We Use Swear Words #3

I'm going to use Tyler's description of this episode.  "We talk torrenting, the perils of having everything at our fingertips, Crowbar and we argue a lot.  A lot."

 
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Album Cover of the Week

Blood Capsule #46

BEYOND THE GRAVE (2010)

I usually avoid post-apocalyptic zombie films with generic titles, but something told me to give this one a shot.  Sibylline clairvoyance?  Innate intuition?  Cash?  No, no, no...I had read laudatory words about this Brazilian genre dish, so I wanted to see it for myself.  Beyond the Grave is certainly unique.  A tale of demonic possession and undead rot mixes organic horror with mystic singularity.  The scenes of isolated bestiality (not that kind of bestiality, you macabre bezonian) are shot with tact, a kind of professionalism I wasn't expecting from a no-budget shocker.  The acting is premium, and the characters are developed to the point where you don't want their flesh to be ingested.

Unfortunately, the pace flatlines at disadvantageous times.  I can't sugarcoat it; Beyond the Grave is pretty damn boring when it shouldn't be.  Also, I wasn't clear on several plot details, but that may have been purposeful on writer/director Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro's part.  It's hard to judge.  I'm sure that you're capable of constituting your own opinion.  Overall, I liked this moody sucker.  Blemishes are omnipresent, but they aren't deal breakers.  You fucking bezonian.

Irish Whipped

That's Becky Lynch.  She was known as Rebecca Knox on the independent circuit.  Last night, she debuted on NXT.  Like Paige and Emma, she has serious wrestling experience, so naturally, WWE producers have given her a goofball gimmick.  She happens to have a strong Irish accent.  Can't you just see the hamster-propelled wheels spinning?  "Hmm, Irish.  Let's try green ring gear, a traditional Celtic entrance theme and...um, dancing!  Dancing always works!"  After Adam Rose, I thought we were done with this pisscrap.  Did my call for a moratorium on dance-offs fall on willfully deaf ears?

It's still early.  There is time to correct lapses in judgment and repackage Lynch as a bare-knuckle badass.  Stephanie McMahon is a woman in power, so I'm surprised that the former federation can't seem to book females.  Paige isn't as over as she should be, and what happened to my precious Emma?  Mercifully, NXT is leagues above Raw or Smackdown, even taking dubious gimmicks into consideration.  We are beginning to see a fleet spate of tag teams gush forth to keep The Ascension company.  I'm really digging the dyad of Big Cass and Enzo Amore.

Spring for the WWE Network if you haven't already.  I'm no shill.  You can trust that I haven't devolved into a stool pigeon (???), so if I sponsor something, you better believe that it's jurisprudent mintage.  In other words, it's fucking legit.

Geek Out #108

Obviously, the rest of this episode is on YouTube as well.  Man, I wish I had known about this show when it existed.  TIDBIT: The original is my favorite, but Basket Case 2 is definitely worth watching.

Korea

I wish I could get away with using that image for the Blood Capsules page, but I just found it through Google.  Damn.  Anyway, if you click on the BC tab across the top of the site, you'll notice that it's...well, it's still empty.  As you may (not) recall, I accidentally deleted it a few months ago like a subhuman idiot/dumbass hybrid.  Relinking everything is an intimidating endeavor.  Instead of going all the way back to the beginning of Random Reviews Incorporated, I'll start with the mini-reviews that are actually called Blood Capsules.

You don't need to worry 'bout a thing, baby doll.  I'll take care of it.  I SAID I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT.

Superstition

Witches!  They are undervalued.  Consider the pagoda of movie monsters, a bogus edifice I have hoisted for the purposes of this review.  The upper echelons are reserved for your vampires and your zombies.  Witches wouldn't occupy the bottom floor (that's probably where you would find the predatory, blood-starved unicorn from The Cabin in the Woods), but it's fair to say that they are not utilized with cosmic potency.  We either get fine-feather family features or edgy entertainment pepped up with Pagan spices.  Hey, I enjoy Hocus Pocus.  And who doesn't want to bang the clover buds out of Fairuza Balk in The Craft?  But when it comes to the black arts, I'll take Ugly Crones for $500, Alex.

