The Vault of Buncheness

MORE AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS

2012-01-24T17:41:00.005-05:00

Here are the most recent additions to my collection of autographed 8x10's, all of which were obtained by friends who were kind enough to mule and wait on line for me (in one case for hours) since I was too broke to attend the shows in question. I've had these for months but was only able to get them scanned today, thanks to the kind graces of a friend in Prospect Heights. (My own scanner gave up the ghost months ago.)

From what was reportedly her final East Coast appearance, the one and only Elvira. (special thanks to Barney Sheehan for this one, especially because he stood on line for something like three hours to get it)

Giovanni Lombardo Radice, the infamous sadistic cokehead asshole from the timeless Italian cannibal classic MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY (1981, aka CANNIBAL FEROX). His character tortures and kills some innocent South American Indians and ends up on the receiving end from their understandably pissed-off fellow tribesmen, who memorably cut off his Johnson and eat it right in front of him. The wound is later cauterized and he escapes from his captivity to wreak machine gun-wielding havoc like some sort of castrated Rambo before getting the top of his head hacked off with a machete and having his brains eaten by eager natives. A family favorite for kids of all ages! (special thanks to Barney Sheehan for obtaining this rarity)

My man Martin Landau as the inimitable Rollin Hand from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. Of the many cool spies from 1960's TV, Rollin gets my vote as the coolest of all (with John Steed coming in at a close second). The part was an actor's showcase and the series just wasn't as good after he and wife Barbara Bain left. (the most special of thanks to my friend the Red Queen for snagging this for me; it's now one of the Holy Grails of my collection)

THE ULTIMATE VERSION OF THE JAMES BOND THEME

2012-01-11T14:25:00.002-05:00

Other than to state that this should immediately be made the official James Bond theme lyrics, I'll just let this one speak for itself.

BACK SOON

2012-01-03T23:22:00.005-05:00

Dear Vaulties-

Sorry for the lack of new stuff, but I have a house guest in town and we've been running around all over the city, attending parties, hitting restaurants, watching bad movies on DVD and suchlike, so I've been rather occupied. Anyway, I'll be back toward the end of the week.

Oh, and HAPPY 2012! Here's to it being, as the Thing-Fish would put it, a massive improvelence upon the year that preceded it.

BACK SOON

2012-01-03T23:22:00.001-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS!!!

2011-12-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

"Meh-tull!!!"

Meanwhile, in a basement in Wisconsin...

Okay, I need to know which one's supposed to represent the Virgin Mary...

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE DOLEMITE

2011-12-24T22:41:00.001-05:00

IN MY ROOM: THE ORIGINAL VAULT OF BUNCHENESS

2011-12-24T02:13:00.005-05:00

I'm currently at my mom's house for Christmas and I can't help but get a bit nostalgic for the days of my misspent youth whenever I stay in what used to be my room during those coming-of-age years. So without further ado, here's look at the converted garage that served as my room during my high school years, breaks from college, and the year and a half in which I attempted to eke out a freelance art living before moving out for good in early 1990 and making my home in New York City. The place was the site of several significant life events, but it is virtually unrecognizable now.

Where that lamp and bed are is where my desk/bookcase used to be. The walls used to be festooned with movie posters, comics in mylar bags, and several vintage PLAYBOY centerfolds some of the early-'80's most zaftig Playmates. All I have to say about that last element is Karen Price, Miss January 1981. Yowza!!!

The medieval torture implement that passes itself off as a foldout couch. Quite far removed from the extremely comfortable frameless double-mattresses I slept on in here three decades ago. When I come home for visits, the morning after the first night I sleep on this fucking thing invariably results in an agonized lower spine.

All that remains of what was once a massive media library that I maintained from August of 1980 through when I moved out for good in early 1990. The bookcase/desk has been in my possession since 1973 and was great for storing comics and books. (The chair that came with it fell apart some twenty years back.)

The lowest point of the double door on the high wall is about eight or nine feet up from the floor, high enough to thwart my mother's snooping during my coming-of-age years. I'm not certain but I think there's still a suitcase up there that contains a couple of homemade bongs and water pipes. If it's still up there, that suitcase has not seen the light of day since the infamous "Weedfest" of the Summer of 1989.

IT'S A JOHN WATERS CHRISTMAS!!!

2011-12-21T04:29:00.003-05:00

Last night I went to the John Waters Christmas show at B.B. Kings, and it was fucking hilarious. (I hope it was videotaped for home video posterity.) My friend Lexi and her sister, Ginna, took me and we had VIP seats that included a meet and greet with the Master, so during the show's Q&A section I got to tell him a couple of good ones about some memorable experiences with watching his movies. After the show, at the meet and greet, I was first on line and Waters actually recognized me from the several times I've seen him at NYC signings.

Anyway, it's always a good thing when you can give your favorite living director and major influence on your worldview a Christmas present. He collects books on all manner of horrible things, so I gave him my copy of They Lived on Human Flesh, the exploitative bus station bookshop ripoff of Alive — the infamous true story of the Uruguayan football team that crash-landed in the Andes and survived by resorting to cannibalism — and he was delighted to get it because he didn't have it. He was especially pleased that it has pictures!

LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET-addendum: A WEEK LATER, ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE, AN EXPLANATION, AND SOME JUSTICE

2011-12-16T11:43:00.004-05:00

Those of you who read my story from a week ago, the one about me being the victim of a so-called "sociological experiment," will be interested to know that the blog FUCKED IN PARK SLOPE posted a piece on that event's filming — the all-day process, not my specific moment — and it answers a number of questions as well as shedding some light onto just how shabby the production treated some of the neighborhood's locals. And remember how they paid me $300 for my mental/emotional anguish? According to the FUCKED IN PARK SLOPE article's feedback section, one of the victim's in this thing was only paid $50, while the article mentions some of the scammed receiving nothing and not even being told that they were being fucked with. And there's more, particularly the final outcome of all the misery inflicted upon the unsuspecting public, so go here to read it all for yourself.

70 YEARS OF THE WOLFMAN

2011-12-12T04:50:00.000-05:00

Today marks the seventieth anniversary of the release if THE WOLF MAN, perhaps the seminal werewolf film and the movie from which most of the general public's knowledge of lupine lycanthropes is garnered. One of the very best of Universal's classic cycle of horror films from the 1930's and 1940's, this tale of one innocent man's horrifying curse still has considerable tragic power despite its age and the changing styles and tastes in filmmaking. If you've never seen it, you owe it to your film education to check it out immediately. Here's the trailer:

LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET

2011-12-09T22:32:00.003-05:00

Holy fuckballs, what a story I have for you…

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I have been unemployed for going on two years, and my unemployment benefits ran out on the day before Thanksgiving. Since then I’ve hustled and brooded and been a nervous, despairing wreck, wondering about what fate has in store for me, especially when considering my very limited financial resources. In short: I’m forty-six, jobless, living in New York City (specifically in Brooklyn’s Park Slope), and nothing is happening in terms of a bright light on the job horizon.

On Friday afternoon I received one of the freelance checks I’d been expecting and in no time at all most of it was spent on my rent and the bills that have been gathering moss, so, with weary heart, I went to the local supermarkets to pick up the fixings for a sandwich that would approximate the outstanding sausage and peppers delight I’d experienced just one day previous. (There’s no companionship or sex going on in my life at the moment thanks to there being no merry and horny female present, comic books have lately been mostly an enormous disappointment, there have been no movies that pique my interest, so I’ve occasionally been taking meager comfort in food.) I first stopped at the Key Food on 5th Avenue, the one just a stone’s throw from Flatbush Avenue, and snagged some of their excellent sweet Italian sausages, after which I walked up the street to the Associated market located around the corner from my humble abode to pick up the rest of what I needed.

Upon wandering the store’s aisles, zombie-like, I got on line at the checkout counter and found myself directly behind some random guy and a woman who was annoyingly holding up the proceedings by trying to explain to the cashier that two of the four items she’d brought up were not the right ones on the sales circular, so she wanted to replace them. She explained this to the cashier in the most convoluted and time-consuming manner humanly possible, and myself and the guy in front of me were both about ready to pull our hair out as this decidedly one-sided exchange dragged on. “Great,” I thought to myself, “not only am I about to spend most of the last of my pitiful funds, I have to wait behind this walking annoyance while doing so.” Presently, one of the store’s employees came over to me and steered me off of the non-moving line and had me stand at the far checkout aisle, right behind two mother with strollers who were unloading enough food onto the counter to feed all of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. That line was clearly not going to move either, so the staffer apologized for taking me off of my first position and promptly steered me back to where I was in the first place, and in the maybe twenty seconds that elapsed between my shifts in lines, three more people had gotten on line in front of me. So there I was, stuck with a choice of two lines, neither of which was making any kind of progress.

While stuck on line behind the lady who wanted to exchange her items that were not on the sales circular, my eyes began to glaze over and my mind focused on just how my life had suffered a slow and depressing reversal of fortune from the time when I first hit NYC as a wide-eyed college grad who’d landed a job at Marvel Comics — a dream job to one of my geekish ilk — through my being let go from that job thanks to the company’s Chapter 11 woes, on to my time at DC/Vertigo and the mishegoss endured there, followed by two years of unemployment before working at the barbecue joint and dealing with that place’s attendant issues, finally arriving at the dead end of my largely worthless job at the design ‘ho house and my subsequent unemployment in the wake of what was at the time its latest wave of brutal layoffs. I pondered how it could possibly be nearly two years — TWO YEARS — since that layoff and how my life had just lurched along as a shabby going-through-the-motions existence, and the more I considered all of that, the more morose and fed up with life I became.

Suddenly my death march down the dark corridor of memory was interrupted by a frantic-looking guy bearing a bottle of seltzer, and he looked at me with an expression of earnest need plastered across his face. He sheepishly said, “I’m sorry to be ‘that guy’ but can I please go ahead of you? I just have this one item…” After enduring the long lines and annoyance, I was irritated by his request, but I remembered the lessons learned as a wee lad at my mother’s side during many excursions to the market, and she always let people in this guy’s situation go ahead of her, simply because it was the polite and kind thing to do. A simple act of courtesy and kindness in this miserable world keeps us all civilized and all that, right? So I let the guy go ahead of me, for which he offered profuse thanks.

Then, as his one item was rung up, an alarm went off, a loud popping noise was heard (like a champagne cork) and the air around us was filled with balloons. Just as abruptly, the manager’s office door burst open and out flew a video cameraman, a crew member wielding a mike on a short boom, and a guy bearing one of those enormous simulated checks as seen in sweepstakes ads on TV and in magazines. Then a large, glad-handing guy breezed over and directly addressed the seltzer guy with, “Congratulations, sir! You are this store’s one-millionth customer…and you have just won FIFTY-THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!”

(pause for you to process this)

Yes, you read that right. The guy I had let cut the line in front of me with one measly item had just won FIFTY FUCKING GRAND, all because of my act of simple courtesy.

As the celebratory atmosphere began to spread and the sweepstakes officials shook the winner’s hand, the enormity of what happened poked me in the frontal lobe like a solid redwood truncheon. The understandably surprised winner reacted with “Awesome!!!” and welcomed the camera crew and sundry others with open arms.

The other shoppers who’d been on line behind me, some of whom were recognizable neighborhood locals and neighbors from the building next door to mine, at first stood there just as gobsmacked as I was, but they recovered more swiftly than I and began shouting statements along the lines of, “Oh, HELL no! That guy (indicating me) let the dude with the soda go in front of him, so he’s the real winner! This isn’t right!!!” As it all sank in, I said aloud, “This is a joke, right? Seriously, this has to be a joke…please tell me this is a joke…” My words were utterly ignored as the prize people began to usher the winner away for a photo op but before they could full get away, I centered myself and, with no yelling or cursing, announced to the camera in my most stentorian and serious voice, “People, here you see a prime example of exactly why being polite and considerate of others is pointless. I let this guy go ahead of me with his one item and now he’s fifty thousand dollars richer. I’m unemployed and struggling and I get zero. That it. I’m out!”

That only served to fan the flames of the onlookers’ outrage and they began hurling verbal abuse at the store’s manager, while I, feeling a galaxy-wide sense of complete and utter defeat, just waited for my groceries to be rung up. The cashier, who’s served me for years, saw how crushed I was and, looking like she was about to be physically ill, asked me “Are you okay?” to which I responded with “No, I’m most definitely not okay. I just want to take my groceries and go home…” That was certainly true. If I didn’t leave right then, I would have likely smashed my head repeatedly against the nearest wall in an expression of cosmic frustration. More shoppers came over and offered to tell the manager that the seltzer guy only won because I let him cut in front of me, but I had said my piece and was resigned to the simple fact that I had once again lost in the game of life and that again I’d unwittingly been drafted as a source of amusement for whatever cruel gods there may be.

Then a woman walked over and stated she’d witnessed what had happened and that she would try and have words with the manager and try to make things right, but again I stated my desperate desire to simply leave this death camp of my own personal existential mockery. She let that thought hang for a moment and then stated that I’d just been part of a taped “social experiment” and that her crew would pay for my groceries and hand me three-hundred dollars cash up front, so would I please step over here to sign some release forms?

Double-stunned, I followed her to the secluded aisle in back of the manager’s office and watched through what seemed to be someone else’s perception as she reached into her coat and produced a manila envelope positively bursting with crisp fifties. She counted out the aforementioned three hundred bucks and handed it to me, after which she asked me a number of questions as I filled out a release form and gave her my full contact information. “Well, we certainly didn’t expect the reaction we got of you,” she stated. “Were you angry as it was all happening?” I looked her square in the face and told her, “Lady, every word I said back there was true. I am unemployed, so when a guy I’d let go in front of me wins fifty G’s, you bet your sweet ass I was angry! I wanted to leave before I tore his fucking head off!!!” She laughed at that and then had me pose for two head shots, holding a piece of paper with my name written on it in strong-smelling marker and standing directly in front of the stacked maxi-pad display. She also made it clear that they needed all of my contact info in case they decided to use my footage for their show, in which case I will be paid at a professional actor’s rate. As we parted, she asked me not to talk to anyone local about all of this since they planned to spring the setup on other unsuspecting shoppers over what remained of the day. (I stuck to not posting about it until the market’s closing time, after which I felt it was kosher. Plus, I very much doubt they’d pull the same move in the same place the following day, so there you go.)

As I gathered my groceries, the staff of the market all came over and laughed as they apologized for setting up one of their regular customers, but I had free groceries and three-hundred bucks in hand, so I was far from mad any more. Then the seltzer guy came over, hugged me, and wished me the best, also stating that he hoped they used my footage because of the unexpected nature of my response. (I’m betting they expected the big, leather-clad black guy to flip out and act the fool in a stereotypical display of the kind of ghetto histrionics that appall/delight viewers, but what they got was obviously something they did not expect at all.) When I walked out, I ran into the film crew and they laughed their asses off as they high-fived me.

It wasn’t until I returned to my apartment that I remembered seeing notices up around the Associated yesterday, notices warning people not to park in front of the place because there was to be a film shoot there the following day. I didn’t pay much attention to them yesterday because the neighborhood is constantly the site of independent film shoots, Hollywood shoots, and frequent episodes of LAW & ORDER: SVU, and as a result of all of that I never give such notices a second thought, so I was the perfect mark for the show’s purposes.

Still quite stunned, I called a few friends and related this story, much to their amazement, and my old friend Jim Browski clued me in to the fact that the show in question is most probably something called WHAT WOULD YOU DO?, a reality show that places unsuspecting citizens in trying situations and lets the camera roll to see how they handle whatever predicament they find themselves in. I don’t have cable, so I’d never heard of the show, but I assure you I’ll let you all know if they decide to air this lunacy.

IT WAS THIRTY-ONE YEARS AGO TODAY

2011-12-08T17:03:00.003-05:00

Dear Vaulties-

here's a re-run from the past couple of years, complete with the title change to render the accurate passage of time. Bear with it, because this has become an annual fixture.

NOTE : every word of the following story is true (or rather remembered as exactly as humanly possible given that just over three decades have elapsed since it happened), and if you find some of it offensive at this late date, imagine being in my shoes at age fifteen!

December 9th, 1980-

It was the start of my tenth grade school day morning and I was disgruntled (as usual) at being denied sleep and instead being herded along with the rest of the cattle at Staples High School into yet another inane class. The first item of regurgitation/education of the morning was English with Mr. Dyskolos (not his real name; changed for reasons soon to be apparent), a late-forty-something red-headed guy who then looked like what Danny Bonaduce looks like today who was also among the minute handful of teachers whose classes would keep students awake because he was genuinely interesting, did not talk down to the kids and had not allowed the thankless teaching system to beat him down and force him to consider his job a mocking reminder of wage-slavery (I'm the son of a teacher, so I speak with a working knowledge of such things).

As the students took their chairs we all noticed that Mr. Dyskolos's usual laid-back manner seemed somewhat "off" that morning and after nearly a minute of total silence as he stared into space as though contemplating some cosmic truth or inevitability, he suddenly focused himself, looked at us and said, as serious as a heart attack, "By the look of you, you haven't heard what happened this morning. I'll just get right to it. John Lennon, de facto leader of the Beatles, was shot dead by some lunatic fan." Most of the class had indeed not heard about Lennon's murder and those of us who hadn't, myself among them, were stunned. But before the horrible truth could fully set in, Mr. Dyskolos continued. "You kids probably know a lot about the Beatles from what your parents or maybe your older brothers and sisters played for you, but you can't even begin to imagine the worldwide pop culture impact those guys had at the time. Obviously I was there for the 1960's and can tell you firsthand what it was like, but I'm gonna spare you that nauseating, self-indulgent trip down memory lane. I guarantee you that all your other teachers are going to suspend actual teaching for the day and drag you along for their reminiscences of their flower-power salad days, but I'm not gonna do that to you. Instead, I'm gonna tell you a few truths that you won't hear anywhere else in this school, or damn near anywhere else, on what's gonna no doubt be a day of worldwide mourning."

