Getting into the Grindhouse

After seeing Django Unchained last night, I was thinking about the revivalist Grindhouse films cropping up more in recent years. It's a trend that has had promise and some times gets elements of it right but normally never the complete film. Django is not exception to this despite this being ground which has kept Tarantinos career afloat for years , even in the case of Jackie Brown taking the risk of just being out right boring. I don't think I have ever stayed awake for the entirety of that film.

The blatant homage in the Grindhouse film which was the double feature of Death Proof and Planet Terror. I like planet terror and would put it in my top fifty horror movies list. Death proof had hot chicks and stylistically worked on a few levels but I think took the joke and ran too far. Sure every hipster is going to try and tell you Hobo with a Shotgun is great when it is absymal on almost every level. I will even go as far to saw the Hachet films are basically Grindhouse homages, though very influenced by Troma films which was influenced by the Grindhouse era as well.

With Django , I initially didn't want to see it because it looked too black power for me. Though I do like some Blackplotation , mainly just the Pam Grier films, and Scream Blacula Scream. Tarintino I think took too many of those films to heart as a kid and has some personal indentity issues involving race, almost a reverse racism.

It's Cristoph Waltz who steals the show just as he did in Inglorious Bastards which I found to be superior to Django. I did like to see Waltz play Victor Frankenstein, I think he would make the character very sympathetic or Baron Mordo in the Dr. Strange movie. The naziplotation sub genre is among my favorite , while I prefer the Ilsa movies , I think Iron Sky though overly comedic did an admirable job.

One element with Django is there were several good rape opportunities passed up and this seems to be a sticking point with Tarrantino is he never commits to rape unless it's the man on man in Pulp Fiction...un well, I'm all for equal choices in sexuality so to Judging maybe he needs to come out of the closet. I think the graphic rape depictions is hat put the x in the exploitive nature of Grindhouse. Without it why else were women getting naked unless it was a Russ Meyer film, and even then Russ knew how to use rape. It's the debasement of humiliation that really sells it and darkens the tone of these films. I think I made it known my outrage at the Grey Anatomy nature of the rape I the Straw Dogs remake , which is what made run Bitch run so great.

Speaking of great why not take a look at my list of top ten Modern Grindhouse films

10- Candy Stripers- sci fi with seductive alien women mating with Teenagers, the cgi is pretty bad but this is entertaining like breeders was

9-Intlorious Bastards- aside from the liberties with history one of the better nazi movies beats out the visual superior tone of Iron Sky because it's not as blatantly comedic

8- Sheitan - well a girl jacks off a dog at one point and it brought a second date to Satans still so that's worth something, pretty creepy

7-visitor q- this house guest incites incest and ll other lactating wackiness , oh the Asians

6- Pervert- just because Mary Carey is in it doesn't disqualify this homage to russ Meyer as porn

5-Planet Pyscho- this is too tongue in check to be horror and could have used some rape

4-run bitch run- the star is hot and neo ally don't like blondes, but some rop rape and humilitation as well as it captured the tone of spit on your grave better than the remake.

3-the devils rejects- rob only gave us a tease of the rape jd I hoped for a horror movie but as action flicks go its good

2- I saw the devil- revenge and torture rolled into one an excellent film

1- old boy- one of my favorite film ever , this dominates any Bronson or dirty Harry film

Dexter: Season Seven

Spoilers ahead.


While I enjoyed this season, it was more crime drama and much less serial killing. factors adding into this the love themed under current, the mafia involvement and the non gruesome manner Dexters Intrest co shared the Billing with Laguerda as the big bad. The only real horror element was the bull masked Labyrinth killer.

Despite this season being one of the least horrific seasons of Dexter having more in common with season two or five than the darker Trinity or Doomsday killers, it has packed some of the more emotional punches of the shows tenure. I was particularly struck by the conversation in the gay bar about love vs reason was extremely powerful stuff and it looks like love is theme of this season. Also the complexities of Dexter's relationship with Deb have really gone above and beyond on the writing this year. Last season I was able to say American Horror Story was the best show on t.v , so I'm not sure with the influx of horror on tv if the writers knew they were going to be able to match horror shows Creep factor so stepped up their game in character development Becuase at the end of the day death in horror movies can seem like clay pigeons in a shooting gallery if there is no investment in the character. I think Deb killing Laguerda had more impact than if Dexter had dome it because she had become too annoying for her death to have as much of an impact if he had.While the show has proven no one has to die its not like the have Joss Whedon on board , they have set the bar high when they killed Dexters wife.

