Monsters Vs Madmen- Round 5! FINALLY!!

Okay, thank you Johnny for breaking our tie!
Yeah he voted twice but so did Stac and frankly, its an Internet contest that wins us nothing. How serious could it be?

Pennywise has gone to that tiny clown car in the sky.

And let me tell you it was a brutal bitch fight. Seriously. These two were tied for-freakin-EVER.

But The Tall Man manages to squeak by and has moved onto the first playoff game.

This....is going to be weird...really weird.

The Tall Man from the Phantasam movies.

VS

Samara from The Ring movies.

I really can't imagine weirder opponents except maybe putting my mom up against a walrus in a house dress.

Here they are in action
Samara's student film


And the Tall Man...this clip speaks for itself


The winner of this will go up to the final final rounds of insanity when we start bringing the big guns out!

So cast your vote! Next Monday the survivor will be announced!

3-2-1
FIGHT!

A Girlish Night of Horror

Finals are over, thanks be to God, and I am enjoying my well-earned respite from all things academic. I am doing so by painting my fingernails black and my toes nails orange-- it's always October in my mind-- and watching Kolcheck: The Night Stalker. I am so in live with this show. In fact, I think I'm in love with Carl Kolchak; I tend to think about him a lot when I'm not fantasizing about illicit sexual positions and situations. It's how I pass my day.

In his prime, Darrin McGavin was a fine specimen of man-meat, and even in his old age he was still very attractive. And he never lost that strange, endearing way he brought to every role I ever saw him in. He did baffled and cunning better than anyone else acting then and now, and that's a big part of the crush I have on Carl Kolchak. Actually, it's not just a crush-- I think that anyone who is a fan of this show in some level wants to be like Kolchak; you wanna poke into the dark crevices of the world and come away with some fantastic story. Sure, no one will believe you, but it'll get you a drink if you tell it to the right crowd. Plus I really really want a pork pie hat. The irritating part I do easily and with out really trying.

Part of the allure of Kolchak's personality is his conviction that he's one hundred percent correct, no matter how insane the story. It's refreshing to see someone who has inherent faith in his own senses as well as in his own abilities to get out of trouble once he's inevitably stumbled into it.

The show has a seedy charm, and while the show obviously didn't have a lot of money, what there was seemed to go into little details: Kolchak's black socks with his white tennis shoes for example. Normally that's a look that makes me bite my lips 'til they bleed, but on the unstoppable ginger reporter it's strangely charming. Then there's the supporting cast: Vincenzo, Kolchak's boss, and the two seem mutually loathe one another. Then there is Miss Emily, the older than dirt gossip columnist (the actress who played her actually played another one time role at the start of the show, before Miss Emily's character was introduced. I love how incestuous t.v was, especially t.v in the 70's and '80's.) ANd of course, there's Ron, the financial adviser at their paper, a sexually ambiguous kiss-up that Kolchak loves to torment.

The fembot in me would have loved to date Kolchak, send hm off on his missions, get in trouble with him, then tear up the bedroom. Ahh, good times. I think my blood sugar's low and I need to eat dinner. Man, that woman is wearing some UGLY glasses. But her gold lame wedges are pretty awesome! The turban has to go.

Kolchak is a fascinating (and sekSAY!) character; there is a lot of implied back story. He seems like he's seen a lot of history before the show's current time line, and like maybe he was once upon a time a respected reporter. But he's so committed to the truth, the actual truth as he sees it, that he has been forced to pursue it at the expense of his career. He has continued to swan along anyway, and manages to do it with humor and wise-crackery.

Now, of course, we must discuss the ill-fated attempt to reboot this series that came out a few years ago. It was a weird idea, and I have no idea why the creators even tried to link the two shows. The remake stared Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak; he is also referred to largely as Carl, which is weird, since he's mostly Kolchak in the original series. There was also NO humor in the remake, at all. Kolchak is a haunted man, his wife murdered, and he seeks to unravel the mystery of what happened to her. It wasn't a bad show, it was just nothing like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and was far more like a, X-Files rehash, which is strangely ironic since Chris Carter has acknowledged that this show inspired X-Files. Suddenly Vincenzo is Kolchak's only defender, though in the original series I firmly believe that Vincenzo would have chewed his own arm off if it got Kolchak out of his hair. The new version also gave Carl sidekicks, which sucked because in the original series he is very firmly a lone wolf.

Well, my nail are drying, my blood sugar is all over the damn place (which means giggles over nothing are sadly imminent) and I find myself craving something phenomenally bad for me, so I'm gonna go hit Taco Bell and watch more Kolchak! If you've never seen it, then give it a watch: this show deserves more love, dammit!