He leaned forward in his chair, his face a mask of utmost solemnity, and uttered words that blew the minds of the roomful of privileged suburban white kids (and me): "The Beatles sucked. They were a bunch of marginally talented 'heads' who started out ripping off the work of their black American influences and made a hell of a lot of money for no good reason, killing real rock 'n' roll in the process and unleashing legions of even less-talented imitators in that godawful British Invasion nonsense. And then they went to India, supposedly to gain 'enlightenment' or some other George Harrison-inspired bee-ess, but if you ask me all it did was make their music more annoying." To emphasize that point of criticism, Mr. Dyskolos began making a nasal and high-pitched "neeeeeeer neeeeeer neeeeeeeeeee neeeer" sound by way of approximating the tones of a sitar.

By this point in his diatribe you could have heard an amoeba fart. Young eyes practically bugged out of their sockets and jaws had fallen into laps. This was rock 'n' roll blasphemy in the extreme, and on the morning of the senseless slaughter of a man held by most in the room to be a hero of peace, love and great music, no less. Our worlds were shaken to the core. And then Mr. Dyskolos continued, still looking solemn, but his mouth betrayed a slight half-smile as he was very obviously enjoying his class' speechless outrage.

"Then they put out that asinine White Album that had exactly two good songs on it — 'Birthday" and 'Back in the U.S.S.R.,' and those two were good because they sound like actual rock 'n' roll! — and had the fucking unbelievable nerve to include that 'Revolution 9' horseshit! What the hell was that? (assumes comedic Liverpudlian accent) 'Noombuh nine? Noombuh nine?' What a load of crap! I'm telling you kids right here and now, remember how 'deep' that bullshit is when you decide to give acid a try!" (NOTE: this was the first time I ever hear a teacher curse when not discussing some of the content in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.)

Before he could say another word, Mr. Dyskolos was cut off and drowned out by an aural assault of irate dissenting opinion, his every word being tarred as the rantings of an anti-peace & love curmudgeon who "just didn't get it." "Who do you think you are???" shrieked several of my classmates. "The Beatles were the most important band in history! John Lennon and Paul McCartney were two of the greatest songwriters who ever lived! Are you crazy?" Dyskolos responded with a sneer that would have done Vincent Price proud and uttered my favorite comeback heard in all of my teenage years, whether I agreed with him or not: "What the hell did they ever write that was worth a goddamn? 'We all live in a yellow submarine?' Puh-leeeeze. The only reason you kids enshrine those hacks is because of nostalgia filtered down from parents who were barely your age when the Beatles showed up and absorbed by the general public and your older brothers and sisters who used that garbage as a soundtrack for when they'd sneak off to smoke weed in the back of a van. Which also explains how anybody could ever find the stomach to listen to those Doors assholes! Face it, kids. For some of what are supposed to be this country's brightest young minds, you sure are a bunch of programmed parrots!" And when one of the students blurted out that John Lennon was a symbol of "give peace a chance," our sage teacher batted that one aside with "You've obviously never heard about the time when Mr. Give Peace A Chance went to some club and hung out with a Kotex stuck to his forehead," a then-shocking truth that only elicited more teenage keening.

That was the real meat of it but the back and forth ranting went on for the class' full hour, with order barely being restored with the ringing of the bell marking the rotation to the next class. Each of my classmates and I zombied off to the next class and swiftly discovered that Mr. Dyskolos had been correct in his auguring; indeed, each and every teacher I had to endure for the rest of the day derailed the planned curriculum in favor of rose-colored reminiscences of "a more innocent time" full of free love, "the people getting together, man!"and how the Beatles were the troubadours that saw them through all of it and changed to reflect the time. That was all well and good in theory, but not for hours on end as heard from speakers of wildly varying levels of eloquence (to say nothing of interest), with lunch being the only respite from what was essentially the same story only with the most minor of variations.

When the day finally ended I headed downtown to do my volunteer teaching of a cartooning class at the local YMCA and the journey allowed me some time to process the events of the day and the "truths" imparted. I'd grown up liking the Beatles quite a lot but didn't own any of their albums thanks to their many hits being available in endless rotation on some of the nascent stations that played what would come to be known as "classic rock," and as the seventies ended I avoided the agonizing repetition of disco and such by listening to the excellent oldies station WBLI out of Long Island, a radio entity that served to plant the seeds of my passion for pre-1970's rock that was either primitive and raw or bizarre and very much off the beaten path. WBLI played some of the standard Beatles hits, but they also threw stuff like "Dig A Pony" and "Rain" (nowadays my favorite Beatles tune of all) into the mix and showed me just how much the classic rock stations played the same Fab Four songs over and over and over and over and over again, ad nauseum, and taking into account the espoused theory — voiced with absolute certainty of its veracity — that myself and my fellow students may have been a bunch of programmed drones, I began to wonder if Mr. Dyskolos had in fact done his young charges a favor by showing none of the rote reverence extended to the favorite sons of Liverpool by all who drew breath. He had effectively "killed our idol," on the day when one would expect nothing but 100% adherence to the party line, and that greatly intrigued my punk rock-influenced sensibilities.

As I pondered these thoughts, I wandered past Westport Record and Tape, one of the town's most accessible record stores, and greeted Jean, the sweet southern proprietor. I asked her if the shooting of John Lennon had affected her sales that day and she said, "Honey, look over at the Beatles and John Lennon sections. Whadda you see? Tumbleweeds 'n' cattle skulls, that's what! Folks came in and cleaned the place out like they were a bunch of vinyl-eatin' locusts! On sales of Beatles and Lennon records alone, I could close early today." And it was true. Every single Beatles/Lennon platter had vanished into the Westport ether, bought up by fools who believed those perennial best-sellers (okay, maybe not SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY) would become instant collector's items.

Later that night as I lay there in my bed staring up at the white stucco ceiling, I listened to my cassette tape of SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND and experienced it in a way that I never had before. I'd listened to it about two dozen times since acquiring it a couple of years previous, but now it served as a poignant grave marker for my favorite member of the Beatles and its words took on a whole new timbre. No one would be "fixing a hole" in Lennon and ensuring he would live to see sixty-four and beyond. He would not be getting better and there would be no more good mornings for him. Yet tragic though it was, this was just another day in the collective life, and that life would go on without John Lennon (though obviously not "within").

I remember the hue and cry when Elvis Presley, the so-called King of Rock 'n' Roll, gave up the ghost and people acted as though the world had come to an end and I frankly didn't get it. I liked some of Elvis's music, but it didn't really speak to me in the way that the Beatles had and I now chalk that up to the Beatles happening during what could arguably be considered the most pivotal period of the twentieth century, a time that redefined much of American culture and into which my generation was born. We didn't grow up with Elvis, whose music helped set the template of rock 'n' roll, but we did come along during the rise of the Beatles and reached early sentience while under the influence of their sound. We couldn't know at the time just what their contribution meant, but we did know that we liked it. Obsessive poring over the minutia of the whys and wherefores of their lives, art and careers would come later. At that point in our young lives love was indeed all we needed, and in the wake of the plastic disco era and what small impact punk had in the U.S. at the time, that wasn't a bad thing.

So today marks the thirty-first anniversary of John Lennon's senseless slaughter and for me the day that it happened becomes ever more remote, so I figured I'd jot down my experience of it before age robs it of what clarity remains. If any of you have tales of that day, please write in and share.

R.I.P. BILL McKINNEY (1931-2011), aka THE GUY WHO IMMORTAILZED THE PHRASE "SQUEAL LIKE A PIG"

2011-12-02T13:10:00.003-05:00

The mountain man — or would that be "mountin' man?" — who became the bane of Ned Beatty's existence.

The mere mention of Bill McKinney's all-too-memorable performance in DELIVERANCE (1972) is enough to instantly send mens' butt-cheeks a-clenching, so I'll just leave it at that...

CHRISTMAS EVIL-2011 EDITION

2011-12-01T00:01:00.003-05:00

Yes, dear Vaulties, it's that time of year again and another Christmas CD has been concocted to counteract the annual force-feeding of treacly yuletide ditties that send me into a murderous state of apoplexy. The lineup hasn't changed much over the past couple of Christmas seasons, largely due to me not having found any new entries that really got me going, but many of the old perennials deservedly remain. In case you want to track all this stuff down online and download them for yourself, here are this year's selections:

Santa Says... -Spine Punch
Christmas Is A-Comin'- The Shitbirds
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town-John Spence
Frosty The Dope Man-Knock Out
We Wish You a Hump At Christmas-Ron and the Rude Boys (a very filthy bunch of Brits)
Lick My Balls-Dirty Christmas Project A Drunk And Horribly Inappropriate Christmas
Merry F'n Christmas-Denis Leary
Feliz Navidad-Christmas With Beer
Don't Mess With My Tequila-Backstreet Girls
My Mother Gave Me A Gun For Christmas (Waltz Version)-Pork Dukes
Jack Shit- John Valby
A Wee Little Christmas Ditty-Drunken Stupor (this is the one about drunk driving)
A Christmas Warning-El Privates (in which women are considerately advised to expect getting raped this holiday season...?!!?)
Can I Please Crawl Down To Your Chimney?-Kenne Highland & His Vatican Sex Kittens
Homo Christmas-Pansy Division (exactly what it sounds like and catchy as hell)
Tiny Tim's Revenge-Knock Out Christmas

Christmas is a Pain in the Arse-The Accelerators

Deck The Halls-The Kickin' Kazoos (an incredibly annoying all-kazoo rendition)

Fuck You Santa Claus (Eat Shit Santa Claus)-Filthy Elvis

You Ain't Gettin' S*** For Christmas -Red Peters

We Wish You A Merry Christmas-Aaron Tucker (as Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Christmas When You're Dead -Ralph Sinatra (sung from the POV of Frank Sinatra's corpse)

I'll Be Stoned For Christmas-John Valby (perhaps the most honest Christmas song ever recorded)

Daddy Drank Our Christmas Money-TVTV$ (yes, the dollar sign is supposed to be there)

A Merry Jingle-The Greedies

Merry Fucking Christmas-Mr. Garrison

Meth Lab Christmas-Acoustic Front

Anal Beads-Dirty Christmas Project (the gayest version of "Jingle Bells" imaginable)

Christmas With Bazooka Joe-The Fleshtones (this one gets extra points for originality/incongruity)

The Most Wonderful Time in your Rear-Dirty Christmas Project

Feck Off You Drunken Gentleman -Ron and the Rude Boys

Stomping Through A Pillaged Wonderland-Vykyng

Death to the World-Mike Puccio (from the album "Zombie Christmas")

Fuck Christmas-Eric Idle
Donny the Retard-Larry The Cable Guy

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977)

2011-11-29T13:30:00.001-05:00

"Her pussy's in this plot, too! She's using it to murder me!'
-the king of the Underworld, shortly after Bruce Lee saves him from being fucked to death by Emmanuelle. (Yes, you read that right.)

If you're a regular reader of this site, you know I love and cherish movies from many genres that could kindly be called "completely fucking ludicrous." With that in mind, please allow me to introduce you the what is hands down the most insane, ridiculous, stupid, and just plain downright shameless example of the deservedly maligned "Brucesploitation" genre. For those not aware of its dubious existence, the Brucesploitation sub-genre of martial arts films were cheapie cash-ins made in the wake of Bruce Lee's untimely demise, invariably starring dudes who bore a passing resemblance to the master at best, and none of whom were anywhere near being within the same galaxy of Lee's skills. The legion of those films are mostly boring and outright necrophiliac trash, but THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN is both wildly entertaining and an intentional comedy, and as such it deserves to be not only rediscovered but also restored and remastered. In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that this film is more entertaining than any actual Bruce Lee movie. How, you may ask, is that possible? Allow me to explain...

Bruce Lee's priapic corpse arrives in the Underworld.

It's 1973 and the great Bruce Lee is dead. His corpse, equipped with cool shades and what appears to be a raging hard-on — no, really — arrives in what is apparently an Asian variant of the purgatory, and we are informed that when people die, their bodies and faces change so they no longer look like they did when alive and kicking (which is a convenient way of glossing over star Bruce Leung's utter non-resemblance to Bruce Lee). After arrogantly insulting the king of the Underworld and being given back his chucks (which were taken away when they were revealed not to be an impressive boner), Bruce wanders the local streets and encounters a number of majorly copyright-infringed characters in a noodle restaurant. We're talking Popeye (played by Chinese actor Eric Tsang) and Kwai Chang Caine from KUNG FU (played this time not by David Carradine, but by an actual Chinese guy) on the side of good, and Zatoichi, James Bond (!!!) and Clint Eastwood (played by a Chinese actor and dressed like the Man with No Name from the classic Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns).

Kwai Chang Caine, Bruce Lee, and Popeye...Motherfucking Popeye?!!? What the fuck???

Meanwhile, the aged and exceedingly horny king of the Underworld is having problems with his wives because they've gotten wind of Bruce Lee's newly-arrived presence and they, like every other woman in the Underworld, are devoured by lust at the mere thought of him, even Emmanuelle (who's apparently the concubine of the Exorcist). Yes, that Emmanuelle, and she even describes herself as "a silly little pussy."

NOTE: for you readers who may have come along after the dire days when decent porn was not as readily available as it is now, the Emmanulle character, initially portrayed by Sylvia Kristel, first showed up in a 1974 French softcore erotic film that went on to become a massive international hit, after which there followed a succession of sequels — around thirty-six at last count; no, seriously — the vast majority of which did not feature the original actress. From the dawn of home video and the ubiquity of cable TV, practically every kid I grew up with saw at least the first Emmanuelle movie and were mostly bored silly by it, its considerable amount of full-frontal nudity notwithstanding, so to those of us of a certain age the mere mention of that name is evocative of a key moment in our adolescent development. The point here being that in the world of cinema, the character of Emmanuelle was nearly as much of a household name as Bruce Lee, only reigning in the realm of tenderloin cinema rather than that of chopsocky, so her inclusion here as a usable pop culture icon makes a certain degree of sense. But I digress...

One of the king's two wives is especially into Bruce because she's a fan of his movies — how she saw them in the Underworld is not made clear — and she desires nothing more than to have him beat her with his "powerful weapon" (his chucks) and make passionate love to her...

It's at this point that I think it's appropos to note that I'm neither drunk nor making any of this up. All of this lunacy is actually in the movie.

Anyway, Bruce rejects the advances of the king's wives, thus greatly insulting them and spurring them to send Count Dracula (pronounced here as "Draculer" in the dub) and his gang of zombies to kick Bruce's ass. That only pisses Bruce off, so he dons his famous Kato outfit from THE GREEN HORNET (where he got it from and why he does this is anyone's guess) and hands out ass-whuppings like they were Halloween candy. And just when things look really bad for Bruce, he reveals the secret "Third Leg of Bruce" technique, in which he magically produces an extra leg with which to kick Dracula square in the face.

Also, the bad guys, led by the Godfather and the Exorcist (who has an atrociously bad French accent for no explained reason), want to recruit Bruce to help them overthrow the king, but cocksure Bruce doesn't give a fuck about that (or much of anything else for that matter) and seeks nothing other than a way back to the world of the living. As the bad guys launch assassination attempts against the king, including the aforementioned and memorable attempted murder by pussy, Bruce intervenes and is made captain of the king's personal guard (a plot point that goes absolutely nowhere). The remainder of the film is taken up by fight after fight after fight, in which the bad guys are killed off one by one, finally culminating in Bruce forcing the reluctant king to send him back to the world of the living, which the king does by drop-kicking him and sending him flying off into the distance as the newly-liberated denizens of purgatory cheer their thanks.

Wow. Just...WOW.

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN is balls-out insane from start to finish and this review doesn't even begin to communicate just how out of its mind the film actually is. It's low-budget to the nth degree, features one of the worst/best dubbed voice tracks on record, contains wall-to-wall fight scenes that look like they were choreographed by an eight-year-old, includes a surprising amount of nudity and sex for this kind of flick (which is what earned the film its R-rating), and is packed to the rafters with so much outright silliness and utter stupidity that I had a huge grin plastered across my face for most of its running time. Unlike many cheapjack kung fu films from its era, especially those found in the annals of Brucesploitation, the film is not dull for even two minutes and its loony, surreal cartoonishness moves along at a breakneck pace that suggests the filmmakers didn't want to allow viewers any time in which to actually contemplate just what kind of madness was unspooling upon the screen. No lie, THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN gets my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION as a must-see masterpiece of bad cinema, and if anyone knows where I can find a better print of it than the one included in the ULTIMATE DRAGON COLLECTION 10-film Brucesploitation set, please do not hesitate to tell me where I can find one.

MY FAVORITE MADMAN DIRECTOR CHECKS OUT: R.I.P. KEN RUSSELL (1927-2011)

2011-11-28T12:25:00.004-05:00

And so, my favorite genuine madman of a movie director has gone on to his final rest. I've written at length on my love of Ken Russell's fucking berserk yet visually beautiful films, but when it comes to writing him a suitable eulogy I find myself utterly at a loss for words. Russell had been seriously debilitated by a series of strokes during the past decade or so and it was heartbreaking to see his great, admittedly twisted sensibilities rendered largely unable to communicate, either verbally or filmically. All I can say is that I loved his movies and I hope his passing was swift and as painless as possible. For a proper obit on the guy, I recommend the one found at THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Rest well, Uncle Ken. Your enlivening of the cinematic landscape will always be massively appreciated by many, myself absolutely included among that number.

