"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Deranged

(a.k.a. Deranged – The Confessions of a Necrophile)

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a serial killer out of Wisconsin called Ed Gein. He is the most fucked up motherfucker that ever was fucked up. He is the original American Psycho as they would say on Entertainment Tonight. When they caught him he had a dead lady hanging in his shed cleaned out like a deer. He had a heart on his stove and all kinds of heads and skulls and chairs and clothes made out of human skin. He started out digging up graves and then started killing people, collecting their body parts, wearing them and possibly eating them. I mean jesus, I’m not making this up, but don’t read it if you’re eating – the dude had a box full of vaginas and he liked to dance around in the moonlight wearing a belt he made out of nipples. In my opinion, he had a problem with women.

Anway this fucker inspired alot of the most famous horror pictures, from Psycho to Texas Chainsaw to Hannibal Lecter and, I forget which other ones, possibly The Fly or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or one of those. But this picture Deranged is a more obscure one from 1978 which is based much more closely on the actual case. (read the rest of this shit…)

Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!

Well I made a promise long ago and now I’m gonna prove what exactly ol’ Vern is made of. Ol’ Vern is made of honor. And he is made of his word. In other words he (i.e. yours truly) is a man of his word, and a man of honor. So I watched the SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT sequel directed by Monte Hellman.

As you know if you read alot of the crap I Write here on this sight, I do believe the french theory of the auteur, that they made up. What it is is that if you like movies like COCKFIGHTER and TWO LANE BLACKTOP by Monte Hellman then that means you gotta watch his other movies, even if they’re – no, especially if they’re – Silent Night Deadly Night sequels. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Fifth Element

The Fifth Element is your usual Bruce Willis movie that starts out in Egypt in 1934 and ends up in some fancy space hotel in 2334 with this blue skinned space opera lady singing opera and then busting off dance moves. Bruce is introduced down on his luck, pretty much like in the Die Hards – his wife left him, he’s trying to quit smoking, his mom won’t stop hassling him and he’s “5 points away” from losing his job as a flying cab driver in space age New York.

In fact this is a lot like a Die Hard movie except in a cartoony comic book space world instead of a building. Instead of talking to a cop on a walkie talkie, he just talks to his mom on the phone, and instead of terrorists there’s this big ball of fire hurtling toward the earth that turns light to dark, life to death, sometimes has a giant skull for a face, eats missiles and sattelites, and calls himself Mr. Shadow during phone calls. (read the rest of this shit…)

Silent Night, Deadly Night and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

Well the Christmas season is upon us and what better way to celebrate Christmas than to put ornaments on a tree and put presents under it? I don’t know but while we ponder that let’s also talk about evil Santa movies.

Silent Night Deadly Night is a mid-level entry in the holiday-themed slasher movie genre. It’s not a classic like Halloween but then again it’s not completely dumb like the Leprechaun pictures or Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Massacre which is not a real movie but would probaly be pretty stupid, in my opinion. Unless they got the right director but even then, I don’t know about that premise. (read the rest of this shit…)

Fear, Anxiety & Depression

Remember that motherfucker that made Happiness? His name is Todd Solondz and you might think he’s some hipster that came out of nowhere with 1996’s Welcome to the Dollhouse and then hit it big when he was Outlaw enough to refuse to cut Happiness, brought it to a different distributor who would release it unrated or whatever. Well, that’s what I thought but then I found out about this, his first picture from 1989, one year after the release of Die Hard.

And I gotta be honest this movie is a piece of shit. It is only worth watching as a curiosity for fans of the other two Solondz works. What is weird is it has all his themes of loneliness, hopelessness etc. except in the context of a more goofy mainstream comedy. Solondz is actually the star of the picture playing a struggling playwriter named Ira. And this Solondz, I mean to be frankly honest, this guy is what they call a nerd. I mean seriously. He’s a skinny, scraggly haired, overbited weirdo with gigantic glasses, a squeaky, whiny voice and weird affectations. He would be right at home in one of his other movies. But here he is cast as a Woody Allen type stuttering neurotic Writer character. And he is in a functional lifestyle with successful friends, he even goes on dates and gets laid. (read the rest of this shit…)

