Short of the Week #4: Day of John

Going back in time to 2005, here is Chris Nash's debut short film Day of John.

I first met Nash at a Rue Morgue event back in 2004 and we became fast friends. Over the years, we've been involved in several projects together and I still marvel at his morose, yet often humorous take on the world. Nash is currently working at a prominent F/X house in Toronto while prepping his debut feature Dirt Eaters.

Still Death.

Hey there! I hope this weekend is treating you kindly. I've been revelling in the work of Dave Pollot recently. He's the artist who inserts pop culture icons into thrift store paintings. Here below are some of his horror-themed pieces.

He has done over two-hundred paintings, so be sure to check out his Etsy page as I'm sure something will strike your fancy.

Don't Take No Shit From A Machine!

This week I took a trip into space with Robert Dyke's eighties sci-fi actioner Moontrap starring Walter “Chekov” Keonig and Bruce Campbell.

A pair of astronauts (Koenig & Campbell) embark on a desperate mission when it is discovered there may be hostile alien life on the moon.

I had seen every one of the B-movies Bruce Campbell made in between Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness except this one. I guess I had unconsciously been saving it for a rainy day, or in this case, snowy. Anyhoo, Moontrap was a lot better than I was expecting. I keep having to remind myself that this movie was made in 1989 because it feels fundamentally like the stuff that was being cranked out in the early nineties by Full Moon and the like.

When the movie started up, it basically seemed like a cross between Alien & Lifeforce, except instead of finding a hot naked space vampire chick, Keonig & Campbell bring back a fourteen-thousand-year-old corpse and a weird leathery egg-shaped thing. Naturally, I thought they lost out on the deal, but then the egg cracked open and fashioned itself a body out of parts - both metal and human! Okay, I'm in. Sure, it might not do much more than shoot electricity, but hey still better than Alien: Covenant.

Getting back to Campbell for a second, can I just acknowledge that he played an ex-fighter pilot nicknamed The Penetrator? Despite that, Campbell was not the star of this film, as this was before Evil Dead became the iconic franchise it is today. No, based on the cache of Star Trek, the leading man is fifty-odd Walter Koenig and he's giving it one-hundred per cent. He even does push-ups in one scene to prove he's got the goods. In MoonTrap, Koenig's the hero, saves the day and even gets the girl. And yet, still more plausible than Alien: Covenant.

Bruce Campbell & Walter Koenig in Moontrap

Moontrap does wear its budget on its sleeve, but it's rather endearing in the way of lot of the sci-fi flicks of this period (i.e. Empire & Full Moon's giant robot flicks) were. Moontrap may belong to an alternate universe where the nineties saw many impossible technological advances, but hey, again, still more plausible than Alien: Covenant.

I had to appreciate the ample practical effects here. When Koenig & Campbell return to the moon later, they spend a lot of time cruising around their little miniature moon buggy – and it is adorable. Director Dyke worked on the miniatures used on Evil Dead II, so I would assume the genesis of this project - and Campbell's involvement - started there. Also, when they find a lost city on the dark side of the moon they soon discover... hey whaddaya know, a frozen space babe! Now it's way better than Alien: Covenant.

Moontrap was a nice surprise. Keonig & Campbell played off each other well and though it felt like a lot of it was made out of spare parts – much like its antagonists – it was still an entertaining yarn that didn't overreach. Unlike well, you know...

That's Not the Great Pumpkin...

via VHS Wasteland

Short of the Week #3: Heart of Karl

I'm gonna throw up some CanCon this week. This year marks the tenth anniversary of me discovering the work of Winnipeg collective Astron 6. These guys made many great shorts over the years, but my favourite still remains Steve Kostanski's Heart of Karl.

I love the world building - that he would later employ in his 2011 debut feature Manborg - and inherent weirdness of this piece. Several A-6 members now live & work in Toronto, so it's definitely cool seeing them around town at different events and involved in various projects.

Video Hoarders!

By the grace of YouTube, I came across a great little web series called Video Hoarders. Hosted by collector Rob Taylor, he travels across his native Australia meeting up with the most fanatical who worship at the altar of VHS. Here are the first eight episodes.

I'm in awe. It is somewhat euphoric to look at collections way more vast and well organized than my own. It's also weird that I've never met Yasmina Ketita (from Episode 8) considering how many times we must have crossed paths over the years at Shock Stock. I'll have to check out her podcast Witch Finger.

Fight the Power!

This week's title is Paul Golding's 1988 “shocker” Pulse.

When David (Joey Lawrence) comes to stay with his father and stepmother, he starts to suspect something dangerous is going on with the power on his street.

Unlike many instances of coverbox art, you actually get what is advertised. Well, sort of. No one gets electrocuted onscreen, but we do get a lot of electricity. Like a lot, lot. And I hope you like extended shots of electronics because we get to see inside, outside, close-up and far away. It's like electronics porn actually.

Aside from that the pace is pretty deliberate, but the acting is good all around with both Joey and Matthew Lawrence are in this movie. I never watched Blossom, Boy Meets World or any of the other shows they were in, but here they were solid little kid actors.

New from Hasbro!

So, Pulse was a bit weird for a few reasons. First, the ambiguity of the antagonist was a little off-putting. Electricity was out to get people, but there's no concrete how or why to it. In Maximum Overdrive, it was a comet and in Ghost in the Machine it was a short circuited serial killer – which coincidentally starred Karen Allen who appears on the TV during this movie – but apart from Crazy Ralph's brother rambling out about a “pulse”, there's really no rhyme or reason for things to going haywire. It's kind of like when the sleazy guy from Fast Times in Ridgemont High showed up to fix the television, but seemed to have no idea how electricity even worked. But whatever, I'm game. I guess I'm just used to Horace Pinker crackling out the wall sockets, ya know?

Your toaster's got a death curse!

Secondly, Pulse actually functioned more like a family drama than a horror film, as the main push of the story was a kid adjusting to splitting time between two divorced parents. Obviously, there were a lot of cliches at work here, like David's crazy stories about killer electricity being perceived as him acting out, but there were actually some sincere interactions throughout. Pulse would have been fairly straightforward if not for the garbage disposal occasionally trying to kill someone. And I do have to admit, this movie did feature one of the most painful looking “locked in the shower” scene that I've seen.

Pulse was a solid movie, but it's PG-13 nature's probably the reason that it doesn't end up on too many “best of” or “you've never seen” lists.