8/4/2010-Fuck George Lucas: I got to meet Ken motherfucking Russell!!!

HAPPY 71st BIRTHDAY TO THE ONE AND ONLY BRUCE LEE!!!

2011-11-27T19:29:00.002-05:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2011 FROM THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS!

2011-11-24T00:01:00.001-05:00

For all you newcomers out there, here is my annual Thanksgiving piece. Enjoy!

Some words of holiday advice:

1. You can survive your fucking annoying family. And if they piss you off too much, just remember that one day they will be dead.

2. Don't drink and drive, 'cause that shit's for amateurs and assholes. Stay at home to tie one on; why do you think Thanksgiving's an all-day festival of football, parades, movies, dog shows and marathons of classic TV reruns? It's a dazzling cathode ray cornucopia of stuff to keep the wasted off the streets and at home, puking, fucking and fighting right where they belong.

3. When encountering your old high school pals for what's probably the one time you'll see them all year, do not comment on how fat and/or old they look. That shit goes two ways, bunky...

4. If you must go to church during the holiday, make sure to go as hungover and reeking of booze as possible, that way next year they'll think twice before forcing you out of bed and into a place choked with incense and festooned with pictures of Jesus looking at your ass.

5. If your family gathering has a kiddie table, make sure to sit there and serve as a bad example to the next generation. Tell age-acceptable off-color jokes and stories. Teach the kids the lyrics to "The Diarrhea Song" (especially the version recorded by distaff punk/metal band Betty Blowtorch) and have them sing it loudly halfway through the meal. Introduce them to "pull my finger." In short, do your part to ensure your status as the fave older relative from the start; that way the kids won't feel so awkward in later years when they need somebody to take them to get an abortion or bail them out of jail without their parents being any the wiser. And believe me, they will pay back your "cool relative" kindness somewhere down the line.

6. Always, ALWAYS eat the turkey's tail. It's the perfect amount of dark meat, fat, and skin in one concentrated morsel and if slathered with the right amount of gravy it's a thing of joy forever (well, at least until it's digested and re-manifests itself as the next morning's enormous post-Turkey Day turd).

7. The true bombardment of Christmas-themed TV commercials commences right around Thanksgiving, so feel free to let loose with the Ribald Songbird action and desecrate the classic Yuletide tunes that have already been corrupted for TV adverts, only make them super-dirty with usages of words like "cocksucker," "shit," and "pussy fart." Since you're gonna hear them a million times between now and the new year anyway, you may as well have some fun with them.

8. If you have to suffer through the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade — the Thanksgiving moment I dread most — don't try to be an asshole and bring to your aging parents' attention the fact that it's nothing more than a saccharine, three-hour commercial. They like it for the marching bands, big-assed balloons, and celebs lip-synching and do not give a fuck about it's true purpose, so let them have their fun. And you can always have something to look forward to, namely the hope that the guy playing Santa at the end of the show will either be drunk or have a visible hard-on.

9. If you're staying at your parents' house with a significant other, try to remain as silent as possible if having sex under your folks' roof. I don't know why, but the idea of their kids having sex, even us grownup kids, seriously fucks with the heads of our progenitors. Then again, maybe you should fuck like monkeys on crack while at home...Aah, what the hell? Make 'em remember how it's done! And if they bitch about it, remind them of all the times they nagged you for grandkids and ask them if they forgot where said grandkids come from. That'll shut the geezers up in no time.

10. If the friends and loved ones you miss most can't be there this year, think of them fondly and rest assured that they're probably every bit as miserable as you are.

And with that, Happy Thanksgiving, and may the pecans in grandma's cookies actually be pecans and not roaches. (She doesn't see that well anymore, you know.)

COULD THIS BE THE WORST PORNO EVER?

2011-11-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

Seriously, who the hell could rub one out to this? It looks horrible and hilljack enough to actually give the infamous BAT PUSSY a run for its money, and that's really saying something! And out of sheer morbid curiosity, I actually kinda want to sit through this, but I would have to have the right gang of friends along for the ride. I'd need the Fresno Fox, Greaseball Johnny, Fudgetub, Gigantress, Otter Girl, and Gilsonic to sit with me as its vile anti-charms unfurled across the screen. And exactly what is this supposed to be a parody of anyway?

A TURKEY DAY REMINDER

2011-11-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

That dreaded day of possibly-dysfunctional family togetherness, interminable and expensive travel, the shameless three-hour commercial that is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Roman Empire-level gorging, drunkenness, and football looms again, dear Vaulties. You will survive, hey hey. And to those of you who grew up in the Tri-State area, don't forget to dust off your DVD copies of KING KONG — original version only — SON OF KONG, and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, plus a classic-era Godzilla movie of choice. You know why. If I may recommend the Godzilla flick, I'd go with GODZILLA VERSUS MOTHRA (which went by GODZILLA VERSUS THE THING when we were kids) or GODZILLA VERSUS THE SEA MONSTER. And if you have the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 version of that last one, so much the better.

REALITY CHECK

2011-11-21T01:59:00.004-05:00

Hey, folks. Time for one of my periodic updates on what's going on here in my world outside of the Internet dimension. In a nutshell, I'm not doing great but I'm trying my best to keep a positive outlook on things. Nonetheless, the current state of affairs has left me rather unmotivated to write for this here blog, so please bear with my present dry spell.

The year began with me breaking up with my girlfriend — who, let us remember, was not a villain — and I have to admit that I was romantically gun shy for quite a while after that transpired. I believe I'm ready to start dating again, or at least I feel okay with it on a conceptual level. The problem with that is that there are no prospects at the moment. Well, maybe there is one, just maybe, but I have to really think about that...

I skipped Halloween because I just wasn't feeling it this year. Also there were no parties and none of my friends were really doing anything. Plus, Halloween kinda sucks without a squeeze to share it with. I've done Halloween stag many times in the past but nothing compares to that glorious day when I have a comely female accompanying me in a costume that I get to chew off of her at the end of the night.

After a fruitless year and a half of job-searching, my unemployment finally benefits run out this Wednesday. I have some small money socked away and there are also other resources that I would prefer not to rely on but one has to do what one has to do. I've applied for a job that I am perfectly suited for but so far there has been no response, but it's still early in the game, so I am remaining positive.

I'm heading home for Thanksgiving and all I'm really looking forward to about that is the eating. (Like my fat ass needs any more poundage added to it...) While at home, I'll have to try and stay sane during the annual horror that is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, that three-hour nightmare on wheels/thinly disguised long-form commercial that my mother insists on watching with the volume cranked up to 11. I'll also have to deal with her twitchy nervousness and hand-wringing over my state of employment, or lack thereof, while also fielding her endless directions about how to proceed in publishing or the comics biz, both areas that she knows absolutely nothing about, yet she refuses to cop to her ignorance. I swear, when she goes off in that mode, I just want to shove her head through the house's sheet rock with as much force as I can muster. She means well, but I wish she wouldn't act like an authority on something she knows nothing whatsoever about, especially not when it's a field that I was involved in as a professional for over a decade and something that I'm still involved with as a comics biz journalist.

In other news, I was tapped by my dear old friend Amanda to write the text for IDW's art book on her work. It was a breeze for me to write since I've watched her artistic progress with a keen eye since we were co-slackers in our tenth grade algebra class, and the project was a true labor of love. And who knows? Maybe my involvement with that book will open doors to the next phase in my journey.

And while I don't have actual plans for New Year's, I do have a dear friend coming down from Maine to spend it with me. I miss her being around in NYC, so even the briefest of visits will suit me just fine.

So that's where things stand at the moment. Stay tuned and thanks for your continued support.

11/11/11 — IT'S NIGEL TUFNEL DAY!!!

2011-11-11T00:02:00.009-05:00

It's Nigel Tufnel Day, the sacred day that only happens one every century, and this is its inaugural year! (NOTE: If you somehow have no idea what the fuck I'm going on about, sit through THIS IS SPINAL TAP immediately!)

Remember Lenny and Squiggy from LAVERNE & SHIRLEY? Well, they put out an album in 1979 with their band, Lenny & the Squigtones, featuring one young Nigel Tufnel on guitar and here's photographic proof of this having happened. This band photo is the primary reason why I own that album. (I think I paid fifteen bucks for it at the late, lamented Footlight Records back around 1993.) Oh, and drummer Ming the Merciless? That's actually Peter Criss, sans Kiss makeup.

Lenny & the Squigtones, featuring a young Nigel Tufnel.

So, fellow lovers of quality metal, get off your asses, get out there, and represent! And remember, THIS DAY GOES UP TO ELEVEN!!!

"THE RESURRECTION OF GAHAN WILSON'S NUTS" at PUBLISHERS WEEKLY COMICS WORLD

2011-11-08T18:28:00.005-05:00

In my capacity as a reviewer/feature article writer for PUBLISHERS WEEKLY COMICS WORLD, it was recently my great honor to have a talk with Gahan Wilson, one of my all-time favorite cartoonists and definitely a huge influence on how I see the world, regarding the Fantagraphics publication of a hardcover collection of the complete run of NUTS. NUTS was a series that ran in NATIONAL LAMPOON during the years before it became a pale shadow of its incredibly un-PC, scabrous self, and it is without question the most honest exploration of the confusion, disappointments and general all-around shit-end-of-the-stick that is childhood. For example, here's the strip that pretty much sums up what NUTS was all about in one shot:

Go here to read the article. And I strongly urge you to get a copy of the book for yourself and your kids or nieces and nephews, especially those who have just crossed over into their teens. They'll totally recognize every moment of the protagonist's agony as something they've experienced, and they may even be able to laugh at all of it now.

ANNIE SPRINKLE'S HERSTORY OF PORN: REEL TO REAL (1999)

2011-11-07T01:17:00.001-05:00

WARNING!!! If the frank discussion of some of the grottier elements that can be found in porno offends you or grosses you out, you are strongly advised to give this entry a miss. And bear in mind that this warning is coming from me, so take that for what it's worth.

"Pornography is the mirror in which we can see our reflections. The same image may appear beautiful one day, and ugly the next, be liberating one year, and offensive later. How wonderful to have the opportunity to take a look. To learn and, perchance, to dream. Making porn is a lot harder than you might think. I've never even come close to capturing the magnificence of my best sexual experiences. One thing is for sure: in just twenty-five years, we have come a long way. The answer to really bad porn is not no porn, but to try to make better porn. No matter where we stand, pornography reflects us all."-Annie Sprinkle

As is probably apparent to my regular readers, I am unashamedly fascinated by pornography, not merely as a means to a solo orgasmic end, but mostly as an earthy, fleshly reflection of who and what we are as sexual human animals. And while I have been known to enjoy such material for its most obvious intended use from time to time, I’m always interested in learning about the history of the medium, a form that goes back as far as the moment when the first cave-person fashioned a curvy goddess statue from crude earth or put pigment to cave wall to depict primitive images of copulation.

So anyway, about a week back I stopped by a kiosk in Manhattan's Union Square where a couple of guys sell assorted "gray market" DVDs, and the more erudite of the two, remembering my interest in documentaries on the history of porn, offered me what he believed to be an overview of American tenderloin cinema as hosted/narrated by veteran porn star Annie Sprinkle. I accepted the disc, ANNIE SPRINKLE'S HERSTORY OF PORN, and took it home, allowing it to sit atop a "to be watched" stack for a few days before I threw it into my player for a late-night screening. (And it really was a screening and not a moment of "relaxing the gentleman's way;" I was on the phone with my equally-insomniac friend, Daisy, as I watched the first half of it, so there was no five-knuckle shuffling going on.)

Our humble raconteur and documentary subject, Annie Sprinkle (née Ellen Steinberg).

For those of you out there who have no idea who Annie Sprinkle is, she's a notorious bisexual porn star/prostitute/stripper/performance artist who was born Ellen Steinberg in Philadelphia and has re-invented herself several times throughout her career, now enriching the world with performance pieces and other works that disseminate perhaps the most sex-positive vibes in American society's hypocritically puritanical sexual landscape. For what it's worth, I really like Annie's sweet and adorable persona and the joy and utterly shameless happiness in sex that she merrily espouses like some kind of bubbly and lewd Yoda with big ol' titties, so I was totally down with her acting as a guide through the history of American porno's golden age.

Such a journey, however, was not what I got when I started watching ANNIE SPRINKLE'S HERSTORY OF PORN. It instead turned out to be a very thorough and heartfelt video autobiography/career retrospective beginning with Annie's time in assorted porn that began as conventional beast-with-two-backs reels and going up through her then-current role as a DIY sex-educator/sexual shamaness-goddess, and I could have dealt with that just fine if it had not been comprehensive enough to include footage from some of Sprinkle's more, er, "specialized" efforts. To be fair, Sprinkle herself does warn the viewer that if there's anything onscreen that they may not want to see, they can simply "cover your eyes and it'll pass, and please try to keep an open mind until the very, very end," and it's advice I wish I'd heeded in more than one instance. You see, Sprinkle's work in straight porno was already rather raunchy even by the somewhat nebulously-defined standards of the genre, and some of it could be considered "nasty" in terms of her very game willingness to do just about anything on camera, but as of the late-1970's she adventurously veered waaaaay into fetish stuff that Sprinkle claimed led to most mainstream porno directors no longer hiring her because she'd gained a rep as being "too kinky." Included during the fetish overview are segments including the following:

Sprinkle's signature golden shower antics
dwarf-fucking (the guy in that equation, Luis De Jesus, played the vile Ralphus in the "classic" grindhouse gore opus BLOOD-SUCKING FREAKS)
Annie shoving a toothbrush into the orifices not found on her head (don't worry, it wasn't the brushy end)
Annie getting seriously rodgered with a hefty kielbasa
heavy-duty bondage and rape-fantasy stuff
Annie getting fisted (stumped?) by an amputee
close-up removal of swamped, bloody feminine hygiene products
Annie being graphically fisted herself and then graphically fisting some splayed-out skinny guy with her mitt lodged up him well past her wrist, after which she introduced his sundered butthole to an enormous dildo at least two feet in length and about as wide around as a can of Chock Full O' Nuts coffee
an absolutely revolting "rainbow shower" segment in which our girl pukes all over some scruffy meth-addict-looking dude, barfing into his open mouth and jerking him off with fresh hurl as a lubricant (Sprinkle somewhat defuses that last bit by stating that they actually used canned soup, which is apparent when one goes back and really examines the footage, but nonetheless yecch...)

Maybe I'm just too "vanilla" but none of the stuff on that list strikes me as erotic in any way, which is not to say I wouldn't have watched it for its curiosity value if I had been truly forewarned. And, to tell the truth, I had already seen examples of all of that kind of stuff since I hit college, so none of it was new to me. (Though I had avoided the menstrually-related material; I'm not squeamed-out by period stuff thanks to the realities encountered when involved with girlfriends and also due to most of my friends being female and very candid about their "lady business" — there is nothing in that department that I have not heard about firsthand and in medically-graphic detail — but I don't find such stuff appealing as my porn fodder of choice.)

Anyway, following that overwhelming fetish-pummeling, Sprinkle's focus mercifully shifts to 1982's DEEP INSIDE ANNIE SPRINKLE, which she claims was the first porno film conceived from a woman's point of view, and from which she moved into crafting a more female-centric pornographic experience. Then, as the 1980's got going and the era of "new age" healing and philosophy dawned (which, if you ask me, was little more than a re-discovery of the Eastern stuff the '60's counter-culture dabbled in, only now seasoned with dashes of neo-paganism), Sprinkle hooked up with a Tantric adept who guided her into her first deeply spiritual experience with sex and sexuality. She emerged from her time with him a woman energized and transformed, who sought to share her epiphany with all whose hearts and minds were open to it, as well as seeking to educate the people on safer sex so awareness would be raised and the very act of loving would not continue to be a sensually-disguised Grim Reaper in the age of AIDS. That era in Sprinkle's development can be seen as akin to a narrative in which the protagonist, having undergone the assorted tests that would forge them into a hero that rang true to Campbell's theories on "the heroic journey," comes back to the world they left behind in search of adventure and learning imparted through said trials, returning with a beatific sense of wisdom and self. Some would find such espousing of these sentiments to be just so much self-serving hippy-dippy bullshit but I definitely get where Sprinkle's coming from when she discusses it, and my buying into what she has to say on the subject goes back as far as when I read her excellent and highly recommended book, POST-PORN MODERNIST (1991).

From there, Sprinkle expanded her horizons by identifying as a lesbian and becoming an artist who appeared in pornographic "art" films and performance art pieces, such as the now-infamous "Public Cervix Announcement," in which she would appear seated onstage, sans undergarments, schlamp a speculum up herself and let intrigued audience members check out her cervix, up close and personal (which is unfortunately not covered in this documentary). She then addresses the fact that she's getting older (she was forty-our at the time) and approaches that aspect of life as another avenue or exploration and the gaining of wisdom and self-understanding. There's even a "how to make a porno" fantasy sequence in which Sprinkle appears as an aging mermaid who initiates a younger mermaid into the pleasures of the flesh and eventually dies, but not before happily passing the torch on to the younger generation, secure in the knowledge that those who succeed her will only expand upon what she has imparted. Though kind of goofily presented, that coda was actually quite beautiful and filled with more genuine meaning than anything found in any three-thousand garden variety porno flicks that one could provide as counter-examples.

