Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2279
October 25, 2016
CHANNEL ZERO: CANDLE COVE Recap: “Want to See Something Cool?”
After three episodes, it’s easy to see what works best on Channel Zero: Candle Cove and what doesn’t: when characters engage in long conversations about life the show grinds to a halt, and when it gets to the weird and horror elements it takes off.
That was very clear in this week’s episode, “Want to See Something Cool?” The first half dealt with cliche story lines of lost potential love and old vendettas, but then went nuts in the second half with an ever-present Tooth Child, a suddenly and unexplained appearing daughter, and a clan of killer kids being led by their evil teacher.
There doesn’t seem to be much mystery left about what happened in 1988, and that’s fine. The evil puppet show gave Eddie special powers, which he used to kill kids who bullied him, and Mike in turn killed him to stop it. The real mystery is in the present day, and that’s where the stakes are now: why did Mike come back, what does the teacher have to do with all of it, and what–or who–is the Tooth Child?
Admittedly, the first half was fine, though the interrogation of Mike had some rough spots of dialogue. But it felt unnecessarily slow, especially when it was followed by the bonkers second half. With only six-episodes in a season, I wish they’d worry a little less about making us care about the characters and more about the weird stuff going on. The bizarre elements are far more entertaining, and for a horror show that’s not a bad thing. Considering how many new elements were introduced in the second half of this episode, it looks like the final three episodes will finally focus on the weird. I also thought last week’s character-driven episode would be the last of those, so who knows.
The strengths of the episode’s later scenes come from clever directing decisions. Most of the story takes place during the day, frequently using wide, bright shots that feature empty space. It makes the town feel claustrophobic by showing how much is unfilled. The town is everywhere, closing in on you, a feeling that grows the more you see it. This lets the sparingly used night time sequences take on a much more ominous feeling. When Tim was walking through the woods it instantly felt dangerous, and that was before we started getting glimpses of murderous children.
Speaking of the children, if we are heading to a Children of the Corn-style massacre then sign me up. Creepy children are always scary (somehow demon kids look like sharks with cold, black eyes), and having them led by their sweet old teacher — with an intriguing concern for Mike — makes it even better.
The puppet show, with its extended sequences, also seemed more terrifying this week. Even if kids weren’t showing up dead without any teeth, that show would be unsettling.
So Channel Zero ended up showing us a bunch of cool things this week, it just made us wait for them. Going forward we hope they’ll feature more Tooth Child and less chattering.
What did you think of this week’s episode? You can talk all you want about it in our comments below.
Images: Syfy
Carve Pumpkins Like a Pro with a 60,000 psi Waterjet
Nerdoween is at our doorsteps once again, and that, of course, means pumpkin carving. But while carving a pumpkin is fun, it still involves a lot of sloop and gloop (presumed technical terms for pumpkin innards) as well as a lot of back and forth arm motions that can really wear on the ol’ elbow joints. Well now we can say goodbye to any Halloween-related orange-gut mess and arthritis with… a 60,000 psi waterjet cutter!
The above and below videos of the waterjet doing its very high-pressured thing to pumpkins comes via Sploid, and was posted by the Waterjet Channel. Above, we see the waterjet cut a classic Jack O’Lantern in less than 30 seconds (with only a few collateral damage holes in its backside), while below we see that the crew behind the YouTube channel decided to go a bit more flavor of the month and carve a Harambe pumpkin. (How many Harambe costumes will you see this Halloween? Several million? We think so too.)
And if you’re thinking to yourself, I really enjoyed watching these pumpkins get reamed with a blast of high-pressured water, but I just wish I could see more random household items carved up into pieces, then you’re in luck! The Waterjet Channel has already carved up everything from bowling balls to a ship in a bottle, and (if the Waterjet Channel goes the same route as the Hydraulic Press Channel), it will only be a matter of time before pretty much every imaginable household item gets carved up into bits.
What do you think about this waterjet pumpkin carving? And how does the waterjet compare to the hydraulic press in terms of annihilation satisfaction? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: Waterjet Channel
SEGA Has a Company Song That Sounds Like a Goofy National Anthem
Here’s an example of the differences between Japanese culture and our own: Since the 1970, it’s been not uncommon for Japanese companies to have a company song, that serves as a sort of morale-boosting anthem. In the early ’90s, Sega decided they needed a theme song of their own.
Mike Fischer, a former CEO of Square Enix America, worked at the Japanese headquarters of Sega Enterprises Ltd. in 1990, and told Polygon, “Right after I joined Sega in 1990, the company’s business really started taking off — especially in the international (non-Japanese) markets with the launch of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console. The company started to expand rapidly, and as most large companies in Japan had a company song, the decision was made that Sega should have one, too.”
Company mascot Sonic was an idea submitted by an employee, so they decided to use the same approach for a company song, and the winning composition was “Young Force” by Eiichi Takahashi. If there’s one thing the song is, it’s cheesy: The instrumentation is string-laden like a national anthem, and the lyrics were based on company mottos.
“These mottos were part of the Monday morning ritual long before the song was ever created, and we would recite them together at the start of the meeting,” Fischer said. “The main slogan was ‘Creativity is Life’ but there were several other company values and slogans we’d recite. Some of them made it into the song, some that didn’t. There were phrases like ‘advance society with intellectual property’ and ‘work together to achieve our objectives.’ (They sound just as clunky in Japanese).”
Listen to the song for yourself below, read more about its history over at Polygon, and if you feel so compelled, send along your ideas for a Nerdist company song, since we just realized we don’t have one and it’s now our main priority as a business.
Featured image: SEGA
An Artist Combined POKÉMON and GARFIELD to Create Garfémon
As far as the games go, food isn’t an extremely critical part of the Pokémon universe. Sure, they get to eat berries, but what’s a Pokémon got to do to get some lasagna? That’s probably what all the creatures from Garfémon, a new series of illustrations from artist Shawn Bowers, are asking.
Garfémon combines two things that both have no reason to be put together and feel like they truly belong with each other: Pokémon, and our favorite fat cat, Garfield. Bowers is working through Garfield-izing the original 151 right now, and when all’s said and done, the project’s website will be a complete numerically-ordered Pokédex of orange, striped, feline, rotund Pokémon.
In the meantime’s he’s posting them on Instagram, complete with Pokédex descriptions. For example, Garfakazam: “This Garfemon has PSYCHIC POWERS that allow it to take over the minds of any Odies or Jons in its vicinity. It can eat double the lasagna of a normal Garfemon because it owns TWO FORKS.”
A photo posted by Shawn Bowers! (@shawnbowers) on Sep 19, 2016 at 3:17pm PDT
In the FAQ on the project’s website, he said that when he’s done all 151, he’d like to release the illustrations as a T-shirt, “because I will need some kind of paper or cloth for them to wrap my body in as its lowered slowly into the ground.”
Check out some of our favorite Garfémon below, and keep up with them as they’re released on Bowers’ Instagram.
A photo posted by Shawn Bowers! (@shawnbowers) on Sep 24, 2016 at 7:05am PDT
A photo posted by Shawn Bowers! (@shawnbowers) on Sep 29, 2016 at 7:36am PDT
A photo posted by Shawn Bowers! (@shawnbowers) on Oct 2, 2016 at 4:33pm PDT
A photo posted by Shawn Bowers! (@shawnbowers) on Oct 5, 2016 at 7:36am PDT
Get leaky with Pokemon Sun and Moon Pokedex leaks!
Images: Shawn Bowers
X-MEN 2 Gets a LOGAN Style Trailer
The first trailer for Logan was such a hit with fans that it seems to have spawned its own trailer memes. Earlier this week, the Logan trailer was recreated with clips from X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men: Evolution. Now, X2: X-Men United — or X2, if you’re nasty — has been given a new trailer in the style of Logan.
