Godspeed, Frog Brother #1. I guess this finally answers The Thrills’ enduring question. Truly, Haim turned never closing your mouth into an art. Here’s some clips of a video I wish I’d bought last week. Not surprisingly, it’s about $100 on eBay now. Vultures.
…And my favorite all-time Corey Haim scene, in which Corey fends off a group of rollerblading thugs with a handful of fruit and a flame-throwing Super Soaker: all from Nicole Eggert’s shopping cart.
I’ve finally figured out my perfect movie formula: What could possibly be more exciting than…
A.) the sudden critical acclaim and respect of a forgotten actor whose face looks like a Jim Henson Creature Shop wet dream (see: MICKEY ROURKE, SID HAIG).
B.) The successful, thoughtful resurrection of a once dead and buried property (see: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, ROCKY BALBOA.)
Combine them, and you’ve got a case of the fanboy warm-and-fuzzies that is equal parts cheery Gizmo in a Barbie convertible and Jagermeister after a chest cold. Actually, that’s the same formula that could lead to a fiery pink wreck of blood and hair all over the interstate. Well, I’m taking my chances. Here are the mash-ups I want to see.
JACKIE EARLE HALEY in THE ICE CREAM MAN. We all know JEH is the rich man’s Clint Howard, and he’s proven he’s more than just a pretty face in WATCHMEN (advertised as “Watchman” on his official site, which may not be official). Take his testicle-clipping performance in Little Children, add those nuts to a warm waffle cone, and BAM…origin story! This property’s gotta be cheaper than a new Nightmare on Elm Street film, and a helluva lot more fun. The Ice Cream Man’s puns make Freddy Krueger look like the greatest stand-up comic in horror.
ERNEST BORGNINE in GHOULIES! Ernest Borgnine’s career is already in the toilet (apologies to fans of Lifetime’s “A Grandpa For Christmas”), so why not let this beloved actor resurrect a movie about ass-biting sewer puppets? Ok, show of hands if you loved Ernie in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and his Best Actor Oscar-Winning MARTY—a movie which you’ve never seen but act like you have around film buff friends? [everyone raises hand] Ok, now show of hands if the VHS cover for Ghoulies delayed your potty training by three years as a kid? [everyone born before after 1980 raises hand]. So let’s combine the two and pinch out some movie magic.
JEFFREY JONES in FRIGHT NIGHT! This on-again, off-again remake has been in the works for some time, but it would have already been out and made a Gazillion US Dollars if they’d only hired the terrifying Jeffrey Jones as the lead vampire! Jeffrey Jones already built a career on making people feel weird and uncomfortable in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF and HOWARD THE DUCK, and he took it to “video of ALF’s dad snorting crack off a male hooker” levels by becoming a registered sex offender. Well if Roman Polanski’s taught us anything, it’s that Hollywood is willing to overlook dalliances and foibles with unwilling 14-year-olds. People love a good Jeffrey Jones role, vampires are hawt right now, and underdogs NOW Comics would probably like to re-launch their 80s Fright Night series, so it’s a win-win-win!
Let’s show all show some critical compassion to Jones and some, oh…what’s the word. He yelled it at his secretary in Ferris Bueller? Oh yeah: “GRRAAACCCCE!!!!”
ANDY SERKIS in MAC AND ME! The Onion AV club unfairly dumped on this movie recently, using words like “shameless and wrong,” “hideous” and “horrifically scarred fetus.” Well, if a movie about a “O-faced” creature who survives on Coke and McDonalds product-placement is wrong, I don’t wanna be right. I loved this terrible, terrible, exploitative film as a kid. And that’s why Andy Serkis should slap on that Ping Pong Ball Suit of his and exchange his psychotic pursuit of the One Ring for a Big Mac Attack (wouldn’t it have been perfect if I’d have said “trade the One Ring for an Onion Ring there?” Well kiss my ass. McDonald’s doesn’t serve ‘em and I have a Journalism degree to uphold, thanks for asking.)
[True Story Digression: At the end of Mac and Me, and big title card promises "WE'LL BE BACK!" So, every year for 3 or 4 years, I would ask my mom when that Mac & Me sequel was coming, and she'd make up something about a filming delay. After it finally sank in that there was no sequel, I was crushed and jilted by Hollywood from that day forward. You don't promise little kids sequels and never deliver. A movie you love as a child is like a little universe that actually exists in your brain, and when there are no more movies it's like you've blown up Krypton in that kid's mind. You know that sinking feeling you get when you turn on Animal Crossing for the first time in 3 years, and your cute, once-loved village has been overrun by cockroaches and the stench of death? THAT'S WHAT WAS GOING ON TO THE MAC & ME UNIVERSE IN MY MIND EACH YEAR HOLLYWOOD DIDN'T GIVE ME A GOD DAMNED SEQUEL.