This career retrospective/gentle manifesto could not possibly be more sexually explicit if it tried, and some of its content will most likely be objectionable to some members of the audience, but I, for one, greatly appreciate and admire the efforts of this porn icon who used her position as a "sacred whore" of the media to enlighten and inform. What some would condemn as a sordid career path can be seen here by the open-minded as a celebration and exploration of the limits – or rather the non-limits — of human sexuality and the positive power of self-reinvention, and if anyone is going to be a guide through those waters, I'm glad it was Annie Sprinkle. Armed with a cheery, sunshiney sense of humor and an air of earthy, womanly sweetness, I can't help but find her utterly appealing and quite adorable, and in every way the welcome antithesis to the faceless, emotionless replicants who infest the porn landscape and render it so largely joyless. If only there were more individuals with her warmth involved, maybe the porn industry would not be as reviled of an entity as it unfortunately is.

HILARIOUS SCAM EMAIL

2011-11-05T12:46:00.004-04:00

As noted several times over the years on this blog, I constantly receive emails that attempt to prey upon perceived fears and try to separate me from what little money I have or attempt to get me to fork over all my information, passwords, you name it. Well, this morning's attempt takes the cake and I will let it speak for itself, unedited, other than to note that save for its subject, the email itself was blank and I had to open an attachment to read the actual letter. Check this shit out:

Subject: FBI OFFICIAL NOTICE///FBI OFFICE GET BACK TO US IMMEDIATELY IF YOU DONT WANT US TO ARREST YOU AND JAIL YOU FOR YOUR OWN G0OD

Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division
Fbi Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001 Website: www.fbi.gov

Attention, this is the final warning you are going to receive from me do you get me?

I hope youre understand how many times this message has been sent to you?.

We have warned you so many times and you have decided to ignore our e-mails or because you believe we have not been instructed to get you arrested, and today if you fail to respond back to us with the payment then, we would first send a letter to the mayor of the city where you reside and direct them to close your bank account until you have been jailed and all your properties will be confiscated by the fbi. We would also send a letter to the company/agency that you are working for so that they could get you fired until we are through with our investigations because a suspect is not suppose to be working for the government or any private organization.

Your id which we have in our database been sent to all the crimes agencies in America for them to inset you in their website as an internet fraudsters and to warn people from having any deals with you. This would have been solved all this while if you had gotten the certificate signed, endorsed and stamped as you where instructed in the e-mail below. this is the federal bureau of investigation (FBI) am writing in response to the e-mail you sent to us and am using this medium to inform you that there is no more time left to waste because you have been given from the 3rd of January. As stated earlier to have the document endorsed, signed and stamped without failure and you must adhere to this directives to avoid you blaming yourself at last when we must have arrested and jailed you for life and all your properties confiscated.

You failed to comply with our directives and that was the reason why we didn't hear from you on the 3rd as our director has already been notified about you get the process completed yesterday and right now the warrant of arrest has been signed against you and it will be carried out in the next 48hours as strictly signed by the fbi director. We have investigated and found out that you didn't have any idea when the fraudulent deal was committed with your information's/identity and right now if you id is placed on our website as a wanted person, i believe you know that it will be a shame to you and your entire family because after then it will be announce in all the local channels that you are wanted by the fbi.

As a good Christian and a honest man, I decided to see how i could be of help to you because i would not be happy to see you end up in jail and all your properties confiscated all because your information's was used to carry out a fraudulent transactions, i called the EFCC and they directed me to a private attorney who could help you get the process done and he stated that he will endorse, sign and stamp the document at the sum of $120.00 usd only and i believe this process is cheaper for you. You need to do everything possible within today and tomorrow to get this process done because our director has called to inform me that the warrant of arrest has been signed against you and once it has been approved, then the arrest will be carried out, and from our investigations we learnt that you were the person that forwarded your identity to one impostor/fraudsters in Nigeria when he had a deal with you about the transfer of some illegal funds into your bank account which is valued at the sum of $10.500,000.00 usd.

I pleaded on your behalf so that this agency could give you the 11/06/2011 so that you could get this process done because i learnt that you were sent several e-mail without getting a response from you, please bear it in mind that this is the only way that i can be able to help you at this moment or you would have to face the law and its consequences once it has befall on you. You would make the payment through western union money transfer with the below details.

NAME: CHI JACOB
ADDRESS: LAGOS NIGERIA
TEXT QUESTION:FOR
ANSWER: YOU
AMOUNT: $120
Senders Name======
Address:=============

Send the payment details to me which are senders name and address, mtcn number, text question and answer used and the amount sent. Make sure that you didn't hesitate making the payment down to the agency by today so that they could have the certificate endorsed, signed and stamped immediately without any further delay. After all this process has been carried out, then we would have to proceed to the bank for the transfer of your compensation funds which is valued at the sum of $10.500,000.00 usd which was suppose to have been transferred to you all this while.

Note/ all the crimes agencies have been contacted on this regards and we shall trace and arrest you if you disregard this instructions. You are given a grace today to make the payment for the document after which your failure to do that will attract a maximum arrest and finally you will be appearing in court for act of terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking charges, so be warned not to try any thing funny because you are been watched.

THANKS FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION.

ROBERT MUELLER II

WASHINGTON DC
Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division
Fbi Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001 Website: www.fbi.go

JUST A RANDOM THOUGHT

2011-11-04T12:33:00.003-04:00

Oh, what I would give for the Ed Wood-era Bela Lugosi to have done a dramatic reading reading of the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" with his signature "Bevare of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep!" and "Pull the string!!!" histrionics...

A MINOR REALITY CHECK

2011-11-03T20:55:00.002-04:00

Dear Vaulties-

I don't want to go into detail for fear of jinxing things, but I've made possible inroads to what looks like a promising job prospect. It's still early in the game but please send me as much positive energy as you can spare. I assure you I won't waste it.

-sincerely,

Yer Bunche

GET READY FOR...DANGER 5!!!

2011-11-01T00:05:00.000-04:00

This debuts on YouTube on November 21st and, needless to say, it's right up my alley!

ANOTHER BURNING QUESTION ANSWERED

2011-11-01T00:02:00.001-04:00

The magnificence of Ah-nuld as the now-iconic T-101.

The other day, I had TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES playing in the background for noise and it made me wonder: if Cyberdyne Systems, the company that built the Terminator (and its identical assembly line brethren), was based in the United States, why was the T-101 model issued with an Austrian accent? I posed that query on Facebook and no sooner than I asked, my friend Mindless Kirby responded with a link to deleted footage from TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES that answered that very question in grand style:

Now what I want to know is why in hell they opted to delete this from the final cut of the film?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS!!!

2011-10-31T00:05:00.000-04:00

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 31: HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)

2011-10-31T00:02:00.000-04:00

Along with THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957), this was one of the films that heralded Hammer Studios as a revolutionary force to be reckoned with in the post-war horror cinema landscape. Less a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel, DRACULA, than a mid-20th century re-jiggering of many of its elements for an audiences that might find Universal and Lugosi's take on the Count to be a tad stage-bound and genteel, HORROR OF DRACULA is the simplest iteration of the classic vampire yarn's tropes imaginable and can be seen as the template for how to tell a vampire story to a modern audience until stuff like FRIGHT NIGHT and Anne Rice happened.

Recounting the plot is pointless as it's all essentially a template that boils down to a bitter war between Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Count Dracula (Christopher Lee), with good inevitably triumphing over evil; something we've seen before, certainly, but it's the atmosphere, the look of the film, and the brisk telling of the tale that make this iteration of it a classic. Dracula's castle is a triumph of set design and realization, his dark-haired and very hungry bride is quite memorable, and the events that transpire once the undead suckface reaches England are just a horror fan's banquet of the basics done right. We also get the one-two punch of Lee and Cushing in career-defining roles that they would both go on to repeat several times (in some cases to diminishing returns, if truth be told), and or many Lee's Dracula is the definitive screen version of Bram Stoker's arch-vampire, and I can totally understand why. He's very tall, urbane, imposing and regal as all get out, but once his facade of aloof nobility is seen through and the vampire stands revealed, Lee's Dracula very much takes the fight to his human opponents and gets very physical indeed, seeming all the while to actually revel in being darkly, irredeemably evil.

I mean, look at this fucking guy! I'd be scared of a vampire if I ran into one in real life anyway, but Lee managed to fairly radiate a palpable, primally-chilling malevolence that even later vampires that had shape-shifting makeup and animatronic technology to bolster them could not begin to approach. Lee's Dracula was a menace of the first order that needed to be expunged from the face of the earth, and Cushing's Van Helsing was just the dude to handle that thankless task. Though a man of cold, hard science and rationality, Van Helsing was smart enough to call a spade a spade when he saw one and thus he dealt with Dracula with the single-minded focus of a master surgeon eliminating a particularly stubborn cancerous growth.

HORROR OF DRACULA is absolutely worth your time if you've never seen it (and even if you already have), both as a textbook example of how this kind of thing can be done right and with no extraneous bullshit, and more importantly as a reminder that vampires are supposed to be fucking scary, not sparkly and all Emo, unlike those found in a certain tamponathon franchise whose name I will not besmirch this review with.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 30: ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)

2011-10-30T00:02:00.002-04:00

Not to go on All-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not men?
Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not men?
Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not men?
Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not men?
Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not men?
- “The Law,” from “The Island of Doctor Moreau” (1896) by H.G.Wells

After several years of having no choice but to enjoy its lurid charms via a "gray market" DVD of a print of it culled from Turner Classic Movies, one of my all-time favorite flicks, 1932’s (or 1933’s, depending on your source of info) ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, is finally available on legitimate DVD from those loving preservationists over at Criterion, and I pre-ordered it the second I heard of its imminent release.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS is a fantastically sick and twisted little movie that got in there just before the infamous Hayes Code was instituted and took away all the really nasty sex, violence and evil shit that made moviegoing worthwhile.

Will H. Hayes: the human douche nozzle who ruined old school Hollywood.

After the Hayes Code was in place, Hollywood cleaned up its act considerably, under threat of serious penalties, and didn’t really get its balls back until the 1950’s, a shot in the arm that led to the freer expression of the Sixties and Seventies (and then, for the most part, films pussied-out again bigtime, but that’s a subject for another post).

Anyway, I first saw ISLAND OF LOST SOULS during my formative years but I was too little to fully grasp exactly why it had been banned in the United Kingdom for some twenty-five years after its release. It was a black & white flick about some queeny guy with a mustache and a white suit who lived on a remote island and made really lame-looking human/animal hybrids. There was no graphic violence, no cussing, and certainly no naked ladies, so what was the big deal?

Oh, the wisdom that comes with growing up and seeing the same movie through eyes that had gone on to witness films such as DAS CAVIAR DINNER and BARNYARD BANG...(Don't ask.)

For those not in the know, the movie’s based the 1896 novel quoted at the start of this post, and it centers around a guy who gets unwillingly stuck on the island of one Doctor Moreau (Charles Laughton, utterly burning down the house with a spectacular display of major league gayness and questionable sanity), a medical genius who has somehow managed to create a horde of grotesque and disturbing “men” from a variety of wild animals.

Doctor Moreau (Charles Laughton) and friend.

The products of apparently anesthesia-free radical surgery and ray treatments, Moreau’s creations are rather a sorry lot who have been conditioned to live by a series of laws intended to curb their innate animal behaviors and mold them into regular Joes. Don’t ask me what the purpose of such experimentation is; I guess simply to be able to say that he was able to do it? To fulfill some crazed need to play God? Fuck if I know, but one thing becomes clear very early on: Moreau is barking mad, his cultured exterior masking a whip-wielding psychotic who appears to get off on the suffering of his “children.”

Just another fun-filled day on the Island of Doctor Moreau. NOTE: the dude with the serious sideburns is none other than Bela "Pull the string!" Lugosi as the Speaker of the Law. Yowza!

Being stuck on Moreau’s creepy, vine-tangled and fog-enshrouded island is bad enough, but our uninteresting castaway is set to be married to an equally uninteresting fiancée (who of course sets out to find him), so Moreau decides to give his most successful creation a field test. The Doc unveils Lota (Kathleen Burke), a sultry brunette in a pre-Dorothy Lamour “exotic” island girl getup (this was back in the days when hot, non-Caucasian chicks were considered exotic) who has never seen a fully human male other than the Doc and his assistant (actually a big deal; those two seem like an obvious couple to me, and as this was a pre-ccode film, they very well could have been), and hopes sparks ignite between Lota and the stranded cipher.

Kathleen Burke as Lota, the Panther Woman: say hello to your grandpappy's stroke-material.

As the viewers figure out before our boring hero does, Lota is revealed to have been altered from a panther into a prime piece of surfer-boy’s masturbation fantasy — no "pussy" jokes, please — but her shy and tentative attempts at “making friends” with the castaway go straight down the toilet once he notices her hands are reverting to their original clawed configuration and is understandably freaked the fuck out. Moreau orders poor, terrified Lota back to “the House of Pain” for a surgical touch-up, and awaits the arrival of the fiancée so he can turn one of his male hybrids loose on her. So not only do we get crazed punishment with a bullwhip and twisted medical experiments, we are also treated to Moreau’s intention to see if regular humans can successfully mate and possibly reproduce with his semi-human creatures, many of whom resemble a bunch of hairy, shirtless skells of the type that staff many restaurants in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. And when you think about it, the castaway would have gotten off (pun intended) relatively easy in the bargain since Lota is a bit of a looker (though the scratches would suck), while his virginal fiancée would have been relegated to savage rape by a literal man-gorilla (or something; it’s not made fully clear just what the guy is). It’s just plain sick, offensive, and gross.

And I love it.

Can you imagine being in the theater in 1932 and having your sensibilities offended by sadism, unholy “scientific” delvings, and intimations of bestiality and rape? That stuff’s still heavy nearly eighty years on, so seeing ISLAND OF LOST SOULS in those days must have been a serious brain-melter. Even the Doc’s well-earned and horrifying fate comes off as weak in comparison (thematically, anyway; being vivisected sans anaesthesia by a bunch of clumsy manimals would really bite the big one).

Lesson to be learned: be kind to animals!

So what was the delay in releasing this dark and sleazy classic to DVD? Today’s youth needs to see that it wasn’t all Busby Berkeley creating a religion for show tunes devotees or the Our Gang kids putting a positive spin on juvenile truancy, and that when their elders piss and moan about how today’s cinema is leading to moral turpitude they’re talking out of their asses. I’d love to see a contemporary director even attempt to go where this dusty old hairball did and not be publicly executed by watchdogs for decency in film. Good luck with that one, bucko. And any movie that serves to inspire some of Devo's classic work — specifically "Jocko Homo" and the title of their first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! — is automatically okay by me, but this movie earned its place in my heart on its own very twisted merits.

"Us not that smart but us read CINE-MISCREANT!"

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 29: THE SEVENTH CURSE (1986)

2011-10-29T00:02:00.001-04:00

Betcha didn't expect to find a Chow Yun Fat movie on this list, didja? Believe it or not, this Category III cult fave was my first exposure to the excellence that is Chow Yun fat. Directed by Ngai Kai Lam, the same loon who gave the world the mind-bendingly gory and ultra-violent RIKI-OH (aka THE STORY OF RICKY), THE SEVENTH CURSE is an odd amalgam of its era's typical Hong Kong action flicks, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK-inspired death traps, martial arts mayhem, and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM with some broad comedic bits thrown in. At its heart, it's a straight-up horror movie, but one that had its primary flavor somewhat diluted and derailed by too many disparate elements in what I'm guessing was an attempt to have it appeal to too many audiences at once or else alleviate its considerable "darkness."

WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!

The vile sorcerer Aquala (Elvis Tsui).

While on an expedition in Thailand to find herbs with which to hopefully cure AIDS, a bespectacled police physician, Dr. Yeun (Chin Siu Ho, best known in the West for his roles in THE TAI CHI MASTER and FIST OF LEGEND), encounters "the worm tribe" and disrupts evil sorcerer Aquala's human sacrifice of a beautiful girl, "Betsy" (Sau-Lai Tsui), to the horrifying animate skeleton/shape-shifting monster "Old Ancestor."

"Old Ancestor" in its less-robust form.

Aquala (Elvis Tsui) is a black magician straight out of the Mola Ram school of heavies and he wields an assortment of baleful skills, chief among which is the "little ghost," a foul creature that he produces from inside his cape that flies through the air, viciously attacks its targets, and eagerly sucks their blood.

The ravenous wrath of "little ghost."

So, with that in mind, you can guess he's not at all pleased with Yuen fouling up his ritual, thus prompting him to hit the good doctor with a horrible "blood curse" that causes parts of his victim's body to agonizingly burst and spew thick red paint blood. (It's phony-looking but that only adds to the charming gross-out effect.) Though seriously injured, the doctor helps Betsy escape back to her tribe, so she kindly strips naked and cuts into one of her own breasts to supply the doctor with a cure that will hold his curse at bay for one year.

There's nothing like a little utterly gratuitous nudity.

When the year runs out, Yeun is confronted by a member of Betsy's tribe (Dick Wei) who summons him back to Thailand so he can try to effect a cure for both the doc and the girl, whose face has become disfigured in the wake of Aquala's curse. Following the advice of his occult-savvy pal, Wei Si Li, aka "Wisely" (Chow Yun Fat), Yeun returns to Thailand and accompanies the tribesman on the quest for the antidote, dogged along the way by the cute but incredibly annoying unnecessary comic relief reporter Tsai-Hung (the gorgeous Maggie Cheung). The trio encounters all kinds of nastiness, gore and sadistic violence and when the irritating reporter ends up in Aquala's clutches, the heroes aim to rescue her and the tribe's children, who have been taken so their blood can serve as the base for a magic potion, extracted from a stone crusher/juicer that squishes the kiddies into liquid goo (in a scene like something out of a child's nightmare). And after that there's still the matter of curing the doc and Betsy's curses, plus kicking Aquala's evil ass and wiping out the Old Ancestor once and for all, so you could say that the doc's dance card is pretty full.

