Aug 25, 2012
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 22, 2012
scenes i love - the brood
The Brood was actually the first entry in the Scenes I Love series, I know...but this one in particular has been on my mind for the last few days.The moment the teacher realizes that those are not her students and the other kids quiet down when they, too, realize it and the music stops and all is silent and still...and we're just holding our breath waiting to see what will happen. Ugh, this movie. It's just so damn terrifying and good.
Aug 21, 2012
Film Club Redux: The Initiation
Okay, it's time for the first second-chance Film Club, hooray. Below is my original review for The Initiation, and I find that my feelings on it haven't really changed. For better or for worse, it remains a slice of pure '80s horror, and as you probably know I eat up those slices with fervor no matter how bad they may be for me. That, my friends, is called life on the edge. Daphne Zuniga and shopping malls and twins and brain experiments and Heidi the Glamorous Assistant and slasherness...oh yes. The Initiation, I've missed you.
Oh, and if you never read my OG review in situ all those years ago, then you missed out on a comment left by Heidi the Glamorous Assistant, which proves that her awesomeness carries over into real life:
-
OK, well, Heidi here, and I just HAVE to chime in, although I have no idea if anyone will actually read this post ... Just found this page, having googled myself to find clips under "Joy Tipping" ... the reason I have only one IMDB listing is because "The Initiation" is my one-and-only movie. I grew up and became something even worse than an actress ... a journalist, mostly at The Dallas Morning News. (I've also written two books as Joy Dickinson ... "Haunted City," a guide to New Orleans for Anne Rice fans, and "Scarlett Slept Here: A Book Lover's Guide to the South," both available on Amazon ... shameless promotion is my specialty, under any name).
I sure appreciate all the Heidi-love I'm seeing; makes me think I should have stuck with acting. For those who were particularly intrigued by those oh-so-flattering closeups, be assured that I am now using lip gloss with much more regularity, and Heidi's hairstyle was dreamed up by the movie's makeup artists (my own hair was deemed "too pretty" to make the cut).
And for those of you who're wondering how well shameless self-promotion works, I still get royalty checks from "The Initiation" occasionally ... the last one was about two years ago, for around $12.
Joy Tipping (aka Joy Jones, aka Heidi)
____________________
Here we are at the 4th meeting of the Final Girl Film Club. I have a feeling this will be a very, very lonely meeting, and it’s all Netflix’s fault. OK, it’s MY fault for not reading the ENTIRE Netflix entry for the club selection, The Initiation (1983). I realize that offering up a film that’s essentially unavailable at most rental outfits is akin to taking back an engagement ring- it’s equally as soul-crushing, to be sure- but what can I say? Jesse Ventura ain’t got time to bleed and I ain’t got time to read. A word of warning if you couldn't catch the flick this time 'round: this post will most likely be all ten kinds of spoileriffic, so if you care about that sort of thing…don’t let the door hit ya!
A young girl walks in on her parents making The Beast With Two Backs. As can be expected, the girl pulls a knife and stabs her father in the leg. Suddenly, a strange man in a suit bursts in the door. There’s a tussle; the girl’s father pours some liquid over the stranger, the stranger falls down by the lit fireplace, the stranger catches fire. The girl screams—
--and it’s all one of Kelly’s (Daphne Zuniga) nightmares! Phew! It seems the poor girl has been plagued by this same nightmare for some time now…but there are more pressing matters at hand. It’s Hell Week at Delta Rho Chi sorority, wherein the nubile pledges must perform feats of derring-do and obey their elders if they hope to become full-fledged sisters. Everyone all together now, get monotonous!Delta-Rho-Chi
Never-Will-Die
Except-for-later
At-the-mall!
The crazy prank demanded by the bitchy sorority leader Megan (Frances Peterson) is classic 80s shenanigans, baby: the pledges are to break into the mall owned by Kelly’s father and steal the hunky security guard’s uniform…”Right down to his skivvies!”
Don’t get too excited though; there’s still a few days yet until Prank Night. In the meantime, Kelly’s nightmares are getting worse. She visits “The Dream Factory”, the domain of graduate student Peter (James Read) and his glamorous assistant Heidi (Joy Jones), whom I found oddly…fascinating. Don’t YOU find Heidi oddly fascinating?
Peter and Heidi hook Kelly up to all manner of machines to get her REM readings and the such. Upon waking, Kelly recounts her nightmare in great detail, to which Peter replies, “That’s beautiful. You’ve got all the classic symbols there: mom, dad, fire…a strange man…” Wow, Peter really knows his shit! Good luck with that thesis, Peter- not that you’ll need it. The resourceful Heidi interprets things a little more scientifically, however, and surmises that Kelly’s not experiencing nightmares…she’s experiencing hidden memories. See, Kelly can’t remember much of her childhood…she’s got amnesia that conveniently blocks her memories prior to age nine. Heidi is very excited by this discovery!
