Shunned House

2011-10-15T02:24:00.001-06:00

Hey...you like the new album? that's cool. fuck you motherfucker.

Evil Dead 4, no more.

2011-07-14T18:49:00.003-06:00

So this news just came down the pipeline at Dreadcentral.com....

http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/45566/breaking-exclusive-new-evil-dead-film-actually-gearing-production

It seems that there actually is a remake of Evil Dead getting fast tracked by Ghost House pictures (Owned by Sam Raimi).

Some annoying news that is.
First there's just the annoyance at a remake of such a landmark movie. Imagine if citizen kane got remade, film nerds and wannabe film nerds would be up in arms, and the general public wouldn't give a shit and it would make a bajillion dollars.

Evil Dead getting remade potentially has the same effect. Horror nerds and wannabe horror nerds act all butt hurt over it, and the 14 year old twilight and saw crowd flock to the theatre to watch the younger better looking ash stumble through some aborted script viewed through that fucking awful looking blue tinged lens that every horror remake seems to get put through.

Now there is a part of me that wants to be excited for this. Its Evil Dead after all, i have a tattoo from the dvd art of evil dead 2, my all time favorite movie.

the witch in the cellar at the bottom

I prefer to take the high road in instances of remakes, giving them the benefit of the doubt and being cautiously optimistic. And in this case I'm sure I'll come around....eventually.

The problem I have with this news has nothing to do with some fanboy sense of duty to protect my sacred cow. No my friends. I'm in mourning.

See, the thing that most people who lose their shit over pointless remakes forget is that every copy of the original film isn't destroyed when it comes out. But in this case, a movie is getting destroyed. That movie is Evil Dead 4.

How in the fuck are Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell ever going to get up the gumption to write direct and star in a new evil dead movie when some fucking re-imagining is getting all this time and money dumped into it? How the fuck is anyone under the age of 25 going to be able to figure out what the fuck is going on at the movie theatre when Evil Dead 4 comes out shortly after Evil Dead comes out, and there's this b-movie star pushing 60 cracking one liners about fighting demons?

Dread Central wrote about the remake like it was some sort of good news, but I just really can't see anything to get excited about. Not yet. Not while I'm still mourning the death of what could have been a magical moment for me and the countless other Evil Dead fans not old enough to get to experience a new Evil Dead movie for the first time on the big screen. It could have been (pardon the word) epic! It would have been Ghostbusters 3 and Bill and Ted 3 epic! Rad part 2 Epic! fucking goonies 2 epic! but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

what a fucking bummer.

Yearly reasons (excuses) for not writting. 2011 edition.

2011-06-13T19:32:00.003-06:00

So....It's been awhile.

I assure you I've been very busy doing lots of very important things. ( that in no way should have prohibited me from writing )

Change the first...

1) Finishing journalism school.

So i fucking graduated college. I missed the ceremony but I got the handsome little leather folder with a piece of paper telling me how i finally finished something i started. It felt pretty good for awhile there. I was even pretending to be a working writer in my parents basement, editing interviews with some of my heroes (Lemmy) for a western Canadian rag known as Absolute Underground. I even wrote some stuff for them, the last thing being an interview with Electric Wizard front man Jus Oborn. I was later informed after posting the audio of the interview on a certain message board that i came off as sounding scared of him. Something to work on i guess, unfortunately that is the last interview I've conducted. Which brings me to a big ole stinky excuse/change over the past year....

2) Getting another full time job/ quitting the comic store.

So i fucking graduate and then i get right back into the Alberta work force, helping pump the lifesblood from the sticky tar sands by working in a local pipe yard. They were good to me for hiring me back within 3 days of phoning about a job. Upon reflection of the past year i just got overwhelmed with the amount of time i spent in that place. It was a set up warehouse that i helped set up the previous summer, and which i then spent the fall and winter tearing down, leaving me to work outside in the freezing prairie cold. It was a horseshit situation, but the pay was enough above a low rent journalist in rural Alberta/ part time comic store employee that i rationalized it as the right move. In hindsight I'm not so sure. The experience was entirely draining and left me sinking into a deep depression that the bitterly overlong cold season and lack of sunlight only added to. But i did manage to keep writing for awhile through it. And there was a goal to work towards, which brings us to change the third....

3) Moving out of my parents basement/ Moving in with Sarah, my beautiful bride to be.

This was the biggest change over the past year. Well, biggest change on the surface anyway. Moving taught me a little bit about myself. A) I have entirely too much shit B) We should have moved out years ago, finances be damned. Through all the drudgery of new found responsibility i feel, at the very least, not embarased to describe my living situation to people. "I live with my (then) girlfriend above a pub". Sounds so much better than "I live in a dank basement under my parents beautiful home". But through the drudgery of modern living i also appreciate so much more all the luxuries my parents afforded me throughout the years. It's also pretty life affirming to finally realize what i expected all along, I can survive in this world without my parents. I can also live quite happily with the love of my life, which brings us to big change number 4 (and the biggest most grandest change of my life...)

4) Getting fucking Married!

Yeah, i got married. Me and Sarah are married. I don't say girlfriend now, i say wife. She calls me her husband. It's insane. It's so awesome. I shrug it off when people ask if it feels any different or if my life's changed. I always tell them the same thing "Moving out with her was the big change". And partially that's right. We didn't live together for very long before we got married, and that would seem like a bigger change, not only logistically, but just for the fact that the most time we've spent together in a living situation would've been in Costa Rica on vacation. The truth though is that it has changed me. There was a huge perspective shift when we finally said our vows and signed the contract. The Marriage is real now, where as before it was this thing that was coming around the corner. It's good, real good. She's stuck with me now, and there's no turning back!

So that's it, to the both of you who have stopped reading this for a lack of updates, I'm sorry. Now that I'm settled in this new life and feeling antsy and itching to make something, I will hopefully start contributing to this thing on a regular basis again, finally.

April, Spring, Elm Street.

2010-04-05T23:14:00.005-06:00

So I've slacked off hard the last few weeks. Only updating with stuff i did for school. That's super lame, and I'm going to try to stop doing that.

Anyhoo, Sarah (my future wife) is pretty excited about a certain burn victim who is getting a makeover this month. No, it's not a new special episode of Maury, its the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street!
Yeah, I know what most jaded horror fans are muttering under their breathe about this one, and I'm right there with ya. No Robert Englund, Micheal Bay is involved, and with the last year's of stinkers (H2? bummer) people have reason to be wary of this re-vamp of a classic.

I'm still trying to be cautiously optimistic, not only because Sarah is so excited about it, (I'm trying this new thing where I don't always shit on her parade) but also because there is at least one example of a Micheal Bay produced remake that didn't annoy the fuck out of me. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though flawed and lacking the intensity of the original, was still a fun movie. Granted I was high, and I saw it for free, and that was around 7 years ago, so my memory is fuzzy on how good it really was. Still, maybe Rorschach's Freddy will be really cool. His make up looks like a genuine burn victim, so that's pretty creepy.

Anyway, the point of this post was to introduce the new feature around these parts for the month of April.

Me and Sarah are going to watch every Nightmare on Elm Street movie this month before we go see the remake. And I'm going to write about every single one, and try to register her reaction as well. I do that in the interest of getting someones genuine first reaction to these movies, since I've seen each one at least twice, and the first one is pretty deeply ingrained into my brain. We got through about half of the second one tonight before she kicked me out so she could get some sleep. God damn that movie sucks, but in such a watchable way.

