Someone watched Futurama and Great Expectations on my Netflix account, and instead of Netflix recommending terrible horror movies as I intended, it's now recommending various period dramas and a documentary about 50 Cent. I'm hoping if I just continue to watch terrible horror films, Netflix will get its act together.
Anyway, I watched Assault Of The Sasquatch, which is a a prison drama where a guy kills a cop's wife, escapes from jail, and takes over a police station and hunts everyone down inside. There's some really awful camerawork, some dodgy accents, and a chick taking a shower while a song plays on the soundtrack called "Get My Booty Poppin" while two nerds watch. Someone says, "That's all my favorite toppings" for some reason, and someone else says, "There's air freshener, you know, if you need it", and I'm not sure why. Oh yeah, and someone else says, "Smexy" which I'm not sure is a word.
Now that I've watched the trailer, it seems as though I forgot to mention a lot of dumb stuff about this movie. There's a poacher with bad teeth, a nerd stabbed with a traffic sign, and a martial artist stripper with a heart of gold. I think that covers it.
Maybe I just have unrealistic expectations, but it seems like the Halloween stuff still hasn't made its way out to the retail sales floors of America. Is it just me? I would be happy with 12 months of Halloween and every square inch of retail space covered in masks and cobwebs and fake blood and Halloween Oreos year-round, but some people wouldn't like that and those people are wrong. It doesn't seem to me like all the awesome Halloween products are out there yet. I haven't seen the Monster Cereals, and I haven't seen the Halloween Pop-Tarts, and we might not see the Pop-Tarts at all which fills me with an irrational rage because I don't really like the flavor of them that much but I have to buy them anyway because they're covered in bat sprinkles. I did see these, though.
What a hideous, squash-filled nightmare. I really don't understand everyone's fascination with pumpkin flavored items. Pumpkins are poisonous and inedible, and are only good for carving into jack-o-lanterns. And don't get me started on the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. Whose idea was that? I can imagine the coffee chefs at Starbucks round-tabling the idea, "Hey, you know what would really liven up our coffee? Vegetables".
It's absolutely sickening. Every year at Thanksgiving, my family has about a million pumpkin pies, and they're revolting. I am inexplicably allowed one chocolate pie. No one touches the nasty pumpkin pies, but eats my chocolate pie, and then I stomp around in a rage screaming at everyone to stop eating my chocolate pie essentially ruining Thanksgiving which isn't very hard because Thanksgiving is kind of a terrible holiday. It's pretty much just sports and pumpkin, and we somehow dedicate an entire day to one meal. I mean, if you eat delicious stuff year round, what's the point of Thanksgiving? You can make stuffing and potatoes any time. You can get a turkey sub at nearly every deli in every city every day. I just don't get it. Cranberry sauce is available year-round. You can acquire a can on the Fourth Of July if you wanted to, but no one ever does. Anyway, that's Thanksgiving at Deathrage Towers, and then it's a downhill slide towards the inevitability of that other terrible holiday with the fat guy in the red suit. The only plus side of THAT awful holiday is fewer pumpkin pies.
Anyway, I've started watching the classic Universal Monsters films to try to get me into the Halloween spirit.
I've seen them about a million times, and I don't have a lot more to say about them. Boris Karloff is pretty spooky covered in dust and dragging ancient wrappings behind him, but he's only the Mummy for a few minutes. Lon Chaney, Jr. creeps on some poor chick as he watches her undress through his telescope, then he gets bitten by a dog. Both movies are pretty great, and you should watch them this holiday season because they're on Netflix.
Nine unemployed youths wearing snazzy vests take public transportation in this 1970s musical. Strange thing about The Warriors, there's an awful lot of running and dancing, but very little singing. Anyway, they probably should have called this movie The Baseball Furies because everyone likes them best, even though they're kind of the baseball bat-wielding, makeup-wearing mimes of the violent gang criminal underground.
Speaking of trying to bop your way to Coney Island, I'm catching a flight in the morning to the City to catch the Coney Island Film Festival. See you next week.
Two families are trapped in a house they cannot leave in this supernatural horror film starring the Beastmaster.
The Beastmaster attempts to leave the driveway of this cursed house 23 times, and I think I probably would've only tried 9 or 20 times before giving up. Apparently, the Beastmaster perseveres.
Anyway, someone once said that 'Hell is other people', but I would have to assume Hell is opening your kitchen cabinets to find it's empty except for one lone can of beef stew.