I still have a Mac and Me sized hole that has never been filled. And it's exactly as disgusting looking as that sounds.]
I got to go to a three year old’s birthday party yesterday, which would normally be hell on earth but her dad, Eric, had the insight and wisdom to have the party at Hooters. A very good time was had by all. Between distractions, he mentioned something to me his buddy said: “The only way I would listen to Lady Gaga is if her name was Lady Galaga.” I thought this was the most brilliant thing I’d heard all week. Then I remembered seeing this in eighties issue of Electronic Monthly. Or maybe I dreamed it [click on image for full size]
I’m only going to say this once, and it’s very, VERY important that you understand completely: because what I’m about to tell you is the most important advice you’re ever going to get concerning the video game system in front of you. Even if you think you know ever code in the book. Under no circumstances—no matter how your NES looks at you, no matter how much it cries, no matter how much it begs—the most IMPORTANT rule. The rule you can NEVER, EVER forget is…well, I’ll just let Olympic Videogame master Donn Nauert tell you:
Nintendo Tip: do this with your mouth, and often, for free continues.
Ladies, if you ever see this guy, get outta town. Unless it is of paramount importance for you to find someone’s wife, of course. If that’s the case, find out all you can about the husband and his entire family. Genealogy is creepy, man.
“Crack the identity of that woman. Look at the husbands dealings. Trace his entire family…Go now…”
In the coming weeks, days and years, I will begin archiving my Pac-Man collection on this website: listing each item I own and writing about it. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, in case someone tries to burn it all and collect the money (I suspect Pinky). Of the numbered items in this bedroom, I own #1 (two of them), #6, #7, #8, #9, #10 and #13. I have no idea where to get a Pac-Man nightgown, though I’ve been known to wear girl’s nightgowns.
Look at that crap. At one time, I could have owned all this for under $300, including a Pac-Man jumpsuit. Oh, hurry Christmas…Hurry FAST!
This is also a call to arms. The First Church of Pac-Man hasn’t been updated since 2004: I’m declaring my site the new church of Pac-Man, and I need your help coming up with a name for my church. This is a reformation. Getting back to the roots of fundamentalist Pac-Man.
Billy Mitchell, the Pac-Man Champion, is a world-class douche. Together, we’ll cast him out of the Pac-Man community.
Is you is, or is you ain’t my constit’ency?
Stay tuned for the first entry in the near future …
Seanbaby’s incredibly comprehensive review of the Secret Video Game Tips, Codes & Strategies VHS (and interview with star Donn “With Two N’s” Nauert!) is a thing of comedy beauty I won’t attempt to duplicate. Go read it again for the first time. But that post is years old now, and most of the videos don’t work. Probably because they pre-date YouTube.
And that’s a shame, because you’ve probably never gotten to see the clip of the world’s most Goddawful NES Secret Code of All Time. I don’t think Seanbaby mentions this one.
This video is for any of you kids bitching about load times or hard drive space or 16-digit Wii Friend Codes (ok, those still suck. You can bitch about that), just remember that when I was a kid, I had to learn about a 70-character level select code from a mouthbreathing hoser on a tracking-impaired VHS tape. And what did my trouble get me? A chance to cheat at Rambo, one of the worst 8-bit turds to come out of the lower intestine of Acclaim’s game developers.
Shown: The way a real man enters a level select code: double fist it. “Capallll E, small Gee, Cappall H, Zerohl, Zerohl, Zerohl…”
One of my favorite Halloween traditions is an annual email I get from a friend and college professor, Mr. John “I’ve Seen Everything” Dodd: A staggering review of 45 horror movies over 31 days. 90% of them you’ve never heard of, and 95% of them no person on Earth should take the time to watch.
While working at Wizard Magazine (I know, here we go again…), I had the opportunity to interview Hostel’s Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, 30 Days of Night’s Steve Niles and Tom Jane many times. Each time, those guys never failed to act cocky about their horror knowledge. I always just laughed to myself, because when it comes to horror, my boy Dodd could take those guys to school.
This list (and this is only one year!) is such an extensive undertaking, you just gotta give him props for enduring (in most cases) such trash for 31 days straight.