Review-The Midnight Meat Train

An Open Letter:

Dear Clive Barker,
May I please have your creepy children? I know you're gay but I'm sure we can figure something out.
Yours in Fan-girliness,
Cins


The Midnight Meat Train was one of those movies that I've been wanting to see for ages. Every blog I read raved about it, my friends raved about, and every damn person seemed to have seen it except for me! This is because I appear to be on a 3 month delay with horror films. Seriously. I am usually the last to know about and see them. This does not bode well for Drag Me to Hell (Note to self, drag someone to Drag Me to Hell.). I'm so last season. I know.

Midnight Meat Train is an insane film based off the short story by Clive Barker and directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. This is where I give my general synopsis but I'm not sure if I can really sum up this film in a few words. Basically its about a young photographer, Leon played by Bradley Cooper who encounters and becomes obsessed with a mysterious and frightening man named Mahogany played brilliantly by Vinnie Jones. Many hard left turns, gore, and really fucked up shit follows. I make it sound so simple but trust me its not. I'm trying not to give any spoilers so this review will probably sound pretty vague.

This movie, like an onion, has many layers. And I do believe I will need to watch it again to really get the full impact of it all. I went in expecting a film on par with some of Barker's lesser works. What I got was a movie that was right up there with his greats like Candyman and Hellraiser. Midnight Meat Train is basic in its story but takes that and builds strange layers and situations making it a far more complex film than the usual horror fare. At the beginning of the film you truly believe that you know where it's going. Then things change and you realize that maybe you're just not sure if that IS the direction its going to go. Its hardly an M. Night Shyamalan twist film but it does throw a couple of curve balls at you that make you say "WHOA!" "GAH!" and "I Think I Wet 'Em!"...well maybe not the third one...depending on your bladder. The screenplay never talks down to its audience and it never spells out the information all at once. You get glimpses here and glimpses there of information until the pieces all come together at the end.

The film also holds the Barker trademark elegant gore that I so adore; bloody, gooey, poetic, and grotesque. We have buckets of dark sticky blood against beautiful stark colored images, bodies hanging upside down on the subway train like sides of beef, tumors in a jar, and countless other moments of nightmare fuel. Even though Barker didn't direct the movie, Ryuhei Kitamura was conscious enough to know that you needed to have that element of elegance to really pull off a Clive Barker story. I wouldn't call it the usual Gothic gore that Barker does. The look is far more slick and modern but it still has that feeling of art. Kudos, man. Sometimes its a bit heavy on the CGI (*cough* flying eyeball *cough*) but the director does use that to his advantage and tries to makes cheap CGI appear more like a comic panel or painting, going for more surrealistic visuals than full out realism. 9 times out of 10 it works beautifully.

But lets get to the "meat" of this review....horrid joke I know. I will slap myself later.
Vinnie Jones as Mahogany has created one Hell of a horror villain icon! This was a wonderful character. The character only says 3 or four words they entire movie but he conveys paragraphs with his eyes. A big hulking man in a beige suit, intense eyes, and a quiet way about him. The phrase "Its the quiet ones you have to watch" was created for him, I'm sure. Mahogany is a beautifully terrifying and sad horror film villain. Though I'm not sure if you can really call him a villain. You soon realize he's as much a victim as everyone else. Yet he never falls into the woe as me poor widdle bad guy trap which could lessen his impact. You are always terrified of him and his impeccably shiny and clean meat tenderizer...hopefully I didn't give too much away. I never was afraid of meat tenderizers, then I saw Midnight Meat Train.

If you have not seen The Midnight Meat Train (though I have the sneaky suspicion that I am the last to have seen it) its definitely worth the rental. Actually I think its worth buying the DVD full price! And trust me, I can be a cheapskate so that's saying a lot from me. Check this classic out!


On a different note, Monsters and Madmen tie breaking results will be posted tomorrow. Thank you Johnny for breaking the dang tie!

Monster Vs Madmen - A Tie?!

For the first time in Monsters vs Madmen history....which isn't that long since we've only had four rounds...We have a tie!
I knew this was going to be a good match up!

Three votes for Tall Man and Three Votes for Pennywise! (Stac was a brat and decided to vote for both)

So I'm leaving it up until Tuesday for the Tie Breaker.

Tall Man Vs Pennywise!

Vote for your favorite! Whoever has the most votes moves on to battle Samara!

Chalk up another one for a drunken horror movie night!

I'm currently watching this gem.



Mustang Sally's Horror House.