ANNYYYWayyy, look forward to the first review sometime this week, and more to follow. And when it's all done I'll rank them in order from worst to best. And then a review of the remake!And Sarah's going to wear this costume all month till the movie comes out! Fuckin 'Eh bro!

Ninja Assassin

2010-03-23T01:03:00.005-06:00

So i haven't updated in awhile.

I got an internship with Absolute Underground Magazine, and Journalism school is getting wrapped up pretty soon, so lots of projects are happening all at once. Add in more hours at the comic store plus my fiance getting her wisdom teeth out (not to mention buying God of War 3) ; that all adds up to Ryan doesn't have so much time to watch/listen/review movies/music and things.

Just tonight I've been transcribing interviews sent up from SXSW that heavily feature one Lemmy Kilmeister. Who happens to mumble every second phrase he says. arhhghhehgh. I mean it's cool as fuck to get to work on anything involving Motorhead, but it's one in the a m, and I'm pretty fucking tired. And the deadline is Wednesday, so this shit HAS to get done. Almost finished, I'll edit it and format it tomorrow.

ANNYyywayy, enough excuses for being busy. Here is a review i wrote for Ninja Assassin. I rented this for a school assignment, where we could review anything we wanted, as long as it was a new release. This happened to be the most violent release last week, so i picked it up.

The review is a little dry, since it's meant for a mainstream newspaper. But i like to think it's still an honest appraisal of a bloody as fuck ninja movie. SOooo much cgi blood. It was like the frightners in colour.

Movie titles that offer a literal description of what to expect from them are a rarity these days, and most can be found in the glory days of the drive-in b-movie. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was literally about a massacre that took place in Texas, with a chainsaw. Night of the Living Dead was literally about a night when the dead came back to life, and more recently Snakes on a Plane was about a plane filled with pissed off snakes. That brings us to Ninja Assassin, which came out on DVD March 16^th.

Ninja Assassin is literally about ninja’s who assassinates people. They assassinate the living hell out of a lot of people. Gory over-the-top action takes a front seat right out of the gate. In the opening scene of the film a nameless Japanese gangster is getting a traditional tattoo, which means he is getting ink stabbed into his flesh by a stick with a needle on the end of it. The effect is unsettling as the unflinching camera closes in on the red ink mixing with the gangster’s blood. Ninja Assassin isn’t going to pull the camera away, not even for a minute. If there is blood to be seen, the audience is going to see it. The gangster is then told a story about the tattooist’s experience with scary unseen assassins who used their demonic powers to kill all of his comrades and left him with a large scar over his heart, luckily due to a strange birth defect his heart is on the right side of his chest, and he survived the horrifying attack. Naturally the pigheaded gang bangers laugh at the dumb old mans warning. As they guffaw and slap each other on the back, one of them gets his face cut in half. We get some awful (funny) bad acting from the lead gangster who pleads for his life while his entourage is brutally slaughtered all around him. Computer generated blood pops from their wounds in thick dark red explosions as throwing stars are lodged in the gun totting criminal’s chests. The unseen killer shows himself to the old man and swipes his ninja blade, splattering the title across the screen in dripping red letters. If you’re not on board after an opening like that, you won’t be on board for the rest of the film. All of the pay-off in this movie is paid in blood and guts.

After the gruesome opening we are introduced to Mika (Naomie Harris, Pirates of the Caribbean), a young good looking Europol agent who is obsessed with the existence of ninja’s in modern day Berlin. She follows a paper trail leading to a ninja clan all through the movie, much to the chagrin of her superior officer Maslow (Ben Miles, Speed Racer). These two carry out the task of convincing the audience that ninja’s could actually exist in the modern world. Surprisingly they don’t do a terrible job of it. Unfortunately their scenes have a tendency to drag the movie’s pace, and one finds themselves waiting for them to wrap it up to get on with the next gory ninja fight. Luckily the film tries to indulge its teenage audience as often as possible, with bloody battles sprinkled throughout.

The lead ninja is introduced doing his laundry at a laundry mat in Berlin, where he is confronted by a rival female ninja. After some stylish fighting involving bed sheets, the loser’s body parts are seen tumbling in a washing machine and it begins leaking loads of the red stuff. A quick jump cut to a ketchup dispenser reminds the audience to not get too horrified, and take the violence lightly. After all, this movie is called Ninja Assassin.

Raizo, played by South Korean pop star Rain (who was also in Speed Racer) retires back to his apartment, understandably famished after dismembering the girl at the laundry mat. The rest of the film is setting up the final battle, and inevitable meeting of Razio and Mika. Through constant flashbacks we learn that Razio was kidnapped at a young age by his ninja clan, and grew up in an inhumane ninja training school, where children are taught to devalue human life, and heal themselves super fast. The ninja powers in this movie are straight out of the pages of a comic book. This comes as little surprise upon finding out that J. Michael Straczynski (current writer of comic hero Thor) shares a writing credit. Naturally these ninjas have more in common with Wolverine than Kill Bill.

As the story progresses broad strokes are made to tie the ninja assassins to modern day Russian mafia dealings, and Mika gets caught up in red tape and a nasty internal affairs agent named Zabranksi starts breathing down her neck. If it sounds uninteresting, that’s because it is. The whole subplot of ninjas in the real world falls flat on its face due to the lengthy dialogue filled scenes delivered adequately, but without any real sense of the stakes or emotional connection to the characters. Where this movie is most at home is within the walls of the dojo that Raizo grew up in. We learn that he betrayed his ninja clan after his first bloody assassination (brutal, even for this movies standards) and he has been on the run from them ever since. He meets up with Mika and protects her from the ninja clan that has started threatening her, bringing them together to set the movie off on its climactic fury of ninja action and bloody violence.

This is a film for ninja fans exclusively. Action films this bloody are a bit of a niche market, and it sits in that niche comfortably, but its noticeable flaws will keep it from becoming a cult classic or must own for gory movie fans. The over the top violence is clearly the selling point of this movie, but unlike other gleefully stupid and gory movies in the genre (like Story of Ricky, or Kill Bill Vol. 1) it lacks the good humour and sense of fun that makes films like this so successful.

The DVD extras on display here are minimal and disappointing. All you get is 4 deleted scenes that add nothing to the film and were gladly cut out. A documentary on the making of, or at least a look behind the scenes of the make up and digital effects would have been a nice touch, considering the amount of acrobatics and gory set pieces. An upgrade to blu-ray feels unnecessary as the DVD transfer of this film is crystal clear, and any more clarity would probably only highlight flaws in the bloody effects.

Ninja Assassin delivers on its title. It’s got over the top action and gore by the bucket, but there is very little to entice a second viewing, so buying Ninja Assassin isn’t recommended. But if you want some cheap thrills with your friends on a beer soaked Friday night, you could do worse than renting Ninja Assassin.

Dawn of the Dead

2010-03-08T22:37:00.011-07:00

As you will soon find out from reading my mass communications class essay; Dawn of the Dead is serious business.

