#still kinda mad they included skull kid in legends but did NOT involve him and youg link in ANY capacity

[randomwriteronline]

“Where is that kid.”

“What kid?”

“That kid. You know-- that one. The repulsive one. With the mask. They’ve been out there on the battlefield for too much time now. If he’s dead we’ll have to collect the pieces of that damned wooden body.”

“Ah.”

Zant peers into a small globe - only contribution Vaati was willing to make to the team (thrown at them through a space-time portal accompanied by a very clear “I’m not getting stabbed by some green bastard for the fourth time, get out of my house”) - and gazes into it for a few minutes.

“If you could figure that puppet’s location out before next month it would be most convenient,” Ghirahim sneers.

“Shut up. It’s searching.”

“It’s being awfully slow in your hands. Give it to me.”

“I said shut up. It’s working just fine. Here, I can see the mask.”

“And?”

“... I can’t see the kid.”

“What.”

“The kid. The one wearing it. I can’t see him.”

“What does that mean.”

“That the kid is not attached to it. I can’t see them.”

The demon lord snatches the globe from the usurper and looks into it himself, since clearly he either can’t make it function correctly, has gone partially blind, or is too stupid to recognize a wooden child behind a mask.

Hm.

Alright.

So the mask is indeed there.

‘There’, however, is face down on some rocky terrain of sorts.

So distinctly not on the would-be-face of that pest.

“I told you,” Zant nags him.

“Shut your mouth.” Ghirahim hisses back. “You should have just asked it where the blasted menace of a puppet is instead of wasting precious time.”

“You can do that yourself.”

“Not when the thing is in your useless hands I can’t!”

“It’s in yours now.”

“It wasn’t before!”

“Now it is. Get to it.”

“If you value your tongue you best never speak to me like that again.”

The Twili bows deeply, twisting his body in a wild disgusting way.

“Oh, Demon Lord! Prized sword of my master!” he caws out, “Please, find the kid whose absence so vexes you at once!”

The Sword Spirit glares literal daggers at him, but says nothing. The blades are already bothering him by anchoring his gaudishly large clothes to the floor anyways, so he can consider his revenge executed.

Alright, look for the damned child.

The image forms a little too slow for his tastes, but at least form it does.

In roughly five seconds he wishes it had not formed.

Zant peers into the crystal curiously after managing to pull the various throwing knives out of his pants and sleeves.

He stares at it for a good minute, all will to bicker dying out completely as they both attempt to decode the image in the clear orb and either briefly fail or ruefully begin to accept the reality of the situation.

“Disgusting,” Ghirahim decretes.

Sure he’s a sadist who enjoys playing with his prey before properly gifting them the worst most painfully excruciating death he can offer them, but he has to draw the line somewhere. And he’s going to get that line and draw it right at abandoning both a perfectly good bloodied battlefield and the source of ancient horrendous power you’re meant to employ whilst fighting to instead repeatedly kiss your supposed nemesis on the mouth between giggles while laying face down on top of them kicking your feet like some kind of lovestruck youngster (which regrettably both marionette menace and green-clad pest are).

“What are they doing?” the Twili asks, seriously at a loss.

“I think this is meant to be a ‘date’ for them.”

“... I was under the impression they were enemies.”

“So was I.”

“Willing to kill each other, even.”

“Indeed.”

From the globe they see Skull Kid smack his beak back on the young Hero of Time’s lips again, causing a little laugh to come from them with a blush.

“This is horrid.”

“Absolutely grotesque.”

“What would be so repulsive to make you comment on it in such a way?”

Both freeze.

Ganondorf looks down into the small globe from well above both their heads, brows furrowed in an expression that’s annoyed, tired, and so not up for any crap that is not in any way related to him overwhelming hyrulean forces and finally getting what he damn well deserves.

He stares for a few seconds, just enough.

The sigh that leaves him is so deep and exhausted.

He waves a hand in the air with a harsh motion that says ‘whatever’ and just walks away.

-

“We should take a nap I think. The weather’s nice.”

“Won’t you get in trouble if you’re late?”

“They can’t hurt me in a way that matters. And they can see where I am and what I’m doing whenever they want anyways.”

“That’s not a very good thing.”

“Yes it is.”

