Joss Whedon To Kill Your Puppy

After a long week of trying to find your grandmother's heirloom--the one that would permanently close the portal of hell that opened up because your ex-lover turned robot opened it with his dreams--only to discover your grandmother wasn't really your grandmother, but in fact your mother, news is coming in that Joss Whedon is going to kill your puppy.

"I know it's been a hard year for you," Whedon said. "After the government took away your memory, and when you got it back you found out it was a little too late because you ended up shooting your sister in the back with a harpoon gun. And I know that week-long period where you were stuck in a coma dream world where things moved backwards and all your sexual frustrations manifested themselves in the form of Lust Monsters couldn't have been a walk in the park. But I think it's just time to kill your puppy."

"I have nothing against puppies," Whedon said at a press conference. "I just need to kill this one off to give your overall arc more depth."

As you will recall, your puppy, named Captain Snackems, was recently rescued by you from an evil pound that was selling puppy tears on the black market. You bonded very quickly with the puppy, and the bond grew even stronger when you discovered that you and the puppy shared a mental link, and could read each others thoughts. 

Also, you just got over a very recent scare where the puppy was stolen back by the evil pound owner, who was actually a witch. Luckily you got there in time to cut the head off of the witch and catch the puppy before it fell into a boiling cauldron. 

"You saved me," the puppy told you through mind-speach. "I will always love you."

"I'll always love you too," you told the puppy. "And whenever you get lost, I'll always find you."

"Yeah, it's about time to kill the puppy," Whedon recently reiterated, and went off to his laptop to go about ruining your life.

Bag of tricks? BAG OF KNIVES!

Drew this based off of the Toone Up toy. Willow is PISSED.

Your Punishment Must Be More Severe

Shit I'd Like Movies to Stop Doing

Movies! Who doesn't love them? "No one" is the answer. But the fact of the matter is about 5000 movies come out a year (citation needed) and only about four of them are good--and they're usually directed by Christopher Nolan.

I myself am a movie junkie. There's many a time where I'll melt a DVD or Blu Ray down on a giant spoon, and inject the liquid goop into my veins. Mmm, the warmth of it all.

So it is with my keen and observant knowledge of all things film that I would like to present a list of SHIT I'D LIKE MOVIES TO STOP DOING, counting down from 5 to 1.

5. People falling down/getting hit in the balls/getting hurt in comedy movie trailers.

Now, don't get me wrong. People falling down is funny. If I'm in the subway and I see an old man fall onto the tracks, I let off a good chortle or two. But nothing turns me off of a comedy movie more than a scene in a trailer where a character falls/gets hit in the junk. 

Think about it, this is in nearly EVERY comedy movie trailer ever. It's not so much the act that bothers me, it's the cartoony sound-effects that accompany it, followed sometimes by whatever pop song is playing to suddenly stop, sometimes with a fake record scratch--as if someone was playing some Passion Pit records and suddenly pulled the needle off and said "HOLY SHIT THAT GUY JUST FELL DOWN!"

A recent example was featured in the trailer for The Five-Year Engagement, which I didn't see despite the fact that it features such lovely ladies as Emily Blunt and Alison Brie. In the trailer, Emily Blunt's character spots some little girl holding a crossbow. 

"AREN'T YOU THE CUTEST THING!" says Emily Blunt.

"I'M KATNISS!" says the stupid little girl, referencing the Hunger Games because that's popular with all the kids these days. Then she shoots Emily Blunt in the leg and Emily Blunt almost screams a curse word, but it cuts away real fast. Ha Ha Ha--KILL ME.

I'M PRECOCIOUS! 

Let's Encyclopedia Brown this shit for a moment: first of all, who the fuck sees a child holding a LOADED CROSSBOW and says "HOW CUTE!" Christ, children are monsters. If a child is holding a bottle of shampoo there's a 98 % chance that child will turn that thing into a weapon. So right away, Emily Blunt finding this "cute" stretches logic into the Twilight Zone. Not to mention the stupid pop-culture reference to the Hunger Games, and then the age-old comedy trailer favorite: a character gets hurt and is about to curse and we cut away. "MOTHER FU--" ::in theaters July 2d!!:: 

Terrible.