1990's The Witches was a well-rounded genre film geared towards kiddies.  It succeeded in the scares department, but again, it was geared towards kiddies.  You can deride 1982's Superstition for being a bit mindless.  You can even badger the cast, but you can't accuse it of dodging a restricted rating.  Kiddies?  This film kills those little shits.  The first act walks and talks like a "haunted house" trek.  A few nobodies are brutally dispatched in ghostly ways (my thesaurus is broken, Diego...help!).  Eventually, our transgressor bares her broomstick, and the rest of Superstition plays out as a mean-spirited slasher.  There are flashbacks to Salem-style witch trials.  If I may be candid for a tick, they have more in common with The Exorcist than Lords of Salem.

This occult hayride is glutted with unearthly atmosphere.  Gore is the cardinal selling point.  I detected a tailgate full of creative death sequences, the body count approaching any Friday the 13th sequel in numbers.  Think I'm fudging the statistics?  Early on, we see a severed head explode in a microwave (because magic).  That dash of insanity is compounded with a teenager rupturing into two whole pieces  What's that saying about God closing a window and splitting a motherfucker in half?  Maybe I have it all wrong.  In any event, Superstition is a grim flick.  I won't spoil the ending, but if I didn't know better, I would guess that the script was glued together by George R. R. Martin.

Director James Roberson makes interesting choices behind the camera.  The evil hag's face is never revealed to the viewer.  The budget does allow for nifty optical effects, including an overblown light show wherever the apparition appears.  Flaws?  Perils?  Mousetraps?  Every now and then, a "stalk" segment will wear out its welcome.  In addition, none of the characters are realistic or readily likable.  Superstition clocks in at a lean 85 minutes, and yet, it seems flatulent.  Hand me a pair of scissors.  I can prune it down to a muscular beast.  Leaving the fat, you still have yourself a merry vat of chills.  Rob Zombie would have a field day ruining this sick puppy.

Boo Bitch Craft

Movie review clue for tomorrow.  What could it be???

Bookworm Infested #5

I regret pulling a no-show yesterday, but that's what happens when arthritis blindsides you.  Just be grateful that I didn't turn you in to the authorities.

SKELETON MAN (Joseph Bruchac)

Sometimes, you're a 29-year-old man at a consignment shop.  Sometimes, you spot a stack of random "intermediate" genre books across from VHS copies of The Fugitive and Jerry Maguire.  Sometimes, you buy those books.  Sometimes, the tip of your penis is chafed, galled and as ferruginous as a ruby geranium after a frenzied session of scalpel-assisted masturbation.  Or maybe it's just me!  Golly, I can't think of a better way to segue into the synopsis of Skeleton Man.  Molly's parents don't come home one night, and waiting anxiously for their arrival fails to produce them.  Days drift by before they are officially considered missing.  Did they disappear?  Are they cavorting in Las Vegas?  Is this a cruel joke?

Authorities (there is that word again) decide that Molly, a Native American sixth grader, will stay with her great uncle until...well, until.  But this is a shifty figure.  She has never seen this dude, and although his identity can be verified, she doesn't believe an asseveration that escapes his lips.  Moreover, he looks too much like Skeleton Man, a malevolent Mohawk Indian legend who eats families.  Skeleton Man (the novel, hence the bold typeface) is torpid for a long while, but once the bloody stool hits the oscillating fan, things get scary.  I never use that word.  However, if I had read this book as a youngster, it would have made my gizzards shudder with fright.  Skeleton Man is a creepy windbag.

Sally Wern Comport's illustrations accentuate the skin-crawling atmosphere.  Joseph Bruchac's prose is serviceable, but it's his character development that elevates the story.  Frankly, the way he renders Molly, Molly's parents and Molly's teachers is refreshing.  These people are believable.  You could argue that our prepubescent heroine comes off as impossibly brave, but at least she doesn't annoy the reader.  In this case, I was the reader, and I fancied Skeleton Man.  The only drawback is that it does take approximately 90 pages to spread its horror wings.  I'm not the most patient motherfucker in the world, you understand.

