shit through a goose," but the vocal track says, "Slicker than shot through a gun." The cursing remains intact throughout the rest of the film; why that one overdub?)


• Farrah Fawcett, whose character allows Burt Reynolds to call her "Beauty" rather than her real name, gives the impression that this is because she feels a man's name for her is clearly superior to her actual name. Her character is an environmentalist, sweet and demure except for the fact that she keeps telling (or trying to tell) complete strangers that she loves trees "because you can lie under them at night, and look at the stars, and listen to the wind in the leaves, and ball your brains out!" ("Ball"?) Also, she's kidnapped by Burt Reynolds early in the film, literally kidnapped and driven cross country, but she succumbs to the most rapid and complete case of Stockholm Syndrome ever seen.


• Jackie Chan, who is Chinese, plays a Japanese driver named... Jackie Chan. This was his first American film. And he was never heard from again.


• Terry Bradshaw is in this thing. Terry frickin' Bradshaw.


• Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. disguise themselves as priests, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed priests. Ah, the good old days, when drunk driving was funny. (See also Arthur.) The one bit in this movie I remember liking as a kid that I still liked was when Sammy says, "Why'd he call me shorty?" and Dean says, "Because you're small. Small. S-M-All." That's funny. Well, it is!


• Bert Convy is in this thing, too. Game show host Bert Convy. Wow. He drives a motorcycle, and makes his male teammate wear a bridal gown, on the theory that cops won't pull over newlyweds. But his teammate is so fat, Convy can't make the motorcycle stop popping a wheelie. Ha.


• Adrienne Barbeau appears in this movie for the sole purpose of sexily unzipping her skintight racing gear. Bless her heart.


• God, I can't list all these sons of bitches. There's also Jamie Farr, Jimmy the Greek, Valerie Perrine, Jack Elam, Mel Tillis, and Peter Fonda, none of whom, now that I think about it, deserved anything better than this film.

And, lest you think I forget, the #1 reason I enjoyed this film as a kid: Dom DeLuise. I thought he was the funniest thing ever. Captain Chaos! Dun-dun-DUNNN! Watching the movie this time, I just felt sad for him. Burt Reynolds is always yelling at him and slapping him. And you just know that's a carry-over from real life. Some guys, however handsome and popular they are, still want to have someone demonstrably less handsome and popular by their side, someone they can belittle and abuse to make themselves feel even bigger, someone who will willingly take that abuse for the privilege of joining the popular club.

The same kind of thing happens with Dean and Sammy. Dean's constantly slapping Sammy in this movie. And those are real slaps. I'm sure that's only the smallest sample of what Sammy had to endure to be the only black guy admitted to the Rat Pack. I laughed at the time, but now it just makes me cringe.

Horrified by the awful, humorless writing and acting, I thought, well, at least there'll be some cool driving action. Uh, nope. We see cars driving a lot, but very little interesting driving. Jackie Chan launches his car off a sand dune. Terry Bradshaw drives his car into a swimming pool. Some guy named Mad Dog drives his truck into a hotel lobby. Roger Moore has smoke screens and oil slicks, of course. But there's really very little racing action for a movie all about a cross country race.

And the race ends in a very stupid way (you will be shocked to hear). The way the race works is, you punch a time card in at the beginning of the race, then punch it in again at the end of the race. Best time wins. At the end, a whole group of drivers are running to the finish line. Burt Reynolds slows them down, and Adrienne Barbeau winds up punching her card first. And everyone else just stands there and groans with disappointment. Hey, shitheads! Some of you left the starting line after Adrienne Barbeau did! If you'd just punch your card, your time might still be the best. But nobody does. They all concede the victory. Jesus, why race 3,000 miles if you're going to give up in the last ten feet? Idiots.

Now I want to watch Smokey & the Bandit again, to see if it also fails to measure up to my recollection of it. But I'm scared to. I don't want to ruin all my childhood memories. Not all at once, anyway.

I don't get it

Here's a few things I don't get, popularity-wise:

MUSIC

Radiohead: God, they're boring! Boring, boring, boring!! I listen to all these people saying, "They're geniuses!" and I just wonder, What the hell are you listening to? Because I fell asleep halfway through the song. Which song? Any of them. But especially "Karma Police." That's more sleep-inducing than two bottles of Nyquil. See also: Modest Mouse.