Dawn of the Dead is a horror film from 1979. It was originally released in 1978 to great success in Europe, but in a different cut than director George A. Romero’s original version. This was due to an MPAA battle that raged over the more controversial aspects of the movie. The MPAA is the ratings board for American film. They wanted to brand the movie with an X-rating due to it’s over the top extreme violence and (on speculation) it’s social satirical content that took on the values of consumerist America. Dawn of the Dead is a zombie film. In it the zombies are explicitly representing the consumer culture that was budding during the time of its release. The majority of the picture takes place in a brand new shopping center, where survivors of the zombie apocalypse take refuge. Long montage sequences of the walking dead strolling mindlessly through the various shops and facilities at a local shopping mall shake the viewer’s perspective on consumerism and the capitalist mechanizations that keep it fueled. Leaving one with its nihilistic brand burned into their brain.

But let’s back track to the beginning of the narrative. At the start of the film we are introduced to the female lead, Fran, who wakes from a nightmare into the chaos of a television station in crisis. The dead are rising up and eating people, and everyone is turning to local media outlets for information on what to do. In the films first of many dark turns, the head broadcaster insists on constantly displaying the rescue stations over the programming, even though they have all been overtaken by zombies. The man is so in tune with his job and its quest for ratings that he does not care if he is sending people to their death, as long as they don’t change the channel. Fran takes the list off the air, and is met with resistance from her boss. The film is siding with the libertarian idea of emphasis on the individual. She took matters into her own hands, and further does this later in the film when she abandons her job to get into a helicopter with her boyfriend and look for another place to wait out the catastrophe. Her defiance is portrayed as admirable, and she is rewarded for it when she survives longer than all but one other character in the film.

The other two main characters are introduced at a raid on a housing project where zombies are being kept alive by their fearful and confused relatives. Mistrusting government and its agencies has never been more justified than in the sequence that follows. A crazed SWAT member goes on a rampage shooting every person he sees while going on a racist rant. The two level headed members of the team subdue the maniac, and soon decide to abandon their posts as well and take off with the couple in their helicopter.

While the group is on the trip that ends at the mall, they encounter some rural redneck zombie hunters. The atmosphere is that of a carnival event, like a tail gate party to battle the living dead. People are drinking beer, and bragging about how many zombies they have shot in the head. This lines up well with the cynical Mass Society theory, holding that as long as you paint the apocalypse in a favorable light (and give people beer) the dumb audience will stay entertained.

Arriving at the mall, Steve (the helicopter pilot, and Fran’s boyfriend) reflects on the hoard of zombies gathering in and around the shopping center. “This was an important place in their lives,” he says. A message can’t be more explicitly delivered than that. So hilariously cynical that it is often met with laughter from an audience. As time passes inside the mall, we see the characters begin to adjust to life after the zombies. They roam the mall, using up their endless free time with arcade games and an ice skating rink. At night they dine in and play high stakes poker games with 50 dollar bills stolen from the bank below them. But as time passes something starts to change. The characters become unhappy, bored with their meaningless shuffling about inside of the mall. They are slowly realizing what the viewers have already been beaten over the head with. The consumption of goods in a protected environment is a life without meaning. The characters trying to survive and keep the zombies out are turning into them themselves through their total immersion in the consumer lifestyle. That a script filled with such a dark and nihilistic message would end up performing so well is telling of the social situation within post-Vietnam America. The public was enraged and invigorated when the films predecessor, Night of the Living Dead, came out in 1968, but now in 1979 they are sick of caring, and want to go to the mall. Here Romero slaps them across the face, telling them to wake up to the grim reality waiting for them at the end of that road. No matter how many trips to the mall you make, you’re just dulling yourself down into another flesh eating cadaver.

Audiences across America and Europe received the film with open arms. It grossed 55 million dollars in the United States alone, which was unheard of for a film like this at the time especially since it was released unrated (something now only reserved for DVD releases). The message of a consumerist society gone mad, with no help to be had from religion or science struck a chord with people across the world. Amazing considering how ahead of it’s time the message would turn out to be (with the dawn of the 80’s me-generation and shallow ideal of financial gain about to have a death grip on Reagan era America). It’s a theme that is revisited in other horror films like American Psycho and the remake of Dawn of the Dead that was released in 2004. The context of the film is important, since it lay on the cusp of one of the most excessively culturally vapid decades in history. It’s ironic that social commentary of this high caliber would come in the form of a zombie movie, but there really is no more scathing metaphor for a generation’s complacency and misguided values.

Lifeforce

2010-03-05T09:32:00.009-07:00

First of all, how the fuck did I go through the past decade without seeing this movie? I made it my personal mission to track down every movie with animatronic zombie type guys in it, and somehow this big budget bastard got past my robot person radar? People don't talk about this movie nearly enough. I base that solely on not hearing about it until I saw a trailer at a Screening of The Thing by my homies at Dedfest.

Life force starts off with some space action. Slow floatie space action. A team of scientists aboard the Churchill space explorer are investigating Halleys comet, and find a slim phallic ship with some crazy batwing/umbrella thing on the end that opens, just hanging out at the tip of the huge fireball. They go and explore this crazy hoopajoop.

Inside they find a bunch of floating demon bat guys, who are all made of crumbly chocolate (or they were fossilized). But the real find isn't the hershey monsters, its the nude trio of life force sucking vampires! complete with glass caskets!

I got to admit, I got a little excited when they found people who actually look like people inside that seemingly ancient space craft. I'm a big HP Lovecraft fan, and a big Alien fan. Anything that involves monolithic ancient alien beings, seemingly sentient space ships, or naked chicks encased in glass, count me in.

Flash forward some months, and the ship has returned to earths orbit, the interiors gutted by fire and the crew's juicy corpses litter the hull. The spooky alien/human vampire guys are totally fine though, and ready to start turning some british guards into giant animatronic corpses! YES!

This is where lifeforce really begins for me. The movie wasn't going anywhere until the lady vamp decides to make out with an unlucky researcher. She has this magnetic pull that the men in the film find impossible to resist. I can't imagine why they feel so drawn to her, huh.

Let the lifeforece sucking party commence! Things start getting out of hand at the space research center when the nude alien vampire woman decides to strut her stuff around the facilities, making out with every yutz horny enough to get close to her. This works pretty good actually, and not only because she's not bad to look at. It becomes clear that she doesn't reaaaallly look like that, and that this is just her clever ploy to make men easier to approach. Most of them would probably be apprehensive if they knew they'd end up like grouchy here.

Who ends up switching over to dudes to get his fix of blue electricity.

Then the she-demon busts out of scienceville and embarks on her unholy quest to, well I don't really remember what. This is where lifeforce loses points with me. The plot becomes a little convaluted in the middle, where they start chasing around the vampire's life force, and the survivor of the churchill disaster (who shows up in an espace pod, all gnarly and with beard) establishes some mysterious psychic connection with the soul sucker. It keeps you interested, and I felt entertained, but the vampire's rules and properties feel like they are being made up by the actors as they go. It is all building towards a fairly epic conclusion, but the road there is kind of confused and jumbled in places. Luckily they place lots more open mouthed cadavers on the way to keep you visually stimulated.

In a truly unique twist, Patrick Stewart shows up nearly out of nowhere as the head of a hospital for the criminally insane. Any time I see him in a movie it gives it instant cred. The guy can play any role and instantly elivate the proceedings. That makes his scene with Steve Railsback so entertaining. Through hypnosis Railsback gets Stewart to admit the presence of the vampire lady inside him. He's possesed by her. And to Railsback, he starts looking like her. Which prompts this exchange, Illustrated below.