Now approaching season eight, perhaps Deb's involvement is the biggest leap over the proverbial shark. I can appreciate the low note the season ended on not as much of a cliff hanger but still many loose ends which need tying, such as the escapee girlfriend who leaves a plant at the door, will this squash Angel's retirement plans? Quinn and Angel's sister could be a thing and draw battle lines should it turn Deb and Dexter against the world, moving Angel into a place Laguerda use to occupy. There is no way for this to be brushed under the carpet with no loose ends to tie, we can see how those things came back to haunt them from season six.

It's rumored eight is going to be the final season and even as much as I love the show it would be better for it to bow out gracefully. The writers have said point blank there is no way they are going to let dexter just ride off into the sunset, so getting killed or caught are the only two options , I think they see. The fact that this season Dexter has become so sloppy and makes so many mistakes is a sign of the acceleration , breaking from his code and losing control. Particularly how insistent he was with Deb that he has everything under control is really the only scene where Dexter appears to be you typical Hollywood crazy. I could see them letting him unravel like American Pyscho type thing. It would be nice if they consulted Jeff Lindsay about how to end it, while I know he is trying to distance the books from the show, it's his character so I feel he should have some input as to how it should go down.

Like Norman Bates before him, Dexter is an easy protagonist because he is so relatable, the fact he kills bad guys and is an antihero played into the shows favor so I will be curious if they think they can turn it around now he is not just killing bad guys anymore, his escapee girl friend on the run will still serve as a bad , so will they need another big bad? Or will the bad guy be Dexter? Or Will it be Angel vs Dexter, which I would feel would be a mismatch as he wasn't a very competent deceive perhaps if he teamed up with Quinn Becuase the story arc of Quinn being suspicious of Dexter faded pretty fast , it would make sense they bring in the FBI again to investigate Laguerda's death.

Speaking of Norman Bates, the Bates Motel show looks like its going to be another Cw teen drama, the Dawson's Creek murders. But with Dexter coming off the table I think there will be an influx of shows wanting to take its place. The Following looks to be the most promising, the serial killer in seems to twirl the old mustache too heavily when he talks but maybe it was just the clip, and the Edgar Allen Poe motiff wouldn't make it for the long haul. After this Season's Bloody Face , I don't see American Horror Story revisiting serial Killers. This leaves the little discussed Hannibal which if done right I think could be the winner to take the vacant throne.

Excision

While until the last few minutes of the movie you would be hard pressed to call this horror, this movie does cut away into these really pretty fantasy sequences where the misanthropic teenage girl fantasizes about surgical blood shed of an erotic nature. In some ways this is a coming of age film as it explore a female perspective on the horrors of losing your virginity. the actual act takes on a very calculated and cold execution which is the one moment where the fact this was written by a male screen writer is apparent, unless the goal was to show her as a sociopath.

Mccord's character is no Dexter Morgan when it comes to being a sociopath , as she has the range of your typical teenage angsty stuff just amped up by way of say ....Ghost world with a side of Daria. I also feel a little Heathers vibe at times from this movie, but with the surreal gore interludes. If you are a total gore ghoul who masturbates to a Serbian film , then these sequences aren't going to do much for the desensitized, if you like pretty lesbian hinted corpse crawling then grab the lube.

The violence in this film is hinted at rather than graphically depicted, she only really has three episodes of it and one of them is a locker beatdown at school. Her disdain for the world around her could have been further fleshed out as her overbearing mother , cuckhold father and sleazy therapist/priest, don't seem to warrant a psychotic twist, though at that age you do tend to overact to everything, hell half my Facebook friend who are supposedly adults overreact to every thing but the almost Carrie nature of it is what leaves the film feeling like so many other movies I have mentioned.

John waters , Traci Lords and Marlee Matlin , who is not hotter than the puffy gave lords, all fill out a cast with a few other surprises for genre fans. I can see this developing a cult following though the direct to video nature of its release might hamper this, I'm not sure why it didn't receive distribution as the out put from art house theater has been boring.

It was going to be hard for this one to live up to the trailer and still be straddling the dark comedy fence. The horror movie John Waters would make if he was going to make one? Some of the awkwardly paced dialogue makes you wonder if they were going for the David Lynch thing. The monologues to god were the only parts which gave away the face budget went for their effort to pay for the shining stars of cult b lists. I was entertaining despite the films flaws in production and dialogue even though this was not a horror movie I have no qualms about recommending to people who might
Ike this sort of thing , even though I'm still trying ToddiGirl out what this sorts off thing was.

