My Name Is Bruce: bruce campbell plays a drunken, divorced, cartoonish version of himself kidnapped by his biggest fan to defeat the chinese demon / god of bean curd quan-di. hilarious on several levels. he uses a cutout of himself to help defeat the demon. long live bruce campbell. (8/10)

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer: Not really a horror flick though it is dark, graphic and disturbing. michael rooker (as henry) and tom towels (as otis) are pretty damn fantastic. loosely based on the life of henry lee lucas, a gentleman who confessed to over 600 murders, though authorities think the actual number was closer to 15. (10/10)

Basket Case: A brother and his deformed, ex-conjoined twin (who prefers to live his life in a pic-a-nic basket) travel around NYC hunting down the doctors who forcefully separated them years earlier. great idea plagued by brutal acting, awful special FX (even i would have taken the time to get rid of the seems on the puppet) and knee slappingly bad stop motion animation. cult classic, my ass. (3/10)

Basket Case 2:belial and his brother escape from the hospital and are rescued by a friend of duane's late aunt, who just happens to own a large estate inhabited by freaks. bigger budget. better fx (though still not great). at least there's no dick flapping in this one. (5/10)

Return of the Living Dead Part II: nowhere near as great as the original, though it does have it's moments. frequently too slap sticky and comedic for it's own good. some good gore tossed in to a story almost identical to the one found in the original. i could see pulling this out from time to time. a good way to brainlessly waste a friday night. (7.5/10)

Scalps: This movie quite easily had the budget of the sweet ass kung fu short i shot in high school for my video and photo class. college kids are sent out to the middle of the desert (which doubles as a haunted, indian burial ground) to search for artifacts. a native spirit picks the terrible actors off one by one. at least the scalping scene was cool. (3/10)

Pieces: 80's spanish slasher flick that takes place in boston. a young child's busted putting a naked lady puzzle together in his room by him mommy, who he then kills with an axe. billed as 'shocking', 'graphic' and 'banned', this one was doomed from the raves on the box to NOT live up to the hype. the shocking ending? eh. i enjoyed it, but i'm also a sucker for 80's slasher flicks with senseless nudity and violence. (7.5 / 10)

The Cottage: british black comedy / kidnapping flick turns brutal mutant slasher flick. easily the best $.98 cents i have ever spent (thanks, amazon!). two bumbling brothers kidnap a busty blond who happens to be the daughter of a mob boss. she's brought to a cottage in the middle of nowhere where things go from bad to worse for the kidnappers as she manages to make their lives a living hell. she eventually escapes, taking the more buffoonish of the brothers with her where they stumble across a run down farmhouse owned by a deranged, mutant, cannibal maniac. even my wife thought this was good, and she hates horror movies. (9.5/10)

(p.s. - the cottage review = more than five sentences. sue me.)

Ghoulies: awful, dreadful piece of shit, and with the amount of crappy movies i see, that's really saying something. so bad i had to actually watch it in shifts. the ghoulies are really just an afterthought to a sad movie about black magic. (1/10)

Ghoulies II: i am, apparently, a glutun for punishment. the reality is, the original ghoulies makes this look like citizen kane. (3/10)

From Beyond: biased review. i'm a sucker for stuart gordon and jeffery combs. doesn't hurt that ken foree's in this as well. nudity, gore, lovecraft: how can you go wrong. (8/10)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - the Next Generation: i've successfully avoided this movie for over 10 years, but faced with the option of watching either this or the gingerdead man sequel, i picked this one. spent the first hour wondering why everyone hated this movie so much. spent the last half hour screaming at my t.v. fuck this movie. (2/10)

it appears myspace is the new livejournal. everyone's jumping to facebook, including me. this is about all anyone will get out of me here anymore. yawn yawn yawn.