He fucking plants a big ole wet one right on his full, sophisticated lips. The movie treats this epic moment with the respect and fanfare it deserves. Wind begins to whip around the room, and one poor onlookers neck is snapped from the sheer awesome force of this exchange of saliva. Amazing.

From here the film gets bigger. The scale is amped up as chaos envelopes the streets of London and the alien vampires true power is revealed.

I really enjoyed lifeforce. Even though the running time seems a bit on the long side, and I could see some people getting bored with this. It's hard for me to say I was bored though, since the I find stories like this completely fascinating, and the lead villain walking around naked for most of the movie didn't hurt either. If you've got an evening to kill, and you want to slaughter it with some good sci-fi that you've never seen before give Lifeforce a go. It's a hidden gem of the 80's that's waiting to be rediscovered and given a cult following. Unless im totally clueless and it's got a legion of fans I'm unaware of.

Leave a comment and let me know if you love lifeforce!

Frankenhooker

2010-03-01T16:22:00.011-07:00

Frankenhooker. The title evokes an instant mystique of bad taste. When first heard you can't help but smile. If you're revolted , turned off, or think the title sounds stupid, then i ask; whats your deal? When did you decide to stop having fun? How did your sense of humour get crushed? Why don't you like boobs? or sexy hooker monsters? Were you molested by a frankenstein?

Anyway, the movie starts with Jeffrey Franken, a part time mad scientist/electrician, toiling away in his kitchen over a brain with an eyeball in it. The movie dares you to take it seriously from the start.

Then Jeffreys pudgy girlfriend Elizabeth gets fragged by Jeffreys new remote control lawnmower (was this the inspiration for the same device in Honey I Shrunk the Kids?.....probably not, no).

Fast forward through some character development (Jeffrey is bummed about his girlfriends condition, and keeps her head in the freezer, thawing it out once in awhile for a romantic dinner) and the film gets to where its heart is really at, the sleazy 42nd street of New York. The actors and actresses really shine in these sequences where Jeffrey Franken is on the prowl for sexy lady parts. Hennenloter always handles his hometown with an eye for the rough and real gritty dirt, but also manages to make it charming (in a scuzzy, don't forget to wash your hands after kind of way). You can feel the sticky heat coming out of the TV while Jeffrey makes a deal with the goofy and intimidating Zorro, Frankenhookers requisite Pimp Daddy.

Jeff buys up all of Zorro's crack, to make his own formula of super crack, and puts together a party with some hookers in a skeezy hotel room. Franken plans to give his favorite bodacious babe the wonderdrug, killing her with a clear conscious, and then attaching his poor dead girlfriends head to the fresh curvacious cadaver.

Of course everything goes horribly wrong, in one of the most hilariously over the top sequences I have had the pleasure to take in. It's a blast! I saw Fireworks! Hookers blowing up!

But Jeffrey prevails and pieces together a corpse from his favorite parts.

sleazy? Frankenhooker? naaahhh....

After all that, poor Jeffrey Franken get's his wish and resurrects his girlfriend, but she's not quite what he was expecting.

Through the movies own goofy logic, the introduction of hooker parts to Elizabeths brain created a hybrid personality type deal thing where her brain is dormant, and the memory of the body parts is channeled through her brain via nerve endings thought patterns that are transformed into her current conscious......whatever. I hate to say it, but the movies called Frankenhooker, don't expect it to make any sense.......at all.

She looks suspiciously like a lot of girls you see at the goth/punk bar doesn't she?

So Elizabeth, or Frankenhooker, b-lines it past Jeffrey and heads to New York to make some money where the old hooker parts used to make their money. Zorro notices some familiar asses and titties jiggling around the bar and follows Jeffrey and Elizabeth home to exact some pimp slapping revenge. This doesn't go so well for Zorro, and we are treated to some classic Hennenloter what-the-fuck slimy puppet body part creature action!

After that is the real finale, which I won't give away here because it's to good to spoil. Check out Frankenhooker. It's pretty easy to find. I rented it at the lobby dvd shop on Whyte Ave in Edmonton. Grab it there, or at your cities equivalent cult video store!

Also check out everything else Frank Henenlotter has done up till Bad Biology. I can't recomend that one yet, since I haven't seen it yet, and from what I understand it's entirely about fucking/borderline pornographic. So yeah, look for a review of that in the future!

Movies i saw in January Pod cast!

2010-02-24T16:45:00.007-07:00

So maybe ill do this at the end of every month. MAYYYYbeeeee.......

It was a little project for school, and the audio gets all fucked up in parts, thanks to the gremlins in my computer. Seriously, those guys can fuck right off.

So it's a bunch of short movie reviews for almost every movie i saw in January. I say almost because i wrote this during the month of january, annd i had to cut some reviews out because the audio was tooo gremlinized.

Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/?j2nybynjm3w

Conquest

2010-02-24T00:36:00.008-07:00

poster lifted from wrongsideoftheart.com

Let me preface this by saying I love Conan. The Robert E. Howard stories are awesome, and I can get swept up in the comics at any time, either the new Dark Horse series, or the older Roy Thomas Savage Sword stuff.

That's why when i heard that Lucio Fulci (the maker of some of the most bizzare and awesome Gorey Italian horror movies of the 80's) had made a sword and sorcery picture to cash in on the Conan franchise's popularity, I was right on board.

Then i saw the trailer, and fucking HAD to see it.

Then i saw it......annnd it was ok.

Not the great relevatory diamond in the rough, better than conan the movie, kind of awesome that I had anticipated. Just ok.

It opens up with some crazy over the top gore. A woman getting split in half like a wishbone was particularly inspired and gruesome. Unfortunately it totally shoots its load on that scene, and never gets back to that same level of ultra violence over the course of the movie.

The main baddie (i think she gets refered to as the dark queen) is constantly topless, and has a face made of metal. This should henceforth be required of all super villains in sword and sorcery movies, or at least any spooky robbed figure ought to have a servant dressed down in a similar way.

Also heavily effected voice is a must.

The movie also features some other strange evil warrior soldier guys, who look like what might happen if chewbacca fucked the wolfman. They also talk with weirdo dog voices. That was pretty awesome.

The lead guy in this flick carries around these awful bone nun-chucks (i know that's not how you spell nun chucks, but it looks way funnier). This weapon sounds good on paper, but looks like doodie on your t.v.. Imagine if someone tied two halloween decoration bones together with a bit of string, put on a loin cloth and tried to look menacing; not going to work.

Then the other main good guy carries around his magical bow and arrow (that the dark queen needs to get her greasy paws on) and impresses the shit out of everyone in the foggy moss covered countryside with his innovative weapon.

Yeah I had trouble with that one too. Maaayyybe if his bow and arrow shot the blue lasers out throughout the whole movie instead of just the end, I could have played into the people being wowed over his magic stick and string, but no dice with a plain old, non-magical, bow and arrow.

I powered through the whole thing, once asking my girlfriend if we should turn it off, and then watched the trailer.

We should have turned it off, and just watched the trailer.

It covers every plot point and reveals all the story that there is to be had in this movie. If the atmosphere of the trailer sucks you in hard, then i could recommend trying out the whole movie.

But if you feel satisfied from the plot of the trailer, and don't need to see the same thing stretched out over an hour and a half, Then read the following spoiler.

spoiler alert!

