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anhed-nia · 1 year ago

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BLOGTOBER 10/16/2023: NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4 - THE DREAM MASTER

One of the best movie posters ever, let's face it.

What does your slasher movie hierarchy look like? Which guy is your favorite, and is that guy's franchise your favorite over all, or is there a different one that you think is more consistently enjoyable? I have a hard time answering this question for myself. Some comparisons are too apples v. oranges; I mean, I think it's fair to pit Jason Voorhees against Michael Myers, but Leatherface has a really different vibe even though he's still technically a pretty basic slasher, and I cannot get what I get from HELLRAISER in almost any other movie or series. The CHILD'S PLAY franchise may have started out on more standard ground despite its oddball "voodoo doll" premise, but it has since transformed itself into a committedly queer campfest, and no one else in the slasher game is really doing the same thing in the same way. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is also in a class by itself on many levels, including but not limited to the originality of its premise, its allowance for wild fantasy sequences, and the platform it provides for a wonderful character actor to strut his stuff. I mean not to slight the great Brad Dourif, but every ELM STREET installment is basically the Robert Englund show, and we like it that way. NOES is probably my favorite over-all franchise, in part because I think it probably has the highest proportion of quality movies. Even a bad ELM STREET movie is kind of good because of its star, and its open field for filmmakers to be as imaginative as they want to be. It's like that thing people (erroneously) say about how sex is like pizza: Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4 was one of my first R-rated movies. I think I saw it when I was about 9, at the home of the first of of my many Bad Female Friends. Michelle was extremely controlling and a compulsive liar, and my weak ass has always been catnip to people like that. She lived with her mom who, despite her unpredictable temper, basically ran a house with no rules; most of the time I was there she was locked in her bedroom with her boyfriend, loudly watching game shows. Once in a while one of them would emerge in a bathing suit to get chips and dip and soda out of the fridge, and that's all I usually saw of them. The mom was also a den mother for the Brownies, which I was forced to participate in because my parents knew that otherwise I would just stay in my room for the rest of my life. I got out of it because Michelle's mom was always dropping her off at our house whenever she felt like getting rid of her kid, and the one time my parents wanted her to babysit me she said no arbitrarily, and they got in a huge grownup fight, and that was that. Uh anyway, where the hell was I going with this? Oh yeah, Michelle got to watch anything she wanted, which was Not Cool with my hippie media-phobic parents. I got in a huge amount of trouble for "letting" Michelle show me SLEEPAWAY CAMP 2--which, to be fair, is inappropriate for audiences of all ages (and is therefore great)--and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER.

I vaguely remember my mom just being really upset on the phone with Michelle's mom, and trying to figure out how to instill in me that I should resist at all costs the contaminating effects of horror movies; even if somebody else was putting them in front of me without supervision, it was still my responsibility not to watch them. (My mom personally enjoyed John Waters movies and FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN and stuff like that, but she didn't want me to see PSYCHO until I was 18 years old--go figure!) But my dad's religion is Jungian psychoanalysis so he was intrigued by the dream-based plot, and he decided to actually watch the movie himself and come to his own conclusion about whether I might have been harmed by it. He didn't wind up liking it, but he did understand what made it interesting, and knowing that had a healing effect on me.

For my part, I liked everything about NOES4, not the least of which was that it's the ultimate '80s movie. I mean this thing was really programmed to go straight into the brain someone who was 7 in 1988 and just completely take over. The absolutely sick soundtrack, the very of-the-moment layered and over-accessorized fashions, the surreal neon-lit dream sequences, and...really just everything. Watching the movie today, it still presents as a perfect (albeit idealized) time capsule, and Renny Harlin was the perfect guy to create it. Harlin was a major league ham who knew no limits, and with a premise that is literally limitless--the whole idea is dreams made real--he did exactly what you'd want him to do, reputedly subbing in his own zany nightmare concepts when he felt the script didn't go far enough. I recently rewatched his acrophobic thriller CLIFFHANGER and read that the first stunt you see in the movie was only attempted once, and the stunt person received one million dollars to do it...which is easy to believe when you see it. That's the kind of filmmaker Renny Harlin is, and I think it shows even in an ELM STREET movie where everything is as artificial as possible.

Another way in which THE DREAM MASTER epitomizes its moment is that it has this perfectly motley ensemble. I feel like we don't have this anymore; a lot of films are very careful now to have a mix of ethnicities and sexual orientations in the cast, and yet in most cases this has not contributed to a feeling of having a lot of different kinds of people represented. I miss seeing movies where the friend group includes, like, a punk and a jock and a nerd and a goth and a normie and a dreamy loser. I miss movies where these two people can be best friends:

And at this point, you might have asked yourself why I didn't include SCREAM in my imaginary slasher franchise hierarchy. The answer is...I don't care about it. That first movie is fun and the series has its moments, but I'm not sure that it has much to offer once you get past the novelty of its self-awareness. That is, it doesn't have much to offer unless your main thing is seeing a bunch of cute friends hanging out together. Sure some of them are slightly nerdier or slightly more popular, but there's not a bunch of variance there; the main point seems to just be "attractive young people". And frankly, I just don't find that very interesting, and it's not that interesting to have a movie that just lists rules and then follows the rules, and it's not that interesting to have whodunnits where the main question is "which one of my cute friends is secretly mean". So there. I probably shouldn't write this down on the internet, but considering that we're probably all on some kind of list these days, I'll just say it: I'll take the undead soul-eating child molester over the homogeneous gang of fuckable friends any day of the week.

#blogtober #2023 #a nightmare on elm street #a nightmare on elm street 4: the dream master #slasher #franchise #horror #fantasy #robert englund #renny harlin

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narastories · 1 year ago

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So, I kind of finished my random Hellraiser movie-watching madness, and here is my personal list of ordering the Hellraiser films from best to worst:

1. Hellraiser (1987)

2. Hellbound: Hellraiser ||

3. Hellraiser (2022)

4. Hellraiser: Hellseeker (VI)

5. Hellraiser |||: Hell on Earth

6. Hellraiser: Bloodline (IV)

7. Hellraiser: Deader (VII)

8. Hellraiser: Judgement (X)

9. Hellraiser: Hellworld (VIII)

10. Hellraiser: Inferno (V)

11. Hellraiser: Revelations (IX)

I know everyone has REALLY different opinions on these lol This is just mine. Ramblings below.

1. Hellraiser (1987)

If you're not rating this at the top, what even are you doing? OG. Classic. Great. Yes, they have visibly worked with different tech regarding the make-up, fake blood, etc. It just adds to the charm. Also: Kirsty <3

2. Hellbound: Hellraiser ||

This goes hand-in-hand with the first one. It also has that part with Kirsty getting the Cenobites to protect them, which is great. 10/10 no notes.

3. Hellraiser (2022)

Sorry, not sorry for putting it this high. It's just so pretty. And the cast is great. Overall eye-candy. I mean, I have a soft spot for Goran Višnjić in this (liar) in general. And Jamie Clayton just really made the role of the Priestess her own. I think with some of the Pinhead re-casts the issue was that they just put another guy in there, but with her, she really owned the role. The references back to the OG are subtle, and overall I think it did the original film justice.

4. Hellraiser: Hellseeker (VI)

I would be lying if I said the Pinhead & Kirsty scene didn't influence me to rate it this high. But also, I feel like this is the film that Inferno was trying (and failing) to be. You have the plotline with the police, and the cheating husband, but you actually care about what happens to the characters because it's Kirsty and his husband not just random people with no backstory. I'm going to say it again: I personally enjoyed Trevor's suffering and Kirsty getting blood on her hands. There is also something to be said about the early-2000's anxiety about surveillance.

5. Hellraiser |||: Hell on Earth

This still has a very similar vibe to I & II, which is a plus. I get that people think Pinhead is OOC here. Personally, I think his behavior could be explained by what happened to him. To me, it was hilarious that he basically let the human part of him die to save someone else, got stuck in a statue and his brain-to-mouth filter just disappeared. And then the human part kept haunting people. You also have Terri and Joey whom I love dearly.

6. Hellraiser: Bloodline (IV)

I appreciated the backstory, and I appreciated Angelique. Also, as I've said before the space-station setting didn't feel overly gratuitous. Imo it served a purpose and added to the narrative saying "we are so far in the future and these angels/demons are still here". At this point in the movies, it felt really good to get a little history lesson too about where the box was coming from.

7. Hellraiser: Deader (VII)

I would not call this (or the rest on this list for that matter) a good film. There was something personally relatable and therefore terrifying to me about this movie. It leans strongly on the idea that the ones you should be afraid of the most are human and I like that. The subway car scenes are also fun, but I'm taking minus points for the Hungarian name in the address that the guy pronounced like it was an Italian city. Oh yeah, and if you are claustrophobic... good luck?

8. Hellraiser: Judgement (X)

Very bizarre, but not half that bad? The scenes followed a plot that made sense and were enjoyably done. Pinhead wasn't OOC despite it not being Doug Bradley, of course. The guy with the glasses was also fun. Bonus points, because Kirsty can make deals, but Carter can't :P At the same time, this film is nowhere near as good as some of the older ones.

9. Hellraiser: Hellworld (VIII)

Just. No? I mean, part of me appreciates the geeky "fandom" setting and the 2005 technology. But. No. It's like Teen Wolf meets Hellraiser, and that is not a compliment (although I like both but... no) I just have an incoherent "this tasted bad" feeling about this movie lol If I had to articulate it, I would say that the plot felt very unfinished.

10. Hellraiser: Inferno (V)

So boring. I wasn't opposed to the concept because I think the question: "What does the police have to say about all of this?" is a good and valid one. But man, the execution sucked. I had zero sympathy for the main guy, but I also didn't feel gleefully malicious as I did with Trevor. Yeah, I can't recommend this one.

11. Hellraiser: Revelations (IX)

Ugh. First of all, the protagonists are two spoiled brats, whose troubles offer nothing interesting. Like, okay, you had a temper-tantrum and opened the box, congratulations I guess? Kirsty was more mature than this in the first movie. Second, and I'm sorry to say but this is the worst Pinhead recast out of them. He looked like a boy in his father's shoes. Tbh the cenobites all look worse. The plot also moves too fast and the references back to the old stuff are really clumsy. I'm sorry but I hated it.

#hellraiser #hot takes #maybe #anyway that was my hellraiser marathon lol

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lesbianwithchainsaws · 1 year ago

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👻💅🔮

Thank you <3 I answered the 💅 one so I'll answer the other two:

👻 what is the first horror film you've ever seen?

Okay there can technically be two answers here. The very first horror movie I remember seeing was Saw VI, but I only saw like the first half of it and not the whole thing. The first one I watched fully was Paranormal Activity 2 (yes, the first one. Watched it w my relatives who insisted that you don't need to watch the first one to watch the 2nd)

🔮 coolest concept for a horror film you've ever seen?

Admittedly I'm not sure. I think there's a lot of cool concepts out there, but I guess here's some I think are really cool:

Saw (surprise, I like saw!). I just like the concept of someone kidnapping people and getting them to try to do fucked up stuff to survive. Especially with jigsaw believing he's helping people like this.

30 Days of Night has an awesome concept. It's basically set in a town in Alaska that has that thing where its dark for a long time (I can't remember what that's called, I'm sorry) and, since they don't have sunlight, vampires come to attack them. The movie itself is pretty good too!!

The Purge movies have a cool concept. I like the idea of crime being legal for a short period, but I'll be fully honest and say I don't like the purge movies. I've sat through 3 of them and just can't get into them at all. Still like the concept

I really like the concept movies like Haunt and Escape Room have. Just the idea of going to an escape room or horror attraction and it turns out you might die. It's such a cool idea and I'd love to see more movies like it!