Dodd’s an amazing guy, and he’s pretty much the teacher that really got me wanting to be a full-time writer. It’s easy to see why.
This was apparently his last year for this, and I’m hoping he will somehow break both his legs so that all he has time for is sitting in a chair, watching, typing and amusing me once more with 31 horror reviews a year. Write, horror monkey! WRITE!
Everyone,
Here it is year five for the annual 31 days of horror. Once
again I am wearied and saying this might be my last October,
that I will retire and do whatever other people do in
October. Sure, I had to take Saturdays off, not because I’m
Jewish, but because my work schedule requires me to work
all day on Saturdays. Oh well. Let’s begin.
October 1 – Off to an anemic start ** HOUSE OF TERROR
If there was truth in titles this one would be called House of Very
Mild Suspense. The dusty thriller has a nurse hired to look
after the wife of “one of the richest men in California.” Nurse
has a crooked boyfriend, boyfriend kills rich wife and stages it
as a suicide, nurse marries rich dude, boyfriend plots an
accident, nurse falls for rich dude, everyone dies at the end
(when if finally comes). Just a little too racy for TV in 1973
but not explicit enough to stretch the PG rating.
October 2 – Not any better
*1/2 THE RED HEADED CORPSE
Once again, we have a mystery masquerading as
a horror film. In this Italian film, Farley Granger brings home
a sex doll and imagines it coming to life in the image of a former
love. A long flashback shows the viewer how he became delusional.
Watchable but unmemorable, The Red Headed Corpse will be forgotten
two days after watching.
October 3 – We have blood (well, a little anyway)
**1/2 WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH
A Young Meg Foster plays a hitchhiker wandering through
the private beach of eccentric Jason Henry (played by Laurence Harvey
who also directed). Henry invites the girl to stay at his house
but has a secret. Since a pre-credit scrawl informs the viewer
that human flesh has been known to become addictive, one can
guess what Henry’s secret is. One imaginative murder (with
still photo shots) and the a good cast help out. John Ireland
and Stuart Whitman play (what else?) cops. Unfortunately, Laurence
Harvey’s daughter Domino does not show up to kill anyone.
THERE’S 30 DAYS TO GO! CLICK ON THROUGH…UNLESS YOU’RE….CHICKEN.
Hey, why not listen to a really amazing 80s flavoredHalloween Mix by my friend DJ Daymage while you read this post? You can even download the FREE one hour mix RIGHT HERE. This jam is perfect for Halloween parties, or as you’re putting on your slutty, slutty costume (you tramp!).
I’ve been listening to “Hall09een” every day since I got it, and haven’t been in a bad mood since.
DJ Daymage’s mix is cold Halloween rain on a rubberband-and-staple mask. It’s not believing in the razor-blade apple legend, but secretly believing it. It’s Elvira and Spuds Mackenzie, like holiday clockwork, on your television. It’s a hard plastic pumpkin bucket. It’s my childhood in headphones.
The punk/hair metal/goth industrial blend (naturally) just oozes with a kind of gritty, Vestron Video/Cannon Films/Golan-Globus Productions quality that takes me back to marathon VHS viewings of anything directed by Fred Dekker or starring Donald Pleasence. I can’t get enough of it. It makes me feel like I have a little candle in my belly, and I’m sitting on your front porch.
Every Halloween since high school, I have a tradition where I blare The Misfits Collection II as it gets dark out. This year, I think I officially have a new tradition.
The thing I like most about it, is it doesn’t go for the easy Halloween inclusions (there’s only a cursory nod to Thriller, along with that hilarious Michael Jackson voice outtake from the Special Edition). That said, I enjoy the cheap chainsaw and scream effects here and there, because those terrible haunted houses are so closely tied to low-budget horror movies in my mind. The audio segues are both hilarious and organic (sorry, I hate using that word…but I’m too tired to come up with something else and it fits), especially the Dead Alive clip about “a splitting headache, and the stupid hip hop is not helping.”
This is pure 80s, low-budget, grimy slasher stuff. I instantly feel 10 again when I hear this…from the scratchy excerpts from kid’s read-along records, to Freddy Krueger in not one, but TWO endearing and cheesy raps by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and the Fat Boys. Say what you want, “Are You Ready For Freddy”’s chorus is catchy, like trying to put a razor-bladed glove through the arm of your sweater.
Pictured: Someone pitched this at a meeting. They voted “yes.”
