To quote Bushwick Bill, this year Halloween fell on a weekend. I’m sorry that I’m a few days late on my annual essay, but it’s like I always say: the veil should logically be just as thin a couple days after Halloween as it was a couple days before. So if we’re celebrating all October there should be no problem doing it in November.
This year I decided to write about not only one of my favorite horror movies, but the one I credit with making me fall in love with the genre in the first place. I can’t pinpoint when the fascination started; I remember watching THE SHINING at a friend’s house in elementary school without thinking of it as “my first horror movie” or anything like that. But I have this memory of hearing ads for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS on K-Plus FM when I was in sixth grade. Around this time I was also fascinated with Gumby, who had been revived as a surfer in the medium of puff-paint t-shirt, and I remember drawing a picture of “Gumby Krueger.” I think I got it wrong and gave him blades on both hands.
Like I’ve been saying, I’ve been jonesing for the low-falutin 21st century studio fantasy movies lately. Disney has that new live action remake of SNOW WHITE that just came out, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about, but it reminded me that I always kinda wanted to see HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR, the 2016 sequel to the 2012 non-Disney SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN. What I remembered about that one is mainly that it was kinda boring but looked really great and that Charlize Theron (BATTLE IN SEATTLE) was fun as the evil queen. I don’t remember anyone liking it even as much as me, but it was a hit and they made a sequel that I also don’t remember anyone liking. But I’m here to report that it’s okay! I sorta enjoyed it.
It’s a little bit like a 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE approach of doing both a prequel and a sequel. It opens with a long prologue set “long before happily ever after,” according to the voice of Qui Gonn Jinn, who thoroughly narrates the movie from within the force. One historic moment we see is part 1’s wicked stepmother Queen Ravenna (Theron, YOUNG ADULT) poison her husband (Robert Portal, PAINTBALL MASSACRE), and honestly you gotta respect the showmanship of timing it so he dies right after queen takes king in their chess game. He could’ve died in the middle of the game, or she could’ve been stuck having to win with a knight or a rook, or lost altogether… there are just so many ways she could’ve blundered, but she took the risk and she executed it all flawlessly. Hats off. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was an ABC TV show that ran from 1992-1993. I never saw an episode. I still haven’t, because the version that’s on video is called The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and it’s re-edited. According to legend (as well as Wikipedia) the Chronicles were hour long episodes about Indiana Jones as a young man having adventures and/or chronicles in different exotic locations. The stories would jump around in time, so sometimes it would be Sean Patrick Flanery (BOONDOCK SAINTS) as teen/early-twenties Indy, sometimes it would be Corey Carrier (school band cymbal player in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK) as 8-10 year old Indy. And the episodes would be bookended by George Hall (BIG DADDY) as 93-year-old Indy (with eye patch) remembering the stories.
Wait a minute – that would mean in the then-present day? I always think of him in the WWII era, but it turns out he stuck around a while. Think about that. Indiana Jones was around for Woodstock, for disco, for “We Are the World,” for “Baby Got Back.” If he had grand kids there might’ve been an Indiana Jones and the Elusive Cabbage Patch Doll adventure one Christmas. None of this is covered in the show though.
The first season (1992) was 6 episodes, the second season they made 22, but only aired 18 before cancelling it. Then from 1994-1996 they followed it up with four TV movies for the Family Channel. Finally, in 1999 they paired up the hour long episodes, plus a couple new ones, and re-edited them into movies, which came out on VHS and later DVD. One major change was to remove all the segments with 93 year-old Indy, so you never get to see Indiana Jones in contemporary situations, like the one where he tells the story of his teenage love of cars after seeing a monster truck at the gas station.
(Do you think they said if Indy went to movies when he was in his 90s? Do you think he saw UNDER SIEGE?) (read the rest of this shit…)
David Cronenberg’s remake of THE FLY was and is something special. There’s nothing else like it. But you know how us humans are, we tried to put it in a box, treat it like a regular hit movie. Hollywood said “Hey Cronenberg, it’s your lucky day, we got TOP GUN for you.” And the world of horror movies said “Let’s get the guy that did the special effects to direct a sequel!” For her part, Geena Davis said “You know what, find some other actress to play my character dying in childbirth and redub my lines over the re-used video footage of Goldblum.” And thus humanity embarked on the journey of THE FLY II.
I don’t remember thinking too much of this one when I saw it in the 1980s as a double feature with I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA. And for years I would joke about the true fact that people didn’t want to buy THE FLY on DVD because it came with THE FLY II. That they could charge more for it if it was just the first one.
But I realize now that I was too close. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready for it yet. But now, after a quarter century of experiencing life in a world where there is a FLY II, no matter our moral objections… shit, I enjoyed this one. It’s kind of like The Fly himself. It shouldn’t exist, but it does, so what’s it supposed to do? It makes a go at it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Sometimes I think about it, and I wonder... who *are* the walking dead, anyway? Is it them? Are *they* the walking dead? Or could it be that in fact, the walking dead are-- Wait, is that Sophia over there?