Hellraiser also! Especially with the whole "demons to some, angels to others" idea in it. I love it!

One Missed Call too! It's been ages since I've rewatched the original, but basically the concept is that people get mysterious phone calls where they hear how they die.

I think I should stop now before I start naming 80% of the horror movies I've seen. I think a lot of them have cool ideas, but these were some of the first to come to mind!

#thank you for the ask!!!#horror ask

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the-firebird69 · 11 months ago

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Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA

youtube

I'm afraid Trump thinks a lot of things are fiction he goes after people cuz he's sick but the suit is not and I picked up part of it and someone was there with me watching keeping guard while we were on the tour and I don't think it was Dave just one of my friends from St John's we went to tour they may have been Higgins he and I hung out quite a bit and he's a smaller lad and it might be Meghan markle's husband and I lifted it up and I said no way this way is a ton I'm getting a hernia and I it probably weighed about 200 pounds and mother and father say it's about 2:50 and it was just the chest plate and we are and it looked like kind of like a Ponce de Leon but not as rounded it was damn heavy and it was about 3/8 of an inch thick I don't think it should have weighed that much and I'm very strong back then I was very strong

Zues

They're saying you're not supposed to touch it and this guy goes around touching everything. Says I don't think I touched your face but then again we may have wrestled and I think I did. Well I said the bad words he said cut the crap and I don't really mean it but that's freaking weird why do you have to go around touching everything still kind of glad you did cuz it weighs a ton and those place wait a time that youfit and it was not magnetics and they disappeared and Trump has been taking the stuff and he kills practically everybody there in class because he wants it for himself then he goes after Tommy f for the hellraiser box disappears then he reappears and they go after the place several of them and we think they get abducted and tons of them die and it's where the nights in White satin are from and the origin points of the armies are nearby where our friend here pointed them out and this is going to be hell because they're near the bunker systems and that's where they were refueling the empire ships

Mac daddy

He's feeling like eating some candies and stuff his little baby sometimes to me he tells me most the time and that kind of ignore him and he tells a bunch of people I'm going to be ready for children says he will be too every once in a while I have a breakout but we won't say that later on I agree but really we're on topic here and they become hellraisers which are really cyborg the park machine and that's what these ships do and they're very powerful and they have shapes and he says all the shapes come together and make a planet and the planet is gigantic and I am familiar with what planet it is it is the decepticons and I run the clean

Hera

Ohh ah

Mac daddy

Yeah I kind of sounds like that what would it says well okay and he's like when do I start growing what a nut farm

Ben Arnold

I think it's called looney bin and I'm in the movie soon and I'm in hellraiser and I'm in suicide squad one and two too many movies I don't even know what the hell I'm doing ever and he said something today he said Dave is the one doing it these things are where he's doing it from and it makes sense and somebody else came up with it I don't know who or why but just clicked and I said Trump is just fooling around and he's doping killing his kids he loves it and he gets murdered for it by them but then he turns pale and white and he's doping and he's not a vampire he's like a there's a name for it and it's not a zombie it's like a cool it's a ghoul and back in the day Dave had like an old fashioned robot brain and he could have put it in there in a lung and had goals going around and they were gross and Olivia says he had a form of it and we are grossed out there's other things happening but this is very nasty and they try and get down there and get really beat the hell and Trump takes a real personal what happened the whole experience and tries to go after Tommy f when it's not really his fault and it's like who's fault is it I said tell me you have had the thing and someone directed me to the store I don't think it's can but you might know who if you're not mean as hell right away during and after and we hear he's laughing but geez

Hera and leave my mom's body alone you need that you imbecile what are you stupid Trump

Olympus

#Youtube

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woundthatswallows · 4 years ago

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fav super gorey bloody movies? i can neverrrr get enough blood and guts <3

ohh yes absolutely.. i'm the same way body horror n gore r my fave parts of horror i got you <3 i have A Lot so here we go. (this got very long and i got quite passionate in my commentary whoops!)

possession (1981) duh. gore doesn’t kick in for a bit and isn’t super long and gorey but it’s SO GOOD when it does

deathgasm (2015) was sooooo fun and gorey and bloody and campy. very much an ode to evil dead.

OH and if you haven’t seen evil dead that too!!! i like evil dead 2 a lot more than the first but both have good gore

basket case (1982) so fun

the loved ones (2009) really gorey really fun really cool horror role reversal. i ❤️evil teenage girls. felt martyrs (2008)-esque in some parts, which i will talk abt later in this post

IMPETIGORE (2019) !!!!! literally one of my favorite movies ever it’s SO underrated and was soo good and gorey and literally everything i could want in a horror film.. fucked up lore, nature and graveyards AGH it was so good. it’s a shudder original but i think you should be able to find it through other means if u dont have shudder

the autopsy of jane doe (2016) much more a medical gore type situation but i loved it

the dentist (1996) super fun mouth themed horror / gore. felt like a fever dream and a drug trip combined. the second one was also really fun

audition (1999) literally need to say nothing about this

the hellraiser series!! I’ve only seen up to 5 i think but 1 + 2 are so good. (2nd is my fave)

the saw franchise is all great gore!!

raw (2016) so good. cannibalism. weird sisterhood. need i say more

may (2002) was so damn good!! i think you would really love this one, there's a milk + blood moment in it!! and weird creepy dolls!!

suspiria (1977) and the 2018 version were so good! the 2018 one wasn't so much a remake as more than a retelling and expansion. i personally did the 2018 one first and then the 1977 one upon a recommendation so that you can go into the 2018 one without comparing it to the original, which i felt helped in my enjoyment of it a lot.

house of wax (2005) i have some mixed feelings on this movie as i do think it plays into the “omg people who look different than us are sooo evil and fucked up horror trope” but. the gore is amazing and the soundtrack fucks so hard.

the descent (2005) literally there’s a lake of blood. and very very very few men god bless.

american mary (2012) incredible amazing outstanding show stopping never been done before

revenge (2017) no idea how i feel about this movie but the gore was good

okay and now the cronenberg section of the reclist. i recommend everything of his so here are his more gorey ones ranked by my faves (dead ringers isn’t gorey really but it gets an honorable mention as my fave cronenberg)

videodrome, shivers, the fly, rabid, the brood, scanners (these are more body horror than pure guts n blood but they are great nonetheless)

okay and now my two really fucked up but amazing recs that i have to give a disclaimer these are Intense and not-for-everyone-recs

martyrs (2008) is one of my top 10 movies ever i adored it so much and it’s so gorey and gross and wonderful but as i said, quite intense and stomach churning.

and then the nekromantik series. these are quite a bit of meta commentary films, i.e why would someone watch this because they really are gross and insane. nekromantik 2 was my favorite. but yeah big big warning for these in general. definitely hard stomach churning watches, and makes you question why you are watching them, but still amazing. but yeah. proceed with caution with them if you watch them.

#this is long lol #but i <3 guts n blood too thats most of what i watch #asks #holetual #ref

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themonotonysyndrome · 3 years ago

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REDACTED verse - Movie marathon? Hell yeah!

Prompt: Any Fandom | Any Pairing | "I got us matching shirts!"

Word Count: 1,027

Author/Team: LadyMonotone

Fandom/Original: Redacted ASMR (Asher/Babe)

Rating: G

Triggers: NA

Summary: After a busy work week, Babe suggests they do something fun on the weekend. Asher has just the idea.

ConCrit: Y

I realised that I’ve never wrote a oneshot for Asher & Babe. Let’s fix that!

"Hey, welcome home Babe. Are you - shit, is everything OK? You look pale!"

Asher stops himself when his Mate steps into their apartment, looking like they're seconds away from collapsing. So he hurries over to support them. Babe throws him a tired yet grateful smile and lets Asher takes their bag from their shoulders.

"I'm OK, Asher. I'm just... exhausted. It's been a long day." Babe reluctantly admits and allows Asher to gently pull them on the couch so they can rest their feet.

Asher's eyebrows furrow in distress at the state of his Mate. They're exhausted, probably starving (he doesn't know if Babe has eaten anything other than the breakfast they had together today. He silently cursed himself for not calling to check up on them) and emotionally drained. He hates it.

"You've been having a long week, Babe." Asher gently corrects them. When Babe rests their head on his shoulder, he hugs them tightly as if to shield them from the world. Babe snuggles deeper into his embrace. "You've been going out for work early morning and coming back late at night, every day. Sometimes even later than me. I'm just... I'm worried about you, Babe."

"I'm sorry, Ash." Babe sleepily reply. They yawn and continue with a weary sigh, "Work has been crazy lately, but today was our last deadline, so next week should be a bit calmer. Hopefully."

Asher beams and rubs their arm comfortingly. "Hell yeah, that's great to hear, Babe! Is there anything I can do to help you tonight? I made some avocado Caprese wraps, chickpea salad sandwiches and a cold chicken salad for dinner. Oh! We also have some lemonade in the fridge; squeeze 'em myself this morning too. You're up for it?"

Before Babe could say anything, the hunger that had been on the edges of their mind now made itself known with a vocal reminder - both Babe and Asher startle when they heard their stomach growl loudly.

Babe chuckles sheepishly. "Food sounds fantastic right now." They pause. "Hey, Ash?"

"Hmm?"

"We both have been working hard lately. How about we do something this weekend? I think we both badly need a break."

Asher's eyes lit up at his Mate's suggestion, mind already racing with ideas. "Oh, yes! We should totally do something fun tomorrow! But you also need to rest up, Babe."

Babe hums thoughtfully. "Well, I'm happy as long as we can do something together. It feels like I rarely get to see you nowadays..."

Heart twisted in pain at his Mate's quiet admission, Asher kisses the top of Babe's head. "Same here, Babe. It sucks being adults, eh?"

They snicker and remain on the couch to cuddle for a few more minutes before Babe's stomach growls again. While Babe excuses themselves for the bathroom, Asher makes himself busy by serving their dinner. He cheers when Babe re-appear wearing their pyjamas and with colours back in their complexion. It looks like the hot shower did them a world of good. "There's my, Babe! Come on, come on - let's eat! You're going to love the avocado Caprese wraps, I promise!" He declares after ushering Babe towards the chair beside his.

Babe glances at their meals with a knowing smirk as they help themselves with a plate of wraps and some salad. "Interesting spread, Asher. All the things that don't require the stove."

"You know it." Asher shoots his Mate a wink and grabs his own plate. Throughout their meal, Asher and Babe entertain one another about the possibilities of what they could do at the weekends. Babe offers to play Halo with Asher, which nearly makes him leap from his chair in joy but instead, something dawn on him.

"I got it! Wait here, Babe!" Asher suddenly shouts, eyes wide with glee. His body practically vibrates with excitement as he abandons his food and runs towards their bedroom.

Leaving Babe frozen in their seat with a fork halfway into their mouth. When they hear rummaging sounds coming from the room, Babe slowly resumes eating; their eyes glued to the bedroom door.

When Asher burst out of the room, he's proudly holding up two t-shirts. "Ta-da! What do you think, Babe!?"

Babe takes their time in chewing their food, swallow before replying, "Uh, think of what, Ash?" They ask sceptically.

Asher is more than happy to explain his plan. "OK, here me out, Babe. Since October is just around the corner, do you know what that means?"

"Uh, our bill for the heaters would increase?"

"OK, yeah, I guess you're right on that one - hey, are you teasing me?"

Babe laughs. "Only because it's so easy to do so." At Asher's puppy pout expression, Babe hurries to amend themselves while still supporting a fond smile on their face, "I'm sorry, Ash. What were you trying to say?"