At the end of the trailer, that skull face that pops up, is the face under the metal helmet of the topless dark queen.

Boom, you've seen Conquest.

just in case both of you readers were wondering what i look like...

2010-02-22T13:08:00.004-07:00

Simon Glassman drew this one day while i was annoying him in the editing lab at school.

He took on the Student Association for trying to censor his comic in the weekly college paper. The comic in question involved a little boy playing slave owner with his 'imaginary' friend. In response to the uproar, simon drew another comic where a 7 year old jerks off onto a students association t-shirt, but i don't think that one got published.

Parkade is good demented fun. Like Marlyn Manson meets Calvin and Hobbes. check it out at the link below, a long with all of simon's other stuff.

http://gumbocomics.blogspot.com/

Heartless

2010-02-15T22:14:00.007-07:00

New UK film, directed by Philip Ridley, and staring Jim Sturgess (the guy from across the universe). I guess he's some sort of hearthrob or something.

anyway, the trailer looks ok. Reminds me of Clive Barker's newer movies from the look of it. The title refers to a giant birth mark the lead character has on his face. I've known a couple people with that in highschool, and they were pretty bummed about their mark. It's got demon looking guys interacting with people and it looks like birthmark jim makes a pact to look normal with one of the evil looking guys, I wonder if it works out for him.....

heres the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCmvhghjmsk

Black Sabbath 40th Anniversary

2010-02-14T01:05:00.004-07:00

February 13th 1970, one of the best albums ever recorded is released on an unsuspecting public, changing the face of rock music forever.

I missed this by 37 minutes today, but ill be damned if that means I'm going to ignore it. Happy 40th anniversary to Black Sabbath's self titled debut album. It's one of the best albums ever recorded by the best band ever, put to tape in a manner of hours.

long live Sabbath!

The Wolfman 2010

2010-02-13T12:22:00.006-07:00

So i was pretty excited to see this movie. Benecio Del Toro seemed like a good fit as the wolfman and with a simple story, and so many classic images, it seemed hard for the grip of hollywood to fuck this one up. And I don't think they did.

First things first, this movie is waaay gorier than I expected, but it works. The over the top acting and atmosphere suit the source material. This is a great popcorn movie, zero pretention, and lots of action.

The film opens with lots of shots of the moon and a werewolf attack. There is full blown disembowelment, right out of the gate on this one. I think it might even have been before the title. I love pre-title violence. Think of all the great movies that have fucked up shit right from the get go. Braindead, Carrie, Day of the Dead, and more recently Zombieland. Credit sequences are generally boring, so I always appreciate it when the filmmakers take the time to make it spicey.

To add to the effect of the movie, me and my stoned counterpart had great seats, right under the projector. This cast pale blue light over our seats, emmersing us both directly into the foggy moores of victorian London countryside. It's these moments where the movie succeeds the most. The foggy moores where a trademark of the original, and they are utilized throughout this new version. Fog so thick you can't see where the wolfman's coming from make the audience tense, and me giddy with enjoyment at actually feeling some tension in a horror flick thats palpable, and not just some spooked woman reaching for a doorknob.

The violence in the flick is fierce and frenzied. Some sequences reminded me a lot of American Werewolf in London, just due to the mass level of carnage exacted in such public vicinities. The wolfman doesn't hide and strike in the dark, he charges into crowds, fucks up as many people as possible, and then runs off to fall asleep, so he can wake up naked somewhere the next morning.

Anthony hopkins plays the benicio's father, and he turns in a creepy (if slightly campy and over the top) performance. He's really a bit of glue that this movie needs in parts, where it might have been a little bland, Hopkins steps in and started entertaining people.

Make no mistake, this movie is entertaining as hell. It takes breaks between sequences of carnage for exposition and dialogue, and doesn't really flesh out all of the characters enough to consider this movie character driven though. It's really MONSTER driven. and MOON driven. All passage of time is shown through the cycle of the moon, raising tension as it becomes fuller and fuller.

Another thing people are talking about is the cgi used for the tranformation sequences. I'm usually staunchely against cgi, unless it manages to fool me. The lame as fuck cgi bear that accompanied the gypsy caravan did not bode well at the start of the film (honestly? bears exist, so why animate them and do a shit job? why couldn't they get bart the bears cub or something?(the bear from the great outdoors with john candy)). But luckily The transformation here looks great, and painful in parts. Just the way you want your wolf transformations to be. The jaw and teeth growth in particular where a nice touch.

But what this movie boils down to is expectations. It's a classic story, some people love it, some people just think they love it becasue they're supposed to, and some people could care less.

For those purists who knock it for it's flashyness and less than fluid plot i say fair enough. But what else did you expect? I expected an entertaining romp through the moores of victorian london, with a classic character played by an actor who is already half wolf, and hopefully some exciting gory bits and spooky atmosphere. I didn't expect it to revolutionize the genre, but I did expect it to also not shit all over the original wolf mythology and limit the use of overblown cgi effects.

I got exactly what i expected, only bloodier. I'll take that.

Psych: 9

2010-02-07T01:32:00.006-07:00

Psych: 9

The title invokes session 9, while the end visuals in the trailer reek of saw part 1's annoying pseudo industrial music video aesthetic complete with quick head thrashing and chunking generic guitar riffs.

I'm being a little hard on it, but the trailer looked shitty.

Might be worth a rental, (whenever its available here, its out in april in the UK) solely for Michael Biehn of Terminator one fame.

It looks like he plays a cop or investigator type.

heres the trailer at bloody-disgusting.com

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/18969

Brother Voodoo (old)

2010-02-06T14:12:00.005-07:00

I wrote this in april of 2009, it covers brother voodoos last show. I think they've played since then, so it wasn't really a last show. maybe there last show was there last show? Anyway i've known mattie (there singer pictured above( i didn't take the picture)) for a long time from playing shows with Brother Voodoo back when i played in a band called Uncle Outrage. He's the nicest guy ever, and always really upbeat and positive. The rest of the band is cool too, haha. check it out!

