Thomas R. Clark's Blog, page 7
August 7, 2023
Who wants free books?
Who wants to win something? Better yet… who wants to win everything I’ve written? The body of work from the “Master of SplatterFolk,” and speculative fiction author, Thomas R Clark.
All you have to do is tell me what my childhood nickname was. That’s it.
For the next 30 days, you can enter to win as often as you want. You can email me, send me a PM on any of my social media outlets, text me, call me on the phone. I will not divulge the answer until September 8, 2023. Out of the correct answers, I will draw one lucky winner. That person will receive my body of work, plus a free copy of any book I release until I die.
My family members and blood relations are unable to enter. Sorry, some of you might recall what the nickname was.
Oh… this starts NOW!
#BRINGIT
July 11, 2023
TALK TO ME RAISES ITS HAND
TALK TO ME (2023- A24)
DIRECTED BY: Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou
WRITTEN BY: Bill Hinzman and Danny Philippou
STARRING:
Sophie Wilde
Joe Bird
Alexandra Jensen
Otis Dhanji
Miranda Otto
When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.
Light the candle, grasp the mummified hand, and speak the eponymous words “Talk to me.” When you see IT (and when you see it, you’ll know!), say “I let you in.” But for only ninety seconds, any longer, the spirit will stay with you until you die. These are the rules in the the most BLUMHOUSE film A24 has released, TALK TO ME.
Danny and Michael Phillipou, and their writing cohort, Bill Hinzman, borrow from so many sources in making their theatrical debut, it’s hard to nail down where they got their inspiration. After working on Down Under classics like THE BABADOOK, and after a billion hits on their YouTube channel (yes, I said a BILLION!), the brothers seem to have gotten this down to a science, because they’ve come out of the gate swinging.
TALK TO ME joins a list of horror movies that define generations. 1978’s HALLOWEEN set the stage for the 80s Slasher craze as Gen X teens were hacked and slashed by the dozens. The nineties saw the first Millennial horror brat packs formed out of the ashes of the 80s with FLATLINERS and THE FACULTY until the 2000’s when DONNIE DARKO made college kids weird and moody. Our modern era has seen them elevated for Gen ‘s Z & A, with movies like MIDSOMMAR and IT FOLLOWS.
One can even say TALK TO ME is IT FOLLOWS, the Gen Z down under version- except it doesn’t follow. Instead, TALK TO ME fucks with you both physically and mentally. One could easily see the film’s advertising and dismiss this as another gaggle of preteens saying Bloody Mary in the mirror, or a clique of teenagers and a Ouija board. Truthfully, it’s both of these, as well as a game of peer pressure TRUTH OR DARE, the Medium edition… but it’s so much more than all of the examples I’ve given.
The Phillipous have taken a concept from fellow filmmaker Daley Pearson, which is fundamentally the classic Monkey’s Paw trope, and they’ve jettisoned it to a new level by adding elements of FLATLINERS and THE EXORCIST to the plot, while flipping the ages old teen horror flick sub genre on its head with a healthy dose of paranoia and body horror. Practical effects compliment the cinematography, and the film moves at a faster pace than your typical A24 fare.
Thematically, TALK TO ME is another study on grief and how we, as a society, never seem to deal with it properly. There’s no good way to deal with grief, as many people are well aware. Which is why movies (John Wick), books (Pet Semetary), and television series (Wandavision) breeching the topic are so damn popular. It allows us to bond with the grieving characters. And even if we haven’t experienced a loss, our empathy for others takes over and places us in the same spot.
The writing is fantastic. Danny and Bill Hinzman give Wilde’s character, Mia, so many complexities, yet she’s easily relatable by the audience. Two years after her mother’s suicide, Mia still grieves. We’ve all been there, noting the dates of tragedies and allowing ourselves to slip into depressions surrounding the events’ anniversaries. By using the mummified hand as metaphor for teens and addictive circumstances or substances, they provide a simple catalyst to allow this gentle soul to unravel.
None of these nuances work unless the actors can convey the emotions. I’m happy to say the acting in TALK TO ME is superb for a cast of teen actors, especially the leads in Sophie Wilde, Joe Bird, and Alexandra Jensen. This has been a growing trend, I think, for a good 25 years now, since SCREAM and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. There was a time when lower budget horror films hired their cast based more off their appearance than their acting chops- the early FRIDAY THE 13TH films are some of the worst abusers of this. Not anymore, thankfully.
Nothing terrifies me more than people acting outside of their own volition. There is an eyeball scene in this the Italian masters Fulci and Argento would be (and should be!) envious of. Those who found Regan’s transformation from angelic child to demonic vessel in THE EXORCIST will surely enjoy TALK TO ME’s similar path, launched at the end of its second act.
TALK TO ME is as good as SAW or any other franchise launching film. I’m happy to say we have a potential new horror icon in our… hand(?), and its storytelling allows it to, um, open more doors we haven’t seen in cinematic storytelling. So, on July 28th, make sure you light a candle before heading to the multiplex, and settle in for a disturbing thrill ride. From a shocking cold open as engaging and terrifying as any seen on screen (I’m looking at you GHOST SHIP, SCREAM, and MALIGNANT) to its mind bending climax, TALK TO ME is certain to stand out as a future classic of the horror genre.
April 21, 2023
The Evil Dead Rises to Scrutiny
EVIL DEAD RISE
Writer/director: Lee Cronin (“The Hole in the Ground”).
Starring:
Lily Sullivan (“I Met a Girl,” “Barkskins”),
Alyssa Sutherland (“The Mist,” “Vikings”),
Morgan Davies (“Storm Boy,” “The End”),
Gabrielle Echols (“Reminiscence”)
and introducing Nell Fisher (“Northspur”).
Moving the action out of the woods and into the city, “Evil Dead Rise” tells a twisted tale of two estranged sisters, played by Sutherland and Sullivan, whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
The Eighties saw three genres of entertainment come to power: horror films, horror novels, and the heavy metal band. Each had an established place setting in the annals of pop culture before then, there’s no doubt. Supernatural and suspense stories have existed since the printing press came into being, and all fingers point to the likes of Mary Shelley and Nathanial Hawthorne as only two of the innovators of horror fiction. The Satanic Panic of the 1970s led to a public demand for horror fiction. Soon authors such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz would rise to the top of the bestsellers lists as a result. The Eighties were a boom industry for all things horror.
Films benefited from this, as well, and movie goers lined up to have the Bejeezus scared out of them. Again, horror films existed long before, going back to the silent films of a century or more ago. But in the years leading up to the seventies, the schlock value of horror films had risen higher than their scare value. Until PSYCHO, and then ROSEMARY’S BABY and THE EXORCIST. Each a bestselling book adapted into film. They took the publishing and film industries by storm and, along the aforementioned authors, spearheaded what would become the horror explosion of the Eighties.
Inspired by the themes of horror books and films, Heavy Metal bands embracing Satanic and horror imagery found controversy and success. The genre had grown from a movement in music as bands experimented, blending different elements of blues with non-conventional tunings. But 80’s bands like Great Britain’s IRON MAIDEN or even America’s MOTLEY CRUE, grew the most notoriety by embracing Satanic and Horror imagery on their early albums and in their song lyrics. Who else fondly recalls the religious scares over playing records backwards to receive a Satanic message that would cause you to turn into one of the slashing serial killers in the movies or books while Iron Maiden screamed about the NUmber of the Beast and Crue wanted us to be strong and Shout at the Devil?