Asher perks up once more and flaps the t-shirts. "October means Halloween, Babe! So that means we're having a movie marathon all weekend tomorrow; the Fear Street Trilogy, the classics like Hellraiser, and uh, I guess we can give Malignant a shot too."

A horror movie marathon? Well, Babe always wanted to watch Midsommar but work always get in the way. "We definitely have to give Malignant a try. But what's with the t-shirts?"

"I bought these last week. Check it out, Babe!" Asher unfolds one of the shirts to display the front side. It wrote 'He's my trick' with an arrow pointing to the right, which Asher then showed the other shirt that wrote, 'They're my treat' with an arrow pointing to the left. "I got us matching shirts! Don't they look cool!? We have to wear them for our movie marathon tomorrow!" Here, Asher suddenly realises something judging by his shit-eating grin. "We can wear them to David's place on Halloween and watch him try not to die inside."

Goofy matching shirts. That's so Asher that Babe can't help but fall helplessly in love with him all over again.

Babe also can't help laughing their guts out at his 'prank' against the Alpha. "I'm in favour of David staring at our shirts in utter disgust. Let's do it, Asher!"

#redacted asmr #fanfic #they/them pronouns #gender neutral s/o #asher #babe (listener)

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jimsmovieworld · 3 years ago

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FREDDY VS JASON- 2003 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Having been forgotten by the residents of elm street, Freddy reseructs Jason and tricks him by appearing as his mum Pamela, he sends him to Elm Street to kill people. Naturally people assume Freddy is the one killing people, which makes people remember/fear him and he regains his strength. The problem is that Jason wont stop killing and takes one of Freddys planned victims. This is what leads to a battle between these two horror icons. I think this is a great and very entertaining movie that should do a good job of pleasing fans from either franchise. Freddy Krueger is played by a returning Robert Englund for the final time and as always, does a great job. Lots of fans were unhappy Kane Hodder wasnt picked to play Jason, while i agree he is the quintessential Jason, Ken Kirzinger does well. He has a good build for Jason and gets the movements down well. Like the use of the classic 1428 house on elm street. An excellent cast of familiar faces from the 2000s such as Lochlyn Munro, Monica Keena and the great Katherine Isabelle

After winning the fight in the dreamworld, Freddy is brought into the real world for the final showdown. The fight is action packed and silly as hell. Fighting in a construction site and using all sorts of weapons and traps, its pretty surreal to watch. As a huge fan of both franchises its so cool to see them together. The problem with these vs movies is that there has to be a winner. So who won here? Well both were booked to look strong and the remaining human surviors interfered so a bit of a dusty finish. But i would say Jason won. The last shot of the movie sees him emerge from the water holding Freddys severed head, the camera closes in on Freddy and he winks at the camera. I very much like this ending as leaves it open for interpretation, but Jason won as he still has a body. An original planned ending had Freddy and Jason confronted by Pinhead from Hellraiser which also wouldve been cool. The next Elm St movie and Friday the 13th movie to follow Freddy vs Jason would be a remake for either franchise so this seems like the end of an era in a way. Excellent movie directed by Ronny Yu.

One of my favourite movies.

#freddy vs jason #nightmare on elm street #friday the 13th #freddy krueger #jason voorhees

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matymatsu · 3 years ago

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you should definitely watch hellraiser! and actually, the franchise didn't start going downhill until the THIRD movie came out. the second movie was as good as the first, if not, better. the second one picks up right after the first movie! you also get a peak inside pinhead's origins in the second one, so the first two are definitely worth watching! i think you'll like kirsty cotton as well, she's a total badass and comparable to nancy thompson from the anoes franchise. arguably, kirsty is believed to be better than nancy, and she's sadly slept on as a final girl, she deserves more love and recognition! i was really hoping they'd add kirsty in dbd (the actress that portrayed her even followed bhvr and dbd on twitter) so??? maybe they might add her later on??? that's probably wishful thinking though!!! and tiffany was a great final girl too!! she's only in the second movie, but she would've been awesome in dbd as well.

I haven't heard much about the second one tbh but I'll definitely add them on the life of the many horror movies I haven't watched and should LOL

The only thing I've seen from Hellraiser is a few screens from the movie and the uncle's death scene and can I just say, the practical effects on that were *chefs kiss*.

#as for the dbd stuff I'm surprised they didn't add her either but considering they got the model of Pinhead through nfts #i'm cool with it just being him LMAO #ty for the recommendation tho! <3 #ask #Maty talks

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latter-day-saint-nick · 5 years ago

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I heard that the BBC Dracula adaptation written by Stephen Moffat was really bad, and it made me curious to see just how bad it was, so I decided to watch it for myself. It was not one of my smarter decisions.

But in order that my suffering won’t have been completely in vain, I’ll recap it here for those who are curious as well, to spare you the pain of actually having to watch it. You’re welcome!

Let me describe the viewing experience as best I can.

I have a BBC iPlayer account, so I could watch the show legally. My wife tells me to pirate it instead to avoid giving Moffat the views. She is right. I click on the first episode.

Episode 1

We start with a framing device of a severely ill Jonathan Harker in a Hungarian monastery, telling his story to two nuns. I do not hate this framing device. The original novel was told through diary entries, newspaper articles and letters, so having different characters tell the story of what happened to them to others is a neat way to adapt this type of literary device. The dialogue quickly takes a turn for the ridiculous, though, when one of the nuns, Sister Agatha, asks Jonathan in a silly accent if he had sexual intercourse with Count Dracula. Because queerbaiting? Is vampirism an STD now?

Still, the show tricks us into thinking that it’s going to be a fairly straightforward adaptation of the story as Jonathan recounts how he arrived at the castle, met the Count and became his prisoner. Later, this will turn out to be a sweet, sweet lie, but I don’t know that yet. At first, Dracula looks about a hundred years old and has a bad Romanian accent, but the more he feeds on Jonathan, the younger he gets, and the more refined and posh his British accent. Because this Dracula does not just absorb his victims’ lifeforce but also their knowledge. I find that stupid.

Dracula says the famous “I do not drink... wine” line. Badly. Still, the reference is mildly cute the first time. He repeats the line several times throughout the show, and it gets progressively less funny each time.

Jonathan reads a letter from his fiancee, Mina. In it, she jokes about how she’s going to sleep with all the cute men in the neighbourhood while he’s gone, as well as the adorable bar maiden, if she needs some variety. I sigh as I realize that this is probably what Moffat considers good queer representation.

At one point Jonathan talks about falling asleep, and Sister Agatha proceeds to ask him if he had dirty dreams about his fiancee. She persists with the question, even after Jonathan tells her that that’s private. It doesn’t seem like a pertinent question, but I guess Sister Agatha is just a pervert. Or maybe Moffat is.

Jonathan finishes his story about how he escaped from the castle. He bemoans that he can’t go home to England, because he is such a changed man and he can’t even remember his fiancee’s face. Sister Agatha reveals that the other nun with her is actually Mina. What a tweest! Apparently even before Jonathan told his story, Sister Agatha managed to figure out that he is English, tracked him down, found his fiancee and had her brought over to Budapest. The show is clearly hoping that the unexpectedness of this twist is going to distract us from the fact that it makes no damn sense at all.

It also turns out that Jonathan has become a vampire, and the sight of blood nearly makes him attack Mina. Of course, being one of the main heroes, he was never turned in the novel, not that that matters.

At this point Dracula shows up at the gates of the monastery in the form of a wolf. And I don’t mean that he shapeshifts like an Animorph. He is literally inside the wolf’s body, and he claws his way out of it, emerging at the gates naked and covered in wolf blood. I really don’t know why.

He and Sister Agatha proceed to have a sass-off. My wife makes fun of the dialogue by saying that it’s basically this:

“I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!”

By the time my wife has finished the joke, the banter is still going on. It feels like it’s never going to end.

The Mother Superior tells the nuns to arm themselves. My wife starts wondering if we’re actually watching a Mel Brooks movie. Also, Sister Agatha is revealed to be Van Helsing. This is not as meaningful as the show seems to think it is, as she and Dracula haven’t had any past encounters. So it’s really just, “Oh, she’s actually a gender-swapped character from the book. That’s cool, I guess.

Finally, Dracula slinks off because he can’t get inside the monastery without being invited. He manages to find Jonathan, now fully a vampire, at a window and gets him to invite him in. You’d think this would be the end of the stupidity, but clearly I haven’t suffered enough yet.

Jonathan finds Mina and Sister Agatha. Sister Agatha tries to fend him off, since he’s, you know, a vampire and tried to feed off of Mina earlier. Mina, however, believes that the power of love can save him, so she approaches him. I point out that in the book, Mina was characterized as being very intelligent, not that that matters. As it turns out, it wasn’t Jonathan at all, but Dracula, wearing Jonathan’s skin, which he rips off, like something out of Hellraiser. He never uses this power again in the rest of the series.

The episode ends with him attacking the two women. Against my better judgement, I decide to watch the next episode, because while this was bad, it was bad in a fascinating way. Almost like something Tommy Wiseau would make. Okay, maybe not. Tommy Wiseau as Dracula would have been a lot more entertaining.

I click on the next episode.

Episode 2

We start with another framing device. This time Dracula is telling the story of his voyage to London to Sister Agatha while they’re playing chess. See, it’s symbolic, because they’re having a game of wits where they’re trying to outsmart each other! Okay, to be honest, I have no idea what Sister Agatha is trying to do. I guess Moffat is too clever for me.

Sister Agatha asks Dracula how he got to England. He tells her that he went on a ship. Inexplicably, this is not the end of that, but he proceeds to tell her about everything that happened on the ship, including conversations between characters that he wasn’t there for. Maybe he was listening at their doors.

I sense impending doom when I realize that this boat journey is going to take up the entire episode. In the book, it only took up a few pages, not that that matters.

Rather than staying in his coffin in the hold during the day, as he does in the book (not that that matters), Dracula mingles with the passengers. When Sister Agatha expresses surprises at that, he comments on how stupid it would be to stay in his coffin in the hold. You know, more adaptations should have lines about how stupid the source material is. It makes you look so smart.

How does Dracula avoid the sunlight during the day, though? Never fear, he simply spits out a pall of fog that surrounds the ship at all times and blocks out the sunlight, because I guess that’s a power he has. Like his wearing of other creatures’ skin, it’s not one he ever uses again, though. He tells Sister Agatha, “Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you.” Because referencing songs from a hundred years in the future is apparently also a power that he has.

We are introduced to the other passengers, who are a surprisingly diverse bunch. I can’t get too excited about this, however, as I know that they are all going to die. One of the passengers is an Indian doctor who has encountered the undead in the past. That would probably make for a more interesting story than this one, but then again, I don’t really want Moffat to tell it, so I don’t know why I’m complaining.

Dracula starts killing off crew and passengers one by one. I keep expecting the show to cut back to the chess game, with him telling Sister Agatha, “To make a long story short, I killed them all.”

The passengers begin to fear a killer on board, but never seem to suspect Dracula, who plays them against each other. They also discover that they’re all travelling to England at the behest of the same mysterious benefactor, who of course is Dracula, using a pseudonym. Because he hand-picked all of them for the special qualities he would gain from drinking their blood or something. It is way more convoluted than it needs to be. Is Moffat capable of writing a protagonist who is not an arrogant white man too clever for everyone around him? We may never know...

Throughout the episode there’s references to an unseen invalid staying in cabin 9. It turns out to be Sister Agatha, whom Dracula has been steadily draining. The chess game is just a hallucination that he induces in her while he drinks her blood. What a tweest!

Just like in the previous episode, the framing device is dropped about two-thirds through and we are now seeing the story in present tense. Dracula frames Sister Agatha as being the mystery killer, but she manages to reveal that he is a vampire just as she is about to get hanged by the crew. They manage to fend him off, but not before a few more characters die by being incredibly stupid.