To have to open a can with a giant thumbprint on it day after day in a secluded Sisyphean cabin in the woods, dumping its chunky, aspic-y contents that retain the shape of the can out in a saucepan over and over again, well, it's nightmare fodder. To look into that simmering pan filled with homogenous hunks of crumbling carrots and potatoes gurgling like magma from Hades; it's like looking into oneself, and I may never sleep again.
An Icelandic volcano erupts causing a new ice age in this Asylum film starring Jeff Fahey. In the first few minutes of 100 Degrees Below Zero, there was an airplane cabin scene. I was worried that the film-makers wouldn't have a helicopter scene near the end of the movie because they have to stick to the Asylum formula of having a helicopter crash that everyone onboard survives and they probably couldn't afford both an airplane and helicopter scene in the same movie. Anyway, Jeff Fahey's bickering adult children are in an inexplicable Paris where an easily punted hail-stone the size of a human head falls from the sky, and Jeff Fahey has to rescue them for some reason. Then the adult children of Jeff Fahey bicker and fall down a lot, sometimes just on the sidewalk and sometimes down some random hole. They often seem to run from some unconvincing green-screen Parisian crumbling building, and they can't seem to find a coat. After running down several Parisian alleys in close-up where there are no coat shops or cafes, the siblings are trapped under flimsy wooden Ikea shelving and still can't seem to find food in Paris. I've never been to Paris, but I heard there's at least one or two coffee shops there. I think the siblings would've had better luck finding a patisserie if they stopping looking for one in a stairwell in Hungary, but I could be wrong. I somehow find the fact that these annoying siblings could never find at least one baguette less believable than a fashion model rappelling from the Eiffel Tower into a hovering helicopter while escaping from an ice cyclone, but that's just me.
Spoiler Alert: There is a helicopter crash scene were everyone survives, but you probably already knew that.
A recently divorced yuppie couple bicker over their insufferable teenaged daughters and purchase cursed room decor in this tedious Lifetime-esque family drama. All the cliched trappings are in place; yawn-inducing familial discord, tasteful houses on quiet cul-de-sacs, dads getting blamed for everything, rooms filled with CGI moths, ancient yellow molars, a teacher being flung through a plate-glass window, a tween girl crawling around on all fours and growling like a Rottweiler with a Flintstone-sized beef steak dangling from her mouth, and Matisyahu.
I really don't see what the big deal about a cursed box is. I have them all over the penthouse. I have one sitting on the dining room table right now. It's intricately designed and filled with diabolical items sure to cause tragedy, heartbreak, and sorrow. Here's what it looks like:
I'm enjoying Netflix's new List feature, which allows multiple viewers on the same account to create their own list, even though I didn't think I would and complained about it. My list no longer has any romantic comedies. All of my recommendations are entitled Creatures, Monsters And Mutants, Visually Striking Scary Suspenseful Movies, Gory Supernatural Horror Movies, Zombie Movies, and Dark Haunted House Movies, and that's just the way I like it. In the incredibly unlikely event I might want to watch a romantic comedy, and I won't, I can always switch to another users list.
Speaking of lists, I forced the family to watch a movie from Den's Of Geek's 25 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen, and we all enjoyed it.
Pontypool starts with an inexplicable jump, and the tension builds throughout in a War Of The Worlds kind of way, where most of the action takes place inside a Canadian radio station. I'd rather not give away too much of the plot. It's best just to go into it with as little information as possible. I was a little let down by the ending, but I was very intrigued by its original zombie plot-line. I'd really like to watch Pontypool again, but I probably won't.
A psychic travels past a misty mountain and mountain-climbers end up without heads in this noir horror film.
Maybe I should have watched The Crawling Eye before watching The Astounding She-Monster and Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, and maybe I might not have such a positive outlook on it. The Astounding She-Monster and Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla were so awful they make all other films seem great by comparison.
Anyway, I enjoyed The Crawling Eye. Maybe it was just the wooziness from all the gorilla suits, screeching man-infants, and slow-walking astounding women; but who doesn't love fainting psychics, headless mountaineers, stranglings, and giant, gooey, tentacled eyeballs on fire? Everybody loves those things. I know I do.
A ship sails in search of Cthulhu in this inaccurate documentary.
I'm going to have to stop this review right here because the film-makers got the whole thing wrong. They didn't have to charter a boat and sail half-way to who-knows-where to find Cthulhu because he's listed in the telephone book. All you have to do is give him a call. He lives in a crappy one-bedroom apartment in Miskatonik, Massachusetts and he's so behind the times he still has a land-line. We went to school together, and he's not all that. I just laugh whenever I see some new cult has developed around him, because he wasn't very popular in school and was a C student.