Or...whore-er house. Less horror more porn-er.
Its kinda a Hostel meets Debbie Does Dallas. Since I'm currently watching it on Chiller its lacking the nuances such as nipples and the F Bomb.

The hubby and I are currently watching this sucker and we really cannot stop laughing. Its not Zombie Strippers by any stretch but I really would love to watch this sucker with some really snarky gal pals after a bottle of wine.

I would also like to point out this movie has the best hooker names EVER. Tushalene, LikiLick (shes the Asian one), Caressa, Titi-ana (don't you call her titty!), Persuasion, and the not quite creative but you see where this is going name, Kitty.

Check it out for a good Stupid horror film with big jugs!

Check out the trailer:

30 Days of Night. The Book vs the Movie

This is long winded folks..Get comfortable!

When 30 Days of Night was announced, I became really excited. This was because it looked like an honest to God SCARY vampire film. As some of you who have been following the blog, I have a general indifference towards the vampire genre. Vampires just don't do it for me really. While I find the concept intriguing, I never found the species that frightening at all. Angsty, poetic, and mysterious? Sure. Scary? Well you might as well dress my 8th grade poetry loving English teacher up in a cape and have her "lurk" at me. That would probably induce the same amount of fear that a vampire would.

But 30 Days of Night?

Aw yeah. Promising.

30 Days of Night looked on par with Near Dark (The only vampire movie to ever scare me.). So I researched the film like a good little nerd and found out that 30 Days was based on a graphic novel of the same name. Double geek score! And of course, the one thing I wanted to do was dig my meat hooks into the graphic novel before the film came out. Luckily one of our readers and good friend of mine, Nojh sent me the box set of the 30 Days of Night graphic novel trilogy. I promised him my first born son and since he didn't want that I promised to buy him some Anime he wanted...which I have yet to deliver on. Unfortunately these novels solidified my now tried and true rule. Never read the book before seeing the movie! Because about 99% percent of the time the movie is just a dim comparison of the material its based upon. For me 30 Days of Night the movie was in that 99%. Damn it all. Now don't get me wrong, 30 Days of Night isn't a crap film. It's actually pretty well done. The problem is, the graphic novel is better. And my expectations going in to see this film were a bit high.

For those of you who do not know the graphic novel or the film BEWARE! THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD!!

The Graphic Novel of 30 Days of Night is virtually the exact same story as the film. A group of vampires descend on the small Alaskan town of Barrow during the winter when the sun is down for 30 days. Chaos and blood ensues. The interesting thing about 30 Days the graphic novel is that its written like a fable. The action is briefly described and the characters are a bit vague. Its less a fleshed out piece of literature and more of a cautionary tale told over a campfire. You can get through each book in a day. What carries the novel is the beautifully grotesque art and the story line. After reading this I felt it was perfect to put to film. With many other books to movie adaptations you lose a lot of the small details, subplots, and character quirks leaving the Cliff Notes addition to fill the screen. But with 30 Days of Night, you can easily transfer the fable like story to the screen without losing a thing. You even have room for additions too. The attack on the town was not very detailed in the novel and relied on the moody art to covey its terror. In a film version you have room to expand. And 30 Days, the film did do this its benefit. The attack sequences were wonderful. The first couple being mauled, the good friend hiding under the house after he's been turned, the old senile man constantly stepping out of hiding forgetting the situation, and my favorite and the one that really gets under my skin, the "human bait" scene. Each one of these scenes were perfectly orchestrated for suspense and terror. Also, the portrayal of the vampires were spot on. The shark eyed, mouth full of razors, animalistic blood suckers were perfect to give me the chills. Finally, a screen vampire (that wasn't Bill Paxton) to scare me! Danny Huston was perfect as the lead vampire Marlow. He was everything I'd want in a vampire leader; creepy, calculating, cold blooded...slightly attractive which really disturbs me about how I think. The addition of the vampires speaking their own language was also stellar and alienated the audience even more from them.

So what went wrong for me?

While the film did do a great job expanding the action and terror, it ignored some really great and even franchise building character moments that were in the book. The book was written fable style, but there were two great subplots that were completely ignored in the film; the vampire hunters and the other vampires. Also, the portrayal of our two heroes in the film, Eben and his wife Stella didn't sit well with me either.

The novel had two subplots that were pretty fantastic. And while I understand that in most book to movie adaptations subplots sometimes have to be removed for time and streamline factors, 30 Days the movie really didn't have to omit them. The movie had plenty of room to include both subplots but still keep the story streamlined and keep the running time under two and a half hours.The vampire hunter subplot was small but lead into a huge plot point in the second novel, which I heard was in the works for a movie. In 30 Days, the novel we're introduced to a woman and her son in New Orleans who are Hell bent on proving to the world that vampires exist. They find out about the attack on Barrow and the son heads off on a mission to not save the the down but only to document the attack and come back to report to the world. I felt this subplot gave the audience a larger scope of the vampires. They didn't just pop up in Alaska, they were everywhere. And from a commercial standpoint, this would give a great lead in to a movie sequel.