One of the characters is a young English lord who just got married to a rich heiress, but is secretly having an affair with an African man pretending to be his servant. I can never remember his name, so I call him Gaylord (I’m allowed to make jokes like this). Gaylord is Dracula’s new business partner and he betrays the rest of the humans, because he thinks Dracula is his BFF and values his skills as a businessman. As it turns out, Dracula only chose Gaylord because of his wife’s wealth. Now that he has killed her, her money goes to Gaylord, and by draining Gaylord, it goes to Dracula. I was unaware that being someone’s business partner entitles you to inherit all their money after their death, so I assume that Dracula acquires people’s money by drinking their blood, just like he acquires their skills and attributes.

Sister Agatha assumes command over the ship, using her divine nun powers, I guess, and she prepares for Dracula to return and finish off the rest of the humans. I get bored and finish a chapter in a book I was reading earlier.

Eventually Sister Agatha blows up the ship to prevent Dracula from ever reaching England, which they keep referring to as “the New World”. That’s not what that term means, but who cares at this point? Dracula, encased in one of his boxes, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, only to break out and walk the rest of the way to England along the ocean floor. There he is greeted by cars and helicopters and someone who looks like Sister Agatha, but wearing modern clothes. What a tweest! Did it take him a hundred years to break out of his casket, or is this like The Village, where we were in modern times all along? The episode ends here, so I guess I’ll have to watch the next one to find out.

I am curious to see this stupidity unfold, but not sure I can take any more right now. But my wife applies some peer pressure, and I put on the final episode. Pray for me!

Episode 3

The previous two episodes were pretty bad, yes, but mostly in a way I can handle and even laugh at. They have not at all prepared me for what I am about to witness.

This episode doesn’t have a framing device, which makes me wonder why we bothered with those in the other two.

The Sister Agatha clone turns out to be her great-grandniece, Zoe. So it’s like Back to the Future where people keep having relatives who look exactly like them. Except Back to the Future is a comedy, and this is meant to be taken seriously.

Dracula escapes from the Anti-Dracula Brigade on the beach and breaks into some poor woman’s home after killing her husband and stuffing him in the fridge. I’m not sure if this is meant to be funny or scary. It ends up being neither. Dracula kills the woman as well, after lecturing her for taking all her modern-day luxuries for granted. Social commentary, I guess?

We are introduced to Seward, a young medical student who makes up for his lack of personality with a creepy obsession with his friend, a vapid, selfish party girl. Yes, this is Lucy Westenra. I found her a likable character in the novel. Not that that matters. I call this Lucy a slut, only for Lucy to make a comment on slut-shaming, which makes me feel bad. The irony is that I’m pretty sure we’re meant to see Lucy as slutty and shallow.

We’re also introduced to Quincey. He’s a douchebag. In the novel he was kind, brave and heroic. Not that that... whatever.

Seward is contacted by the Anti-Dracula Brigade, which is actually called the Jonathan Harker Foundation, but I prefer Anti-Dracula Brigade. It was formed by Sister Agatha’s relatives and Mina Murray with the goal to find Dracula and then to keep him alive to study him. I honestly would have thought that Mina would want Dracula dead, after he terrorized her and murdered her fiance, rather than sticking him in a cage for science, but it’s not like character motivations have to make sense. After all, this is Moffat, bitch!

Van Helsing explains to her students that Dracula was in suspended animation for over a hundred years at the bottom of the ocean until she accidentally woke him by sticking her fingers in his mouth, which allowed him to draw blood and be renewed. She doesn’t explain why her Anti-Dracula Brigade consists of medical students, rather than experts in their fields. She also doesn’t explain why he didn’t grow old again, like he was at the start of episode 1, after not having had anything to eat for over 120 years.

Dracula has been caught and is contained in a cell at the Brigade’s headquarters. I honestly don’t remember how that happened. Did they forget to show us that or did I just black out? Both seem like likely options. The cell contains what I assume is a Kindle, to keep Dracula occupied. Van Helsing comes to talk to him, and he scoffs at the idea of a woman being in charge. She tells him that he slept through the women’s rights movement. I am paralyzed with fear that Moffat is going to attempt to explain women’s rights to me. Why would God test me like this? My relief knows no bounds when the characters change the subject immediately. God is good after all.

This reprieve doesn’t last long. My faith is once again tested when I am forced to witness one of the most idiotic scenes I have ever had the misfortune to watch on screen. It begins when Renfield is brought in. I know that a Dracula adaptation turning silly when Renfield is introduced is not unusual, but Moffat always strives to exceed expectations of ridiculousness. In this version Renfield is Dracula’s lawyer, working for the same firm that he hired 120 years ago when Jonathan was their representative. They have been Skyping, using what I thought was a Kindle, but turns out to be a proper tablet. It wasn’t supposed to be connected to the internet, but all Dracula had to do was guess the WiFi password. Which was his own name.

I cannot deal with this. This scene has broken me. I am a broken man. I cry out in anguish and despair, for what else can I do? My wife, who has gone to the kitchen to get herself a drink, comes to see if I am okay. I am not. I may never be okay again. Moffat has marred my soul forever.

Renfield argues that the Anti-Dracula Brigade is keeping Dracula against his will and that he hasn’t actually done anything illegal, so they are forced to set him free. On the way out, Dracula finds Seward’s phone and uses it to meet up with Lucy. There’s also something about Van Helsing having cancer and drinking some of Dracula’s blood in the hopes that it will cure her. I don’t really care about this, but it’s important to the plot.

There’s a time-skip of a few months. Lucy is engaged to Quincey, but still sneaks off regularly for dates with Dracula where she lets him feed off her. I suspect that this is Moffat’s attempt at making the character more feminist. You see, instead of just passively being attacked by Dracula in her sleep at night, she actively goes out to find him and chooses to be drained by him! This does not make her a better character. Really, it just makes her seem stupid as well as callous, since she doesn’t give a damn about any of Dracula’s other victims who don’t give him consent to drink their blood.

There is a very annoying reference to the novel when a vampire child calls Lucy “Bloofer Lady”. Like the wine line, it sounds more stupid every time the show repeats it. Also, the vampire kid shows up in one more scene before Dracula kills him. Glad he served a point.

Dracula finally drains Lucy. Her family holds a funeral, thinking that she’s dead. But as she’s been infected with vampirism, she is fully conscious while she is being cremated. So we get to watch her burn alive, screaming in pain all the while. Hey, did I mention that Lucy is played by a black actress? Remember in season 10 of Doctor Who when something terrible would happen to Bill Potts every other episode, like having a hole shot through her chest or being turned into a Cyberman? Now, I’m not saying that Moffat enjoys having horrifying things happen to his black female characters... but I’m not not saying it either.

Lucy escapes from her coffin and takes revenge on the crematorium workers. During this scene we only see her reflection, in which she looks normal, which makes it painfully obvious that this is only how she sees herself, and in reality she’s going to be revealed to be horribly burned. The show plays coy with this for an annoyingly long time.

Van Helsing, still dying of cancer, breaks out of the hospital with help from Seward and they go visit Dracula in his flat. Yes, Dracula has a flat. It’s not hidden or anything. It’s even listed in the phone book. Look, it’s almost over, so who cares?

Lucy shows up as well and after more pointless build-up, we finally get to see her real appearance, which, surprise, surprise, is horribly burned. She is oblivious to this, because vampires’ reflections are weird in a way that is never really explained. Dracula sees himself in the mirror as old and decaying, whereas Lucy sees herself as being still pretty. I don’t know what it means, apart from that Moffat doesn’t understand vampire mythology and feels that it needs to be made more interesting.

Seward encourages Lucy to take a selfie, which reveals her true face. Why the rules for cameras are different from the rules for mirrors is not explained either. Lucy breaks down crying because being ugly is a fate worse than death. Seward tells her that he still wants to kiss her, because I guess this was meant to be the message? Something about true love? She begs him for death. They kiss and he mercy-kills her. In the book the people who loved Lucy had to kill her to save her immortal soul and to protect the world from the monster she had become, which has a bit more emotional resonance than saving her from having to be ugly for eternity. But, you know. NOT THAT THAT MATTERS.

Van Helsing sends Seward away for her final confrontation with Dracula, because she has him figured out. Having the memories of her great-aunt Agatha within her, which she gained from drinking Dracula’s blood, which he gained from drinking Agatha’s blood, she exposits that Dracula isn’t actually harmed by sunlight or crosses. He just fears death more than anything and so he doesn’t like the sight of the cross which represents someone being willing to die. Okay, but that doesn’t explain his aversion to sunlight! What does that have to do with death? She also spouts off some nonsense about how his fear of death originated from being the weakest in a family of noblemen and soldiers. Um, Moffat? You do realize that Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler, right? Someone who was known for, well, impaling his enemies? But, again, it’s almost over, so let’s just get on with it!

Van Helsing tells Dracula that because she is dying of cancer, she is accomplishing the one thing he is afraid of doing, which somehow convinces him to kill himself by drinking her cancerous blood, which is poison to him. To make this experience painless for her, he creates an illusion for her where they’re, um, tenderly making love? What the hell? Is that what all their previous scenes were leading up to? Okay, if you say so.

Wait, is that the real reason why Moffat made Van Helsing a woman? Screw you, Moffat! Screw you so much!

Credits roll. This ends one of the worst television viewing experiences I’ve ever had. I go on YouTube to rewatch Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here’s Why. It is deeply cathartic.

#bbc dracula #flipping moffat

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braincoins · 4 years ago

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Unusual Halloween Movies

Tired of Jason, Freddy, and Michael? Want something new this year? Boy, do I have some treats lined up for you! I’ve used JustWatch to list the streaming options (though these are US streaming options; I maaaaay be up for some streaming fun on Halloween...). I’ll tell you right now, this list can almost perfectly be broken into three categories: Horror-Comedy, Sci-Fi Horror, or International Horror.

American Mary - A medical student drowning under tuition debt finds a lucrative practice when she enters the world of body modification. ngl, I remember liking this movie but it’s been a bit since I saw it, so for the CONTENT WARNINGS I’m going to straight up rip the MPAA here: Rated R for strong aberrant violent content including disturbing images, torture, a rape, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and brief drug use

Ava’s Possessions - Ever wonder what life is like once all your demons have been exorcised - literally? Now that Ava is free of the demon that once possessed her, she’s out of a job, down a few friends, and facing charges for the acts of violence her demon did. The only way to get out of trouble is to go to the demon-equivalent of AA. CONTENT WARNINGS: mostly blood and bad language; some mild sexual content

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - A journalism grad student interviews a young man in training to be the next slasher killer, ala Jason/Freddy/Michael. An absolute treat of a movie for anyone who loves slasher films; it’s about 3/4 mockumentary, 1/4 actual horror film when she realizes that, no, really, he’s going to go kill all those co-eds. CONTENT WARNINGS: Blood, gore, naked boobs (”Ugh. Is that REALLY necessary?” “Now, Taylor, who’s telling this story?”), sex, occasional panty shots (because, again, slasher films).

Bubba Ho-Tep - OH MAN another one I had to go back and add in ‘cause REALLY NOW. Elvis is in a nursing home (at least, he says he’s the real Elvis) and he and JFK (who is played by Ossie Davis - who you will note is NOT white) have to fight off a resurrected mummy who sucks the souls of the living out of their assholes. Bruce Campbell stars. HOW IS THAT NOT AWESOME ENOUGH FOR YOU?! CONTENT WARNING: Um... look, I think you kinda already know what sort of content to expect given what I just told you about the story.