TV

American Idol: Why does everyone in America watch this travesty? "I just watch it to make fun of it." LIAR!! I know you love it. I just don't know why. "We are unsatisfied with your personal preferences in musical stardom. We will tell you who to worship." "Yes, masters. Clay Aiken is a delightful pixie, and not at all a disturbing, charmless little freak."

ER and West Wing: They're done, people. Let them die.

The Simple Life: And Paris Hilton, in general. In fact, this whole "rich girl" trend. Why we should elevate, as David Cross so memorably calls them, "these rich, giggling, country western singers" (only he didn't say "ry western singer") to icon status just boggles my mind. They deserve nothing but scorn and loathing, and yet our culture celebrates and rewards them. There is very little in pop culture that makes me think, maybe we'd be better off without pop culture in its entirety (this is a pop culture blog, after all), but Paris Hilton and her ilk are right up there.

BOOKS

The Da Vinci Code: Now, I haven't read the book, so this is somewhat uninformed. But if I can't make uninformed snap judgments, why should I even have a blog? So I've paged through this thing at the store a couple times, and it looks like a decent enough mystery/thriller, but this is ridiculous. You know what I think? I think this is a book that makes people think they're smart for reading it -- the kind of smart that doesn't hurt your head, or require much actual thinking at all. And I think it's a book people feel required to read specifically because of its massive popularity, not because of any desire they have to crack a good book. It's got just enough historical and religious mumbo-jumbo in it to make people praise it far beyond its basic mystery/thriller worth. I don't fault the people who say, "Yeah, it was a fun read." But anyone who says, "This is the best book I've ever read," probably hasn't read a book since The Bridges of Madison County.

MOVIES

My Big Fat Boring Stupid Unfunny Greek Wedding: Well, the title pretty much sums it up. I've bitched about this movie before, but I'll say it again: literally the only time I laughed during the entire film is at the wedding, when the mother of the groom asks, "What are they saying?" and the father of the groom says, "I don't know -- it's all Greek to me!" That lame, corny old joke sparkled like a gem in the midst of the other sub-sitcom level "humor". I didn't find any of her family to be wacky or impish or adorable -- I found them boring at best, irritating as hell at worst. Nia Vardalos is not cute or charming. She's a bug-eyed ham, with absolutely no charisma. I hate this movie.

MOVIES FROM HELL: The Grudge

Let me tell you every single good thing about The Grudge, which I saw last weekend.

1) It has a few decently creepy images, especially that bit with the jawbone.

2)

3)

Hmm, I guess that was it.

As for the bad things, well, I don't want to write a novel here. I can pretty much sum it up with the fact that this is the most poorly written movie I have ever seen, with characters that would need two additional dimensions just to become one dimensional. There is nothing to the characters. Nothing. NOTHING. They exist only to be scared or killed. I have seen a lot of horror movies, and even the very worst make some effort at token characterization. This guy's a football star, this guy's a nerd who wants to get laid, this gal's a goth with attitude. But in The Grudge: nothing.

It doesn't help that Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was often so good on Buffy, is little more than an ambulatory mannequin here. If there's something going on behind those big, moist, googly eyes of hers, she doesn't let the audience in on it. She's an accessory, like a battery the film had to plug in to get the plot moving. ("Plot"? HA!) She moved to Japan to be with her boyfriend, but we don't get a sense of how she feels about that move. Is she frightened? Excited? Feeling displaced? Lonely? What? She works for a service that sends caretakers out to people's homes -- but how does she like her job? How did she get into that line of work? Is she a good person who likes to help others, or is it just a paycheck to her? Nothing about her exists other than to serve the machinations of the plot. She moved to Japan because the movie is set in Japan. She's a social worker because she has to go to the haunted house. Her boyfriend exists for the sole purpose of getting killed. (Whoopsie! Spoiler! Gee, I hope I didn't make you not want to see the movie now! Actually, you know what? I'm gonna spoil the hell out of this movie, so stop reading if you give a damn.)