The other vampires was a subplot that I really felt was needed to give the vampires a bit more depth. While I loved how they were portrayed as pack animals, the idea that they had enough human in them to be organized and calculating was the scary part. We had glimpses of their intelligence in the film. The graphic novel expanded on this more. We found out that not only where there more vampires than Marlow's little band of misfits but that all the other vampires were really pissed off at Marlow's plan for an Alaskan feeding orgy feeling it will expose their species to humans. This ended in a creepy show down between Marlow and the head honcho of the vampire world right in the middle of Barrow which eventually lead to a good chunk of the town's destruction. This also lead to a rather large war between the humans and the vampires in the second book. While I can understand omitting the vampire hunter's subplot since it can be glazed over in the second movie, I felt the other vampires subplot really added to the overall mood of the piece and was pretty vital to the essence of the vampires. It also made a much better reason for the vampires to burn the town than Marlow's sudden change of heart about what they were doing.

I also wasn't too happy with the portrayal of Eben and Stella in the film. When reading 30 Days the graphic novel Eben and Stella were happily married. Not only happily married but I also had the feeling that they were much older possibly in their late thirties or early forties. The stars of our film Josh Hartnett and Melissa George appeared to be much younger. Not only younger but hyper good looking. I'm sure this sounds like a nit picky thing but I felt making the two main characters of the movie young and hot pushed 30 Days the film into typical horror movie cliche land. Who will save us? The beautiful people of course! They were fine in their rolls but I craved to have older more experienced actors as Eben and Stella. They were the sheriffs in the harsh Alaskan territory. I'm not saying all Alaskans are beaten and withered but I am saying is that you'd have a wee bit more experience in your eyes than your average beautiful movie star. Also, was it necessary to have them be separated? It seemed like just another typical movie cliche to have their marriage in turmoil only to be brought back together by crisis. We've seen it so many times in movies (Die Hard, Outbreak, Saw 3, etc etc.) Why not have the older married couple that was portrayed in the graphic novel? To me that seems more mundane and makes the crisis they encounter twice as terrifying.

I'm sure it sounds like I'm tearing this movie a new one. It really isn't a horrible film. And if I had never read the graphic novel first, chances are I'd have liked it a lot more than I do. I do recommend it to anyone who is curious about it. But unfortunately its not a classic like Near Dark is. It feels shallow. Fantastic creatures and great suspense but without the extra bits of character it needs to back it all up. If they only kept in most if not all the nuances of the novel I really believe it could have been a classic vampire film. Right now, I can only classify it as "Good and worth a rental".

Monsters Vs Madmen- Round 4!

Well the vote was a bit closer this time!
And by closer I mean it wasn't a complete slaughter and one side got more than one vote.

KANE IS DEAD!

But there was some interesting discussion from our Kane supporters. R.I.P Kane. We hardly knew ye.

I really believe I am not making these matches hard enough. So I'm skipping over some other lower teared madmen and jumping to one of the bigger guns.

ROUND 4!

The Tall Man from the Phantasam movies

Vs.

Pennywise, the Clown from IT.

Yeah, this should be good. The Tall Man is a scary old bastard with undead midget minions and terrifying bloodthirsty spheres on his side. Also, he never dies!! He keeps coming back!
Pennywise is an ancient evil entity who decides to appear to children AS A GODDAMNED CLOWN that EATS PEOPLE!
Yikes on both ends.

It sounds like a sitcom. Like they should be renting an apartment somewhere in south Hollywood and doing things like opening a dog grooming salon or a juice bar. And shenanigans happen.
Anyway...

Regarding our new contender:
I never had a fear of clowns...but Pennywise can easily induce that fear in me.
I shudder when I walk past a circus now.
Did I ever mention my brother in law is a trained mime and clown? He likes to put on his clown suit and scare the piss out of me.
My sister now wants me to make my 1 year old nephew a little clown costume for Halloween.
Miniwise...
...yeah.

Lets see them in action.

The Tall Man doesn't need make up or a red nose. He just needs to show up to freak me out.



Let this be a lesson to all of us. Never trust clowns that hang out in sewers.




The survivor of this round will go on to fight Samara, our current reigning champion. Choose wisely.

3-2-1 FIGHT!!!