Don't Kill The Messenger VI

Okay, I've got a lot of stuff to get to today, so let's get right to it.

13: Fear Is Real-ity Televison

The reality show from Ghosthouse (Sam Raimi's production company) wrapped up this week. The premise of 13:FIR was basically thirteen people competing in horror-themed challenged in different locations of a Lousiana bayou for $66,666 - probably the lowest amount ever in the history of reality television. The first episode was so ghetto, it was tough to watch. The faceless antagonist named The Mastermind was such a thinly disguised rip-off of the Jigsaw character, I was surprised they didn't throw in a creepy talking doll for good measure. The horror challenges were pretty cool (and I should say probably the most dangerous - or at least the illusion of danger - I've seen in a reality show) but often seemed like they were also from a Saw movie. In fact, one challenge was basically the foot-cuffed puzzle from the original installment. It wasn't all bad though. There was an extra variable added to the game called the Death Box, which could enable the carrier to kill off his fellow players if they got them alone. This seemed of no importance to a large number of contestants who seemed to make it a priority to go wandering off on their own. Honestly, the amount of stupid people playing this game was uncanny. The Death Box was a good idea though on the part of the creators to get rid of those contestants who obviously weren't going to be 'spooked' by anything that could be thrown at them and worked best in the last episode when the final three contestants were all stalking each other in the swamp at night.

For the most part 13:FIR was extremely cheesy and contrived, but still watchable in a low-rent reality show kind of way. And if you guys do decide to do a sequel, make sure you don't kill off the hottest chicks first this time.

Trailers Galore

A huge batch of trailers hit the tubes this week. Check them out below.

The really real teaser for REC 2 (not that fan made imposter from several weeks back) dropped this week. It looks like it picks up right where the last one left off. Sweet!



Lesbian Vampire Killers looks like a lot of fun. It got a great reception at the EFM (despite being enigmatically listed in the programme guide as LVK) so hopefully it'll make its way around the festivals here this fall.



You should only have to watch a few seconds of this teaser for the live-action adaptation of Blood: The Last Vampire to know I am fully committed.



Finally, a full trailer for Mason and Boyes new project Blood River has surfaced. It looks a lot like Wolf Creek to me, but I know from seeing The Devil's Chair that Andrew Howard makes a really convincing psychopath. Bring it on!

I've been having a problem embedding vids from Twitch recently, so click here to see it.

Gooey and Chilly

Last March I posted a trailer for an low budget indie called Bioslime. Recently, some stills popped up online courtesy of Undead Backbrain.

All's I can say is it certainly looks like it lives up to its name. Click here for the rest of the pics. Also, new info has surfaced on Bloody Disgusting about Adam Green's new project Frozen. It is about three friends who gets stranded on a ski resort chairlift. You know it's funny. I watched an obscure Korean film called Spider Forest recently and it had a scene where two characters got momentarily stranded on a ski lift. I thought to myself 'why has no one done an entire movie about this?' Well, it looks like Green had that same thought. Green begins filming in Utah this week, so you can follow his progress on the shoot by going here.

"Nobody's Afraid Of The Mailman."

Last night I trekked out to the Bloor to take in a little movie called Dark Night Of The Scarecrow. Having been a made-for-television movie from the early eighties, this was the first time it had ever been played on the big screen. The format was a newly restored version that will be released on DVD later this year. I had never seen this movie before, but its reputation preceded it. You don’t have to go very far into the horror blogosphere to find someone who speaks of this film fondly. It clearly affected a great deal of people during its initial broadcast and later on VHS. I have a question. Why is the scarecrow such an untapped icon of fright? They are frickin’ creepy man, yet you can probably count the number of movies featuring our straw-filled fiends on one hand. After a vintage 16mm trailer for The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (awesome, awesome, awesome!), the Scarecrow was unleashed!

After a simple-minded man named Bubba (Larry Drake) is mistakenly gunned down by a lynch mob headed by local mailman Otis Hazelrigg (Charles Durning), they start being haunted by a lone scarecrow. Initially, they think someone is having fun with them, until the first of the group meets a grisly end. Does someone in town know their secret, or has Bubba come back from the grave for revenge?

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow appears fairly dated now, but that works as much in its favour as it does against it. You might assume that the Spartan nature of the production was to fit into a teleplay mold, but it was actually originally written as a feature and not much, if anything, was changed for its transition to the small screen. It is standard fare, but there is something oddly watchable about it. The story is fairly predictable as I found myself on several occasions to be one or two steps ahead of the narrative – though the ending IS pretty cool – and yet again I was still engaged. It also helps that the piercing score, very indicative of that time period, enhances the movie immensely. Durning excels as the town’s slime ball mailman. He strides around the movie with an air of self-importance that the rest of the townspeople seem to half-tolerate and half-fear.