Bruchac cooked up a sequel and dubbed it The Return of Skeleton Man.  Reviews are primarily negative.  I don't know if I'll hit that shit, but I dig this guy's style.  All of his material is imbued with Native American vestiges.  Insert an offensive Washington Redskins gibe here.  Seriously, change the goddamn name.  How is this even a debate?

Album Cover of the Week

A super Friday edition!  The band is Paganizer, by the way.

TRIPTYKON - Melana Chasmata

Don't ask me to compile year-end lists.  It's only June, and I'm already seeing "Best of 2014 So Far" bulletins take shape on metal blogs.  Leave me out of it.  I know what I dig, but I'm terrible at ranking favorites.  Be that as it may, I designated Triptykon's Eparistera Daimones as my favorite album of 2010.  I was an unschooled latecomer to the genius of Tom G. Warrior.  That's not something I'm proud of (cut me some slack; Metallica was the most underground band trickling into my tympanum as a budding boy), but I have redeemed myself through neck-cracking Hellhammer campaigns.  Toss in a compulsory Celtic Frost bender, and I bow before you today a goddamn fan of all things Warrior, especially Triptykon.

It's amazing that the Swiss bedlamite is making music this relevant at age fifty.  I love the fact that he periodically checks the pulse of up-and-coming metal outfits, unlike other battle-scarred veterans who can only rattle off the names of their tour companions when pressed for modern minions.  It's a bit disheartening to learn that putative metal "gods" don't love the genre enough to stay in the loop.  But listen, Tom Araya, I won't be the crass ass who names specific names, Dave Mustaine.  No, sir.  Back to the disc at hand.  If Celtic Frost was still a functioning entity, it would sound like Triptykon.  Warrior enlisted Dark Fortress guitarist V. Santura to help flesh out sprawling blocks of drone doom.

Drone doom?  Yep.  Melana Chasmata picks up the pace on two tracks, but the demon's share of this long player is supine.  It's fucking plodding.  I love slow, heavy music, so this stuff is suited to my tastes.  However, it's almost too laggard for its own good.  That's why I'm forced to give Eparistera Daimones the slight edge over Melana Chasmata.  It had more dynamics, and it knew when to kick into high gear.  There are stretches during "Altar of Deceit" and "Black Snow" that could stand to be precipitated.  That's my sole remonstration.  I truly love all facets of these riff mountains.  Take "Tree of Suffocating Souls," for instance.  It's heavier than...than...fucking shit, it's brutal.

And then you have the merciless collapse at the end of "Breathing."  Bitch lungsuck!  It drills my gallbladder every time I hear it.  Mother shit!  If it started playing at a funeral that I happened to be attending, I would throttle the corpse until I saw pus escaping a few orifices.  Suppuration, baby!  Vamoose!  There are mellow moments spritzed throughout Melana Chasmata, most of which are enveloped in sublime female vocals.  "'Boleskine House" might fare well at radio if it didn't blow past seven minutes.  Oh, who am I kidding?  The masses can't handle Triptykon.  Can you?  Are you a bad dude?  Seriously, your turntable will grow pubic hair if you drop the needle on this mongoloid.

We Use Swear Words #2

I didn't have time to write today, but we have a new podcast ready to go.  This one is batshit cocaine insanity.  Astronomy, rape jokes, the NBA Finals, Marvel...yeah, it's a broad episode.

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Geek Out #107

This one goes out to Gavin.  You silly fuck.  Music review tomorrow?  Does that sound good?  We'll do lunch first.  By the way, that's addressed to my readership at large.  I would never do lunch with Gavin.

Uh-Oh

My stomach is bubbling.  This isn't good.

Album Cover of the Week

Crust!

Trollhunter

I'm not sure how I missed Trollhunter when it came out in 2010.  I knew it existed, but for whatever reason, I neglected to sit down and watch the damn thing.  It's possible that the "found footage" gimmick acted as an unconscious deterrent.  It's no secret that I have come to sorrow over the handheld technique.  I wouldn't say that I abhor it, despite the calumny contrived by the media.  Don't put stock in spurious articles where I am supposedly quoted verbatim.  I swear, everything I say gets miscolored and ripped out of context.  Would you believe that my publicist is still cumbered with the straits of damage control following my now-infamous appearance on Fox News?

