Missing Some Gory Details, Part 2

[Continued from Part 1]

I like Joss Whedon. Firefly, Serenity, The Avengers, even Alien Resurrection. Yet I'm not one of the legions of fans who insists "Joss Is Boss"; just because he's made one or two things I've really liked doesn't mean that I'll blindly follow him into anything with his name on it. Especially when his name is on a cabin in the woods that my friends refuse to tell me anything about, aside from the fact that IT'S JOSS. WHEDON.

Sorry--I did just say JOSS. WHEDON, right? I thought for a second I'd heard myself say JAMES. CAMERON.

::ahem::  It's primarily the gore that turns me off from horror movies, though even if I can get past that, it's usually the premise or the locations or the characters that do nothing to pique my interest. That's why the Alien films, especially the first one, are such big exceptions--it's space, it's characters with enough brains and muscle to stay alive by more than sheer luck, and it's more often a psychological horror of what might happen than what actually does happen.

That's why I sighed along with the other characters in the booth when "Zombie Redneck Torture Family" (or whatever they were called--I'm quoting Wikipedia here), was selected from the list of monsters that would terrorize the visitors to the cabin in the woods. If there's one monster that has been overdone--and if there's one monster I can barely tolerate in the first place--it is the unsubtle zombie. Perhaps that was the point. Another zombie movie. In my experience, Joss Whedon doesn't do anything entirely straightforward, and creating a parody of the horror genre that was, in itself, still a legitimate horror movie, was quite clever.

At least, I'm assuming that's what he did--I had my eyes closed half the time. I cannot handle slashy gore, and that's what you get with zombies. Come back to me when zombies can fire rocket launchers and accidentally shake themselves apart with the concussion.

As a side note, my squeamish tendencies have helped me to develop a "something horrible is about to happen" radar, and I've gotten extremely good at anticipating when a big scare is about to occur--and my rate of guessing when it's just going to be a cheap fright is about 50%. With Joss Whedon, however, I have unfortunately developed a more specialized radar: the "Joss Whedon is about to impale someone" radar. It activated itself for the first time after Serenity, started blipping slowly in The Avengers, and went into overdrive in Cabin in the Woods. I'm onto you, Joss.

Ultimately, I didn't like The Cabin in the Woods. I recognized Joss's signature humor and the clever twists on the genre, but I couldn't fully appreciate them because of one key component that was a total turnoff: the gore. For an hour and a half, I was like a motion-sick asthmatic trapped in a car with locked windows driven by a tipsy smoker. Doesn't matter how good the scenery or conversation are in that kind of situation.

A few weeks later, I saw The Hunger Games. Suddenly, I liked Cabin a whole lot more.

Both movies have a similar premise: People live and die on national television for the entertainment of the masses, trapped in an arena controlled by others who have the power to gently or forcibly impact how matters are unfolding. Aside from the obvious differences of style, casting--pretty much everything, really--Hunger Games was considerably more depressing than Cabin in the Woods. When the technicians crank the heat to encourage two characters to throw their clothes off--leaving them unprepared for a zombie attack--it's kinda funny. When the technicians light a forest on fire to push one character unprepared into a fight with some other "Tributes," it's kinda disheartening. Curious how such similar actions can have such a different emotional impact on the viewer, depending on the context.

When basically everybody dies in Cabin in the Woods (seriously, this is not a spoiler--it's a horror movie), there may be a pang of regret for any of the characters you kinda liked, but by the very nature of the genre, it's unlikely and/or inadvisable to get very attached to anyone. If anything, you get attached to the concept, or the villain(s), or the overall situations that lead to such creative, horrific deaths.

When basically everybody dies in Hunger Games (seriously, this is not a spoiler--it's a movie about people killing each other to death), there's this lingering feeling of emptiness--especially when the survivors turn around at the end of the movie and put a happy face on everything that's happened (OK, that is a spoiler). The characters are at the heart of the movie, and there is no victory in lying to oneself after all that suffering and senseless loss. I know there's a bigger picture with two more books in the series to be turned into movies, but I've looked ahead at the plot synopses of them, and I really don't see anything compelling about sticking around for them.

I'm generally more critical of serious and depressing movies than I am of any other kind, because I'm the type of moviegoer who wants to laugh, smile, and generally take a break from anything serious and depressing in real life. However, if I am intellectually or emotionally enriched by the experience, I don't care what kind of movie it is.

The Hunger Games had all the right ingredients to spark discussions of politics and morality, pique one's curiosity in a richly developed fictional world, even inspire the audience to stand up against dubious authority...but it ended up being an unsatisfying 2-1/2 hours spent in a fictional world centered around the Hunger Games arena (in contrast to having the story be centered around the arena; it's a subtle difference, but a significant one), with characters who have just enough personality for you to feel sorry for them when tragedy strikes, and who constantly submit to power and authority they cannot or will not challenge. No matter how many individual moments or aspects of the film I may have liked, ultimately I felt hollow and thoroughly unenriched. No thought-provoking message; no triumph of good over evil; no success other than, "well, some of you didn't die."

If you don't connect with the characters, don't get absorbed in the world, and don't think about the film beyond the walls of the story, it doesn't matter who survives.

That being said, The Hunger Games helped me to look beyond the uncomfortable parts of The Cabin in the Woods to more clearly see the film's merits. Sure, it was gory, but it creatively used those same elements that appeared in The Hunger Games to make a truly unique contribution to the horror and parody genres, all the while being a generally fun and entertaining piece of cinema under all that oozy blood. The farther away I got from that nauseating feeling I had while watching the film, and the more I compared it to The Hunger Games, the more I appreciated what Cabin in the Woods achieved. But I still can't say I liked it.

So, the next time my wife says I only like sci-fi action movies where stuff blows up, I can now point to one or two more movies and say, "nuh-uh."

Missing Some Gory Details, Part 1

I've been watching a lot of movies lately thanks to Netflix, and I was recently chided by my wife for only liking sci-fi action movies where stuff blows up. This accusation came after watching a string of movies together where our opinions varied drastically--of particular note: Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Terminator.

My wife adores Repo! for its soundtrack and intriguing story. I think rather highly of Terminator for its clever concept and execution. Both feature a fair amount of gore and violence. I can handle most of what Terminator throws at the viewer, but there are a few moments--while cool--that are a little much for me, so I'll usually look away from the screen for a couple of seconds. I am incredibly squeamish where sharp objects and flowing blood are concerned, and especially when a huge component of a story is repossessing people's organs, you can imagine how quickly I walked away from Repo! Everything Is Sharp and Gooey. My wife couldn't wrap her head around how I could like one dark movie where almost everybody dies in a grisly way, and not another dark movie where only some people die in a grisly way.

There's a fundamental difference between what we both find to be too gory to stomach. There's no obvious reason why I can very comfortably go out to a shooting range but can barely handle my own kitchen knife without panicking a little. Some things bother us more than others, and it's not always logical or simple to explain. When I look at Terminator, I see an interesting story peppered with plenty of action, some of which is kinda gross. When I look at Repo!, it's not individual moments of grossness, but a pervasive atmosphere comprised of concepts, images, and even particular words that keep my stomach churning. No matter how interesting the story may have been, I couldn't overcome my involuntary gut reaction to the subject matter.

Such was the case with The Cabin in the Woods:

All my friends: "But it's Joss Whedon!"

Me: "But it's a horror movie!"

(after the film)

All my friends: "Joss Whedon, that was awesome!"
Me: "[bluh.]"

We'll take a closer look later this week; seems I've run out of time to finish this up today.