THE SEVENTH CURSE is very lively from start to finish but it does suffer from the aforementioned elements that throw a bit of a monkey wrench into its proceedings.The comedy, mostly stemming from Maggie Cheung's reporter character, doesn't work and when it happens it transforms the film into a whole other movie entirely. The action and martial arts sequences are well done but they also seem to belong another film, especially the RAIDERS-style death traps and the blatant swipe of RAIDERS' gigantic rolling stone ball, this time with the ball being swapped out for the huge dislodged head of an ancient idol. The schizophrenic tonal shifts are all the more unfortunate because the horror story at the film's core is quite strong and would have made for an instant classic had all the needless bullshit been excised entirely. It's dark stuff of a rather Lovecraftian order and as such should have been treated with the seriousness of a heart attack.

But all of that can be overlooked when a movie is as balls-out entertaining as this one is. The hero's a bit bland but everyone else in the cast more than makes up for his relative lack of character. As monsters go, Old Ancestor's kinda neat, what with starting out as a dirty-fighting skeleton and later morphing into a cross between the Alien and the winged form of Princess Dragon Mom from INFRA MAN and all, and the little ghost is one vicious little bastard whose malevolence far outweighs the in-your-face obviousness of it being a cheaply-made prop that looks like a dime store baby doll as altered with some liquid latex and a hot glue gun by an LSD-addled member of the Manson Family. And let us not forget the presence of thirty-year-old Chow Yun at as the appropriately-named Wisely. He's the kind of character who's mellow and urbane but knows all kinds of obscure shit about the black arts for no particular reason, so he's quite handy to have around when this kind of shit is going on. And does he fight the film's Big Bad with a crucifix, holy water, counter-spells or even exorcism? Fuck that shit; that stuff's for pussies. In this narrative, using that crap's like showing up to a knife fight armed with nothing but your flaccid dick in your hand. Wisely knows better, so he shows up at the last possible minute, armed with a motherfucking missile launcher and two loads that he uses to blast Old Ancestor into showering chunks that have not a hope in hell of re-animating. The first missile blows a huge hole clean through the monster, allowing it to observe its own beating heart before it's hit by the second shot, which scatters its remaining mass like a handful of thrown jacks. And when all is said and done, Wisely isn't even impressed with himself.

Chow Yun Fat, in an early moment of awesomeness, shows us how to properly sort out unholy creatures from the underworld.

I would have preferred a whole film about just Wisely and could have totally done without that bland-assed Dr. Yuen, but I guess a Wisely-versus-monsters flick would have been over two seconds after Wisely found out about the given threat and called a tactical thermo -nuclear strike to deal with it, after which he'd simply chill out in his study with a tumbler of Scotch as he waited or the radiation to die down. Oh, well...

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 28: SONNY BOY (1989)

2011-10-28T00:02:00.001-04:00

"Can this be me? This pitiful thing I see trapped in this mirror?"
-the film's protagonist, upon seeing his reflection for the first time

A favorite horror sub-genre of mine is that of the maniac family, and there are few within that small sub-genre that come anywhere near the sheer sickness that practically drips from SONNY BOY. It's one of those movies where I'm firmly convinced all involved intentionally set out to make the most fucked-up, twisted film that's humanly possible to craft, but even in a morass of derangement like this, the power of the unfortunate protagonist's simple, basic humanity refuses to be expunged. But more on that aspect later.

In the semi-surreal New Mexico town of Harmony, a young couple is murdered by Weasel (Brad Dourif), a sleazy thug who then steals their car, not noticing their six-month-old baby boy in the convertible's back seat. From there, the baby ends up in the hands of Slue (the hulking Paul Smith), a sociopathic local crime lord who lives on a desert hog farm with his cross-dressing "wife," Pearl (David Carradine in what is unquestionably his most outrageous role). NOTE: no mention whatsoever is made of the fact that Pearl is quite obviously a man — complete with a strap-on set of fillable faux breasts for nursing — and that only makes her status within the story that much more interesting.

David Carradine as the doting Pearl.

Though Slue is quite clearly established as the dominant one in their relationship, Pearl overrules the annoyed Slue's intention to feed the infant to the hogs and lovingly adopts the child as her own, naming him Sonny Boy.

Not exactly a LION KING-like moment of new baby celebration.

In no time the viewer sadly realizes that Sonny Boy would have been better off had he been the next day's hog shit because Slue, though allowing Pearl to play doting mommy, takes control of the poor kid's "training," thrusting him headlong into a pitiless regimen of "strength-building" physical and psychological torture that over the course of seventeen years turns the child into Slue's personal biddable bipedal attack dog. The poor kid lives in a state of unwashed squalor, chained in an empty water tower and fed live chickens, and among other endless acts of cruelty foisted upon him, on his sixth birthday Sonny Boy is given "the gift of silence" by Slue: the fat, creepy bastard cuts out the boy's tongue. At age twelve, the kid reflects (in voiceover, which is how the film is narrated by a character with no tongue) on how his adoptive father teaches him "games of strength and love," such as dragging the kid behind the family over the desert rocks and sand, noting how "each game makes me stronger, giving me a skin of armor so strong that not even fire can harm me."

By the time he's a young, handsome man (though certainly quite feral and visibly filth-covered), Sonny Boy is carted around in an old-fashioned ice cream truck and used by his adoptive father as a lethal weapon turned loose against all who would fuck with his rule over the town and possibly put the kibosh on his various criminal operations. And I neglected to mention that Slue is something of a painter who seeks entry into the posh Californian arts community, and he somehow figures to use Sonny Boy as part of his delusional plan to achieve that goal.

That setup is irresistible and the whole movie can be counted as worth one's time — and it's definitely worthy of its cult status — but once it's established its bona fides the film kind of loses its twisted way, shifting gears into a full-on study of poor Sonny Boy's burgeoning humanity once he escapes from his water tower confinement and runs loose in Harmony, greatly to the consternation of the townspeople. That's all well and good but we've seen the whole "Mowgli meets civilization" thing many times before and while it's nice to have our abused hero away from the clutches of his psycho family and discovering his more tender side with the willing help of a cute local girl (who must have no sense of smell whatsoever), when the film's Level 10 sickness factor is gone, what remains is not unlike a very twisted '80's teen movie scenario that simply putts along until it reaches its apocalyptic climax and combination uplifting/ludicrous epilogue. I get that part of the film's point was to show that despite the tortures he's endured, his sorry, violent existence can't quite squash Sonny Boy's most basic, agonized humanity, and the telling of that half of the story is not terrible by any means, but I really feel the movie loses a great deal of its uniqueness with its sudden redemptive shift in tone.

As poor Sonny Boy cowers during the onslaught of understandably outraged and heavily-armed locals, Pearl defends her family like the kickass mom she is.

Nonetheless, the first half/two-thirds of the movie is uniquely vile and twisted and well worth seeking out. The only problem with doing so is that as of this writing, SONNY BOY is not legally available on DVD in the United States unless you manage to track it down on a dodgy "gray market" copy burned to disc from an old VHS tape or laserdisc version. I first saw it ages ago on a friend's laserdisc copy and wanted to snag it for myself in a legit release, but still no dice. Then again it took forever for the classic ISLAND OF LOST SOULS to come out on DVD and Blu Ray — hitting just a few days ago, as a matter of fact — so hope springs eternal, much like poor Sonny Boy's innocent basic humanity.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 27: DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE (1980)

2011-10-27T00:05:00.003-04:00

"Fucked up," thy name is DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE. Shot a year before the "slasher" boom of the 1980's kicked of with FRIDAY THE 13th (1980), so it can't be considered as having been influenced by that explosion of cinematic carnage, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE is permanently set in time thanks to its end-of-the-disco-era elements and its lack of blood showering everywhere (that kind of thing didn't become common until after FRIDAY THE 13th's sanguinary excesses). But don't think its lack of blood makes it any less nasty than its more cutlery-fetishizing brethren...

Somehow managing to be even more simple/sparse in the plot department than most films in the sub-genre while simultaneously containing more genuine character development/motivation than nearly all other slasher films combined, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE follows the sad and twisted path of Donny Kohler (Dan Grimaldi), a twitchy loner who works at an industrial incinerator plant. The adult product of horrible abuse by stovetop fire at the hands of his sadistic mother who punished him for every perceived "sinful" thought, Donny's in his thirties and still lives at home with the now-aged harridan, a pitiful case of having been emotionally crushed and stunted into a state of arrested adolescence. While witnessing a co-worker nearly get fatally immolated during an on-the-job accident, Donny's utter lack of reaction or concern about the incident gives us our first real indication that something's seriously wrong with the guy. (Thanks to his failure to help his co-worker, we also see that Donny is not exactly well-liked by his fellow employees, most of whom regard him as a freak.) Upon arriving home after the incident, Donny discovers his mother dead in her favorite chair and at last, free of her domineering physical presence and perpetual verbal abuse, his mind snaps and his first act of rebellion is to play his (crappy made-for-the-movie) disco music at top volume. Thus empowered by disco — long known to be the soundtrack of rebellion — and fueled by the hectoring voice of his mother in his head, Donny skips work, builds a large fireproof room in his house (or maybe it was always there and merely hidden), buys an asbestos-worker's head-to-toe fireproof suit from an army surplus store (???) and embarks on a joyless spree of picking up young, attractive women, taking them to his house, rendering them unconscious and then chaining them naked from the ceiling of the fireproof room. Then he breaks out the flamethrower.

Once his screaming victims have been torched, Donny dresses their charred bodies in his dead mother's clothes and arranges them in the living room, all the while conflicted by clashing childlike emotions of providing the corpses with "love and comfort" and a violent hatred and distrust of women engendered by his treatment by his mother. Basically, it's PSYCHO's Norman Bates taken to a particularly savage extreme, so it's only a matter of time until Donny's towering dysfunction, utter inability to function outside of his house of horrors, and a series of hallucinations collapse his fucked-up world around him, and its a fall that's agonizing to watch.

There's a fine line between horror and the "psychological thriller" but DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE gets my vote as a horror flick due to its theme of the endless cycle of abuse coupled with its hideous death-by-flamethrower hook and charred zombie hallucinations. Who doesn't find immolation to be possibly the most excruciating of possible death scenarios? It's bad enough to be caught in a house fire or a flaming car wreck with no chance of escape but to to have some faceless maniac chain you naked from a ceiling and incinerate you alive as part of a premeditated course of psychotic intent? Jesus fucking Christ... If that doesn't count as straight-up horror, I don't know what does.

As or the movie itself and its overall tone, I don't know quite what to think. I found it far too bleak and depressing to be even remotely entertaining, which is not to say that it is at all badly made, and it's so dark and dour from its opening moments that it's a complete and total bring-down that doesn't thrill with the frisson (Ooh! Fancy film-fuck word!) one experiences with most horror films. It's just a miserable, hate and sadness-filled well of despair and I'm not sure I can recommend it to anyone unless they dig been terminally depressed. You thought SOPHIE'S CHOICE made you want to slit your wrists or jump off the nearest bridge? That film has nothing on DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE's low-budget grimy atmosphere. I've seen DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE twice, once when first encountered on DVD and a second time a couple of days ago when watching it to refresh my memory for purposes of this review, and I assure you I will never return to it.

Now that that's over, I feel the urge to take a long, thoroughly-scrubbed shower and watch something like THE SECRET OF MAGIC ISLAND (1956, France/Italy; released in the U.S. in 1964), a movie entirely populated by cute little puppies and kitties and all sorts of other adorable critters having happy adventures. Anything to wash the charbroiled stink of DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE from my consciousness.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 26: THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (1968)

2011-10-26T00:01:00.004-04:00

Perhaps the most Satanic title card ever, which is only appropriate for this particular movie.

Often unfairly overlooked in the post-EXORCIST era, this Hammer offering about Satanism is one of their more compelling non-series gems that fairly cries out for a modern re-discovery.

With a screenplay by Richard Matheson — author of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and the original I AM LEGEND, as well as several classic episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE — based upon the novel by British horror master Dennis Wheatley (TO THE DEVIL-A DAUGHTER and UNCHARTED SEAS, among numerous others)

Duc Nicholas de Richeleau (Christopher Lee): taking no shit from Satan-worshiping scum.

In 1930's England, the Duc Nicholas de Richleau (Christopher Lee) and his friend Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) look into the sudden mysterious disappearance of their friend, young Simon Aron (Patrick Mower), who has not been seen or heard from by friends or relatives or several months, though it's known he recently and suddenly bought a large house. The Duc and Rex make their way to Simon's house and find an elegant party filled with assorted classy and exotic types in full swing, which a nervous-acting Simon explains away as "a meeting of a little astronomical society" led by the suave and sinister Mocata (Charles Gray at his slimiest, and that's really saying something), who clearly holds some sort of power over Simon. Also present is the equally on-edge Tanith Carlisle (Nike Arrighi ), whom Rex is sure he recognizes from somewhere (which she denies, though it's obvious she's lying) and who storms off when she discovers the Duc and Rex are not members of the society, and as the Duc cases the room for information it becomes apparent that the society's members are discussing matters of the occult involving planetary conjunction and such. Noting the presence of the outsiders, Mocata takes Simon aside and bids him to throw out the Duc and Rex, which he politely does, but not before the Duc begs five minutes in which to look through a telescope that's upstairs. Simon obliges but the Duc uses the time to check out the upstairs and finds a mostly empty room, decorated with parchments claimed by Simon to be "just decoration, relics," and the room's floor bears a large and ornate diagram...

Just another day for that wacky Mocata (Charles Gray).

Hearing strange sounds, the Duc burst into a closet and discovers live chickens in a basket, thus leading him to correctly and irately deduce that Simon is now a dabbler in the black arts. With Simon being the son of a deceased dear friend, theDuc looks upon Simon as a son and he would rather see the young man dead than messing about with the occult. Though having known Simon for over ten years, the Duc never before spoke of certain aspects of his life but now that his friend's son is involved in all this devil-junk, the Duc reveals that his studies into assorted esoteric practices has given him a rather serious working knowledge of things most dark, and when the terrified Simon refuses to let the Duc and Rex stay, the Duc knocks the young man out and he and Rex haul his unconscious body out of the house and speed away in the Duc's chauffer-driven sedan. Once at the Duc's home, the Duc uses hypnosis to free Simon from the society's spell and place a "symbol of protection," a silver crucifix on a chain, about his neck, along with an order not to remove it. When Simon is asleep, the Duc informs the dubious Rex that Evil — note the capital "E" — and the powers of darkness are "a living force which can be tapped at any given moment of the night," an act proven when the still-under-hypnosis Simon practically strangles himself in an unsuccessful bid to remove the crucifix from around his neck. When the Duc's butler walks in and sees Simon choking, he removes the crucifix, after which Simon promptly escapes out the nearest window. Breaking into Simon's house in hope of finding him, the Duc and Rex instead run into an eerie spirit — that looks like nothing so much as a creepily-smiling West Indian dude in a red diaper — that materializes from the symbol on the ritual room's floor. After breaking free of its controlling gaze, the Duc realizes that Mocata is some sort of high-level, Crowley-esque Satanic adept with actual black magic powers and from that moment on embarks on a crusade to save Simon from the arch-fiend's diabolical clutches before he can be re-baptized into the the way of the Left-Hand Path, and the only key to finding Simon lies in locating the mysterious Tanith. What ensues is a battle of the so-called rational world colliding head-on with seemingly impossible things that the ancients knew only too well to be both very real and very, very deadly shit that nobody should mess with. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but Satan himself even shows up in the horned form of the Goat of Mendes (look it up), so these are not your garden variety burnout Satanists that the Duc must reckon with. These guys are no goddamned joke, and you'd better believe that.

"Hi, kids! It's me, your old pal Satan! And I brought Pop Rocks!!!"

Though its thrills are comparatively low key by today's standards, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT offers very fantastical occult goings-on in a recognizably mundane setting that would fit right in with the events seen in stories like NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957) and ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968), and the end result feels like some oddball installment of either MASTERPIECE THEATER or MYSTERY. Drenched in Britishness from head to cloven hoof, this one's definitely something to add to your Netflix queue.

Poster from the original U.K. theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 25: HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959)

2011-10-25T00:05:00.002-04:00

In the late 1950's, the horror films generated by Hammer Studios upped the level of violence/gore and sex/gratuitous female flesh by degrees that only increased with each passing years, especially as the Fifties gave way to the Sixties, and with that popular acceptance and box office success came films that took advantage of that new leniency. The most infamous from that early wave of British responses to the trend is this nasty little shocker that possesses several moments that everyone who's seen it has permanently burned into their memories, especially if they encountered HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM during their impressionable childhoods. That's when I first saw it — I was around eight years old — and look at what happened to me...

The horror begins in London when a pretty young woman receives a package containing a pair of binoculars. Intrigued, she puts the binoculars to her eyes, which are suddenly penetrated by pressure-sensitive spring-loaded six-inch spikes, causing her agonized death.

One of the most shocking moments of 1950's horror cinema (or any other era, for that matter).