I guess about 9 million people watched the second season finale of The Walking Dead, so I was thinking maybe one or two of you saw it. And then I saw some of you talking about the show in the comments, so that supports the theory.
For those of you who are watching and all caught up to the end of the second season I need to ask you guys about the last couple episodes, get a couple things off my chest. So this will involve the ol’ spoilers, including deaths of characters, if you care.
* * *
It’s safe to say NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is one of the most famous movies ever, right? It’s been remade and badly remade in 3D and colorized and sequelized and homaged and recut and it’s in the public domain and pretty much everybody’s seen it and even if they haven’t they probly have some kind of familiarity with the guy saying “They’re coming to get you, Barbara” in the cemetery as a zombie stumbles toward them.
There once was a director named Chuck Russell, who did movies like THE MASK and ERASER. Not very good movies as I remember it, but he seemed like his heart was in the right place. He was trying to have some fun. He also did THE SCORPION KING, which I enjoyed, and then disappeared for the last couple years. But before he became The Occasional Director of Studio B-Movies he was a promising name on the ’80s horror scene. His debut was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, the ridiculous but fun one that reinvented the series and gave Freddy his obsession with the word “bitch.” He wrote that one along with future THE MIST director Frank Darabont, who also helped him write movie #2, his remake of THE BLOB. (read the rest of this shit…)
DREAM WARRIORS is the most popular of the Elm Street sequels, the one that set the pattern for most of them and, to be fair, the roots of everything that’s bad about them. It makes Freddy a little less mysterious, less scary, more jokey. The dreams become less surreal and more gimmicky. But still pretty good.
After skipping out on part 2, Wes Craven decided to co-write this one, although his script was then rewritten by Frank Darabont (who would go on to direct SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) and director Chuck Russell (who would go on to do crap like ERASER). I think the reason for the movie’s lasting popularity is Craven’s “dream warriors” concept. In the first two you had one lead character who has to take on Freddy pretty much by themselves, with only a girlfriend/boyfriend trying to help them. In this one Craven has a girl who for some reason has the power to pull other people into her dreams. So you have a group of teens all in a mental hospital because their Freddy attacks have been misinterpreted as mental illness. They not only share the belief in Freddy, they share the same dream world, so they can work together to fight Freddy. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Mr. Majestyk on Frankenstein (the 2025 Guillermo del Toro one): “Oh, and I also watched Larry Fessenden’s Brooklyn hipster Frankenstein, DEPRAVED. I tend to like the idea of Fessenden more…” Nov 2, 08:07
To quote Bushwick Bill, this year Halloween fell on a weekend. I’m sorry that I’m a few days late on my annual essay, but it’s like I always say: the veil should logically be just as thin a couple days after Halloween as it was a couple days before. So if we’re celebrating all October there should be no problem doing it in November.
This year I decided to write about not only one of my favorite horror movies, but the one I credit with making me fall in love with the genre in the first place. I can’t pinpoint when the fascination started; I remember watching THE SHINING at a friend’s house in elementary school without thinking of it as “my first horror movie” or anything like that. But I have this memory of hearing ads for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS on K-Plus FM when I was in sixth grade. Around this time I was also fascinated with Gumby, who had been revived as a surfer in the medium of puff-paint t-shirt, and I remember drawing a picture of “Gumby Krueger.” I think I got it wrong and gave him blades on both hands.
Like I’ve 
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was an ABC TV show that ran from 1992-1993. I never saw an episode. I still haven’t, because the version that’s on video is called The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and it’s re-edited. According to legend (as well as Wikipedia) the Chronicles were hour long episodes about Indiana Jones as a young man having adventures and/or chronicles in different exotic locations. The stories would jump around in time, so sometimes it would be Sean Patrick Flanery (
David Cronenberg’s 
There once was a director named Chuck Russell, who did movies like THE MASK and ERASER. Not very good movies as I remember it, but he seemed like his heart was in the right place. He was trying to have some fun. He also did THE SCORPION KING, which I enjoyed, and then disappeared for the last couple years. But before he became The Occasional Director of Studio B-Movies he was a promising name on the ’80s horror scene. His debut was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, the ridiculous but fun one that reinvented the series and gave Freddy his obsession with the word “bitch.” He wrote that one along with future THE MIST director Frank Darabont, who also helped him write movie #2, his remake of THE BLOB. 
DREAM WARRIORS is the most popular of the Elm Street sequels, the one that set the pattern for most of them and, to be fair, the roots of everything that’s bad about them. It makes Freddy a little less mysterious, less scary, more jokey. The dreams become less surreal and more gimmicky. But still pretty good.