The Best Laid Plans

This post was all planned out and (nearly) ready to go, when everything blew up. And, when I say, “nearly ready to go,” I mean, of course, that I had a plan as to what I was going to write about—mostly because last night was the Season Two finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

But then all kinds of stuff happened in the office, and a slow Monday morning turned into something else entirely.

Things have calmed down for the moment, though, so I’m gonna try talking about last night’s Walking Dead before I get pulled into something else.

The episode featured what was probably the most intense zombie attack sequence, certainly in the show’s history, but also in quite a while when it comes to horror movies. The action was non-stop, and the show ramped up the pressure on its main characters.

The promos leading up to the show hammered home the point that there were only 13 survivors remaining, and MINOR SPOILER ALERT, not all of those 13 made their way out.

And, for once in a horror story, the deaths weren't completely gratuitous, and instead made quite a bit of sense.

I plan to write about the episode at length later this week, in a spoiler-rific post, so stay tuned!

Exfanding Review: Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 12

As I’ve done pretty much every Monday over the course of this season, today I’d like to talk about the latest episode of Walking Dead, on AMC. And, as usual, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS if you haven’t yet seen the episode.

And, unlike past SPOILER WARNINGS on this site, this time I plan to COMPLETELY RUIN LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE IF YOU HAVE NOT YET WATCHED IT, so please take heed and come back after you’ve seen the show.

Okay? Okay, here we go with the Dash Marks of Doom...

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Okay, that should do it.

On to the Good Stuff.

Last night, in the penultimate episode of Season Two, the Thing that all readers of Kirkman’s graphic novel have been waiting for finally happened. And, while it didn’t happen exactly as it went down in the book, I think it worked quite well.

Of course, I’m talking about the death of Shane, a pretty major event that happened almost immediately in the book. One of my favorite characters on the show, Shane brought a tension to the group that is going to be tough to replace.

His death at the hands of Rick will have repercussions with the other members, sure, and he’ll eventually need to explain his actions, but that constant—and sometimes terrifying— friction between the two male leads will be missed.

Luckily (for viewers, at least), Shane’s death wasn’t the biggest shock of last night’s episode.

Instead, it was revealed that it’s not just those bitten by “walkers” who are coming back to “life.” This is by far the biggest diversion from the book in a season filled with diversions. This adds a completely different dynamic to the show, and to the world these characters (try their best to) live in.

From the clips we’ve seen of next week’s Season Two finale, it appears that AMC is going to give viewers a 90-minute assault, à la Night of the Living Dead.

Seriously, did you see how many zombies were shambling out of the woods just before the credits rolled? Next week is going to be intense, and I think it’s pretty clear that the cast going into the episode will not be the same as the cast coming out of the episode.

While Shane’s death may have been a nice little swerve from the books, this new twist with who can and can’t come back from the dead is interesting and it opens things up to a more “TV-friendly” zombie show. And, by that I mean, with more zombies out there, it’s more visually interesting for viewers.

So, Shane’s death—while not as shocking as it was in the book—still lived up to the hype that the series has built up around it these past couple of months. And what’s to come seems to put what’s already happened to shame in terms of ratcheting up the violence and horror.

So I, for one, am quite excited to see where things go.

I will say, though, that I'm going to enjoy this season a whole lot more on DVD, knowing what's going to happen before it actually does. Because for the only time, ever, with a TV series, I find my stomach in knots during most of the season.

And that, dear readers, is how horror should be done.

Thoughts on The Walking Dead

If you aren’t completely caught up on AMC’s The Walking Dead, then please stop reading this post as there will be MAJOR SPOILERS about last night’s episode.

Further, If you're not at least 60 issues into the comic book series, please stop reading, as I'm going to talk about storylines in the books, as well.

Just to drive that point home...

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

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Okay. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk Walking Dead. There's been plenty of criticism from comics fans (online, mostly) about how the TV series has diverted from the comic book series in terms of story.

Towards the end of last season and into this season especially, we've seen a pretty radical departure from the comic book storyline.

And, I have to say, I'm cool with it.

See, I like not knowing what’s going to happen next. Sure, major characters and major beats from the comic are there, and there have been moments when readers of Kirkman’s book have known exactly what to expect at certain points in the series.

Still, that didn't do anything to lessen the tension or to take me out of the story. If anything, knowing something bad is going to happen is worse than not knowing it's coming.

Hitchcock's "Bomb Theory" springs to mind here.

But I think as long as there are roots in the comic book series—and there most definitely are in AMC’s adaptation—I’m good with whatever the TV writers have planned.

The biggest diversion from the comics comes in the form of the incredibly entertaining character, Shane. In the book, Shane doesn’t make it past the first six issues. By the time the comic book group gets to the farm, Shane is long dead and long forgotten.

But in the TV show, Shane is still around.

And thank goodness for that, because he’s the most interesting character in the series. The tension that’s built up between him and Rick is priceless, as the two actors play off one another incredibly well. Dare I say it, but I actually prefer having Shane around.

Now, knowing Shane’s comic book counterpart’s fate makes every seemingly innocuous moment between him and Carl much more suspenseful for Walking Dead readers. I get uncomfortable every time those two are on screen together. But that’s not a bad thing.

This is a horror story we're talking about, after all.

And it seems the series will divert even further from the book, especially after last night's episode and the shocking death in the final moments of the show.

I say "shocking" because of where in the story it happened. For readers of the book, while the character's fate might have been the same, the "where" and the "when" took me completely by surprise.

By shifting timing around, the writers managed to take an expected death and make it shocking. So much so, in fact, that I needed to recover from watching it before I went to sleep.

Somehow, AMC is pulling off the perfect non-adaptation adaptation. By diverging from the comic at key points in the show, the writers and producers have created something that's both similar to Kirkman's monster hit book and completely different.

Well done, I say. Well done.

Exfanding Review: ‘Salem’s Lot

Somehow I’ve managed to make it to the weekend, and, what’s more, I’ve even managed to have something of substance to write about for today.

Which, if you’ve followed the blog at all lately, is a bit of a change of pace for me. I’ve been the King of Innocuousness© this week and last, but all that changes today, as I write about a book that’s now nearly 40 years old.

Don’t be mean.

Anyway. Back to the almost-40-year-old book.

Somehow, amidst my crazy schedule of the past two weeks, I managed to squeeze in Stephen King’s seminal vampire novel, ’Salem’s Lot. Now, the fact that I made time to read the whole thing shows just how good the book was, as—you may have noticed—I haven’t had much time to do much of anything lately.

Written in 1975, ’Salem’s Lot is King’s second book, written and published after Carrie took the publishing world by storm a couple of years prior. When King wrote ’Salem’s Lot, he was still teaching high school English (it was a class on Science Fiction and Fantasy literature—wish I could have taken that in high school), and he was, like many Americans, at odds with the government.

Both those things had obvious impacts on his sophomore novel; the former in that one of the books assigned to the class was Dracula, and the latter becomes quite obvious while reading the text.

Now, clearly, I’m a horror fan.

And, as such, I’m quite familiar with the work of Stephen King. Oddly enough, though, I haven’t read all that much of the man’s bibliography. The work of his that has resonated deepest with me is actually a book called On Writing.

I say oddly because On Writing is not a horror book, but rather a book about (you guessed it) writing.

I’ve read the first two of the Dark Tower books, and I’ve started the third in that epic series. "Rita Heyworth and Shawshank Redemption" is one of my favorite stories ever, and I’m a proud owner of a first edition of the compilation book in which it appeared. I remember reading Green Mile back when the book came out in monthly installments—a format that I think is genius, and should be utilized today.

