NETFLIX - What a whack DVD. Its a two sided feature which means you gotta flip it over half way through the movie. Thats lame. Also there are no other features on the disc other than commentary. With that said IT is a rainy day masterpiece. The perfect movie for a rainy day when the only thing that will work is a well done over-long 3 hour plus movie in between lunch and the afternoon. IT is another movie made out of a 1,000 page Stephen King novel, and in my opinion this is the best out of his long-form catalog. The requisite ensemble cast and backstories demand the long-form playing time, and in this case it works. Nothing wrong with taking 4 to 5 hours to watch a horror movie on a rainy day. Pausing the movie is not a problem while you make a cocktail or have lunch. Its a movie of the week, the commercial break are obvious. Its really a two part double feature. The first part is better than the second part but IT is still a fun movie to get into. 

NETFLIX - I have this masterpiece on VHS someehre, but I haven’t had a VCR in about 2 years so I ordered DEMONS on Netflix. Call it Argento’s or Lamberto Bava’s I dont really care, what I do care about is that Demons is one of the coolest horror films ever made, and the fact that it is Italian Splatter style makes it even better. The movie is an obvious rip-off of Carpenter’s The Fog, done in the Italian Gore style. I say its a rip-off of the fog, but its nothing like the fog. Its homage. The score and the pacing and the time line are classic Carpenter. The Italians threw in some kick ass heavy Metal by Motley Crue and Billy Idol and the final result is foreign horror perfection for 1985.  The cast? Who even knows anyones name. And it works. All the archtypes are way over played, as well as the scare moments and of course the gore yet Demons is a terrific ride. The Carpenteresque pacing and editing keeps the movie moving foreward, and it never becomes self aware as to actually explaining what the fuck is even going on.The story is simple. People pack a theater, and the horror film they are watching starts taking place for real. The final reel shows how much Argento and the Bava’s were influenced by Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. 

SCIFI CHANNEL - Wow.  A refreshing original from the SciFi Channel, its called Monster Arc.  I Tivoed the 1am encore saturday night. Its derivative, no doubt and rips chunks out of the DaVinci Code, so stop reading now if you dont want Spoilers, and there are definately spoilers. The movie suggests that Noah (the real one) built an arc before the arc we all know about. And he used this arc to round up monsters or something. There was an arc wreck or something and one monster got loose. Noah captured it, and kept it in box in Iraq. Our heroes find the box and accidentally set the monster loose.  Enter Carlos Leon, Madonna’s baby day, and hes a part of a secret society of Noah, and hes trying to stop the heroes. Faith plays a big part in the story. Noah has always been fascinating to me, because of all the questions…like penguins or pandas. Its a good SCIFI movie. Of course its low budget and the only person I recognized other than Madonna’s baby day was Tiny Lister. Grading on a scale I give it a B+ or 3 stars.  If you wanted a real grade you wouldnt be reading daily oranse. 

SCIFI CHANNEL - I watched a Tivoed version of Sometimes They Come Back…Again, it was aiight in a campy 80’s kind of way, at least for the first hour. The problem was Alexis Arquette, he/she sucks. 1996 wasn’t even the hip time for wise ass Slashers. Michael Gross is awesome, hes a real actor. Matt Damon looking Hillary Swank on the other hand was horrible.  Its a typical output from a Stephen King piece. Too many characters and too much backstory for a seamless transition to cinema. 

BLOODY DISGUSTING - Finally some decent news out of BD. My google reader is flooded daily by BD and its mostly just a bunch of distribution gub. Every once is a while a decent nugget of news slips through, Mr. D does the right thing and gives all the juice to Dread Central. Ok the news is that Wrong Turn 3 sounds like its gonna be decent. We all agree that Wrong Turn 2 was decent at least. Its this or remakes. You gotta take a side. 