The movie jumps around in time a lot, for no good reason. For no reason, period. As Roger Ebert says in his review, it's "a nuisance, not a style." Sometimes a young American couple along with the man's mother live in the house; sometimes it's just the mother. Sometimes a Japanese girl is the mother's caretaker, sometimes it's Gellar. And sometimes Bill Pullman shows up, even though he kills himself in the first minute of the movie. (Told you I was gonna spoil it!)

Turns out Bill Pullman is kind of the cause of all the badness in the movie; he's a teacher, see, and apparently one of his old students is in love with him, even though she's married. Well, the husband finds out, kills her, kills their son, hangs himself. Voila! Haunted house. Why she loves him... that's a mystery, one that's never explored. He's as much a personality-less drone as anyone else in the film. We never even see her interacting with him, we just see a bunch of pictures. By the time Pullman even becomes aware of her obsession, she's already dead. Also, why does Pullman then kill himself? There's no ghostly activity that drove him to drop off his balcony. Guilt? Who knows? His death has no impact on the film whatsoever, other than to provide a shock right at the beginning.

There's a lot of stuff that happens for no reason in this movie. Why is it set in Japan? No reason, other than the director is from Japan. The setting doesn't enhance the scariness, nor does the culture have any effect on the primarily American characters. A Japanese detective at one point says, "In Japan, it is believed..." blah blah curse, blah blah evil. But, even with that one attempt to justify it, really there's no reason for the location. What, we don't have ghost stories in America?

My favorite scene in the movie, by the way, doesn't have any ghosts, or anything scary at all. The female half of the young American houseowning couple is in the supermarket. She's confused by the foreign language items on the shelf. She picks up one foil-covered container, sneaks a peek around to see if anyone's watching, then pokes a hole in the top and sniffs to see what it is. OH MY GOD!!! That is just reams of information. That is fountains of character development. No, rivers. Oceans! By this film's standards, her character is now as fully fleshed-out as Hamlet. Don't blink or you'll miss it!

The movie's not big on dialogue, either. I'd say a good 80-85% of the film is people creeping slooooowly and silently down dark hallways. And a good 90% of what dialogue there actually is is along the lines of, "Yoko? Are you all right?" Followed by: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

No, Yoko is not all right. Which brings me to the one good thing about the movie, the handful of creepy images. Yoko is the first person we see killed by the ghost. All that is found of her is her jawbone. When she later shows up at the social agency where she worked, and her boss asks the above inane question, she turns around, and the lower part of her face is missing, with her tongue horribly lolling out of the crater. That's a good, creepy image. The ghosts of the wife and the little boy have disturbing faces, and make unsettling noises (spoiled somewhat by the teenage idiot and her idiot mother sitting in front of me at the theater, who both insisted on mimicking the cat-like wail of the boy, or the death-rattle croak of the wife. I hate people).

But those few scary components do not add up to a good movie. Hell, they barely add up to a movie. This was pure awful. I snuck into it after Team America, and I still felt ripped off.

MOVIES FROM HELL: Halloween: Resurrection

A short while ago, I said that as a special Halloween feature, I was going to rewatch some of the worst horror movies I've ever seen. I'm starting off with Halloween: Resurrection, which, technically, I've never seen before. So how did I know, before even watching it, that a seventh generation sequel starring Busta Rhymes would be awful? Lucky guess.

Yes, Resurrection is indeed the eighth entry in the Halloween series, which, unlike the Friday the 13th series, I'm sadly unable to list from memory. I need IMDb's help for that:

First came the landmark John Carpenter original, Halloween, in nineteen-seventy-damn-eight. I was eight when that came out. Wow. Then came the fairly worthy successor, Halloween II in 1981, in which Loomis (Donald Pleasance) was killed. Then came the "what the fuck?" non-sequel Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1982, which had literally nothing to do with the first two movies. I know! What the fuck? Then, much like a farmer must let his field lay fallow to replenish the soil's nutrients, so was the Halloween franchise allowed to lay dormant for six years. Unfortunately, Farmer Brown planted turds, and up sprouted Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), in which Loomis got better, but Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) was dead, and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), in which various lame stuff happened. 1995 brought Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, in which Loomis got dead again, as did Donald Pleasance (sad). And then of course came Halloween Water: 20 Years Later (1998), in which all the stuff from the previous three films was ignored, and Laurie got better (but Jamie Lee Curtis' film career died). Wait, what's that? Yeah, Halloween H20. That's what I said.