“How?”

Skull Kid grins mischievously: “They think kissing is so gross.”

The Hero of Time looks at him intrigued: “Do they?”

His friend nods.

He kisses them right on the beak; the imp kicks their feet in the air with a gleeful cackle and kisses him back.

[analogscum]

THE BURNING (1981, d. Tony Maylam)

Welcome to Camp Analog Scum! Now that summer is in full effect, we’ll be devoting this week to discussing two entries into one of the most hallowed subgenres in all of horror: the summer camp slasher flick! Following the massive success of Friday the 13th in 1980, small studios realized they had an easy formula to print some quick dough: find an idyllic summer camp somewhere in the Northeastern U.S., fill it up with hard-partying horny teenagers, and unleash a bloodthirsty psychopath with some kind of score to settle on them. It’s not hard to understand the universal appeal of the summer camp slasher flick: who doesn’t remember long July days running around in the woods, swimming in the lake, or the white-knuckled terror of a ghost story told ‘round the campfire? After all, a story can’t hurt you…unless it’s real.

Our first entry into this double feature, 1981’s The Burning, was somewhat lost to time for awhile. It was perhaps the first film to try and capitalize on Friday the 13th’s boffo box office, and while it got a more positive critical response than the film it was aping, audiences greeted the film lukewarmly, and it quickly faded from public consciousness thereafter. These days, thanks to re-releases from the likes of Scream Factory and Arrow, The Burning has finally found an adoring audience. I won’t lie, part of the reason I even did this summer camp-themed week in the first place was so that I could finally stop making excuses and watch this movie. And now, time for a controversial opinion: in terms of pure slasher bonafides, I think that this may be a better movie than the original Friday the 13th. Yeah, I said it!

If you grew up around New York and New Jersey, like yours truly, then you probably heard some variation on the legend of Cropsy, the madman who stalked the woods, looking for children to kill. The Burning takes this campfire classic and runs with it: we begin at Camp Blackfoot, sometime in the late 1970s. It’s after lights out, but a few of the older campers are plotting a prank on Cropsy, the groundskeeper of the camp. Quickly it becomes apparent that these kids fuckin’ hate Cropsy’s guts, but we never really get a clear answer as to why. Hey, sometimes kids just decide that a person sucks. The gang slowly make their way into Cropsy’s creepy-ass bunk, set something next to his bed, light that something on fire, then go knock on his window, stifling their laughter. Cropsy wakes up, and to his horror, sees what is burning next to his bed: a worm-ridden human skull! Wait, how did these pimple-faced little shits get their hands on a human skull?! Doesn’t matter, because Cropsy knocks over the skull and sets himself on fire! Oh fuck! Then he knocks over a canister of gasoline that is by his bed for some reason, and now he’s even more on fire! Oh fuuuuuuuuck! He runs out of the cabin, and he’s totally for real super duper on fire, and throws himself into the lake. The kids run off, their prank having turned into a crime scene.

Cut to five years later. Cropsy is getting wheeled out of the hospital or whatever. As he’s being rolled down this hallway, we hear all sorts of ADR voiceover recapping his stint in the burn ward: the skin grafts won’t take, there’s nothing we can do for you, try and forgive those kids, it was just an accident, etc. Suddenly, Cropsy is in Time’s Square, picking up a prostitute. Wait, I thought that this was a summer camp slasher flick? Anyway, she leads our giallo-ed out crispy critter up into her bedroom, understandably freaks out when she sees what he looks like, and then gets stabbed to death with a pair of scissors. If you look up “gratuitous” in the dictionary, its just a picture of this scene.

Now we’re back at camp, but this time it’s a different camp: Camp Stonewater. We meet our cast of characters: there’s Todd and Michelle, the head counselors; there’s Dave, the prankster; Eddie, the lothario; Karen, the virginal shy girl; Sally, the blonde bombshell; Glazer, the asshole bully; Alfred, the misanthropic nerd, and a few more. We get to spend quite awhile with these characters before the bloodshed happens, and we grow to like quite a few of them, so when the bloodshed actually begins, we’re more invested in the story, and more likely to get scared. I don’t know why this concept is so often lost on other filmmakers, but this is the main thing that this movie gets totally right. It’s also fun because these kids are played by some future notable faces: if you’ve seen a mob movie made after 1980, then you’ve seen Ned Eisenberg, who plays Eddie. A shockingly young Fisher Stevens plays a scrawny kid named Woodstock. We get to see future Oscar winner Holly Hunter in a small role as Sophie. And most notable of all is Dave, who is played by none other than Jason Alexander, when he still had a full head of hair! Talk about the Summer of George!