Don't tell him I said this, but he had a really tough time during the recession. He lost a lot of money in some real estate investments and his chain of restaurants, Cthulhu's Gourmet Corndogs, went out of business. His gold-digging wife kicked him to the curb, and he defaulted on his condo. He spent a few months sleeping on my couch while he got his act together, and it was two of the worst months of my life. He doesn't pick up after himself and couldn't wash a dish to save his life; so remember that when you all are sacrificing goats to the "Mighty Cthulhu". You certainly wouldn't think very highly of him after you've seen him in his boxers and white t-shirt with the stained armpits that's covered in Cheeto crumbs and he hasn't changed them in 6 days. Every square inch of my penthouse was covered in half-empty Red Bull cans and cardboard moving boxes. I'm not sure how I survived.
I spent the majority of the evening last night trying to sort out my Netflix queue, which they now call a list. I assume they changed it because people didn't know what a queue was. Way to dumb things down for everyone, Netflix. I wonder how many people wrote a letter to Netflix and said, "Hey Netflix, why don't you speak American and stop confusing us with words that start with the letter q?" and Netflix said "Sure, that sound reasonable and not at all crazy." and changed it.
So now I have two lists, one for me and one for Mrs. Deathrage, and I'm trying to sort out whose movies are whose. I have to figure out who put Endless Love in the queue, I mean list (it was me), and who put Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the queue (that was me, too), and who put Happy Gilmore in the queue (I have no idea). Actually, it looks like 87% of Mrs. Deathrage's queue is actually mine, so it would probably be easier just switching names on them.
I decided to watch the episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker called The Knightly Murders where our rumpled, straw hatted, spazzy, reporter hero Kolchak investigates the murders of people trying to close down a museum and turn it into a disco. You know, that's not really a bad idea. Museums should behave more like a disco than a museum. It would be a lot more fun. Anyway, a knight goes around smashing people's heads in with a mace, and someone says, "Everyone only wants elevator shoes and karate lessons" which sounds right I guess, and someone else claims that they were going to redecorate David Bowie's house, which sounds like a dangerous proposition because of all the codpieces.
A chunk of space debris crashes into a New York City street and creates a man-hole sized crater which seems plausible and then CGI spiders jump out of the wreckage in this nonsensical monster movie. So the spiders lay eggs in people which doesn't quite seem right, and then everyone hunts for the queen spider egg which also seems a little suspicious, and then I realize that the film-makers don't seem to understand spiders very well, even if the spiders are outer space laboratory spiders that grow to enormous and uninteresting size.
Something about this movie bothered me, and I couldn't put my finger on it. The New York City streets in the film seemed a little bit weird. They looked like New York City; with nondescript graffiti everywhere, and extras wandering around aimlessly who speak oddly wooden, disaffected lines of dialogue, and shop signs hung on New York-type buildings that read "Deli" and "Art Gallery" and "Bistro", and then it suddenly hit me.
My wife and I went shopping yesterday to the Target. They've started putting out the Halloween items. Here's a photo:
This is a photo of the pegboard where all the Halloween items are not displayed. Target is currently a Halloween wasteland. What the heck's the hold-up, people? I don't have all day. However, I did manage to purchase another couple of packages of Halloween Oreos. I put them in the cart, and Mrs. Deathrage's head whipped around and she demanded to know what I was doing. I said I was going to buy some more Oreos. Suddenly her head burst into flames, the sky got dark as ominous clouds rolled in, the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse looked up from what they were doing, she pointed her finger at me and screamed, "PUT THEM BACK!!!" in a very deep, frightening voice. I refused, and then things got really scary.
She said, "OK".
I don't know what that means, but I'm wary.
Anyway, they had the DVD of Sharknado for the very reasonable price of $9.99. I was going to put them on top of the 8 packages of Halloween Oreos that were now in the cart. Her head whipped around again and I decided not to press my luck. I put it back on the shelf.
When we got home, I saw that I-Tunes had Sharknado available to stream for $4.99. I paid for the download, and Mrs. Deathrage's head spun around again like it was on some sort of swivel. I said, "Honey, I have to. It's important."
Then things got really scary. She said "OK". AGAIN! I don't know what the heck is happening, but it couldn't be good.
So we watched Snarknado as a family, and everyone enjoyed it. I'm not going to review it here, but I will in my 2nd book which is now temporarily entitled Stabford Deathrage Battles The Creeping Terror At His High School Reunion (No, It's Not The Creeping Terror's High School Reunion, It's Stabford's) but that might be too long to put on a dust jacket. Anyway, you can buy my first book at Amazon for the low price of $5, which is half the price of a Sharknado DVD and about the price of 2 packs of Halloween Oreos because my second book isn't ready yet. It's a good value.
