Ghouls on Film

A very smart individual reminded me of the existence of this music video and I felt the need to post it.

Which came first: The Dickies or The Klowns? For me, The Dickies. Without their 1988 “Killer Klowns” album I wouldn’t have seen the movie at a young age and been forewarned about the delicious evils of cotton candy and the myriad ways to use a crazy straw.

The Dickies still drive me ape and I still hope that someday, while I am dancing in my nightgown waiting for a cheezy treat, said treat is delivered by a gang of killers in big red shoes.

However, I feel like “Big Money Rustlas” is not the best way to honor the evil clown legacy. Maybe the Juggalos need to take a trip to Crescent Cove?

As with everything else I hold dear, it looks like there’s a “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” sequel in the works. Find out more news on that from Movie Mike’s interview at Chiller, here.

Fish your wish!

Dimension Films just announced that “Piranha 3D – THE SEQUEL” is in the works.

Straight from the press release:

“‘PIRANHA 3D’ producer Mark Canton stated, ‘We are thrilled that audiences are not just loving ‘PIRANHA 3D’, but cheering for it. And it’s fantastic that so many critics are really getting the movie and recommending it. We can’t wait to get to work on the sequel.’”

No word on who, where or when, but when EW chatted with Aja he had this to say about a possible second installment: “We had many ideas, like the full moon party in Thailand — a huge event with like 200,00 young people from all around the world taking mushrooms and partying on the beach.”

Eh … not so sure about psychedelic piranhas, but very sure about piranha-vision. And bring back Shue!

Ah, summer. Tanned legs, sand in swimsuits, Budweiser and orange juice Shandies.

But for some, like me, summer has a more sinister undertone.

Ever since fifth grade, I’ve equated warm temperatures with just one thing: the return of the “vampires of the insect world.”

Some people hate spiders, others see snakes and run, I am paralyzed with fear by ticks. Their parasitic pinchers. Their beady eyes. They waited, watching in the tall grass, until this unsuspecting 10-year-old walked by. Soon they were everywhere, even crawling out of my hair. I clawed at my clothing but to no avail.

Since then, with Krueger-like tenacity, they have visited me in my nightmares. The nightmares look something like this (I’m the one in the red half-shirt) minus the butt-cut sporting Seth Green and my b-movie boyfriend Clint Howard. This is why I never go camping. Watch and be warned!

More than a few of Hollywood’s elite hotties got their start in horror: Jennifer Aniston in “Leprechaun,” Charlize Theron in “Children of the Corn,” Renee Zellweger in “The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and Jennifer Connelly in Dario Argento’s classic “Phenomena” are just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, and let’s not forget the slasher’s ultimate wet dream, Jaime Lee Curtis. While it might be a stretch to refer to some of them as scream queens, these actresses are fondly remembered for their early forays into the frightening, both good and bad, and have successfully expanded their careers, almost completely leaving their roots in blood and gore behind.

However, some of the most enduring icons of screamdom took their thrones later in life, after years of working in Hollywood. Rather than using horror as a jumping-off point for their careers, these lovely ladies actually prolonged and, in some cases, resurrected their careers with a little help from the more terrifying side of Tinseltown.

Take for example Carpenter’s muse Adrienne Barbeau, who started on Broadway, and flexed her comedic chops opposite Bea Arthur in “Maude” for six years before her roles in “The Fog,” “Creepshow,” “Escape from New York,” and “Swamp Thing.” Radha Mitchell frolicked with the likes of Woody Allen, Johnny Depp and some teeny-tiny pixies before making “Silent Hill,” “Rouge,” and “The Crazies.”  Then there’s Kate Beckinsale who after a Shakespearean start, then skipped into the role of Austen’s most precocious matchmaker Emma, and is now filming her fourth movie as werewolf-loving vampire Selene.

Finally, there’s renowned silent screamer Janet Leigh, who made some of the most respected dramatic films in cinematic history, including “A Touch of Evil” and “The Manchurian Candidate,” but will be forever remembered for her role as Marion Crane in “Psycho.” After her work as Crane, she continued to make movies in the genre for the next thirty years.

So, after seeing the actress lay down the law in Aja’s chomp-romp I had to wonder: Is “Piranha 3D” just the beginning of the bloodbath that awaits Shue? If it does well enough at the box office, will it mean Shue in another “Piranha” or, even better, a longer stay in the field of scares?

Beginning with her role as Ali in the “Karate Kid,” and continuing throughout the ‘90s with such, um, memorable fare as “Deconstructing Harry” and, God help us, the Kilmer-fueled crap storm “The Saint,” Shue’s career was expansive, but contained almost no horror.  As the millennium came to a close, her career began to wind down. She would pop up here and there, in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and films better forgotten like “Hamlet 2” and “First Born.”  Shue generally played — and I’m including her role in “Leaving Las Vegas” in this statement — the adorable and charming girl next door.

“First Born” cast Shue in a bit of a different light taking her from girl next door to MILF (Mother I’d Like to Flee).  She continued this trend in “Piranha” and was most recently cast to play the mother in Mark Tonderai’s tale of cul-de-sac creepiness, “House at the End of the Street.”

So what does this mean for Shue’s future in film? Is this the beginning of a new and gory career for the 47-year-old actress? As someone who has loved Shue ever since I heard “The Babysitting Blues,” I wholeheartedly endorse her move into schlock and shock. Like the saying goes, if the Shue fits, scare it.

What? No I'm fine. Just stretching.

Melvira and I went to a screening of “The Last Exorcism” the other night and I should have known when the man himself, Eli Roth, came onscreen to convey a personal message to the audience (plead for positive reviews), it wasn’t going to end well.