4. Really bad CGI. 

We are in the 21st century, the age of rocket cars and robot maids. And yet movies continue to feature really shitty CGI effects.

Remember Jurassic Park? That movie came out in 1993, and it has better CGI in it than movies today. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Granted, not every movie has a Spielberg-sized budget. But the solution for that is: if you don't have the money for convincing CGI, don't put a fully CGI character in your movie.

But you know what movie DID have a Spielberg-sized budget? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--because he directed that.

And Christ that had some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. I'm looking at you, CARTOON GOPHER that opens the movie:

C'mon, this is blatantly a fucking CARTOON. 

Another good recent example is Wrath of the Titans, that movie no one saw. Here's a pic of the Cyclops from that movie:

Beware the Walking Penis Man!

LOOK AT THAT THING. HOLY CRAP. 

3. American Remakes of Recent Foreign Films

The Raid recently came out here in STATES. It was a pretty fun movie, full of people beating the shit out of each other. And already they want to remake it for "America." Why? Sure, the Raid is subtitled, but no one is going to see the Raid for the dialog. They want to see foreign people kick each other in the skull. And the reason the fighting in The Raid is so good is because pretty much everyone in that movie is a real martial artist/stunt man.

An American remake will cast some bland actor and use a stunt-double for all his fight scenes. WHY BOTHER?

Perhaps the most egregious recent example of this trend is the remake of Let the Right One In, called LET ME IN. 

Let the Right One In is a near-perfect movie (except for that scene with the awful CGI cats--hey, bad CGI again!). It's a beautiful, heart-felt movie that pumps new blood into the horribly anemic vampire genre. 

Remember this scene? Let's do it again! Only more yellow!

So what do we do?? Remake it! Now--there was room here for something good. For one thing, the original movie was based on the book, and the book has a LOT of stuff in it that the movie doesn't. Filmmaker Matt Reeves had an opportunity to do a more faithful adaptation of the book and make something different. Instead he just did a shot-for-shot remake and added some dumb subplot about a cop looking for Satanists. Thanks, America! 

2. Passing the Torch / Movies skewed towards "younger audiences."

Now, I get it. Movie studios want to make money, and who goes to the movies the most? Dumb kids. So studios have gotten into this mode where most films are skewed towards youth. Have you ever noticed how a lot of movies these days feature casts made up of people who look 19 years old? 

Personally, I call foul on this. When I was a kid, I loved movies that featured ADULTS. Yeah, I liked some movies that had kids, like the Monster Squad. But when I was a kid, I didnt want to BE a kid. I wanted to be an ADULT (note to young me: you're an idiot). So I'd rather watch movies about adults doing adult things--things I could only dream of doing, like shooting people in the face.

Lumped into this is the "passing the torch" idea that has been infecting older franchises. 

Die Hard 4, aka LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, sucked ass. It had a lot of things wrong with it--especially that PG-13 rating. But one of the worst mistakes it made was trying to appeal to a "younger audience" by giving John McClane a kid-sidekick, played by that guy from Jeepers Creepers. And they're doing it AGAIN with Die Hard 5, which is currently filming and features McClane teaming up with his SON.

I LOVED Die Hard movies when I was younger, and I sure as shit didn't want Bruce Willis running around with some kid. I wanted to see him covered in blood, shooting people and making jokes.

Another example is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Again, there was a lot wrong with the film (terrible CGI included!). But high on the list of wrongs was adding Indy's son MUTT WILLIAMS. There were several interviews before the film came out where professional moron George Lucas said he could easily see the Indy franchise continuing with MUTT in the lead. NO ONE WANTS TO FUCKING SEE THAT. NO ONE.