One thing the marquee entertainers from this era have been able to show is stamina, and the ability to remain relevant in a world where trends and interests change at the drop of a TikTok video. Stephen King is still pumping out quality books as he nears eight decades on this planet, as does Dean Koontz. Iron Maiden and Motley Crue are both on tour and have put out new albums in recent years. These bands with 40 plus year careers, they’ve experienced line-up changes and shifting interests in music, but they’ve bounced back and remained relevant. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Maiden, for example, has been through three lead vocalists. Crue has had two. In each instance where a singer has changed, Maiden has somehow been able to overcome the hump. With them, it’s more about the music, and the singer is an added bonus. It helps that Paul D’Ianno, Bruce Dickenson, and even Blaze, were all great front men and could command a crowd. With Motley Crue, however, Vince Neil’s high tenor and his blonde mop of hair was always one of their signatures. The John Corabi era of Crue, though beloved by hardcore fans, was seen as a near career killer to the band. It wasn’t until they got Vince back that the band once again saw success.
And this leads us to Horror’s example of staying power. Many horror film franchises that started in the 1980s or before have seen either straight up reboot/remakes or legacy sequels in recent years. Out of all of these, the EVIL DEAD franchise has similarities to the heavy metal bands sharing its longevity. You see, with HALLOWEEN or FRIDAY THE 13TH, anyone can be under the mask. But with the EVIL DEAD, the shadow of the almighty Bruce Campbell and Ashley J. Williams hangs over anything the franchise releases like he’s Vince fucking Neil, forgetting his lyrics, staring at John Corabi from the soundboard.
The fans of Campbell are the always the first to cast shade at the EVIL DEAD entries without him, first coming out of the woodwork with Fede Alvarez’s 2013 remake. They said the film wasn’t funny enough, that it wasn’t an EVIL DEAD movie because it lacked the camp. It was too serious. “WHERE IS ASH” They wail in unison like the Deadites proclaiming you’ll be dead by dawn. FYI: He’s in the post credits, you idiots.
Not as if they didn’t have Ash around in multiple video games over the years, as well as comic books. But in 2015 the toxic fans all got what they wanted from STARZ. ASH VS THE EVIL DEAD ran for three seasons on the cable service in the early days of the streaming wars. The campy, laugh ridden follow up to ARMY OF DARKNESS, that seemed to ignore Alvarez’s entry, was embraced by the Campbellian fanscape. They cried when it ended, and cried more when Bruce revealed he’s too old to make these movies anymore. The only thing safe from their wrath seems to be the musical play, I mean they can’t get Bruce to play Ash at every production, can they?
But that didn’t mean the end. A brilliant episode of SHUDDER’s second season of CREEPSHOW, Greg Nicotero’s “PUBLIC TELEVISION OF THE DEAD” featured what is essentially Bob Ross vs the Evil Dead, and stared Ted Rami as himself, who brings a copy of the Necronomicon with him to a PBS studio… and all hell literally breaks loose.
And of course, the hype of EVIL DEAD RISE, touting it as coming from the original producers, albeit sans Ash Williams. I went to see it last night. With all of this being said, I’m here to tell all of you “Vince Neil” fanboys, that if you didn’t like the EVIL DEAD 2013 reboot, you will fucking hate the EVIL DEAD RISES.
Filled with themes surrounding the disintegration of the family, EVIL DEAD RISE is a welcome fifth entry into the franchise. From a cold open reminiscent of both the 2013 remake of EVIL DEAD and CABIN FEVER, I knew this was going to be a blood soaked carnage fest. And I was right. Lee Cronin offers us a tightly written story that doesn’t give us a whole lot of time to bond with the characters. This is where EVIL DEAD RISE suffers from the same malady many modern horror films succumb to. Though it’s sufficient in its scares and gore, it lacks in providing us the proper empathy we need to care about the characters dying or not.
The Deadite action is typical of an EVIL DEAD film, and much like the original, it’s all played straight. But unlike the original, which featured the quirkiness of Campbell’s Ash which led to unintentional hilarity, there isn’t much residual humor. If you are going to this expecting slapstick gore gags, you will not get it. Save yourself from the disappointment and stay home.
That’s not to say there aren’t any stellar moments. The film is filled with them, including shotgun, chainsaw, and station wagon callbacks to the OG. There are gallons of blood, more than I’ve seen in any movie, including MANDY. It also features the best use of a woodchipper since FARGO. It is a splatterpunk, gore-whore, body horror experience. I enjoyed the film and will see it again. But I, too, liked Alvarez’s 2013 entry. I also don’t mind John Corabi in Motley Crue.
EVIL DEAD RISE may not reinvent the franchise, but it is a solid entry into the mythos, solidifying the EVIL DEAD’s place in the annals of horror longevity. It may not fully escape the shadow of its original star, but the franchise will live on if it continues on its current path. I give it 4 Buckets of Blood out of Five, with a little stomach bile on the side.
April 14, 2023
THOMAS R CLARK 2023 PUBLIC APPEARANCE SCHEDULE
My convention appearances for 2023 are starting to pile up, so I think it’s best I spill the beans on what I have on tap thus far. You’ll notice something… outside of Scares That Care’s Authorcon, they’re all in Central and Upstate NY. I’m working on building my regional fan base, and what better way to do so than make regional appearances!
3/30-4/2 AUTHORCON II – WILLIAMSBURG, VA – #talkabouttislater
4/15 – HEROES & VILLAINS CON – CORTLAND, NY – this is tomorrow as of press time!
4/22-4/23 – ITHACACON – ITHACA, NY
5/27 – 5/28 – WATERLOO, NY MEMORIAL DAY EVENT (WITH THE WANDERING WORDSMITHS)
6/3-6/4 – NOCOCON (NORTH COUNTRY COMIC CON) – WATERTOWN, NY
7/20-7/23 – NECON (visiting as a camper!)
8/12 – FREYA FEST – REMSEN NY (WITH THE WANDERING WORDSMITHS)
8/19-8/20 ANCHORCON – CLAYTON NY
9/9-9/10 – BEAVER LAKE HARVEST FESTIVAL – BALDWINSVILLE, NY (WITH THE WANDERING WORDSMITHS)
9/16 – PAGAN PRIDE DAY – LIVERPOOL, NY (WITH THE WANDERING WORDSMITHS)
10/28 – BALDWINSVILLE LIBRARY – BALDWINSVILLE, NY (WITH THE WANDERING WORDSMITHS)
11/25 – SKY ARMORY NIGHT MARKET – SYRACUSE, NY (WITH THE WANDERING WORDSMITHS)
I’m certain this list will fill in more as the year progresses. So make your plans, friends & fans, peeps & perps, to come out and see me at one of these events, starting tomorrow at Heroes & Villains Con.
Cortland, NY is a cool city, albeit small. It’s the birthplace of Ronnie James Dio, the home of metal legends The Rods, and a town that loves its independent wrestling. With this in mind, I expect to see a buncha characters at this event. I’m excited to meet new fans, catch up with old fans, and see some people I haven’t seen in a bit- like my artist pals Miguel and Christopher. This is something I discovered two weeks ago at Scares That Care’s Authorcon II. How much I missed my tribe.