666 Park Avenue

Well it's safe to say American Horror Story still doesn't have any competition when it comes to horror on t.v.  Supernatural and even some episodes of Buffy are bothe scarier  than the pilot for 666 Park Avenue.  I was surprised how suspension of disbelief was thrown out the window in an almost Stuart Gordon manner, where we have from beyond portals opening and sucking people away. There are secret occult orders and Faustian pacts being made, a ghost and Pyschic  so far and I wouldn't be surprised if the exhibitionist neighbor who likes taking off her clothes in the window turned to be a succubus

I think the show might be more effective if it played it the subject matter straight and less like the old Friday the thirteenth show and more like rosmary's baby. Some money was sunk into this though the effects aren't what I would expect from abc. The building has the potential to be the  overlook hotel of network tv, but the show is going to need to take a darker tone and take its self seriously if you are going to imitate  another show pick up on the parts that worked like how the stakes seemed higher when you were made to believe this was real. Sure American Horror had ghosts coming out of the wood work and more people were dead than alive by the final episode but it never hocus pouched us, I think if some sort of Majick or nefarious figure were brought into the show it would have been handled Ina matter that didn't wink so heavily at the camera.


Another problem and it could be the writing is the casts chemistry was off in a few keyholes mainly the Maine husband and wife duo, which seems to be a crucial element. I think if they killed off the writers wife in the seconds episode it would raise the stakes a little and show you no one is safe.If you are like me and watching stuff like Grimm or Lost girl then the show won't be asking too much from you in the suspension of disbelief dept., I am going to give it a shot as we are going to be waiting awhile for the Munsters and I need something to make me forget I'm waiting around for season two of American horror story.

Dexter - New Season Premiere

There's no way to talk about what's going on in the first episode of Dexter's seventh season, so it goes without saying that spoilers are a head. First off I think the best element of how this season has started its  focal point is on Dexter and the side stories are not so prominent. Sure there is a lot of investigation and  contemplation on Deb's part and once a stray slide is found other suspicion is cast.

I see the fact a kill followed Dexter's big slip up so closely this is the beginning of his spiral out of control, the fact he now feels the compulsion to gain control and sees his dark secret as the solution when his back  is against the wall doesn't bode well for him , he seems to be making more mistakes every season.  This season looks to be going in a very strong direction , the mafia angle worked in as well as two other serial killers raise the stakes . I have read next seaso. Is the last for him, and found myself throughout this episode hoping before the end of this season he will kill Deb. it really seems like the only way out for him.

The Miami metro support staff is still strong and wht makes the writing of shows like Californication and Mad Men so strong is present here in the way they ties thing s back to season one and season two. The childhood flash backs will hopefully not be overdone with the new dexter and deb dynamic . It also looks like the goat of his dad is going to be returning to give council again. Another element I think where a little goes a long way here.

The end where Dexter comes home to find everything dug up and his confession to Deb , keeps the tension established at the end of last season, so is that going to be the beat? I think this could go either way a big tense ending with Deb asking th wrong questions should only be allowed to go so far if Dexter already had his big escape bag prepped.  The new girl from the previews looks like its a Lyla angle but the want her to look like his dead ex. So they are on a balancing act of taking the nigs that make this show work and try not to replicate them as carbon copies. While I have a level of skepticism considering this is the seventh season so sharks could be jumping every where if they hadn't already last season and thus far the Jimmy Smits season is the only me I'm not huge fan of .

With shows like Bates Motel and Hannibal waiting in the wings the serial killer protagonist is a band wagon the networks are about to jump on so dexter has t stay a few steps ahead of the game, I think the depth given this character is what makes it work better than Norman Bates of Hannibal Lechter as both of thos shave more glaring crazy qualities and don't blend in as well as Dex.  If you have dropped off from Dexter along the way skip the third season and catch up as I think this season is stepping it up.

Possession

I don't see a lot of movies in the theater these dys it feels like a lot of effort which leads to disappointment. Haunting and demon possession movie are come of my favorites,thankfully aside from movies like the Rite there has been some innovative thinking in movies like the devil inside, the last exorcism, and the exorcism of Emily rose, so when tweaks to the theme are taken the easier softer way it diminishes the return.

The possession is well made, there are some well framed shots but the sum of its part renders it less scary than the majority of supernatural episodes.the feel of the movie comes across like a show on the cw , the fact that the girls in this are preteen keeps it from going cw all the way.

The dentist losing his teeth is random and makes no sense as to why a demon would be able to do that and the moths are this what the flies were to the amityville horror only difference being they aren't scary.

Jeffery Dean Morgan was believable enough in his role but the script for his tortured father role didn't give him much to work with and most of the movies problems do fall on the writing.

