Day 10: Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

I use to watch "Are You Afraid of The Dark?" every Saturday Night when it came on during "SNICK" (Anybody remember SNICK? HOLLA!) and watching this back tonight reminded me of something. The opening credits scared the shit out of me!


Now, thanks to Netflix I saw they had what they called "Freaky Favorites". I dunno what's up with Netflix only having a "Best of" compilation DVD's, but whatever. Then I watched it tonight and...you're not fuckin' gonna believe this. This ISN'T the version from the early 90's. Apparently, they (whoever "they" may be) tried to spawn off a "Next Generation" type thing by bringing it back. So I did some homework and found out these were made in 1999, and there was one whole season's worth. And here's the kicker.

Elisha Cuthbert is one of the girls in the NEW Midnight Society.
(I could be totally movie geeky here and mention the chick that played Natasha in "Waiting..." was also a NEW Midnight Society member but I'm probably alone on that.)

Ok so now that you know I'm watching some retred version and not the classic original, let's get on with it.

The Tale of The Forever Game-This was the first episode of the "new series" and we see the formation of the NEW Midnight Society. One of the kids, who could be David Schwimmer's son or younger brother, is related to one of the original members and decided to form his own. The other members are like a typical "teen comedy" cast. There's a black guy, a fat guy, a weird girl, a somewhat spoiled girl, and the Jewish one. And because Young Schwimmer started (or restarted), this, the first story is his.

His story is about an Asshole Brother, His Abused Younger Sister, and His Friend biking in the forest. Asshole acts like an asshole to his sister and His Friend tells Sister he treats everyone that way until they prove themselves to him. Jeez, see why I call him an asshole? Who acts like that? And he was really, really being mean to his sister. If this wasn't a 20 minute kid's horror show, and a Lifetime Movie, I'm sure she'd have bruises all over her body.

Ok, now that we're slightly depressed.

Asshole decides to go against the wishes of Robert Frost and take the path less beaten. There, we find a pitchfork tree. Asshole tries to get everyone out of this area but they can't. Asshole then finally tries to pick a fight with the tree when he falls into it.

Inside, he finds a young Irish Lad in 1920's clothing. Young Irish tells Asshole that in order to get out, he has to play "The Forever Game", and no it's not Monopoly. It's some weird game where two people play and whatever space they land on, represents different things that Sister and Friend go through in the forest. There's lighting, and quick sand, and some demon monster thingy. And the catch is, whoever wins, gets to leave the tree, while the loser stays in the tree FOREVER!!!! (Hence the title.)

So Asshole plays for his life and freedom, while slowly respecting his sister. Eventually, Sister figures out the tree is the key and tries to knock it down. Asshole brings some lighting, which causes the tree to explode and both Asshole and Irish Lad are freed. Irish Lad turns into Irish Old Dude, who thanks Sister and goes off somewhere to die. The end.

The Tale of The Zombie Dice-After setting up how much of a princess Elisha Cuthbert is, we get Natashia's story about ANOTHER game. Something I noticed. There's a weird theme to this "Freaky Favorites" DVD, they all revolve around games. I can't help but wonder if that was intentional.

Anyway, this story is pretty fucked up. We focus on three kids, one who looks like Jay Baruchel, the skinny kid from "Knocked Up", and their addiction to gambling and video games. They go to this place that looks like a bar for kids that's full of video games. There Jay and his Gambling Buddy meet the creepy ass owner Mr. Click who wants to play Gambling Buddy in a game. I'm sure you do...

Anyway, Gambling Buddy eventually does and it's a game where you toss these dice with skulls on them. If just one of the skulls pop up just once, you lose. Well, Gambling Buddy loses and here's the weird fucked up part, in which I'm not making up.

Mr. Click SHRINKS Gambling Buddy AND THEN is about to send him to some guy in another country has "a pet"!! WTF??? This is like "Bloodsucking Freaks" for kids! So Jay finds out and bets Mr. Click that he can drink three mugs of soda before he can drink one glass. Well, the whole thing is a trick cause Jay puts the empty mug over Mr. Click's glass which he isn't allowed to touch, so Jay wins and out of fuckin' nowhere, Gambling Buddy is alive and of normal size some 3000 miles away.

Eventually, Mr. Click's zombie pal (I forgot to mention him. This is a weird ass story) shrinks Mr. Click and the story ends. Um...wait. What about the other kids that Mr. Click shrank? Are they off in some other country being inserted-

Ok, I'm stopping there.

The Tale of Jake The Snake-Oddly enough, this isn't about the semi-famous wrestler. This is about a hockey player. And this is a pretty freaky story. This kid wants to be good at hockey and some hooded figure tells him there's a magic hockey stick in the basement (of the alamo?) and if he uses it, he'll be king hockey.

So the kid does it and he instantly becomes an asshole. And he's slowly turning into a snake. Going so far as to even try to eat a lab mouse. The kid's friend realizes that having your friends skin fall off and eating lab mice isn't normal so he investigates and learns the hooded figure is a giant walking snake! And he's waiting for the hockey kid to turn into a snake! Which he's doing!

So the friend steals the hockey stick to stop him from turning into a snake, but the hooded snake captures him and ties him up. Hockey kid comes by to save his friend but hooded snake tells him that if he uses the stick one more time, he'll fully be a snake. Well, hockey kid realizes the only way to save his friend is to use it, so he does, which kills the hooded snake somehow.

The friend realizes if he destroys the stick, hockey kid will stop turning into a snake and he does. And did you notice that in some weird way, this story was kinda like the first story? A kid is trapped into something, some other person gets abused and is getting tormented as a result, the kid learns his lesson and you have to destroy some magical item to break it's curse and have a happy ending? Well, that's cause this story was also being told by Ross, Jr. Man, kid, get a different plot, will ya?

Anyway, that's all that's on this DVD, which is just one big packaging lie. It doesn't mention this is the "new" version that Canada tried to thrust on us (which explains the hockey segment). They make like it's the original one. And why "Freaky Favorites"? I doubt these stories are anybodies favorites. All three stories were acted horribly, written horribly (well if you think about it, they are suppose to be stories told by kids), and have horrible CGI effects. The snakes in the 3rd story look like cheap 1995 Clip Art. Whatever.

Submitted for the approval of the Invasion of the B Movies Society, I present to you:
The Tale of The Crappy Revamped Series That Nobody Watches So The DVD Makers Trick People Into Watching Them!

Get the original series on DVD. You'll be glad you did.
-Jason

Day 9: Eerie, Indiana

I use to watch this show when it was on back in the day. When I saw Netflix had it, I immedately put it in my queue. Unfortuantely, it's only three episodes, seemingly picked at random. But it was a great trip down TV memory lane.

"Forever Ware" is the first/pilot episode, where we're introduced to Marshall, a kid who's family moved from New York City to Eerie, Indiana. Marshall notices all this weird ass shit going on around him, but no one believes him and thinks Eerie is just another boring ass town in Indiana. And trust me, there are a lot of them. The only person he has convinced is Simon, a 9-year-old next door. So every week, Marshall and Simon deal with another strange thing going on in town. Here, they meet this lady from the 1950's who tries to sell Marshall's mom a form of tupperware called "Forever Ware", where the product inside stays fresh FOREVER! Marshall finds out that 1950's lady has giant versions that she and her twin sons use as beds to never age! The twins want out cause being in the 7th grade for 30 years sucks, so he helps them get out of their Forever Ware beds, then they take their mom out and overnight, they age to their rightful ages.