#talkaboutthatnow
Authorcon II was fantastic. I recently wrote the following words in an intimate post I made to the Scares That Care community:
This past weekend I attended my second AuthorCon and 6th Scares That Care event as a creative vendor. It was my favorite weekend spent with the charity, since first attending in 2016.
Scares that Care 3 was cathartic for me. Covering it for both Rue Morgue and the then Project iRadio, I attended to get content for my podcast and an article for the Canadian horror ‘zine. What I didn’t expect was the friends I would make. Excuse me, that’s the wrong phrase to use. What I didn’t expect was the family I would be welcomed into and how much it would change me.
Who would know that in 2017 I would attend a workshop wherein I would meet people who continue to be my friends and confidants. Or how in 2018 I would think outside the box and secure my first small press contract; after presenting a copy of what would become my first stand alone novella to the book’s eventual publisher. Or that in 2019 I’d be sharing a table with Mike Duke and I’d sell out of the 50 copies I brought of my first book. I don’t think I ever envisioned a world where I would be invited to speak on panels as I was at the first Scares event held after the pandemic in 2021, and the first Authorcon last April where I had my first solo table, or making people laugh at a live reading during the 2022 Charity Weekend.
And this past weekend? Where I was entrusted with leading two important panels for rising sub genres of horror I have somehow found myself at the forefront of in the indy publishing world, splatterpunk and folk horror? To say the experience was surreal is an understatement. And then there was the bittersweet opportunity I was given to speak at Jay Wilburn’s memorial, where there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. And what else can be said about the Gross-Out contest that Jeff Strand lost? I was honored to share an entertaining story that gave the crowd a few chuckles.
Scares That Care has allowed me to grow, to become a better person. I’ve always tried to be a positive beacon, a walking example of the values this charity cherishes. I haven’t always been perfect, none of us can be. I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way. I’ve fallen, I’ve brushed the dirt off, I’ve learned from my experiences, and I’ve gotten back up.
Thank you Scares That Care. Thank you for AuthorCon and what is does for independent and Big 4 Authors that no other event could ever do: provide an intimate venue for fans and creatives to meet, mingle, and grow.
For those who can’t make one of these appearances, my new book, A PRAYER FROM THE DEAD is finally available on Amazon in trade paperback, and on Godless and Kindle! It’s already getting rave reviews, as you can see above!
Also, don’t forget I have new “MASTER OF SPLATTERFOLK” designs up in my TeePublic merch store!
See you all tomorrow in Cortland!
March 12, 2023
65 And Why Dinosaurs Still Rule The Earth
After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth…65 million years ago. Now, with only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive. From the writers of A Quiet Place and producer Sam Raimi comes 65, a sci-fi thriller.
Written and directed by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods
Produced by Sam Raimi, Deborah Liebling and Zainab Azizi.
Also produced by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
Starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, and Chloe Coleman.
Know ye, oh Prince, Princess, or however you wish to be referred to, that between the years when NOSFERATU shriveled in silence at the rising sun, and the rise of Skywalker in STAR WARS, there existed an age undreamed of… with jerky stop motion effects, miniatures, men in rubber suits, not quite invisible wires, and back drop screens lacking any depth. Hither came the auteurs, those filmmakers who tried to buck the limitations of special effects and budget to give us… A slew of absolutely shitty, albeit inspiring, movies.
But not all of the genre properties to come out before 1977 were offerings to the gods of dookie. It was the films that innovated effects that stood out and became classics. The aforementioned NOSFERATU and its use of lighting, camera angles, and mirrors. KING KONG and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS with their stop motion, the PLANET OF THE APES series with its make up, and the STAR TREK TV series with its groundbreaking visual effects through use of miniatures. As we know, all this changed with STAR WARS, the event that raised the bar on visual effects and genre films.
There are some hidden gems in that time before STAR WARS, albeit mired by bad special effects. One of them is near and dear to my heart, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. What’s there not to dig about it? It’s based off a beloved Edgar Rice Burroughs (TARZAN OF THE APES) novel and features an Allies vs Axis adventure on a submarine during WWI. The heroes find themselves on a lost island populated by dinosaurs and cavemen. It’s an entertainment bacon schmorgesborg! Come on! Dinosaurs! Cavemen! U-Boats! Everyone vs.the Germans in WWI! What’s there not to like? Just one little thing… The special fucking effects.
You see, this is a Samuel Z. Arkhov production, and much like his previous soiree into the catalog of ERB with AT THE EARTH’S CORE (Another film chock filled with dinosaurs, cavemen and mind reading pterosaurs!), it appealed to preteen me. Heck, the film is even adapted and written for the screen by none other than THE Michael fucking Moorcock, creator of the Multiverse theory in fiction and Elric of Melnibone. The dinosaurs in these films are CLEARLY men in rubber suits, shot onto background screens with zero depth. Wait, did I say all the dinosaurs? No. The pteranodons are actually airplane gliders mocked up to resemble a flying dino. Oh Lord, the effects are downright awful and sinful. But to this day, I haven’t given one single shit about the quality of the effects in this film, and remains one of my favorite movies of all time.
Enter 65, the new Adam Driver film. From the moment I saw the first trailer, I knew this film was gonna bring back that 7 and 8 year old me. And I wasn’t wrong. As long as there are little boys and girls, Dinosaurs will remain near the top of the fiction bacon tree. It’s why properties like Turok, Son of Stone have been so popular for nearly 70 years (dinosaurs vs. Native Americans? Give me more!). Is it going to be a sleeper hit, like the writers’ A QUIET PLACE or the Blumhouse cyberpunk horror gem UPGRADE? I think it might be. And though it came in third at the weekend box office, making $12 Million behind horror franchise juggernaut SCREAM VI and boxing franchise juggernaut CREED III, I have hopes for the future of this niche sci-fi film, especially when it comes to home video. It touches so many nostalgic feels with me, I can’t help but be biased in my adoration of a movie which proves the perceptions of the viewer are paramount to enjoying it.
It’s not simply the dinosaur trope. From the opening crawl, 65 captured the attention of pre-teen Tom, with words reminding him of another beloved entertainment property, the post STAR WARS cult hit TV show, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
Prior to the advent of mankind in the infinity of space, other civilizations explored the Heavens.
And then, after the cold open establishing our hero and his predicament…
Earth… 65 million years ago, a visitor crash landed on Earth.
I got chills. I knew at this moment this movie was made for me. And that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA opening narration?
“There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away, amongst the stars.”
Yes, this can and does lead to Ancient Alien theory, which I think is great fiction, like THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, and 65. Is it true science? Not anymore true than a spaceman fighting dinosaurs on a prehistoric earth.
Beck and Woods dip into their classic trope dish frequently, making it clear this movie is a homage to science fiction movies of all eras. And they nod to every generation, from ROBINSON CARUSO ON MARS to THE MARTIAN, AFTER EARTH, and all that’s in between. All of this also includes what some may perceive as outdated or overused tropes in cinematic entertainment. Yes, my friends, it means we got not only dinosaurs… but the daddy of all overused tropes: quicksand.
NOT THE QUICKSAND!
Yes, the quicksand, right down to the only manner you can save a person from quicksand with… a saproling! Quicksand is like the Ancient Indian Burial Ground. It’s not real. It doesn’t exist in reality. Now mentioning this in a review of a movie where a spaceman fights dinosaurs 65 million years ago might seem kind of silly, and if I was looking at this from a negative spectrum it would be. But I’m not. You see, the quicksand is just as much of an homage to classic dinosaur action films like VALLEY OF GWANGI. There was a time when tropes like quicksand were overused in nearly every film and many hours of television programming, not unlike curtain jerking wrestlers getting booked into a battle royal at Wrestlemania.
