I got a new job!

Just please don't call me Lloyd.

Texas Frightmare Weekend '10

Lance Henriksen is the nicest guy I've ever met. I was extremely nervous.

The convention was a blast. We ran out of money within the first hour. Bill Moseley, Lance Herniksen, and Ogre were all incredibly sweet. I managed not to faint or throw up on anyone. Talking to Ogre turned me into a blithering tween with a crush, hence the goofy smile on my face (the boyfriend is now extremely jealous that I got to meet the lead singer of his favorite band. Haha). You never realize just how big Kane Hodder is until he walks by you. Didn't get to meet Romero, but my sister and I stood a few feet away from his table and stared in awe for a while. I can't wait to go again next year.

The Oral (Dis)Pleasures of Sorority Row

Death Scene Spoilers Ahead

First off, let me say that I enjoyed Sorority Row. As remakes go, it wasn't horrible, but maybe that's because the "prank gone bad" setup is pretty easy to pull off (Note to self: If you ever kill a friend during a wacky college prank, just turn yourself in). The performances were decent, the dialogue was funny, and the holy goddess that is Carrie Fisher wields a shotgun. Not the greatest, but far superior to those awful, awful Michael Bay produced remakes (Fuck you, Platinum Dunes. Fuck you). I love slasher movies and will defend them to the death (I've been called a "bad feminist" for this, which is really funny to me), but the manner in which the sorority sisters were dispatched kinda bugged me. Wine bottle pushed down a throat and smashed? Pretty cool. But when the other girls are killed off in similar fashions, i.e. oral trauma, I had to roll my eyes at the blow-job-of-death imagery. Sex and death go hand in hand in horror movies (and sometimes, life), but c'mon screenwriters, give me something a little more imaginative and less clichéd. Am I just over analyzing? Am I becoming a prudish fuddy duddy, or is that I see sex in everything? Is it because I'm terrified of things happening to my mouth, which is why I haven't seen a dentist in years? I just want to see those killer phallic symbols used in more ways than one, I guess.

What I've Been Watching This Week

I'm staying at my parent's house this week, which is a little like staying at a rehab facility. Haven't been sleeping for the past month, and Mommie Dearest is sure she can whip me into shape. I'm still not sleeping. Instead, I've been enjoying the neverending crapfest that is my Netflix Instant Queue (although looking back, only one of the movies turned out to be crap. Yay).

The Howling III: the Marsupials
It might just be the insomnia, but I think I love this movie. So so stupid yet so so entertaining. An anthropologist, on orders from the president, travels to Australia to substantiate werewolf sightings (lest the Russians beat us to it). He discovers not only that werewolves exist, but that they've evolved into Marsupial Werewolves. A man loved a Tasmanian wolf, giving us werewolves with pouches, just as a man made sweet love to a duck, giving us platypuses. Still with me? Good. This movie doesn't take itself seriously, which is great because it really is absolutely ridiculous. The marsupial werewolf birthing scene has to be seen to be believed. The movie is very pro-werewolf, and even the Pope gets involved in the end (Amnesty for Werewolves!).

Big Bad Wolf
Think Freddy Krueger as a werewolf. I felt like taking a shower after this movie, not just because Werewolf rape is disgusting, but the titular wolf thinks he's just soooo clever with all those one-liners. Yes, he talks. He wears jeans. He molests young women. And he's just as sleazy in human form. It's gross. If you've ever desired to watch a film in which a woman blows a suspected werewolf to collect DNA evidence, then this is it.

Satan's Little Helper
This movie started out so cute. An 8 year old boy is obsessed with a video game called "Satan's Little Helper". He dons a devil costume on Halloween and mistakes a masked serial killer to be Satan himself, cheerfully aiding and abetting the psycho's killing spree. Things were harmless and adorable up until "Satan" smashes a cat against a wall so he can write "Boo!" on an abandoned house in blood (part of his killing routine is propping up victims in their own yards like decorative Halloween mannequins). Little Dougie revels in the murderous merriment, but when Satan guts his dad, he realizes that they haven't just been playing a game. Worth watching around Halloween.

  100 Years of Horror
Dated documentary series narrated by the great Christopher Lee. I could listen to that man talk all day. Mostly trailers from vintage horror and fantasy films (some classics, some not so much), it's fun to watch just for Christopher Lee's humorous commentary.

  Taxidermia
Okay, I haven't watched it yet. I'm a chicken shit.

They Had It Coming...

Good dog.

Mama, I have to kill you...

SHOCK 1977
Directed by Mario Bava
Starring Daria Nicolodi

                                 
Mario Bava’s final film and co-written by son Lamberto (Demons), 1977’s Shock is an effective creepfest. Bava has given horror fans everything from classic gothic tales to beautifully vivid Giallo thrillers, but this time he delivers a modern family plagued by a haunted house.

Years after the suicide of her first husband and a stay in a sanitarium, fragile Dora moves back into her abandoned home with son Marco and new husband Bruno. Immediately after settling in, Marco begins to act like Satan in short pants. Is he just a little asshole, or is the seven year old possessed by his mad ghost daddy, Carlo?

The answer is, for the most part, possession, but don’t expect pea soup and naughty language. Marco doesn’t just terrorize his mother with disobedience and temper tantrums; he actually begins to make sexual advances on her: watching Dora shower, stealing her underpants, and stroking her face while she sleeps. Marco even commences to thrust on top of his mother during an innocent bout of horseplay. These scenes are executed tastefully while still making the viewer extremely uncomfortable with Marco’s behavior.

Bruno, normally away from his family because of his job as a pilot, assures Dora that Marco is simply adjusting to the new surroundings. Little does he know that Marco has it out for him as well, slicing up a photo of Bruno and using it as a makeshift voodoo doll. Things come to a tragic end when Carlo’s ghost powers drive Dora completely insane, leading to the revelation of family secrets and grisly murder.

Shock works because it focuses on Dora’s mental state instead of the usual ghost clichés: whether or not it is the house or Dora’s mind that is haunted is arguably left up to the viewer. With the exception of Marco’s weirdo antics and a few moving objects, all of the supernatural events happen only to Dora. In the end, it is Dora, not Carlo’s ghost, that destroys her family, although being haunted by a pissed off ex could make anyone go off the deep end. Even Marco’s sexualized behavior to his mother could be somewhat explained: as Bruno and Dora make love on the couch, the camera looms over them, giving the impression that someone is watching them. Marco could have just been imitating what he witnessed Bruno doing to his mother, not understanding what it was. Had Marco’s possessed behavior witnessed only by the viewer had been excised, Shock could have been a film about a mentally unhinged woman only believing she was being haunted. That would have been more interesting, but Shock is still a decent thriller and will most likely please fans of both Italian horror and disturbed kiddy flicks, and who doesn't enjoy those?


Nightmare Fuel: I won't ruin the scene for you. It is astoundingly creepy. I rewound the scene several times because it just floored me. Such a simple yet effective scare.

More films by the amazing Mario Bava: