M.R. Gott's Blog, page 4

Banshee Season One

Banshee refers to the name of the town this gloriously pulpy Alan Ball produced ShowTime series occurs in.  The twisty turny plot follows recently released a recently paroled Lucas Hood (played by Antony Starr) as he searches for the love of his life who is the partner and went to prison to cover for, and played by Ivana Milicevic.   This occurs while he tries to avoid the Mob Boss he screwed over when working the job that got him busted.

An utter random turn of events leads Hood to take on the role of Sheriff in this town, controlled by an ex Amsih man turned mob boss named Kai Proctor.  And this is just the set up.  The first two and final two episodes are good but not great while the middle six episodes make up a pretty compelling clever story.  Hood's partners are played by a show stealers Frankie Fasion (a retired boxer) and my favorite character Hoon Lee's aggressive transvestite computer hacker.

This being Cinemax there are some amazingly out of place scenes of random fucking that add nothing to the plot.  Antony Starr's range is also wasted in his role.  He is asked to do little more than skulk and be pissed off, though a few scenes where his character is presented in true emotional turmoil prove this actor is capable of much more.  The true standout though is Ivana Milicevic who brings genuine human emotion turmoil in a nuanced performance that grounds the entire series.

While not amazing overall if you want a series that is interestingly plotted with some very well choreographed hand to hand fight sequences and relish an old pulpy vibe this should sate your appetite for awhile.  

Where the Dead Fear to Tread Reviewed in Beware the Dark #1

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Brian Moreland’s The Devil’s Woods

Brian Moreland’s The Devil’s Woods follows a widower—Kyle Elkheart and his expedition to find his estranged father and discover who the man truly was.  With his brother, sister, and their respective significant others, Kyle returns to the Native American reservation and neighboring town where they grew up to find his father’s expedition, who has been attacked by a creature teased in the book’s prologue.. .Click either image for the full review.

Never Sleep Again Review

Are you up for a four hour documentary on the entire Nightmare On Elm Street film and Television Franchise(but skips the new remake)?  I'm a luke warm fan of the franchise and found it riveting, though I did watch it over four separate days.

This is a warts and all documentary with a great number of players saying very negative things about  various installments, and even directors stating they out right failed in what they attempted.  One of the coolest pieces to me was that got Craig Spector to talk about his trashed Nightmare Five script, and it sounded awesome.

Every director and nearly every cast member and  was interviewed for this project, and each brought some cool insights to their respective projects, one tidbit I really appreciated, because it really bugged me was the screen play for Freddy vs Jason did not have Kelly Rowland calling Freddy a faggot(For me this turned it from a dumb fun movie into something else).  In fact that guy wrote a totally different monologue for her that tied the two franchises together, and was totally scrapped.  

This is without a doubt one of the most thorough but never dull franchise documentaries I have ever seen.

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Wayne C Rogers Reviews Don't Stand So Close by Eric Red