Have you fallen under Heidi's spell yet? I bet you have.Anyway, Kelly’s parents (Vera Miles and Clu Gulagher) are NOT excited about the Dream Factory and forbid her from continuing the therapy, to which Kelly basically replies “Up yours, I’ll do what I want!” Sheesh, parents- all uptight and whatnot. And hey, why are they so concerned with a breakout at a mental hospital that’s 300 miles away? Hmm. Who knows. It doesn't really matter; soon enough Dad finds himself meeting the business end of a gardening fork- yowee!
But why dwell on such unpleasantries? It’s time for that 80s cinematic staple, the Party Which Serves No Purpose! Yes, it's off to a frat party wherein a band plays- one so perfect for the job that the keyboardist pogos and plays with one hand, mind you- and everyone is dressed as their “favorite suppressed desires”. Everyone gets their Freud on and we’re treated to someone in bad KISS makeup, someone in a giant penis costume, and Daphne Zuniga in a leather miniskirt and studded collar. Speaking of Freud, let’s pause to take another look at the poster art for The Initiation, shall we? Is it just me, or do you also get a…deeper meaning here?
Now THAT’S Jungtastic!OK, FINALLY it’s time for Prank Night. Kelly and her fellow pledges Marcia (Marilyn Kagan) and Alison (Hunter Tylo) get into the mall with no problem 'cause Kelly stole the keys from her dad. Megan promises to let them out when they’ve scored the uniform and locks the door behind them. As the pledges go off to do their thing, however, Megan and three doofy frat guys head inside as well. Their goal? Something I’ve never before seen in a horror flick- they’re gonna scare the pledges! By “I've never before seen”, of course, I mean “I've seen 50,000,000 times”.
What no one knows is that a shadowy, garden fork-wielding figure has ALSO snuck into the mall…probably NOT with the intent of getting an early start on Macy’s Super Door Busters Sale. First on the chopping block is the hunky security guard, who dutifully checks out a strange noise. Man, I don’t know who this guy is, nor does he have any lines, but he really gives his all for his big death scene. That’s called screaming with gusto, or Le Scream-Scream, as the French like to say.
Now that we’re at the mall, The Initiation kicks it into high gear. Hunter Tylo puts on roller skates, the shadowy figure dispatches teens with your usual assortment of slasher weapons (including a hatchet and a bow and arrow), and there’s some spooky stalking sequences.Meanwhile, back at The Dream Factory, super sleuth Heidi has pieced together Kelly’s past through the power of microfiche: when Kelly was young, she walked in on her mom and dad having sex…only it wasn’t really her dad! The man in the suit was Kelly’s dad, and after he got char-broiled he was shipped off to…a mental hospital! He recently escaped the hospital, however, and Heidi is sure that Kelly’s in mortal danger. Peter fires up The Dream Factory Mobile and heads off to save Kelly.
Heidi is totally right- Kelly IS in mortal danger! Bodies are being discovered and Daphne Zuniga acts totally scared.
She’s chased up to the roof by the shadowy figure who turns out to be…her burn-scarred original dad! Oh noes! Have no fear, though, because Kelly is totes resourceful and conks him on head with a pipe. Burn-Scarred Original Dad falls to the ground and lands with a thud. Before you can say “Wow, that was intense!”, however, Kelly heads back into the mall to find…her EVIL TWIN SISTER stabbing Peter and staring back at her! Oh. My. God.
Then Daphne Zuniga has the best I just saw my evil twin sister that I didn’t even know I had totally stab my new boyfriend right in front of me! reaction EVER.
The twins square off and…maybe one of them lives. I’m not going to tell you the outcome, precisely, but let’s just say that The Initiation ends with a freeze-frame and a saxophone. “Good night, sister darling!”
OK, The Inititation is really nothing more than an average mid-80s slasher flick; there’s gratuitous nudity to be sure, but the gore pretty much amounts to copious amounts of...shall we say Karo-esque blood. The storyline is at times hokey (despite your Heidi-ness, I’m looking at YOU, Dream Factory) and hackneyed- how many times have we seen the Evil Twin scenario? I’m not complaining- I love me some evil twins- but it’s not exactly new ground being tread here.For what it is, however, The Initiation certainly excels and I kind of adored it. It’s got a sort of…quiet enthusiasm about the subject matter that sets it apart from its contemporaries. The acting is much better than the typical genre fare- particularly from Vera Miles (who seems to forget she’s in a low-budget slasher flick and does a great job) and Daphne Zuniga. The title sequence claims, with a big “Introducing…”, that this is Ms Zuniga’s first on-screen role. We here at Final Girl know that her REAL debut came a year or so earlier in Pranks (aka The Dorm that Dripped Blood); truth be told, however, I’d probably want Pranks off my resume as well.
Another advantage The Initiation has over the competition comes courtesy of Charles Pratt’s screenplay: there’s actually some characterization going on here. Particularly of note is a story told by Marcia; when she’s teased about being a virgin one too many times, she reveals that she’s not, in fact, a virgin- she was sexually assaulted by her violin teacher when she was 12 and she’s never told anyone, not even her mother. It’s an odd moment in a slasher flick, to be sure, but when Marcia falls victim we’re maybe just a little bit sad about it. Audience investment heightens the effects of any movie, and it’s especially true of horror films.
Charles Pratt, of course, would go on to meet up with Daphne Zuniga again a few years later on a little project called Melrose Place. You may also recall that one Hunter Tylo was fired from Melrose Place prior to filming for…well, basically for getting pregnant. See? The world- even the realm of slasher flicks- is just one big Aaron Spelling-flavored Moebius Strip. And honestly, wouldn’t we all like the world a little more if there really WERE two Daphne Zunigas? Yeah, even if one was evil- that’s a chance I’d be willing to take. I give it 7 out of 10 I’m sorry, I’m sure “Aaron Spelling-flavored” probably ruined your appetites.
-------------------------
Film Club Coolies!
-------------------------
Mermaid Heather
Dreamrot
Life Between Frames
Kaedrin
JDC's Little Hill
KL5-FILM
Cinema Gonzo
Scarina's Scary Vault of Scariness
Old Horror Movies
Aug 20, 2012
Film Club tomorrow!
I know I said it would be The Initiation redux for the Film Club today, but I'm moving it to tomorrow because of reasons. That means you have a whole 'nother day to get to watchin', so get watchin'!
This picture will help your soothe your crying soul, I am sure.
This picture will help your soothe your crying soul, I am sure.
Aug 16, 2012
And that's why you should avoid oriental crabmeat
The Landlady (1998) has been on my radar for years, ever since I spied it on a shelf at a video store, on sale for $1.99 or some such. But you know how it goes...sometimes $1.99 is simply too much for a movie. Sometimes free is too much for a movie, but that's a topic for another time. The point is, I'd pick up The Landlady and look at it every time I went a-trollin' and a-browsin' at that particular 20/20 Video, but then I'd leave her behind and it seemed that were were simply not destined to be.
But o, fate! Are we not all destiny's child, each and every one of us? Indeed we are, and at long last, the power of Instant Watch has united The Landlady and I. Though I am still reeling from the experience, let me say this: I don't remember what I spent that $1.99 on after leaving The Landlady behind at 20/20 Video- a pen? 0.24875000000000003% of my rent? 1/7 of a pizza?- but whatever it was, it was the better choice. Would that destiny were barren!
What is it that drew my interest to this film in the first place? Come on! Unless this is the first time you're reading Final Girl, you should be able to suss out the reasons by now. Talia Shire? Well, I have nothing against her. A nutso landlady killing tenants? Fine. And, you know, of course it's a nutso landlady and not a landlord. Sure, there have been nutso landlords in cinema...but there's just something about a landlady, ain't there? They're always so gossipy and nosy and they're always running boarding houses. They're evil or they're drunk or they're horny or they're evil and drunk and horny. From 'Salem's Lot to The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, the cinematic landlady is a stock character I love.
Have you ever had a landlady? Out of all the places I've lived, only one of them came with a lady in charge. She was awful. But worse was the landlord who promised to put new windows in the apartment when I signed the lease. Of course he didn't. The windows didn't lock and I was on the ground floor...and surprise, someone fucking opened one of my windows one night and started to climb in. He was drunk and had the wrong apartment? I guess? I don't know, he split before the cops arrived and I had a nice sleepless night. The next day I told my landlord to fix my GD windows right now, so he came over and screwed them shut.
I'll just let that sit there for a moment.
When I realized what he was doing, I said "What are you doing?", followed by "Why are you doing that?" followed by "What if there's a fire and I have to get out through the window since this apartment only has one door?", and he responded by leaving his screwdriver with me.
That story has nothing to do with anything, but I figured I'd tell you about it because I can't believe I lived there, what the heck.
Anyway, The Landlady. The film begins as Melanie (Shire) catches her husband in flagrante delicto with some floozy. Melanie frets. We can tell a lot about Melanie from this brief opening scene: her plain and dowdy manner of dress imply a conservative, perhaps shy personality. She talks to herself regularly, indicating that she is perhaps mentally ill or mentally challenged.