"The Retainer" is probably the most fucked up one on the disc. A fat kid in town gets a giant ass retainer put on him by Vincent Schiavelli, the town's dentist. I made it sound like Mr. Schiavelli plays himself as the town's dentist, which isn't the case. But it's kind of a funny image if you think about it. Anyway, Marshall finds out the fat kid's retainer is used as an antenna of sorts to pick up on what dogs are thinking and they stumble upon a plot where every canine wants to take over the city! I say it's fucked up cause the dogs eat a dog catcher, and eventually, the fat kid. Course, we don't see it, but it's all implied. Honestly, after the fat kid "dissappears" not much is mentioned about the dog's plot. Maybe it's one of those things where we saw stage 1 and it'll happen in due time. In due time...

"The ATM With a Heart of Gold" is probably the least scary/weird one. Marshall's dad invents a computerized human named Mr. Wilson to be friendly during ATM withdrawls. It's kinda like having Max Headroom asking you for your PIN number. Marshall acts like an asshole in this episode and ditches Simon for some other kids in town, so Simon decides to befriend Mr. Wilson, who just hands him a whole bunch of money. Soon, it's discovered by Marshall that the money Simon's getting is coming from the bank accounts of all the town's residents! So Marshall makes Simon give it back and Mr. Wilson, who was actually alive and interacting with Simon, slowly returns to being a regular robot, then eventually gets unplugged.

This last episode has a bunch of weird plotholes in it. While the entire town is poor, Simon is riding around in limos and handing out cash like nothing, but no one thinks this is weird (except for Marshall of course). And the Bank President (played by President Logan from "24", honestly!) is arrested when the money comes up missing, even though there's no evidence that he took it. Then later, he's released but still has to serve community service.

But it is a show kinda geared towards kids, so I guess it's not that surprising. And on a slightly related note to "Masters of Horror", these three episodes were directed by Joe Dante.

I honestly hope that they release a full set cause there were some other great episodes I remember. I seem to recall one where someone was zapped into a TV, and then eventually a monster from the TV came out and chased Marshall and Simon. I wouldn't mind seeing that one again. But if you're on Netflix, and you remember this show, I recommend getting it for nostalgic sakes.
-Jason

Day 8: Masters of Horror Part 2-Deer Woman

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Day 7: Masters of Horror Part 1

"Masters of Horror" is sort of like a modern day "Twilight Zone" but each "episode", or short film, is directed by a "Master of Horror". And about anybody you can think of is included, even people you probably haven't heard of. Tonight, I focused on two who happen to be some of my favorites: Joe Dante and Larry Cohen.



Joe Dante directed a wide array of movies, funny, scary, or both. Including "Gremlins", "Gremlins 2", "The Howling", "Explorers", "Innerspace", and even a segment in "Twlight Zone: The Movie", which makes me referencing it earlier weird.

This short film he did deals with zombies. And not any type of zombies. Zombies killed during the war. And all the characters in this film represent someone in real life who's involved with politics. There's Jane Cleaver, who's suppose to be Ann Coulter. There's some dude who's suppose to be Richard Corville, and there's someone who suppose to be Larry King, but a bit younger (which makes the dude in the movie about 85). And of course there's "The President", who speaks in a Texan accent and has a name similar to a small green thing found on your lawn. (No, not grass.) All these characters go on and on saying they did in fact make stuff up about the war and all the soliders are dying for no reason.

Then one guy named David (I can't figure out who he's suppose to represent, I don't follow politics that close) goes on "Larry's" show and wishes that the dead soliders could come back to tell us what they think about the war. Well, his wish comes true. All the soliders who died do come back. And they don't walk around, mumbling "brains" either, they are pretty intelligent zombies who only want one thing: BRING DOWN "W"!

So zombie soliders line up at voting booths and vote "for the other guy", then they immedately die...again. All the characters spend some time figuring out if this is legal and they should be allowed. In the meantime, a Zombie Guantamino is set up. I wonder how you torture a zombie.

Anyway, they figure "hey! They went to war! They should SUPPORT it!", not knowing the zombies want "W" out, so they let the zombies vote. Once they do, they drop dead. And it's then that everyone realizes the zombies true intentions. So, because they're good at it, they "fudge" some numbers and viola! Second term!

Well, this done pissed off the dead. They come back from the dead, and this time it's EVERY PERSON WHO EVER DIED DURING ANY WAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY!! And they're pissed that David and Ann/June fudged some numbers and want to kill!!! Well, no. David kills June cause she was gonna take his job somehow and the zombies kill David so he can work on their side.

I'm not too sure cause the ending was a bit confusing. I think the zombies just took over the country and are now an unstopable force. I guess. But I liked this episode anyway cause of the tongue-in-cheek humor and the fact that Joe Dante is saying that Ann Coulter is into S&M (well duh I suppose). And he even threw in a little sight gag. Check out the name on the grave.



Even though I liked this short film, it really wasn't scary. So I have to knock some points off for that. Course, Gremlins is somehow considered a horror movie and that's fuckin' hilarious. Oh well.





My friend Adam is gonna strangle me for saying this, but Larry Cohen is hit or miss for me. He also directed and wrote a slew of horror movies, usually of the B grade. These include "Uncle Sam", "The Stuff", "Q: The Winged Serpent", and "It's Alive!" among other things. He also directed "Original Gangstas", which if you read my post about films made in my neck of the woods, means he was like totally a few blocks from me back in the late 90's. That's weird enough right there.

So "Pick Me Up", is about hitchhiking and dueling serial killers. And this one stars Fairuza Balk AND Michael Moriarty, who is a genius in his own right. Fariuza is a chick who was on a Greyhound type bus going somewhere in Washington State when the bus breaks down. Fairuza (I call her by her real name cause she's never given a name. Hell, all of the characters in this aren't given names) decides to walk to a hotel 20 miles down.

Soon enough here comes Michael Moriarty, who's a Trucker. He offers to take some people to a trading post down the other way and some old chick with WAY too much plastic sugery and some bland dude agree. A bitchy chick and her cuckholded husband stay behind with the driver.

Soon enough The Trucker kills both Joan Rivers & Bland dude. Then we focus on Cowboy Hitchiker, who stumbles upon the driver and Bitchy Couple. He kills the driver and the husband (who is pretty lucky if you think about it), then he stalks Bitchy Chick (who had a big ass btw) for awhile, until he catches her and ties her up with barbed wire. Eventually, The Trucker finds her and leaves her to kinda bleed to death? I guess.

We focus back on Fairuza as she gets a hotel room. I think we're gonna see some Fairuza boobies, who hadn't shown her boobies on film in awhile (I believe American History X was the last time), but no. She's disturbed by the couple next door having copious amounts of sex. Well, at least she thinks it's sex. It's really Cowboy Dude cutting up a punch chick he met while hitchiking.

Fairuza eventually meets both Cowboy & Trucker and is creeped out by both of them. Then Cowboy breaks into her room, but she sneaks out. Trucker picks her up and soon has her tied up. They come across Cowboy and now it's a showdown between two crazy dudes who wanna just kill a bitch.

Fairuza gets bored and slams on the break, causing Trucker and Cowboy to fly out the window. They continue to duke it out until an ambulance arrives. I was wondering who the hell called for the ambulance and how it knew to show up, but then we kinda get an answer.