And then came Resurrection (2002). Oh boy.

Jamie Lee Curtis makes a contractually-obligated appearance right at the top of the movie, which rewrites the ending of the last movie. Laurie's in an insane asylum now. Turns out the guy whose head she chopped off at the end of the last movie wasn't Michael after all. It was just some dude in a mask. Oopsie! "Father of three," one of Laurie's nurses gravely informs her co-worker. Which is what makes it a shame. Father of two, that's fine. Father of three, that's a real bummer.

We now meet Willie, a tubby security guard. Hey, I bet Willie's gonna be around for the next sequel! We follow Willie as he inspects a couple of vending machines packed with various blatant product placements in a scene totally relevant to the plot. Meanwhile, Michael decides his partner's head looks a little damp, so he puts it in the dryer. Willie discovers the noggin on tumble dry low, but before he can add a fabric softener sheet to prevent static cling, Michael ventilates his trachea. WILLIIIIIIIIIEE!!! I totally and completely did not see that coming.

Then Michael chases Laurie onto the roof -- have I mentioned the slow motion yet? This director loves throwing in a few seconds of slow motion in almost every scene. Very annoying. Anyway, on the roof, the stupidest thing ever happens. Laurie has somehow -- and keep in mind, she's an inmate at an insane asylum -- she has somehow rigged up an elaborate, electronically-operated winch system (I assume she rigged it up; why else would there be an electric winch on the roof of an insane asylum?). She's tied a small noose at the end of its rope, about the exact size of a man's foot. And Michael somehow steps directly into it. Because stupid plans require stupid victims! Laurie hoists Michael over the edge of the roof, and plans on cutting the rope and letting him drop to the ground below. Which, I mean -- has she even watched the last seven movies? Michael's fallen off lots of roofs. He's been shot about 8,000 times. He's been blown the fuck up. But Laurie thinks this roof is the clincher! Yeah, smart plan, babe. She deservedly gets stabbed and dropped off the roof for her troubles. Next time, try a bazooka.

Michael then gives his knife to one of the inmates. Because he's always careful to cover his tracks and frame innocent bystanders. Oh, wait, no he's not. He just kills the innocent bystanders, because he's Michael Myers, not a James Bond villain. This movie doesn't make a lick of sense, and we haven't even gotten to the title yet. The inmate, by the way, is a serial killer buff, and as Michael walks away, the inmate reels off Michael's life story from memory. Only he doesn't remember Halloweens 3 through 6. That's okay, buddy. Nobody does.

Cut to Haddonfield University, where a professor can lay down some Jungian bullshit that's supposed to reveal something about Michael's psyche, but is really just there to make everyone involved feel better about being in a dopey slasher flick. We meet Sara, who is broody and smart, so she's going to live; Jen, who is cute and ebullient, so she's dead; and Rudy, who is black and not Busta Rhymes, so you guess what's gonna happen to him. (Yes, I'm calling it right now: Busta will survive.)

And we get into the story of this film, which makes me grit my teeth and feel a white-hot ball of pain and anger behind my eyeballs: they're going to be on a reality show. A REALITY SHOW! Jesus Hieronymus Christ, a reality show. Can you get more played out than that? Answer: no.

Ironic foreshadowing dialogue:

SARA: Every time I let you two talk me into something, I live to regret it.
RUDY: Listen, without me, you would die of boredom.
JEN: Us! Without us, you would die of boredom.

Get it?? It's ironic, because they're talking about Sara dying, when really they are going to die! GET IT??? Eh, whatever.

Then there's some more stupid stuff, then they get to Busta. I want to hate him -- he's a damn rapper, not an actor, not even a horror movie-level actor -- but he's the best part of the film so far. He's in charge of "Dangertainment", the reality show in question... which will be airing on the internet. Because so many people watch internet programming. Man, is it dumb in here, or is it just this movie?