Via The Hollywood Reporter, Sam Ibrahim released his take on the X-Men 2 trailer, and he did a lot more than just adding Johnny Cash‘s “Hurt” cover to the soundtrack. All of the footage from X2 was recut in black and white, which added a grim and foreboding touch. Bryan Singer‘s second X-Men movie already had a few ominous moments, including Jean Grey’s intuition that “something terrible is about to happen.”
The new trailer stays away from most of the big action set pieces from X2, while focusing on Wolverine’s brief recollections of his transformation into a weapon, and the very painful memories of Nightcrawler. It also uses a few clips from William Stryker’s assault on the X-Mansion, which forced Wolverine to unleash his inner beast in order to protect the next generation of mutants.
Ibrahim even ended the trailer on an oddly human note, as Logan and Stryker’s connection was felt even through a wall of ice. It’s not as intimate as the bond between Logan and Laura/X-23, but the way that moment played in X2 seemed to indicate that Stryker and Logan had once been friends. That’s not the way it worked out in X-Men Origins: Wolverine or X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it’s not like the X-Men films were ever big on consistency!
What did you think about this trailer remix? Unleash your thoughts below!
We broke down the Logan trailer right here!
Image: 20th Century Fox/Marvel
Ron Howard is All Of Us, Hopes for a WILLOW TV Show
It’s safe to say that few people in the entertainment industry have had a career like Ron Howard‘s. As an actor, Howard has starred on two iconic television shows–The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days–and as a director, he has worked over several decades to become one of the most in demand and acclaimed visionaries of his generation. From classic comedies like Splash, Parenthood, and EdTV to Oscar caliber dramas that include Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, and Cinderella Man to edge-of-your-seat thrillers like Ransom and The Da Vinci Code movies, the reach of Howard’s work includes many genres and pools of unparalleled talent.
But for me, there’s one movie that stands above the rest and holds a very special place in my heart: Willow. Based on a story by George Lucas and starring Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, and Jean Marsh, for me, Willow is a fantasy epic filled with laughs, scares, and pure magic. It’s become a running joke around the Nerdist offices that Willow by some weird coincidence makes its way into a lot of my junket interviews: from Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain talking about how the 1988 adventure influenced them while making The Huntsman: Winter’s War to Bryce Dallas Howard comparing the dragons featured in this summer’s Pete’s Dragon with the two-headed monster from her dad’s movie. So naturally, when it came time for me to sit down with Mr. Howard to discuss Inferno, based on the Dan Brown novel of the same name and starring Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones, I had to take the opportunity to talk to him about it.
Much to my delight, Howard seemed to remember the film fondly and discuss what he learned while making the movie. He also mentioned that now that Disney happens to own Lucasfilm, the future of the franchise rests in their hands. And he’d like to return to that universe just as much as I would, but maybe in a different medium…
Inferno, starring Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, and Omar Sy, is in theaters this Friday.
Images: Lucasfilm/ Disney
SUPERGIRL Recap: Welcome to Earth
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Supergirl. Proceed with caution if you haven’t watched yet!
Clark Kent/Superman might be gone, but don’t worry—Kara got up to plenty on this week’s episode of Supergirl. In “Welcome to Earth,” she met the President (played by Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter), wrote her first report, and dealt with the mysterious alien that had fallen to earth during the season two premiere. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get right to it.
After waking up, the mysterious alien that crash-landed a few episodes back ran amok in the DEO headquarters. It didn’t take long for him to get away from the group and escape the facility. While trying to locate him, the President stopped by for a visit to sign an alien-specific law into effect. The doc in question grants aliens the same rights humans have. It’s unclear whether the President has ulterior motives (though she does seem to be an alien of some kind, herself), but it’s clear that not everyone is in favor.
A prime example of someone unhappy with the plan: Lex Luthor’s adoptive sister Lena. Kara learned as much when she was tasked with interviewing the anti-alien woman under direction of her new boss Snapper Carr. Speaking of good old Snapper, he’s still not a fan of Kara. When she showed up for her first real day on the job (for some reason thinking that she was going to interview the President of the United States), Snapper assigned Kara the interview with Lena.
As one would expect, Lena isn’t a big fan of the alien race. When Kara showed up to interview her, Lena presented a device that is capable of detecting aliens. With the new ordinance going into effect, Lena made a plan to sell the device under the L Corp name to stores and other people that she claimed have a right to know who among them is an alien. With the device in hand, Lena almost discovered Kara’s otherworldliness, but was thwarted by a malfunction (good work, Kara).
Thanks to the controversial question at hand, the President has a target on her back. Both during her arrival and speech later on, an alien equipped with flames threatened the President’s life. At first, Supergirl assumed the fiery blur had something to do with her new pod-crashing buddy, but that wasn’t the case.
After meeting Detective Maggie Sawyer, Alex was invited to a secret bar chock full of alien outcasts. On her way out, she spotted a red-headed girl with a devilish expression. That girl wound up being the baddie who was responsible for taking the flaming shots at the President. When they found her again, she had Maggie tied up. As she saw it, the pro-alien law is just a means of identifying and tracking aliens. It took all three of the girls (Maggie, Alex and Kara) to take the redhead out.
After learning about the fire alien, Kara apologized to Mon-El (The Vampire Diaries‘ Chris Wood) for blaming and judging him. Though their encounter started with Mon-El trying to choke her, the episode ended with a handshake and mutual understanding; despite their planets being enemies, both have lost their homes. It will definitely be interesting to watch whatever relationship they foster from here on out.
The biggest surprise of the night came at the end when J’onn went to investigate the alien bar Maggie had taken Alex to. As soon as he stepped in, he took on his natural green form and walked up to the bar. When the waitress decided to take off, Hank followed and asked her who she was. The reveal? Miss Martian, the last daughter of Mars has arrived.
What did you think of this episode? Are you excited to see more of Miss Martian? Let us know in the comments!
Images: The CW
Fan-Made SONIC THE HEDGEHOG Game Brings Speed to an Open World
As beloved as the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise is, it appears as though being a mega-fan might be a frustrating experience. Although a bona fide gem in 2D, when the third dimension comes into play is when Sonic experiences some growing pains, even to this day. Fans are so upset with this, in fact, that we seem to be in a sort of golden age for fan-made games that try their darndest to imagine Sonic in a 3D and open world.
Less than two months ago, we wrote about Green Hill Paradise Act 2, a fan-created title that sought to bring the linear speed of the 2D games together with the exploration of more successful 3D games like the Mario releases. Given its scope and the fact that it’s a fan project, this effort seems to have largely succeeded in at least trying something that the diluted brand of Sonic (we mean, he’s a werewolf in one game) has not.
Now, there’s Sonic Utopia, and based on the gameplay trailer, it seems to have solved the problem of how to make extreme, Sonic-levels of speed work in an open world: make that open world huge. It still feels like there are perhaps a few too many tangents to explore, but that could also be a cognitive bias given our predisposition towards the ultra-linear levels of traditional Sonic games.
You can take our word for it, or you can give it a go yourself. The game is only in early demo form now, but definitely feel free to download it for yourself here.
Images: The Great Lange
Human-Sized GODZILLA Statue Is Available for Purchase (and Battle)
Unless you have plenty of land and a few million dollars lying around, owning a life-sized Godzilla statue may be an impossible dream. That’s even the case if you veer toward the smaller end of the Godzilla size scale—while in some movies, Godzilla is big enough to crush a few city blocks, in others he’s small enough to battle King Kong. But now, you can at least bring a human-sized Godzilla statue home. And he may still tower over you!
Via Famitsu and Kotaku, Tamashii Nations is releasing a very faithfully recreated statue of Godzilla that stands tall at 6-foot-4-inches. Note that this is the version of Japan’s most famous monster from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, as designed by world famous kaiju sculptor Yuji Sakai. This statue was 3D scanned from a smaller model by Sakai, and it’s approximately the height of the suits that the actors wore in the Godzilla films long before CGI became common.
We suppose that you could battle this Godzilla statue for supremacy of your living room, but it may not be a good idea. For starters, this collectible will run you about $40,000, and that’s not counting the cost of delivery from Japan. It’s also a highly limited item, with only 10 statues on sale; there will be a raffle held on November 7 to determine who gets to bring Godzilla home with them.
That price puts it well out of our range, but we’re really impressed by the attention to detail on this statue. It almost makes us want to fill our homes with human-sized versions of Godzilla’s most famous opponents, including Mothra and MechaGodzilla. But at that rate, we’d run out of room for ourselves!
What do you think about the Godzilla statue? Let out a mighty roar in the comment section below!
Check out these surprising (but true!) Godzilla facts.
Images: Famitsu/Tamashii Nations
October 24, 2016
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS FEAST is a Balanced Film School Meal (Blu-ray Review)
At the end of September, a filmmaker named Herschell Gordon Lewis passed away at the age of 90. If you’re familiar with his name at all, it’s because he’s often credited (rightfully, too) as being the creator of the “gore” picture, at a time when any kind of viscera was heavily looked down upon. Lewis was more than just a maker of schlocky horror, though; he was a maker of any kind of exploitation cinema, from nudie cuties to biker and teen violence flicks to even a porno or two. The fascinating working career of Lewis is detailed in Arrow Films’ fantastic Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast box set.
As far as I recall — my college days were a blur of way too many bad horror movies — I’d only seen two H.G. Lewis movies up to now: Blood Feast, his 1963 first foray into the gore picture, and The Wizard of Gore from 1970, one of his latter-day numbers. In truth, his career in feature films is incredibly brief but amazingly prolific. He directed just over 30 pictures in an 11 year span before becoming a successful copywriter and marketing guru, a career which made him millions.
There are so many weird and wondrous facts about Herschell Gordon Lewis that this box set — lovingly made to look like a cereal box if the cereal inside weighed 6 lbs. Lewis was, at his heart, a businessman who though making films for the sake of art was a waste of time. He got into feature filmmaking for one reason and one reason only: money. He knew that if he made flicks cheaply and depict things audiences could never get from a major studio, he could get them shown at a minor drive-in market in Florida (where he began) or throughout smaller Midwestern markets for a week and then turn a profit. If kids ultimately liked the movies and they ran for several weeks, all the better.
And in a lot of ways, this lack of “artistry” shows in the films; most of them have strange or nonexistent plots, poor acting, bland staging, grossly flat lighting, and ludicrously over-the-top violence, but these have all become part and parcel to what an H.G. Lewis movie is, and in that way, it’s what made him an artist. He hated second takes; what a waste of money! As Chris Alexander says in one of the set’s many featurettes, you don’t watch and study each movie; you watch the catalog and only then do you understand. His movies are silly, often parodies of themselves, and while it might be tempting to watch them just to laugh at the shoddiness, you’ll find there’s not enough laughable about them for that to work. These movies were like Troma before Troma.
The set contains 14 of Lewis’ essential films. (It doesn’t include any of the nudie cuties or movies for kids he made, though there are several short interviews about them.) What we get is a straight-forward amalgamation of all of hid gore films and a few of his other favorites. I won’t go so far as to give full reviews of all of them, but here’s a breakdown of what you’ll be getting.
Blood Feast (1963)
The infamous first gore film, which runs a spry 67 minutes (he was told they needed to be at least 70 minutes to play anywhere). It concerns an Egyptian man named Fuad Ramses who owns a grocery store and secretly kills and butchers women to create the titular viscera smorgasbord with the hopes of bringing back the goddess Ishtar. It contains a scene where a poor young lady gets her tongue ripped out of her skull.
Scum of the Earth! (1963)
Lewis’ last black & white movie and the only one in this set. It’s not a gore picture but is instead a salacious crime movie in which an innocent young woman is lured into doing more and more provocative photo shoots, first as a way to pay for school, then after she’s blackmailed.
Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
Another Lewis fan favorite, on the one with the highest IMDb user rating (a whopping 5.9!). It follows a group of Northern tourists who are savagely tortured and murdered during a Confederate celebration of a small southern community’s centennial.
