Braced for singularity |
Boris Karloff's BEDLAM Turns 78 Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Artist William Hogarth's painting of Bedlam, Plate 8: "A Rake's Progress" was the inspiration used by screenwriters Carlos Keith and Mark Robson. Robson was Producer Val Lewton's goto guy for directing as well as writing. In 1946, while Bela Lugosi's career was sliding, Boris Karloff, thanks in part to his association with the wildly popular Val Lewton, was rising. With Lewton, Boris made respectable Horror for discerning adults. But how many people do you know who have ever heard of Val Lewton today? And how many do you know who have ever heard of what is considered one of Val Lewton and Boris Karloff's best, BEDLAM? And - Neil Marshall's DOG SOLDIERS is 22 If you don't know, this movie is either a Werewolf story involving soldiers, or a Soldier story involving werewolves. One of the best things (among many) about it, is its economy of story that lends itself to the audience's suspension of disbelief. Like the moment where the soldiers are confronted with the impossible idea of being surrounded by werewolves. They may have the guns and ammunition to fight their way out and live another day, but then Megan says, "If this is true then what else is true? You'll never have another good night's sleep as long as you live." This is the brutal beauty of DOG SOLDIERS. Plus - HAPPY HORROR THRILLER BIRTHDAYS TO - By E.C. McMullen Jr.
SOYLENT GREEN Turns 51 in the U.S.A. The fact that political dystopian science fiction books and movies miss their date of expiration never means that their warning is obsolete. George Orwell's 1984 forever hangs over our heads and the very people who espouse a Big Brother government are often the same ones irritably telling us to ignore that "Orwell stuff". This movie's due date was 2022. Are the lessons of SOYLENT GREEN also outdated? And - FRIDAY THE 13th Is 43 Sean S. Cunningham saw John Carpenter's success with HALLOWEEN and he really wanted a piece of that! God, how he wanted to copy John Carpenter! Sean's movie would also have teens having sex and being stalked and butchered by a knife wielding killer. He didn't have a mask idea in mind so, you'd only see the killer's big hairy hands, see? Now he just needed a holiday. No good Holidays worth his time (Arbor Day Massacre? Surely you jest!) but lots of people are superstitious about the number 13 and ... and ... Friday the 13th! Well there you go! With this in mind he commissioned a movie poster, then put that sucker in a newspaper ad. Paramount Pictures took the bait. Now all Sean needed was a script! A FRIDAY THE 13th script that would haunt Sean for ... A Very Long Time... 43 years to be exact. Plus - THE FIFTH ELEMENT Turns 27 27 Years! Can you believe I saw this movie in the same year I launched this website? ...Yes, I'm that old. Shut yer f*ckin' piehole! Anyway, it's a SciFi Action Thriller, not Science Fiction and by that I mean FLASH GORDON comic book-style Space Opera over hardcore Science Fiction like FORBIDDEN PLANET, 2001, ALIEN, or John Carpenter's THE THING. This is why THE FIFTH ELEMENT is such fun! Finale - HAPPY HORROR THRILLER BIRTHDAYS TO - By E.C. McMullen Jr.
THE CORPSE VANISHES Turns 82 Look, let's not quibble, shall we? I don't like quibbling and I like quarreling and arguing even less. The fact is you could remake this movie with a bigger budget and better script but since it won't have Bela Lugosi to carry the weight, you'll be spinning your wheels and losing money by the minute. On the other hand, if you've never seen it and you love old Bela, you're going to be entertained when THE CORPSE VANISHES. And - J.J. Abrams "Kelvin Timeline" STAR TREK Turns 15 The stewards of Star Trek TNG the TV show were poor stewards of the Star Trek TNG movie franchise and it slowly slid into ignominy as the actors went onto better careers or fan conventions. No, Paramount felt what the movie really needed was a guy who successfully made his mark in television shows that started hot and prematurely fizzled out. Paramount needed someone like J.J.Abrams who openly didn't like Star Trek because he couldn't understand it: it was over his head. And because he couldn't understand it, what was the point of making a movie that a massive world-wide fanbase could understand?
So, Abrams wanted to play to the lowest common denominator: A small slice of movie audience who didn't like Star Trek but might like the franchise he was selling because he dumbed it down. and wouldn't see it. The desperate Star Trek fans were a bunch of rubes who only understood lame-brain science stuff, so they'd turn out en mass and maybe even convince themselves they enjoyed it (like I did. Mea culpa)! At first. Which meant they could get two, maybe three movies out of the way before audiences turned their backs on it. That's why the studio bean counters gave their cynical greenlight to J.J. Abrams STAR TREK. Yet Star Trek fans were happy with his first one and it made the most money. So naturally Abrams didn't like it. If he made Trekkies happy, he did something wrong. Abrams would go on to fall in love with the idminishing box office returns of his Star Trek sequels. Plus - HAPPY HORROR THRILLER BIRTHDAYS TO - Actor Nora Arnezeder (LES DUEX MONDES, MANIAC [2012], ZOO [TV], IN THE CLOUD, ORIGIN [TV], BERSERK, FARAWAY EYES, RIVIERA [TV], THE COLONY, ARMY OF THE DEAD, THAT COLD DEAD LOOK IN YOUR EYES) is 35.
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Some people think I'm more important than you (I don't, but they do. You know how they are) and this is their (HA!) evidence. INTERVIEWS Matt Jarbo's interview with Feo Amante at The Zurvivalist. James Cheetham's Q&A with Feo Amante at Unconventional Interviews *. Megan Scudellari interviews Feo Amante and Kelly Parks (of THE SCIENCE MOMENT) in The Scientist Magazine. Check out our interview at The-Scientist.com. REFERENCES Researcher David Waldron, references my review of UNDERWORLD in the Spring 2005, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture entry, Role-Playing Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic (downloadable pdf). E.C. McMullen Jr.
*Linked to archive.org |
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