Bulbbul (Netflix Original) - (Hindi Language) During the 19th century Bengali Presidency, something - or someone? - is haunting the woods around a lord’s estate, killing men in gruesome ways. The lord has left his estate in charge of his young wife, while his younger brother, who’d been away studying in London, returns to hunt down whatever is causing these mysterious deaths. CONTENT WARNINGS: child bride, blood, and what Netflix calls “sexual violence”, meaning a rape scene so graphic (despite not showing any nudity or genitalia) that it is GUARANTEED to make you uncomfortable. The movie was written and directed by a woman, so there is nothing intended to be “sexy” about this at all. If you can make it through that scene, though, there is a definite payoff for it. (Or should I say “payback”?)

Eli (Netflix Original) - A young, incredibly sick boy with a fragile immune system is brought by his parents to a clinic for an experimental treatment that may be their last hope. But all is not as it seems within the walls of this place... perhaps literally. CONTENT WARNINGS: mostly just language, a few mild jump scares. People get set on fire at one point. No biggie.

Errementari: the Blacksmith and the Devil (Netflix Original) - (Basque Language) Based on a Basque folk tale. Eight years after the First Carlist War, a government official comes to a small, impoverished Basque town asking after the blacksmith. Everyone tries to warn him away; the blacksmith is an evil, evil man. But he is on the trail of some Carlist gold that might be in the smithy, and the prospect of the gold wins him some helpers. And while everyone is distracted by that, a young orphan girl manages to get onto the blacksmith’s property. And what she finds there, no one could have expected... CONTENT WARNINGS: I took a screenshot of Netflix’s list of warnings just because it amuses me:

[sings “One of these things is not like the others...”]

Europa Report - Look, I really can’t recommend this enough for fans of found-footage features and people who can stand slower-paced, constantly-building terror. An international mission is sent to investigate Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. (Those of you who are fans of real-world space exploration know that Europa is considered a prime target for extraterrestrial life within our solar system.) Contact was lost with the mission for a long time, until the data streams came flooding into Earth all at once. And what they showed... CONTENT WARNINGS: Like I said: slower pace than most horror/thriller movies. It builds slow and steady. There’s really not much in the way of blood and gore, though; an excellent example of terror without resorting to buckets of red corn syrup.

Event Horizon - Hellraiser in Space? Hellraiser in Space. Except the Lamentation Configuration is a fucking SPACE SHIP. Also, props for genre-savvy cast. CONTENT WARNINGS: EYE SCREAM. Blood, gore, and, no really, THE EYE THING. Did I mention the gore and the blood? Oh, and language. And blink-and-you-miss it nudity & sex.

Grabbers - Strange creatures are attacking a small Irish coastal town and the only way to protect yourself is... to be drunk? CONTENT WARNINGS: I mean, it’s Irish and everyone’s drunk, so bad language (by American standards) is a given. That’s... really about it, unless you have a tentacle phobia.

Green Room - An up-and-coming punk band show up to play a gig and realize too late that they’re playing at a Neo-Nazi club. And when they happen to see something they... really shouldn’t have, it becomes an all-out fight for survival. Same director as Murder Party, though this movie was made later with a much better budget. CONTENT WARNINGS: Violence, blood, gore, and yes, some dogs die because they were trained to be vicious attack dogs by Neo-Nazis. :( Also, the most important content warning of all? PATRICK STEWART PLAYS A NEO-NAZI. (You think I’m joking, but for someone who grew up with him as Jean-Luc Picard, it is downright unsettling to see, okay?)

Life - Think Alien meets Europa Report (above). The six-member crew of the International Space Station are given a sample from Mars that might contain actual extraterrestrial life. CONTENT WARNINGS: Blood. No, let me say that again: BLOOD. Sounds of bones breaking. Alien creature entering someone’s mouth and killing them from the inside (probably through a combination of choking them/asphyxiating them on their own blood/devouring their blood? It’s not clear, it’s just UNSETTLING).

Murder Party - This is what happens when snobby art school brats try to kill someone. (Read: it doesn’t go well.) Fuckin’ bop of a Halloween song over the end credits, too. Also, at least two characters are canonically bisexual. Same director as Green Room, though this movie was made first (with a much lower budget). CONTENT WARNINGS: bad language, blood, gore, nudity, mild sexual content (the nudity is supposed to be “artistic”). The dog probably DOES die, given the circumstances, but it doesn’t happen on screen, at least? And the dog gets some pretty decent comeuppance first... Also, 1000000% accurate cat representation.

The Perfection (Netflix Original) - A former cello virtuoso (virtuosa?) gets in touch with her former teacher and meets his new star pupil. An instant connection is formed between the two women... or is it? (Yes, there are lesbians!) CONTENT WARNINGS: oh chaos, where do I start? Bugs under the skin, hacking off body parts, blood, gore, mild sexual content, sexual abuse, and the movie itself is complete and utter MINDFUCKERY. Did you like “Tales from the Crypt” as a kid? You’ll probably dig this.

Ravenous - With apologies to all Native Americans, but at least they did get actual Native American actors for those parts (George is played by a Pueblo actor; his sister Martha is played by an actress of Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee descent). A soldier who won a questionable victory during the Mexican-American war is given a hero’s status and then an exile to a remote fort in the Sierra Nevadas. Not long after he arrives, a would-be settler arrives with a harrowing tale, calling for help for what few survivors there are of his wagon train. The two friendly Native Americans at the fort issue warnings that go unheeded, of course. CONTENT WARNINGS: Blood, gore, cannibalism, PTSD.

Slither - James Gunn’s 2006 Feature Movie Directorial Debut! He wrote it, too. An homage to B-movie gore flicks like you’d see at the drive-in. I am just copying and pasting the IMDB summary ‘cause I love this movie too much to be concise about it: A small town is taken over by an alien plague, turning residents into zombies and all forms of mutant monsters. (Oh, but don’t forget the nasty, slithery blood worm things!) CONTENT WARNINGS: Nasty, slithery blood worm things. GORE, BLOOD, GORE, GORE. A very uncomfortable sex scene. Michael Rooker.

They’re Watching - An American TV crew filming what is essentially “House Hunters: Eastern Europe” stumble into superstitions, folklore, and... TERROR!! MWAHAHAHAHA. No, seriously, I LOVE how it’s basically “What if some HGTV crew wound up waaaaaaaay in over their heads, in a horrible and bloody way?” CONTENT WARNINGS: Blood, gore, and NO WI-FI.

#Halloween Movies #added Event Horizon because Pengy convinced me that not enough people know it

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banjodanger · 5 years ago

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine(2009)

I’ve got a lot to talk about, so I’m going to jump right in with a very unpopular opinion. This may SHOCK and OFFEND certain readers, but I’m not one to shy away from speaking my mind. More sensitive readers should beware, however, because I’m not going to shy away from rattling cages and saying what NEEDS to be said!

So, ready yourselves, because...

Origins is not the worst X-Men movie.

There. I said it. PBBBBBBTTTT!

I’m not arguing that this was a good movie, hell, there’s a good argument that this isn’t even a competently made movie. But this movie is also responsible for some of the absolute best movies to come from Fox’s X-Men. First Class and Days of Future Past are two of the absolute best movies of this series, and it’s doubtful the other two Wolverine solo movies would have aimed as high as they did if this movie hadn’t been so widely mocked. If you go back to watch this movie, try to keep in mind eight years later this series would get nominated for a screenwriting Oscar. Whatever your opinion of awards, that’s a hell of a turnaround, considering the story this movie tells is like three separate stories stapled together. Finally, however much this movie misunderstands Deadpool, it was right on in casting Ryan Reynolds and eventually gave us better Deadpool movies than we could have hoped for. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that both of those movies use Origins as a solid foundation for jokes. I’m not going to talk too much about Deadpool in this movie, because I plan to cover it in more detail when I get to the first movie.

But I’m not discussing those movies, I’m discussing Origins, and Origins is not very good. The CGI looks cheap and outdated, not just by the standards of the time it was released but by the standards of five years previous. And the movie makes said terrible CGI hard to ignore because, to quote the philosopher Michelle Branch, it is EVERYWHERE. Most people are quick to bring up Wolverine’s claws effects, and they should because they somehow look worse than any of the three previous movies and it’s the most easily noticeable. I’m not expecting them to have Hugh Jackman actually fighting and jumping around on top of a nuclear vent but it looks like they’re doing it in front of computer wallpaper. That hill outside the Hudson’s farmhouse literally looks like the default Windows XP desktop. I’m surprised Agent Zero isn’t hiding behind the recycle bin. This isn’t to say I don’t expect lots of CGI in my comic book movies,but I expect better when someone is dropping over one hundred million for a guy with metal claws to fight a mute with impossibly long sword fists.

I could ignore all the bargain basement effects if there was a good story, but there isn’t one. There’s about two or three stories and they’re all bad. Gavin Hood wanted to make a throwback sevnties-style revenge movie, completely self-contained and R-rated(Hey, does that sound familiar?), but the producers wanted extra characters they could spin off into their own films. And as much as I want to excoriate them for that, I can only get but so mad. This was a big franchise that was approaching ten years since its first film. They were looking towards the future and that’s what their job was. The problem is that failure to find a common ground comes through on the screen. Some of the strongest scenes are between Logan and Victor, to the detriment that most of the other characters who come off as unnecessary cameos. That boxing scene between Logan and Fred Dukes could be a thirty second phone call without really losing anything.

It’s disappointing, too, because a lot of the performances in this movie aren’t bad. Believe me, I wanted to hate Will.I.Am. I was going to drag him and talk about all the terrible music he made but...he’s not bad in this movie. I’m not going to say he missed his calling by not becoming an actor full-time, but I enjoyed his performance and wish the movie had used him a little bit more.

My humps is still one of the worst goddamned songs ever.

Gambit was great in this movie too. Taylor Kitsch had this bizarre run of putting in good performances in hated movies. After this, he did John Carter then the second season of True Detective. That’s a shocking run of bad luck, and too bad to, because he’s good in all three. We missed out not getting at least one more movie with his take on Gambit, because he gets maybe fifteen minutes of screentime but he manages to be memorable, charismatic and charming.

Helicoptering with a bo staff still isn’t part of his goddamn power set though.

And I’m not going to forget Liev Schrieber, who makes an absolutely compelling villain. The only problem with his character at all is that he puts such a great performance that it stretches belief to imagine this is the guy that becomes a silent henchman in the first movie. There’s simply nothing in his performance to suggest they’re the same person. It would be like if the twist of Phantom Menace was that Darth Vader was originally Jar Jar Binks, or if they hired Nora Ephron to write a Hellraiser prequel.

Even the Scott Summers we get in this movie is pretty good despite looking like a guy that steals copper wiring out of abandoned gas stations. Although I really question why Gambit watches them run off and I guess just assumes they’re being abducted by a good guy.

That leads me into the whole problem with prequels. Things happen in this movie and characters seem to live simply because earlier movies dictate that we have to see them again. It simply does not make sense for Kayla to leave Stryker alive. She has every reason to kill him, but she doesn’t, because he needs to be the villain in X2. Gambit doesn’t chase after the kids because they didn’t want to have him interact with Professor X. Sabretooth survives because he has to fight Wolverine on top of the Staute of Liberty while making no reference to their apparent relationship as siblings, or any words of any kind. This movie is awkwardly shoehorning itself into the lore established by the previous movies and it results in characters saying and doing things that go against what this movie seems to lead up to. The ending of most of those seventies revenge flicks was a bloody murder. Here, Stryker hurts his feet a little. It’s just not the same thing.

Ok, are you ready for the problematic parts?