Did I mention Tyra Banks is Busta's assistant? No? Good. I used to like her, but ever since America's Next Top Model began, I just want to smack her.

The reality show will take place inside Michael's childhood home. The participants, all with mini-cameras mounted to their heads, are going to be exploring the mystery of Michael Myers, whatever that means. If Michael Myers weren't actually going to show up, this would be the most boring program ever. "Hey, did you find any of Michael Myers' mystery in the fridge?" "No. Did you find any of Michael Myers' mystery in the broom closet?" "Ummm... no. I found a broom." Who the hell does Busta think would watch this shit? Or, wait: does Busta have a hidden agenda? Hmmmm.... Wait, even if he does, it's an idiotic idea.

So they go into the house, Sara, Rudy, Jen, and three other meat sacks whose names I can't be bothered to learn. One of them is a cute redhead gal, one of them is Kevin from American Pie, and one of them is a jackass. I'm guessing they will be killed in the reverse order I listed them.

Meanwhile, some nerd who's been having an email relationship with Sara is watching the show at a Halloween party -- and all the other non-nerds stop drinking, dancing, and screwing and also start watching the computer monitor. Which is possibly the most unrealistic moment in the entire movie. Hmm, have drunken sex with a cheerleader, or look over a nerd's shoulder at shaky, grainy footage on a computer screen? Computer wins nine times out of ten, of course.

Kevin flirts with Jen, then gets her to flash her bra for the camera. I think that's it for sex in this movie. Stupid damn modern horror movies, with no sex or nudity! I blame Kevin Williamson.

Ooh, Kevin gets killed first! The camera on his head catches it all (and then his head catches a butcher knife), but Busta and Tyra, watching from the control room, fail to see it, as do all the tens of people worldwide who are watching the show on their computers (including nerd-boy).

Ope! Here's a little sex. "Say something smart," says jackass. Cute redhead says, "Existence precedes essence," and takes off her bra. Bless her heart. Then a bunch of skeletons burst through a wall and fall on them. Cock-blocking from beyond the grave!

Turns out Busta and Tyra (that's the new millennium's "Uma and Oprah") have set up a bunch of phony crap around the house to make their show scarier and more interesting. So that's a failure on both counts.

Now comes probably the only cool shot of the film: Michael Myers creeps slowly through the house -- while behind him, Michael Myers creeps slowly after. It's a decently creepy thrill. The first Michael Myers is actually Busta in a mask. He thinks the other Michael is his cameraman -- but we saw the real Michael kill him earlier. The creepy coolness is ruined by idiocy: Busta, thinking it's the cameraman, yells at Michael, telling him to get his ass out of there and go get in position -- and Michael meekly turns and leaves. 8,000 bullets won't stop him, but harsh language will? Criminy.

Hot redhead (yes, I've upgraded her from cute) gets impaled on a spike by Michael. Nerd-boy believes it's real. Other non-nerd non-partiers laugh at him. This is the lamest subplot ever.

Jen and Rudy take bong hits. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Getting high in a horror movie. Seriously, how badly do they want to be killed? Can they be killed twice?

Sara, Rudy, and jackass discover Busta in his Michael mask. He explains he's faking everything, and asks them to play along. Gee, I wonder if the real Michael will show up in a moment, and they won't believe that it's him?

Jen finds Kevin's dead body, and, as her moron friends refuse to help her while she screams, Michael chops her head off with a butcher knife. Right the fuck off! Wow, jackass outlived her. Not for long: Michael crushes his head like a grape, then nails Rudy to the kitchen door. So we're down to Sara, Busta, and Tyra. Plus nerd-boy, who's calling 911. Yeah, that oughta help.

Nerd-boy begins text-messaging her on her Palm Pilot (or whatever the hell it is) as to Michael's location. He's not very good at it, because soon Michael's got her cornered, along with Busta. Busta pulls some Wu Tang kung fu, though, and after Sara wraps a camera cord around his neck, Busta kicks Michael out a window, where he hangs by the neck until dead. Or until two minutes from now, when everyone who's never seen a horror movie before will be shocked -- shocked! -- to find that he's come back to life.