In the ambulance, the driver and...the other guy immedately kill Trucker and Cowboy and say they're saving Fairuza for desert. See, this means that they're ANOTHER type of killer out on the road: they kill crash victims I guess. Gotta say, that's pretty clever. And creepy. Well played Cohen. Well played.

I think I liked this one better cause it was a bit scarier, and even gorier, then "Homecoming" and I will admit, Larry boy can direct. I was pretty impressed with the whole thing. So this one gets my favorite vote and higher rating.



Tomorrow I tackle two more episodes/films, from John Landis & Lucky McKee. Look forward to those.
-Jason

New Review: Wedding Slashers

It's Day 6 of "30 Days of Horror" and boy do I have a doozy for you guys.
Wedding Slashers

And on a somewhat related note, Tuesday will probably be the last night I'll email notices about 30 Days. I don't wanna get accused of spamming or filling up someone's inbox. So what I'll do is this. If you still wanna get email updates, email me back saying so and I'll just email those few. If you don't want emails anymore, then either bookmark my blog, or the 30 Days page on the site
30 Days Page

Thanks!
-Jason

Day 5: Hostel Part 2 & House

A two-fer fer ya!

Hostel Part 2

It's been just close to two years since I seen "Hostel", but thanks to Eli Roth, he reminds us of all the shenanigins that went on. You can just read my review of it here.

So this movie literally picks up where "Hostel" ended, with Paxton on a train missing some fingers. After a bad dream, he tells us this secret orginization will stop at nothing to kill him. The next day, his girlfriend finds her cat eating a bloody stump that use to be Paxton's head.

Well if I Can't Has Cheeseburger, I Can Has Brain?

With that uselessness out of the way, we now focus on our three character, Beth, Whitney, and That Chick From "Welcome To The Dollhouse". Dollhouse chick is severely being typecasted cause here she's a geeky chick. She may as well be Dawn Weiner all grown up in this film.

Since I have to watch another (better) movie, I won't spend too much time on this one. I'll just cover the important parts in a neat little dash list.

-Beth, Whitney, and Dollhouse chick meet a lesbian chick in Rome, who talks them into going to Slovakia for a little while.
-Lesbian chick gets the hots for Beth while Whitney and Dollhouse chick get drunk in one scene.
-Dollhouse chick is then taken to the torture factory, hung upside down naked (yes we see Dawn Weiner's tits), and some weird lady comes in, naked, and keepts cutting at Dollhouse Chick until weird lady is literally taking a blood bath.
-Some dude with horse teeth hits on Beth and mentions he coulda saved him. He must be psychic cause later when she's being chased by torture baddies, he comes along and is like "screw you" and leaves.

-Beth is super rich. And hates the word "cunt".
-There's two guys, named Todd and Stewart, who are gonna be the ones killing Beth and Whitney. The entire movie sets it up so we think Todd is the one itching to kill someone and Stewart is having second thoughts, third thoughts, fourth thoughs, etc.
-Eventually, Whitney and Beth are taken to the torture place and meet Todd and Stewart, respectively.
-Todd accidently cuts Whitney's face and chickens out. Because the contract says he must fully kill the person, he gets eaten by dogs.
-Stewart tricks Beth (and us) into thinking he's gonna let her go, but nope. He's actually the psychotic one and wants to let some aggression out caused by his wife on Beth cause they kinda sorta look alike in a way that they don't.
-Beth talks her way out of it and convinces Stewart to have sex with her, but instead she hits him and ties him up in a chair.
-The President of Torture Inc arrives and Beth tells him she's fuckin' loaded and will become a member, cutting off Stewart's dick to fulfil the "must kill someone" clause. The President accepts and Beth is now a member.
-Beth gets revenge on Lesbian Chick by cutting off her head. The kids from the first one use her head to play soccer. One kid even thinks he's David Beckham by pulling the front of his shirt to the back of his neck and celebrating on the ground.

Those are all the important parts of the movie. Which if you reedit the movie, is about 25-30 minutes worth of movie. The entire movie is an hour and a fuckin' half. Trust me, this is even MORE SLOWER than the first one! I'm like "Jesus Eli, how much fuckin' set up you gonna give?" I thought he made "Part 2" cause the first one was slower than molasses, but he gives us even more slow ass scenes? Whatever, I'm done.


House

This is a classic at least in my eyes. I watched this movie a bunch of times in my life and just love it.

It tells the story of Roger, played by William Katt the dude from "Greatest American Hero", who is a writer and a Veitnam vet. His aunt owned the titular "house" and is found dead from apparent suicide inside it. Roger, trying to write a book about his experiences in Veitnam, moves in. And soon the weird shit happens.

He hears noises, gets a visit from his dead aunt, and a weird evil tree creature jumps out of the closet right on midnight. Roger thinks he's losing his mind so he buys a shitload of video equipment to capture the tree monster. As if monsters and ghosts aren't enough, he has to put up with a nosy neighbor Harold, played brilliantly by George Wendt. I'd love to live next door to Norm. Never have to buy beer. Oh and Roger believes that his son Jimmy who went missing some undetermined time ago is still in the haunted house.

And everything happens to Roger in this house. Inanimate objects come to life and try to kill him. A demon takes the form of Roger's ex-wife and when she goes back to being a demon, she is one ugly motha! Roger manages to kill her and he cuts it up cause the body parts were still moving.

In between, we get some flashbacks of Roger in Veitnam and one of his 'nam buddies Ben, played by Richard "Bull From Night Court" Moll! Ben and Roger were doing a sweep when they get attacked and Ben is hurt. Roger goes to save him but Ben begs to be killed by Roger so he don't get tortured by "Charlie" but Roger doesn't and, well...he gets tortured by "Charlie" and eventually dies.

If Reinhold Weege wrote "Rambo".

Looks like Dan pushed him around one too many times.

When Roger tries to trap the tree monster with the help from Harold, who didn't believe him until this point, he gets sucked into the monster world where he relives Ben getting captured. He jumps back to the house and remembers that a painting his aunt did had a kid trapped in a mirror in the bathroom. So Roger breaks it and beyond the looking glass he finds a large abyss.

Roger climbs through it and he finds a flying skeleton thingy that immdately takes his shotgun. He then falls down the abyss and lands in some water, where he finds himself back at Veitnam. There he finds his kid Jimmy in a cage, where I guess he was this whole time. And it turns out that the ghost of Ben was behind the whole kidnapping thing. Roger saves his son and they arrive back at the house. But Roger must duke it out with Ben, who is pissed that Roger didn't kill him and let him get tortured by "Charlie". Eventually, Roger blows Ben up with a gernade, which sets the house on fire.

At that moment, Roger's ex shows up (the real one this time) and the entire family are reunited. AWW!!! The thing I wondered is, how would Roger explain the reapperance of Jimmy to the cops and the F.B.I. "Oh, uh, he was locked in a cage in Veitnam. I jumped through the mirror and got him. It's all good now!". Ok I doubt he'll say that.


Watching these two back-to-back I noticed that both movies were exactly an hour and 30 minutes long. And a "hostel" is a home of sorts, so this whole thing has been kinda weird. But fa'sho "House" is ten million times better. Just what I needed to wash away "Hostel Part 2".