But King has many, many more books out there and as a horror fan I really have no excuse for skipping out on them. I’m working to rectify that, and I decided to start with ’Salem’s Lot.

In an interview long after the book was released, King said he set out to “create a fictional town with enough prosaic reality about it to offset the comic-book menace of a bunch of vampires.”

He succeeded.

’Salem’s Lot works on a lot of levels—allegorical tale of the intrusive reach of a corrupt government; portrait of a small New England town and the kinds of people who live in them to name a couple.

But where the novel really shines—where it really succeeds, I mean—is in its goal of being a wicked post-modern vampire story.

King set out to make nasty, scary, threatening vampires set in a world of modern technologies capable of laying waste to them rather quickly. And yet, there is still the feeling that no one is going to make it out of the story alive.

King’s vampires are a believable threat, even though they are of the classic, Stoker species—can’t enter a home unless invited, religious items have an effect on them, etc. Even with their myriad weaknesses, King’s vampires are dangerous and terrifying.

But the human characters are never completely overmatched—they’re smart, and brave, and they act selflessly when faced with an impossible reality. There’s that perfect balance of fear for—and belief in—the characters who make their way through the book and its horrors.

Which is something missing from so many horror stories, especially post-John Carpenter’s Halloween. In the vast majority of recent(ish) horror tales, you can pretty much guess who’s gonna bite it.

Or, I suppose, who’s gonna get bit.

Not so in ’Salem’s Lot. No, here King creates a world wherein every character is totally up for grabs, and that's the real horror in the story.

I've read a lot of vampire literature over the years, but now that I've read ’Salem’s Lot, I'm ashamed to say it's taken me so long to get to it. It's right up there with I Am Legend and, dare I say, Dracula.

And, really, that's the best comparison I can make--’Salem’s Lot is a modern day Dracula, revised and updated to fit into a contemporary society. Sure, it's a few decades old now and there are a number of anachronistic things that keep the setting from being timeless, but its message is still as relevant today as it was in the 1970s.

And it's still scary as hell.

Which, really, is all that matters.

Exfanding Review: Rob Zombie's Halloween

I'm gonna pick up right where I left off yesterday, and I've even included the text from that post so you don't have to go clicking around...

Also, just to be clear--there are spoilers in here about both John Carpenter's original film and the Rob Zombie remake, so if you haven't seen one of them, please tread lightly.

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So I watched Rob Zombie's reboot of Halloween. Keep in mind here that the original Halloween is one of my favorite films of all time, and it's certainly my favorite horror film of all time.

So when I first heard about this reboot several years ago, I was skeptical. And I like Rob Zombie--I'm a fan of his music and his filmmaking style.

But he has a tendency to go (way) too gory in his films and he uses the show of violence rather than the threat and implication of violence used so effectively in John Carpenter's original film.

I know fans of the series were kind of split by the news of the reboot--some loved the idea, others feared the worst.

I was in the middle. I figured I'd see the reboot eventually, but I wouldn't run out to the theaters to do so.

Well, as with most things with me, "eventually" turned out to be just about five years later. Still, I happily sat down to watch the film yesterday and I had high hopes for it.

As I mentioned, I'm a fan of Zombie's style, and his Halloween just...well, it just looks great. Really a killer (haha) cinematic look to the film.

And while that fact is in itself the complete antithesis to the original, I liked that this looked polished and expensive and new. Because it separated the two films right off the bat--Zombie's Halloween is not Carpenter's Halloween, and while Zombie certainly pays homage to Carpenter (and co-writer Debra Hill), Zombie manages to make his reboot something completely different and new.

And, frankly, quite good.

There are moments in the reboot where I wish the director had gone a different route--I prefer subtle horror rather than the kind of horror that (quite literally) mashes you over the head with extreme situations--but one cannot deny that Zombie has delivered a new and interesting Halloween for a fan base that has seen some clunkers in the years since Carpenter's original.

The best choice that Zombie makes in this new version is the different take on the series' most beloved character, Dr. Sam Loomis. Played here by Malcolm McDowell, we see Loomis in a new light. McDowell's Loomis almost struts around, proud and cocky, and is in direct opposition to Donald Pleasence's classic portrayal of the character.

While Pleasence plays Loomis as a man haunted by his failure to connect with a young Michael Myers and possessed by his singular mission of catching the adult Michael Myers, McDowell's doctor has some ulterior motives.

Yes, he is utterly concerned for Michael's well being and Loomis does all he can to help the (world's most) disturbed child. But this new Loomis has also written a book about his time with Michael, an act that adds in a bit of a wrinkle to the unwavering goodness that is Loomis in the early films.

Let me back up a bit, though.

In Zombie's film, we see Loomis as a younger man tasked with treating a 10-year-old Michael Myers after the child has murdered a school bully and then, on Halloween night, his father, sister, and his sister's boyfriend.

Zombie does what Carpenter did not--he shows us how Michael Myers became.

And here's another contentious aspect of the new film. This trip back to Myers' childhood turned off a lot of Halloween fans, because as Carpenter showed brilliantly in the first film, it really doesn't matter how he becomes what he becomes.

He just...is. He's pure evil, and there's no explanation needed beyond that.

But in Zombie's film we end up sympathizing with the murderer because we see the household in which Michael Myers was raised.

He grows up dirt poor, with a father (or step-father? That actually wasn't clear to me) who is a vile, hateful, abusive drunk, an older sister who shows nothing but contempt for her younger brother, a loving but utterly incapable mother who is trapped in an impossible situation, and a baby sister for whom Michael shows genuine affection.

The home--if you want to call it that--is a collection of real-life horrors, and watching the interaction between father and son makes you wonder how a child in that situation even has a chance at normalcy.

Watching it all play out, you know exactly what is going to happen to these characters on Halloween night, and frankly you don't mind watching it happen. There's my biggest problem with the flick.

In the original, Myers murders his sister for no reason whatsoever. He does it because, even as a child, he is the embodiment of evil--that is the horror movie monster John Carpenter created.

Here, though, we see that Myers is a perfect storm of both internal and external forces pushing him towards his eventual mania.

While I'm not big on this aspect of the film, I have to admit that I found the next part of the film quite interesting. We see Loomis working with young Michael in a psych ward and we see that Loomis cares deeply for this lost child who claims to have no recollection of Halloween night.

The relationship--which is hinted at in the early films--becomes evident here. At the beginning, Loomis connects with Michael. After a while though, Myers descends into his own madness and completely detaches from the world, and from Loomis.

After 15 years of an unresponsive patient, Loomis gives up and walks out on a now-grown Myers and goes off to sell his book on his most famous patient.

From there, the film dives into expected territory--Myers, who develops into a hulking 7-foot monster--escapes on Halloween night, yadda yadda yadda. We all know that part, and the last third of the movie (introduced by a blackly comedic title screen that reads, "Trick or Treat") falls into typical slasher movie mode with some genuine jump moments and some cliched horror film violence.

This Michael Myers, though, is scarier than previous incarnations. Maybe not psychologically scarier--nothing beats the creeping, supernaturally suggested terror of the first film--but certainly this Myers (played by the enormous Tyler Mane) is physically more imposing.

The Myers of the original Halloween has become very much like a Universal Studios monster of a time now past. Spooky, yes. Keep you up at night scary? not so much anymore. On the other hand, Mane's Michael Myers is huge, and strong, and believable when he breaks through a door.