Melanie heads home to cook dinner for her cheating lout of a husband, but upon seeing cans of "oriental crabmeat" in the cupboard, her mind turns to thoughts of murder. Her husband is highly allergic to shellfish, you see, and so after ingesting mass quantities of oriental crabmeat- carefully disguised as chicken- he dies. Since she has conveniently just inherited an apartment building in Los Angeles from her dead aunt Lydia, Melanie packs up and heads off to smoggier pastures 100% husband-free. She's a landlady now!
landladies be snoopin'
Melanie quickly proves herself to be an uptight prude to her new tenants, chastising them for using God's name in vain, doing sex, and smoking- just as you'd expect in a cinematic landlady. Despite her failed marriage (although is a marriage that ends in murder really a failure? amirite? heyoooo), Melanie still believes in true love and sets her sights on a the nice, bland, socially-conscious Patrick (Jack Coleman)...although Patrick is taken and seems oblivious to Melanie's ardor.
Can you guess where the story is going?
You sure can! People who discover Melanie's husband-killing secret (thanks to newspaper clippings OF COURSE) and must be killed. Patrick's girlfriend must be killed. People who discover that Patrick's girlfriend has been killed must be killed. You just know that eventually it will come down to Melanie confessing her love to Patrick and Patrick will respond with a "What? You're a nutcake!" and Melanie will likely try to kill Patrick but Patrick will kill her instead and her last words will be "I love you".
But first! She kidnaps him, ties him to her bed, and "marries" him. At this point in the proceedings, I almost turned The Landlady off because I was just embarrassed, like TALIA SHIRE YOU WERE IN THE GODFATHER AND ROCKY WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
landladies be fake marryin'
That's right friends, make no mistake: The Landlady is terrible. Bad. Not good-bad, just bad. But here's the biggest problem with the film: several times throughout it, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was perhaps supposed to be satire. Some of the dialogue was too off-kilter to be serious: "Ever since Lydia had her colon removed..." There were scenes featuring Melanie cuddling with and talking to the urn full of her dead husband's ashes...but the "humor" was sprinkled sparingly, and the murders, though bland and nearly bloodless, were all played straight. What to think? Sometimes satire simply becomes the thing you are satirizing, you know? It's a fine line, and The Landlady ended up the side marked "misfire"...or, to be more accurate, "pile of crap I wanted to turn off at the 50-minute mark but I slogged through until the end".
And to tell you the 100% truth, I'm glad I did, because in the last minute- the very last!- minute of the film there is a line that is so unexpected and so well delivered that the humor worked and I could not stop laughing. Well, maybe I was punch drunk from the preceding 90 minutes, I don't know...but I rewound it about five times. Am I saying that it's worth sitting through The Landlady to get to that line? No, that is not what I'm saying.
Okay, that is exactly what I'm saying.
No, no it's not. Really. The Landlady is awful and no joke is worth the pain of it.
landladies be shushin' and shootin'
When The Landlady was finally over, Netflix suggested I next watch The Night Caller starring Tracy Nelson of Square Pegs and Mary Crosby of Dallas and Shanna Reed of The Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story...and with a cast like that you don't say no! I started watching it and I swear, it was essentially the same movie as the one I'd just watched. The same writers, director, and production team. The same lead-actress-as-producer credit. The same dowdy woman kills the source of her ire and starts a new life and quickly becomes obsessed with someone she can't have storyline...is this some cottage industry I didn't know about? Because I want in!
No, I don't. I turned off The Night Caller after about twelve minutes to save myself from the inevitable pain.
Okay, I mostly turned it off because it was like 2:30am and I was tired and YES I know I'll go back to it especially because geez, I hadn't even gotten to the Mary Crosby parts yet. Now pass me the oriental crabmeat!
But o, fate! Are we not all destiny's child, each and every one of us? Indeed we are, and at long last, the power of Instant Watch has united The Landlady and I. Though I am still reeling from the experience, let me say this: I don't remember what I spent that $1.99 on after leaving The Landlady behind at 20/20 Video- a pen? 0.24875000000000003% of my rent? 1/7 of a pizza?- but whatever it was, it was the better choice. Would that destiny were barren!
What is it that drew my interest to this film in the first place? Come on! Unless this is the first time you're reading Final Girl, you should be able to suss out the reasons by now. Talia Shire? Well, I have nothing against her. A nutso landlady killing tenants? Fine. And, you know, of course it's a nutso landlady and not a landlord. Sure, there have been nutso landlords in cinema...but there's just something about a landlady, ain't there? They're always so gossipy and nosy and they're always running boarding houses. They're evil or they're drunk or they're horny or they're evil and drunk and horny. From 'Salem's Lot to The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, the cinematic landlady is a stock character I love.Have you ever had a landlady? Out of all the places I've lived, only one of them came with a lady in charge. She was awful. But worse was the landlord who promised to put new windows in the apartment when I signed the lease. Of course he didn't. The windows didn't lock and I was on the ground floor...and surprise, someone fucking opened one of my windows one night and started to climb in. He was drunk and had the wrong apartment? I guess? I don't know, he split before the cops arrived and I had a nice sleepless night. The next day I told my landlord to fix my GD windows right now, so he came over and screwed them shut.