5 Million Years to Earth

This is a science fiction picture from the Hammer Studios over there in Britain, and you know what that means: I saw it on American Movie Classics. The hero of this story is a dude by the name of Quatermass who apparently stars in a bunch of movies and TV shows over there like Quatermass and the Pit, The Quatermass Experiment etc. No it’s not one of those weird shot on video shows they do marathons of on PBS when they need money. You’re thinking of dr. who and the red dwarf. What the FUCK is up with these college dudes that think that shit is funny? You know how they repeat the jokes in a phoney british accent I hate that man. Anyway I wouldn’t try to pull that shit on you don’t worry this is a whole different thing here, this Quatermass.

Quatermass is a college professor looking dude with the tweed suit and vest, bow tie and beard. He is not an action hero, everything he does is completely with the brains, I mean this guy is a real rocket scientist. And by rocket scientist I mean he is the type of scientist who studies rockets. (read the rest of this shit…)

Carny

A little while back I saw a real good documentary called DERBY which on the surface was about a guy trying to become a professional roller derby artist but really was about how he was cheating on his wife and there was a dude with no shirt on reading playboys, and other weird stuff. I don’t know how to describe it man read that review if that’s what you’re interested in. get off my fuckin back, jack.

Anyway there’s a reason I bring this up, it has to do with this review also. The director of that picture was Robert Kaylor, who according to amazon.com presents the internet movie database only did three other movies, and of those three this here CARNY is the only one in print. So I watched it. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Old Dark House

As you know I like to watch the classics but the only way to tell for sure if it is a classic is based on what channel it is on. This one was on American Movie Classics so that’s how I know. If it was on TBS or especially USA that would be another story. Anyway it is an old one from James Whale the director of Frankenstein.

Boris Karloff from the Frankenstein gets top billing but let’s be honest here, he’s playing a mute butler for christ’s sake. This is not a starring role it is strictly a gimp role in my opinion. I mean I know for a fact the man can talk, and can talk well. But you wouldn’t know it the way he’s typecasted in some of these pictures. Here he’s just a big oafish brute who gets drunk and tries to grab the pretty ladies. He looks like they left the Frankenstein makeup on him and pasted a beard over it the poor bastard. (read the rest of this shit…)

Muhammed Ali is #1

First off friends welcome to 2002. Sorry about that 2001 business. Just a couple more of these and Bush’ll be gone, we hope. Auld lang sine, etc. etc.

Anyway, enough holiday theme shit, let’s get to the point here. If I had a most anticipated movie of last Wednesday, it woulda been ALI. Why? Because it’s a movie about Muhammed Fucking Ali. To my knowledge it is the ONLY movie playing in theaters right now that is about Muhammed Fucking Ali.

I didn’t know what to expect from this movie though, on account of the casting. The real Muhammed Ali already played himself in the movie THE GREATEST and in the documentary WHEN WE WERE KINGS. And why fix what ain’t fucked? I didn’t understand this new casting of Will Smith in the part. I gotta admit I was pretty pissed, like the nerds get whenever they cast somebody new as Superman, James Bond, Dr. Zauis or Green Aqua.

And that’s what Ali is, is a super hero. Not the kind who wears a cape, although I must admit he does wear boots. Anyway I think we all agree that Muhammed Ali is one of the greatest american heroes there is. You don’t even have to like sports – and I don’t – to understand that Ali is what the kids call “the mothafuckin MAN.” They don’t make ’em like Ali anymore. In fact they never did. It was probaly some typa mistake on the assembly line. Some freak accident that only happens once or twice every thousand-thousand years. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern’s America

A lot of individuals may be wondering what is wrong with Vern. Why does he say these things. “I’m wondering what he thinks of the french art porn movie BAISE MOI. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in the mood for a dissertation on the USA Patriot Act and how it has legalized secret police searches of my house in the name of protecting my freedom.” “You know, maybe I do care what some ex-con has to say about LORD OF THE RINGS, that doesn’t mean I want to hear more complaining about Bush and congress giving years worth of taxes back to the big corporations and saying it’s because of terrorism.” (read the rest of this shit…)