I've heard that the sequel to Zombie's Halloween portrays Myers as more of a supernatural killing machine as opposed to just a very large, disturbed man who is capable of lots of damage. That's unfortunate, because Myers works incredibly well in this film.

Overall, I enjoyed the remake. I liked Loomis, but I didn't like the new depiction of Laurie Strode--Jamie Lee owns that role, and her turn as a self-assured, intelligent, capable young woman is certainly preferable to the horror movie screamer we get in this new film.

On that note, there's also way too many "naked and bloody girl crawling away from Michael Myers" shots in Zombie's film--it's as if the director can't help himself. He has to show the violence from beginning to end.

Even when the scarier route is to close the door and let the viewer's imagination run wild with what might be happening behind that closed door, Zombie still takes you inside the house and makes you watch everything.

However, it is also clear that there are scenes in this film that Zombie has had in his head for a very long time, and they are effective and brilliantly shot. There's one in particular that was especially striking.

After Laurie and the kids sprint up the stairs, the front door closes slowly and creakily. Because I was so focused on that door shutting and what that symbolized, I didn't notice Michael Myers standing in the corner, behind the door. When he appeared there, I jumped.

It was an iconic shot of an iconic horror character.

And since this review has gone on long enough, I'll leave it on that positive note. And I'll wrap things up by saying that I liked this film. However, unlike the original, I will not revisit Zombie's Hadonfield each year when the leaves turn colors.

If it's on TV I'll watch it; but I won't set my October clock to it as I do with Carpenter's Halloween. All in all, though, I enjoyed the film and I was more than pleasantly surprised with the final product.

Halloween Redux

Editor's Note: I'm going to apologize in advance for the lack of certain punctuation throughout this post. I'm (attempting to) post through my newly downloaded Blogger app on my phone, and I haven't yet figured out certain intricacies of the program.

Also, I'm really interested in seeing how an app-generated post looks on the blog itself.

Now that that's out of the way...

So yesterday I watched Rob Zombie's reboot of Halloween. Keep in mind here that the original Halloween is one of my favorite films of all time, and it's certainly my favorite horror film of all time.

So when I first heard about this reboot several years ago, I was skeptical. And I like Rob Zombie--I'm a fan of his music and his filmmaking style.

But he has a tendency to go (way) too gory in his films and he uses the show of violence rather than the threat and implication of violence used so effectively in John Carpenter's original film.

I know fans of the series were kind of split by the news of the reboot--some loved the idea, others feared the worst.

I was in the middle. I figured I'd see the reboot eventually, but I wouldn't run out to the theaters to do so.

Well, as with most things with me, "eventually" turned out to be just about five years later. Still, I happily sat down to watch the film yesterday and I had high hopes for it.

As I mentioned, I'm a fan of Zombie's style, and his Halloween just...looks great. Really a killer (haha) cinematic look to the movie.

There's a lot that I want to say about the film, but I am going to cop out and save the rest for tomorrow--typing on the phone is getting tedious.

Sorry, guys.

More tomorrow; I promise.

The Halloween That (Really) Wasn't

We was robbed, I tells ya.

In an ironic follow-up to last year's similarly titled post, this year I actually did manage to completely miss Halloween.

As in, for me, Halloween did not happen.

*Poof* and goodbye.

Because of the previously mentioned October snowstorm and the subsequent power outage(s), I was, quite literally, in the dark on Halloween.

And not in a good way.

And it wasn't just me. In several towns in Connecticut, Halloween was actually postponed. Because of all the trees and power lines down, Trick r' Treating was pushed back in many places to tomorrow (Saturday, November 5).

Imagine that--You only get five good Halloweens as a kid, and kids growing up now just got robbed of one. It's like that movie, only the witch decided not to take her annual ride, and Halloween was actually cancelled.

Huh.

As I've stated many times before, Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love horror movies and novels, creepy comics, and really, all things related to the season. I am a full-fledged citizen of Mr. Bradbury's October Country, and I look forward each year to the changing colors of the leaves.

This year, though. Yikes. This wasn't like forgetting to buy a pumpkin, nor was it like not having enough time to read a favorite holiday novel or comic.

This year?

This year there was no Santa--uh, I mean Jack Skellington. There was no Freddy or Jason or Dracula. But, what's worse, this year there was no Michael Myers. My favorite holiday, and my favorite horror movie.

And. I. Didn't. Get. To. Watch. It.

The lights were way, way out by Sunday and still quite hilariously out by Monday, and laptops were drained to start the weekend, so that option wasn't looking great. Still, I had to at least attempt to keep holy the one Halloween tradition I have never broken.

I was going to watch John Carpenter's original Halloween, no matter what. I simply had to see if Laurie Strode manages to get away this year.

So, despite the fact that my laptop had just below 20% power, and that I almost certainly should have saved some power for the week ahead, I popped the Blu-Ray into the player and the (glorious, creepy, and iconic) opening music flooded the two-inch speakers, adding a tinny ambiance to the kind-of-dark (it was in Energy Saver mode) 15-inch screen.

And I sat there, wrapped in blankets (no heat) and happily watched the film that I save for one viewing a year.

And it was everything I'd hoped for; everything I remember about the movie. And then, because I am a glutton for punishment (or because all writers must face more ironic situations than anyone else on Earth), as things just start heating up (on screen, I mean; definitely not in my house), I utter:

"Ya know, as long as Laurie Strode can get out of that closet every year, I think everything is going to be just fine."

And then the computer died.

With Laurie still stuck in the closet, Michael Myers hacking away at the door. A hopeless, dark scenario.

So, just to recap:

Alex's Halloween:


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Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Happy Halloween 2011!

Hallowe'en in a Suburb
By HP Lovecraft

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.


For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.


A chill wind weaves through the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.


Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.


So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
To shake all the world with awe.


And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.


Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penned,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

Now THIS is Halloween!

I tell ya. If I had the talent, the time, the patience, the talent, the vision, and/or the talent to do something like this? I still probably wouldn't do it because of how...ridiculously difficult it must have been to accomplish.

Take a look at this video of a Halloween lights display synched up to the theme song from The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's probably the coolest thing I've seen all Halloween season.



And be sure to check out the designer's YouTube channel for more incredible displays.

That Time of Year

First of all, it was October...

As I've mentioned many times on this blog, autumn is my favorite time of year, and October is my favorite month. Halloween, of course, is my favorite holiday, and now that we're officially in the Halloween Season (or, as Mr. Bradbury likes to call it, The October Country), it's the perfect time to start talking about all kinds of creepy, wonderful things.

Like my tattered, dog-eared copy of the horror anthology October Dreams, which I took down from its spot on the bookcase Saturday for a month-long string of familiar reads.

Creepy, wonderful.

Speaking of Mr. Bradbury. I've placed my trusty, well worn paperback of The October Country on the passenger seat in my car, waiting for lunchtime coffee shop revisiting.

Creepy, wonderful.

For something a little more current, I just got an email from Amazon alerting me that my 3-disc special edition blu-ray copy of The Walking Dead, season one, is on its way.

Creepy, wonderful.

'Round these parts, the leaves have just begun to change and the commercial assault of Halloween costume shops and pumpkin-spiced lattes has hit its stride. Networks are already running horror-themed programming and local haunted houses and hayrides are popping up all over the place.

I've already been invited to two Halloween parties, and people in my department have asked me what I'll be wearing on the 31st. As usual, I think I'll go as an editor with way too much work.

As I write this, I'm reminded that this year I have to buy a pumpkin. Somehow I managed to forget that staple of Halloween tradition last year.