Some shenanigans happen. Alfred spies on Sally in the shower, and he’s a whiny dork about it. Glazer roughs him up a bit and throws him in the lake, because he’s decided that Sally is his girl, which is news to Sally. Dave and Woodstock help Alfred get revenge on Glazer by shooting him in the butt with a BB gun and mooning him. Constanza ass alert! These kids smoke cigarettes and read Playboys and talk openly about sex and jerking off, just like real teenagers do, and it’s very refreshing. At one point Alfred catches a glimpse of a weird, burnt up face in the window, but no one believes him, because he’s a total wet blanket about everything. There’s a really good fake-out scare involving Woodstock in a dark empty cabin which totally got me because even in my thirties I’m still freaked out by the dark. You don’t judge me, I judge you!

The next day, our gang jumps into some canoes and sets off on an overnight camping trip, somewhere near the former sight of Camp Blackfoot. What could go wrong?! That night, around a roaring campfire, Todd recounts the legend of Cropsy, who jumps out and tries to kill everyone! Aaaaaaaah! No, wait, it’s just Eddie in a rubber mask! Oh, Eddie! Speaking of Eddie, he convinces Karen, whom he has the hots for, to go skinny dipping with him in the lake. Karen is apprehensive, but she does have feelings for him, so she strips down and hops in. However, she gets uncomfortable when Eddie starts putting some moves on her, and keeps telling him to stop. Finally, Eddie gets super mad and tells her to leave him alone. In exchange for standing up for herself and refusing to be just another one of Eddie’s sexual conquests, Cropsy shows up and violently slits Karen’s throat with his trusty garden shears. Umm?

Now it’s morning, and Todd and Michelle are freaking out. Not only is Karen missing, but the canoes have disappeared. Eddie tells them what happened the night before with the skinny dipping and the blue balls and the anger, but Michelle is suspicious of him, despite telling Karen in an earlier scene that she should just let Eddie fuck her and get it over with. Whatever, Michelle. Todd gets the bright idea to build a raft out of twigs and branches and shit, which sounds hella stupid, but somehow actually works. They send a bunch of the kids, including Eddie and Woodstock, to row back to the camp and see if Karen or the missing canoes have turned up. Meanwhile, Glazer will not stop getting handsy with Sally, who keeps telling him no, which of course gets him super mad, and so finally to get him off her case, Sally is like, fine whatever meet me in the woods later and we’ll totally clown on each other in the nude, which is good enough to make Glazer stop pawing at her for awhile.

Back on the raft, everyone is tired and miserable. But look! There’s one of the missing canoes! Just floating there ominously in the middle of the river! Let’s row towards it! And so they row towards it, for what feels like 8 hours. Even though you can probably figure out what’s coming, they draw it out for such a ridiculously long time that you can’t help but hyperventilate a little bit. Just when they finally get right next to the canoe, who jumps out but our old pal Cropsy and them garden shears of his! In roughly twenty seconds he disposes of all of these kids in a very gory, graphic manner, and it’s awesome. So, so, so, so awesome. The amount of carnage that they manage to squeeze into these twenty seconds is awe inspiring. Well done, The Burning. Well done.

Meanwhile, Glazer and Sally are finally doing the horizontal polka, but of course Glazer blasts his sauce after like five pumps. Sad. But for some reason, Sally is kinda impressed? And she’s like, how long until you can drum up a new supply, because I’ve got a totally inexplicable case of the hornies. So Glazer is like, holy shit, ok, this truly never happens, sit tight, I’m going to head back to the campground and grab some matches so that we can make a fire. Good thing that Glazer wasn’t sleeping with Missy Elliot, because we all know how she feels about one minute men.