Wait, nerd-boy even spoils that surprise, with the message: "HE'S STILL ALIVE!" I thought it was odd that he added "H3 i$ g01n9 +o HaX0r j00r @$$!!!11 ROTFLMAO ;)))" Nerd-boy's got leet skillz, bitch.

Michael stabs Busta, but I'd bet anything it's non-fatal. He chases Sara for a while, and she winds up in the control room, where she finds Tyra has been exsanguinated (look it up). Michael appears, and she attacks him with a chainsaw. Which could've been cool, if done well, but, in case I haven't made it abundantly clear, little or nothing in this flick is done well.

Then Busta breaks down the door to save the day. Hooray. He's alive. He does some more tae-bo, and Michael knocks his sorry ass across the room. Michael approaches in slow motion... slowly he raises the knife... sloooowly... sloooooooooowly.... This is where I started yelling, "Just kill him, for Christ's sake!" (In this scene, Busta says both "Trick or treat, muthafucka!" and "Hey Mikey! Happy fuckin' Halloween!" Admit it: you want him to get killed, too.)

But Busta has other ideas. He grabs a live wire, and jabs it into Michael's crotch. Yes, crotch. Because this movie is all about taking the high road. Michael gets tangled in other wires, and lights up like a Christmas tree. A bloody, homicidal, William Shatner mask-wearing Christmas tree covered in sparklers and kerosene. I bet he's really really dead, this time for sure!

Cops and news crews show up now, and Busta spouts this mealy-mouthed bullshit to the cameras about how "Michael Myers is not a sound bite," as though the film had been indicting the world of reality TV and ubiquitous web cameras, rather than exploiting it. Nice try at having it both ways, chumps. And Michael? He retires to a villa on the French Riviera, having invested wisely in tech stocks in 1999.

Coming in 2005: Halloween 9! No, really. You know, it might be time to let this franchise take a few years off again.

Linkblogging

I'm falling back on the old standby that I've actually never used before. Here's a few other blogs that I enjoy.

Associated Comics and Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, California, and Outlying Environs: the four people I know in real life, under the umbrella title invented by Mike, and listed at the top of my link section to the right. Recently, Ian has been deconstructing Chaykin, when he's not posting covers of bizarre and obscure motorcycle-themed comics; Corey continues to astound me with how many more bad movies he's seen than I have, including the Pat Morita crapfest Timemaster; Dorian has been making friends and raising the ire of the squares and the clueless with posts that dare to deflate both comics creators and comics fanboys; and Mike has been continuing his slow but inevitable domination of the blogging community, and soon, the world.

I dig Ken Lowery Presents: Ringwood, because Ken is so angry, he makes me look well-adjusted. Re: Hal Jordan's return: "Holy fucking god, has there ever been such a non-issue in the history of the world? It's pathetic, it's sad, we all know it, WE'RE MOVING ON NOW."

H & Mag's The Comic Treadmill has good, in-depth reviews of comics, and also is currently featuring a poll ("Who is the Identity Crisis killer?") in which one of the choices is "ACAPCWOVCCAOE". (We're losing to "Yoko Ono".)

Scott at Polite Dissent often investigates medical scenarios in comics for their real-life veracity, and also posts kooky nostalgia-related items on Mad Mod, or Wormy (remember Wormy, from Dragon magazine? You do? NEERRRRRRD!!! Oh, wait, so do I).

David Welsh at Precocious Curmudgeon doesn't watch as much TV as I do, but he tries. He also feels an appropriate level of horrified disbelief towards the John Byrne forum. And he will not be, as he recently suggested, the last comics-type blogger in the world to read Scott Pilgrim. I will.

Woody at The Sock Drawer often seems to be the only other comics fan aside from myself who also watches football. He's got a plethora of reviews of fan films around the web, and he ends each post with an unattributed quotation, so trivia buffs, try to be the first to comment with who said it and where.

I'm linking Ken C's Revoltin' Developments because he asked me to in his last post. Okay, that, and his current "Battle of..." between Tomb of Dracula #1 from 1972 and Tomb of Dracula #1 from 2004 is truly inspired.