Let’s start with Native American representation, because it ends up being a pretty big part of this movie. Lynn Collins’ Wikipedia says she claims Cherokee ancestry, so I’ll give the movie credit on that, but as near as I’ve been able to suss out, the myth she tells does not exist outside of this movie. First off, Wolverines do not howl. At all. They’re not wolves, they’re related to weasels. They’re small, vicious bastards. That information was readily available in 2009, by the way. Furthermore, the information I can find says that the moon in Native American mythology is predominantly gendered as male. Now, that’s not a blanket statement. This was the research I was able to conduct, and mythology, as with a lot of oral traditions, are a pretty mutable thing. Given that I was unable to find any mention of this myth that didn’t quote it from the movie, I feel pretty comfortable calling this myth nonsense.

Hey, what’s your tolerance for fatphobia? Because that’s going to impact how you feel about Blob’s character. Look, from his very first appearance he’s been a fat joke. That’s it. He’s a rude fat guy whose mutant power is being fat, hell, part of his power set is described as a “personal gravity field.” So while I can’t blame the movie entirely for this character being problematic, you’ve got to ask why they chose this character as the one that had to stay true to the comic book. He was in poor taste when he was created, when this movie was made, and now. And I absolutely can blame the movie for making him a fat joke.

At least they didn’t go the Ultimate comics route and straight up show him eating another character. Small blessings.

On a more final note, there’s that very strange character choice in the beginning credits. I know that they want to illustrate early that Wolverine doesn’t view violence the same way Sabretooth does, but why would they choose nazis as the villain in that moment? Even if they weren’t the most enjoyably killable villains in history, the last three movies have made the atrocities of the Holocaust a huge emotional linchpin of a major character. So it comes off as a genuine shock that this movie would use, in its introduction, a moment of sympathy for these very same villains. So you needed to show Wolverine with sympathy? Have a bar fight in France after liberating the country. Have them fight in the Korean war. Maybe Wolverine mourns a kid shot on the front lines. There’s a hundred choices that don’t involve Wolverine getting sad over a bunch of nazis.

So, why don’t I think this is the worst X-Men movie? I’m clearly not calling it a forgotten classic, and I’m not recommending you watch it unless you’re a weird completionist blogging about your arrested development on Tumblr. Sure, there’s some forgotten performances in here that deserve some consideration, but the movie is mostly a mess, a result of too many cooks with diverging visions. There’s a good revenge flick here, but it gets buried and muddled by a desire and knowledge that this movie has to simultaneously explain the past that led to the first movie and set up future installments. It tries to do too much and ends up not doing much of anything. I followed up on some of the people involved in this movie. Obviously Ryan Reynolds had the last laugh, but it still took seven years and a leaked teaser. Hugh Jackman learned from the mistakes in this movie and the rest of the Wolverine movies are pretty great. Gavin Hood, who got this job after being nominated for a foreign language Oscar, directed another big-budget flop with Ender’s Game. However, earlier in 2020 he apparently bought a four million dollar house so I don’t feel bad for him. Also, the flop of Ender’s Game could possibly involve Orson Scott Card being a vocal and unapologetic homophobe. Seriously, what is it with beloved fantasy authors and hate towards LGBT groups? You can conceive of wild, uncharted space and magical realms but the idea that two guys love each other is too far out?

Next in the series, from failure comes success, as we meet Xavier and Erik as frenemies and launch a million slash fictions.

#xmen #x men movies #movie critique #movie critic

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warmbeebosoftbeebo · 4 years ago

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(same anon) he referenced it very grossly multiple times on twitch making very aggressive sex jokes, sometimes decipting sadomasochism, even saying outright that he was a sadist (often in regards to horror movies and liking seeing others in pain as well as liking the feeling of being scared but also sometimes a little out of context). I don't want to share the clips publicly but they're very disturbing now in retrospect and I assure you these were said passingly a lot more than what you imagine

there’s two vantage points to take as a horror watcher: the victim, including the survivor girl (it’s a trope that one female survives at the end of the film, sometimes killing the killer/predator), and the serial killer, werewolf, zombie, vampire, etc. (no one really identifies with a zombie, only the living, but other than that...) men and boys are trained into identifying with the one killing others, mostly female humans, and girls and women to the extent they are recognized as part of the audience, as the victims. (i honestly cannot think of films where it’s a woman or pair of nonpornified women preying on only or mostly men in gruesome ways but the reversal is the norm.)

this is not universal in horror, and there is rare horror that’s even (pro)feminist. see the ginger snaps trilogy, teeth, the cell, the cave, even the original nightmare on elm street. i also think the original i spit on your grave is a misunderstood rape-revenge film based in part on what the director has said, although deeply uncomfortable, painful, violent, graphic in its depiction of gang rape (which was part of the intent eg to see the horror of it and to side with her when she later kills them one by one). alien is also a pro-feminist masterpiece designed to make men feel the fear of rape/sexual invasion and unwanted impregnation).

but in many horror movies, they specifically work to connect male arousal to gore, dismemberment, female fear, screaming, etc. for example, a woman will be naked in the bath or shower, or undressing, even masturbating (simulated), moments before she is murdered. horror in the 80s was particularly infamous for this. here’s siskel and ebert discussing it, showing some clips.

youtube

i don’t know how much of these types of films brendon has seen, or how much he connects sexual arousal to them or horror more generally. i did know he was a fan of the hellraiser series and other horror from one interview. (i’ve only seen one, and liked the one i saw eg creepy, viseral, the “birth” scene still sticks with me like 15 years later, i think it was the only one with a female protagonist going on a hellish odyssey, so can’t speak to the series).

there is also the phenomenon of men identifying with the victims, but this tends to be the survivor girl eg other women are often portrayed as stupid, helpless, even provoking it, fodder who’s deaths are meaningless, and this has an even heavier impact than when some men are at times portrayed the same way eg men can much easier identify out of victimhood by identifying as the killer. but there is often one lone survivor, and they are, the clear majority of the time, female. and she survives through wits, instinct, strength, etc. often they kill the killer. they are usually the or one of the heroes of the story. i don’t know how much this phenomenon has been addressed or analysed. (but i should look into it.)

i don’t sit through the twitches that are hours and hours long, and usually only watch clips or gameplays i’m interested in. i honestly had no idea about the sadistic and sexually aggressive references. I bet at the time, they came across as a mix of b being impulsive, dumb, and desensitized by porn and how most men talk. Esp online, they talk about women, and sometimes each other/other men, in these sexually violent, degrading, abusive ways, eg sex, mostly "penetrative" sex and bdsm as violation, conquest, all about the penis.

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stellalux-universe · 5 years ago

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So I just finished rewatching Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments for like, the thousandth time and I wanted to mark down the one’s I had seen. I wrote down some notes too, just some thoughts in case anyone is curious about my thoughts and likings.

[X] 100. 28 Days Later- Controversial, but I see this as an infection movie as opposed to a zombie movie, but I will not bore you with my rant on the subject.

[X] 99. Creepshow- Classic, have to see this if you haven’t already.

[ ] 98. Zombie

[ ] 97. Cat People (1982)

[X] 96. The Birds- Gotta love a Hitchcock movie.

[X] 95. Jurassic Park- Love the movie, not sure I agree with it being above The Birds or Creepshow but 🤷🏼‍♀️

[X] 94. Child's Play- Fuck creepy dolls man.

[ ] 93. Pacific Heights

[X] 92. Village of the Damned

[ ] 91. Shallow Grave

[X] 90. Night of the Hunter

[X] 89. Alice Sweet Alice- Great movie, definitely recommend.

[X] 88. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

[X] 87. Black Christmas (1974)- Love this movie.

[X] 86. Wizard of Oz- Agree that the witch and the monkeys are fucking creepy, and because it’s geared toward children it probably caused quite a few nightmares, but don’t think it’s as scary as some of the lower entries.

[ ] 85. Blood & Black Lace

[X] 84. Blue Velvet

[X] 83. The Others

[X] 82. Terminator- Eh.

[X] 81. The Howling

[X] 80. Poltergeist- LOVE this movie, the original is amazing.

[X] 79. Dracula (1992)- I watched this movie when I was like 5 and thus began my love for horror movies so this one holds a special place in my heart, plus the fucking aesthetic!

[ ] 78. The Brood

[X] 77. Signs

[X] 76. Evil Dead- LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie, Sam Raimi and all of the absolutely fake blood and gore you could ever want.

[X] 75. Candyman

[X] 74. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory- See notes for Wizard of Oz, same deal. Creepy af but scarier than Candyman? Eh.

[ ] 73. Blood Simple

[X] 72. Them!

[X] 71. The Sixth Sense

[ ] 70. The Stepfather

[X] 69. Re-Animator- One of my favorite movies period tbh.

[ ] 68. The Black Cat

[ ] 67. Duel

[ ] 66. The Tenant

[ ] 65. Marathon Man

[X] 64. Near Dark

[ ] 63. Deliverance

[X] 62. The Wolf Man- Classic

[X] 61. The Devil's Backbone- Absolutely gorgeous film, as is typical with del Toro, everyone knows Pans Labyrinth and that’s a great film but you should definitely see The Devil’s Backbone if you like del Toro.

[ ] 60. The Beyond

[X] 59. Fatal Attraction

[X] 58. Cujo- Stephen King, of course, a must.

[X] 57. House of Wax (1953)- No, not the one with Paris Hilton, though that did have Jared Padalecki who 😘. But the original, with Vincent Price himself.

[ ] 56. Single White Female

[ ] 55. The Vanishing (1993)

[X] 54. The Changeling

[ ] 53. Demons

[X] 52. The Phantom of the Opera- Another Classic

[ ] 51. The Dead Zone

[X] 50. The Last House on the Left- Again, the original people, Wes Craven, not the remake. Literally one of the most uncomfortable movies I’ve ever sat through but extremely subversive about how we justify violence and the ability of all of us to be capable of violence. Seriously though, it’s a rough watch.

[ ] 49. Diabolique

[ ] 48. The Thing (1982)

[X] 47. Nosferatu (1929)

[ ] 46. The Sentinel

[X] 45. The Wicker Man (1975)

[X] 44. The Game

[X] 43. It's Alive!

[X] 42. An American Werewolf in London- Watch it every Halloween, LOVE

[X] 41. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)- Wes Craven again, I love that man but he has a startling ability to make seriously demented movies. I love it though.

[ ] 40. Black Sunday

[X] 39. Dawn of the Dead- Original again, a must for any horror fan, I mean, it’s George Romero people, come on.

[ ] 38. Peeping Tom

[X] 37. House on Haunted Hill (1999)

[X] 36. Cape Fear (1962)

[X] 35. Aliens

[ ] 34. The Hitcher (1986)

[X] 33. The Fly (1986)- JEFF GOLDBLUM. That’s all. This did creep me the fuck out though.

[X] 32. Pet Sematary- Obviously. Though I still haven’t seen the remake, is it good? Let me know.

[X] 31. Friday the 13th- Listen, I do love this movie... but I’m a bigger Elm Street fan, sorry Jason.

[X] 30. Blair Witch Project- Creepy af considering you don’t really see anything. That’s pretty brilliant.

[ ] 29. Serpent and the Rainbow

[X] 28. When a Stranger Calls (1979)

[X] 27. Frankenstein (1931)- YES, I love so many of the Frankenstein movies, I even adore the cracktastic Young Frankenstein movie, watch both every Halloween.

[X] 26. Seven

[X] 25. Phantasm- Ugh, both Phantasm and Suspiria next, amazing movies, totally recommend if you haven’t seen them.

[X] 24. Suspiria

[X] 23. Rosemary's Baby- Obviously.

[ ] 22. Don't Look Now

[ ] 21. Jacob's Ladder

[X] 20. The Ring (2002)

[X] 19. Hellraiser- This movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, definitely one I came to appreciate when I got older.