Don’t Stand So Close by Eric RedShort, Scary Tales PublicationsTrade Paperback, 2012, $14.95, 277ppReview by Wayne C. Rogers
Have you ever had a crush on your junior high school teacher, or a high school teacher, or even a professor in college?  This question is directed as much to the ladies as to the men.  I know I did when growing up.  My first crush goes as far back as the sixth grade when I had a total crush on the teacher in the next room.  I couldn’t get my mind off of her.  I even used to ride my little bicycle past her house on occasion.  Today, that would be called stalking.   
Well, Don’t Stand So Close by Eric Red raises it up a notch and increases the stakes as this dark novel delves into obsession, perverted sex, and murder in the first degree. 
The story centers on seventeen-year-old Matt Poe, who has just moved from California to a small town in Iowa, and it’s not near Field of Dreams, either.  Matt’s mother is a teacher, and this is where her new job has taken her.  I come from a southern town where everybody knows you and your business.  I therefore understood the culture shock Matt goes through at being the new kid on the block in a small mid-western community.  Since Matt is a good-looking California teenager, it isn’t long before he makes friends with Rusty and Grace.  Rusty is a strange kid, who stays by himself, but is smart with a high IQ.  Grace is also smart, a cheerleader, the girlfriend of the football captain, and the daughter of the local sheriff.  Matt, however, only eyes for his teacher, Linda Hayden.  Naturally, she’s older, great looking, sexual in every sense of the word, and seems to have an eye for the new kid in school.  It isn’t long before Ms. Hayden offers to tutor Matt after school, and it isn’t long before one thing leads to another and the two are doing the hanky-panky.  In fact, Matt quickly becomes obsessed with the teacher and the hot sex they have.  Things, however, aren’t what they seem.  Within a short span of time, other kids start dying in ways which seem like an accident but isn’t.  Matt soon grows leery of Ms. Hayden, especially when he finds himself developing feelings for Grace in an unexpected way.  The teacher is certainly steadfast in what she wants.  She refuses to let Matt go.  You see Ms. Hayden has plans for Matt…plans that will destroy his life in ways he could never dream or suspect.  Ms. Hayden is a sexual predator of the worse kind and Matt isn’t her first victim.  What started out as a fantasy fulfilled quickly turns into a nightmare that simply won’t go away.
As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.  You might get it.”  Eric Red, the author, is generally known for his screenplay writing and directing.  He wrote the great cult films The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987) and Blue Steel (1989), plus the revised version of The Hitcher (2007) with two other screenwriters.  Though he’s also written a number of short stories in the suspense genre, Don’t Stand So Close is his first novel.  My only question is what took him so long to finally write a book? 
Mr. Red is clearly a very talented author who sees descriptive imagery with the eyes of a screenwriter and director.  He captures everything perfectly in his novel from the personalities of the characters, the hunger a student has for his teacher, the atmosphere of small-town life, and the edge-of-your-seat suspense that keeps you wondering what will happen next.  I not only hope Don’t Stand So Close won’t be Eric Red’s only novel, but that it will be turned into a feature film in the near future.  Though this actress is older than I imagined Linda Hayden to be, I kept seeing her face in the role of the teacher—Lena Olin.  She would be the perfect Linda Hayden.
All in all, Don’t Stand So Close was a pleasant surprise I greatly enjoyed.  This novel does for high school students what the movie, Fatal Attraction, did for married men back during the late eighties.  Keep the fantasy in your mind and your zipper pulled up no matter how strong the allure.  That’s how you stay sane and alive.       

 Wayne C. Rogers is a Las Vegas casino employee who has been writing professionally (with the intent to sell) for twenty-five years. It's only been within the past three years that Mr. Rogers (no, not the famous TV host of programs for children) made the decision to work towards being a full-time writer of horror, suspense, psychological, and erotic horror fiction.He has written several novellas (three of which are posted on Amazon's Kindle), dozens of short stories (some of which are also on Amazon), an erotic/horror novel--The House of Blood--for the wild crowd that lives on the kinky side of reality, and five completed screenplays based on his stories The Encounter, The Tunnels, A Step in the Shadows, Trick or Treat, and The Garbage Disposal (the last three are short screenplays). He is currently at work on a sixth screenplay, The Code of Honor, as well as a seventh, Dolan. During the year of 2012, Mr. Rogers sold over twenty short stories with some of them appearing in the paperback anthologies: I'll Never Go Away, Grindhouse and Peep Show, Volume 2.Being somewhat of a couch potato at his old age of sixty-two, Mr. Rogers enjoys the pastime of writing, reading (he has over a few hundred books stored in boxes a few feet from his writing table), great movies from any time period, and well-made television programs such as Justified, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Game of Thrones, Justified, and American Horror Story. Finally, Mr. Rogers is rather unusual in that he doesn't own a house or a car, A friend just recently bought him a cellphone, but he hasn't turned it on as of yet. He spends his free time at the computer writing his stories, and usually doesn't leave his apartment till it's time to head to work. Thank God for ham & cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup!!!

The Wake #4 Reviewed by Simon Frost

Click to cover to get the latest review of The Wake a new horror series by Scott Snyder

Free on Amazon The Bad Death

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Passion rules the heart and terror rules the night…

South Carolina, 1788. The African beauty emerging from his family crypt is a stranger to Julian Mouret, the refined owner of Lion’s Court plantation. A dancer and a mystery, she spins a strange, dark, and impossible tale of peril and flight. Though he fears she must surely be mad, the handsome slave owner is soon himself a slave, lost to the seductions of this enchantress called Anika and determined to lead her North to safety. 