"People are going to LOVE that scene where you swing through the trees with some cartoon monkeys!"

Bill Murray caught a lot of flack for refusing to do Ghostbuster 3. Not from me though--I applaud the man. Because do you know what the plot of Ghostbusters 3 was going to be? It was going to be the Ghostbusters training a bunch of new, young Ghostbusters. NO ONE WANTS TO FUCKING SEE THAT EITHER. Do you know why people like the ghostbusters movies? IT'S BECAUSE OF THE GHOSTBUSTERS. They like the original cast, they don't want fucking, Jonah Hill strapping on a proton pack. That's stupid.

I would rather watch a movie with the four original guys, all fucking fat and gross and old, than watch some dumb-ass movie where they train young, hip new ghostbusters.

1. BASED ON A TRUE STORY horror movies.

This is an age-old ploy. I mean, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre did it for crying out loud. But back then, that was a fresh and cool thing to do. "Oh my god, this movie about a cannibal chainsaw family REALLY HAPPENED!" (it didn't.)

These days, however, every other dumb horror movie that comes out gets slapped with a BASED ON A TRUE STORY or INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS. I'm not talking about found-footage movies either.

Recently, The Silent House (which, hey, was an American remake of a recent foreign film! there's a pattern here!) featured INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS in both the trailer and on the poster. NO IT WASN'T. STOP LYING. Unless you mean at some point, somewhere, in history, some woman was in a house, then yes I guess it is based on true events.

INSPIRED BY TOTAL BULLSHIT.

The Mothman Prophecies is another example. I like that movie, and yes, a lot of the stuff that happened in it was inspired by a true story. But it was also so far removed from what "really" happened that it's just pointless to even put that tag in there. But again, I guess people think that sells tickets. 

Which reminds me, did you know this blog post is BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS?????????????????????????????????????

Review: "Melancholia" and the Infinite Sadness

"Life is only on Earth. And not for long."

--Justine

Lars von Trier is not an "in-between" director. You will either end up loving his films, or hating them to death. No one has ever finished a Lars von Trier film and said "Hmm, that was okay." You either say "Wow! That was something special!" or "Holy fucking SHIT, what a piece of SHIT film. If I ever meet that guy on the street, I will punch him the throat and then step on BOTH of his feet."

His previous film, "Anti-Christ", is a perfect example of this. If you haven't seen it, I'll sum it up briefly: It's fucking batshit insane. 

Okay, I guess there's more to it than that. But I won't go too much into that film. All you need to know is one of the very first shots of the film involves an extreme close up of a penis penetrating a vagina in a shower, and one of the last scenes of the film involves an extreme close up of a woman performing genital mutilation on herself. Right now you might be saying "Oh my god, I will never see that movie." 

Fair enough. But don't let that scare you away from "Melancholia", von Trier's latest opus to misery. 

After "Anti-Christ", I was expecting this film to be FAR more crazy and extreme. It wasn't. In fact, by von Trier standards, this movie is actually pretty tame. Well, tame for him at least--since it is about the literal end of the world.

And, as you can probably guess from the title, it is also about depression. 

I myself suffer from depression, and I can honestly say this film contains probably the most accurate portrayals of the infliction I've ever seen. 

Depression is hard to pin-down. If you try to explain it to someone who has--miraculously--never really suffered from it, they don't quite grasp it.

"Well, cheer up!" they might say. "Things aren't THAT bad!"

That's not the kind of depression we're talking about here. This isn't the type of depression you get when you lose your car keys, or your favorite sports team loses, or your burn the meatloaf. This is the type of depression that creeps up on you, slowly, like a thief in the night. It comes from no where. And it can be brought on by nothing. 

There doesn't have to be a trigger; no underlying, horrible even to set you off. One minute you are perfectly fine, and then the next minute, you feel as if the very sky itself is pressing down on the top of your head, and the simple act of moving your body is near impossible.