The Burning: Yet another 80s slasher flick. this time starring Jason Alexander with special fx by the now nearly obsolete Tom Savini. Fairly reminiscent of Friday the 13th. Campers play a practical joke on the creepy caretaker leading to his horrific disfigurement. Said caretaker escapes hospital and returns to the camp to kill teenagers. Some fun kills. A little suspense. Entertaining, but nothing exceptional. (7/10)

Student Bodies: To my knowledge, this was the world’s first horror-spoof. At least that’s what the case says. Idiotic, slapstick comedy typical of movies like the Naked Gun and Airplane!. The movie starts off with a bang (death by paper clip, anyone?) and the on screen body count throughout is amusing, but it just seems to drag on and on and on.  Thank god for my PS3. I watched the last 20 minutes on time and a half speed. (6/10)

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th: Decent documentary with entertaining bits here and there, but I've heard all this shit before. it's basically a rehash of the stuff from the Camp Crystal Lake Memories book and the doc in the box set that came out a few years ago. The Tom Savini segments are awful and I want to punch him in his stupid face-lifted head every time he’s on the screen. Why a guy that has said “anyone that watches the Friday the 13th movies after part 1 is idiot. There is no Jason. He’s a kid that died in a lake” was asked to host this is beyond me. (7/10)

Inside: I’ve actually had this sitting in my “to watch” pile for a long time and I finally got around to it. One of the most brutal, tense, horrifying films I’ve seen in ages. A pregnant women is tormented on Christmas Eve, the night before she’s induced by a mysterious women hell bent on killing her and anyone that attempts to help her. After I finished it the first time (with the English overdub) I immediately watched it again in French. Friggin’ fantastic either way. (9.5/10)

Pumpkinhead:
Haven’t watched this one since I was a kid. A bunch of city folk head to the country for a weekend of dirt bike ridin’ and cabin life. While stopping for supplies at the local country store, one of the big city soon-to-be-deads accidentally runs over the market owner’s son, killing him. The store owner seeks out a witch who summons Pumpkinhead to seek revenge on the city kiddies. This movie always makes it on to peoples' ‘best of’ lists and to be honest with you, I have no idea why. It’s ok, but it’s nothing special. The practical fx are great, but the kills are pretty weak. It's pretty much the same thing over and over and over again. Worth buying? Eh. Worth renting? Maybe. (6.5/10)

Frankenhooker: Jeffery works for the electric company by day and as a  mad scientist of sorts by night. After a gift for dear ol’ dad doesn’t work quite as it was suppose to, his fiancé  ends up in a few dozen pieces scattered throughout the yard. Jeffery is able to bogart the head, which he keeps in an estrogen based liquid, before the cops get there. Hell bent on recreating her, he spends the majority of the movie searching the red light district for the perfect body, but not before a scene in which Jeffery has a romantic dinner with his girlfriend's head that left me in fuckin' stitches. After a meeting with Zoro, a very buff, greasy pimp, Jeffery can't help but notice all Zoro's bitches are hooked on crack. After obtaining some of the drugage from Zoro, Jeffery creates a super crack for the girl he deems has the body to go with his girlfriend’s head. Unfortunately, consuming this uber-crack causes the ingestees to explode. He arranges to “party” with all of Zoro’s best hos in order to find the one  he wants. Near the end of the party, however, the sluts find his gigantic stash-o-crank and really start to party.  What follows is a hilarious sequence involving nearly a dozen poorly designed dummy hookers exploding as if they were filled with firecrackers and sparklers. I was near tears watching this scene, the special fxs are so brutally bad. The film then follows a heavily R-rated Bride of Frankenstein route. She has the head of his girlfriend, but unfortunately retained the prostitutes’ personalities. As a horror flick, this is terrible. As a gross-out, comedy, it’s pretty fantastic. (8/10)

Friday the 13th (2009): The next F13 fan boy that talks more than a little shit about this movie is getting punched in the throat. Seriously. Lets face it: as much as I love the F13 franchise, most of the movies after part 4 suck ass… especially towards the end. Jason in space? Jason vs. Freddy? Really? Come on, assholes. This movie’s easily better than those two. Jason as a worm jumping from body to body in Jason Goes To Hell? Yeah…it’s better than that too. Sure I’m not a huge fan of seeing where Jason lives. I don’t like the idea of Jason setting booby traps to protect his property, but whatever. Derek Mears does a decent job as Jason. He’s no Kane Hodder or Richard Brooker, but there have been less impressive Jasons than him. These movies have always been fairly campy and lacking in suspense and tension. This one’s no different. (7/10)

my shitty opinions on the movies i have watched over the last week or two.