[X] 18. The Haunting (1963)- Love the movie, love the book, love the Netflix series even if they totally changed the story.

[X] 17. A Nightmare on Elm Street- Yea, i have a thing for Wes Craven flicks apparently and this is my favorite of all the slasher films. Plus, young Johnny Depp in a crop top? Uh, yes please.

[X] 16. The Omen (1976)

[X] 15. Freaks- Okay, of all the movies on this list, this is one of the ones that actually scared the shit out of me, what happens to the female antagonist at the end? Ugh, it still gives me shivers.

[X] 14. Halloween

[X] 13. Scream- Another Wes Craven.

[X] 12. Misery- And another Stephen King.

[X] 11. Audition- I literally can not watch this film. I have tried several times because I like the story, I like the premise, I think the actress in it is incredible, but I can’t fucking stomach torture scenes, I just can’t. Being chased by a killer or a monster, where I have the opportunity to fight back or run, yeah, but being strapped down and unable to move while being hurt, ugh I just can’t watch that, no matter how deserving they make the victim out to be.

[ ] 10. Wait Until Dark

[X] 9. Night of the Living Dead- Must watch for a horror fan, that’s all I have to say about that.

[X] 8. Carrie (1976)- And another Stephen King, and actually my favorite of his film adaptations, though The Shining and Rose Red are up there for me too.

[X] 7. Silence of the Lambs- Just watched this last night, and then had to start watching Hannibal (the show) again.

[X] 6. The Shining- Another Stephen King.

[X] 5. Texas Chainsaw Massacre- Original was great, remake was crap.

[X] 4. Psycho (1960)- Obviously.

[X] 3. Exorcist- Absolutely incredible, everything about it.

[X] 2. Alien- One of my go to sleep movies HA

[X] 1. Jaws- Okay, so I love love love killer animal movies, I just do. Primeval, Jaws, Lake Placid, Anaconda, what have you and I get that Jaws kind of took horror movies main stream BUT scariest movie moment? I don’t really agree with that at all, it didn’t scare me as a child and it doesn’t scare me now. Some of these other movies on this list still give me chills, Jaws never has, so I was a bit disappointed at it being number 1.

It would be cool if someone wanted to one for themselves! I love horror movies and I’m always curious about other people’s opinions and insights and I’m looking to do things like this to get to know my followers better!

😘

#personal #100 scariest movie moments #is anyone else obsessed with this show?#I really wish they would update it beyond just the one follow up they did

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popculturebuffet · 5 years ago

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Comics Corner: Child’s Play #1 “Night of the Living Doll”

Happy days before Halloween everybody. While I have an X-tra Spooky treat planned for the day itself, I thought i’d start branching out from X-Men Comics (though that will be my primary focus), with a comic i’ve been dying to read since I found out it existed: The Child’s Play mini series from innovation comic, one of only two series and 10 comics overall starring your faviorite murder doll and mine: Charles “Chucky” Lee Ray. Also contains a slasher off to see who would win between Chucky and some classsic killers because the comic put the idea in my brain. Wanna Play? Then join me after the cut.

WARNING: This review contains scenes of Gore. While I did try to cut it down being a horror comic about a slasher villain, this was inevitable, Discretion is advised.

Child’s Play is a horror franchise I absoltuley love. While i’ve procastinated on seeing the DTV sequels, not that I think their bad i’m just a forgetful mess sometimes, and Seed, because no amount of Jennifer Tilly or intresting gender identity issue stuff will compensate for me having to watch Chucky masturbate, I have followed the series for years, afraid to watch it because I wasn’t a huge horror fan at the time and Chucky scared the shit out of me as a kid. Eventually I realized that despite my fear I loved the franchise for it’s thoroughly interesting killer, entertaining kills, and at it’s best great stories and at it’s worst so bad it’s good royalty. Even the Don Manncini, creator of the series and writer of every film and director of three, disowned remake is pretty good if thoroughly it’s own thing. So naturally a Mini-Series taking place between 2 and 3 that may fit neatly into continuity, this is my shit and i’m so happy to finally read it.

For the lapsed and unintiated, the Chucky/Child’s Play series, the original anyway the remake is it’s own thing and has it’s own backstory, follows Charles Lee Ray, aka Chucky, a serial killer who in desperation to get away from the cop perusing him after his partner ratted him out, used his vodoo knowledge, because every serial killer knows voodoo apparently, to put himself in the nearest vessel, a doll. The rest of the backstory can be covered as we go as the first issue does a really good job of organically explaning it for the unaware. Granted I don’t know if most non child’s play watchers would be intrested in this comic but it’s a nice gesture.

This mini comes to us from innovation entertainment, a 90′s publishing company that made tie in comics for a number of things, and from writer Andy Mangels who also wrote Innovation’s Nightmare on Elm Street comics, which Linkara has covered in detail if your curious and which i’ll probably cover myself at some point, especially since this issue made a strong impression on me. Speaking of which, the mini as mentioned takes place between the second and third films, both of which have their own adaptations that i’ll cover eventually, but I felt the original story was more appealing. As far as I can tell there have only been really three bits of media outside the franchise, not counting the aborted video game: A , from all accounts, terrible endless runner game, this mini series, and another mini series from Hack/Slash creator and former Nightwing Maestro Tim Seely, as well as a crossover between Hack/Slash and Chucky from Seely. And having read said crossover and found it excellent and feeling just like the movies in regards to the little shit, I hope to find the mini one day and share it with you lovely people. But even if I had i’d probably be covering this one first since chronological order combined with the fact it seems that mini dosen’t fit into canon anymore and this one might. Now the exposition is out of the way let’s get to the good stuff.

Since I didn’t really cover the covers in my first two X-Men reviews, and feel I really should going issue by issue it just hadn’t occured to me, let’s look at the cover. It’s decent, kinda a parody of old horror comics covers or old horror movie covers and a nice start to things.. although frankly I would’ve preffered the splash page instead.

I love it. It’s a nice little gag, and while the blood splatter is partly nonsensical and looks like Chucky just killed a guy to splatter some extra blood about to make his collection look more badass.. though given who we’re dealing with it wouldn’t suprise me, so it dosen’t really detract. That being said being a burgeoning horror fan and having seen films from most of these franchises and knowing enough about those I don’t from other reviewers reviews, i’d be remiss if I didn’t speculate about if Chucky could win against these other titans of terror. PLACE YOUR BETS BITCHES, IT’S A SLASHER OFF.

Chucky Versus Micheal Meyers: He’d stab him for the love guru. Easy joke aside the horror of haddonefield does have size and strength, even in his old man version from the recent movie and upcoming sequels, over Chucky and while I thought this would be easily him... Chucky has him in speed and agility. He could climb that fucker and stab him up and down, shadow of colossus style, until even Micheal would have to buckle over, or just as likely set an elaborate trap like 2k18 Laurie. Micheal has some intellegence and a Chuck’s own drive not to give up, but that won’t save him from an opponent who’s faster, smarter and just as piss angry stubborn. Chucky wins. Chucky Versus the Creature from the Black Lagoon: Chucky. The creature is strong but chucky’s craftier and would poison a lake just to kill a bastard. Chucky Versus Jason: Tough call. Like Micheal, Jason is slow.. but he’s also 20 times more durrable, stronger and way more likely to get Chucky off him. He’s also more likely to use the environment meaning even if I vastly prefer Chucky, it’s a more even fight and more likely to go in Jason’s favor, as any trap Chucky set would likely get walked off. Jason wins. Chucky Vs The Phantom of the Opera: Not really a traditional slasher and I don’t really know the version that is or the version that isn’t to be frank, but it seems like Erik could take chucky in cleverness and ruthlessness and combined with having home field advantage, i’m calling advantage Erik. He wins. Chucky Vs Dracula: Okay 1, make this a movie yesterday Mancini and 2, this is a tough one. On the one hand Drac has mist, a horde of brides, wolves and transformation. If it’s home court, Chucky’s gonna die, especially if the count simply uses his brides to seduce him as Chucky is kinda easy that way. But in the US? Chucky is an onry bastard and Dracula has a ton of weakness, so I could see Chucky loosing round one then coming back to kill the bastard at dawn and anyone dumb enough to defend his coffin. Plus Chucky isn’t alone having Tiffany and the ablity to split himself among good guy dolls, so I could see Chucky creating another army of himself to do a suicide run on Drac’s castle. It’d hurt but Chucky is a vengeful dick. Chucky wins. Seriously Mancni get on this. Chucky Vs Freddy: Depends on the setting: In the Dream World, it’s likely Freddy as he can throw Chuck off guard by giving him his body back or using former survivors, while in the real world it’s Chucky’s turf but Freddy still has knife hands with more reach than his lumbering opponents, so even with prep I expect Chucky to eat that one, so I give it to Freddy. But honestly I prefer Don Mancini’s ACTUAL pitch for a crossover he’s trying to get happening: Chucky and Freddy meet up, and actually admire each other’s style but realize that two killers in town will dry up all the victims so they wage a dirty rotten scoundrel’s style looser leaves town contest: whoever chops up the most teens by dawn stays. I want that yesterday too. Chucky Vs Xenomorph: If it’s a facehugger as shown, Chucky, it probably woudln’t be able to bond with him and he’d stab it. But a proper showdown.. xenomorph. It matches Chucky’s speed, ferocity and while not as intelligent is still far stronger and just as ruthless. Chucky Vs Leatherface: Chucky. While Leatherface has the better weapon and matching speed, Chucky can outthink him. Chucky wins but while I haven’t seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, against the whole clan Chucky probably woudln’t win.. but would probably throw in with them long enough to survive since he’s a murderous bastard too and as long as he dosen’t have to join in dinner, it’s essentially his MO with help and family. He’d probably grow to either love them or get annoyed enough to kill em all. Chucky Vs The Tall Man: Tall Man. The Phantasm Ball is just too powerful and Chucky too vunerable and stubborn for a teamup. Chucky vs Pinhead: Pinhead. I may be too squeamish for hellraiser but he’s FAR above Chucky’s paygrade. So overall it’s 4 to 6 with Chucky loosing, but he still put up a far better fight than you’d think. And for funsies before we move on to the actual meat of the comic at long fucking last. Chucky Vs Ash: Ash. Ash is dumb sometimes sure, but he’s just as stubborn, has dealt with being accused of murder before so framing him won’t work, and unlike the Slashers he’s got a shot gun, which while chucky can dodge, I could see Ash pining him. Dumb dosen’t mean he isn’t clever. However I do want to see the hyjinks that would insue so please, Mancini, do this one if you either can’t get freddy or if you can after that. Please? Okay so with ALLLL of that out of the way, let’s dive in.

We open on the above, what’s left of Chucky after Child’s Play 2, being reforged into a fresh body. It’s exactly as pleasant as you’d think.

Maybe he just says that because the sight of him with lipstick gives grown men heart attacks.

youtube

See? Unsuprisingly, that’s one of my faviorite Child’s Play moments. Or maybe he just needs a pair of fresh eyes to stop being so hetronormative.

I do love this bit, it’s a nice bit of comedy that dosen’t feel too broad and fits right into the franchise, even before the outright horror comedies. And now for you ladies and gentleman and other’s pleasure...LIVE NUDE CHUCKY!

Granted Bride would later retcon in a penis, but given he’s in a third body by then. Or maybe it’s the fact his body gets more human the longer he’s in one, so maybe he grows one or fused a strapon to himself. I dunno. I’m not an expert in Chucky’s Penis. That’s Don Mancini’s job. So Chucky puts some pants on, because wether it’s because you love somebody or want to stab them silly, you put your pants on for them, and wonders if he should wear something more inconspicuous before realizing he’s a 3 foot animate doll.. he’s always going to be conspicuous, another inspired bit of comedy. This is something I like about the issue: Regognizing how ludicrious the two sequels at the time were, Mangels leans into the comedy a little, but without overriding the horror, as you’ll soon see, somehow correctly predicting the direction of the franchise. But chucky made a mistake.. the last page showed him triggering an alarm by accident and well.