Moonshine Mountain (1964)
The first “oddity” in the set, this movie isn’t gory or violent at all. Instead, it’s a musical set in the deep south.
Color Me Blood Red (1965)
A quite enjoyable entry, about a struggling artist looking for the exact right shade of red to finish his masterpiece of a painting…and guess where the only place he can find that particular hue is? If you guessed the blood of people he has to kill, you are correct.
Something Weird (1967)
A simply fascinating entry, not a gore movie per se, but definitely an odd, almost nightmarish horror movie about a psychic who uses his gift to aid local police following a string of murders, and the old haggard witch who tries to kill him, and with whom he also falls in love…it’s all there in the title.
The Gruesome Twosome (1967)
While all of his movies are in bad taste, this one sat the worst with me. It’s about an older woman who owns a wig shop and has her mentally handicapped adult son murder and butcher woman to scalp them and get their hair to make her wigs. It’s…yeah, it’s something.
A Taste of Blood (1967)
Lewis himself calls this the only true failure he made, and that’s largely because he was coaxed into lessening the gore so that more markets could carry it. It’s about a guy who becomes a vampire and then goes off to get revenge on the descendants of the townsfolk who had Dracula killed. It doesn’t have enough production value to work without buckets and buckets of fake blood.
She-Devils On Wheels (1968)
An attempt to capitalize on the biker movie craze started by Roger Corman and later perfected in Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, only this one is about a gang of violent women on bikes.
Just for the Hell of It (1968)
An attempt to start a new craze — the destruction movie. This is about a group of juvenile delinquents who vandalize room after room in a small town. There are massive set pieces where whole rooms are destroyed buy angry young people, and it’s all shot in wides.
How to Make a Doll (1968)
A weird little sci-fi movie about making robotic people to do your bidding. Sort of apropos these days in an Westworld world.
The Wizard of Gore (1970)
Nearing the end of Gordon’s reign as the Godfather of Gore, he became the owner of a movie house/grand guignol in Chicago called the Blood Shed. This movie is an extension of that, about a stage magician who performs disgusting live illusions, including evisceration and head-removal. Everybody goes home happy, content in the knowledge it was all for show…but the real trick is that his “putting them back together” only works for a limited time, and out of nowhere, the victims will be out doing things and drop dead with their guts falling out. Eeeeew.
This Stuff’ll Kill Ya! (1971)
A silly action movie where a con artist acts as a preacher to run his moonshine distillery in a small town in the Deep South and clashes with a number of locals and a federal agent bent on shutting his operation down.
The Gore Gore Girls (1972)
Lewis’ final film for a 30-year period, it’s also the only of his “post-punk” period. His movies all look like crap and are shot in wide shots to maximize time and money. However, with this movie — about a supercilious private eye tasked with catching a black-gloved murderer who mutilates strippers — Lewis began to show marked improvement as a director, owing to the story which mandated the audience not see or know who the killer is until the end. Obviously inspired by Italian gialli, this movie is strange and fitting swansong to Lewis’ decade of exploitation and points to how he might have actually begun to grow in technique had he continued.
Each disc also contains many featurettes which include interviews with Lewis conducted shortly prior to his death (still even then a smart, savvy, with-it guy), interviews with filmmakers who’d been inspired by Lewis (like Joe Swanberg, Peaches Christ, Spencer Parsons, Bob Murawski, Fred Olen Ray, Jeremy Kasten, Chris Alexander, Tim Sullivan, Nicholas McCarthy, and Rodney Ascher), film scholars Jeffrey Sconce and Stephen Thrower, video essays on producer David F. Friedman, Hicksploitation cinema, the artist as horror monster, and more, and audio commentary on just about every film by Lewis and others.
This is an exhaustive but highly enlightening look at one of cinema’s true mavericks, who sought only to shock and make a buck doing it. Whether any actual art trickled through, well, that’s for you to decide.
Join us as we discuss The Exorcist in One Good Scare episode 1!
Images: Shock Films/Arrow Vidoe
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He writes the weekly look at weird or obscure films in Schlock & Awe. Follow him on Twitter!
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