Von Trier understands this--he suffers from depression himself--and that is why he is so successful at capturing the malady. 

The depression in "Melancholia" presents itself in the character of Justine, played by Kirsten Dunst. I've never been a big fan of Ms. Dunst; she always strikes me as if she's, well, "acting." She always seems in on the fact that she is playing a character, and she seems even smug about it. 

None of that happens here. This is, without a doubt, her finest performance to date. Yes, even better than "Bring it On" and "Small Soldiers"...ahem...

The first half of the film involves Justine's wedding day to Michael, played by Alexander Skarsgard, who I am told is on the show "True Blood", or as I like to call it, "Porn for Women."

The wedding is nothing short of extravagant, being held at a huge mansion that belongs to Justine's sister Claire (the always fantastic Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Jack Bauer himself, Kiefer Sutherland). 

By all accounts, this should be one of the happiest days of Justine's life. And when we first meet her, it really does seem as if she is having a wonderful time; and she really does seem to love Michael.

All that slowly changes. Justine notices a red light high up in the sky before entering the wedding party, and begins to fall apart. Her mother Gaby (played with delicious spitefulness by Charlotte Rampling) is clearly not happy to be there, and gives a mean, devastating toast.  Her father (the seemingly constantly drunk John Hurt) seems oblivious, and apparently has three girlfriends.  Claire tries desperately to keep the wedding running smoothly (along with the wedding planner, played by Udo Kier in a scene-stelling, brief role). 

But Justine is disintegrating before our eyes. She loses all interest in the wedding, and, before the night is over, she loses all interest in her new husband--who leaves with his parents, seemingly ending the marriage just as it began.

This part of the film is all set up. It's introducing us to the characters (most of whom aren't even in the rest of the movie), and it's showing us just what kind of person Justine is. At a casual glance, one could make the assumption that she is just a total bitch. Maybe on some level that is true, but there is more beneath the surface. There is an underlining, uncontrollable sadness that she tries--unsuccessfully--to stave off. 

The second half of the film focuses more on Gainsbourg's Claire, and this is the real meat of the story.

We learn that a planet named Melancholia (who the hell would name a planet that?) has been discovered, and is heading on a possible collision course with Earth. 

Claire is very worried, but her husband John and her son Leo seem thrilled. John assures Claire that Melancholia will NOT hit Earth; it'll fly by, and all will be well.

Along with the danger of the arrival of Melancholia comes the danger of the arrival of Justine, who comes to live with Claire and John. The first few days she's there, she is near catatonic. Her depression has overwhelmed her so much that she can't even get out of bed, and when Claire tries to give her a bath, she collapses on the floor, sobbing.

The closer Melancholia gets, however, the more lively Justine becomes. 

In one particularly eerie scene, Claire catches Justine laying nude in the woods, bathing in the spooky blue light of Melancholia as it approaches.

Immanent doom is all but certain. Justine is positive that Melancholia WILL hit Earth, and she's perfectly fine with that.

Eventually the story whittles the characters down to Justine, Claire and Claire's son Leo, the three of them representing three different viewpoints of impending doom.

Claire represents the fearful viewpoint; Justine represents acceptance; and the boy Leo represents a sort of blind faith that no matter what, everything is going to be okay. The last shot of the film involves these three characters sitting in a circle--Claire sobbing, Justine calm, and Leo with his eyes closed, smiling and feeling secure.

This is not a movie for everyone. As you can tell from the title alone, this isn't the feel-good movie of the year.

But "Melancholia"--like the planet that bares its namesake--is hauntingly beautiful. It's one of von Trier's most accessible works--despite it's slow-pace and doom and gloom subject matter. The performances are beyond stellar. As mentioned before, Dunst does her finest work ever here. Charlotte Gainsbourg is always good, so it's no surprise that she's fantastic as Claire; she is essentially the most "feeling" character in the whole film. Kiefer Sutherland is very good too; it's nice to see him play this kind of role for a change, and prove that he is still a pretty good actor, even when he's not roaming the night with his gang of 80's teen vampires.