Bad Taste: peter jackson's first movie. one of my favorites. had a budget of zero dollars. shot on weekends over the course of a few years with friends. should be shown to every new filmmaker looking to shoot a movie with no money. oh, and there's a vomit eating scene. (9/10)

Gutterballs: lots of hype in the horror community over this movie. suppose to be a throwback to the 80s slasher flick. all the characters are annoying. the word "fuck" is used, literally, 516 times in less than an hour and a half. one of the first scenes involves camel toe and two of the characters are snuffed out via a popular sexual position. there's a nearly 10 minute gang rape scene that is extremely difficult to watch. acting is porn quality at best. dialog is knee-slappingly bad. still better than the director's other piece of shit, "live-feed." overall, a cool idea for a movie executed with varying levels of success. (6/10)

Zombi:  italian horror at it's finest. lucio fulci was a genius as far as the horror genre goes. a zombie fights a shark. what's not to love about this movie? last time i watched it, i had the flu and had to watch it between trips to the bathroom to vomit. that has nothing to do with the movie. just thought i'd share. (9.5/10)

Them (aka Ils): french survival horror. many say 'the strangers' basically stole it's plot from this movie. definitely has many similarities. cute couple in the middle of nowhere get tormented for, apparently, no reason by a bunch of hooded strangers. them looks great. some genuinely tense moments. this movie had me until the last 10 or 15 minutes. the big reveal just killed it for me.  (6/10)

Night of the Comet: a comet turns everyone out watching it in to dust. nearly all of those that didn't die because of direct exposure slowly turn in to murdering, flesh eating zombies. two mall loving valley girls are left to kick ass or something. could have been a really fun watch. unfortunately, it really wasn't. lots of nothin' happened. had it's moments, but overall, pretty 'eh.' (5/10)

Murder Set Pieces (unrated director's cut): one of the biggest pieces of shit i've ever seen. hyped for being so brutal, that several major reproduction companies refused to even duplicate it (bullshit). i wrote an actual review of this on amazon. i gave it 2.5 stars. not sure what the fuck i was thinking. creating crap like this should be punishable by death. (0.5/10)

Demons: italian horror from dario argento. a bunch of people are invited to a movie theater to watch a film about a mask that possesses anyone that puts it on. the mask is in theater lobby. someone puts it on. guess what happens next. entertaining. hilarity is only occasionally intended. great special effects for the time period. there's a cringe-worthy scene involving teeth. there were two sequels to this. i suggest avoiding both of them. (7.5/10)

976-Evil: more 80s horror. directed by freddy krueger. a creepy nerd obsessed with his troublemaker cousin calls this number and before you know it, he's possessed by the devil. the nerd in the flick (who also played evil ed in fright night) left mainstream movies shortly after this was made, got addicted to drugs and started doing hardcore gay porn. seriously. he went on to star in such classics as "guys who crave big cocks", "butt blazer" and "uncut glory". anyway. occasionally creepy. frequently hilarious. avoided a few 80s horror clichés. worth a watch. (6.5/10)

My Bloody Valentine (uncut): after 25 years, this classic was finally released with all the scenes cut by the mpaa. there's truly some classic kills in this flick, my favorite involving a laundry mat dryer. thanks, tom savini. decent story. they definitely weren't trying to reinvent the wheel though. (8/10)

The Prowler: again...one of the seemingly hundreds of horror flicks released in the early to mid 80s. special fx by tom savini. generic plot. masked killer seeks revenge for something that happened in the past by killing a bunch of attractive teenagers. not bad. not great either. i've watched it a few times over the years and still get the urge to watch it once in awhile. that says something, i guess. (6.5/10)

Maniac: this movie's a cult classic. revered by many horror fan boys as one of the greatest genre movies of all time. if you've ever wondered how a serial killer spends his days, this movie's for you. it's no secret who the killer is and you spend much of the movie in his head. unlike murder set pieces, this movie actually did create a bunch of controversy when originally released. it was banned from many theaters across the states and across the majority of europe. joe spinell (the godfather) does a fantastic job as the mentally and sexually fucked frank zito. basically, this is a joyless and very difficult watch. after my first viewing, i remember just kinda staring at the dvd menu for awhile unable to really comprehend what i had just saw. i only just recently watched it again and, immediately following it's completion, wondered why i had subjected myself to it. with that being said... (8/10)