Well, I'm sure booze would've done the trick too.
-Jason

Day 4: The Monster Squad

Ahhh "Monster Squad". Watching this now I realize this is pretty much just riding the coat tails of "The Lost Boys" or even "The Goonies", or any other countless movies from the 80's that feature a group of prebuesent boys going on a super wacky and scary adventure.

I'm not saying it's a rip off of those I mention, cause the plot is pretty original. But considering The Goonies came out in 1985, and Lost Boys in 1987, the same year as Monster Squad, you know some movie executive was like "Get me a script where a group of boys fight monsters. NOW!" And the end result is pretty damn good I must say.

The story goes that Van Helsing 100 years ago (so 1887) was looking for this amulet which opens up a portal to limbo. This portal somehow stops all the evilness, at least for another 100 years. Flashforward to "present day" (1987) and we meet our main characters, who all form "The Monster Squad", which really was just an excuse to sit in a clubhouse all day and talk about monsters.



Dracula literally drops in when he's being flown in from probably Translyvania (and the pilot is played by "that guy" David Proval, who was in "UHF" and was Richie on "The Sorpranos") and he bought along Frankenstein's monster. When Dracula meets Richie, he gets the bright idea to open up a hatch in the plane, which causes Frankenstein's monster (Look I'm just gonna call him Frank if that's ok?) to fall off. Dracula turns into a bat and follows the box, which landes into Anytown, U.S.A, where our Monster Squad lives. What a coinky-dink!

All out of nowhere The Gill Man shows up. It's not explained how he got there. Maybe he vacations there when he's sick of the Black Lagoon, I dunno. Eventually The Wolf Man and The Mummy show up to round off the cast of classic movie monsters.



Our Monster Squad are experts and know everything there is to know. The leader, Shawn, is uber-obsessed and gets happy when he's giving the diary of Van Helsing. But it's in German. No matter, there happens to be a creepy German guy in town who can translate.

German Guy (this is what they call him most of the movie) tells them about the whole amulet thing and that the 100 year anniversary is the next day. Shawn and his friends Patrick and Horance aka Fat Kid (They call him this in the movie, this movie should be sold in Aldi's it tries to be generic) decide its up to them to stop the evilness from taking over the world!

Along the way, Frank meets up with the group and becomes friends with Shawns little sister Phoebe, so he's now a good guy. And there's an old kid in the group, who is suppose to be Corey Feldman Lite who makes silver bullets and wooden stakes in a awesome kickass montage.



One of the things needed is a virgin girl to read some passage in German to open the limbo-hole so they get Patricks older sister, who Corey Lite has been obsessing with the entire movie (even getting a nude picture of. For a kids movie, it's pretty raunchy) to read the phrase.

Shawn and the gang find the amulet in this old house Dracula's been using has headquarters and they eventually get cornered by The Wolf Man. Shawn suggests kicking him in the "nards" which Fat Kid does and he gives us this movie's catchphrase:
"The Wolf Man's got nards!"

Indeed.

One by one they take care of the monsters, for instance they unravel the mummy, which works, so now I know when I get chased by a mummy next time. Corey Lite shoots the Wolf Man with a silver bullet, and Horance takes care of The Gill Man, who really didn't do a whole lot in this movie. So now it's just Dracula and Patrick's sister reads the passage but nothing happens. When asked, she says "well, I did it with Steve but he don't count."



So some little kid that tags along with them suggested using Phoebe since she is a girl AND a virgin and it works with the wormhole to Limbo opening up. Shawn stabs Dracula in the heart with the stake before Van Helsing jumps out of limbo and pulls Dracula into limbo.

And there's a mildly tender scene when Frank is trying to hold on but realizes there's no point so lets go and Phoebe starts crying. Awww! The worm hole closes and suddenly the army shows up. At one point in the movie, the little kid that tags along with everyone wrote a letter to the army asking if they'll come to take care of the monsers. Well, THEY SHOWED UP! But Shawn is like "Too late. We're The Monster Squad!" And a kickass rap song that explains the entire plot of the movie kicks in and it's over.

The last time I saw this movie, I was probably 10 or 11 and it's about as awesome as I remember it. You could dismiss it has another "Lost Boys" or "Goonies" rip off, but so what? It's pretty funny, pretty scary (there's even a part that had me saying "What is this 'House of 1,000 Corpses' suddenly?"), and pretty entertaining all around. Even though it's probably aimed for kids, there's a lot of vulgar and raunchy stuff, which makes it that much cooler. I'm totally showing this movie to my kid.


-Jason

Day 3: The Exorcist...ON LASERDISC!!

Hells yes.

Sadly though, I don't own this piece of forgotten technology. My friend Bill does. A few years back, he went to a yard sale and found the Laserdisc player. I guess it was like under 10 bucks or something cause Bill bought it with no hesitation. Not too long after that, he went into a used record/movie shop and found laserdiscs. He eventually settled on The Exorcist. I remembered all this while planning 30 Days of Horror and asked if he'd like to participate. He agreed.

So today I head over to his house and he doesn't have the player hooked up yet. So after looking through 10 thousand cords, I finally find one and I pray the entire setup works cause Bill hasn't used it yet. Finally, after 20 some odd minutes and me thinking we're gonna have to scrap this idea, everything turns on and I start celebrating my first laserdisc player hook up.



Most likely you know what a laserdisc is, but then I don't know who all reads my blog. You could be a 14-year-old Pokemon nerd who doesn't watch anything past 1998 and you get a kick out of 20(something)-year-old guys writing about "old" movies. So if you fall in this category, I'll give you some history of laserdiscs. For the rest of you, you can skip down.

You probably won't believe this, but the very first laserdiscs were made in the early 60's, but was later modified to look like the laserdiscs we know them now around 1969. In 1970 they were distributed to the public and everyone was like "OOOH!! Shiny!!" The thing I noticed is that the thing looks like a record. When you consider that nowadays, DVD's look like CD's, and one could argue that VHS could kinda sorta be like cassettes, it surprises me they didn't come up with a format similar to 8-Track.

Anyway, the first theatrical movie to be put on laserdisc was Jaws back in 1978 and since then laserdiscs were totally not sweeping the nation. The main problems with the laserdisc is they're kinda heavy, kinda big, and the discs are two sided, so they get smudged easily. When I was pulling out the disc I didn't realize this right away and I was like "oh shit" and quickly grabbed it in the middle.



And the double sided thing was kind of annoying cause the first side played like maybe 45-50 minutes of the movie, then just all of a sudden it'd abruptly end, and it'd be like smack dab in the middle of the scene.

The first abrupt ending came a bit after Regan starts showing signs of possession and it cuts to Father Karras giving mass. So off I go to the player to turn it over and start up side two, which seemed to cut off the rest of the mass scene. Whatever, it wasn't the good scary part, so I was good with that.

The last abrupt change occured right before the exorcism itself. I think whoever made this laserdisc did that on purpose, cause the exorcism part is on a disc all by it self. So we put that in and continue getting the crap scared out of us. But all this disc changing is really annoying and I'm guessing other movies were like that, so I can see why this didn't really take off. I'm a pretty lazy person, and when I watch a movie, I get into a comfort zone and don't wanna get out of it unless I have to go to the bathroom. So to get up every 45-50 minutes to flip, then put in a new disc is pretty annoying. And the endings really are abrupt. Here's an example that I'm paraphrasing

Ellen Burstyn: You gotta help me!
Father Karras: I can't. Exorcisms don't happen anymore.
Ellen Burstyn: But my daughter isn't my daughter! I think its satan.
Father Karras: Satan, huh? Well, maybe I'll take a loo-
(Blue screen)

I won't rag too much on the quality of the movie cause this was an old format and didn't have the high-def we have today, but it looked almost about the same as if you watched it on a film reel or even an older VHS copy. But I'm not one of those purists who demand the screen be crystal clear quality, as long as I can see stuff happening, I'm good.