Brother Voodoo has been a staple of the local Edmonton punk scene for the last 5 years, playing countless shows and appearing on bills with a variety of local and touring bands. Last night they played one of their last shows to a small crowded bar of loyal fans and friends.
After paying the modest seven dollar cover charge, I made my way to the bar and settled in for the opening act, The Mitts.
This local power-trio played some of the catchiest garage rock this side of any Hives album, and had the best technical chops of all the bands that played that night. They also know how to charm a crowd with quick witted between song banter that never slowed the pace of their blistering set.
Up next was The Wicked Awesomes who, unfortunately this night, failed to live up to their name. Their style of psychedelics mixed with an upbeat sense of humour and rock and roll could have played well had they not been so glaringly overshadowed by the more energetic opening act.
The Hazard Lights from Calgary where up next. Judging from the singers get up of a retro blazer and police cap, complete with black arm band, the audience could tell they were not going to get anything new from the second garage rock trio of the night.
They played in a more poppy tuneful manner than the openers, but there set fell flat due to sloppy playing which really hurts their style of retro rock.
Brother Voodoo where next to hit the stage. They began their rock odyssey 5 years ago in March when singer Mattie Cullivier called up guitarist Jeremy Hill and then bassist Brad to fill in for two other guys who couldn’t make it to a jam session. Fast forward five years later and they are getting ready to release their first album of material, recorded in their hometown of St. Albert, entitled The Wasted Years.
“It’s a single entendre,” said bassist Steve W, in reference to their known party atmosphere.
This is further illustrated through a memory of a show at a church in Lacombe recalled by drummer, and brother to Mattie, Dylan Cuvillier.
“The father walks down to the basement and says ‘whose van is surrounded by liquor bottles?’ and we’re all like ‘uhhhh…’”
Partying aside, the band also delivers an enthusiastic performance that often hinders the technical side of the music.
“We have a lot of energy [and] we play harder than we should. We kind of give it our all and it kind of hurts the performance of the actual music,” said Mattie.
This is indeed a group that is fully into what they are doing. Three of the four members even have a tattoo on their shoulder displaying an anchor (hah!) with BV scrawled beneath (Mattie is still holding out on getting it).
There show that night began with the four of them stripping down into their underwear and instructing the audience to light the sparklers which they had handed out at random minutes before their set. Sparklers ablaze, they hammered into the first song of their set. Even though Mattie’s mic cut out for the entire first song, he still turned out an energetic performance, not letting the lack of volume hinder his spirit and enthusiasm.
They blazed through an hour long set highlighted by the usual technical difficulties and some pretty inspired renditions of radio hits, including a particularly vicious and ironic cover of the Limp Bizkit anthem Break Stuff, which wasn’t so eyeball-roll inducing as it was charming.
“We’ve had a lot of fun. We’ve done more than we ever deserved” said Mattie, as the night came to a close.
And though Edmonton may not be losing its most talented or musically proficient band, it’s definitely losing one of its most spirited, energetic, fun, and heartfelt ones.

http://www.myspace.com/brothervoodoo

zombieland

2010-02-06T13:45:00.005-07:00

I originally caught Zombieland in the theatre at an advanced screening. I used to work in a comic shop, where we would get invites to previews all the time. They also sent us zombieland shirts and hats and hand sanitizer ("you want some purell?").

The dvd came out last week, and me and Sarah (my fiance, and recent convert to horror and exploitation movie fandom) watched my mom's rented copy.

The first time I saw this movie I went in annoyed. The movie blatantly lifts from the popular zombie survival guide by max brooks, and never makes a reference to it in the credits or in the movie.
The book is great and deserves a nod for influencing the writting in this movie. Though the rule thing doesn't take over the entire movie, it's there and it is inconceivable that the writers could make a zombie movie without being aware of this book.

So i went in with a little bad blood. And right out of the gate the rules started getting spouted, complete with a 3D graphic of each rule as it was being applied. I can see how this played up the humour and was trying to be clever, and maybe a little hip, but it didn't work for me at all, even upon my more forgiving second viewing. It made me feel like the authors think I'm and idiot who needs simple things explained to me as they happen. Though i know this isn't the intention and the writers where doing it for laughs, I still couldn't help but be annoyed by the whole rules thing.

Having said that, the opening credit sequence of this flick is awesome. Slow motion zombie action set to Metallica's For whom the bell tolls. It's a cinematic song, that should have been in a movie a long time ago, and works really well here as a quick, gorey set up for the zombie apocalypse.

Then you get introduced to the best Micheal Cera impersonator in the biz Jesse Eisenberg. Here he plays a socially awkward 20 something with OCD, which is exactly why he's survived the zombie apocalypse so well. From here we get the first glimpse of zombie action in the film when Eisenbergs sexy blonde neighbour busts into his house looking for shelter from crazy homeless guys who tried to bite her.
She turns into a zombie (shocker) and they have pretty awesome fight, complete with bathroom cleaner guzzling, and a toilet cover bashing to the face. Nice!

Then the zombie chick breaks her ankle in a nod to dawn of the dead, she walks on her severely pigeon toed apendage, dragging menacingly to colombus (eisenberg).

Then after the flashback to colombus' first zombie encounter, we meet Woody Harrelson, or as he's known in the flick, Talahasee. This guy is the best part of this movie, hands down. He has all the best lines, and kicks the shit out of the most zombies, and has the biggest character arc.

The banjo bit is great and the twinkie quest thing is also great.

Then here come the ladies, Emma Stone (jules in superbad) as Wichita, and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine, King Diamond) as Little Rock.

They do some good bad acting, and dupe the fellas out of there car and guns. Then they meet up again and the road movie aspect of this film really take off and the characters finally get to bond, instead of being annoyingly suspicious of eachother.

And also, we finally stop seeing the rules, and get a bit of a breather from Jesse Eisenbergs sometimes clever, often annoying voice over narration.

They finally make it to LA, where the girls are trying to get to Pacific play land, where theres supposed to be no zombies, and the movie's namesake comes into play.
First they make a pit stop, and one of the best didn't see it coming cameo's i have ever witnessed takes place. When i first saw this movie, I wasn't even close to being on board until this part. It felt like I was watching a dream I had where i met this actor during a zombie apocalypse ( I dream ive had many times, but usually with different actors) . I'm not going to spoil that part (though ive spoiled most of the rest of the flick) because it's just too good to see it for the first time without previous knowledge.

Also, this sequence involves another winning combination, pot smoke and blue oyster cult. At once hilariously goofy stereotyping, and awesome combination from my life on the screen.

Then they make it to the amusement park, shit goes down (of course) and it ends.

Its during this part that my geek sense kicks in and i get into yelling at the t.v. mode.

"Why the fuck are you turning on all those lights and rides?! its the zombie apocalypse , Jesus!"

Those bitches where CRAYZEE! but don't worry, the dudes come around to save them from the drop of doom ride. (which was a really good original gag, even for a zombie movie).

So overall this movie delivers the goods, though it has it's flaws. It's a genre/sub genre movie that has a lot of stiff competition (har har) sitting around with the likes of Shaun of the Dead, Dead Alive, and Evil Dead 2, so it was bound to struggle a little in living up to expectations. But it manages to hold it's own, at least in the second half, with some of the greats. I get the feeling this is horror for a younger or different demographic than mine though. The hardened genre fan gives way to the younger teen audience. For them, i can't see a better way to get inducted into the horror cannon than Zombieland, though keep an open mind if you're (like me) a long time fan of these films.

And as an aside gripe, whats with the lame-o chugging distorted guitar, shitty nu metal sounding bullshit music that comes in during chase scenes. Give me some fucking fast paced spooky synth god damn it! There's no dread or atmosphere in a boring recycled limp bizkit riff. Come on! What's goblin up to these days?