Rogue: directed by the guy that did wolf creek, a well shot snoozefest. a bunch of tourists take a cruise through kakadu national park in the australian outback. the tour takes a detour when one of the passangers spots some emergency flairs just as they reach the end of the tour. much to dismay of several of the passangers, they decide to investigate. the sweet ass pontoon is attacked by a gigantic rogue crocodile. oh crikey (!!!) the gaggle-o-fucked-tourists make it to a tiny (picture "room for 10") island but need to escape before the ever-rising tide forces them in to the water with the monster croc. well shot. decent story. above average acting. sparsly used gore, which makes it much more effective. the cgi is top notch as well.... especially for a movie that had a very limited theatrical release. overall, highly entertaining. (8/10)

Repo! The Genetic Opera: first off, if the title didn't give it away already, this is a fuckin' "rock" opera, there is absolutely no spoken dialog in this movie. unfortunately for anyone with decent taste, every single goddamn song in this thing sounds like fuckin' evanescence. aside from the 10 minutes bill mosley is in this and the scene where  paris hilton's face peel off, this movie was a waste of a great plot. the writers destroyed this thing with laughable lyrics sung over one of the worst genres of music ever. (3/10)

Eden Lake: one of the few dimension: extreme movies that isn't a complete pile of shit. an attractive 20-something couple heads off to a remote area for some relaxin' and romancin' only to have their party crashed by a bunch of loud, obnoxious, fuckwitted, troublemaker tweens and teens. the male hero confronts the kiddies who are less than impressed. the kids steal the couples' car. couple finds car and kids. male confronts leader of the lollypop guild and during a scuffle, accidentally kills the kid's doggy. uh-oh. the remainder of the film revolves around the munchkins chasing, torturing and tormenting the couple as they try to escape and find help. well shot, edge of your seat tension with an ending you don't really expect. (8.5/10)

Top 10 horror flick:

1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
2. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
3. The Exorcist
4. Friday the 13th Part 3
5. Re-animator
6. Night of the Living Dead
7. Return of the Living Dead
8. Halloween
9. A Nightmare on Elm St.
10. Hellraiser

Honorable mentions...
Phantasm
Bride of Re-animator
Saw
Bad Taste
House
The Hills Have Eyes
My Bloody Valentine
Killer Klowns from Outerspace
Last House on the Left
Dead Alive

really could go on for hours. and hours. and hours.

apparently sears had to order a part for our snow blower and it's not going to be in until the 23rd, which means we (i) will be shoveling every spec of snow we get until then.

thankfully, we're only suppose to be getting 6 to 16 inches of goddamn fucking snow this weekend.

this city can blow me.

for those that haven't had the privilege of hanging out at our house, here's where i'll be spending most of my weekend:

our brand new $1,500 snowblower... the one we bought near the end of last winter... decided it wasn't going to start today... sears can't have anyone out to look at it until tuesday or wednesday.

our neighbor, who we've never met before, took pity on me after i spent nearly two hours trying to start the thing and let me use theirs. that was at 10:30 this morning.

i've been out three times since then to shovel our 60+ foot long driveway with an old, creeky shovel...

god. damnit.

*edit*

i ended up shoveling our driveway 5 1/2 times... i only had time to do 1/2 of the driveway this morning before leaving for work... with wet hair... in -7 degree weather.

why. why do we live here?

After an amazingly fucked up cab ride, we arrived at the Congress Theater at about 12:30 Sunday afternoon. We caught a bite to eat at a Mexican restaurant a few doors down  and headed in to the show at about 1:30. We were greeted with a sign that said Municipal Waste had canceled because of a family emergency. Bummer. They were really the only reason we got down there so early.

The lobby of the theater also served as home of the second stage… which, while very cool looking, failed on multiple levels (more on that later). We briefly checked out some band I've never heard of playing music I didn't care about before heading over to the main stage to check out Black President.

The main room was pretty awesome looking….



… but the sound left much to be desired. Unfortunately, half filled concrete theaters with gigantic ceiling don't make for the greatest live sound. Shit was bouncing all over the place and while it was listenable, it definitely wasn't enjoyable.