I’d say the biggest weakness of the film is the conspicuous lack of the title character. There are very few shots of the scarecrow itself, which is a shame because there was huge potential to be capitalized on there. The last shot of the scarecrow at the end of the movie is super creepy and I just wish there had been more of it. I understand that the filmmakers were subscribing to the ‘less is more’ theory, but there’s ‘less’ and then there's ‘too little’. And when I say ‘too little’, I’m not referring to the lack of violence either. Even as much of a gorehound as I am, I certainly don’t NEED the sticky stuff to have a good time. As for the transfer, it looks superb. They certainly took great care (‘they’ presumably being Image Entertainment) in cleaning it up and fans looking to reacquaint themselves will be very pleased.

J.D. Feigelson, the writer of DNOTS was in attendance and stuck around after the screening for a Q&A. He spoke about being unaware there was even a following for this movie until encountering all the kind words online. The most surprising thing about the movie is how close to the script the end product was. According to Feigelson, you could literally read along with the original script, which, let’s face it, is unheard of these days. He also pointed out that he is in no way threatened by the idea of a remake, saying that the original would always be locked in and whether another take on it turns out to be better or worse is completely irrelevant.

Writer J.D. Feigelson

Though I don’t think Dark Night Of The Scarecrow is anything to write home about, there is something to be said for straightforward storytelling done well. With everything in your face these days, it is nice to go back and see how filmmakers told stories back in simpler times.

Time Flies

It's hard to believe that the Suspect fire was one year ago today.

Fortunately, Eyesore Cinema has risen from its ashes (in a location a little further west than its original site) and is now fully established. They are now my go-to source for all things obscure. Here's to many more years on the fringe!

The Red Stuff

Blood. Nothing reminds us more of our own mortality than seeing that dark crimson fluid - or anything else that is supposed to be on the inside for that matter - flow out of us. In horror, blood is an almost ubiquitous component, whether it is dripping out slowly...



or spraying out gloriously!

Is it any wonder red is my favourite colour? My video store was a little short on the infamous gore titles like Maniac and Cannibal Holocaust, so I'll make this week's bloody edition of Coverbox Wednesday a bit more literal. Just the word 'blood' grabs your attention and instantly conjures up all sorts of grisly images in your mind. Is it any surprise then, that horror filmmakers have honed in on this to market their product?

The Slasher

I just saw this today. Priceless!

100 Per Cent Rad!

I just wanted to throw a shoutout to the guys at The Totally Rad Show.

Congratulations on one-hundred fantastic episodes! The all-things-rad podcast featuring Diggnation's Alex Albrecht, Jeff Cannata and Dan Trachtenberg (and soon-to-be-leaving-man-with-the-plan Steve Koncelik) first hit the web on March 27, 2007. My friend Phil & I look forward to each weekly episode as much as anything on traditional television.

Keep up the great work guys. Here's to one-hundred more!

Trash Revisited

A trip out to Trash Palace was in order last Friday. They were playing a print of an old 1976 British thriller called Schizo. The last time they showed this was in 2007, the same week I first heard about Stacey Case’s cinema shrine and I’d been waiting for almost two years for him to play it again. Coming through the door, a few familiar faces met me, as a friend’s birthday party was happening there that night. Facebook had alerted me earlier in the day that it was her birthday, but I had no idea that Trash Palace was the location she had decided to celebrate it. That was a nice added bonus because having people to talk with during reel changes is always nice. There was even cake!

It’s the camera flash reflecting off the icing that caused that weird negative effect in the picture. Stacey, the curator of Trash Palace, introduced the movie and served up some vintage Roger Ramjet cartoons before the main feature spooled onto the screen.

When ex-con William Haskin (Jack Watson) reads in the paper that famous ice skater Samantha (Lynne Frederick) is getting married, he packs up his belongings – which include a very large knife – and travels south to intercept at her wedding.

I’ve heard Schizo referred to as a slasher, but that’s not accurate. Considering the slasher genre really hadn’t been established yet in 1976 (slasher mold-maker Halloween was still two years away) it maybe jumping the gun a bit on giving it that label. I would rather tag Schizo as the Brit’s ‘stab’ at the Italian giallo genre, which is basically what the modern slasher evolved from. All the ingredients of the giallo are there, the gruesome set pieces, the black-gloved killer, a smattering of nudity and a mystery that is revealed in the last reel.

As far as giallos go, Schizo isn’t a particularly good example of the genre. It is clumsy in parts and I had a pretty good handle on where it was going fairly early on. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a great time watching it though. The assembled Palace crowd (about fifty strong) was hooting and hollering during the movie in true MST3K fashion. However, we were laughing with the movie, not at it. Or at least I think we were. Leading lady Lynne Frederick is quite striking (that should be no surprise to anyone who watches giallos on a regular basis) and is surrounded by an eclectic bunch of characters. Her womanizing friend/psychiatrist Leonard seems strangely effeminate, her female psychic bears an unfortunate resemblance to Ozzy Osbourne and the antagonist, the lumbering old codger Haskin, looks like a pissed off James Cromwell. You throw in some inspired death sequences and you have yourself a rip-roaring time. And this time I actually remembered to take some decent pictures of this old space.

I don’t spend nearly enough time at Trash Place, but fortunately next month I hope to be there twice more, for screenings of the killer-ant flick Phase IV (coincidentally also featuring Frederick) and a second helping of Canadian giant rat opus Deadly Eyes. That, my friends, is a big butter-soaked tub of awesome!