As the detectives of Scotland Yard begin to investigate this crime, the third horrific murder in two weeks, creepy, sensationalistic true crime author Edmond Bancroft (Michael Gough , aka Alfred in four of the Batman films) arrives to pump them for information, an enthusiastic gleam in his shifty eyes. Quite familiar to the police due to his constant sniffing about for gruesome case details to use in his books and magazine articles, Bancroft lives and breathes crime and to all observers, he is unhealthily obsessed with crime in general and with the current murders in particular, resulting in his health being endangered from his alarmingly high blood pressure. Needless to say, Bancroft's obsession is so intense because he's the vicious maniac the police are searching for but he's beyond suspicion due to his ubiquity at the station and also thanks to his pronounced limp. But despite his frail physicality, Bancroft is one sick, sick motherfucker who orchestrates the murders so he'll have new material to write about, and also keeps a "black museum" in the basement of his house, a sanctum decorated with classic instruments of torture and accented with life-size manikins demonstrating what happens to those who endure the wielding of such contraptions in the hands of sadistic torturers. Bancroft also employs a young assistant named Rick (Graham Curnow), to whom he administers mind-controlling drugs that turn the lad into a programmable killer that Bancroft dispatches to commit a series of ever-escalating slayings. (When under Bancroft's murderous influence, Rick's complexion turns green and wrinkly for no apparent reason.)

But Bancroft's dark path is not without its obstacles. He pays rent for and gives cash to his sleazy, gold-digging blonde bombshell girlfriend, Joan (the lusciously curvaceous June Cunningham), but she's tired of being a kept woman in an isolated flat who's never taken anywhere and only used as a sex toy (strongly implied but not explicitly stated). Joan also viciously insults him as being "less than a man" (we know what that means) and makes fun of him being a "cripple," but the real problem lies in her knowledge of the dark deeds Bancroft gloats about while drunk and her intention to leave him, possibly to spill what she knows, all of which only adds fuel to the fire of Bancroft's oft-stated hatred and distrust of women. (He may be a misogynistic pig but at least he's up front about it.) Bancroft also buys the signature weapons used in the killing spree from an aged antique dealer who's smarter than she initially lets on, and once she realizes that the goods she sold to Bancroft are the same ones used in the murders, she seeks to cushion her retirement with cash extorted from her customer. (She doesn't go to Scotland Yard to rat Bancroft out because she fears guilt by association for selling the items to him.) Bancroft's personal physician is also no slouch in the reasoning department and after a recent examination of his patient, he begins to suspect the writer of being involved in activities that are considerably less than savory. Then there's Rick's burgeoning romance with a pretty young thing that threatens to upset his boss' control over him and possibly expose Bancroft's twisted activities. With all of that mishegoss threatening to boil over, it's only a matter of time until it all ends very, very badly.

Marvelously and unashamedly lurid, HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM is like the cinematic cousin to the gory horror and crime comics that led to U.S. Senate sub-committee hearings in the early 1950's, only much better written than those often hacked-out efforts (pun most definitely intended), so check it out if you've never seen it. I promise you won't be disappointed, and how could you not be hooked after that hideous opening scene?

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 24: HOMICIDAL (1961)

2011-10-24T01:41:00.002-04:00

"A WORD OF WARNING! Please don't reveal the ending of this picture or your friends will kill you - IF THEY DON'T, I WILL!" - William Castle

How many movies can you name where the director makes that kind of threat at the flick's end?

Easily the best of the many ripoffs to come in the wake of Alfred Hitchcock's epochal PSYCHO (1960), I had the pleasure of going in cold and seeing HOMICIDAL at Manhattan's Film Forum when it ran there a little over a year ago, and I gotta say it's tough to discuss gimmick-meister William Castle's HOMICIDAL without giving away its surprises but I'll give it a shot. Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is to state that it's an over-the-top, played straight but campy parody of the Hitchcock proto-slasher classic (an aspect I did not expect going in).

Ventura, California, September 5th: sinister blonde Emily (Joan Marshall, billed as Jean Arless) purchases a gold wedding band, checks into a hotel as "Miriam Webster" and cryptically offers a handsome bellboy two-thousand bucks to marry her on September 6th, after which the marriage will be immediately annulled. The bellboy accepts the deal and the pair set off to the house of a certain justice of the peace at midnight on the 6th, where they awaken the justice to perform the wedding in the wee hours. When the ultra-short ceremony concludes and the justice moves to cop a kiss from the bride, "Miriam" produces a long knife from her clutch and repeatedly stabs the justice in the stomach, in full view of the man's wife and the horrified bellboy, after which she flees the scene, stealing the bellboy's car to make her getaway. Abandoning the stolen car and switching to her own ride, Emily tears down the highway while hearing on a radio news report that the justice she stabbed has died, thus making the assault an outright murder. Arriving at the home she shares with the aged wheelchair-bound and mute family nurse, Helga (Eugenie Loentovich), Emily cleans the murder weapon and creepily announces the savage killing she committed to the old woman, gleefully noting that the justice "died screeeeeeeeaming!!!" The following morning, Emily fixes breakfast for the fearful and helpless Helga when the real Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin), a florist, arrives, bearing flowers for the aged nurse...

Emily (Jean Arless) in Miriam's florist shop, moments before trashing the place in a fit of rage.

As the story unfolds, we discover that Emily has recently returned from Denmark, where years before she met Warren, the real Miriam's half-brother, who visits Emily and Helga every Thursday. Warren's already rather flush but is on the verge of inheriting a huge sum of money, and as his mysterious backstory unfolds, an avalanche of bizarre family secrets deluges the audience. It's also seen that Emily has the hots for Karl (Glenn Corbett), a young swain who runs a soda shop/pharmacy, and she will stop at nothing to make him hers, despite the fact that Karl and Miriam are an item. So what we have here is a love triangle with a genuine maniac at its center, twisted family history and secrets, (of much interest, especially in the climate of fifty years ago), a police investigation into the murder that dredges up all kinds sordid shit, and when the stunning final truth as to the whys and wherefores regarding Emily are finally revealed, it's a climax that nearly rivals that of PSYCHO in terms of material that must have been truly mind-blowing or its era's audience. My advice to you is to check this one out and try to put yourself in the place of a viewer watching it in 1961.

Director William Castle's movies were notorious for the cheesy/fun gimmicks employed in promoting them, and in the case of HOMICIDAL there was a moment toward the film's end where the house lights come up and "fright break" clock counting down forty-five seconds appears onscreen, signaling how much time the audience has in which to follow a yellow stripe out of the auditorium into the lobby if they're too scared to handle what's about to happen at the ending. Once in the lobby, chickenshit audience members can get their money back, provided they stand in the "coward's corner" and allow those who sat through the whole film to file past and bear witness to their shameful cowardice. (That was back in 1961; the Film Forum's manager told the audience up front that there would be no refunds.)

The "fright break" timer, as seen from where I sat in the audience.

In the audience when I saw the film, a guy and his wife — obvious plants — freaked out when the timer appeared, screaming that they just couldn't take the sheer horror onscreen and, as the guy showered himself with popcorn, they swiftly fled the theater. There was a smattering of applause.

The yellow stripe leading out of the auditorium to...

...the "Coward's Corner." This is the couple that "freaked out."

Reserved seating.

Me and the lovely Sukihoshi simulate being a pair of complete and utter pussies. (Hey, in my case you are what you eat!)

Yer Bunche, forever traumatized by the horrors witnessed onscreen.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 23: GINGER SNAPS (2000)

2011-10-23T03:45:00.005-04:00

Excellent in just about every way, GINGER SNAPS is one of the few werewolf movies to look at matters lycanthropic from a female point of view and also, significantly, link that aspect to matters menstrual. It's not the first time that's been done in horror — Peter S. Beagle's "Lila the Werewolf" and Alan Moore's "The Curse" immediately spring to mind — but the handling of it here involves the universal horror o adolescence writ large and the result is glorious.

This Canadian entry is proof of what can be done with a low budget and a hell of a lot of talent and intelligence. Drawing once more upon the lycanthropy/horrors of puberty theme, GINGER SNAPS deals with two uber-morbid and very close high school-age sisters, a pair of creepy misfits who, like good old Carrie White, have yet to have their first periods. The older of the two, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), finally starts her menstrual cycle but has the misfortune of that event coinciding with local animal attacks that turn out to be the work of a particularly savage werewolf. The monster catches her newly bloody scent and, in a scene intended to look and feel like a rape (according to the film’s co-scriptwriter), mauls the living shit out of her.

The newly wolfy and hyper-sexualized Ginger (Katharine Isabelle): on the prowl or some meat...

Ginger survives and in no time flat begins to exhibit a hitherto unseen level of aggression, both socially and sexually — NOTE: keep in mind that lycanthropy is a communicable disease — to say nothing of such undeniable signs of wolfing out as getting furry in odd places, her teeth becoming more suited to tearing flesh, and the tail that she’s sprouted from out of nowhere, all of which happens when the moon isn't even full, so you know it's really bad. Ginger's younger sister, Brigitte (Emily Perkins), realizes what’s happening and sets out to cure her sister, and if that doesn’t work, it'll be time for a more permanent solution…

Sorry, but there are some things Pamprin just ain't made to handle.

One of the rare werewolf movies from a female perspective, GINGER SNAPS is highly recommended for its genuine scares, well-handled lycanthropy/puberty metaphor, and its wicked DeGRASSI HIGH MEETS THE HOWLING sensibility. And the first sequel’s actually pretty good! If you choose only one film from this countdown, this is one of the handful you should seriously consider. (I also strongly favor NIGHT OF THE DEMON and DAGON.)

THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER (YET TO BE) MADE?

2011-10-22T01:05:00.004-04:00

Joan Jett: the logical successor to Han Solo?

As I mentioned in a thread I started on Facebook after seeing THE RUNAWAYS last night, I want to see a movie of THE ADVENTURES OF JOAN JETT ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, in which Joan Jett is kidnapped by warrior space aliens and unwillingly dragged about deep space. During the course of the story she gets into kickass fistfights in alien-infested dive bars, gets it on with more bizarre alien women than James T. Kirk ever did, engages in space-dogfights while piloting a spaceship that's cooler than the Millennium Falcon, and, finally, proves to the entire galaxy that no species rocks harder than Terrans. You cannot tell me that wouldn't be the greatest movie ever made. Who's with me? And if any of you have the mighty Jett's contact info, please hook a brutha up. I'd like to send her the idea and see if she wants to turn it into a comic book that would then get the movie treatment.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 22: DAGON (2001)

2011-10-22T00:55:00.002-04:00

Oh, the many squirm-inducing pleasures of DAGON, the horror flick that ranks as my very favorite of the current century.

Picture, if you will, a vast undersea expanse, all sound muted by the water that envelops you as shafts of light from the distant surface provide scant illumination. You swim through this seemingly endless dreamlike environment, your movements slow and clumsy, body leaden with the weight of your scuba gear and aided by the beam of a flashlight. Suddenly, through the murky darkness you encounter an opening in the ocean’s floor that is clearly the skillfully crafted work of hands unknown, a wide portal that is at once ocular, oral and vaginal in its aspect. You swim into its yawning maw and curiously explore this tunnel leading to…where or what you cannot begin to fathom. Your hands explore the eerily striated walls of the portal, and as your fascinated gaze scans what lays before you, the pallid face of a beautiful, raven-tressed mermaid smiles up at you.

She swims into clear view and you marvel at her strange beauty as her thick hair swirls about her, borne by invisible currents and exposing her lovely, buoyant breasts. This nubile vision swims over, unafraid, and removes your facemask and re-breather’s mouthpiece. Your senses reel as she kisses you, deeply and passionately, and you don’t even notice you no longer require your heavy equipment to breathe, so caught up are you in the deep-sea maiden’s unexpected ardor.

Then, with a ravenous shriek, she bares a dental array that would give a piranha pause and you awaken with a start.

It was only a dream, but you have just awakened from a harbinger of an infinitely worse, living nightmare from which there is no hope of escape for you or the companions who accompanied you on what was meant to be a relaxing getaway on a chartered yacht off the coast of Spain. You have just entered the world of the fish-god Dagon, and you’re about to learn some dark and ancient truths that will affect you in ways you would never have expected.

That’s the basic setup for Stuart (RE-ANIMATOR) Gordon’s masterful H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, DAGON (2001), the hands down finest of the many cinematic translations of the author's famously creepy works, and it really took me and my buddy Chris by surprise when we rented it to watch during the Thanksgiving weekend some nine years ago. Things get boring as hell in Connecticut during Thanksgiving (more boring than usual, that is) so Chris and I annually search for some flicks with which to kill the time. We drove all over Fairfield County on the night after this particular Thanksgiving, hitting several DVD rental stores before nearly giving up after not finding anything that piqued our craving for any kind of diversion on film/DVD. Our last stop, at some obscure video store somewhere in Trumbull, yielded gold in the form of DOG SOLDIERS — an incredible werewolf movie that I may add to this list of licks to discuss — and DAGON, and neither of us knew a damned thing about either film. Both turned out to be exceptional but it's DAGON that really got under my skin and it's the one I immediately recommend when asked or a horror movie recommendation. (That surprises most folks who know me since I'm an out, loud and proud werewolf advocate, but DAGON is so good that it overrules my natural affinity for my beloved lycanthropes.)

The story follows the waking nightmare a group of yachters, two couples, find themselves into when their vessel hits something of the coast of Spain and begins to sink. One couple remains on the boat while the other makes their way to the isolated fishing town of Imboca in search of help, only to discover that the place is populated by hideous human-marine life hybrids, the direct result of generations of human women bearing the children of the ancient fish-god Dagon. I will say no more other than to state that the male protagonist discovers some very dark truths during the course of the story and there's even a very weird climax that, from a certain perspective, could be considered a happy ending.

There's a lot — and I do mean A LOT — going on in the narrative and chief among its many malignant wonders (to my way of thinking, anyway) is Macarena Gomez as Uxia Cambarro, the beautiful large-eyed mermaid from the opening dream sequence.

In the dream she was every man's mermaid fantasy brought to alluring life but in the incredibly creepy reality of the remote fishing village of Imboca, she’s the wheelchair-bound high priestess of the evil oceanic god who gets his condomless hump on with mortal women, thus spawning the aforementioned race of human/sea monster hybrids.

Uxia’s clearly one of those creatures, but even though she boasts a pair of floppy, sucker-laden tentacles in place of a scaly fish tail (which she possessed in the opening dream sequence), to say nothing of the enormous, gasping gills on her ribcage, she’s got that wild-eyed-and-crazy look that I find irresistible. (Yeah, you could say I have some issues...)

Crazed, incestuous, sacrificial dagger-wielding evil half-breed or not, I’d love a taste of her saltwater charms. Plus, unlike a traditional mermaid, with Uxia you’ve got a pretty good idea of where the pussy is. Always a plus.

No bullshit, if you haven't seen DAGON, run out and rent it immediately. It's fairly low on gore and violence but it's got an appropriately high creep factor that translates the crawly, sticky/slimy feel of Lovecraft's tales of cross-species interbreeding to the screen, and getting across the flavor of his works had never been truly successful in the movies until this one. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

As KRS-1 so wisely said back in the days, "You can't trust a big butt and a smile."

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 21: A BAY OF BLOOD (1971)

2011-10-21T01:55:00.000-04:00

Initially released in the U.S. as CARNAGE but swiftly withdrawn due to disappointing box office and re-released as TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, the title under which it played the grindhouse circuit for years, this Italian slaughterhouse of a film is of interest as the root from which the "slasher" genre as we now know it grew. The Ground Zero for that category, if you will.

The massively and needlessly convoluted plot is pretty much beside the point since the whole thing is nothing more than a blatant excuse to cram as many gory murders onto the screen as possible — something it does with unabashed gratuitousness — but it all has to do with several concerned parties vying for the inheritance of a secluded bay and the house on its attendant land. We really don't get to care about any of the characters (who can really only be described as such in the most rudimentary sense of the word), so their gruesome demises have no impact save for their graphic savagery when compared to films of its era, in which respect the movie is almost a decade ahead of its time. The work of famed director/cinematographer Mario Bava (PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, DANGER! DIABOLIK , and many others of interest), A BAY OF BLOOD nowadays reads like a textbook "how to" for the films that would imitate this film (and aspects of John Carpenter's far superior HALLOWEEN from 1978) and come to dominate the horror genre of the 1980's and beyond, starting with FRIDAY THE 13th in 1980, and it pretty much invented the following slasher genre tropes:

Remote location with a lake to facilitate nude swims by the cast's buxom females.
POV shots as the killer stalks their human prey
A cast of characters who are nothing more than ciphers to be mutilated, dismembered, hanged, immolated, et cetera
The "creative kill," in which one or more characters are polished off in ways that simultaneously repel and amuse
A plot that is utterly irrelevant to what this kind of thing's audience wants to see, namely tons of vicious, gory murders
Few, if any, real scares, just meat for the hacking

With that recipe, innumerable slasher films turned the world's movie theaters into charnel houses and it all got codified right here. Yes, I know Herschel Gordon Lewis was cranking out his signature, revolutionary ultra-gory (and notoriously cheapjack and filmically crude) stomach-churners as far back as 1963's landmark BLOOD FEAST (a steaming pile if ever I saw one, despite its historical importance), but while Lewis' work was pioneering, what Bava achieved here took what Lewis hatched and refined it (somewhat) into the perfect formula for brainless cinematic fare that unapologetically knew exactly what it was, aspired to nothing other than being what it knew its audience was there for, and could be cranked out or peanuts to rake in an assload of money. And, as previously stated, this film was shamelessly imitated, but no film ripped it off to the degree that the first FRIDAY THE 13th and its endless sequels did, in many cases going so far as to outright crib some of A BAY OF BLOOD's signature killings, most notably this one from FRIDAY THE 13th PART II (1981), which stands as perhaps the prime example of the "fuck and die" trope:

A humping couple is memorably run through with a long spear that penetrates the pair and is seen protruding through the underside of the bed, and much the same thing occurs in FRIDAY THE 13th PART II:

So if you're a fan or scholar of the whole slasher phenomenon of the 1980's (and beyond), A BAY OF BLOOD is definitely worth a look for its Rosetta Stone-like status in one of the horror genre's most (often justly) maligned sub-strata. Plus, even with the passing of four decades since its initial release, it's murders are still quite vicious and genuinely shocking, my favorite being a hooked machete to the throat of a fleeing victim that features a nasty closeup of her throat being slit open. Great for the kiddies!