You will not leave the theater feeling happy, but you will leave the theater feeling SOMETHING. And for people with depression, feeling something--ANYTHING; good OR bad--is sometimes better than nothing at all.

In Print

My first story in an actual print lit journal--Barbaric Yawp.

The Coffin

Two days shy of her sixteenth birthday, Mae caught the fever. It had been spreading through Hawthorne County faster than a brush fire, and everyone—especially people like Mae’s family, who were poor farm folk and could not afford the best medicines—was terrified.

Mae, being a bit too headstrong for her own good, had laughed at her Pa’s over-protectiveness.

“I’ll be fine!” she had insisted. But one night the fever walloped her like a horse kick to the head, and she was in such pain that even crying for help sent terrible agony shooting through her body. Her limbs ached and burned, and she was so hot to the touch that you’d near scald yourself if you felt her forehead.

Pa sent for Dr. Crawford, but the doctor lived almost twenty miles away from the farm. Mae was delirious—she insisted she saw shadowy figures in the bedroom, and once she swore she heard her mother singing to her, even though her mother had been dead for almost five years.

Pa wept at Mae’s bedside, and begged her to fight—to not leave him. Mae had tried to smile, to reassure him, but her pain was too intense, and she lost consciousness. Strange fever dreams took hold of her; dreams filled with slithering things from the darkness, and horrible blood-streaked faces with screaming mouths.

Mae awoke with a start, and an overwhelming feeling of confusion took hold of her. She no longer felt sick; in fact she felt better than she had in her whole life—rejuvenated. And while she was positive she had opened her eyes, she saw nothing—total darkness. Even when all the lamps in the house had been blown out, there was always a little light somewhere—from the moonlight shining in. But this was total, impenetrable darkness.

I’ve gone blind! she thought with sickening panic. The fever has made me blind!

She was laying flat on her back, and she quickly tried to sit up, and only banged her head against something solid above her. Mae cried out in pain, clutching her forehead and moaning. Confused, she reached her hands up into the darkness and felt rough, solid wood a few inches above her. Her heart began racing in confusion and fear. She reached down and felt her own clothing, and could tell from the material she was wearing her finest dress—the dress she only wore to church, or on those rare occasion when Pa would take the horse and cart into town.

The realization came screaming through her body: she was in a coffin. She had been buried—alive!

“NO!” Mae screamed, and began pounding on the lid of her coffin. She beat at it with her fists until her hands went numb. “Somebody help! I’m not dead! I’M NOT DEAD!”

She began to cry and hyperventilate. How long could she last like this—buried six feet beneath the earth? Already she could feel the air growing thick, and her lungs were struggling to take it all in.

“PLEASE!” Mae sobbed, kicking at the coffin lid now. “Please, somebody! I’m still alive!”

Mae paused, because she heard a sound, and it was like sweet music to her ears: digging. Someone above was digging into the grave. She was saved! They had realized their mistake, and were rushing to dig her up!

“Yes!” Mae cried with joy. “I’m here! Please, hurry!”

The digging sound increased. She heard the dirt being shifted; heard the sounds getting closer and closer.

Mae closed her eyes, smiling and weeping, relieved that she was going to be rescued from her premature burial. There were scraping sounds at the coffin lid now—the shovel was inches away!

“Oh, thank you, God!” Mae cried. A splintering, cracking sound followed her words—the coffin lid was being broken open. And it was then that her relief began to turn back into panic. No light was flooding into the coffin; neither from moon or sun. If the lid had been broken open, surely some sort of light would be coming in. And the air wasn’t changing either—there was no blast of fresh air; only the stale air scented with wet earth.

Mae tried to say something, and then let out a scream. She felt something crawling on her body. In fact, she felt several things crawling over her. A wisp of matted, dirty hair brushed against the bare skin of her hand, and Mae began to shriek in terror as she realized who her “rescuers” were: rats had found her coffin, and were ready to feast.