Bill Sherman of Pop Culture Gadabout was the first person that I didn't personally know to link to this blog, so he's aces right from the get-go. His excellent reviews of various pop culture items were a partial inspiration for me to finally start a pop culture blog of my own. His recent anecdote about the behavior of Republican women at one Border's bookstore will make you grit your teeth, assuming you're not Republican yourself.

...Like Augie De Blieck, Jr. is. He has at times made his conservative leanings (which I strongly disagree with) known on his blog, Various and Sundry, and yet I still visit regularly. Why? Because it's a good blog, with insightful TV and DVD reviews and interesting links, and his politics don't change that one way or the other. He rarely mentions his politics (and has in fact recently established a separate blog to contain all political entries), but when he does bring them up, he retains his good nature and humor (as opposed to a certain other insanely hateful diatribe of a blog which I won't name here -- but its initials are Apologies Demanded).

There are many other blogs I read regularly (just look to the right), but that's plenty for now, I think. And please be reassured, even if you don't see my site's name on your referrer list, it's only because I'm visiting you via Comic Weblog Updates.

Coming Attractions

This is more a note to myself than for any of you, but here's what I'm planning on talking about in the days to come.

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Inspired by Rick and his month-long tribute to his favorite horror movies, I'm going to re-watch some of the all-time worst horror movies. And frankly, the fear I'm experiencing thinking of having to watch House of 1,000 Corpses again is far more acute than any good horror movie could ever generate. Or House of the Dead, which, as I may have recently mentioned, is not just the worst movie ever, it's the worst anything ever. Hell, I may as well stick with the theme and watch House on Haunted Hill (the remake), House II: The Second Story, and, I don't know, Road House, just to make it easier to pick titles.

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More TV. Shocka! Specifically Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal.

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All the damn books I've bought recently. Stephen King's The Dark Tower, The Daily Show's America (The Book), John Moore's comic fantasy Heroics for Beginners, McSweeney's Thrilling Tales collection (I've had that one for a while, but just recently started reading it)... it would be nice if I actually finished one of these books. Then I could write about it.

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That applies to comic TPBs, too. I still haven't finished the giant Bone collection. In fact (brace yourself), I still haven't finished Blankets. I read the first dozen pages or so, set it aside for a moment, and then never picked it up again. I need to get on that.

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And, oh... everything.

MOVIES: The Butterfly Effect

I just finished watching the DVD of The Butterfly Effect and... wow. That was interesting. I mean, don't get me wrong: it's a train wreck. It is definitely a failure. But it fails in such uniquely spectacular and fascinating ways, that I can't help but admire it a little.

First things first: I'll admit, Ashton Kutcher isn't as bad as I thought he'd be. I actually like Kutcher on That '70s Show. I've never been an Ashton basher. (Except for that Punk'd crap he does on MTV. That is some seriously lame shit.) I think he can be very funny. I just didn't think he'd be able to pull off a dramatic role. And... he doesn't, exactly, but like I said, he's not as bad as I thought.

Where the film goes wrong, and keeps going wrong, over and over again, is in the relentlessly brutal torture of its characters. The plot, as you know, is a remake of the "Stupid bug! You go squish now!" episode of The Simpsons... well, not really, but it might as well be. Kutcher, like Homer, finds a way to travel into the past, but every change he makes in the hopes of making the future better actually makes it exponentially worse. Ned Flanders never places the Earth under his totalitarian rule, but if the movie had been ten minutes longer, he might very well have.

Here are the horrible things that happen to Kutcher's character Evan before he even goes back in time. (Spoilers, natch.) Evan suffers from a series of blackouts. His father has been locked away in a loony bin. The girl he loves (Kayley) is forced to perform sexual acts with him on camera by Kayley's alcoholic father -- when they're only seven years old. (Eric Stoltz gives an amazingly creepy performance as the father, by the way.) The girl's brother Tommy watches them, and it turns him into a psychopath. Evan finally gets to meet his dad -- who then tries to murder him. Evan, Kayley, Tommy, and Evan's best friend Lenny accidentally blow up a woman and her baby girl. Yes, I said blow up. Tommy puts Evan's dog in a sack and sets it on fire. Lenny is driven into near-catatonia by these events. Evan's mother moves them out of town, leaving Kayley to fend for herself against her lunatic father and brother. And, to top it all off, when Evan seeks out Kayley again after a seven-year absence, he drives her to commit suicide.