I've busily gone through my Halloween Season film collection, and I've chosen a few that are Must Watches. Being that it's early, I still have some time to tinker with this list.

Lots to do, lots to do.

Soon enough, the reds and oranges will turn to brown, and the inevitable drive towards winter will eradicate all traces of the October Country. But for now--for these next 20-odd days--we're in the heart of it.

The creepy, wonderful heart of the October Country. And I, for one, couldn't be happier.

I Have Standards, You Know

Yesterday I was weighted down by my own indecision, and couldn't commit to any one of the three topics I wanted to write about: wedding planning, video games, and comics. After the day I had yesterday and the night before, I've got a story that encompasses all three topics.

But mostly video games.

When I wrote yesterday's post on Thursday night, I found myself continually coming back to the question of what video game(s) I should play next. It is unusual beyond unusual for me to have no single-player games going, but such times are typically the only times when I'm willing to take a chance on something...different. Here's the breakdown of what I had been playing:

I'd just finished Back to the Future: The Game, having started back in December 2010, when the episodic PC game series first began. Each episode only took me a few evenings to a week to complete, but at the rate I was able to actually sit down and take the time to play, each new episode was released right around the time I was just coming to the end of the previous one. Given how little waiting I actually did between episodes, it genuinely felt as though I had taken eight months to finish this game, and that's quite an investment.

I had recently conquered the final boss of Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS, read about how I was totally missing out on a bunch of sidequests that I could only unlock by rounding up a group of ten friends and exchanging Friend Codes with them, and proceeded to free up another 20 hours of my life by taking the game out of my DS and putting it in a safe place where the obsessive completionist in me would be reluctant to lazy to look for it.

I had just wrapped up a few weeks of love-'em-and-leave-'em platforming, enjoying a brief fling with Tobe's Vertical Adventure, visiting my old flame, Mega Man (the PC game, which I'll be reviewing on GameCola before too long), and suffering though a mercifully short relationship with Mega Man's sororal twin sister, Mega Man III. (OH, THE GENDER CONFUSION, IT HURTS.)

Two lengthy commitments and a string of one-night-stands all at the same time leaves a guy ready for a break, so it was a welcome change to have nothing whatsoever on my gaming to-do list. For one night. Then I started to get antsy, and wanted to get at least one new game going. I considered polling our blog readers, or asking for opinions on the Racketboy forums I used to frequent, but I started to find that I was already formulating a list in my head.

Ideally, I like to have three games going at any given time. As a self-imposed requirement, I must at all times adhere to my Standards for Upholding Variety in Gaming. The Standards are met by ensuring that each game I'm playing represents a different item from both of the lists below:

Genre:
- Adventure/Puzzle
- First-Person Shooter
- Platformer (as my favorite genre, this can be counted twice)
- Roleplaying
- Other

System:
- Console (NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii)
- Handheld (Game Boy/Color, GBA, DS)
- PC

It should be noted that I become progressively more lax about adhering to the Standards once I have three or more games going at once. I can't tell whether this all sounds more like common sense or complete nonsense, but it's a system that has served me well for many years nonetheless.

My normal procedure anymore when choosing a new game is to consult my Backloggery, scroll around until I find inspiration, or let the site's Fortune Cookie feature decide on my behalf what game I should play. Normal procedure was thrown out the window when a tremendous thunderstorm hit, and I hurriedly shut down my computer and retreated to the couch to read Dune for a while.

When the lights began to flicker, I shut off my lamp and sat in the dark for a moment, accepting my fate: I had no other suitable source of light on hand by which to read, and I wasn't about to put my PC or TV at risk of electrical overload. I had no recourse but to fetch my Game Boy Advance.

My initial thought was to try out Kirby & the Amazing Mirror. I'd been seeing a lot of references to the pink puffball on the Internet, and it had gotten me to think about how the most modern Kirby game I've played was released in 1995, when Bill Clinton was still in his first term as President. As I lifted the game out of my travel case, I noticed another game below it I had completely forgotten about--the Castlevania Double Pack.

I've played Castlevania, half of Castlevania II, and about an hour of Super Castlevania IV, and I can tell you right now that it's almost my type of game series. I'm a sucker for platformers, and the distinct game physics give the series a unique feel (which gets less painful the farther away you get from the original), and this is a big series that people like to talk about--so on one level, I'm curious. Still, it's a series featuring vampires and zombies and mummies and all those things people love around Halloween time, and I don't like Halloween. Ah, but the music is terrific.

It's a toss-up.

Much like I bought Kirby & the Amazing Mirror to get a handle on where the Kirby series has been in more recent years, I picked up the Castlevania Double Pack (featuring two games from 2002 and 2003, respectively Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow) to see what the Belmont clan was up to some twenty years after the days of Simon Robo-Belmont. Curiosity got the better of me.

Alone in my living room, pitch black except for the occasional flashes of lightning, utterly silent aside from the sudden cracks of thunder, I sat down to play a video game crawling with every possible iteration of the undead.

It was fantastic.

As far as I've observed, Castlevania has always been just creepy enough to have atmosphere and character without being over-the-top scary, and that held true for the twenty minutes I got to play Harmony of Dissonance before the Game Boy ran out of power. I was having a blast exploring Dracula's castle with a responsive character who could level up and be decked out with fancy equipment. It was so nice to have RPG elements without being a full-blown RPG like the ones I'd been playing for the past two years, with their interminable cutscenes and endless random battles.

I finally understood what people meant when they called the newer games Metroidvania, and the simple satisfaction of discovering new areas and collecting powerups without any stupid gimmicks or aggravating game design decisions to detract from the experience suddenly made me feel that much more unfulfilled by the last official Metroid game. Everything was fun because everything worked. Well, aside from the part where the game stopped working.

The timing of my Game Boy's battery failure was awkward. It was almost time for me to consider going to bed, which is both too early to go to bed and too late to do anything other than continue playing Castlevania on my Nintendo DS, which I knew still had some battery life left. Not that I had many options other than bed or video games, but still. Awkward time.

More awkward: Having your DS tell you that there is no game inserted in the game slot, when you have very clearly just loaded the Castlevania Double Pack. Maybe two games was just too much for the system to handle. I was annoyed, because I was in the middle of one of the best gaming highs I'd had in a while, but I was willing to settle for a time-waster DS game, like Metroid Prime Pinball or Tetris DS. If the GBA game slot wasn't being recognized, at least the DS game slot would be.

Or not.

I can only assume that my DS is affected by the weather, because none of the games I shoved into it were recognized during the thunderstorm. I chalk it up to that, or to fumbling around in the dark with sensitive electronic equipment. Two portable gaming systems rendered completely useless for totally different reasons. At least I now had a substitute flashlight; the DS screen glows pretty brightly. Except I was too angry to strap the DS to my head so I could have enough light to read. "Fine! I'll go to bed!" was my response.

Last night was worse, yet somehow better. My plan was simple, as plans that fail always are: get home from work, watch a few YouTube videos over dinner, do some vital wedding planning (see, I told you there'd be wedding planning), call my family to say hello, and then do some writing before capping off the evening with more Castlevania.

What ended up happening was that I got halfway through dinner, received a phone call that led to another phone call that had me talking with my family during that awkward time where you want and need to talk, except your dinner is getting cold, and then hung up the phone to hear that another thunderstorm had overtaken the neighborhood. I died a little inside, turned off my computer, and brought my dinner into the living room, where I still dared to leave a lamp on in the midst of the cataclysm outside. Doggone it, I was not going to bed at 7:30.