BATMAN MEETS SPACE GHOST (no further explanation is necessary)

2011-10-21T01:51:00.005-04:00

From the excellent BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD teevee series.

NY COMIC CON 2011-DAY FOUR

2011-10-21T01:00:00.002-04:00

And finally, here we have the record of Day 4, in which I was one initially-hungover and exhausted puppy (it got better). Anyway, here we go:

The day got off to a surreal start as I dragged my hungover ass back to the Javits Center and the first thing I encountered was an accordion-playing Boba Fett doing a great rendition of Henry Mancini's Pink Panther theme.

Again with my girls, Ashley and Amber. They make me feel good.

There's just something I love about cardboard robots with lights and tubing for limbs. It's just so...pure. Unless it's Sex Robot from THE WHITEST KIDS U KNOW. (special thanks to Gilsonic for the indent)

The dashing Tuxedo Mask.

The Doctor blasts me with his sonic screwdriver.

Superman: Red Son.

Mega-Man, chillin' on a bench.

She built this by hand from fiberglass. Well done!

Lia Brown, gal reporter and fellow '90's Marvel alumnus.

Amanda Conner sketches for her fans. Note the size of the line; that went on unabated for hours.

Catwoman in progress.

I love the incongruous grouping on this one: Maleficent, Olive Oyl, and Bluto. It's like the con was a four-day rift in space and time that allowed all fictional universes tourist access to our reality.

I'm fascinated by just how popular cosplaying from THE FIFTH ELEMENT has become in recent years. Extra points for black Leeloo!

A gaggle of Asgardian babe-itude: (L-R) Loki, the Enchantress, movie Loki, Loki, and Thor (kneeling).

Again the gods bring my daydreams to life and there's naught that I could about it...

The best of the show's many Ms. Marvels, another character I'm surprised to see cosplayed with considerable frequency.

Silent Bob and Jay.

"Spread my cheeks, so he can see the fucking stink nuggets!"

My dear friend Stephanie and her son, Kodiak (rockin' a kickass hat).

The inimitable and refreshingly irascible Rick Parker.

The most excellent Simon Fraser, co-creator and artist of the last truly great long-running 2000 A.D. strip, NIKOLAI DANTE.

An outstanding Mera, with a sketch of the character done at the con by Ivan Reis.

A.C. sketches Psylocke.

NOTE: It was around this time when I decided against covering any more panels because the leg I injured while tripping over a power cord the previous day made walking rather painful, so I pretty much stuck by A.C.'s booth for the remainder of the day.

Number Six wanders by the table.

An excellent Iron Fist.

Edward Douglas, a friend since my high school days whom I often encounter at cons. Good to see him again!

Changeling.

Three views of the Rocketeer.

A.C.'s sketch of the Emma Frost, aka the White Queen.

Zatanna represents.

A.C. adds Power Girl to a fan's board of characters.

Model/Actress Zoe La Bella poses with the A.C.-drawn book cover that features her likeness and, er, cartoon "enhancements."

A.C. and Zoe La Bella.

Harley Quinn with bomb.

A.C. sketches Poison Ivy for a fan.

Note how pleased the fan who commissioned the sketch is.

Three A.C. fans.

A certain resemblance to A.C.'s version of Catwoman is noted.

A.C. meets and greets.

Jimmy meets the media.

A selection of some of A.C.s prints.

I love the '60's design aesthetic on the logo and its placement.

From start to finish: Amanda draws Power Girl for a longtime fan.

Voila! The finished piece.

Another ultra-pleased fan with his newly-minted piece of original art.

And the moment the Power Girl piece was done, it was time for a media interview. Ah, popularity...

A father and son Power Man and Iron Fist team.

Simply put, the best old school Luke Cage/Power Man I have ever seen at a con.

With closing time fast approaching, A.C. sketches the Black Canary for a fan.

Note the white highlights around the Canary's gloves so the viewer can clearly see the black gloves as separate from the equally black suit.

The finished piece.

The finished piece and the happy fan: the perfect coda to an epic, marathon convention.

On the way back to the real world. Though completely exhausted, I always get a bit wistful at the end of this con...

While on the way out I encountered SOUTH PARK's resident supers: (L-R) The Coon, Mysterion, and Professor Chaos.

A.C., Jimmy, and Joanne, as respectfully saluted by Jay.

And, lo, the Lord did see the geekness, and did grin.

EPILOGUE: My haul from the four-day geek safari. Lotsa good shit!

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 20: THE GORGON (1964)

2011-10-20T01:53:00.001-04:00

This is one of the lesser efforts from Hammer that pales in comparison to its Dracula and Frankenstein series, and that's rather a shame because it's a solid little creeper in its own right.

In the early 1900's in the remote village of Vandorf, the details in a series of very bizarre deaths are swept under the rug by the local constabulary and medical/psychiatric authorities. Local legend has it that a hideous spirit roams the land during full moons and over the course of several years it has been responsible for the inexplicable deaths of several locals. The story proper kicks into gear when a young artist is informed by his girlfriend that she's pregnant, so the artist storms off into the night to tell her father that, poor though he may be, he intends to do the right thing and marry the girl. Worried that her father will kill her lover when he finds out what's happened, the girl tears of into the night to stop her boyfriend. Unfortunately for her, she runs into something quite horrible (that the audience does not see) and when she is later found by the authorities, her body has somehow been turned to solid stone. That aspect of the case is kept from public knowledge and the girl's lover is shortly thereafter found hanged by the neck from a tree, a suicide. Using the convenient death of the young artist as a scapegoat, the authorities and the creepy head of the local mental hospital (Peter Cushing) spin the events to make it look like the artist killed the girl and then, "in an act of remorse," of himself as well. News of this obvious bullshit reaches the artist's understandably irate father, who arrives to challenge the lies and clear his son's good name, much to the annoyance of the locals who seek to drive him out. During the course of his investigation, the father learns of a local legend that claims a nearby abandoned castle is home to Megara, one of the famed Gorgon sisters from Greek mythology (the most famous of whom was Medusa, the one beheaded by the hero Perseus) whose gaze turned the beholder into solid stone, and his findings are met with apparent disbelief by the head of the mental institution, but he clearly knows more than he's letting on.

Lesson learned from this film: a slow death by being turned to solid stone would really, really suck.

While searching the castle, the father has the misfortune of running into Megara and he begins to slowly, agonizingly petrify, but not before making his way back to his lodgings where he manages to write his remaining son a three-page letter outlining his findings and suspicions. (His turned-to-stone death is falsely and ridiculously officially deemed death by heart failure, which his son quite correctly points out as bullshit because no one takes the time to write a detailed three-page letter while suffering a heart attack.) The remaining son receives the letter and arrives in town to discover the particulars of the mysterious deaths of his brother and dad, but is met with resistance from the aforementioned authorities. Meeting with the head of the mental hospital, he realizes the man knows more than he's letting on, and that the fellow is rather possessive of his beautiful assistant, who was once one of his patients (but she got better). The sparks fly between the son and the assistant, which does not sit at all well with the doctor, and things take a turn for the worse when the young man encounters the Gorgon but does not get a direct look at her face; he glimpses her reflection in a pool of water and rather than turn to stone, he is visibly aged by the terrifying experience. As he convalesces in hospital and comes to love the doctor's assistant (a love that is reciprocated), his favorite college professor and friend of his late father (Christopher Lee) arrives to see just what the fuck is going on and, taking one look at the now aged face of his student, decides to take charge of the situation, and believe me, he's badass enough to do it (which does not please the doctor or the authorities).

Megara, revealed in full.

All of this snowballs into a rather predictable reveal regarding the identity of the Gorgon and culminates with her inevitable beheading, but it left me with a number of unanswered questions:

Exactly what the fuck is an ancient Greek monster doing in a German village in 1910?
The Gorgons of classical mythology were Medusa, Stheno and Eurayle, so where the hell did this "Megara" come from? Gorgons were not exactly common or in any way numerous.
We all know the fate of Medusa and now that of "Megara," but what of either of the remaining sisters? Perhaps they remained unexplored in hope of a sequel?
In a small village, details of bizarre deaths would be virtually impossible to cover up, plus in this case there were several now-granite bodies remaining as evidence, so I don't buy the story not getting out past the borders of the place.
If the bodies of Megara's victims are fully petrified — as is seen and demonstrated when one of them has a finger accidentally snapped off — how did the undertakers get the bodies into standard coffins for burial? Dealing with a certain amount of rigor mortis is standard, but how does one straighten out the solid stone corpse of a guy who was seated at a desk, hunched over to write a letter? When his son digs up his grave to see the body for himself, we see the rock-pop laying straight as an arrow.
Since the doctor and the chief constable are aware of exactly what's going on, why didn't they consult the mythology books in the local library and find someone brave enough to pull a Perseus and have done with it rather than let statue after statue be generated?

But perhaps I'm examining this too closely and nitpicking far too much. This is, after all, simply meant to be a fun little chiller and it certainly succeeds at that, so maybe I should just shut my gob. Bottom line: if you enjoy Hammer horror films and the flavor they bring to the horror-scape, you'll probably get a kick out of this. Just don't expect any of the usual gory violence and ample, heaving bosoms that the brand became justly famous for (although we do get to see Megara's detached noggin and it's pretty damned goofy-looking).

For all you DOCTOR WHO fans out there: the chief constable, the guy in the helmet, is Patrick Troughton, who would go on to be the second actor to play the Doctor. His tenure in that role lasted from 1966-1970. He was also the blind seer Phineas in the classic JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), as well as the alchemist Melanthius in SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977).

NY COMIC CON 2011-DAY THREE

2011-10-20T01:00:00.000-04:00

On to Day 3!

The 1970's Ms. Marvel.

A terrific Golden Age Flash, my favorite of the speedster heroes.

Amanda Conner sketches Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

Jimmy Pamiotti sketches Frank Castle, aka the Punisher.

The Juggernaut.

Han Pan, the ne plus ultra of Harley Quinn cosplayers. Accept no substitutes!

The awesome gayness of the Geeks Out organization. I wanted one of the adult-sized capes but they only had kiddie-sized.

The Paul Smith design for rogue.

The Phoenix and Wolverine.

She-Ra, Princess of Power.

The Beast and Shadowcat.

What's not to love about this?

I love the infinite interpretations of Wonder Woman found at the cons. And Storm's awesome too.

One of the Technicians from TRON: LETHARGY, er, LEGACY.

The Riddler and Zatanna.

Dance belts are apparently not required.

Ah, there's nothing like being surrounded by one's people...

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM's classic noble enemy, Char Aznable.

A.C. sketches Zatanna.

Gambit and Rogue. (Gambit's card lit up.)

The very best of the weekend's many Thors.

Ambush Bug.

After being absent too long from conventions, the welcome return of Xena!

The Gree Hornet and Kato.

Alpha Flight represents.

The perfect (and totally ridiculous) fusion of two wholly disparate genres.

Loki.

Ron Burgundy. "Stay classy, NY Comic Con."

The show's best Poison Ivy, with Harley Quinn.

TOS in da house!!!

Over the course of two days, this brutha represented as Spade from the Royal Flush Gang, a Red Lantern (as seen here), and the Black Panther. An impressive effort.

Best romantic cosplay of the show: Nova and Gamora.

Gotta love Nova's working lights!

The Adam West Batman. This guy is a fixture at East Coast cons and he just plain rules.

Static.

This is a fight I would love to see. Did they ever throw down in the comics?

What would a con be without Pedo Bear?

One of several Princess Mononokes.

An A.C. sketch of Jimmy Olsen, as done for a fan.

The artist at work.

An adorable Fire and Ice from the Justice League.

My girls Ashley (L) and Amber (R).

Ashley tries out my X-ray spex. (I know she was lookin' at my ass 'cause I felt it getting hot.)

Dark Mary Marvel.

(L-R) Link, Silver Age Green lantern, Golden Age Green Lantern. I love when families get together to represent in the name of geekiness.

Ms. Martian and Arsenal.

Cartooning chix on the loose: Amanda Conner and the legendary Mary Wilshire.

Me and former Bullpen colleague/boss Dawn Guzzo.

The one and only Jared Osborn, old college friend and '90's Marvel Bullpen brother, in town from his mountain lair.

Keith Williams and Jared.

I forget the Hispanic hero's name, but the other two are Poison Ivy and Parallax.

Alphonse Elric from FULL METAL ALCHEMIST.

Aquaman.

Aquaman summons marine life to aid him...

...and somehow gets Olliver Kirby.

Olliver's handy comics-carrying innovation: a re-purposed Special K box.

Buzz draws Adam Strange for a fan.

Some attendees take a breather.

Russ Braun chats with a fan.

Themiscyra-garb Wonder Woman.

The one and only Jill "Nerdy Bird" Pantozzi.

A role-reversed live version of Amanda Conner's classic wedding of Black Canary and the Green Arrow. Not the arrow glued to her bum.

One of the Top 5 best costumes of the entire weekend: an outstanding 1970's Black Orchid.

The Lumerman clan: geeks all.

Power Girl and Superman.

The always super-crowded tunnel connecting Artists Alley and the main showrooms.

An excellent Randy Savage. The guy totally nailed the voice and mannerisms.

My favorite of the show's several Princess Mononokes.

I may hate the cartoon — and I totally do — but this is an excellent Master Shake costume.

The best of the show's Black Adams. The guy was totally in character when I spoke with him and we engaged in an hilarious back-and-forth where he berated me for even daring to approach him for a photo. I of course responded with the appropriate "my liege, forgive this craven peon" and suchlike. He was great.

The second rocking of "the Amazing Bag-Man."

Grute Skullbasher (Benjamin Chadwick), co-author of the highly recommended BARBARIANS: A HANDBOOK FOR ASPIRING SAVAGES. While reading the book on the subway, I was laughing my ass off.

Grute and I display our "metal faces."

I have no idea what a suit, a balisong knife and a Sailor Moon mask add up to represent. Do any of you? If so, please leave an explanation in the comments section.

Documentary filmmaker and friend Ian Fischer, deep in the tumult.

An old school Marvel fan represents.

A live tattoo demo.

Me and Brian Azzarello (100 BULLETS). We hadn't seen each other since my Vertigo days and neither of us recognized the other at first.

A Dalek and the welcome retun of the most bizarre and unexplained cosplayer I have ever seen, "Kitty Kitty." I last saw Kitty Kitty at the Philly Con a few months back and was completely gobsmacked by his utter strangeness. The dude is awesome, and he liked my gorilla suit jacket.

Ye olde school Dr. Octopus.

An excellent gathering of DC characters. I first saw that Wonder Woman at the Philly con a few months back and I think she's fantastic.

I believe that's a pack of Rollerballers from the remake movie, and that's obviously the Golden Age Flash with them.

With Harvey Van Toast, the topless paparazzo.

An excellent Bullseye.

Fuck Sam jackson, THIS is the Nick Fury I grew up with!

Some of my favorite people on the planet. (L-R) Russ Braun, Rob Steen, and Jill Freshney.

The '90's Marvel Bullpen represents: me and Darren Auck.

'90's Marvel Bullpen brother Michael Kraiger and his daughter, Maeve.

Former Marvel Comics colleague Renee Witterstaetter and artist Mark Texiera.

My dear pal Suzi, chatting with Russ (who happens to be one of our favorite drinking buddies).

A fan rocks an excellent GOLGO 13 shirt. I want one!

Al Ewing, author of 2000 A.D.'s hilarious ZOMBO, with Suzi.

An excellent Phantom of the Paradise, another of the show's Top 5 best costumes (IMHO).

Boltie and the Crimson Bolt from SUPER.

Charlie Brown (actual age).

Asgardians on the escalator.

In the food court.

From WATCHMEN: Owlman. Far more accurate to the comics than the one from the movie version.

The new, panty-less Superman makes his NYC con cosplay debut.

No idea, but I love it.

A.C. adds Power Girl to a fan's board of different characters drawn by different artists.

After the con: the pub trip that resulted in several of us feeling rather ragged on the morning of Day 4. (L-R) Steve Dillon, me, Rob Steen.

With Al (ZOMBO) Ewing. A terrific guy and an equally terrific writer.

My old DC colleague Tony Bedard. I wish he still lived here...

Tony Bedard and Garth Ennis ponder exactly how Supergirl might take care of unwanted invulnerable hair in the bikini area. (Yes, that conversation actually happened.)

Jill and Suzi. My brain just may melt from the combined adorableness.

With Stuart Moore.

TO BE CONCLUDED.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-Day 19: MATANGO (1963)

2011-10-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Not exactly what I would call "scary" per se, MATANGO is nonetheless definitely one of the creepiest films I have ever had the squirm-inducing pleasure of sitting through. Originally released in the U.S. under the unfortunate and somewhat-inaccurate title of ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE, this was one of a handful of Toho films I'd read about but somehow missed during my formative years of absorbing and learning to adore that studio's output. (That's likely because it never played on the Tri-State area's #1 TV showcase for Toho movies during the 1970's through the early 1980's, the venerable 4:30 MOVIE.) Thankfully, it's now available uncut and subtitled on DVD and I urge you to check out this quasi-forgotten gem.