I'll just let that sit there for a moment.
When I realized what he was doing, I said "What are you doing?", followed by "Why are you doing that?" followed by "What if there's a fire and I have to get out through the window since this apartment only has one door?", and he responded by leaving his screwdriver with me.
That story has nothing to do with anything, but I figured I'd tell you about it because I can't believe I lived there, what the heck.
Anyway, The Landlady. The film begins as Melanie (Shire) catches her husband in flagrante delicto with some floozy. Melanie frets. We can tell a lot about Melanie from this brief opening scene: her plain and dowdy manner of dress imply a conservative, perhaps shy personality. She talks to herself regularly, indicating that she is perhaps mentally ill or mentally challenged.
Melanie heads home to cook dinner for her cheating lout of a husband, but upon seeing cans of "oriental crabmeat" in the cupboard, her mind turns to thoughts of murder. Her husband is highly allergic to shellfish, you see, and so after ingesting mass quantities of oriental crabmeat- carefully disguised as chicken- he dies. Since she has conveniently just inherited an apartment building in Los Angeles from her dead aunt Lydia, Melanie packs up and heads off to smoggier pastures 100% husband-free. She's a landlady now!
landladies be snoopin' Melanie quickly proves herself to be an uptight prude to her new tenants, chastising them for using God's name in vain, doing sex, and smoking- just as you'd expect in a cinematic landlady. Despite her failed marriage (although is a marriage that ends in murder really a failure? amirite? heyoooo), Melanie still believes in true love and sets her sights on a the nice, bland, socially-conscious Patrick (Jack Coleman)...although Patrick is taken and seems oblivious to Melanie's ardor.
Can you guess where the story is going?
You sure can! People who discover Melanie's husband-killing secret (thanks to newspaper clippings OF COURSE) and must be killed. Patrick's girlfriend must be killed. People who discover that Patrick's girlfriend has been killed must be killed. You just know that eventually it will come down to Melanie confessing her love to Patrick and Patrick will respond with a "What? You're a nutcake!" and Melanie will likely try to kill Patrick but Patrick will kill her instead and her last words will be "I love you".
But first! She kidnaps him, ties him to her bed, and "marries" him. At this point in the proceedings, I almost turned The Landlady off because I was just embarrassed, like TALIA SHIRE YOU WERE IN THE GODFATHER AND ROCKY WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
landladies be fake marryin'That's right friends, make no mistake: The Landlady is terrible. Bad. Not good-bad, just bad. But here's the biggest problem with the film: several times throughout it, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was perhaps supposed to be satire. Some of the dialogue was too off-kilter to be serious: "Ever since Lydia had her colon removed..." There were scenes featuring Melanie cuddling with and talking to the urn full of her dead husband's ashes...but the "humor" was sprinkled sparingly, and the murders, though bland and nearly bloodless, were all played straight. What to think? Sometimes satire simply becomes the thing you are satirizing, you know? It's a fine line, and The Landlady ended up the side marked "misfire"...or, to be more accurate, "pile of crap I wanted to turn off at the 50-minute mark but I slogged through until the end".
And to tell you the 100% truth, I'm glad I did, because in the last minute- the very last!- minute of the film there is a line that is so unexpected and so well delivered that the humor worked and I could not stop laughing. Well, maybe I was punch drunk from the preceding 90 minutes, I don't know...but I rewound it about five times. Am I saying that it's worth sitting through The Landlady to get to that line? No, that is not what I'm saying.
Okay, that is exactly what I'm saying.
No, no it's not. Really. The Landlady is awful and no joke is worth the pain of it.
landladies be shushin' and shootin'When The Landlady was finally over, Netflix suggested I next watch The Night Caller starring Tracy Nelson of Square Pegs and Mary Crosby of Dallas and Shanna Reed of The Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story...and with a cast like that you don't say no! I started watching it and I swear, it was essentially the same movie as the one I'd just watched. The same writers, director, and production team. The same lead-actress-as-producer credit. The same dowdy woman kills the source of her ire and starts a new life and quickly becomes obsessed with someone she can't have storyline...is this some cottage industry I didn't know about? Because I want in!
No, I don't. I turned off The Night Caller after about twelve minutes to save myself from the inevitable pain.
Okay, I mostly turned it off because it was like 2:30am and I was tired and YES I know I'll go back to it especially because geez, I hadn't even gotten to the Mary Crosby parts yet. Now pass me the oriental crabmeat!
Aug 14, 2012
some things!
Here is a recent SLASHERS 101 sketch edition sketch, aw yeah! Click that link there if you want to order a copy.