Murderous women wearing Foster Grants and suggestive lab coats cover other women in bee-attracting marshmallow fluff which turns them into murderous women with black pupils wearing Foster Grants and suggestive lab coats in this 70s bee girl film. That's all I remember, because I fell asleep several times. I do know that original Price Is Right model Anitra Ford was one of the more evil bee girls, and she was in the television movie Wonder Woman starring Cathy Lee Crosby.
Sorry, but someone replaced my clip of Cathy Lee Crosby as Wonder Woman with this clip of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, only she transforms her regular outfit into an underwater diving outfit so she can dive in the Bermuda Triangle, or what is otherwise known as a regular swimming pool.
Oh wait, here it is. This clip features Cathy Lee Crosby co-starring with a burro. I'm not sure why.
I've been very busy the past week or so, and I haven't had the time to watch as many movies as I'm accustomed to. Since Labor Day just happened, which is the official death of summer and the opening weekend of Halloween, I've been scouring the countryside for Halloween related items. I realize that many people don't like seeing Halloween items up so early, and those people are wrong. Halloween decorations should be up year round. In fact, most holidays could be easily replaced with Halloween. Instead of handing out valentines on Valentine's Day, hang up skeleton lights, eat miniature candy bars, and carve a pumpkin. Instead of the shooting off fireworks on the 4th Of July, hang up skeleton lights, eat miniature candy bars, and carve a pumpkin. Use your imagination and go wild.
Anyway, the products celebrating the most wonderful time of the year are starting to find their way to the sales-floor. I found these at Target:
They are a pale substitute for the most evil of all sandwich cookies, Halloween Oreos, but they'll do in a pinch. Speaking of Halloween Oreos, I purchased a decoy pack of The Most Evil Cookie and left it out for the family to devour in 14 seconds, and hid a second pack to enjoy while the family is asleep while watching monster movies. Sure enough, in 14 seconds the decoy pack was gone. I'll have to go get a couple more packages, you know, just to be safe, because once the Halloween Oreos are gone from shelves, it's an agonizing year filled with awful non-Halloween holidays until Halloween rolls around again in September.
Anyway, I've been watching movies, but I lost a couple of notebooks filled with the notes I took for my insightful movie reviews everyone is so fond of. When you have a billion of those little notebooks, they're easy to lose. I have a stack of them on my desk next to my voodoo candles, skulls, and pens, and I'm not sure which ones I used last. So I'm going to go ahead a wing the following reviews on memory alone. Wish me luck!
From what I recall, in the film Warning Shadows someone throws a pervy, boring dinner party where everyone is on the make for this one chick, and the ennui becomes so stultifying they resort to making hand shadows on the wall to entertain themselves. Everyone looks at each other out of the corner of their eye in a suspicious manner, then everyone dies, but then doesn't. This happens for 90 minutes.
Yes. Nailed it.
With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story is a fairly entertaining documentary about the comic book mogul. It's informative, touching and funny, but somewhat fawning. His wife is very charming, and they seem to have a great relationship. Also, there was something or other about superheroes.
2 for 2! I'm on a roll!
The Achievers: The Story Of The Lebowski Fans is a documentary about the cult fandom surrounding the now semi-classic Coen Brothers film. I liked The Big Lebowski; but if I recall correctly, wasn't it one very obscure dick joke? I don't recall, but I think it was. I don't have a problem with dick jokes, I'm just checking.
Yes, nailed it again.
The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh is the story of a man who returns to his childhood home to find it's haunted and decorated in what could only be described as Drabby Chic or possibly Martha Stewart Home Decorating: The Cemetery Collection. Not that I have a problem with decorating your home with a million creepy figurines and headstones. I love it, and like I said, it should be done year round. Some people have a problem with it, and those people are wrong.
Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, John Carradine and Basil Rathbone star in this mad scientist horror film, and it almost seems like they were running a sale on horror film actors, and in order to cast Basil Rathbone you had to take the other four. Tor, Bela and Lon aren't allowed speaking roles in the film, and John Carradine shouts a bunch of wacky stuff and you wish he wouldn't. The fun and games really start during the last few minutes of the movie when it gets all Tod Browning-esque and someone sets a chamber maid on fire and she runs screaming down the hallway, and that's sort of reminiscent of the fun and games we have on the weekends at Deathrage Towers when we play a game called "Set The Chamber Maid On Fire So She Runs Screaming Down The Hallway". We laugh and laugh and laugh.