For those of you who don’t know the story, here it is right quick:

Son of an evangelical preacher man who grew up teaching the faith, but has none of his own, sets out to make a documentary with thoughtful female boom operator and wise-cracking camera man in order to expose the practice of exorcism as a lie. He visits backwoods family whose “possessed” daughter Nell, Dad, and brother Caleb are clearly not right. Nell could double as yogi master if she didn’t have a penchant for killing livestock and trying to fillet her brother’s face. Brother is a sleepy and disturbed red head. Dad recently lost wife and believes in home schooling.

Sounds pretty awesome, right?

What started out as a solid and fun story eventually devolved into multiple horror cliches and a completely disjointed finale. Both Mel and I felt like we had seen two different movies by the time the credits rolled. It’s as if the writers were possessed (see what I did there?) by the demons of movie marketing and convinced that although an audience would sit through about an hour of fairly original storytelling, they’d be damned if they were going to allow for a unique ending. But velvet capes and pentagrams, that could work.

I’ve probably ruined too much already, but just in case please be warned: SPOILERS AHEAD!

As always I’ll start with the most important part first. Should you see it? We try to answer that via some gchat bullshittin’:

“The Last Exorcism”: Dig It or Bury It?

Melvira: That’s tough, but bury it, I wouldn’t watch it again. It sucks ‘cuz I really like it. It’s like the “Sybil” of horror movies.
Scara: Bury it, but I feel the same way. It’s a cautionary tale for filmmakers. Loved the first hour so I can’t totally dismiss it, but I was so disappointed that I can’t bring myself to tell people to watch it in the theaters.

Ginger Kids = Always Scary

Melvira: I was really pleased with the beginning -pleasantly surprised.
Scara: The pacing was great, there was a nice storytelling quality about the plot.
Melvira: Yeah, it had a nice mix of humor and suspense. There were a few really good “oh shit!” moments.
Scara: Casting was perfect – Ashley Bell, who played Nell, was so subtle in her creepiness. She went back and forth from completely vulnerable to terrifying with just a little smile and a shift in her gaze.
Melvira: She was great, and I thought Patrick Fabian was hilarious.
Scara: It reminded me a bit of the way girls are cast in Japanese horror: can’t help being evil.
Melvira: Yeah, I can see that, especially some of the camera shots they did, seemed very in that vain of creepy/innocent.
Scara: Yeah and Caleb too – Do you know that’s the actor’s name? It’s like he was born to play backwoods brother. Ginger kids. Always scary.
Melvira: His name is Caleb Landry Jones.
Scara: Yeah, it’s so perfect. The other thing I appreciated about the first 2/3 of the film is that the horror came from the threat rather than the actual act. All building of suspense. It made the “Blair Witch” shaky cam, which I typically can’t stand, tolerable.
Melvira: Well, I have to say the one thing I did like about the cam, the only thing, is that when she got ahold of the camera, it was intense when it would shut off and then come back on. You didn’t know what to expect.

Um … When Did We Start Watching an Episode of “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant”?

Melvira: Yeah, I mean one of the best parts of the movie was the crying baby drowning baby doll shit. That was creepy. But, it is seriously like they gave up with the plot.
Scara: I know. It could have gone a million places from the point where everyone found out she was pregnant. But instead we got the lamest excuse for an ending. Also, how pregnant was she supposed to be? For the sake of realism they might have wanted to get an OBGYN on set because that Sour Patch baby looked pretty big.
Melvira: Yep. It kinda felt like they got nervous at a point on how to end it,and just reached into the horror bag o’ tricks and were like fuck it, secret cult/satanic baby. Done and done. I would have really liked to see another possession thrown in there, following them from the house, they get back to a slaughter fest at the house. I think i wrote in my notes, “Random horror cliche’s get thicker than Patrick Fabian’s faux southern accent.”

Um … When Did We Start Watching “Hot Fuzz”?

Scara: Then there was the velvet robe/cos-play aspect of it and the decline into total “Blair Witch” ending. Do you think they just wanted to include as many horror cliches as they could think of?
Melvira: Yep. The “Blair Witch” ending was the single most depressing part of that film. I think that they got to a point where they were stuck and if they put everything in there it was bound to appeal to someone.
Scara: Wait! We didn’t even talk about the (literal) writing on the wall. I tend to embrace a use of pentagrams …
Melvira: I mean, when dealing with demons, there is nothing wrong with a little demon graffiti. I’m for it –  pro bloody pentagrams. I do love metal though …
Scara: I know. It usually just feels so right. However … In this case, it was just too much.
Melvira: Do you feel like it was the gateway drug to the secret cult? Also, whose blood was that? No one was dead.

Finally – A Message for the Camera Man

Scara: Sigh… Finally, what about the fire? Do you think we’ll be seeing a “No Really, This is the Last Exorcism, We Mean It This Time” in the future?
Melvira: Dude, by the time the fire was there I already checked out. The cgi fire was effing lame. Lame town.
Scara: Yeah it was very “Potter.” I thought Sirius Black was going to start talking to me. Anything else or have we thoroughly picked this apart? You want to send a message to the wise-cracking camera man?
Melvira: Well, being an ultimate fan of bad 80’s horror that guy is essential to the movie. Every horror movie is in need of the guy who is the “fuck that” kinda dude. The one that would keep them all from dying but always gets killed. I love that guy. I’m just sad that he went the way of “The Blair Witch Project.” Sadly, almost frame for frame the same way.
Scara: Yep. Also, if someone goes to the trouble of making a really lovely portrait of you without a head …  Just run.