And what I liked was this really was a predosessor to the DVD because on the back of the cover, it listed chapter breaks. But instead of giving each chapter a unique named like "The Exorcism" or "Seeking Medical Treatment" or even "Your Mother Sucks Cocks In Hell!", it gives a full sentence description of each scene in the chapter. And what cracked my shit up was on side two, which is when Regan is fully possessed, it tells us which chapter has the scene where she stabs her va-jay-jay with the crucifix, and which chapter has her throwing up all over Father Karras.


So to talk more about the movie now, I can't say the experience was different watching it on laserdisc. It was just like watching a regular movie on VHS, but having to flip over, then put in a new disc once in awhile. But it wasn't bad either. I do think it was kinda cool and I think it's neat Bill has one.

And I did pick up a reference to Father Marrin doing an Exorcism in Africa, which is what the prequel was all about. I personally didn't like the prequel, it seemed rather boring and I really don't remember a exorcism even happening in the damn movie. But that could be my faulty memory. I haven't seen the other version of the prequel yet, so maybe that one is more better? Guess we'll have to wait and see.


-Jason

Day 2: April Fool's Day (2008)

So yesterday, being April 1st, I went and updated my old review of the 1980's "classic" "April Fool's Day", which I hate very, very much. A couple of weeks ago, while I was planning this event, I went to Netflix to add April Fool's Day to my queue and lo and fuckin' behold:
THERE WAS A REMAKE!

Well, obviously, I just had to see this little gem of a movie. And I'm gonna lay my reputation on the line when I say this:
It's really not that bad. It's probably even better than the original.

My theory is the filmmakers probably hated the 80's movie as much as I did and was like "We can do better", and they actually did.

Now I'm not saying it's the best movie on the planet. But when you compare the two, this remake shines through. The action happens faster, the story makes way more sense, and we get literally thousand gory death scenes. Sadly, no nudity. But the lead chick was pretty hot.

The hot chick. And yes, that guy off to the left is looking at the camera.

So this film starts off looking like a murderous episode of "The O.C" where a bunch of super filthy rich people have a party cause some chick named Torrance has been accepted into this rich group. The lead hot chick, Desiree, is the one throwing the party. During the party some skinny chick named Milan shows up and I totally think they're trying to make odd comparisons between her and Paris Hilton. I mean, isn't Milan the name of a city somewhere? Oh and speaking of comparisons, there's a gay dude who's blogs on the internet about celebrity gossip. Three guesses who this is suppose to be. There are more characters but they're not super important.

Anyway, Desiree's brother Blaine tries to get it on with Milan but she was slipped a roofie at some point and as a result dies. Everyone is horrified.

This chick is the angel of death, don't ya know?

After a year of scandal and Blaine losing ownership of the family trust fund, Desiree finds a note saying to meet up at Milan's grave. She, and all the not so important characters show up, and they find out through another letter that someone in the group killed Milan and if they don't step forward, they all are gonna die.

Well, they all pass it off as an accident, so they ignore it until a beauty pagent chick, a George W. Bush-like guy, and a film maker that totally reminds me of me, but not so creepy die, does Desiree and Blaine realize this is serious business. They try to warn Torrence but she thinks Desiree is the murderer and hangs up on her.

So Desiree and Blaine return home and find Torrence waiting for them cause she's the killer. She shoots Blaine and is about to kill Desiree when she spits out a confession saying she was the one to put the roofie in the drink but didn't think the stupid bitch would O'D, dammit!

Well, I already knew, since this IS a remake of the 80's film, that everything we saw was total bullshit and I was right. Every single damn thing was one long elaborate prank and all the people we saw killed are actually alive. This was Blaine's idea cause he was pissed he lost ownership on the family trust, so he set Desiree up to blurt out a confession, heard by some cop or lawyer or something.

The part that cracked me up is that Torrence, who was working on a movie, asked all the people in the movie to help out by doing the special effects and whatnot. Like people on movies have THAT much time on their hands. Whatever.

What made this movie a step up from the original was the actual ending, which I totally didn't see coming. Torrence goes to show Desiree that the gun is full of blanks but she finds out the hard way that it's actually loaded with a bullet. Everyone is stunned, Blaine gets ownership, and he probably had something to do with the death of Desiree. Whatever. I just wanna congratulate the makers of this movie for making a pretty entertaining "April Fool's Day" movie. Lemme look up their names and-

They're named "The Butcher Brothers". Nevermind. Ok, naw, seriously, this is an ok movie. I recommend skipping that "other" one and just getting this one. Plus you get to look at a hot chick for a good length of time in the movie, so that's not all bad. Too bad she didn't get naked. Oh well.

-Jason

Updated Review: April Fool's Day

Day 1 of 30 Days of Horror is over and I've updated my review of "April Fool's Day". Be sure to check it out:

April Fool's Day

Thanks! And check back tomorrow!
-Jason

Movies I Like #2: BASEketball

Before I get all geared up for 30 Days of Horror, I figure I should get this installment out of the way.


I'm probably gonna get torn a new one for this but dammit! I fuckin' love this movie! Yeah, the acting isn't great. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are more famous for appearing in goofy ass B-Movies like "Orgazmo" and "Cannibal: The Musical", and their main talent lies in voice work (Like some small show called South Park or something). And even they admit that they sucked in this movie. There's a scene in the South Park episode "The Passion of the Jew" where Stan and Kenny complain about the movie "The Passion of the Christ" and say something like "This is worst then the time we tried to get our money back from BASEketball".

With all that said, this movie is pretty funny in my book.

The movie is kind of a spoof of sports movies. It starts with Trey and Matt making up a game on the spot to impress two girls. Because they're only good at shooting baskets from one spot without having to dribble or run or play offense or defense, they claim it's from "baseball rules" where one spot is first, the other is second, and so on until you get a homerun. And the best part about the game are the "psyche outs" which is when the opponent can do something to distract the person about to shoot the ball.


Eventually, the game catches on and within five years it becomes a national sport, with teams popping up all over the country. Here is where it turns into your typical sports movie. The team owner, played by Ernest Borgnine, dies and gives the team to Trey, who then must carry the team to number one and into the "World Series of Baseketball". There's an evil guy who wants to buy the team from Trey and ruin the sport by trading players and having them sell out and put their names to every product you can think of and other things that pretty much ruined baseball, football, basketball, and probably even golf.

And there's a love interest, played by Yasmine Bleeth from Baywatch fame. The twist here is instead of Trey just trying to get with her, Matt is trying to get with her too!

There's also the little buddy sidekick character they named Squeak, and sometimes Little Bitch, who gets teased. A LOT. And as a play on that whole thing with the sick kid who's last wish is that his sport hero, Trey, does 4 homeruns in one game. When Trey doesn't do it, he rushes to the hospital and there's a great scene where they think he's dead, then they find him in a coma, so they try to shock him back to life using those paddle things.