The next installment of the Final Girl Film Club will be #50. 50! Can you dig it? As such, it feels incredibly monumental, or at least mildly noteworthy. The movie choice should reflect this, although I'm not yet sure in what way. Should it be a classic film we've all likely seen before, but perhaps have not talked about? Should it be something called Martyrs that will finally force me to write about Martyrs? Should it be something I've never seen? Should it be a straight-up slasher flick to keep in line with the OG theme of Final Girl? Sigh. So many choices. For the next couple of days, I'm open to suggestions in the comments, so suggest away! But maybe consult the list of past selections first- heck, even just the films I've reviewed in general- so we don't get all redundant up in here.
Film Club Second Chance! Way back when, in the 4th meeting o' the Film Club, I chose a movie that was not readily available at the time: The Initiation. Only two fine people took part! Well, guess what. The Initiation is now on Netflix Instant Watch, so now more people can take part. So, on Monday August 20th (that's this Monday, y'all), I will re-run my original review and add links to anyone who wants to join in. I'll probably watch it again in the interim because I do love that movie. The usual Film Club rules apply:
1. watch the movie
2. link to Final Girl somewhere in your review
3. email me the link: stacieponder at gmail dot com
4. bask in the warm embrace of your fellow Film Clubbers
That's it! If you wrote a review of The Initiation a million years ago and you want to be included, that's fine. Just add the link to Final Girl in there somewhere and send it along.
In case it bears repeating, I need your link by Monday, 8/20.
Some folks have sent me pictures of themselves wearing Final Girl t-shirts, like so:
Tickles my fancy, it does. In fact, it got me thinking- back when Wizard Magazine was a thing to read, they would publish photos of fans and celebrities holding a copy of the magazine. Like, if you met Bruce Campbell and you had Wizard with you and you were like "Hey Bruce Campbell, hold this copy of Wizard while we take a picture" and Bruce Campbell was all "Uh, okay", you know?
Well, I think I would like to start a permanent page of people with Final Girl stuff- wearing a t-shirt, someone's cat reading SLASHERS 101, whatever. You don't need a celebrity, because fuck celebrities, right? Except Tom Atkins and Adrienne Barbeau and Tracey Gold. I mean, if you get a Final Girl something-or-other in the vicinity of a celebrity and you snap a pic, that's cool. But I care about you. *tear* I'd rather see you wearing a horror centipede t-shirt on top of Mount Everest. Or at the grocery store, same thing. And if you have a site or work online somewhere or something, I'll link to you. Just email pics to stacieponder (at) gmail.com, or send a link if you've posted 'em somewhere already. Don't be afraid to show your face in the picture! But do not show your genitalia!
The next installment of the Final Girl Film Club will be #50. 50! Can you dig it? As such, it feels incredibly monumental, or at least mildly noteworthy. The movie choice should reflect this, although I'm not yet sure in what way. Should it be a classic film we've all likely seen before, but perhaps have not talked about? Should it be something called Martyrs that will finally force me to write about Martyrs? Should it be something I've never seen? Should it be a straight-up slasher flick to keep in line with the OG theme of Final Girl? Sigh. So many choices. For the next couple of days, I'm open to suggestions in the comments, so suggest away! But maybe consult the list of past selections first- heck, even just the films I've reviewed in general- so we don't get all redundant up in here.
Film Club Second Chance! Way back when, in the 4th meeting o' the Film Club, I chose a movie that was not readily available at the time: The Initiation. Only two fine people took part! Well, guess what. The Initiation is now on Netflix Instant Watch, so now more people can take part. So, on Monday August 20th (that's this Monday, y'all), I will re-run my original review and add links to anyone who wants to join in. I'll probably watch it again in the interim because I do love that movie. The usual Film Club rules apply:
1. watch the movie
2. link to Final Girl somewhere in your review
3. email me the link: stacieponder at gmail dot com
4. bask in the warm embrace of your fellow Film Clubbers
That's it! If you wrote a review of The Initiation a million years ago and you want to be included, that's fine. Just add the link to Final Girl in there somewhere and send it along.
In case it bears repeating, I need your link by Monday, 8/20.
Some folks have sent me pictures of themselves wearing Final Girl t-shirts, like so:
Tickles my fancy, it does. In fact, it got me thinking- back when Wizard Magazine was a thing to read, they would publish photos of fans and celebrities holding a copy of the magazine. Like, if you met Bruce Campbell and you had Wizard with you and you were like "Hey Bruce Campbell, hold this copy of Wizard while we take a picture" and Bruce Campbell was all "Uh, okay", you know?