And even that Fresh Prince song, silly as hell, still makes me feel a little freaked out. This guy Jess Matthews and I had it on a little brown tape recorder when we were kids, and used to walk through this tiny alley by my dad’s office (where we swore there was blood on the wall), made up our own Freddy mythology, listened to the song, sang and acted out the parts (I was usually The Fresh Prince. Too scared to watch the actual movie to get Freddy’s moves down).
Similarly, a girl I work with made me turn the mix off when the Silver Shamrock song from Halloween III plays. When there’s no more logic in hell, irrational fears will walk the earth.
Also, to this day, the bass line from “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” can still reanimate a thousand zombies.
So you’ve got the J. Geils Band Fright Night theme, “Halloween” by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Pet Semetary by the Ramones (as seen in my friend TJ’s amazing Weirdest Horror Movie Songs write-up at Topless Robot), and Evil Nine’s “They Live,” an amazing song I’d never heard (it’s a lot like Daft Punk’s Technologic meets a 7-minute John Carpenter fist fight). And a whole bunch more.
My only complaint is I wanted it to go on a little longer. But, if it’s anything like it’s subject matter, I expect a cheap and easy sequel. With more blood.
Halloween being my favorite holiday, and getting out of any and all learning activities a close second, you can imagine how I kicked myself when I forgot to dress up for Mrs. Fife’s drama class one morning in High School. The deal was, if you dressed up, you got to leave class and go show off your costume to the little kids. Everyone else got to stay behind and do assignments. Thinking I was sneaky, I got into the prop closet before class started and had my friend Bryan spray silver hair color all over my entire visible body.
And here’s how that conversation went:
TEACH: What the hell is this?
CHRIS: I’m the Silver Surfer!
TEACH: Tell me you didn’t use that hairspray color to do that
CHRIS: Yeah, you caught me, ha ha ha!
TEACH: Chris, you have to wash that off your skin.
CHRIS: Ok, I will, ha ha ha! Oh well, I tried! HA HA HA!
TEACH: No I’m serious…like right now. Any minute now your skin is going to stop breathing. You have to get that stuff off immediately.
If my face wasn’t doused in a thick chemical aerosol, you would have seen it go immediately pale when she said that. Try to imagine this being how you die: your pores were blocked by silver paint, your body stops getting oxygen, and you die on the floor of your drama class…and not even particularly well, since you suck at acting.
It literally took hours to get all this shit off my body. My skin was raw and bleeding. And when it rinsed off, the paint dripped all over my sensitive bunch. I’m talking real Tin Man’s balls here. But I missed most of the school day, which was kind of the point. And I got the shiny set of testicles I still sport today. What, do you think I washed them off? Dude…c’mon, chrome balls! I finally figured out how!
4. Hobo with Distended Ulcer
“Hi! I’m Apple Cheeks the Gainfully Employed Hobo! I gotta BIG CEE-GAR! I got me a Dick Tracy HAT! I’m a Lone Ranger memorabilia collector! Straight off the black gold, nuts in my hand, trustin no man, got my glock cocked, runnin this thing, ya understand ! AH CHA CHA!”
I think this picture ran in the paper. I have zero recollection of being this…whatever I am. The Green Hornet’s hayseed-in-the-city cousin? Jimmy Durante’s loser kid? I don’t know. If you know, then GIVE YOURSELF A GIANT CEE-GAR, KID! AH CHA CHA CHA! One thing’s for sure: there must have been a fire sale on Lone Ranger masks. Why does a Hobo need a Lone Ranger Mask? Why does the Pumpkin Girl in front of me? Was this some bizarre Kid Identity Protection clause at the newspaper? Or have you just wandered into a junior production of Eyes Wide Shut? I think this is right before I tricked Nicholas Cage into rescuing me, so we could put him in a giant Wicker Man. THE DRONE MUST DIE! THE DRONE MUST DIE!*
*middling reference to the 2006 Wicker Man remake, which I have just watched and feel I must immediately reference before my brain purges all memories of that movie from my cortex. Which happens right about….now.
3. Anton Chigurh
Left: Mugshot of Death Cab for Cutie keyboardist after some hostile snicker-snag with unruly fangirl. Right: Oscar-Winning badass.