We all know how hot Jessica Alba is, some of you nerds are into Dark Angel, while others are into Honey; however, this blog is about scary movies so lets get going down this well.  All of these movies are flimsy rip-offs of The Ring (Dreamworks). What confuses me is whether the remakes are ripoffs of the Asian made originals or the US Studio remakes. I mean in The Ring Part 2 a sequel to The Ring, or a remake of Ringu 2? See how confusing it gets. I cant even keep track of all The Ring ripoff movies we have had to sit, both original and remakes.<p>The Eye is a Chinese ripoff of The Ring or Ringu, so of course the US Studios had to remake a ripoff. With that said, its a decent Ring ripoff movie with all the classic JHorror elements of stuff like The Grudge. Sydney (Alba) is blind and gets a cornea tranplant. And the cornea does to Sydney what the videotape does in the Ring, except it doesn’t carry a curse or does it? Just like Samara’s latent memories burned into the  videotape Sydney’s eyeballs see dead people. Its got some 13Ghosts elements, some Grudge, and some Sixth Sense. <p>Sydney has the obligatory  reluctant male interest, and by the time the movie catches up to the viewer its on full bore Ring rip-off mode anyway, complete with a long trip to a foreign land where we all learn who makes the images happen and why, but not so fast, there is still one more twist to tie everything together. <p>I’m not gonna waste anytime going over the fundamentals of JHorror. Grudges and Spirits and all that, you can learn everything you need to know watching The Grudge and The Ring. If you can watch that stuff tirelessly than you may like The Eye. Its spooky, Alba is an all time hottie, and it has some cool parts. I watched on a rainy dark afternoon and I enjoyed it, but the alternative was Judge Judy.

Check out this  very clever blog/podcast Mail Order Zombie.  After all there at least a few dozen D2DVD Zombie released every week and its good to know there is a reliable podcast out there devoted to Zombie flix.  The production value is good, but its stiffer than Pod Of Horror. Its read from a script and the energy level is low. It’s personal with me, so it was a turn-off hearing Fangoria namedropped in the first minute of the show. Fangoria is too expensive, way too expensive. But thats just my personal beef with Fango and I wont let ruin my Mail Order Zombie experience.  In fact thats why Im glad there are podcasts like MOZ. Fango has had a lockdown on all of the studio propaganda. Now Bloody-Disgusting is in bed with Brad Fuller and Platinum Dunes, so its good to have alternative opinions out there. <p> Ok enough of the bad lets get to why this Podcast is worth listening to. First and foremost, they respect the music. There is a reason JAWS is the most terrifying movie ever made and it aint the rubber shark.  The clips from soundtracks and trailers are campy and reason enough to listen to the podcast. The host talks about his iPod Zombie movie playlist. He drifts off into severe nerd territory by calling out the Resident Evil movies for not having a particular sound, all of this would have more energy if it wasn’t being read from a script. But the podcast is quite long, and the host has alot of info to give the listener. <p> The FEEDBACK portion of the show is good. Emails and voice mail messages make up the content and provide for some good  non-scripted stuff and it works well. The female has a sexy radio voice, and the nerd sounds like he’s across the room.  <p> In conclusion. Check it out. Its well done. If you listen to Pod of Horror you will like Mail Order Zombie.   

Just got this heads-up from BC over at Horror Movie a Day.  There seems to be some political struggling going on over at Lions Gate over how wide of a release Meat Train should get. Follow this Link and do your part by calling or emailing or whatever else they say to do.  Don’t let them take our Meat Train away!

• M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening sucks - Bloody Disgusting
• Midnight Meat Train gets a release - Esplatter
• Shaun Luu  Horrorfest - Dread Central
• Great White Shark washes up on a beach - SAYOR 

  Saturday night we all saw Kimbo Slice “pop” that guys ear-goiter. It was a clear benchmark in broadcast network television.  I’m not sure if it was Gus Johnson or the Shamrock guy that yelled “It popped!” but it got me thinking that “it popped” isnt a phrase you often hear in sports. When if ever could expect to hear an announcer yell “it popped” Of course we have to start with Donovan McNabb’s chin-goiter.  I think the Hurricanes came as close to anybody as far as popping the bulbous outgrowth, but I would to see Roy Williams lay a lick on McNabb and pop that chin-goiter. I could hear Madden announce it, “it popped”  Jim Tressle upon seeing Willis McGahee’s knee fold backwards, just before Will Allen’s throat slash. Classless, Truffle mumbling “It popped” into the the Telex/Comtex PL system.

KIng Kong Bundy could “pop” a dwarf if he actually ever landed one of those splash moves he’s always flapping his mouth about.  What about that thing, on Dusty Rhodes that as been bubbling up on his right side for the past 20 years. Isn’t time Piper popped that thing proper!Last but not least, its not really Sports related but it rletively current. We cannot forget Anna Nicole Smith’s Pathologist Dr Perper. He had a knot on his head that was definately ready to pop. In Zombie utopia of course, Anna Nicole would pop up off the Autopsy table and say “it popped”  In closing. Keep it poppin’ pimpin’ next up we are gonna explore what would be cooler - seeing a 5lb Main Lobster pop James Thompson’s ear goiter, or if a Scorpion would be better. Hey we can dream right?