Well, I think I would like to start a permanent page of people with Final Girl stuff- wearing a t-shirt, someone's cat reading SLASHERS 101, whatever. You don't need a celebrity, because fuck celebrities, right? Except Tom Atkins and Adrienne Barbeau and Tracey Gold. I mean, if you get a Final Girl something-or-other in the vicinity of a celebrity and you snap a pic, that's cool. But I care about you. *tear* I'd rather see you wearing a horror centipede t-shirt on top of Mount Everest. Or at the grocery store, same thing. And if you have a site or work online somewhere or something, I'll link to you. Just email pics to stacieponder (at) gmail.com, or send a link if you've posted 'em somewhere already. Don't be afraid to show your face in the picture! But do not show your genitalia!
Aug 13, 2012
uh oh you guys
I can feel it happening! As I'm reading everyone's reviews for Deadly Blessing, I feel it becoming...becoming...Rumplestiltskinized. You know, like what I talked about in this post:
It's the best movie ever and I want to watch it again and it's my favorite movie!
I know that's crazy. But still:
Can you blame me? Any movie with that painting in it has to be the best movie. That's just science!
See, Rumplestiltskin is pretty much the worst movie ever. Somehow, though, if you talk about it enough with your friends, in your mind it becomes the best movie ever and you're struck with a fiery urge to watch it again right this very second. So you watch it and remember how much it sucks...but then, as soon as it's over, you're talking about how great it was and you want to watch it...and so on, ad infinitum.I CAN FEEL THAT HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. Yeah, the last ten minutes of Deadly Blessing were incredible (you know they were) and mostly I sort of enjoyed it all even though I also thought it was terrible. But now? Reading about it and discussing it and thinking about it?
It's the best movie ever and I want to watch it again and it's my favorite movie!
I know that's crazy. But still:
Can you blame me? Any movie with that painting in it has to be the best movie. That's just science!
Film Club: Deadly Blessing
I'm...not exactly sure how to write about Wes Craven's 1981 shocker Shocker Deadly Blessing. It's kind of a seven-layer dip of a movie: all these different flavors competing with each other but trying to work together, turning into a big mess that sits in your stomach like a gelatinous lump of regret. Mind you, the regret comes later; while you're eating it, your eyes focus on some distant, imaginary point and you find yourself saying a little too loudly, "I don't know what's happening to me and I'm not sure if I entirely like it, but I might and so I'll just keep going." Yes, in this way Deadly Blessing is exactly like a seven-layer dip.
So you've got Jim (Douglas Barr) and his wife Martha (Maren Jensen, who was Athena on the original Battlestar Galactica and what more do you need to know) tending to their farm in a young, carefree fashion. To one side of their land they've got the Hittites, a wackadoo religious sect led by Isaiah (Ernest fucking Borgnine). On t'other they've got Louisa (Lois Nettleton) and Faith (a pre-nosejob Lisa Hartman), a wackadoo mother and daughter.
And then stuff happens.
I mean really, it's true- a bunch of stuff happens and I swear, I was scratching my head trying to connect the dots to basically no avail. Stuff. Just. Happens.
Isaiah about to slap the Satan right outta dat William Katt-alike
But then...the last ten minutes. I'm not going to give away anything here, because...the last ten minutes of this film should not be given away. Let me just say that it's jaw-dropping. It is women punching, shooting, flying around due to punches and/or gunshots, and making crazy faces. It is a big pile of total what-the-fuckery, and it completely redeems all that came before. And just when you think it is over, it is not. And then your jaw- still dropped!- will say "fuck this" and throw itself out your window. It's amazing.
So for that and also this production still of Martha, Lana, and Vicky? I will certainly regret you later, Deadly Blessing, but for now...you win. You win.
Totally lezzed out together in college.
-------------------------------------------------
Give it up for the Film Club Coolies!
-------------------------------------------------
Slasher Studios
The Life and Times of a Cineman
Soresport Movies
KL5-FILM
Filmiliarity
Vegan Voorhees
JDC's Little Hill
Zombie Club
Into the Mirror
Aphorisms and Ectoplasm
Mermaid Heather
nijomu
So you've got Jim (Douglas Barr) and his wife Martha (Maren Jensen, who was Athena on the original Battlestar Galactica and what more do you need to know) tending to their farm in a young, carefree fashion. To one side of their land they've got the Hittites, a wackadoo religious sect led by Isaiah (Ernest fucking Borgnine). On t'other they've got Louisa (Lois Nettleton) and Faith (a pre-nosejob Lisa Hartman), a wackadoo mother and daughter.And then stuff happens.
I mean really, it's true- a bunch of stuff happens and I swear, I was scratching my head trying to connect the dots to basically no avail. Stuff. Just. Happens.
- In the dead of night, Jim gets run over in his barn by his tractor. Was someone driving the tractor? We don't know.