It also occurred to me that I should plug in my Game Boy, if only for a few minutes, to ensure I still had something to do if the power cut out. I made a mental note to buy a proper reading light this weekend, along with five other Game Boys as backup. For the moment, though, I had ample light for reading, so I fetched a Star Trek trade at random from my bookshelf and sat down to read The Modala Imperative over dinner, and until the storm cleared. (See? I told you there'd be comics.)

I was a few paragraphs away from the end of Walter "Chekov" Koenig's introduction when my apartment lost power entirely. I unplugged the charging Game Boy, flicked the On switch, and panicked for a moment when it didn't turn on. I flicked the switch again, and all was well again. The battery light seemed to indicate I might not have to go to bed at 7:30 after all. I settled in for almost two hours of pure gaming, and I would've stayed there until the battery died on me again if the storm hadn't eventually cleared up and permitted me to get back to the wedding planning and blogging I had been meaning and needing to do.

I had officially found my first new game, though, and I hadn't (and haven't) been this enthusiastic about playing through a game since I picked up (and quickly finished) VVVVVV back in January. It looks like there are enough secrets to keep me busy awhile, but I'm still making excellent progress. Now I need two more games to add to my active roster.

I'm thinking that, to satisfy my Standards for Upholding Variety in Gaming, I should go with a 3-D platformer for the Wii and an adventure/puzzle game for the PC this time. Specifically, I'm looking at either Donkey Kong Country Returns (which is technically a 2-D 3-D platformer) or Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, and Police Quest III: The Kindred for the PC.

There's a third and fourth aspect of my Standards that I'm taking into consideration here: Games that were given as gifts by friends or family should be part of the lineup whenever possible (which is the case for the Wii games), and games that bring me closer to writing an Exfanding post about a series are encouraged (which is the case with Police Quest).

However, I'm open to suggestions--the universe seems to be telling me to play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, for example; I was toying with the idea of installing it (and its two expansion packs) on my computer when I found I had no more active games to play, as this might be the only time I'd be willing to sign myself up for what will probably be the lengthiest RPG experience I've ever undertaken. I dismissed the idea, citing to myself that I'd been playing RPGs continuously for the past two years, if not longer, few of which were completely worth the time spent playing them. Then I got a message from another Backloggery user who was currently playing Morrowind and Castlevania, and then my Backloggery fortune cookie also told me to play Morrowind.

I think it's going to be a matter of which install CD I find first--Morrowind or Police Quest. Though, as I said, I'm open to suggestions.

Season One of The Walking Dead

Last night, AMC aired the much-anticipated season one finale of their critically acclaimed zombie-fest, The Walking Dead. This show has literally captivated millions of viewers, breaking all kinds of cable TV ratings in the process.

I'd like to talk a bit about the show, and the comic, so please be warned--there are SPOILERS AHEAD, and there will be throughout this post, so if you haven't yet watched all six episodes and/or read through the first trade collection of the comic, now's your chance to jump ship. Well, actually, these next few lines of dashes are your last chance.

But after the dashes...it's your own fault if something gets spoiled.

-- -- --

-- -- --

-- -- --

-- -- --

I can't believe everyone died!!! Sorry. Just wanted to completely freak out anyone who may have wandered past my system of dashes.

Seriously, now. SPOILERS AHEAD:

I've heard two main criticisms of AMC's adaptation--first, it's too different from the comic. And second, it's too similar to the comic. Ah, fandom, how I love your crazy, contradictory attitudes towards everything on the planet.

Whenever a story is taken from one medium and transferred to another, it's inevitable that someone's favorite bits will be left out, while someone else's least favorite bits will be kept in.

And made a recurring theme. Or something.

But in the case of Walking Dead, I truly feel that the TV folks are keeping the series very much in the same vein as the comic book. It's a dark, bleak show--hopeless, at times--and that comes directly from writer Robert Kirkman's comic scripts.

Aside from episode two's weird, rock n' roll playing, cool car driving ending, there hasn't been a hint of levity in the series. And, as readers of the comic know, any time something (just a little bit) good happens, brace for impact, because things are about to get very, very bad.

Like in last night's episode.

A drunken, happy, relieved Rick? Yep. You just knew the zombies were gonna mess that up. Or, you know, the building was going to self destruct and kill everyone inside.

Personally, I wasn't thrilled with the introduction of the CDC, and the whole government facility in general when it was introduced last week. However, last night's finale sold me on it as a solid--and sensible--plot point.

The group is in Atlanta, the actual CDC is in Atlanta--it makes sense that they'd at least try getting to the building.

We also saw a much darker turn for the Shane character--something that's very much necessary if Shane's fate in the TV series is to match his fate in the comic series. He's a man on the brink, and for the first time, we see that he's a real, live threat to Rick and his family.

Episode six leaves our group at a perfect place from which to start season two--it's more or less a clean slate, with a couple of dangling, and interesting, plot points. Besides the major Shane-Rick feud that's brewing, we have Michael Rooker's Merle character--who is not featured in the comic--as a looming, ever-present threat to everyone on the show.

And, of course, there are all those pesky zombies out there.

Season one was a huge success--both financially for AMC and critically for the creators--and I cannot wait for season two. I'm interested in everyone else's thoughts, though, so please chime in!

...and suddenly, Halloween is fun again.

I think this may have been my favorite Halloween season since I was a kid. And as we all know, I don't like Halloween. Shocking. The key difference between this year and the past several years is that Halloween was not forced upon me.

Nobody subjected me to a ghastly horror film. The Internet was more interested in the new Back to the Future game than spooks and specters. I saw more signs of Christmas than Halloween while out shopping. It was as though the world had forgotten Halloween (and when Christmas takes place).

Can you believe that? Of all people, I had to be the one to carry on the tradition of Halloween.

I knew I'd be away all day on Halloween, but I bought a bag of candy and left a bowl outside my door for any wandering trick-or-treaters. I was one of two people to contribute anything Halloween-themed to GameCola. I finally busted out the Alien post I've had in mind for at least a year just because it was Halloween. I willingly attended a costume party without being begged or pestered. I began demanding that Alex show me a horror movie I hadn't seen because he was too overloaded to enjoy Halloween otherwise.

The strangest thing occurred to me when I was shaving off my manly beard in preparation for my stupid-easy party costume. I was dressing up like Kyo from the anime Fruits Basket, which requires only a black t-shirt, cargo pants, and a bead bracelet (which my Significant Other was kind enough to make me a Halloween or two ago).

Kyo is clean-shaven and has orange hair, but the last time I changed my hair color for a costume, it went from red to purple to pink and caused serious color-staining damage to a friend's bathroom (sorry again). So, clean-shaven would be good enough. Yet as I started shaving, I started imagining other possibilities. Pork chops and Super Troopers mustaches. Perhaps I could assemble a costume that required actual effort. I owned a bowler hat; perhaps a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes would be in order.

I was actively thinking of the fun I could have by finding a beard-powered Halloween costume.

Left to my own devices, I'm shocked to say that I can actually have a great deal of fun with Halloween. I used to enjoy dressing up in costume, and I still do it on occasion for conventions. The zombie-themed Flash Flood column I wrote was one of the most enjoyable to write, in part because it was so out of character for me. I could indulge in the basic principals of Halloween (costumes, candy, and whatever's creepy) on my own terms.

Do you know how I spent my Halloween evening? Watching Army of Darkness and Predators with friends. Had it been any other night leading up to Halloween, I might have even been willing to do Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street or somesuch, but the mere fact that it was Halloween and I was expected to watch a scary movie made me less inclined to do so. Since when did scary movies become so psychological?