Witch Brains: A Romance

The cat was in love with the servant girl.

Of course, he hadn’t always been a cat. He had once been a boy named Edward, on the cusp of 16, full of hope for his life, working in his father’s cobbler shop. Then as misfortune would have it, the boy had come across a witch’s cabin in the deep dark forest, and the Witch had turned him into a sleek black cat. This was bad enough, but to add insult to injury, he could not leave her cabin. The spell held him captive within the crumbling walls.

The Witch was a terrible old crone, with two glass eyes and a mouth full of rusty nails. She had feathers coming out of the back of her head, giant spiders for hands, and what little hair she had on her tiny head was comprised of squirming maggots.

But the Witch also had a servant girl under her spell. The girl was beautiful; fair haired and fair skinned, with eyes that shimmered like reflecting pools. All day and all night she did back-breaking chores for the Witch. And the cat who was once a boy named Edward would sit perched atop a book-shelf made up entirely of femur bones, and watch her—and his heart would swoon.

The girl never spoke; this was part of her enchantment—or so said the tea kettle, who had once been a tax collector named Brutus.

“If only I could get away from here,” Edward sighed.  “And take her with me.”

“It’s hopeless, lad,” said the tea kettle.

“He’s right,” agreed the taxidermy boar’s head that was mounted on the wall. “Best not to think of such things.”

One fall evening, a wagon came cluttering through the woods, and out of the wagon stepped a particularly ridiculous looking man. He stroked his huge beard and demanded an audience with the owner of the cabin.

The Witch came out, her broom in hand, her glass eyes gleaming. Edward slunk along the ground and peeked his head out to watch.

“I am a salesman,” the man said in a bawdy, theatrical voice. “Specializing in potions and tonics. Would you care to see my wares?”

“I would not,” the Witch barked. “Get away from my property, lest I turn you into a field mouse.”

The ridiculous man laughed. “You think too highly of your powers, woman.”

The Witch pointed her broom at the man and spoke words in her own dead, guttural language. A bolt of lightning exploded from the handle of the broom and struck the man dead-center, but the man didn’t flinch. He rolled his eyes.

“You may have your magics, Witch,” he said. “But mine are made of stronger stuff.”

The Witch snorted and spat on the ground, and her glob of black phlegm turned into a hoard of cockroaches that scattered into the brush.

“Be gone with you,” the Witch said, and stomped back into her cabin. She disappeared into a back room, cursing the man.

Edward hopped up onto a windowsill and called to the man. The man approached.

“What can I do for you, talking cat?” the man asked, lighting a humongous pipe. The smoke that rose out of the pipe took on the shape of a crow, and flapped it’s smoky wings and flew away into the autumn wind.

“I’m not really a cat,” Edward said. “I was once a boy; the Witch put a spell on me! Can you help me break it?”

“Sorry, lad,” the ridiculous looking man said. “I’m afraid the only way to break a witch’s enchantment is to kill the witch, and eat her brains.”

Edward stuck out his cat-tongue in disgust.

“It’s the only way, young master,” the man said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off. I have potions to sell.”

The man climbed onto his wagon, gave the horse reigns and tug, and was gone.

The thought of killing the Witch was not an all together unpleasant thought to Edward—but eating her brains? But in his once-human heart he knew that it would be worth it if it meant breaking his spell--and the spell of the servant girl. They could go away together--far far away from this place. And maybe she could love him.

But there was the problem of how he would kill the Witch. He was only a cat, after all. The most he could do is give her a few scratches and bites before she kicked him across the room.

Then an idea came to him. He crawled down into the basement, where the beautiful servant girl was asleep in her giant cage. Edward called to her, waking her. She looked at him with her beautiful eyes.

“I know you can not speak, but you can listen,” Edward said. “I know a way we can break our enchantments.”  And he told her all the gory details.