One funny scene is when Trey finds out that the company that's making the team's offical gear that they been shilling is being made through child labor. So it's up to Trey to but a stop to it but he ends up missing, so he ends up on, of course, Unsolved Mysteries!



I love that this is probably one of the last things Robert Stack did.

If you haven't seen it, you really should look into it. It's a real underappreciate gem. And thanks to the magic that is Youtube, someone compiled all the great "psyche outs" from the movie. Most of it is not safe for work, but why are you reading this at work. Slacker.


I fuckin' love this movie.

-Jason

New Review: Night of the Lepus; 2 Days Till 30 Days!

FINALLY! This little gem about giant killer rabbits find a place on the site. Sorry it's a week or so late.
Night of the Lepus

Also, I put up a page on the site that gives a rundown on what I'll be watching in the month of April. Unless you guys DON'T mind getting daily emails from me, I'd recommend bookmarking the page and checking in on it each day to see the review, article, or whatever I'm gonna write.



30 Days of Horror

Thanks and wish me luck in April!
-Jason

Northwest Indiana: The Hollywood of the Midwest!

As I write this, famed actor Johnny Depp is presently 20 minutes away from me, in Crown Point, Indiana. He's filming a movie about John Dillinger called "Public Enemies" and majority of the story happens in Crown Point. It's so cool that the star of "Ed Wood", "Edward Scissorhands", and one of Freddy's victims in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (Oh and he was in some Pirate movie I hear) is like breathing in the same mill polluted air as me! How awesome!

What better time to whip together a list of movies, and even some TV shows, that take place in and/or was filmed in Northwest Indiana, where I call home. For the time being.


1. A Christmas Story
Location: Hammond, IN
They never come out and say it's Hammond (for some reason it's Hohman, which is a street in Hammond. Oddly enough, according to the Wikipedia entry it's "Hulman"), but Jean Shepherd who wrote the book, then the movie, AND was the narrator in the film, is from here. There's even a Community Center named after him. If you have careful ears, you'll hear The Father mention Griffith, Indiana in the beginning, and the cloud of his profanity hangs over Lake Michigan to this day. And yes, there is a Warren G. Harding school in Hammond, pretty close to the Community Center actually.
But oddly enough, it wasn't filmed in Hammond, but Cleveland. Why this was picked, I dunno. But it's cool to know that a story that takes place in Hammond, Indiana is being told for 24 hours straight every Christmas.


2. Original Gangstas
Location: Gary, IN
This was a super trippy for me to see. Because not only does the movie take place in Gary, it was filmed IN Gary, almost entirely. So a lot of the exterior shots I was like "I KNOW THAT STREET! I GO IN THAT STORE! I BEEN DOWN THAT ROAD!!" It was weird. Anyway, we have Fred Williamson to thank for this, who is a Gary native. He came up with this idea about a gang terrorizing the residents of Gary and it's up to Fred and some old friends of his, played by Pam Grier and Jim Brown, to stop them! I can't imagine what the meeting was like between Fred and the mayor of Gary at the time of this filming, which was around 1995.

Fred: Yes Mr. Mayor of Gary. I wanna film a movie IN Gary about a gang of thugs who shoot and kill people, and there's going to be drive by shootings and houses blowing up, along with cars. Oh and throughout the movie I'm going to be bad mouthing Gary and urging all the residents to move out cause it's hopeless to fight against the gangs, until I end up doing it the end of the movie.
Mayor of Gary: YES! That'll help this city's image! Here's 200 million dollars!

Or something like that.


3. Richie Rich
Location: Gary Airport
For those of you not in the know, yes Gary has an airport. And yes, a scene from the 1994 live action movie starring Macaulay Culkin was filmed at said airport. It was probably only a 20 second scene (and not important enough to find any images or video on Youtube) but there's a scene towards the end when Richie (or his parents, it's been awhile) get out of an airplane and the entire family hug. Yes, Macaulay Culkin and two other actors, along with a professional film crew, had to fly to Gary, Indiana to film a 20 second clip of three rich characters hugging. I guess Gary's tarmac looked more believeable or something.

4. A Story On "Unsolved Mysteries"
Location: East Chicago, IN
This was a super big deal when this happened back in 1993. Unsolved Mysteries was seriously filming across the fuckin' street from me! And I didn't even know we had an Unsolved Mystery happen across the street from me! I remember the week they were there. There was this big huge semi truck with UNSOLVED MYSTERIES parked right on my block, and the building they were filming was just always crowded with crew, actors, and, considering this is E.C Indiana we're talking about, drunks.
Anyway, the story they were doing was this. Sometime in the early 80's some super important dude, like maybe the mayor or some city offical, went to some party at The Elks Club, which was across the street from where I lived in 1993. During the party he got a mysterious note saying they know what he's really been up to. This either involved drugs, money, or a girl on the side. The note asked to meet in the empty hallway in 10 minutes. So the city offical does and then some mysterious person he didn't see coming came up from behind and stabbed him to death and the mysterious person left. The identity of the killer was never found out, hence it being a "unsolved mystery", and I'm pretty sure it's still unsolved, knowing E.C police.
And no, sadly, Robert Stack wasn't there. They film his things on a sound stage in L.A. Darn.

5. Quantum Leap
Location: Crown Point, IN
This really shocked the hell out of me. The season 4 premire episode, where Sam and Al get switched and Sam is able to go back home for a little while, which means Al is the one who leaped into another body, takes place in Crown Point, Indiana. In the 1940's no less. Not a whole lot is said about the city, except a scene with Al trying to get into a house and he finds that the door is unlocked, in which he comments "Small towns". And as far as I know, this really wasn't filmed in Crown Point. At least I SHOULD'VE known if my all-time favorite show was being filmed 20 minutes away from me. Not that I could've done much about it considering I was 11 or 12 at the time.
And just to point this out, Sam is from Elk Ridge, Indiana, which is a real town, with a website. I love the images on that page. First the dude in the boat on top, then the pics of the hot chicks with babies towards the bottom. If that doesn't define the state of Indiana, I dunno what does.

6. Some Episode of "Early Edition"
Location: Hammond, IN
Ok, this one is vague on my end. Despite this show being super great and awesome, it's not out on DVD and kinda forgotten by now. To refresh your memories, it was about this dude from Chicago who, with the help of a magical ghost cat, got tomorrows newspaper today. And he uses it to help people out with shit. Well, surprise surprise! They actually filmed this show in Chicago. And at times they'd venture out to Indiana. The only time I can recall them filming an episode in Hammond is when me, Bill, and Bill's Mom drove to downtown Hammond and was at a shooting location. We stood there for like an hour and....nothing happened. Well, nothing much. It was in a section of town that's now abandoned and all we saw was just crew people and some lights. The filming was inside a building. After awhile, we just left. And I never found out when that episode aired. But I just wanted to tell that story.
OH! But my friend Bill has two stories about this show.
1. He was IN an episode of Early Edition! Seriously!! There was an episode where Gary, the main guy, had to pretend to be a substitute teacher at some high school to save a student. So the principal makes Gary teach this class for an hour. And Bill was one of the students in that class. And he was in the front row so like, he was all on camera. It's really cool! I wish this show would get on DVD so I can get some screen images.
2. Bill worked in this hotel/banquent hall place in Hammond and I guess one of the times they were filming locally, the star Kyle Chandler (He was the actor dude in Peter Jackson's "King Kong") stayed at the hotel Bill was working in and got to meet him for a few minutes. Man...Bill gets all the cool stories.