The spelunking scenes were tense and scary, paying respects to ALIEN, ALIENS, and even THE DESCENT, and I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat. The overall effects were pretty good. Who cares if the dinos he encounters are reptilian and predators, and who cares if they aren’t scientifically accurate without feathers, and that the T-Rex looked like it had ankylosaurus armor. I can defend all of this with two points:
1- Neither were the movies 65’s creators were inspired by. The dinosaurs need to be one thing: scary. And they were scary, even if some are just a step above the generic MUTOs in Legendary’s MONSTERVERSE. I was reminded of the poison gas field in KONG: SKULL ISLAND at times, but with superior effects and less stylistic camera work.
And 2- see *a review of a movie where a spaceman fights dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
But the asteroid really hit 66 Million years ago. Really, Milo, did you just go there? WHO. CARES. Again… IT’S A *a movie where a spaceman fights dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Calling it 66 wouldn’t work cos it’s too close to 666 and would scare Middle America into thinking it was a horror movie about the devil. Most of America knows the 65 Million years theory. And we all know most of America is… well… stupid.
Outside of the dinosaurs, the film leaves behind some speculation for us, like any good art should do. Were Beck and Woods alleging this is the panspermia event laying the building blocks for human life on earth? This question leads us to another spot where 65 collides with THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. The latter is much more than an adventure movie set on a lost prehistoric island. The further north you go on the island, the more advance the beings and cultures become. The obvious take back from 65 is the remains of the other cryosleepers become the primordial DNA for us as humans existing on this planet, and I think that’s a neat homage to the Ron Moore BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’s finale with Mitochondrial Eve, more so than say Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS and Engineer Jesus. I can’t believe I just typed those foul words.
My only take back from 65 is the characters. I would have liked to see more development with Mills and Koa. Perhaps Mills could have been more vulnerable, using the old plot device of him being an opiate addict should have remained in the film. The original press release in 2020 stated:
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods will direct from their own original screenplay, which is said to feature a supernatural twist. Driver will play an opioid addict who has become a hopeless shadow of his former self. He’s involved in some kind of catastrophic accident, and the only other person to emerge from the crash is a 9-year-old girl who speaks a different language. The two of them must work together to survive.
It may not be a box office hit in a sea of sequels, but it is the one new property in the top 3, so I call that a win for 65. Go see it at your leisure, and if that happens to be when it comes out in home video and streaming, then so be it. It’s dinosaurs vs. spacemen. What is there to dislike?
March 7, 2023
HOW COCAINE BEAR WON OUR HEARTS
Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow… and blood.
Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans)
O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton)
Christian Convery-Jennings (Sweet Tooth)
Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story)
Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family)
Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project)
Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans)
Emmy winner Ray Liotta (Goodfellas).
Directed by Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels, Pitch Perfect 2)
Screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen)
The movie that is going to get people banned on social media for talking about it is finally here, COCAINE BEAR. Yes, fragile little people are going to have posts removed on TikTok for mentioning its title. Facebook’s AI’s are going to blindly throw jail sentences around like, well, coke in the 80s. And I think it’s great. But how and why has a movie with a simple title captured the hearts of movie goers?
First, I would have seen it for a second time last week, but an active shooter incident at the Mall screening I would have gone to prevented the excursion. No one was hurt, thank God, but a trash can was taken out by the errant bullet. What didn’t surprise me was the film’s ability to maintain its foothold on theater goers. COCAINE NEAR retained its box office and held on to the second spot for 2 weeks in a row, based on the number of screens shown, with $23 million. Our Sunday early evening screening was filled.
A few things surprised me about this film. After Elizabeth Banks’ awful turn on the CHARLIE’S ANGEL remake, she’s shown her skills as a skilled director, learned from that experience, and grown. Jimmy Warden’s script is almost perfect. It sets up the violence, humor, and gags throughout. Thematically it’s about Family and Momma Bears and rearing your children and how vice addictions can have an adverse effect on the family unit. The cast is full of broken families, but it’s the assertive Momma bears that hold it all together.
COCAINE BEAR is also a satire of 70s and 80s Animals Gone Awry horror. But thanks to films like DEADPOOL, off color and over the top gore humor has been seeing a resurgence. Part of it is what I call the FINISHER EFFECT.
In pro-wrestling finishers are a wrestler’s iconic, marquee move, much like a finishing move in MORTAL KOMBAT games. These moves evolve over time, and what was once a finishing move may be a lesser move with another wrestler. Take the DDT, Jake The Snake Roberts’ classic finisher. When he innovated the move, it was unique and devastating (in the pro-wrestling world). As other wrestlers used the same move, it became less and less effective by the copycats. By comparison, comedies like DEADPOOL have shown us what Middle America’s can stomach has grown to tolerate and perceive as humor.
And that includes splatterpunk. The term, famously coined in the Eighties by author David J. Schow, was used to categorize a sub-sect of horror fiction. Violent, gorey, often sexy but always with some sort of social message, splatterpunk pushed the envelope of horror fiction in print. It’s long been a beloved subgenre of horror, much like the NWOBHM is to fans of hard rock and heavy metal, or the Attitude Era of World Wrestling Entertainment is to wrestling fans.
As a result of films like DEADPOOL and James Gunn’s SUICIDE SQUAD, and television like PEACEMAKER, the once fringe splatterpunk movement is becoming mainstream. What separates Splatterpunk from its sister sub-genre, Extreme horror, is its content. Extreme horror exists to push the boundaries or what is normal, and break taboos. FIlms like A SERBIAN FILM and MARTYRS fall into this category. Splatterpunk, by contrast, is laden with wry, dark humor, an ethical message, plus plenty of rolling heads, guts, and blood soaked titties to get that message across.
Here’s a list of 10 influential Splatterpunk Films you might also enjoy if you like COCAINE BEAR:
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON – Perhaps the seminal modern splatterpunk film, filled with wry humor, sex, blood, guts, and plenty of werewolf gore. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is as important to the genre as the seminal splatterpunk novels: Nancy A.Collins’ SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK and Skipp & Spector’s THE LIGHT AT THE END..
EVIL DEAD 2- More humor, more evil… dead than the first one. The cabin in the woods and the discovery of the lost magical books that summons the titular entities. Both a remake and a sequel to Sam Raimi’s original, ground breaking movie. Quirky and gorey, it established Raimi’s franchise, setting up THE ARMY OF DARKNESS, a 21st century re-imagining, a short lived television series, an episode of Shudder’s CREEPSHOW, and now a re-launch sequel with EVIL DEAD RISE.
THE CROW – The tragic story based on the James O’Barr graphic novel. This one was even co-written by the guy who created the term splatterpunk, David J. Schow (alongside Sci-Fi master and Blue Oyster Cult lyrical scribe John Shirley). A classic revenge story with a revenant protagonist, showing that often the monsters in a splatterpunk book or movie are the heroes, it’s people that are bad.
NEAR DARK- Erik Red and Kathryn Bigelow’s western vampire movie is violent, gritty, sexy, and nihilistic. The cast is most everyone from ALIENS except Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn. The Anti-LOST BOYS, it features one of the most violent bar “fights” put on film.