Setting was a major weakness of this movie, the house they moved into was too new suburban and setting is essential in creating the ambiance needed in horror, I have seen plenty of movies where the setting alone was creepy enough to create unease.
The neighborhood of the Hasidic Jews was the creepiest element, and Jewish mysticism is so obscure in American Jews I found that whole angle to be more suspension of disbelief that other elements, tough the X-ray demon was pretty unrealistic as well, the whole demon mythos they employed felt forced and clinical.

This movie is recommended if there is nothing else you haven't seen on fear.netand are an exorcism fanatic like me and the power of Christ compels you to see every movie of this ilk that comes out, funny enough I tend to skip the straight to video releases of this kind as a slew of paranormal activity wanna bes came out as of late.

Dragon con ...the horror

The largest fan run genre convention is starting to give horror more of its due, the dark fantasy panel is now the horror and dark fantasy panel and sparkling vampires are the bane of all in attendance of that track. The first panel I went to on this was "vampires the good the bad the undead" it focused on vampires in lit...and some film of course came up, I attended this one primarily due to Laurell K Hamilton , but Author Jeanne Stein who writes the Anna strong series and James r tuck who writes the deacon chalk occult bounty hunter series was on the panel as well. Laurell did break the news her next Anita Blake book would be entitled affliction. She also said she was not giving Anita any more powers but focusing on reining in the ones she has. She Sid the same is for Anita's lovers that she was not getting new ones and would never have sex with the police she works with.

Next up was the true blood panel, the actors Sam Tramell, Carrie Preston, Nelsan Ellis, and Joe Manganiello were on this panel, they mainly took fan questions, most notably was Ellis who wore sun glasses and was visibly high as is words took their time forming and he laughed at the drop of a hat. Preston was the most entertaining and joe the most self absorbed. Nothing ground breaking was revealed here aside from in the first season they were more active in suggestions to Alan ball, most of which were ignored and they now resolve them selves to the fact Alan knew best.

We hit up Dr. Horribles sing along blog, the rocky horror of dr horrible, which I followed up with a panel on the metaphysics of Lovecraft where you can imagine no new ground was broken, also a state of the goth scene which will be covered in my Abysmal Hymns blog, though I will talk about the fet life panel and bdsm panels as I tend to lump that in here , given my penchant for torture porn and the innately sexual element to good horror.

For those of you who are unaware of what fet life it's it's a face book for the link community , for those in the lifestyle I'm Wilcifer on there feel free to say hello, so this panel was about the etiquette of social media for a site with an inclination towards the creepy and creepy in the I'm leering at you I. My rain Coatfro th back of the porn shop an not how we use it in the horror world. This panel stated the obvious to people with little social skills to apply to social media.

Once interesting observation about the cross section of this so called geek crowd, came from my own performance with the burlesque show where we preformed a Frankenstein themed piece where a female doctor brings to life a monster who develops a different relationship with his creator, tearing her clothes off and pseudo rape ensues though she is killed before this is consumated , the crowd reaction was mixed leaning towards the shocked and uncomfortable, granted for the Halloween show or a horror con this would go over much differently, but the crowd was mixed heavy on women who surprised their rape fantasies of want to see pretty burlesque the guys at burlesque show tend to be more passive and overly catering to the point of being subservient towards women they fetishize by putting on a pedestal, so violence towards them when they lack the testosterone to have a rape play fantasy did not play into the acts favor, though I had several men come up to me saying they enjoyed it after and women who thought it was beautiful, but I would lean the overall geek vibe to be vanilla.

The Saturday I hit up panels regarding the weaponry of lord of the rings, steam punk music, and Hammer horror, which mainly focused on the box set of reissues an talked about the retur of the brand with movies like Let Me in and the Lady in Black, they focused more on the later period than the classic monster movies, though Lee and Cushing were of course, mentioned.

Sunday ... The spike and Drusilla panel was one of the more entertaining, thanks to James Marsters, Juliet Landau wore sunglasses the whole time and might have been stoned, when a fan asked them to go into theere character for thirty seconds they granted the wish complete with Landau doing the wavering head motions . It was clear the characters from the Buffyverse will now only have life in the comic book which both are having some creative interaction in the writing process.

Monday ...American Horror Story fan track...speculations regarding season two More than being overly reflective on last season which I contribute to the fact that the storyline nd characters are not carrying over into this season, while the majority where informed of this there were still some who though the house was going to stay the same or it would be another ghost story , however a lot of people had seen the little preview snippets on line and where aware it was a crazy nun meets possession type story this go around.