The next day, the Witch ordered the beautiful servant girl to go out and chop some wood, for the nights were getting colder. Now was their chance—instead of chopping the wood, the servant girl took the ax and in one fell swoop lopped the witch’s head clean off. It struck the floor and rolled into a wall. The glass eyes in the head shattered into shards, and the witch’s black-colored blood oozed out in a viscous puddle.

“Quickly!” Edward cried. “The brains!”

The servant girl took a cleaver and hacked the top of the witch’s head open, spilling her runny green brains. Edward hopped down from his perch and gagged. The brains smelled awful, but he knew it was the only way. He gobbled up a good portion of them, trying hard not to vomit at their taste—which was a little like moldy bread mixed with whale blubber.

His cat body began to shake and shiver, and in an instant he was returned to his true, human form.

“It worked!” he cried. “You next!”

The servant girl hesitated.

“I know it’s disgusting, but it’s the only way!” Edward said, wiping brain-residue off his lips.

The servant girl picked up a handful of the brains and began to eat them. Edward smiled, eager to have the spell broken so he could finally hear her voice. He imagined it would sound as sweet and pretty as she looked.

The servant girl began to shake. There was a blinding flash of light, which caused Edward to shield his eyes for a moment. When he looked back, he let out an anguished cry. The servant girl had been transformed into a large, gray, filthy rat—its tail cut down to a nub and its mouth foaming.

Which is what she had always been before the Witch enchanted her.

It's time! It's time!

Watch the Magic Pumpkin! Watch!





Happy Halloween, everyone.

Getting married today.

Cause I can thrill you more than any ghoul would dare to try

Darkness falls across the land

The midnite hour is close at hand

Creatures crawl in search of blood

To terrorize y'awl's neighborhood

And whosoever shall be found

Without the soul for getting down

Must stand and face the hounds of hell

And rot inside a corpse's shell

The foulest stench is in the air

The funk of forty thousand years

And grizzly ghouls from every tomb

Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive

Your body starts to shiver

For no mere mortal can resist

The evil of the thriller

Horror Movie Countdown to Halloween: Lost Highway

In honor of Halloween Week, I am listing some of my favorite creep-o movies. I tried not to pick the obvious choices to add a little diversity from all the other Halloween movie lists...

Lost Highway

David Lynch’s Lost Highway is something of a test-run for his film Mulholland Drive; they both explore similar, nightmare-ish themes and storylines involving duel identities. But there’s something infinitely more disturbing and creepy about Lost Highway.

Lynch later said he realized that when he was writing the film he was subconsciously channeling the O.J. Simpson murders/trial, and that’s one way to look at things: shocking murders involving “famous” people and the mysteries behind them.

Bill Pullman, here at his Bill Pullmaniest, plays a noise-jazz musician named Fred Madison. He’s married to Renee, played by Patricia Arquette, who seems like she’s on tranquilizers during the whole film. They live in a very creepy, very modernistic house (which is actually David Lynch’s own house) with few windows and really deep, dark corners.  One day, they find a videotape on their doorstep. They watch it, and it reveals that someone has been filming their house. They think nothing of this at first—until more tapes show up, showing that whoever is filming their house is also going IN their house, and filming them while they sleep.

This is creepy enough already, but Lynch piles on their creepiness as Fred and Renee go to a party and Fred encounters the character known as The Mystery Man, played by Robert  Blake who later in real-life had his own very public O.J. Simpson-like murder trial. Blake is delightfully disturbing in the role, and his pale-white make-up aids in this. After a great/scary scene where the Mystery Man hands Fred a giant old cell phone and tells him to call his own house, where the Mystery Man ANSWERS the phone and then the one at the party and the one at the house laugh in stereo, things REALLY start going downhill for Fred, because Renee turns up dead and Fred is convicted of her murder.

 He has no memory of the murder,  but all that is moot anyway because one night Fred morphs into rebel teen Pete Dayton, played (terribly) by Balthazar Getty.