As you can see in a neat stylistic choice, the siren blares over the entire page as Chucky makes a run for it and a mysterious observer sees a slight against god running about, decides cool and follows. He accidently slams into chucky in another funny bit. He offers a ride and while Chucky balks at this weirdo, said weirdo points out that how’s he’s going to outrun the cops otherwise and Chucky reluctantly gets in. And it says something if the guy with a bigger body count than a heart attack still has reservations going with you. The teen says Chucky reminds him of a kid who was in the papers for claming a doll killed some people and his mother who backed up the story, was suspected to have did it and put her in an insane asylum, or as this little shit calls it “Electro-Shock Pallace” as someone who himself is mentally ill, and afraid of asylums and lives in a world two decades removed where mass killings happen often and are often pinned on mental illness, fuck this twerp and I can’t wait for his commupance. Chucky sets him straight.

See this is why I didn’t jsut do a big infodump on everything right up front, the comic does a good cjob recapping child’s play 1, and 2 isn’t relevant to the plot aside from the intro. They explain things quick and fast and chucky himself gives a good chunk of the film’s backstory pretty quickly once he and shades here get back to his house.

This is also interesting as even the films haven’t really gone into how Charles Lee Ray felt as he became a doll or if he was conscious when Karen first got him. There’s more of course, and while it’s not necessary to this story, Karen does show up in this series, so i’ll fill you in on where the story went from there, as well as what Chucky left out or wasn’t there for. Here we go... Karen Barclay was the struggling mother of young Andy, who wanted a Good Guy doll for his birthday. Karen, not having much, found one second hand... Chucky. Chucky started manipulating the young kid, offscreen though that just makes it more unsettling even if the mystery of if Chucky’s real or not is kinda pointless when we saw a guy explode himself into a doll. I also like the nod that Chucky knows about as much as the fans do as to why their was a mega explosion. He first kills Karen’s best friend and Andy’s babysitter for the night, which Andy blames Chucky. No one belivies him.. which is understandable.. what’s not is when Chucky kills next, having andy take him to his acomplice’s house and blowing it up, NO ONE seems to question why a little child blew up a known criminal, how he knew where the house was, or why, when the previous crime was done in the home with motive, he killed some random guy. I do love this film but this bit feels especially dumb on the cops part not even bending a LITTLE. But this isn’t a review of the first movie so let’s move on. Andy is comitted, which as sad as it is to see an innocent child thrown in an institution does make at least some sense so they can find out if he’s really seeing things or not, and Karen returns.. and finds that the Good Guy dolls don’t come with batteries, yet Chucky has been talking like any other toy. As a result we get one of the best scenes in the franchise history if not it’s best, and really, as much as I try I can’t do it justice. Though if you can’t watch in short he does an exorcist when she checks the batteries, she threatens to burn him, and he reveals himself. In long... it’s worth a watch.

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Chucky runs for it, Karen tries to tell Mike who dosen’t belivie her.. until Chucky comes for him. Chucky then heads for Dr.Death, his vodoo 101 teacher, who refuses to help him viewing him an abomination but stupidly left a vodoo fetish of himself around and you can guess the rest. He reveals Chucky can only transfer to the first person he revealed himself too so he heads for Andy with .. this.

Mancini had to know what he was doing right? Right? Anyway. Karen and Mike find a dying Death who tells them to aim for the heart and who his target is. Andy dodges Chucky and escapes the Aslyum heading home where we get a final confrontation between the Barclay’s, Mike and Chucky, which is damn good and ends with Andy burning the fucker with a badass response to his claim of being his friend to the end “This is the end friend”. This dosen’t quite finish him but a shot to the heart, with Mike to blame, kills the bastard.. for now. Now we’re all caught up, let’s get back to the story.

Dipshit has called his friends to see Chucky and as seen above, Chucky is wondering why he shoudln’t kill the guy.. but Dumbass has a good point for once: his one friend is studying magic, presumibly at Durmstrang since Hogwarts dosen’t tolerate that kinda shit, and could help summon dr. death to see if they can fix his situation. Granted Death viewed him as an abomination and wanted nothing to do with Chucky, but he might let something slip or have no choice and it’s better than the nothing Chucky has to go on. Chucky gives exposition to Fuckwit’s friends and claims he killed Dr.Death in self defense, which isn’t entirely innacurate and Steaming Bowl of Elephant Piss suggests holding a seance. But one of his friends, Burt, who seems to be the only one to see Chucky for the red flag he is, calls an audible and Chucky grumbles off while they talk in private.

As you can see, Fuckbucket sets the intellgence standard for his group. However their not SO obnoxious that it distracts from how horrible what’s about to happen will them will be. Except shitty shitty bang bang. Since It’s hard to remember all of the dead meets names i’ll be calling the girl Molly Ringwald, Burt by his name since he’s being sensiable, the moron drinking his own blood Edgelord, and Numbnuts MCGee my current barrage of creative insults. But yeah none of them take Chucky as a threat seriously, which is a nice little meta commentary on how most people think they could take Chucky, even though the guy is nigh unkillable, smart and fast and stronger, if not heavier, than him being a doll would make you think. Burt is the ONLY one here who seems to think harboring a serial killing doll is a terrible idea and thus the only one I respect. And “Most LIkely To Run Into A Wall” has the genius observation seen above where he asks “we’re helping him why would he hurt us”... when he’s already threatned to kill him and has no use for any of them once he has any info they can scrape up, with Burt pointing out even if their sucessful they’ll be responsible for more killing. Sadly he’s outvoted. Seriously while I do like Mangels, I question his opinon on teenagers and horror fans, especially given his long screed about the horrors of the world at the front of the issue and how his comics horrors don’t compare to racisim or homphobia, though the latter is a nice touch considering this was the early 90′s and some horror audiences could be homphobic morons, when the horror fans he portray are a darwin award of the decade winner, a moron who cuts himself not because he has serious issues with depression but to drink his own blood, a witch who goes along with their stupidity, and ... one likeable guy who’s coded as a wuss but is the only sane one here.

So morons r us, plus burt and chucky, call Dr.Death’s spirit forth in a very moody and atmospheric scene. Naturally it goes GREAT.

Dr.Death’s form dissolves terrifyingly and awesomely and our morons, and Burt, are left, literally since they turned the light’s down in the dark> Burt is freaking out and has shards of crap in him thanks to all this.. couldn’t of killed fuckaround could you John? Burt is lead to the bathroom, while Fuckwit and Edgelord head downstairs, Fuckwit heading further down to check the breakers since the power is out for the whole house while Edgelord actually says something smart and wonders what they ALL shoudlv’e been thinking about: Where’s chucky? He has a response in this AWESOME looking panel.

And here’s where the it dosen’t undercut the tragedy bit comes into play. Sure these kids are kinda dumb.. but most teens are, and they might not belivie he actually killed peope or even if they did, think they can take him as foolishly stated. They had their whole lives to become better people, and Mollly Ringwald and Burt seemed like decent enough people while Edgelord was probably going though a phase. Dum Dum Dumbassigan dosen’t really get a huge repreive but the point is NONE of them deserve to die and they aren’t dialed up to obnoxious, except assface, to be that unsympathetic. Their being stupid sure, but again MOST TEENS ARE or will at least be easily talked into doing something that all common sense says should kill them. And sadly in David, aka edgelord’s case...

Yeah it took a while but I had that gore warning for a reason. And he then decides to fill David with knives. I also stopped calling him edgelord because well. .look at it. The death is horrifying, well drawn and only made worse when Chucky decides to play “pin cushion” and fill him with knives off screen. His next target is sadly my man burt. He does complain A LOT and while a little whiny, given he’s covered in cuts, about to die and was the ONLY ONE here to excercise caution.. yeah he has a right to be. And then.. this happens to Burt in the bathroom...

Yup, THAT just happened. But I like it a lot.. it’s done with style, humor.. but not without horror either. A nicely done little parody. Molly, or wendy as the comic calls her, wonders around the Darkness for a bit.. and then finds David’s corpse.. which I own’t show as holy shit it’s as graphic as it is horrifying. And given what I showed you of his death earlier, that’s saying something.She tells an approaching Moron to stay back.. and well..

In order....... I am so angry at that first panel “I don’t know what happened here....” I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE.

BITCHCAKES, YOU LET A SERIAL KILLER INTO YOUR HOUSE WHO VANISHED ON YOU AFTER A SPOOKY GHOST TOLD YOU TO KILL HIM OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES. WHAT IN THE STAR SPANGLED, CHERRY COATED MARSHMELLOW FUCK DID YOU THINK HAPPENED. Second, while I get her logic, Fartnugget isn’t capable of working out basic sequence of events let alone killing a person. And finally.. there is no amount of gifs that can convey how happy I am at that last panel.

Wendy goes mad from the shock and Chucky, whos’ been lurking under the table this whole time with a Freddy Glove, strikes.

It’s no “welcome to prime time BITCH”, but I think Freddy would dig it. Naturally, the glove dosen’t kill her but she snaps her neck.. and then chucky , of all things, calls the police.

I’ll not explode with rage again btu the david’s dead line tempted me, as HE JUST KILLED YOUR FRIEND OF COURSE HE DID. As for his threat... Chucky is unimpressed. See this was his plan. At least once they stopped being useful. Gee who could’ve predicted that? Chucky has decided to frame ponytailed idiot for it, a real brilliant way of going about things, and to me WHY Chucky is such a threat. Even if you beat him, if you don’t have proof.. he still gets you locked up and then comes back stronger than ever. This ending also actually helps with a plot hole some might have with the series.

Chucky dosen’t leave fingerprints. He MIGHT as he turns more human, bud odds are he dosen’t, thus it’s easy enough to frame whoever’s left.. though it was neat to see him do so intentionally. Truck Nuts breaks down, Chucky flees and we end on a teaser for the next issue as some mysterious Doctor has come to Karen Barclay with promises to help go after Chucky. But that’s for another day. For now our story is done. There’s also a page for a “Stuck On Chuck” contest, with the winners getting to be in issue 5. Just bringing that up so if I ever get there, I won’t have missed it. And with that we finally close out.

Final Thoughts:

This issue is excellent. I was expecting something slightly cheesy and not great, and while there are narmy elements: the commentary on horror being a media scapegoat seems out of place and as I made abdundantly clear on second read the lead is insufferable. His fate is still tragic, but he’s such a moron I can’t help but feel he brought it on himself, but his friends aren’t so obnoxious that you don’t feel bad when they do die, a mistake full on horror movies make too often. The kills are gory, as shown there’s some nice visual flair here and there, and chucky is drawn amazingly, especially for the time. There’s an awkward shot here or there but for the most part the artist really captures him well. This comic is a hidden Gem and if your a fan of the films or even just the first one, I strongly recommend it, or if nothing else as I haven’t gotten to the rest, this issue. If you liked this review, feel free to like or reblog, and if you want one like it for the issue or graphic novel of your choice, just pm and slip 5 bucks into my paypal and i’ll get right on it as soon as the first week of november. Until then, i’m your friend to the end.

#Child's Play #Chucky #halloween #horror #comics #reviews #Andy Barclay #Karen Barclay #freddy kruger #leatherface #jason vorhees #phantom of the opera #the creature from the black lagoon #dracula #pinhead #the tall man #xenomorphs #alien #don mancini

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