Guess how many Halloween bar-patrons have heard of the 2007 Best Picture “No Country For Old Men,” and Best Supporting Actor Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, most iconic screen villain in recent years? The answer is zero. Or, to be more exact…
….how many Halloween bar patrons, after several beers, could recognize a walking broomstick of a man holding a painted garden sprayer with a Prince Valiant shag as the most terrifying film villain of our time? The answer to THAT…is also zero. I was so in love with Anton Chigurh that year, that I was blinded by the fact that you should never, ever go as a person for Halloween. And without the larger-than-life screen personality, eyes that could stop a man’s heart, or blood curdling voice, that’s essentially what I went as that year: a person. Jesus, THIS guy looks more like Anton Chigurh, and was better received at the bar:
I guess I figured people would say, “Who are you?” and I would say “Anton Chigurh, friendo!” and they would laugh and laaaaaugh and say, “I love that Oscar winning movie!” and I would flip one of the many quarters I was carrying around in my pocket that night and say “CALL IT, FRIENDO!” and they would say, “Oh no! ha ha ha. Don’t do it!” and I would squirt them in the forehead with my water-spraying, fake oxygen tank thing.
What actually happened is I just wandered around trying to keep an unapproachable look on my face, as everyone’s eyes darted in the opposite direction. I probably just looked like a retarded, angry landscaper.
So never go as another actor for Halloween. Unless you were horribly disfigured in a police accident, then you can go as Fred Krueger: Motivational Speaker
The next rule is, when all else fails, go as Gallagher, like my friend Sarah did. As in, “Who’s that cool Gallagher chick hanging around with that denim-loving ass-gardener?”
Pictured: Not at all a terrifying moment.
2. Every Clown My Parents Forced Me To Be
You see that mouth hanging open? That is the face of a brainless, mouth-breathing baby. That’s me. I’m that stupid baby. You know what I’m probably thinking right there? I’m probably thinking about eating my sock, or digging my fist into my own eye. That’s because babies are ridiculously, hilariously stupid creatures. Because they’re stupid and can’t make their own decisions, their parents decide what they are for Halloween until the child is cognizant enough to point at the TV and say “Mider-Man.” (that’s Spider-Man. That’s how I said it, and that’s how I got my first vinyl Spider-Man costume).
But until that time, my parents made me a clown. Year after yarn-brained year. And you can see, after half a decade of this, just how excited I was about it…
Pictured: From the photo series “Bad child gets what it deserves” or, alternately, “Purple clown placed in hot sun.”
Yes, I never got tired of this crap. I believe I allowed my face to be painted in this picture in exchange for a balloon and an A-Team shirt. Absolutely no dignity.
That’s also why, to this day, I believe I see a midnight visitor whenever I look out my bedroom window. Someday, my kids will too.
1. A. GOD. DAMN. CABBAGE. PATCH. DOLL.
When I was digging for these old costumes, this picture hit me like a pink nightmare. What. The. Hell. Was. This.
To be blunt—to be absolutely, frank, really—“Holy tits, why was I dressed like a fucking Cabbage Patch Doll?!??!” was one question that breezed through my mind. Again, I have zero recollection of this. I sincerely hope that thing hanging around my neck is a pacifier, and not a “plug” of some sort. Mom explains that this costume was thrust upon me, again, by my Aunt who hates little boy cousins, but enjoys little girl nieces.
There must be a big metal bin in most minimum security sex offender prisons where the mail sorters throw contraband pictures that come addressed to inmates. Near that metal bin must be a smaller, pink basket wear the guards throw only the most twisted and mind-shattering of incoming inmate mail. Alone, this picture would occupy that pink basket. Surely, this is the only reason I can think of for a picture like this to exist: be be mailed to a convicted pederast, or to bait one into appearing on Dateline.
Cabbage Patch related side-story: Kids of all sexes in my town went ape-shit for Cabbage Patch Dolls, like the rest of the country, in the early eighties. My small, backwater town was ill-prepared for this demand, but managed to get some dolls in that sold out instantly. And yet, somehow, my mom got my brother and I a Cabbage Patch Doll that just wasn’t selling in my tiny, values-driven Illinois town. No one had even touched it. I couldn’t believe our luck. My brother and I loved running through the yard with that thing, clutching our blankets. It wasn’t until years later that we figured out the reason my mom got her hands on it: it was a BLACK Cabbage Patch doll, and no other moms in town wanted it. Wow. Just….wow.
So, yeah, our family was ahead of the curve on human/doll race-relations.
The background of this terrifying picture is, of course, the popular Halloween posing spot in my house, as seen in “Skateboard Frankenstein,” so we’ve come full circle. I hope you’ve enjoyed a look at my most tragic Halloweens to date. Lord knows I’m now dead inside.