FROM DUSK TIL DAWN- It’s not a vampire movie, it’s a gangster movie that happens to have vampires in it, and fundamentally a western at heart. And that is a staple of splatterpunk, the blending of genres and the story. It’s not the supernatural element that drives the narrative, often its the characters.
BUBBA HO-TEP- Another classic splatterpunk story adapted to the big screen, from one of splatterpunk’s sage’s Joe R. Lansdale. Directed by horror film master Don Coscarelli (PHANTASM, BEASTMASTER), it features Bruce Campbell as Elvis in a convalescent home. Everything is fine, except his pecker has a oozing sore, and, oh, yeah, an Egyptian Mummy has arrived and is sucking the life out of his neighbors. So it’s up to Elvis, with the aid of JFK (played by Ossie Davis), to unravel the mystery and save the day.
THE PROPHECY- A Quentin Tarrentino-esque take on the classic War in Heaven trope, it features Christopher Walken as an insane Gabriel seeking the evilest soul on Earth to end the war. It also has what many consider the best portrayal of the Devil on screen through Viggo Mortensen’s fallen angel Lucifer.
TRUE ROMANCE- Speaking of Tarrentino, I could list his body work as splatterpunk essentials, but it’s the Tony Scott directed TRUE ROMANCE, from Tarrentino’s screenplay, that fits the bill the most. Supernatural element… check (see BUBBA HO-TEP). Violence… check. Fucked up shit going on… check, check, check…
SAW- One part Police Procedural, one part splatter gore fest, with a message about being nice to your fellow man. It launched a franchise and is still one of the best horror movies ever made. Featuring a brilliant cast, locked in a secluded lavatory with a dead body. The set up and premise are brilliant, as is the film.
SE7EN- Dark, grimy, and gritty in the daylight, David Fincher’s SE7EN is at once a hard-boiled detective Noir Police Procedural, and a gorefest filled with uncomfortable imagery. Like many of the splatterpunk films I’ve listed, it’s secured itself in film and trivia history with one line. “What’s in the box?”
HELLRAISER- Again, with Clive Barker I could suggest any of the adaptations of his works, especially RAWHEAD REX or NIGHTBREED. But it’s the written and directed by Barker HELLRAISER’s iconic puzzle box and the Cenobites that stand out. Based on the short story THE HELLBOUND HEART from Barker’s acclaimed BOOKS OF BLOOD, it’s a BDSM nightmare with, um, heart. Lots of hearts.
For splatterpunk novels, I’m going to suggest the following, but I’m not going to tell you anything about them. Seek them out and devour them! Just know they span all eras of splatterpunk over the last 40ish years.
WETWORK by Phillip Nutman
THE SCREAM by John Skipp & Craig Spector
SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK by Nancy A. Collins
CABAL by Clive Barker
MOONDANCE by SP Somtow
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Jack Ketchum
SAVAGE SEASON by Joe R. Lansdale
THE RISING by Brian Keene
BRAIN EATER JONES by Stephen J. Kozeniewski
WOOM by Duncan Ralston
THE MAGPIE COFFIN by Wile E. Young
Now, as much as I love COCAINE BEAR, later this week I’m seeing a film I’ve had a hard-on for since learning it existed. And I’m not talking about SCREAM VI… 65!!! (And yes, I know I gave 11 films and 11 books… um… cos my tastes are much like Spinal Tap’s amps.)
February 23, 2023
CONAN: BLOOD OF THE SERPENT
CONAN: BLOOD OF THE SERPENT
(Titan Books)
BY S.M. STIRLING
Interior art by Rob De La Torre
Conan the Barbarian, the world’s most famous fantasy hero, returns in an all-new novel tied directly to the famous works by his legendary creator, Robert E. Howard.
Set early in his life, Conan has left his northern homeland to cut a bloody swath across the legendary Hyborian Age. A mercenary, a soldier, a thief, and a pirate, he faces conquering armies, malicious sorcerers, and monstrous creatures—against which he wields only the sword held in his powerful grasp.
A superstar of novels, short fiction, comics, video games, films, and an upcoming Netflix series, his adventures have inspired many of the most popular authors of the 20th and 21st centuries. This is the first in a series of brand-new, standalone adventures.
I stopped reviewing books somewhere around 2015. I’d done it for years, on my old blog and those first ventures into the realms of social media, AOL and MySpace. It came to a culmination when I got an internship through the HWA at Rue Morgue. I learned a ton about reviewing from Monica S. Kuebler, my mentor, things I never understood about reviewing. That led to me traveling to Scares That Care to cover it for the magazine in 2016… and the eventual birth of my fiction writing career, which readers of this will recognize. But all of this started back in the 1980s.
I’ve had a tumultuous love affair with journalism and creative writing since I can remember. The two have constantly conflicted within me. My first love was always fiction, but journalism’s allure sucked me in during my time in the Army. 2023 marks 40 years since I first reached out to L. Sprague de Camp, and asked for his advice on writing. We carried a sporadic penpalship for a few years, until my life’s focus shifted to college and then to a career in sales that lasted until roughly 2010. About this time I started podcasting, covering pro-wrestling, and got my foot in the door, establishing myself. This grew into my internship at Rue Morgue. And then I stopped reviewing books.
Why did I stop after that door was opened for me? My mentorship ended, for one, but mostly because I’m a bit of a prick when it comes to the books I read. My level of excellence, my bar of quality, is set rather high. As a result, I shredded some books in reviews on Rue Morgue. But after talking to another sage in the writing community, Joe R. Lansdale, and listening to his wise words, I stepped back from reviewing written works and shifted my focus to my fiction writing. Now, I still did critical reviews on my old podcast, the Necrocasticon, for film, TV, music and some books. But talking about a subject and writing about it are often two different things. I recently returned to posting regular movie reviews on this blog. It’s been refreshing, to say the least.
At least it was, until I read S.M. Stirling’s new Conan novel, CONAN: BLOOD OF THE SERPENT, and I was reminded of how high my bar is set. Though it’s well written, and is packed with plenty of action, I ultimately didn’t care for this franchise relaunch. It’s exciting, there’s plenty of action… but this could have just as easily been a prequel to TARZAN & THE JEWELS OF OPAR. It’s a shame that the first Conan of Cimmeria novel in over twenty years is a paint-by-numbers cash grab, created to utilize the 40th anniversary of the release of CONAN THE BARBARIAN film to drum up sales. The use of Valeria as a female protagonist, and Stygian Set worshippers, naturally taps into the public’s familiarity with the movie. To stir the pot and catch the eye of old school Conan fans, he placed the novel before the events of what is arguably one of the best Conan stories ever written, RED NAILS.
RED NAILS is basically Yojimbo in a sword and sorcery setting, where Conan and Valeria fight dragon like dinosaurs and deal with the denizens of a lost city in the jungles of what is now central Africa. An attempt was made to bring this story to life through animation some years ago, but all that remains from that is some stills and test footage. All of it looks fantastic, but I regret we’ll never see it completed. And this association to RED NAILS, it’s the first thing I found to bug me with this book.