But there can be no safe haven for Julian or the exquisite Gullah girl who has bewitched him, not while monsters roam the night. A series of horrifying mutilation murders screams of the presence of “plat-eyes”—shape-shifting blood-sucking supernatural creatures feeding at will on the plantation workers—and only Anika can end the rampage. But to face the vampire horde she will have to master the darkness within. And the price of victory in the battle ahead may well be the eternal soul of the man she is coming to love.

The Lords of Salem written and directed by Rob Zombi...

The Lords of Salem written and directed by Rob Zombie came and went from select theatres in the blink of an eye, never coming close to a major release.  I caught up with it after being dumped to DVD/Blu-Ray with little marketing and the sole feature being an audio commentary by Zombie.  I follow horror stuff pretty closely and even I missed it for a month.  Click either image for the Full Review at Ravenous Monster...

Wayne C. Rogers Reviews Bag of Bones

Bag of BonesSony PicturesBased on the novel by Stephen KingDirected by Mick GarrisStarring Pierce Brosnan, Annabeth Gish and Melissa GeorgeReview by Wayne C. Rogers

The mini-series, Bag of Bones, is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.  Surprisingly, it took the director, Mick Garris, five long years to get the financial backing needed to make this adaptation.  The project first started out with the intent of being a feature film, and then over time, the script was rewritten for the small screen.  Thank goodness A&E was willing to fund this project, or it wouldn’t have happened.  Now, I’ve been a big fan of Pierce Brosnan since his Remington Steele days on television.  There’s no doubt in my mind he was the perfect choice for the role of Mike Noonan in Bag of Bones.  I’ve seen the strong, dramatic acting that this man is capable of doing in other films and knew he could handle the performance without any question.  The fact is Mr. Brosnan has simply gotten better with age.  Was Mick Garris able to pull off the adaptation from novel to television?Yes, he was.
Unlike the previous television networks, A&E gave the director pretty much all the freedom he needed to make this mini-series a success.  True he had a small budget and a tight shooting schedule, but he got the absolute most out of every dollar spent and each day on the set.  The quality of the cinematography and production design is certainly much better than in Desperation.  There’s also a touch of class with this production that clearly shines through.  Like Pierce with acting, Mr. Garris is simply getting better as a director with age.
Now, what viewers need to understand is that Bag of Bones is not a horror novel, though there are elements of the supernatural in the story.  Stephen King wanted to write one great book before he turned fifty and Bag of Bones was what he created.  It’s the same with the television movie.  Though there are strong elements of the supernatural in the mini-series, it’s not really a horror movie. 
The TV movie centers around successful Maine author, Mike Noonan (played by Pierce Brosnan), who experiences a mind-numbing tragedy when his wife, Jo, is unexpectedly struck by a bus while he’s autographing novels across the street in a bookstore.  Annabeth Gish (I remember her in the television series, Flash Forward) plays his lovely wife.  The movie has to establish rather quickly just how much the two of them are in love with each other, and I think it succeeds.  You could see these two people together, enjoying their lives with each other.  That makes the death of Jo more shocking and disturbing for those who haven’t read the novel.
 Pierce Brosnan performed a magnificent scene when he found his wife lying in the street dead.  Anyone who has ever lost a loved one will see the grief etched on his face as clearly as day.  I don’t think he was acting here, but rather displaying the actual grief he’d felt when losing his first wife to cancer.  I mean the scene made me cry.  I knew what he was going through, and I believe that’s when I truly bonded with the character.    
The plot point that propels the story forward, however, is when Mike Noonan discovers his dead wife was pregnant.  Since Mike couldn’t have children because of a low sperm count, he begins to suspect Jo of having had an affair with someone.  Jo had also been spending a lot of time at their summer house on Dark Score Lake.  Over a period of time, Mike begins to wonder if that’s where her lover lives and decides to visit the place for an extended period.  The time frame was much longer in the novel.  I think it was a couple of years.  It’s also important to note that since Mike was a fast writer, he had several novels stashed away in a safety deposit box in the novel version.  In the movie, however, he only had one old trunk novel that he gives to his agent and publisher to keep them happy while he’s unable to write.
Once Mike arrives at his house on a lake, he soon finds himself involved with a young lady and her daughter (Mattie & Kyra Devore played respectively by Melissa George and Caitlin Carmichael).  Mike manages to save Kyra’s life by pulling her out of the highway before she can be hit by a car.  After he does this, he quickly finds out that Kyra’s grandfather is Max Devore, the most powerful man in the region.  Max is attempting to get custody of Kyra by claiming Mattie is an unfit mother. 
Since Mike Noonan has problems of his own to deal with, he really doesn’t want to get involved in Mattie’s situation.  Things, unfortunately, don’t work out as he desires.  When old-man, Max Devore (played by William Schallert—no, not Captain Kirk) pressures him to testify in front of a paid-off court official about the traffic incident, Mike takes Mattie’s side to piss the man off.  Of course that makes an enemy of Mr. Devore and his female assistant, Rogette Whitmore (played by Deborah Grover).  The assistant seems to be even more evil than the old man.
While all of this outside stuff is going on, Mike is experiencing supernatural events at his house on the lake.  He knows his wife is there with him, but there’s also another spirit, Sarah Tidwell, who wants him to seek revenge for her death.
In time, Mike discovers that Tidwell (played by the lovely and talented Anika Noni Rose) was murdered in 1939.  That’s when all hell begins to break loose and Noonan finds out things about his own family’s past and how it ties into the singer’s death and Max Devore’s unusual family tree.As I said earlier, Bag of Bones isn’t a scary novel and neither is the movie.  Director Mick Garris throws in some supernatural aspects regarding Mike Noonan’s dreams about his wife and Sarah Tidwell, the spirits in his summer house and how they often communicate with him by ringing a bell that’s hanging from a moose’s head over the fireplace.  There’s also a very strange looking tree near the lake that’s shaped like a woman’s body and offers a jolt or two in the show.  In many ways, the novel and mini-series are actually about Mike Noonan coming to grips with his own grief over the death of his wife, the past that catches up to him by the end of the movie, and how his family inadvertently brought on some of the tragedy he experiences.  In the book, he falls in love with Mattie Devore, but not so in the movie.  She’s simply a piece of the bizarre puzzle that deals with Sarah Tidwell.
I feel that Mick Garris did a fantastic job on condensing a long novel into a two part mini-series, not to mention the great cinematography and set decoration in Nova Scotia that makes it look like Maine.  I thought most of acting was top notch, especially with regards to Pierce Brosnan, who had to carry most of the film on his shoulders.  I have to admit that Deborah Grover as Rogette Whitman gets the trophy for the creepiest performance.  Whenever she was in a scene, she pretty much stole it from the rest of the actors with her strangeness.  She needs to play in more horror movies.
One last thing I enjoyed was Matt Frewer performing as Mike Noonan’s brother.  I kept thinking I knew Matt from somewhere.  It turns out he played the Trashcan Man in The Stand mini-series.  During that series, he shot a scene in the old Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, where I was working at the time.  This is a very talented actor who needs more roles offered to him. 