I shook Conan O'Brien's hand! HA!

Ok back on topic. Which is...I'm done. Those were all the films and TV shows I can think of that were filmed in my neck of the woods. I seem to recall hearing something about "Road to Perdition" being filmed somewhere but I can't find anything to back that up, so maybe I'm making shit up. If YOU happen to know any that I forgot, leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!
-Jason

5 More Days Until 30 Days!

Hi gang! I had a busy weekend, which I'm gonna write about in my personal LiveJournal, but I wanted to write in here first about the upcoming event that I've dubbed "30 Days of Horror"!

In case you're not in the know, I mentioned last blog entry that I was gonna devote the entire month of April to only horror movies. Since then I've had people ask me "Well...don't you already do horror movies on your site?" And, well, yeah, that's true. 90% of the movies I review on the site are, oddly enough, horror movies, with the other 5% being sci-fi and boring ass dramas. I plan on putting more genres in the mix later this year but I wanna clear up what I mean by "30 Days of Horror".

I mean every day in the month of April, I'm gonna watch at LEAST one horror movie.

With that said, here's some of things you'll be seeing in April:
1. Some updated reviews. As I mention, I seem to do a lot of shitty horror movies, many of them in the first year or so of running the site. Which means there aren't any images or the review itself just sucks. So I plan on updating a few here or there. I'm gonna start with April Fool's Day on...go on. Guess which day. (nudge nudge)

2. I'm not gonna set any rules or regulations for this. Like, I'm not ONLY gonna watch ones I haven't seen before or ONLY update reviews. I'm gonna mix it up. And I'm not only gonna watch new or old movies, or only just ones on DVD. I'm gonna do the whole shebang. DVD, VHS, laserdisc (My friend Bill has a laserdisc player and has The Exorist on Laserdisc. Maybe I can ask nicely...) and yes in theaters. I'm not seeing a whole bunch of non-horror movies coming out to theaters in April so it should be all good.

3. I'm gonna write either a short article here on the blog, a Probe or a full review on the site. Probably mostly be here on the blog. I only got a few Probes planned, and the normal 3 or 4 full reviews on Sundays (if possible).

4. You might've noticed I didn't add the "movies" to "30 Days of Horror". That's because I'm also gonna venture off into the realm of television. I'm probably gonna stray away from The Twilight Zone and Tales from The Crypt. If I find any Tales from the Darkside though, I'm all over it like a virgin on his prom date.

5. This might be a little iffy, and not sure how to go about doing this, but a select few posts might contain some video of me doing or saying something. That's only if I feel up to it though, so don't give your hopes up.

6. And finally for the legality. Life is unpredictable and you or I never know what's gonna come up so if anything life altering happens in the Month of April and I'm not able to fulfill my duties of posting SOMETHING once a day, don't get all mad at me and be like "What a gyp! Screw you, Soto!" I don't know what will come up but something might, so I'm saying this just in case. If anyone out there wants to be a backup writer of sorts, or hell even WANTS to contribute in some way, shape, or form, please, feel free. I welcome it.

Thats it. I got a bunch planned and some surprises that I won't reveal or ruin here just yet, cause if I do, I'm sure "somebody" will talk me out of it. (nudge nudge again).
-Jason

What's New & Coming Up

Hey guys!! I felt like writing SOMETHING here today but I wasn't sure what, so I thought I'd post some past, present, and future things. Make sense? No? Yeah I can see that.

Anyway, let's get this over with.


1. As I stated, the Battlefield Earth Mass Invasion is finally posted! Most of what I said about all the troubles we all went through is true. I honestly haven't heard from Rachael since she sent me that email, and I haven't heard from Maria so I'm assuming she's locked away in a hospital. I hope they get better. As for me, my stomach as finally died down. But here's a funny story. I got the movie from Netflix and after assigning the chapters, I sent it to Felicia so she could watch it. Since she took some time with it, and I still needed to get the images I had to go to the video store to rent it. So on Saturday the 15th I went and looked around and...didn't see it. I was like "awww FUCK!!" which got me some weird looks from the people that work there. Then on a weird whim I decided to check out their used movies of sale section. Sure enough, behind Big Fat Liar was Battlefield Earth. And I swear to god they were selling it for 2 dollars, which is easily the cheapest movie I have ever seen at that video store. So to make a long story short, I had to buy the freakin' movie in order to get the review done. The question remains: Should I hold on to it, should I sell it, or should I burn it and video tape me burning it? Maybe I'll make it a poll... Well enough of that.


2. It's St. Patrick's Day! And because of B.E I didn't get around to updating all my reviews of the Leprechaun series like I intended to. So it'll just have to wait another year, or maybe I'll just do it for no reason later this year. Who knows. Anyway, here be the links:
Leprechaun
Leprechaun 2
Leprechaun 3
Leprechaun 4: In Space
Leprechaun In The Hood

Yeah the page format is probably crappy and there's no images. I'm gettin' to it.

3. Easter is Sunday and every since I started my site back in 2005, I been trying to get "Night of the Lepus" in, on, or around Easter. Yet again, with B.E I wasn't able to. I might try to do it this week but that's not a guarentee. Maybe I'll make it a late Easter review.

4. At the LAMB, Nick from Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob came up with this cool thing. Each one of us came up with a kickass female character and we had to write an article about the character kicking another character's ass. Then people can go and vote for which article was more convincing and whoever's character wins advances to the next round and it keeps going until there's one winner. That's the best I could explain it. A better explaination can be found here.
My article hasn't been published yet cause whoever I'm fighting against hasn't put their story in. I suspect it's because they know MY character kicks the most ass and they're like "OHHH NO! I can't win against (Jason's character I'm keeping it a surprise until it's finally posted)! I'm just not gonna do it!!" and then by default my character wins. That's how I see it ending anyway.

5. I got a bunch of neat blog topics to post about, I just haven't really been too organized to sit down to write them. I swear I'll get to one this week, plus another Trailer Thursday will be posted.

6. Wanna see some neat videos I did?
Me Playing Guitar Hero
Super Funny Wacky Time - A parody of random and weird shows that don't really follow any kind of substance or plot. My main inspiration was a Youtube series called "Roller Chester". Do a search and you'll see what I mean.
Super Funny Wacky Time 2 -This video FUCKIN' blew up, yo!!! Within 24 hours of it being posted it got like 2000 views! No exaggeration!! Then I found out why! Someone at Wonder Showzen put it on THEIR website/blog thingy!! WHOA!!
I plan on making some mini-movies and cool music videos that I thought of sometime in the future. Those entail going outside, so I'm waiting for the weather to get a bit nicer.

7. And finally (Thanks if you read this far, I know I gave you a shitload of links and words to read), I'm proud to announce that I'm declaring April "HORROR MOVIE MONTH" on the blog and the site. This means that all I'm gonna be watching are horror movies. Good, bad and everything in between. I'm not necessarialy gonna be reviewing EVERY movie I watch, but I'll give some mention on the blog, or do a Probe about it. If you have any suggestions on what you think I should check out, leave me a comment! Or if you don't wanna sign up to blogger to do that, leave me an email at: invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com. I also plan on updating some horror movies I've already reviewed on my site starting with, naturally, April Fools Day on the 1st. I got loads planned, so please stay tuned here to catch all the updates!