One of the things about the Conan books that Robert E. Howard established was they are told out of sequence. This is done intentionally, as if Conan was telling you about his adventures later in life. Heavy criticism came upon L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter when they edited the Conan stories and laid them out in what they believed to be the chronological order. By setting this novel in conjunction with RED NAILS (in fact it INCLUDES THE NOVELETTE!)Stirling has re-ignited that decades old argument. It makes much of the plot of this book seem shoe-horned, as a result. But that’s not all that pissed me off about this book, by Crom.
The Hyborian Age was designed to have similarities to our world, albeit some 12,000 years ago. Howard did this to help readers suspend disbelief and allowed to build a lush, and vibrant fantasy world. Anyone playing in Howard’s sandbox has the benefit of this at their disposal. But Stirling, in an attempt to stay true to Howard’s style, drops the ball with me, again. In one early scene he references our modern language, in particular a specific letter from the English alphabet. Of course, this designation is assigned to a character whose name starts with the letter. Written in fucking English. Yes, I’m repeating myself and cussing. Why? Because it took me out of “Z” book and I was hard pressed to return to it.
Now, after getting kicked in the nuts by Stirling twice as I turned the pages, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson by the time I got to the epic climax… that turned out to be nothing more than a bridge to RED NAILS. But we got there through another classic Robert E. Howard Conan tale, THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT.
Many people are aware that H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard were penpals, and good friends. Lovecraft encouraged some of his contemporaries, which included the likes of Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Robert Bloch, to utilize his cyclopean Cthulhu mythos. Howard was one of these peers, and an early Conan story, THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT, links the Hyborian Age and Conan to the world Lovecraft created. THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT was also used as an influence for the famous kidnapping scene in the CONAN THE BARBARIAN film. And it was data mined once again in BLOOD OF THE SERPENT. Stirling, in yet another attempt, I think, to tie in as many Easter Eggs as he could into one loincloth, swerves us as Conan faces the story’s big bad. It made me wish Stirling would’ve just called the book THE BLOOD OF CTHULHU and saved me the time of reading it.
Well written, but too many uses of modern references and shoehorned plot devices ultimately ruined this book for me. I’m not finding myself excited for more books from Stirling in this world. The Jason Momoa Conan film is better at times. This book ultimately reminded me of the infamous Robert Jordan Conan novel released in the 80s, wherein the editor changed all the ANDs to ANs, and that was a big enough stain on the franchise. At least Stirling’s dialogue is better than Jordan’s. Awful, misogynistic lines like “I’ll ride you like a draft horse, long and hard,” aren’t found, and I give him props for avoiding the often racist stereotypes authors of Howard’s era included in their prose. But whereas Victor Lavalle’s THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM does an excellent, organic job of that… CONAN: BLOOD OF THE SERPENT flounders and wiggles like a headless snake. I can only recommend this to hardcore Conan fans or people looking for their first Conan story to read. I suggest the latter, because things can only get better for them from here.
February 19, 2023
Obi-Wasp, You’re Our Only… Hope: Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania
Super-Hero partners Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. Together, with Hope’s parents Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought was possible.
DIRECTED BY PEYTON REED
WRITTEN BY JEFF LOVENESS
STARRING: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathryn Newton and Jonathan Majors
ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA surpassed industry expectations to take the top spot at the box office over the weekend, pulling in an estimated $104 million domestically. I saw it Thursday, and with the popcorn bucket & cup combo and IMAX tickets, my wife and I contributed $70 to its coffers. It was fun, but I wanted to wait a couple days to gather my thoughts on the MCU’s latest theatrical offering.
Often with my “renegade reviews” of films, I’ll begin by focusing on commentary on something with similar- or sometimes dissimilar- properties. I do this in order to provide you, the reader, with an objective base line to better understand the position of my opinion. I’ve done this for nearly a decade now, and in order to talk about the MCU’s kick off to Phase Five, I have to do it again. Twice.
Yes, ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA is not only the third film in the ANT-MAN trilogy, it’s also the launching point for the next phase of Marvel’s Multiverse storyline. It establishes the Big Bad for the arc, and is he ever a big, bad, motherfucker if we ever saw one. And yes, the rumors you’ve heard are indeed true, it’s the MCU’s STAR WARS. But I’m not sure if that’s the film’s strongest point. In fact, I think it’s the weakest. Now, before I get into all that, let me first answer the following question:
Did I love the movie, did I just enjoy the movie, did I think it was meh, or did I think it was a stinking pile of shit?
Yes.
Tom, you had four choices, and none of them were all of the above.
Shush. Let me explain…
We are both blessed and cursed to live in a unique time, one of flux because of technology. Cyberspace and the accompanying technology allowing us to connect to one another through portable devices, has had as much of an impact on society as the discovery of fire. The crater it’s left after slamming into the entertainment media, resulting in a multitude of changes regarding how we consume it, is undeniable.
From Napster and Pirate Bay to Social media, the internet has led to innumerable changes. And one of them this tech has changed is entertainment reviews. Now, I’m not talking about the one to five stars plus comments you leave on Amazon (but those do help the indy writers who publish through the Evil Empire). I’m talking about professional film criticism.
There are two fundamental types of entertainment critiques: the critical appraisal and the enthusiasm review. With film, the former came to prominence in the Seventies and Eighties, making stars out of the journalists in question. Under the scrutiny of legendary film critics the likes of Leonard Malten, Gene Shallet, and the team of Siskel and & Ebert, their opinions on film both in newsprint and on the television, influenced the films we watched. But with the advent of the internet, and ultimately Ain’t It Cool News in the late Nineties, society experienced two important changes.
The first was a paradigm shift in the manner in which we appraise a films. With the birth of the internet, newspapers were already losing their power, and as a result, the venerated film critics found their jobs in jeopardy. Movie reviewers (not critics – there’s a difference!), under internet pseudonyms like Moriarty, Massawyrm, and The Infamous Billy The Kidd, became the voices the public listened to when deciding on the films they wanted to see.
You all know Massawyrm better as C. Robert Cargill, the screenwriter for DOCTOR STRANGE. Moriarty is screenwriter and reviewer Drew McWeeney (MASTERS OF HORROR), and Billy the Kidd was my Infamous mentor. I came from this group, late in the game, when I started writing for Billy “the Kidd” Donnelly at This Is Infamous ten years ago, after Harry fired him by email. All of these men influenced me. When I review anything, I do my best to be professional and justify my position with examples supporting my opinion. You can’t say something is “bad” without using some example as justification.
The second was the birth and growth of the Toxic Internet Troll. It’s not ironic at all when I say Ain’t It Cool also gave birth to the Toxic Internet Fan. The talk back forums on Ain’t It Cool were a toxicity wasteland with no moderation. Some of this leaked into the way reviewers on Ain’t It Cool approached their jobs. And it led to the birth of the enthusiasm reviewer, ie: fans overtalking what they like and shitting on what they don’t like. This is what you find when your buddy gives his opinion of a TV show, book, or movie on social media or in a forum like reddit.
It’s a sports rivalry mentality, one indoctrinated into our children during their formative years in public & private schools. Rah rah my school’s the best cheer rallies evolved into the Bills vs the Dolphins rivalry and the dehumanizing and hazing of another person for daring to wear the colors of the visiting team. Then pop culture edge lords took it a step further, labeling others Beatles or Elvis people, Star Wars or Star Trek… and so forth. Allegedly this meant you could only like one, or the other. I’ve grown to call foul on this philosophy, especially since I once found myself guilty of it.