From here we try to figure out what the FUCK is going on, as Pete, formerly Fred, gets out of jail and starts having an affair with a woman named Alice, also played by Arquette. The Mystery Man pops up some more, and Robert Loggia steals nearly the whole film as whacked-out mobster Mr. Eddy—who , in keeping with the duel personality angle—might also be someone named Dick Laurent—who we are told at the beginning of the movie is dead.

Lost Highway doesn’t really make a lick of sense. Sure, you can try to figure things out, and probably get pretty close to solving the puzzle—but it doesn’t matter. The fact that things are so strange, and so out-of-left field aid in making the movie extra, extra creepy. It’s not really considered one, but this is a straight-up horror movie. Almost every scene drips with weird, sleazy menace. None of the characters seem to have souls, and also Gary Busey is in this movie, so that right there is a sign of how fucked-up things are.

Horror Movie Countdown to Halloween: Lake Mungo

In honor of Halloween Week, I am listing some of my favorite creep-o movies. I tried not to pick the obvious choices to add a little diversity from all the other Halloween movie lists...

Lake Mungo

When was the last time a horror movie made you feel something; not just yell out in shock, or cringe in grossness, or roll your eyes at how fucking stupid the movie was--I'm talking about actually feeling something real.

Lake Mungo is that type of horror movie.

I suppose the term "horror movie" could be used loosely to describe Lake Mungo; this isn't a movie that is trying to terrify you or make you jump in your seat. This is a movie that is a surprisingly touching, heartfelt exploration on the horror of grief and loss. But there's more to it than that.

Let's get this out of the way first: Yes, this is a "found footage" or "mockumentary" type horror movie. Like them or not, they are here to stay. Just this past weekend Paranormal Activity 3 made 1 Bajillion Trillion Dollars (sources needed), so found footage movies aren't going away any time soon.

But please, if you are one of those people who says "UGH, i hate those type of movies! Blair Witch and shit!", I implore you to give this movie a chance.

Lake Mungo takes place in Australia, and is about the death of Alice Palmer and the mysteries that surround her life, death...and after-life.

Alice is a happy seeming 16 year old who goes on a swimming trip with her family one day, and drowns. We're never told exactly how she drowned, because her family doesn't know. She was there one moment, and then the next, she was gone.

As is to be expected, the Palmer family is devastated. Mother June actually begins taking long walks late at night and breaking into people's houses. Father Russell internalizes everything and doesn't show emotion, and Alice's teenage brother Mathew begins experimenting with video-making. And it's through Mathew's new-found obsessive hobby that the family begins to suspect that while Alice may be dead, she might not be gone.

To tell you more would spoil things. What you might think is  going to be a simple ghost story turns into an expose on the nature of keeping secrets. As one of Alice's friends says during an interview, "Alice kept secrets. She kept the fact that she kept secrets a secret."  

I was raised on horror movies. At a young age I was watching movies that, quite frankly, I probably shouldn't have been watching. I suppose my 20+ years of horror film watching has numbed me a bit to being scared.

This movie scared me.

Lake Mungo seeps under your skin. It's like a cold draft in your house that slowly begins to increase to the point where it chills the very marrow of your bones. An overwhelming feeling of dread accompanies the film, and also sadness.

The more time we spend with the Palmer family, the more we like them. The performances in this movie are fantastic, because no one here seems like an actor. They all seem like real people--and they also seem like a real family.

As the film slowly unravels the details of Alice's life, I actually found myself feeling sad that she died so young. Then I had to remind myself that there is no Alice, it was just an actress playing a part. But the movie sucks you in, and you begin to forget that this is all fiction.

I can not stress this enough: If you like horror movies, and are longing for a break from terrible, generic bullshit, WATCH THIS MOVIE. It's on Netflix Instant RIGHT NOW, so if you have Netflix GO WATCH IT. 

And keep watching during the end credits--the images revealed during them will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in fear.