The Weekend Horror-thon: a Review
A Saturday filled with chips, cola and Hi-def Gore.
The idea came to me after seeing the Alice Cooper/Rob Zombie Double Bill. It had occurred to me during that campy fun slightly gross show that since my wife HATES horror movies it had been ages since I had seen one. Horror movies are much like comedies in that the good ones are extremely rare. As Stephen King said, in the wrong hands, horror can easily turn to comedy and vice versa. However it had been so long since I caught up with the genre, there was actually a handful of them I had heard great things about and was keen to see.
The weather this past weekend in Calgary, was, in a word, shit. Rain, snow and several permutations thereof. The wife was away in Banff for a girl’s weekend. Conditions were ideal…the time was right… it was time to watch the proverbial bodies hit the proverbial floor. I made a few phone calls, bought some junk food, loaded the bar fridge up with cola and beer, fired up the big screen and settled in for a Saturday Gore -fest.
I picked up three films I had heard great things about…The Devil’s Rejects, The Descent, and Let The Right One In. I told everyone the afternoons festivities would start at Noon.
at 2 pm I got a call from Robbie RobTown
“Hey Tony…is the Horror Fest still going on?”
“”Nobody is here yet”
“Ah… well, allow me to be the first to show up then, I’m on my way”
But he was scooped by the very genial Dave (Not Admin Rock, from whom I received no RSVP. What up with that?) who brought even more chips and three movies of his own, among them John Carpenter’s The Thing. To keep him entertained while the others arrived, I set him up on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which I rented…and together we came to realize that the difference between enjoying the game and loathing it was discovering the “crouch” button.
Then my buddy Len arrived. With the playstation occupied I was forced to distract him with soup. When Rob did show up with his can of “no caffeine cane sugar, I’m not at all high maintenance I have no idea why I’m single” cola in hand, we finally had enough people to get this thing rolling.
But first, lunch, and the revelation that Rob is in a place now where, given the right conditions, he would in fact, fuck a racist.
He won’t drink coke, mind you, but he will put his penis in a women who hates black people. Juuuust sayin.
So after that revelation, all we could do was start the movies…and we started with…
The Devil’s Rejects
Even though I dig his music, I had never seen a Rob Zombie movie. In a way the two are connected. A Rob Zombie Concert is a bit like a Halloween Fun house, excessive but often more campy than scary. It goes from depraved torture porn to the Munsters in the blink of an eye. I don’t think he takes himself too seriously, he’s just a fan of the genre. He loves it…he’s a horror geek. You can’t take yourself too seriously with a song like “Mars needs women”.
“The Devil’s Rejects” is much the same way. It opens with a dead naked woman being slowly dragged through a leaf filled field by a giant who looks like a cross between Sloth from the Goonies and Freddy Kruger. There are scenes of the Firefly Family having a snooze in their white trash murder palace, with Otis the Rob Zombie/ Charles Manson look alike still spooning the naked female corpse he’s been giving his arduous attention to.
Clearly a horror film, right?
Well not so fast, here comes the Sheriff! Spouting B movie action movie red neck bad assery with every line. Now it’s a drive in grindhouse movie from the 70’s.
“I have no idea what genre this movie is…” said Rob between sips of his high maintenance cola.
When Captain Spaulding wakes up from a dream where he is being ridden, and then shot by by 80’s porn star Ginger Lynn (spotted by Len, by the way…pervert),the plus size woman beside him asks if he had a bad dream. He says “Ehhh 50/50.”
So it’s a comedy then.
Then it occurs to me…he is using 70’s b movie genre style to tell a morally ambiguous and hyper violent, hyper stylized, quite quotable, pop culture laden, cameo filled, blackly comedic tale…
He’s the Horror Tarantino. Only instead of a foot fetish, he is obsessed with his wife’s ass. Not without reason.
On the whole, fun, certainly in a room full of comedians. The Hotel room scene was a bit much for me, but I must confess I laughed my ass off when that girl got hit with a truck and spread about 10 feet down the road. But don’t get it on Blue ray…no one needs to see Sid Haig’s droopy yellow brown former tighty whities in high def. Great Soundtrack though.
The Descent
I heard some great things about this one. A group of Lovelies try to cheer up their devasted friend with a bit of spelunking. She is devastated because she lost her husband and child in a shocking car accident. She’ll be also be devasted to learn her husband had been doing a little spelunking on the side with one of her pals.
The problem with this large, attractive cast is, we were terrible with names and were referring to them by description. This became especially tricky when trying to make the call on who was going to die first.
“I think pigtails medical chick is gonna go first”
“No, my money is on tall teacher”
Eventually we learned it was Quasi lesbian spikey haired sporty who looks like Anne Hathaway when her helmet was on” was the first to go.
It only got worse when we realized the “lead them into the wrong cave chick” was named Juno.
“Juno who is about to get eaten?
“Juno who slept with your husband”
“Juno who should have brought the map?
On the whole, good production value. The cast was very easy on the eyes. I felt the tension more when it was just “We’re trapped in the cave and may not get out” as opposed to “Hundreds of Gollum like bat boys are coming to eat you”
and speaking of which, if they can’t see, shouldn’t they have an excellent sense of smell? I don’t think total stillness would save you in that instance anymore than it would for a T-Rex.
We didn’t end up watching “Let the right one in” because I knew it was not a sit around and crack jokes kinda film and I think I wanted to watch that one sans peanut Gallery so we opted for…
John Carpenter’s The Thing
which , by the way, is still awesome. We learned that Norwegians can’t shoot for shit, Wilford Brimley looks extra creepy without a mustache, and that the Creepy Staring Dog may be the best actor in the entire film.
I also have a theory that the whole thing was a fever dream born from cabin fever that was created after Mack poured Jim Beam into the chess computer. Thus driving the entire colony mad and delusional with boredom.
Oh and WHAT were they researching up there, and why dd they need so many guns and dynamite? I guess Americans don’t really send scientists to these research stations because there isn’t enough room for them after all the guns, grenades, and chess computers they have to pack.
It was at this point the evening devolved into Beatles Rock Band and Settlers of Cataan (Nerds!) so we didn’t ever get around to seeing some of the other selections, but I have a sneaking suspicion it might happen again.
My wife has got to leave the house sometime.