Alternately, it could've been because I had just filled up on pig pizza--a few slices of delicious, greasy ham and bacon are not the best way to kick off a gut-wrenching horror movie marathon. You should've heard me trying to weasel my way out of Poltergeist. "We could watch Ghost--that's sorta the same thing, right?"

Either way, I still had fun, and I still watched at least one movie I was unlikely to watch without the prompting of Halloween. Best of all, I discovered that, after all these years, there might still be a shred of affection for Halloween left in me.

Let's not push it, though.

The Halloween That Almost Wasn't...and Still Kind of Isn't

So, Thursday night, I had a brilliant idea.

Since I'm pretty much on another planet this whole weekend, and since I've been almost entirely unavailable this whole month, Nathaniel and I never actually got around to watching the horror movie(s) I was going to introduce him to.

You know, for Halloween.

He's (somehow) managed to live into adulthood without ever seeing John Carpenter's seminal October classic, Halloween, and that was to be one of the films I would exfand upon him. The others in the running were The Shining, the Evil Dead movies, and Bubba Ho-Tep.

Bubba Ho-Tep, of course, was there as a come-down from whatever terrifying flick I was to first subject him to.

I told Nathaniel that, since he's a newbie to horror films, I wouldn't subject him to The Exorcist just yet, since that would most likely end up being the last horror flick he'd ever see. It tends to have that kind of effect on people. Still, The Exorcist is a movie that--in a weird way--I love.
Writing that last line, I have to admit--it's hard to say you "love" The Exorcist. It's a film that's very difficult to actually sit through, and the book is even tougher to read. But at its core, that story is the oldest one ever told--it's good versus evil for the life of an innocent child.

And yet the ending is one of the most controversial in recent film history. Who won in that last scene? It's all a matter of perception, I guess. But that's what makes the story so great, and so easy to love.

As a film, The Exorcist is stunning. A good chunk of the movie is shot indoors, in a single room. And yet the film captivates the audience. The filmmakers dare the audience not to turn away.

And that's tough.

There are parts of that film that I've tried to forget, but know I never will. But it's not done for shock value or for cheap screams. The horror in The Exorcist is real. When you watch that flick, you're in that room. You're there. Everything is happening to you, and you are every character.

Because you can relate to every character in that movie. And that's terrifying.

But I'm getting off topic. I was talking about my brilliant idea on Thursday night. We needed to do something Halloween-ish, and Thursday looked like the one sliver in our schedules that would allow a few minutes of stupid fun.

There's a new, seasonal Halloween shop that opened up not far from Exfanding HQ, so I emailed Nathaniel on Wednesday and asked if he'd like to meet me at the store Thursday night. Despite his utter detestation of the holiday, Nathaniel agreed.

Mostly, I think, to humor me.

I love costume shops. And magic shops. And especially seasonal Halloween stores. I love all that cheap, cheap merchandise, and the guy behind the counter who somehow manages to be a mix between Comic Book Guy and Jimmy, the guy at my old office whose job it was to remove the asbestos.

So I was excited about heading to the store. I figured we'd get there, and I'd drag Nathaniel around and show him all sorts of weird stuff that no one in his or her right mind would or should enjoy.

What I didn't expect was to find the worst seasonal Halloween store that ever was.

Seriously. The worst. Instead of laughing at the weird and cheap plastic spiders and fog machines and things, we were struck by how...sad...the store seemed. Even though it was packed (lots of last-minute shoppers who didn't want to brave the lines of the Party City across the street), the store itself was so bad at being a seasonal Halloween store that I left feeling a little bummed out.

But then Nathaniel realized that he needed to buy milk. So we went to the grocery store. And that last event made this--officially--the best worst Halloween week ever.

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Oh, and brownie points to whoever gets the title reference.

Alien: Science-Fearction

The reason I don't do horror movies has little to do with being scared and everything to do with the content and presentation. It doesn't take a lot of blood to make me queasy. Sharp objects make me nervous. Zombies gross me out; vampires make me cringe; werewolves...I guess I'm okay with werewolves.

Aliens, though...

If you ever want me to watch a horror flick with you, the part where it's a horror flick needs to be tacked on at the end, after you've already sold me. Tell me it's about aliens or something:

"You gotta watch this movie. There's a very cool alien styled by H. R. Geiger. The film's an American classic. IN SPACE. It's been referenced in geek culture ever since it came out. It's actually pretty plausible sci-fi. It's dark and suspenseful. There's some great action. It's awesome."

Sold!

"...Oh, and by the way, it's also the most terrifying movie known to man."

...

...

...

...Still sold.

This is effectively how I found myself watching the sci-fi horror classic Alien, a movie which spawned a long-lived (longer than most of the movie's characters, anyhow) line of feature films, novels, comic books, video games, creepy action figures, and...PEZ dispensers?

A truly comprehensive discussion of the Alien franchise would require an entire week of posts, but Alien doesn't strike me as the kind of franchise where an in-depth look at all the media and merchandise is necessary to cultivate a greater appreciation for the property.

In contrast to many other fandoms, you can be a bona-fide Alien fan by watching just one movie. The aliens are the main attraction; story continuity is more of an excuse to make another film, and most of the spinoffs are self-contained adventures that provide variations on the concepts of the films. In other words, one exposure to an installment of the Alien franchise gives you almost everything you need to know.

Compare this to the vast expanded universe of Star Wars, where watching all six films barely qualifies you to be in the same room as a guy wearing handmade Boba Fett underpants.

That being said, an overview of the Alien movies should prove to be ample introduction to the fandom. Enough exposition already; let's get face-hugging!


Alien (1979)

"In space no one can hear you scream." Though the movie's tagline has become one of the biggest clichés in cinema, it's a dead-on description for the film.

Alien takes place on a commercial freighter ship, the Nostromo, in a part of space far, far removed from any trace of civilization. The crew awakens from stasis to answer a distress signal (which is, admittedly, a sign of civilization), and what they find could cost their company a fortune in worker's comp fees...

Alien is frequently cited as one of the best horror and/or science fiction films of all time because it succeeds on so many levels. Cinematically, the pacing is perfect and the tension and fear build at all the right times and in all the right ways. Cerebrally, it's got enough symbolism and Big Questions to keep the critics and philosophers thinking. Everything works, from the script to the acting to the music.

Alien's greatest strength is the ability to leave just enough unsaid or unseen, allowing the viewer to stay suspended in mystery and to fill in the blanks with the most terrifying things their imagination can produce. Even the fact that the alien is just called "alien" is creepy; refraining from naming the species makes the alien that much more of a faceless terror...


Aliens (1986)

The series goes plural. Alien features exactly what its title advertises--one alien. The sequel has scads of 'em. Somebody had the bright idea to build a colony on the alien homeworld of LV-426. I think you can guess what happens from there. I think you can also guess what happens to the team sent to investigate the suspiciously silent colony.

Aliens is definitely more action-oriented than its predecessor, having switched directorial hands from Ridley Scott to JAMES CAMERON. In most cases, a distinct shift in feel from one installment to the next can cause a ruckus amongst fans, but both films are handled so well that I find myself genuinely unable to decide which one I prefer.

The first movie conjured up scares because the alien is a total unknown--the viewer and the characters are learning for the first time what the alien can do and how ineffective any attempts to stop it are. With the sequel, the alien is a known quantity. A scary quantity. Attacking in droves. You know what they're going to do, but the characters don't, and that can be just as scary.