Begrime Exemious

2010-02-02T18:10:00.010-07:00

Begrime Exemious (which roughly means to make the light dirty or ‘grimy’) have been playing filthy death metal in Edmonton since ‘06. This past year they signed a deal with upcoming Dark Descent Records out of Mississippi America, who Derek Orthner (guitar) had a chance meeting with over every young bands best marketing and networking tool.
“After we played at Noctis in Calgary, I was talking about the festival a bit there [metal-archives.com], and it turns out an administrator there was the owner of Dark Descent Records. He asked for a disc, so I sent off our Set Ablaze the Kingdom of Abraham EP along with a rehearsal disc, and the rest was pretty much sealed,” says Orthner.
I’m greeted in their practice room by 5 or 6 enthusiastic metal heads and a large red pentagram spray painted ominously behind the drum kit, adorned with two goat skulls. A rebel flag hangs on the wall behind the brown ragged couches where Lee Norland, the drummer, and Ben Harbak, second guitarist both rest with freshly cracked beers in hand. Alasdair Rintoul, the group’s eldest member and current owner of Edmonton’s premiere metal venue The Mead Hall, sits in a small chair to my right absently riffing on a black flying v guitar, while Orthner sits directly across holding a beer and leaning forward, ready to promote his band and extreme music.
We settle in and it instantly becomes clear that this band of death metal enthusiasts isn’t nearly as intimidating or scary as their lyrics or artwork (or a giant pentagram in the middle of the room) would lead you to believe.
When probed about the overtly blasphemous content of their artwork and lyrics, Begrime Exemious never apologizes, but make it clear that the sacrilegious visuals and dark words are just another vehicle for rebellion and a representation of their rejection of the trappings of societal conventions.
“Satan is used more as a metaphor for that way of life,” says Norland. “We don’t go by any rules y’know. Yeah, we have jobs but that’s so we can eat y’know. Being in a metal band is more than just Satan. It’s a whole lifestyle that either you’re that way or you’re not that way”.
After getting to know the group it becomes clear that their aim isn’t the corruption of the youth or to overthrow Christianity, but to make their mark in a genre that’s overrun with mediocre carbon copy bands. Their real interest lay in playing live and honing their craft until they are on par with the leaders of the metal underground.
“We don’t want to be good, we want to be great,” says Harback. “Honestly I want to be at the point where people are calling me up and wanting us to fly out to Australia to do a one off show…how great would that be?”
Hopefully their future on the road will go a little better than this harrowing trip they made home from Vancouver after a gig.
“…we stopped in clear water, switched drivers out,” says Norland, “We stopped at the bear in blue rive and kept going and in-between blue river and Valmont it was just like kahbush! Boom boom boom, and it sounded like we just got a flat tire eh, and I’m sitting shotgun and I look out the mirror and our tires just doing this [wobbles hands around] in the fucking wheel well and all of a sudden our full air filled tire goes bong bong bong into the ditch! And our van just sheers its back end down like [makes scrapping noise]. And by this time I’m like ‘um Al I think you need to pull over’ and he’s like ‘No shit asshole!’
“That definitely brought us closer as a band,” says Norland.
Near death road experience aside, the band recorded the new album, Impending funeral of man, in a pro studio with other local rocker Bernard Asquin of black metal group Lust. According to the band, they’ve incorporated more doom and d-beat punk style into their already chaotic brand of blackened death fury.
Recording was a different experience for the group this time out. Until this album they’ve only recorded in their practice room.
“You don’t know your band until you’ve recorded with them in the studio,” says Harback, “you hit walls and then you learn for the next-time…I’m fully confident that the next time we record things are going to go a lot smoother.”
The previous recordings have a rough sound that makes the music raw and keeps the aggression and nuances of a group rooted in old school black and death metal intact. The confrontational attitude shines through in the recording and serves as an accurate artifact of their live show.
“At the end of our shows we have nothing left,” says Rintoul.
“When you’re up in front of 100 people or whatever man and you’re in the zone, nothing beats that feeling in the world,” says Norland, “no drug, no woman, no fucking beer, whatever, beats that feeling, that’s what it’s all about.”
Music is priority one with the Begrime camp. Old school death metal injected with their own mountain of influences, ranging from Black Sabbath to Pink Floyd to Discharge, is what they do best.
Their commitment to creativity unhindered by general expectations and scene politics is where Begrime Exemious chooses to stay firmly planted. All members have an air of giddy excitement to be involved in the world of extreme metal, and are genuinely enthused to be doing something they hold in high esteem; playing music.
“You create your own destiny. Your time is your time, so you might as well do something worthwhile; that you’re proud of,” says Orthner, “The end is near, so do your thing. And crush the messiah while you’re at it.”

Impending Funeral of Man will be available from Dark Descent Records on CD and Vinyl in the coming months, and you can catch the band at one of many live rituals planned for the spring/summer of ’10 across western Canada.

http://www.myspace.com/begrimeexemious

Municipal Waste

2009-12-01T19:14:00.011-07:00

So I'm a pretty big Municipal Waste fan. A few years ago, when i first bought waste em all on tape at octopus ink when a friend mentioned them and crossover in the same sentence, i was immediately taken by how influenced this new band was by D.R.I. (another band who i worshiped in high school, and to a certain point still do today), and then i showed them to my best friend, and we got to get excited and drunk and run around in circles in his living room to their records for the better part of the summer of 2006. The party lyrics and the toxic waste theme, mixed with samples that we instantly recognized from our favorite movies (i fucking LOVE phantasm, the tall man scares the shit out of me) made me an instant a long time fan.

fast forward a few years and they roll through town on a big tour supporting lamb of god and some other bands i also didn't care to see, or had seen already, twice, not intentionally.

After watching live videos in small clubs with people flying over each other with the aid of a trampoline, naked stage dives, and booze fueled mayhem, i did not want to see this band from 20 feet away at the shaw conference center, surrounded by 14 year old mall goths.

so luckily soon after it was announced they would headlining across north america in the fall after their new album was released in august.

The night of the show i drove over to my buddy H's house (everyone we know is named matt, including him, so he's H) right after my nauseatingly dry legal issues for writers class. When i walk in he's already playing The DRI crossover tour dvd and i can smell the stank of weed in the air. We settle in and get excited talking about the show and what songs we want to hear. Then we walk from his house at the end of jasper to a bar for some food and a pint before heading over to the venue. Its around 7 when we get to the starlite room, and we notice their's absolutely no one there. we got their so early that we could hear Cauldron (formerly goat horn) soundchecking while having a few more pints in the bar under the venue. I haven't been this early to a show since i waited an hour and a half to see kideo at wonderland.

so we sat around and got drunk, and then they let us in and we got more drunk, and then cauldron went on. cauldron used to be goat horn who put out one of the best albums of the decade storming the gates.

im pretty sure it's out of print now, so you should download it and bask in its glory right now. and then pick up the new cauldron album, and wish it was as good as this.

Download (megaupload)

The last time i saw cauldron they played lots of goat horn, not so much this time, but they where the first band on and didn't play for very long at all. As i recall (my memory gets hazy at this point) they also skipped witch trail, which i thought was the highlight of the new record, but i really can't remember if they did or not.

so they finished and we retreated to the bar again, this time phil from municipal waste shows up at the bar next to me and i start to chat him up about his side project, cannabis corpse, and how fucking awesome i think it is. This cue's him to ask me for some weed, which i could not provide, sadly.

Then i mosey over to ryan waste and gush about how learning his songs made me a better guitar player, and i buy him and his buddy a shot. Then tony foresta shows up and right off the bat he starts with the silent bob jokes. I look like kevin smith when i wear a hat, i get it, but people fucking love to remind me. Anyway i tell him to fuck himself, and he apologizes, and is totally cool about it and i offer him a drink, but he takes it easy before the show. Then I'm outside talking some strangers ear off about doom metal and dave witte walks off the bus. I've followed this guys drumming since 2003 when he drummed for melt banana and burn by the sun, so i gushed to him a little bit about how excited i was to see him behind the kit. He was also super friendly and thankful, it was great. Then DFA went on. I was kinda bummed that they replaced the accused and phobia, but not a lot of bands would have filled that hole well, and DFA is members of poser disposer, who i've tried and failed to see for a couple years now. anyway, i only half watched their set and got more drunk. I noticed Jason Decay from Cauldron is wandering around, and i stop him and tell him how when he was here with goat horn four years ago he tried to fuck my fiance.