There isn’t much in the way of extras, other than some deleted scenes.  Still, the DVD is perfect for the Stephen King collector who wants to have all of the author’s movies on disc.   
Wayne C. Rogers is a Las Vegas casino employee who has been writing professionally (with the intent to sell) for twenty-five years. It's only been within the past three years that Mr. Rogers (no, not the famous TV host of programs for children) made the decision to work towards being a full-time writer of horror, suspense, psychological, and erotic horror fiction.He has written several novellas (three of which are posted on Amazon's Kindle), dozens of short stories (some of which are also on Amazon), an erotic/horror novel--The House of Blood--for the wild crowd that lives on the kinky side of reality, and five completed screenplays based on his stories The Encounter, The Tunnels, A Step in the Shadows, Trick or Treat, and The Garbage Disposal (the last three are short screenplays). He is currently at work on a sixth screenplay, The Code of Honor, as well as a seventh, Dolan. During the year of 2012, Mr. Rogers sold over twenty short stories with some of them appearing in the paperback anthologies: I'll Never Go Away, Grindhouse and Peep Show, Volume 2.Being somewhat of a couch potato at his old age of sixty-two, Mr. Rogers enjoys the pastime of writing, reading (he has over a few hundred books stored in boxes a few feet from his writing table), great movies from any time period, and well-made television programs such as Justified, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Game of Thrones, Justified, and American Horror Story. Finally, Mr. Rogers is rather unusual in that he doesn't own a house or a car, A friend just recently bought him a cellphone, but he hasn't turned it on as of yet. He spends his free time at the computer writing his stories, and usually doesn't leave his apartment till it's time to head to work. Thank God for ham & cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup!!!