Aliens succeeds because it radically builds on its source material in a meaningful and eye-popping way, while still maintaining the essence of what made the original so interesting to watch.


Alien³ (1992)

There's an alien on the loose in an industrial prison colony. And oops, the prisoners aren't allowed to carry weapons. Poor planning on the part of the wardens, I guess.

Alien³ is unquestionably the Rocky V of the Alien series. Everything feels...off. The basic premise is something of a rehash of the first movie, but real surprises are few and far between.

The tense, creepy atmosphere has been replaced by a dark, uncomfortable air of religious obstinance mixed with the stink of grungy prisoners. Worse yet, the film effectively throws away anything it had to work with from Aliens, further separating it from the greatness of the first two films.

It's not entirely Alien³'s fault. As I understand it, the entire production was a mess, with directors switching at the drop of a hat, scripts being tossed out left and right, and filming occurring before the actors had a finalized script! The movie still has a great deal of character and its fair share of scares, but most fans of the series will likely find this one unpalatable.


Alien Resurrection (1997)

A scientific experiment gone wrong leaves aliens running amok aboard a research vessel. Mankind's only hope is a ragtag band of cannon fodder led by a genetically altered clone who has more than a little in common with the aliens...

Alien Resurrection is generally considered to be marginally better than Alien³, but still atrocious. In truth, the best way to approach Alien Resurrection is to ignore the Alien legacy and judge the film on its own merits. In other words, look at it as any ol' sci-fi survival thriller. You'll enjoy it more.

The acting may not be as convincing, the special effects might look cheesier, and the plot might be a little iffy at times, but there are a number of memorable moments that make Alien Resurrection worth watching, especially if you suffered through Alien³ to get here.

The creepiness comes less from the ambiance and more from spending any length of time thinking about the ideas the movie raises. The clone premise allows for some interesting character development possibilities, as well. Even when there's no violence, some of the visuals in the film are downright disgusting, and yet somehow compellingly weird. Even if the execution isn't as wonderful as the previous films, there are still some neat ideas.


Alien vs. Predator (2004)

We've officially crossed the line from sci-fi horror to mindless sci-fi action. The whole notion of aliens fighting the titluar characters from the Predator movies comes from a scene in Predator II where an Alien skull can be seen in a sort of Predator trophy room; this rivalry has been a popular premise for more than one video game, and more than one feature film (for better or for worse).

Taking place in modern-day Antarctica, AvP is a prequel where a group of human explorers gets caught up in a showdown between Aliens and Predators. It's harmless fun with a few cool scenes, but ultimately only necessary if you're a completionist or not yet at a point in your life where you could stomach/appreciate the other films in the series.


Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

We've officially crossed the line from mindless sci-fi action to brutal slasher flick. A lone Predator travels to modern-day Earth in response to a distress signal from another Predator ship that crashed into Colorado thanks to those meddling Aliens. EVERYTHING DIES. In the most gruesome ways possible.

I'm going to use capital letters again. NOTHING IS SACRED. The movie goes out of its way to brutalize and mutilate someone from every demographic, and I'm not just talking about race. AvP:R is unsettling and disturbing. At least some of the action sequences are cool. Also, a bonus point for the best cheap scare in the entire series.

But mostly, I felt sick to my stomach and had to look away from the screen every 20 minutes.


It's improbable that any given person will like every entry in the Alien series, but there's enough of a mix that sci-fi junkies, horror fans, and mindless action aficionados will all find something to like. If you're a fan of Metroid, you'll like the Alien franchise--and you'll also notice some striking similarities. (Spoilers!)

In short, watch Alien, and see what happens from there.

If nothing else, it's not as scary as E.T.

On Halloween and The Walking Dead

As I sit down to write this, it's a perfectly bleak October day. Gray sky, leaves scritching across the pavement, just enough of a chill in the air.

:sigh: Fine.

That's not exactly true. You see, we're experiencing an unseasonably warm week here at Exfanding HQ, and the sun is shining, and last night's rain has made sure that not even a single felled leaf is capable of "scritching across the pavement."

And, even though we're expecting a cold weekend, and with it a cold Halloween night, it's utterly appropriate that things are unseasonable. Because, as much as I love Halloween, I've just had no time to enjoy the season.

And this weekend won't get any better.

I'll be lucky if I mix in my annual Halloween day viewing of John Carpenter's classic film, or if I manage to crack open my copy of Ray Bradbury's timeless, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
(It might be the night he came home, but it'll be the day I do yard work.)

I just haven't had time to enjoy my October. And I really do feel like this month is mine. Obviously, as longtime readers know, I love horror books and movies, and my comics reading almost always slants towards the scary.

Call my crazy, but I'm a fan of the creepy. Always have been, and I'd imagine, always will be.

There's just nothing better than a dark, atmospheric, Gothic novel, or a comic book that actually makes me wince before turning the next page. Like Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead--quite possibly the best horror comic the medium has ever seen.

Most comics people are aware of Kirkman's zombie apocalypse masterwork, and many weekly LCS shoppers have this book on their pull list--either month-to-month in the single issues, or by trade or hardcover. I like the hardcovers, because you get 12 issues at a clip. Plus, they look cool on the shelf.

But, come Sunday night, when AMC debuts their television adaptation of Kirkman's series, methinks there will be a whole new legion of readers looking for the trades. And, while I don't think they'll go to comics shops to find them, I do think the big chain bookstores needs to stock up, and stock up fast.
I like the idea of the series debuting on Halloween night--it's appropriate, certainly. But I think the network--and the book--may have been better served had they debuted last week, so stores had the full Halloween week to move product.

From all accounts, the show seems like it'll be a hit, and AMC has already picked up a second season.

Like Watchmen, Walking Dead (the comics series, I mean) will feel the impact of the new show, and I expect the book to move record numbers of a black and white indie.

Which is great for comics, for a couple of reasons.

First, maybe some folks will wander in an actual comics shop when Amazon inevitably sells out of the books, and when Borders only has volumes 2, 7, and 9. It's a long shot, but hey, I'm a dreamer.

Second, and more important for the medium, is that The Walking Dead--more than even Watchmen, I'd argue--can show people what comics are capable of.

Now, let's be clear here. I am by no means comparing the two books. Watchmen is superior to anything else this medium has produced, period. I honestly believe that. But, with Watchmen comes exactly that tag line--"the best graphic novel of all time."

People read it, go WOW!, and then stop because they've read the best the medium has to offer. I have several non-comics friends who have read Watchmen, loved it, but refuse to read anything else--even if it's another Alan Moore book!

Which is tragic, but true.

Watchmen is self-contained. You buy the graphic novel, read it, and it's done. With something like The Walking Dead, a book that is ongoing and has trades that ship every couple of months, new readers get to experience the waiting game that all comics fans go through month to month.
And I think that will add to the experience, and to the anxiety that builds over the course of the series. In many ways, Kirkman's series is the perfect TV show--tension builds from issue to issue of the comic, and unlike most mainstream comics today, there are real and lasting changes to the core group of characters.

No one is safe in a Kirkman book, and mainstream TV fans are going to learn the hard way that they better not get too attached to anyone in the series.

That's the other thing about Walking Dead--it's a comic book that prominently features death. Death literally stalks these characters, and while the zombies are the Big Bad, it's the emotional toll of isolation and the constant fear of their new surroundings that makes Walking Dead such a mesmerizing read.

So get ready, everyone, because this Sunday might just be the beginning of a Very Good Time to be a comics fan.