- Hittite Michael Berryman lurks a lot, and for a while you think "Okay, so Deadly Blessing is about this creeper..." but then he's stabbed and killed by someone. BUT WHO, DEADLY BLESSING? BUT WHO.
- Isaiah calls all the non-Hittite women "incubus". What? Does he mean "succubus"? Does he mean anything? We don't know.
Isaiah about to slap the Satan right outta dat William Katt-alike- Lana (Sharon Stone) and Vicky (Susan Buckner), old pals of Martha, show up to help the young widow ease into young widowhood.
- A dog gets a blast of mace to the face!
- "You are a stench in a nostril to God." - Isaiah
- Lana starts dreaming about a guy and spiders and a guy who is a spider, and everyone is like "Shut up, Lana."
- Sharon Stone, amirite? I mean, in this movie a spider goes in her mouth! She did a shit ton of work before 1992, when a simple flash-o-vagina brought her stardom in Basic Instinct. I am just saying, let's give that broad some credit. If not for this, then for 1984's Calendar Girl Murders.
- Ill-timed, overblown music cues turn ordinary moments into big exciting movie moments, like, say, Martha putting her hair in a ponytail.
- Lana has a run-in with some spiders and maybe a guy in the barn and she cries a lot, and everyone is like "Get over it, Lana."
- Someone is killing people! Sometimes by practical means, like stabbing or setting a car on fire with the driver inside...and sometimes by nonsensical means, like putting a snake in a bathtub. And I'm going to pretend that the shot of Nancy in the tub in A Nightmare on Elm Street was Wes Craven saying "Hey guys, remember when I had this same shot in Deadly Blessing? What the heck was with that movie, anyway? That was some seven-layer dip shit!"
- Lana goes to pour some milk only to discover that someone has replaced the milk with
Folgers Crystalsblood! She screams and makes a mess everywhere, and everyone is like "Lana, GO HOME." - There's a coffin full of chickens.
But then...the last ten minutes. I'm not going to give away anything here, because...the last ten minutes of this film should not be given away. Let me just say that it's jaw-dropping. It is women punching, shooting, flying around due to punches and/or gunshots, and making crazy faces. It is a big pile of total what-the-fuckery, and it completely redeems all that came before. And just when you think it is over, it is not. And then your jaw- still dropped!- will say "fuck this" and throw itself out your window. It's amazing.
So for that and also this production still of Martha, Lana, and Vicky? I will certainly regret you later, Deadly Blessing, but for now...you win. You win.
Totally lezzed out together in college.-------------------------------------------------
Give it up for the Film Club Coolies!
-------------------------------------------------
Slasher Studios
The Life and Times of a Cineman
Soresport Movies
KL5-FILM
Filmiliarity
Vegan Voorhees
JDC's Little Hill
Zombie Club
Into the Mirror
Aphorisms and Ectoplasm
Mermaid Heather
nijomu
Aug 8, 2012
New t-shirt and print!
YES my friends, you read that right: a new t-shirt and print are available over at my Society 6 shop. CLICK THIS LINK to get free shipping from now until August 12, oh yeah! The Horror Centipede!
So there you have it. Looking at that t-shirt makes me proud to be alive, I tells ya.
FYI, I tried watching a movie the other night called 11/11/11. Even though Netflixians gave it but 1.25 stars, I thought "They must all be wrong! It's an Omen ripoff, it has to be good!" Well. After "The Asylum Presents" popped up on my screen, I started thinking that I was likely the wrong one. The very, very wrong one. And 35 minutes in, I actually started to feel my life slowly ebbing away...and I realized I was spending some of my last moments on Earth (I mean, if you count your whole life as your last moments on Earth, you dig?) watching a big, huge pile of shit. Then I decided that watching a literal big, huge pile of shit would be a better way to spend my time than finishing 11/11/11, so I turned it off. No offense to the people who made the movie- for all I know, the rest of it was incredible. But I'm okay with never finding out, even if it means my life is lesser for it.
What a great story!
So there you have it. Looking at that t-shirt makes me proud to be alive, I tells ya.FYI, I tried watching a movie the other night called 11/11/11. Even though Netflixians gave it but 1.25 stars, I thought "They must all be wrong! It's an Omen ripoff, it has to be good!" Well. After "The Asylum Presents" popped up on my screen, I started thinking that I was likely the wrong one. The very, very wrong one. And 35 minutes in, I actually started to feel my life slowly ebbing away...and I realized I was spending some of my last moments on Earth (I mean, if you count your whole life as your last moments on Earth, you dig?) watching a big, huge pile of shit. Then I decided that watching a literal big, huge pile of shit would be a better way to spend my time than finishing 11/11/11, so I turned it off. No offense to the people who made the movie- for all I know, the rest of it was incredible. But I'm okay with never finding out, even if it means my life is lesser for it.
What a great story!