He was really apologetic about it and we both laughed and i bought him a beer. good times.

Then municipal waste hit the stage, and blew my ass right over. From what i can remember they played a nice cross section of old classics and stuck to the really stand out stuff off their new record Massive Agressive. The energy was high and the sound was good. The songs were faster than the album and they played for long enough to satisfy everyone. Unfortunately by this point i was fucking destroyed, and left before they finished playing. oh and H got kicked out for stage diving. He did one, and then got a warning, did it again and got kicked out. They let him back in, and then he did it again. Pretty awesome.

Then our buddy drove us home and I passed out on the couch.

If only every show could be as fun as municipal waste. They fucked me up! (i couldn't resist)

Past failure, future endeavor

2009-11-30T23:19:00.002-07:00

So that halloween thing sure didn't pan out. haha. oh well.

I'm gonna try to write at least something in this everyday from now untill some other time when i wanna stop. I mean it this time. I've got to get better at writting to get a job writting. So I'll start tommorow when im at work and bored. I saw municipal waste last friday and met them all, and got way to drunk, and accused Jason Decay from Cauldron of trying to fuck my girlfriend, and i bought some sweat pants.

so that will be interesting, till then..

2009-10-21T00:27:00.008-06:00

So i decided to do what so many other blogs do, and try to watch a horror movie every day for the month of october. Since the month is almost over and i decided to start this a day before Dedfest started (the annual edmonton horror film festival), I suppose im a bit of a little bitch. But thats ok. im trying.

Anyway, i dont wanna talk about the stuff at the festival, since i just wrote a short article about it today.

what i really wanna talk about is this...

I just finished watching this after two nights of trying to get through it and falling asleep.
Now that doesn't really colour my opinion of this movie at all, i was just really tired.

The Stuff starts out simple enough, with a couple simple guys who find some white shit is leaking out of the snow at the old mine. The old bearded bastard plants his finger in the pulsating white goop and after sniffing at it, decides to taste it. I thought that was a pretty bold move, but he's pretty happy about it, and when his buddy, lets call him Jimmy Joe because he doesnt fucking matter for the rest of the movie, mosies on over and tries out some of the white shit too. And he likes it, he really likes it! Enough to instantly suggest they market and sell it.

Next up you're treated to this creepy lady telling you how much she used to like ice cream. She uses a really inapropriately whispered/husky voice, that I could have done without. But it sets up the tone for the satire a la Roboco that permeates the rest of the movie.

Then this kid sees the stuff move in his fridge and later goes apeshit at a grocery store knocking the shit all over the place.

That's probably the coolest part of the begining of the movie. Seeing that kid go off on all those tiny cartons made me wanna go, i dunno, fucking destroy all the margarine in the dairy aisle. I wish i was as cool as that kid when i was ten.
Then we get to meet Mo Rutherferd. Who entroduces himself as a sleazy piece of shit. He tells the same lame joke about why everyone calls him mo, in two adjacent scenes. Which i thought was pretty funny. "you know why they call me mo? because whenever people give me money i always want mo". "you know why my friends call me mo? because whenever they give me something i always want mo". Awesome.

This little d-bag is trying to infiltrate the company that makes the stuff, to find out what it is and how to talk 'em down, for the big ice cream company that hired him. This guy is actually the main character of the movie, which i thought was a pretty cool twist, its not everyday you get to follow around a sleazy con artist who rips off everyone he can on his journey.

Then nothing happens for awhile, he investigates, people eat the stuff like fucking crazy, and you get to hear some pretty bitchin 80's style jingle's, complete with fur coat clad bikini ladies walking around and eating the stuff, and spandex wearing ladies flipping around inner city new york all to the madeningly catchy stuff music.

Just one lick is never enough of the Stuff! yeah, watch it and try not to get that shit stuck in your head.

Next up the kid (danny, i think..) figures out his whole family are fucking crazy, in a spooky stepford wife kinda way, and he tries to fool them by eating shaving cream, it doesnt work and the dad dips two fingers to taste that shit, which i thought was creepy. then the kids running away and meets up with mo and they go find the military.

then of course the stuff turns people into zombie things and white shit gets everywhere.

It's just like the blob, or at least what i think the blob must be like (never seen it) , except the blob probably had a bigger budget and therefore more gore and therefore was more entertaining than the stuff. but the stuff has enough of a brain and plot that you can forgive it, at least for a little while. The problem with The Stuff is not enough of the stuff exploding out of people, the way it does this fella above, towards the end of the movie. It definently dragged out a bit. but watching movies over three days, and then restarting them from scratch on the third day, could only feel like it dragged on abit. Kinda like how this post dragged on.

The stuff was ok. not the best, but ok. I was expecting a little more gritty new york, and a little less boring wandering around. that black guy mo meets up with at the ghost town DEFINENTLY should have been in the entire movie. scrap the ad woman, and give me more chocolate chip charlie please. also more blood and more face spewing explosions. oh and more of the stuff spraying all over that guy on the wall. that part was awesome. actually the stuff was pretty fucking cool. there was just a few spots where pacing might have been an issue. i bet if i revisit this movie in a year, and im drunk with some buds, ill have a better time. Its only 6 bucks at HMV right now, so nows the time to check it out. I'd recomend it to fans of They Live and The Blob.

Pink Eye(s)

2009-01-22T17:53:00.016-07:00

This morning amid the feverish dreams i was having between the jolting 10 minute snooze alarm hits one in particular stuck out. I was lying in my bed and could see a large comfy lounge chair begin rocking violently back and forth of its own accord. Then, on some sort of t.v. shelf, a half rotten torso began crawling towards me with a knife clenched in its teeth. This freaked out the dream version of me and i ran upstairs to reiterate my terror to my brother.

Then i woke up and my right eye was crusted shut.

Half-asleep, i rubbed the crust out of my eye and picked what i could out of my eyelash and hit the snooze button again.

Then i realized i had to go to school this morning as an important assignment was due at 8 sharp. So i talked to my dad, who decided to take 10 minutes to diagnose me with pink-eye , and took his jeep to school. I decided to grab a gory compilation of goregrind featuring Dahmer, Exhumed, Impaled and Impetigo to listen to on my morning commute as it seemed fitting given the grue and puss that was leaking out of my peeper.

Fast forward to later today when i call ahead to work to try to get the time off. The fella i ask to stay late says he can't, the guy i call to cover for me says he can't and suggests i call another fella who then laughs outloud and says i caught the "stink-eye" which i thought was pretty funny. So now here i sit in the biggest suburb of edmonton in a pair of my dads sweat pants listening to saint vitus, and looking at stupid shit on the internet.

Oh wait, one of the fellas just showed up, looks like i might get outta here after all.

edit update

I did get outta there, and went home. and finished fall out 3. It didnt end all that good.

but on a cooler note i developed pink eye in both eyes now, and yellowy green snot started leaking out of the new pink eye which looked something like this...

so thats something.

Also my experience with pink eye really makes me want to see the movie of the same name. I saw an add for it in an old rue morgue, but they never bothered to review it which is a bad sign.
Looks pretty bitchin from the cover, but i think it's one of those made by a new production company dealies, i.e. it probably sucks. oh well.