Anyway… back to Black President…. I was exited to see these guys because I heard Greg Heston from Bad Religion was in the band. Turns out he quit awhile back, which is probably for the best. These guys sucked it long and hard. Members of Goldfinger and Stone Sour. Need I say more?

We wondered around for a bit before making our way upstairs where we sat for a few hours watching bands we didn't really care about. Valiant Thorr was pretty entertaining, though the sound in the balcony was terrible. D.O.A. played after them… I think… never really got in to those guys. 55 year old Canadians ranting about U.S. politics. blah blah blah blah. Matt slept through a portion of their set. I wish I would have done the same.

At this point, the show was ahead of schedule. Bands had stuck to their set times and with Municipal Waste and TSOL canceling, there was a little extra breathing room…. that is until the fucking Horrorpops were set to hit the stage.  They actually took so long to set up and played for so long that by the time they were done, the show was 45 minutes behind schedule. Assholes.

We headed downstairs and caught 35 minutes of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones before heading over to watch the Ergs! On the second stage.

(second stage / lobby)


Now here are the problems I had with the second stage. I'd consider them fairly significant:

The sound was way underpowered. It was brutally bad. Among the worst I've ever heard, actually. As much as I'd love to go on and on about how awesome the Ergs! were, I can't. Why? Because I couldn't hear ANYTHING. Their entire set literally sounded like white noise. The in-between-song banter was especially entertaining as I think the majority of the audience could make out 1 word per 30 spoken.

Another gigantic issue with the second stage was that while the main room held roughly 4,000 people, this room only held 400... TOPS. When bands like the Ergs! played, you had 2,500 people vying for a place to stand. It wasn't working… and it wasn't safe.

(The Ergs!)


The next band I remember catching was Teenage Bottlerocket. These guys also played the second stage but I made sure to plant my fat ass directly in front of a speaker this time and things were much better (still bad, however.)

(Teenage Bottlerocket)


I regrettably had to cut out before they were done to catch Big Drill Car. I made it over in time to hear their last song. Had it not been for the Horrorpops, I would have been able to catch each band's complete set. Thanks again, assholes.

We were then forced to sit through Leftover Crack and the Casualties. Dirty gutter punks with huge green mowhawks were stoked. I, for one, yawned through a set full of songs about killing cop. If the show wasn't already late enough, Leftover Crack played 4 songs after being given the "1 more song" sign from one of the stagehands.

It was now time for ALL. By the time they were set up and ready to go, it was 10:30... over an hour after they were originally scheduled to play.  We were right up front. Fucking awesome.

At 11 o'clock, someone (I'm presuming the venue manager) walked over to the guy putting on the festival and gave the "cut it / no more" sign. Scott Reynolds walked over to the side of the stage and came back and said "one more or no more?" he then said "so and so said we can play so we'll keep playing." They then broke in to another song. Shortly after, the power to the mains were cut. Undeterred, they continued to play 3 more songs with no mains (Scott announced before the power was cut that they had 5 more songs) about half way through there 4th song, the power was cut to the monitors  and ALL abruptly stopped. Security hit the stage and immediately began yelling at the crowd to clear out. Booing, yelling, middle fingers and bottle throwing ensued. It seemed briefly that Riotfest was going to live up to it's name. Things got pretty hairy pretty fast.

At this point, Bill Stevenson (ALL drummer) walked across the stage holding a sign that read "THE COPS FUCKED US." Apparently, Chicago has an 11 p.m. noise curfew Sunday through Thursday and they were shutting down the show.

While it was fucking awesome to see ALL play, it sucked pretty hard to have their set cut short because of two shitty bands and a lack of control over the event by the organizers.

I don't think I'll be attending any future Riotfests.

(ALL)

seeing as mccain's grandfather died at 61... and his father died at 71... it seems fairly likely that, if elected, mccain (at the ripe old age of 72) would be beating some pretty amazing odds to see the end of his first term in office.

it is absolutely terrifying to think palin is, literally, a heart attack or a cancerous mole away from becoming president.

i really have nowhere to go with this. i'm just worrying out loud, i suppose.

i overheard a resident talking to one of my staff today about how awesome i am.

he said, and i quote, 'fuck him and the ground he walks on.'

ah... to be appreciated and respected.