So of course as soon as Glazer leaves, Cropsy leaps out from behind the camera and turns Sally into his own personal shrubbery. Back at camp, Glazer grabs the matches, and for some reason, Alfred wakes up and decides to follow him. Dude, Alfred, what are you doing?! Being a voyeur has already gotten you in trouble once, and you know that Glazer is praying for any excuse he can find to shred you into pulled pork. Ill-advised, this plan is. As Alfred looks on, Glazer very, very, veeeeery slowly pulls back his and Sally’s sleeping back, which Cropsy was somehow hiding in? It’s confusing, but oh shit, Cropsy stabs the shit out of Glazer, and there’s so much blood. Peace out, Glazer.

Alfred runs back to the campground and wakes up Todd, who is understandably not super thrilled to be awoken by this neurotic dork at 4am or whatever, but Alfred runs one of his classic guilt trips on him, so they head into the woods, where Todd is shocked to find that yes, Glazer and Sally are both super duper dead. Oh no, Cropsy jumps up and smacks Todd on the side of the head, knocking him unconscious! Alfred runs around the woods for what feels like the entire first season of Cheers. The makeshift raft drifts back over to the campground, and to Michelle and the others’ chagrin, it’s full of the mutilated corpses of their friends.

Todd follows Alfred’s screams to a shack in the middle of the woods. We’re treated a suitably tense game of Cropsy and mouse as the creep stalks Todd through his lair. All of a sudden, there’s a flashback to the first scene: turns out, Todd was one of the kids who pulled the prank that turned Cropsy into fried chicken! Cropsy is brandishing a flame thrower, because this time, it’s…well, you know. We finally get a good look at the guy, and, well, he looks like if someone took an action figure of Sloth from the Goonies and put it in the microwave. Todd is about to get totally murderized by fire, but at the last moment, Alfred breaks free and stabs Cropsy with his own garden shears! Oh, the irony! Our two heroes are walking away, but oh crap, Cropsy is still alive! He grabs Alfred, but he breaks free and Todd smashes his head in with an axe before Alfred finishes the job with the flame thrower. Oh, the double irony!

As the police chopper in, we fade in on another campfire, and another set of campers. A counselor once again tells his rapt charges about the legend of Cropsy. The man himself may be dead, but he lives on in nightmares, just like Roger Ailes.

There are many reasons to recommend The Burning, and many of them are up on the screen. The acting is good, the cinematography is surprisingly artful, the story is well-paced, and the kills are fantastic. But The Burning is also an intriguing film due to some of the faces behind the camera. Weirdly enough, the film’s soundtrack was composed and performed by Rick Wakeman, the Arthurian legend-obsessed synth wizard from Yes. Though he occasionally dips into his typical ornate, switched on Bach territory, Wakeman also does deep, guttural digital terror surprisingly well. The film’s excellent, gory kills got their bite courtesy of the legendary Tom Savini. As the story goes, the makeup master was less than thrilled with the reveal of the undead Jason Voorhees at the end of his previous project, so he passed on the sequel in order to work on The Burning instead. Savini set out to outdo his work on Friday the 13th, and I personally think he succeeded. These kills are nasty and visceral and stock full of Grand Guignol madness. The only demerit is Cropsy’s burnt face, but in his defense, Savini only had three days to make it.

And then there’s the elephant in the room, in more ways than none: Harvey Weinstein. The film has the distinction of being one of Miramax’s first productions; Harvey and his brother Bob helped write the screenplay, alongside future Sopranos producer Brad Grey, and Harvey gave himself a “Created and Produced by” credit, whatever that means. Sadly, for as much as I enjoyed the movie as an 80s slasher, I found it to be nearly impossible to watch The Burning today without it being colored by what we now know about Weinstein. There’s been plenty of ink, digital or otherwise, spilled on how the Friday the 13th franchise punishes its characters with death for their sexual transgressions, but that trope is somewhat murkily applied to The Burning. Karen is punished with death for REFUSING to have sex with Eddie, whereas Sally is punished with death for giving in to Glazer’s sexual advances despite not wanting to. No matter if you’re the Madonna or the Whore, you’re still just gristle for the slaughter in the end. Given that this film’s “creator” may end this year as a convicted sex offender, could this film be a glimpse into his poisonous views on women? Turns out there were multiple monsters on the set of The Burning, but only one of them showed up onscreen.