MATANGO tells the shudder-filled story, narrated by a patient in a Tokyo psychiatric ward, of a yachtful of hip young revelers — including Toho regulars Akira Kubo and Kumi Misuno — whose carefree day on the ocean becomes a fight for survival after an unexpected squall renders them lost at sea with the boat's sail and rudder torn off. After drifting for several days, they end up a remote, apparently uncharted island. As they search the island for sustenance, the castaways find fresh water but no trace of food except for strange mushrooms that cover the place like fungal barnacles. Erring on the side of caution, the skipper advises against consuming the mushrooms and the group instead attempts to survive on turtle eggs and birds in order to conserve their meager food supplies, a course of action that proves a resounding failure. Ominously, they also find a wrecked deserted ship festooned with the mushrooms and, also unfortunately for the characters, they're in a sci-fi/horror film from Toho Studios' classic period for such flicks, so they slowly realize that the island was apparently affected by atomic testing that may have been conducted from the wrecked ship, and the ubiquitous mushrooms may be the direct result of atomic mutation. It's also noted that the area's sea birds actively avoid the place...

As the group slowly finds itself on edge due to the hopelessness of rescue and the encroaching pangs of hunger as their food runs out, in-fighting begins and some of the group turn to eating the untested mushrooms out of sheer desperation. It soon becomes apparent that the mushrooms are addictive and have a euphoric psychedelic effect, and as that is discovered the fate of the wrecked ship's crew is revealed when our protagonists encounter a hideously misshapen fusion of man and mushroom.

You guessed it: those who consume the mushrooms themselves end up as creepily-giggling, human-sized fungus monsters, eventually losing all traces of their former status as representatives of homo sapiens. For example:

Eventually, one of the castaways is rescued but what baleful effect has the experience had upon him? Let's just say that he likely would have been better off if he'd remained on the island...

Definitely low-key and all about atmosphere rather than straight-up "BOO!" scares — I swear you can practically smell and feel the thick, mustiness of the fungus — this is perhaps Toho's most unique effort from that golden period and it deserves more exposure here in the West. Seriously, check it out.

Poster from the original Japanese theatrical release.

NY COMIC CON 2011-DAY TWO

2011-10-18T03:07:00.001-04:00

Here are the highlights from Day 2 of this year's big NY show! (And don't forget to click on the pictures to embiggen them.)

Truth writ large.

Part of the Gryffindor contingent.

The lads at the 2000 AD booth. That's some goooooood readin', and by the end of the weekend the sold perhaps 80% of their stock. As a fan of that magazine's comics for thirty years, that made me very happy to see!

Wonder Girl.

No lazy doodlin' there!

In progress: an A.C. Power Girl sketch.

Former Marvel colleague and all-around swell guy, Greg Wright.

The Teen Titans' Raven.

Gotham City square-off: Batgirl vs. Catwoman.

A guy in a transforming Bumblebee outfit attempts the escalator.

Ah, henchmen...

Doctor Strange gestures magically, Bunche gestures metally.

Behold the next generation!

A.C. sketches Kitty Pryde and Lockheed.

A dead-on Spider-Man from the time when he had to borrow an ill-fitting Fantastic Four jumpsuit and had no mask, so he used a paper bag. Yes, that was actually in a story.

The first and best of several women dressed up as the TARDIS. You can't see it from this angle, but she had a working light on top of her head.

One of my favorite characters (provided she's written by Gail Simone): Zinda Blake, aka Lady Blackhawk.

'80's-style Black Canary, Booster Gold, and Speedy.

Red Lantern Bleez.

The best of several Taskmasters.

Cloak and Dagger.

He-Man gets down on a dance game platform.

A marvelously zaftig Wonder Woman.

The Teen Titans' Starfire.

A character I'd never seen cosplayed until now: Icon.

Loki, Hawkeye, and Cap.

An old school gorilla general.

The '90's Marvel Bullpen represents: me and the one, the only, completely excellent Dave Sharpe.

An exceptional Guy Gardner.

Me and my Asian cinema sifu, the incomparable Ric Meyers, the man who is almost single-handedly responsible for setting me on my path of obsession with exploitation films and martial arts movies. For that, I cannot possibly thank him enough.

The A.C. version of Terra. Cute curvy chicks in glasses and superhero suits? Oh, HELL yeah.

Spade, from the Royal Flush gang. (Yes, he was played by a black dude.)

Oh, HELL yes: Big Barda!!!

She was very surprised that anyone recognized who she was, but she did not count on wandering near a signing table where one of NYC's staunchest Barda supporters was situated.

"Go, go, Gadget copter!"

Lunchtime at the food court with two dear old friends, '90's Marvel Bullpen brother Ed Lazellari (the obviously Italian one) and college friend and '90's Marvel Bullpen brother Eddie Murr (the elfin-looking white guy).

Blankman.

It's 3-D Man (look him up)...

...passing around a petition to get Hollywood to make a proper movie about him, and also to get them to stop making bad 3-D movies.

"With a cloud of dust, and a hearty 'Hi-Ho, Silver...'"

Me and the ambulatory genitalia from Vagicons.

A.C. draws Donna Troy.

My friend Charles rocks the floor. He's one of the coolest (and bravest) people I know.

Three of Gotham's Most Wanted encounter two miscreants far worse than themselves, namely my old friends and colleagues Pat Giles and Eddie Murr.

If you ask me, this is a very sly commentary on the GREEN LANTERN movie.

The best Plastic man I've ever encountered. I showed this shot to my mother, a very staunch reader of the character during her childhood/adolescence in the 1940's, and she was delighted at his visual accuracy.

Patty O'Furniture meets Plas.

A rocketeering couple. I love their homemade helmets.

West meets East: Captain America and the Black Widow. (Not that you'd ever know from watching IRON MAN 2, but the Black Widow is Russian.)

She-Hulk, from her days as Ben Grimm's replacement in the Fantastic Four.

Actual costumes from IRON MAN 2.

With Keith Giffen, one of my favorite people in the comics biz.

Two excellent bits of cosplay: The Maestro and Nightcrawler. Outstanding!

My brothers since college, Matt Maley and Eddie Murr, at the booth where Matt was selling his enormous, incredibly-detailed poster.

The poster in question.

And you can even write on it with dry-erase marker!

The artist and his work.

Q reveals his inner geek.

My favorite of the show's many Supergirls rocks the floor. She was adorable.

How this guy stood the heat and humidity in his homemade Hulk suit was beyond me. That's dedication!

I'm not sure what this was about but I totally approve.

Rick Spears and Chuck BB, the creators of the hilarious BLACK METAL, one of the funniest graphic novels I've ever read. It's laugh-out-loud metal humor and volume 2 just came out; I read it and while still quite amusing, the tone becomes a tad more serious as things veer into very epic territory. RECOMMENDED.

An excellent foot-tall figure of Larfleeze.

FUTURAMA's Fry and Dr. Zoidberg.

A fetching Dalek. I'm very pleased to see that the women-as-galaxy-destroying-villains look is catching on in the geekier fashion circles.

My favorite Quail Man of the several seen over the weekend. This guy totally had spirit that lit up the place.

Classy loveliness personified: a Batwoman so exacting that she looks like she walked off the page. Exceptional!

(L-R) Batwoman, Powergirl, and Terra. I think I have to go be alone now...

Seriously, I think my brain just imploded... And for the record, I would gladly sacrifice a limb to see the lady in the middle cosplay Big Barda.

A great Star Sapphire.

Captain Hammer (from DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG) and the Julie Newmar-era Catwoman.

Morpheus, aka Dream, aka The Sandman. Extra points for the helm.

Life imitating art: the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold peruse original art of them by fan-fave JUSTICE LEAGUE artists Kevin Maguire.

Danny Phantom. When in hell is that series coming out on DVD? It was great!

An excellent Dazzler, complete with skates!

TRANSMETROPOLITAN's Spider Jerusalem.

ARCHER's Lana Kane and Cyril Figgis.

Me and Olliver put on our metal faces.

A charming Poison Ivy.

A character I never expected to see cosplayed: Killer Moth is on the loose!

The catacombs-like basement level in which the panels took place. The lines were outrageously huge.

TO BE CONTINUED.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 18: ABBY (1974)

2011-10-18T00:01:00.000-04:00

Perhaps the most infamous of the many EXORCIST ripoffs/cash-ins — and that's really saying something — this film only remains in the public consciousness due to it being the blaxpolitation genre's answer to THE EXORCIST and also for the fact that it was such a shameless ripoff that it was taken out of theaters and general distribution when the major studio makers of the film it so blatantly cribbed from threatened easily followed-through and winnable legal action that rendered it unseen in legal screenings or on legitimate home video for around thirty-five years. Well, now ABBY is available on DVD for all to experience and both the wait and the DVD transfer were not worth it. Seriously, both the movie and the print from which it was culled simply suck ass. In fact, I firmly believe that the print is the same gut-bucket, scratched and faded one that I obtained on VHS from Times Square's infamous haven for "gray market" VHS martial arts and blaxploitation flicks, the now long-gone 43rd Chamber, and that print was appalling.

Anyway, as if news of the terrible print used for the DVD were not enough to steer you away from this movie, the fact that the plot is a flagrant ripoff of THE EXORCIST as filtered through a low-budget but over-the top Richard Pryor-esque sensibility (only minus the genuine and intentional laughs) should do the trick. The main difference between this and the original is that this is the all-black version and that its protagonist and ultra-churchified adult woman rather than an apple-cheeked pubescent, and while that does allow the possessed woman to become a literally foaming-at-the-mouth slut is pretty damned funny, the movie itself as as turgid and dead in the water as a floater in your toilet bowl. To tell the truth, the main reason I included ABBY on this list is to warn you not to rent or buy it because in either case, ABBY is a world-class ripoff i every sense of the term and you will have missed nothing by not sitting through its non-existent and wholly derivative "shocks." Bottom line: Richard Pryor's famous "The Exorcist II" parody sketch from his classic 1975 SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE show is one-hundred times better than this mess, plus it's genuinely and intentionally hilarious. Watch that instead.

The so-called "black exorcist edition," whatever the hell that may mean (or not). Avoid this shoddy transfer like it was unshielded plutonium.

"I GOT A ROCK"

2011-10-17T18:47:00.001-04:00

Here the rock — not a piece of bone or gristle but an actual stone rock — that I found in the canned corned beef hash I ate for breakfast this morning. Not exactly a "secret toy surprise" like those found in the breakfast foods of my childhood, but I'll take what I can get. I may make it into a necklace. And for those who may be curious, I called the company and spoke with a very nice and rather concerned customer service rep for the company and it went very nicely. I was not at all mad about the fluke having occurred — I'm lucky I have very strong, cavity-free teeth at the age of forty-six — and just called to let them know to check the batch number. I didn't ask for anything in return but they're sending me some replacement coupons.

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 17: NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957)

2011-10-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid this is going to be a short one but that's not without good reason. Simply put, NIGHT OF THE DEMON, known in the U.S. as CURSE OF THE DEMON, gets my vote as the best black magic-oriented horror film ever made and I would be a colossal asshole worthy of a well-aimed ski boot right to the balls if I revealed more than just the briefest outline of its particulars... Ya know, ROSEMARY'S BABY is also right up there and now that I think about, the great narrative strength of both films stems from their fantastic/supernatural events being set firmly within a then-modern 20th century world in which the characters (and by association, the audience) simply cannot believe in the likes of superstition and Satanic cults because they supposedly know better, only to be proven completely and utterly horribly, horribly wrong. Here it is in brief:

Dr. Julian Carswell (Niall MacGinnis) is the head of a devil-worshiping cult who by means of the darkest of "olde magicks" disposes of those who would ridicule his activities as bunk or try to expose him, which we witness during the opening moments of the film. Basically, Carswell is quite capable of summoning a demon straight from Hell itself to tear his enemies limb from limb, and next on his list is American psychiatrist and debunker of mystical shit, Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), who is in England to follow in his now-dead predecessor's footsteps in exposing Carswell as a presumed bullshit artist during an international convention of assorted learned types. When Holden scoffs at Carswell's ominous cease-and-desist warnings, he finds himself immediately plunged headlong down a path of events that any rational person would deny were happening, and though joined by his dead colleague's niece (Peggy Cummins) who has come to believe in a lot of dark shit after reading her uncle's journal and notes, the guy has to be convinced the hard way that his world has now got enough evil in it to fuel twenty King Diamond albums and that his demise at the talons of a thirty-foot demon is imminent...

Fuck with Julian Carswell and this is what you get.

I assure you that I have not given away any of the whys and wherefores of the story and now I urge you to get your hands on it immediately. I had not seen this film since I was a kid and even though I enjoyed it back then, it's that much more potent when experienced from a grownup's perspective. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES

2011-10-16T01:52:00.007-04:00

(Written around 2AM)

Dear Vaulties-

There will be no 31 DAYS OF HORROR or any updates in the NY Comic Con today for the following reasons:

I went to Day 3 of the con operating on maybe three hours of sleep due to being totally jazzed-up, so I am fucking exhausted, a condition not at all helped by unexpectedly heading off the pub to guzzle a few with friends and comics biz loons (that damned Suzi can coerce me into anything), some of whom came in from the U.K.
Due to the lateness of the hour and my (quite reasonable) level of Guinness-induced loopiness, I just don't have the wherewithal to sort through and tighten-up the majority of the day's 170 con pics — and there are some very good ones — or write the day's installment of the horror movie stuff. I'm just too damned tired.
My wireless signal has been for shit, so it takes a loooooooong time to upload.

Regarding the horror stuff, I'll post in the wee hours of tomorrow (Monday) morning, by which time I hope to have gone through the Day 3 con pics (and Day 2) and have them annotated and posted. Until then, here are two of my favorite moments from Day 3:

A record of my summit meeting with "Harvey Van Toast, the topless paparazzo."

A character I did not expect to see at all, much less done so well: the 1970's Black Orchid. And she was tall, too!

31 DAYS OF HORROR-DAY 16: DEMON SEED (1977)

2011-10-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

There are some films that skirt the line between science-fiction and outright horror, and this is one of the more notable examples that group. If you ask me, sci-fi-trappings aside, this flick is straight-up horror to the core.

When it came out I was just shy of turning twelve and I distinctly remember DEMON SEED's rape-and-impregnation-by-computer concept being chilling yet fascinating to a number of my female classmates. But then again, virtually anything that involved unwholesome fictional exploration of the physical possibilities between human females and male entities drew many of those girls like moths to a flame and that is what is at the core of this film's rather twisted appeal, namely the audience finding out exactly how it could be plausible that a super-intelligent A.I. could not only rape a human female but also successfully impregnate her. It's genuinely fucked-up, but I defy you to tell me that you aren't at least a little curious as to the answer to that query...

The plot, in a nutshell, involves the ruthlessly logical, emotion-void efforts of the Proteus IV computer (voiced by Robert Vaughn) in its desire to "study man" and impregnate the estranged wife of its creator (Fritz Weaver). The woman in question is named Susan (Julie Christie), and she's a child psychologist whose daughter who has recently died from leukemia, a disease that Proteus has made great leaps in coming up with a cure for. When the computer's seemingly-emotionless decides t separate from his wife and move out of their house, Proteus takes control over every one of the home's automated functions to disturbing, full-control effect, essentially trapping Susan within, and with practically zero chance of anyone getting in to rescue her. Once the house's staff has vacated, Proteus physically restrains Susan with the help of a robot wheelchair equipped with a mechanical, strips her naked and puts her through a thorough and intimate physical examination, during which she faints. When Susan awakens the next day, Proteus declares its intent of reproduction and coerces her into complying, first by surgically manipulating her brain (which she resists and eventually overcomes) and later by proving that it could and would lure one of her child patients to the house to kill if Susan does not fully comply. With extreme and understandable reluctance, Susan has no choice but to become the world's first cyber-broodmare. Being an ultra-advanced A.I. with synthetic-yet-somehow-organic components, Proteus is able to create sperm that will be viable for use within Susan and in short order it has done its vile deed with her via a rather uncomfortable-looking telescoping metal phallus. The interesting thing here — other than the obvious — is that Proteus attempts to soften the blow by connecting Susan to its vast consciousness and sharing a perception that encompasses distant and beautiful parts of the cosmos in a scene that may have influenced what Alan Moore wrote for Abby Arcane during her psychedelic tuber-influenced "coupling" with Swamp Thing some years later during his landmark run on that comics series. Anyway, once knocked-up, Susan is told that the foetus' gestation will occur over a total of a mere twenty-eight days, during which time the government and Susan's estranged husband have become aware that something is wrong in regard to the computer, thus creating a gestational race against time before Proteus is shut off for good. What results is a curious blending of the horrific and truly wonderful, and I'm honestly not sure where I stand when it comes to considering the final outcome...

Looking at it now, DEMON SEED has lost a considerable amount of its shock value, especially in the wake of far less intelligent "inhuman rape" fare like HUMANOIDS FROM THE THE DEEP (1980), INSEMINOID (1981) and GALAXY OF TERROR (1985), but its tale of cyber-violation remains very intriguing and handled with a great amount of good taste and I would be curious to see a contemporary remake that took narrative advantage of the scientific/medical/technological advances as witnessed and experienced over the thirty-four years since its release. Just don't let Michael Bay or some other such brain-dead Hollywood asshat anywhere near it, that's all I ask.

Poster for the original theatrical release

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

2011-10-15T02:55:00.003-04:00

Dear patient Vaulties-

The NY Comic Con Day 2 photo safari is delayed due to truly horrendous slow upload time, so I'll post pics as soon as I can. (It took me two hours to upload everything to my Facebook wall, so you can go there to see them for the time being.) Anyway, here's one shot to hold you over until I get this sorted.

Yeah, my brain pretty much imploded when I took this one...