Yeah, and that's just an appetizer. Perhaps you begin to see how comically over the top this film is determined to go.

Evan discovers that by reading the journals he kept growing up, he can project himself back in time -- it turns out the blackouts were during periods of time travel. If he concentrates on a journal entry concerning one of those blackouts, he goes back into his body at that time, and is then able to influence the events that happened during his blackouts. (Many more spoilers ahead.) First time he tries to do so, it seems everything is just peachy dandy. He's turned into a frat boy douchebag for some reason, but he and Kayley are happily in love. Then Tommy shows up and tries to kill Evan, but Evan kills him instead. Cut to: the slammer! Evan's doing hard time for murder. And for murder, you don't go to white collar resort prison. You go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. Yes, that's right, on his first night in the joint, Evan gets introduced to the wonders of prison rape. Ouchie.

Well, Evan thinks he can fix everything, and he really really means it, this time for sure. He goes back in time again, and tries to keep Tommy from killing his dog, but through a whimsical miscommunication, he accidentally convinces Lenny to murder Tommy. Oopsie! Back in the future, Lenny is strapped to a bed in the loony bin, and Kayley is a scar-faced junkie whore. Let's try that again: Evan goes back in time to keep the woman and her baby daughter from getting blown up, and he's successful! Back in the future, everyone is happy and healthy -- even Tommy has turned to the Lord and changed his evil ways. Small hitch: the explosion blew off Evan's arms. Dagnabbit! Pesky time travel! Evan sees how much better off everyone else is, though, and decides to take one for the team and stay with this timeline. Then he finds out his mother is dying of cancer. To the Wayback Machine! This time Evan figures he'll get rid of the explosive before it can ever be used. Funny thing, though, little monkey wrench in the plan: he accidentally blows up Kayley instead. Butterfingers!

This time, back in the future, Evan's in the loony bin himself. He's got one chance left to put everything back in order, and he does so by going back to when he and Kayley first met, and telling her he will kill her if she ever speaks to him again. Nice and subtle, there, chief. But it works! Evan returns to the future, and by never having known him, Kayley and Tommy turn out just fine. It's a wonderful life!

The DVD has an extra little kick in the ass that I love. It ratchets up this unrelenting torture-fest into whole new levels of agony. There's the theatrical ending -- in which, eight years further down the line, Evan and Kayley pass each other on the street, but keep on going. There are two alternate takes of that scene -- one in which Evan turns to follow Kayley, and one in which Kayley and Evan stop and have a sweet little meeting. But then there's the director's cut. Oh ho ho, the director's cut goes an entirely different and jaw-droppingly sadistic route. On Evan's last trip to the past, instead of going back to his first meeting with Kayley, he goes all the way back to his birth. At the hospital, while still in his mother's womb, he gains his entire lifetime of knowledge. And he decides his best option is to (I have to italicize and boldface this) strangle himself to death with his own umbilical cord. I swear on my life that I am not making this up. The best option for everyone else in his life to have a happy ending is for him to commit prenatal suicide. Gee, I wonder why the preview audiences didn't embrace that ending?

It's an awful movie, but it's so original in its awfulness. Each new horrible wrinkle in time leaves you agog in disbelief. "He's got no frickin' arms?? Oh, come on!!" It actually began reminding me of Showgirls a little bit as it went on, just a total misfire of epic proportions. The very bad things stop coming across as very bad, but rather very funny. It's just ludicrous after a while. You just have to start laughing. And the movie (like Showgirls) is so committed to its badness. The fact that nobody who made this movie is aware of its badness makes it all the funnier. But the thing is, you can't look away! You just have to watch in gleeful awe at its audacious awfulness.

Would I recommend it? It depends on how much you like bad movies. If you made it through the entirety of both House of the Dead and House of 1000 Corpses, or, for that matter, all of Showgirls, then you might get some weird form of entertainment out of this film, like I did. If you want a good time travel movie, you're better off with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure than this thing. And if you want a good Ashton Kutcher movie... well, good luck.