That mindset changed when I put on my big boy pants and started taking entertainment journalism seriously. Shit, my biography on This Is Infamous said I like both Star Trek and Star Wars, but Battlestar Galactica is my favorite. If you want to more about Ain’t It Cool news and its influence on media, something I experienced and lived first hand, check out the podcast DOWNLOWD: THE RISE AND FALL OF HARRY KNOWLES AND AIN’T IT COOL NEWS .
Now that we’ve established these ground rules for what is and isn’t a professional film critique… I want you to be fully aware my position on ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA is going to be equal parts editorial critique and enthusiasm review. It is also semi-spoiler free, though not totally, so here’s your warning to step back if you care about that. All this talk about Ain’t It Cool has made me hungry. Let’s make an Oreo, shall we?
Going into QUANTUMANIA you will have expectations based off the trailers. Those expectations will be crushed. This is a good thing. The film’s trailers, though they reveal a great deal of the film’s impressive special effects, they mislead you on more. This bait and switch magic trick is great, and adds a little surprise to the film. You’ll notice the primary differences with Scott and Janet’s storylines. And though Scott’s main goal in the trailers is still the same in the film, it’s achieved in a more appropriate manner then the trailer implies.
QUANTUMANIA is a visual feast to behold. If you are a person who likes to indulge in a vice before consuming your entertainment, this is truly a movie that begs for, um, let’s call it enhancement. The plot wastes no time taking us into the Quantum Realm, a sub-universe outside of time that also happens to be the gateway to all realties (ie: time lines). It’s basically a reimagined Marvel Microverse (or is it? #TalkAboutThatLater), once home to the Micronauts (whom Marvel has lost the rights to and can’t mention!). The land is populated by a plethora of unique and alien characters, which add to the imagery and total experience. It’s truly breathtaking to behold, especially in IMAX.
We often forget that there are two Ant-Mans and two Wasps in the film, and the movie does it best to let each have their shining moment. The most notable is Janet Van Dyne’s Wasp and her adventures, before, and during the primary events in the film. This is also where the STAR WARS comparisons begin on a positive note. She comes across as a Obi-Wan Kenobi type character, exiled to the wastelands of the Quantum Realm, and when she returns, that rough and tough persona re-emerges.
Screenwriter Jeff Loveness (RICK & MORTY) plants plenty of verbal Easter eggs throughout. There are homages to not only STAR WARS (most notably a famous line regarding a rescue) but ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, when Bill Murray’s Lord Crylar declares “I thought you were dead.”
As far as sequels go, QUANTUMANIA is a solid trilogy closer, with callbacks to the first and second film throughout. The best of which is Yellow Jacket’s return as MODOK, still played by Corey Stoll, from the chin up. In typical MCU fashion, the character is reimagined for the live action 616 Universe. For as foreboding and menacing as he (it?) is, MODOK is a great comic foil to the film’s true antagonist, Kang The Conqueror.
Jonathan Majors first introduced us to a variant of Kang in the season finale of LOKI. He Who Remains, the last Kang standing in a multiverse war, showed how versatile an actor Majors is. The second after credits scene, wherein we find Loki and Mobius tracking down Victor Timely, another Kang variant, leads me to believe the show’s second season will focus on this alternate reality TVA hunting down Kang variants in much the same manner the TVA previously went after Loki variants. Is the TVA the tool of the Council of Kangs introduced in the first after credits scene… or to Kang the Conqueror himself? I guess that’s part of the mystery to come.
Now, why did I just go down that rabbit hole? To prove a point. You see, QUANTUMANIA is not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. It really is a good movie. It hits all the feels, so to say, it’s supposed to. Is it a great movie? No. It is flawed, which we’ll dig into shortly. But it is good, and good art, good movies, make you postulate like I’ve done above. Speculation of where a storyline is going is one of the great things that surrounds a good story.
This was proven in the cliffhangers of the old matinee cinemas and comic books. Smart writers and producers brought it to the small screen, in the serialized television programs starting with daytime soap operas, which evolved into who killed Bobby Ewing and the season finale where you have to watch because you don’t know what’s going to happen to your favorite character! All of these did two things. First, they made people talk, first at water coolers and now on social media. Secondly? They made advertising revenue like mad.
Marvel and their film franchise was ankle to trick us into watching what turned out to be a 10 year long serialized television series, shown in theaters. Twenty films, and the average television season for an hourly program is twenty episodes. As the story has progressed, Marvel has diversified, spinning off with different properties designed to appeal to specific audiences.
This is most evident in their Disney+ TV shows. SHE-HULK was their Lawyer Comedy and it’s focused demographic was woman who liked Alley McBeal. Ms. MARVEL was targeted at young women. FALCON & THE WINTER SOLDIER was targeting fans of action and espionage. And so forth with each series. Each one has also had strong themes present within them, addressing troublesome issues from dealing with grief, to drug addiction, mental illness, and the effects of systematic racism.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, 4DX exclusive artThe movies don’t delve too deeply into that territory, though they are the prime movers of the story. QUANTUMANIA is no different in that aspect. And that’s part of it’s problem. It’s more focused on moving the MCU storyline forward than it is with resolving its own story. As a result, some parts of the movie don’t resonate with you after you leave the theater. Some characters didn’t get the attention they deserved.
Yes, it’s full of weird shit. Yes, it is a visual feast with a cornucopia of alien beings… and yeah they’re cool and all, but who are they? This is where it tries to STAR WARS again, but fails. Do I even give a fuck about any of them? There’s so any of them, more than the fish James Cameron put in AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER for fuck’s sake. I don’t know what Peyton Reed or Marvel was thinking.
James Gunn takes a similar approach with his GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY franchise, but those characters are more than window dressing. They have a life, where as the aliens in QUANTUMANIA seem to exist only to fill the screen with weird shit and do weird things. Often it seems like the screen is filled with homages to THE FIFTH ELEMENT and other classic sci-fi properties, just for the sake of resembling something recognizably cool. We easily could have spent another half hour to forty-five minutes exploring these characters and I wouldn’t have cared.
There is rumors that an extended fight scene between Kang and Scott does exist, but it was so violent, it could have given the film an R rating. I’ll say this, they didn’t fuck around hitting the “shit” quota in dialogue. “Shit” has turned into Disney’s darling cuss word, and it was as evident here as George RR Martin’s affinity for CUNT is in Game of Thrones.
But where I think this movie most missed its mark, where it made its biggest travesty, was the complete omission of Michael Pena’s Luis and partial neutering of Randall Park‘s Jimmy Woo. We see the latter in B-roll footage in a montage, but it’s not enough. And there is no sign of Luis or the gang from San Francisco. They all added that comedic element this film desperately needed. Yes, we got some of it with the Darren jokes with MODOK, but it wasn’t enough.
As I already indicated, the buttons are the most important portion of this film, establishing Kang as the big bad of this story arc. In the first, we are introduced to the Council of Kangs. Their triumvirate- Rama Tut, Centurion, and Immortus, meet to say the exiled one has been killed, and they set about plans to avenge the death of one of their own.
Now I think this was all a red herring. It was established in the film that Scott could go smaller, into a point in the Quantum Realm where he would be undetectable. So, I don’t think Kang The Conqueror is dead. I think he’s not in the Quantum Realm, I think he’s in the MICROVERSE! I think he is there, with his Time Chair- and this is the location of Chronopolis and the TVA, and HE is the one we will learn is in charge of TVA, not the Council of Kangs.