Hmm, April Fool's Day is coming up. I better start plannin'.
-Jason

PS: I know usually October is the month most people do horror movies. But I like to be different. I like to think outside the box. And most of all, I hate being cliche. So maybe in October I'll do like comedies or war movies or something. That'll be fun!

New Mass Invasion: Battlefield Earth

This was a tough one for me and the Mass Invaders. People went crazy. People got sick. It's wasn't fun. But now it's over with. So please, please, PLEASE, do enjoy:


Battlefield Earth

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go collapse over there.
-Jason

New Review: Monster (2008)

Hey guys,
You know that movie "Cloverfield" that was out a month or so ago? Well, heres it's bastard brother:
Monster (2008)

Thanks!
-Jason

SNL Sketchs That Could Be Turned Into Movies

It's been awhile since there was a movie based on a SNL character/sketch. If I recall correctly, "The Ladies Man" with Tim Meadowes was the last one and that was back in 2001. Now, the reason why we probably haven't seen any new ones recently is because the general movie-going audience seemed to have spoken and said "ENOUGH!" so Lorne Michaels said "Eh, screw it. I make more money on the show anyway". Now if only the movie-going audience can do the same thing for movies like "Epic Movie" or "Meet The Spartans" or any given modern dance movie.

But if there were to be a new SNL movie based on a character(s) or sketch, which ones would it be? Well here are my picks, along with what the movie would be about if it got made. I would include a video but since NBC decide to be all Nazi-ish with their video clips and had them banned. So instead, I'll just link to a transcript of the sketch in questions (when available). Maybe some of these might not sound like good ideas, or even original at all. But if they can make a full feature length movie about two guys bobbing their heads to a Haddaway song, I think anything is possible.

These are in no particular order:

1. My Aunt Linda
The SNL Sketch: Usually shown during "Weekend Update", Amy Poheler brings out her aunt Linda (Kristen Wiig) to review movies currently in theaters. Aunt Linda don't seem to have good tastes when she complains about good Oscar-worthy movies like "The Queen"

The Transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/06/06nupdate.phtml

The Movie Plot: Amy Poheler plays a movie critic for a newspaper and is well respected with her opinions, even though some may disagree (a female Roger Ebert if you will). One day Poheler's character gets sick or called away and she isn't able to do the movie reviews anymore. And her rival who wants her job is just itching to take over, so she has no choice but to ask her Aunt Linda, who has an extensive VHS, Beta, even Laserdisc, collection to take over and write reviews in her absense. She becomes an overnight sensation and she ends up being another rival.

I'm sure many people would point out that just cause a newspaper reporter, even a movie critic, can't write their article for awhile, they're not going to ask just anybody to fill in for them. When Roger Ebert was in the hospital all those months getting treatment, he didn't ask his Aunt to take over. But still, this is from the same group of people who made a movie about two public access hosts getting their show on network TV.


2. The Two A-Holes
The SNL Sketch: The situations often differ each sketch. Two "A-Holes" (Jason Sudeikis & Kristen Wiig) want to do various things but make it very frustrating for the person they're talking to.

The Transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/05/05naholes.phtml

The Movie Plot: The Two A-Holes realize they're not married, so they decide to go to Vegas. They bring along their best man and maid of honor (maybe one another SNL member and the other just a celebrity like Alec Baldwin or Anne Hathaway) and along the way everyone gets frustrated with each other while planning the wedding.

Usually the road trip idea is pretty much "jump the shark: the movie version", but when it comes to these two, there really isn't anything else except have them in different cities, annoying folks along the way. I can forsee them parody a scene from the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, talking to a Texan cop who doesn't even bother murdering them. Oh, and there might be some issue with the title. So they might have to go the route they went with "Night At The Roxbury" and give it a title that doesn't nessessarily reflect the characters. Maybe like "Aggrivating Road Trip" or "'Till Death, Babe".

3. Deep House Dish
The SNL Sketch: As seen on MTV4, a show about techo club music hosted by DJ Dynasty Handbag (Keenan Thompson) and his not-so-brigh sidekick T'Shane (Andy Samburg). The entire sketch comprises of different musical acts that pokes fun at techo club music, which is mainly just a word or phrase being repeated over and over again. Every time T'Shane makes some lame joke and DJ Dynasty Handbag insults him.

The Transcript: This is from when Rachael Dratch was on the show. She played DJ's sidekick. This was the only transcript of this sketch I could find. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/05/05jdeep.phtml

The Movie Plot: This could go a few ways honestly. It could be like an updated version of "Wayne's World", where the show goes on, then we see what the two hosts are up to the other days of the week when the show isn't on. Maybe to bring in a villain angle, have some anti-techo guy buy the station and threaten to shut down the show, or bring in two other techno music geeks who want to replace them. It could even go with DJ Dynasty Handbag sick of the music featured on the show so he decides to make his own album.

If it goes the updated "Wayne's World" route, people probably wouldn't take too kindly to that. And I dunno if a movie revolving around techno music, even fake goofy songs, would be a good idea. But the interaction between DJ and T'Shane are pretty hilarious if you ask me, so it should work into a movie.


4. The Terget Lady
The SNL Sketch: Yet again, Kristen Wiig plays the character, of a lady who works at Target, but pronounces it "Terget" and loves to interact with every customer she comes in contact with. Downside is, she runs off in the middle of the transaction to buy an item she sees.

The Transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/05/05gtarget.phtml

The Movie Plot: If Target has a problem with the movie using their store and store name, just make it about the lady who works in a made up store and have it be a story about trying to gain acceptance at work and we see her life outside of work. Or maybe the entire movie is about the store being robbed, kinda like a comedic version of "Dog Day Afternoon" or "Inside Man".

Honestly, out of all of these so far, this one seems more probable. It's not like SNL movies were always THAT original.

5. Nuni
The SNL Sketch: A family of weird foreigners who have a style all of their own. They often invite regular people to their place and are instantly uncomfortable. Then confusion is had when both Fred Armisen & Mya Rudolph's characters have the same name, although they claim each name is pronounced differently.

The Transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04iartsy.phtml

The Movie Plot: The Nuni's move into a new apartment building and run into all sorts of problems with the neighbors, who instantly don't like them. Maybe eventually it'll turn out the neighbors aren't that normal themselves and it'll be ironic. Like one could be some dude who pretends to be a woman in an internet sex chat room or something, and he's making a big deal about some foreigners that like to sit on hair.

6. Weekend Update
Ok, bear with me on this one and hear me out.
The Movie Plot: Weekend Update is a little low-to-no budget "news" show that aired Sunday night/morning at like 2 AM. They only report on weird occurances in the news. Think "News of the Weird" if they had a TV show. Due to ratings slipping, they need to do something different and report on ACTUAL news. So they set up to cover a Presidental election that's coming up. But of course no one takes them seriously, so they have to fight for recognition and respect.

If people think of this has a combination of "Anchorman" and "UHF", it just might work. And it depends on who they get to be the news anchors. They could go with Amy Poheler and Seth Meyers, and make it a point to say the show has been on for "years" with different anchors.

I'm sure there are more reoccuring sketches/characters that I'm forgetting that could be turned into a movie. If you think of anything, feel free to leave a comment. For a list of everything that spun off from SNL, check it out here.
-Jason