See what happened there? It happened again. A good movie made me speculate, again. Set aside your petty notions of “Super hero fatigue” or Marvel vs. DC. ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA isn’t perfect, but it is worth the trip to the multiplex to see its visuals on the biggest screen you can view it on.
February 2, 2023
Knock At the Cabin – When Diversity Speaks To You Personally
While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.
KNOCK AT THE CABIN
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY M. Night Shyamalan
WRITTEN BY Steve Desmond & Michael Sherman
BASED ON “THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD” BY PAUL TREMBLAY
Dave Bautista (Dune, Guardians of the Galaxy franchise)
Tony award and Emmy nominee Jonathan Groff (Hamilton, Mindhunter)
Ben Aldridge (Pennyworth, Fleabag)
BAFTA nominee Nikki Amuka-Bird (Persuasion, Old)
Kristen Cui
Abby Quinn (Little Women, Landline)
Rupert Grint (Servant, Harry Potter franchise).
Since learning M. Night Shyamalan was adapting Paul Tremblay’s THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD as KNOCK AT THE CABIN, I’ve gone through a bit of manic anticipation waiting for it to hit the big screen. I know how disappointing theatrical adaptations of beloved novels can be to fans, and ever since 1986 and MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, I’ve looked at these films with a grain of salt. This isn’t to say I’ve lowered my bar, no. Instead, it’s an indication of my ability to look at the film objectively on its own merits, without any prejudgment based on my knowledge of the source material. So tonight I dove in, the wife and I had a date and went to see the film.
I’d seen the trailers for KNOCK AT THE CABIN, and being a fan of Tremblay’s bleak, Shirley Jackson-esque novel, they sparked my interest and rose my optimism. I was impressed at how well the film seemed to capture Paul’s book on the screen. Of course, I also recalled my enthusiasm going to see the PET SEMATARY remake from 2019, and how pissed I was for wasting my time with it (yes, that’s two Stephen King references) for revealing its narrative changes in the Goddamned trailers. The film failed for me as a result. Too often an adaptation will forget to include the themes that made a book work, like the aforementioned remake.
I’m happy to say any reservations I may have had were unwarranted. KNOCK AT THE CABIN is a fantastic addition to Shyamalan’s film library. It’s tense, gets right into the action without fucking around one bit. The acting is Oscar worthy, especially Dave Bautista’s Leonard. He’s not a wrestler in this. He’s a school teacher. And you believe it. You don’t see Drax on the screen, you see a caretaker who fears for the kids he coaches on a losing team. There’s all this, with each of the home invaders representing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But the thing that makes this move work is its attention to the source material. You see, KNOCK AT THE CABIN is about as faithful as you can be to a novel… with changing the ending.
Yes. I said faithful by changing the ending.
I knew going in that Shyamalan had changed the ending of Tremblay’s book. It’s why he changed the name of his film to KNOCK AT THE CABIN. He wanted fans of the book to have their book unblemished, and fans of the film to have their own film to cherish. One has M. Night’s name on it, the other has Paul’s name on it. They’re two different yet cohesive things. It’s his hope that the fans crossover. I also knew the ending Shyamalan used was one Tremblay himself had considered in an early draft of THE FOUR (which went on to become THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD).
And this is why KNOCK AT THE CABIN succeeds with the changes Shyamalan made to the story. Unlike the jarring differences between Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING in 1980 and Stephen King’s 1977 novel, KNOCK is more akin to Mike Flannagan’s wonderful adaptation of DOCTOR SLEEP, which is as much a sequel to Kubrick’s film as the novel is a sequel to King’s written story – yet it somehow manages to work better than Kubrick’s classic film. The changes made KNOCK seem natural to the narrative because they aren’t changes. They’re organic because they were intended to be there in CABIN. The wonderful, heart wrenching novel we got from Tremblay… it was the imposter.
Don’t get me wrong, the film is just as much of a total cry fest as the book. Once an initial sacrifice is out of the way, you can’t help but feel for the remaining Horsemen and the family. The empathy is real. And that’s because this movie is real. At least the family in it is, to me. Diversity is a great thing, and seeing that diversity represented on screen is a wonderful thing. Yes. I’m a Gen Xer. Yes, I’m a middle-aged, cis, white man. So what business do I have talking about diversity being represented on screen or on the page?
Plenty.
First, as a writer of horror fiction myself, it’s my duty to represent marginalized peoples in a positive, respectable manner, with empathy. To cast aside negative stereotypes, and to embrace other cultures. Tremblay’s THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD, and subsequently Shyamalan’s KNOCK AT THE CABIN, do it like a fucking pro.
Second? And most important? I think it’s great seeing my niece of Euro/Japanese descent, Taryn, my sister Allison, and her partner, Amber, represented on screen. It’s what most appealed to me about Tremblay’s novel, and what draws me to the film. Reading it is one thing. Seeing it another. Yes, I know Andrew and Eric are a male gay couple, but I have some news for you – gender is irrelevant. My family has gone through similar circumstances as the characters in both the book and film. I remember my mother shunning my sister in the same manner (and for the same reason) Eric’s parents drove seven hours one way for a forty-five minute visit. We’ve gotten past that as family now, but seeing it on screen sure did bring back memories.
Shyamalan’s proving that when he adapts another author’s work, he can kick it up a notch and bring it to a new level. He did it with OLD, and he’s done it here again, with KNOCK AT THE CABIN. The adaptation of Paul Tremblay’s novel is a worthy addition to Shyamalan’s filmography. I highly recommend seeing this on the big screen, there is much to absorb on screen, and many visual clues and cues will be enhanced by the theatrical experience.
January 30, 2023
THOMAS F. MONTELONE 1946-2023
Thomas F. Monteleone (born April 14, 1946) passed way kicking and screaming, while awake, on January 30th, 2023. The cause of death has been attributed to acute HUD (Head Up Ass Disease), a common malady suffered by elderly white men living within their own little microcosm of reality. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth, his daughter Olivia, and his son.
Monteleone’s former publishing house, BORDERLANDS PRESS, is currently under scrutinization by the horror community for its lack of diversity in promoting marginalized voices (because “no one has ever heard of them.”). With this being said, the Borderlands Bootcamp writer’s retreat, formerly run by Tom and his daughter with a slew of old white men as instructors, has been taken over by long-time diversity advocate, Brian Keene. This new and improved class features a selection of diverse creators as instructors, to include Maurice Broadice, Mary San Giovanni, and of course Keene.
Tom had a long career in science fiction and horror, cultivating new talent while defending misogynists. Soon after participating in an alien abduction practical joke, Monteleone began writing in 1974 with a wonderful book, MORE SCIENCE FICTION TALES. This collection went on to inspire many blossoming creators in the mid to late 1970s; including the writer of this obituary, who was, at the time, unaware of Monteleone’s closed minded political and social beliefs.
Donations can be made to the following LGBTQ charites on behalf of Tom and his family:
Support Homepage
https://www.thehrcfoundation.org/
https://www.aliforneycenter.org/
A PERSONAL NOTE TO TOM (not that your miserable fucking ass will ever see this): Thanks for betraying everyone who believed in you, Mr. Monteleone. I guess it’s ironic, then, that we all learned one last lesson from a bitter, old man. The pisser is I never thought it would be “HOW TO COMMIT CAREER SUICIDE.”