Look, Gretchen Carlson and I did have a heated exchange hypothesizing the commercial viability of Leprechaun: Origins, but I never implied that she deserved to be hatefucked by Hornswoggle.  I...don't remember where I was going with this interpolation.  Oh, Cloverfield!  I liked Cloverfield, and I liked Chronicle.  So there have been instances where storytelling trumped the "found footage" angle.  I found Trollhunter to be an enjoyable excursus, and it made sense that its sequence of human-squashing events was captured by a documentary crew.  The main characters thought they would be interviewing bear poachers, but instead, they stumble into recording the exploits of a different type of big game hunter altogether.

Trollhunter is a product of Norway.  Apparently, you need to be Norwegian to appreciate its sense of humor.  I didn't laugh much, but American audiences didn't recognize the film as an outright comedy.  Conflict is taken seriously.  Despite flat characterizations, the cast performs remarkably well.  It's unfortunate that the only role infused with any real personality is that of the troll hunter himself.  Actually, the trolls offer more spunk than their pink, fleshy co-stars.  The digital effects are convincing enough, and they hold up exceptionally well in daylight.  Hey, what's worse than a prowling Jotnar?  A prowling Jotnar with rabies!  Hey-o!  I made a joke!

The plot holes kept me from ejaculating super hard on my TV screen.  You're telling me that the fine people of Norway are sheltered from the truth because the trolls stay in their own territory?  What?  They're huge!  And we're told that the government has known about them for decades?  How has no one else felt the tremors?  What about airplanes?  What about satellite images?  What about longitudinal pressure waves that involve compression and rarefaction?!?!?  Bah.  This is going to be a sketchy segue, but I highly recommend Trollhunter.  I told you to prepare for something sketchy.  Robert Z'Dar says, "Slightly better than Troll 2."

We Use Swear Words #1

It's here!  The podcast is here!  Check out the first episode below.   This one is wrestling-heavy, but we'll be covering a lot of ground in the future.  Spread the swear word!



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Bed Day

I'm retiring early today.  Got a date with my mattress mermaid girlfriend.  Gee, I hope nothing bad happens!

Matches That Time Forgot #61

A-ha!  You thought that I had forgotten about this column, didn't you?  Well, I did.  But...um, here's a new entry!  It's unbelievably sad.  The company?  TNA (wait, come back)  The year?  2014.  So it's pretty recent, and yet, only one of the men involved in this six-fucker tag is currently situated on TNA's roster.  How does that happen?  Yasu and The Great (motherfucking) Muta appeared as special guests as part of a cross-promotional event.  They called it a talent exchange with Wrestle-1, Muta's splinter enterprise that was created in the wake of AJPW's mass exodus.  It's a long story.

Technically, Sanada - their tag partner - is still on contract with TNA because he's the reigning X Division Champion.  The opposing side consists of Chris Sabin and Bad Influence (Kazarian/Daniels, a goddamn epic pairing).  Three insanely talented dudes.  Of course, they split from TNA in the weeks following Lockdown, which speaks to Dixie Carter's arrant cretinism.  I don't need to explain why this match is already forgotten.  Sure, it's an active bout, but in the end, it was ultimately meaningless.

What a shame.  Muta is a fucking trooper.  If you'll notice, he can barely stagger around the ring (man, those knees have seen some shit), but when he goes, he goes.  I don't know how he manages to wrestle at such a blinding pace.  Bear in mind, he's older than The Undertaker.  That's a legit badass, folks.

We Use Swear Words

So what's the announcement?  The first clue was a picture of POD people.  The second picture revealed a signed CAST.  That's right; Random Reviews is joining the podcast race!  Kind of.  I'm starting a podcast series with Tyler Nichols, one of my worst friends.  We're calling it We Use Swear Words, and the first episode will be available within the week.  I'm going to post each episode here.  Technically, it's not a Random Reviews podcast, but we will be discussing some of the same topics that I penetrate on the site.  Yes, penetrate.

Get excited!

Blood Capsule #45

MUCKMAN (2009)

Low-budget horror extraordinaire Brett Piper is an old soul.  He swears off CGI, and all of his fright flicks exhibit practical special effects (rubber suits are all the rage).  Some of his endeavors flaunt stop-motion critters, including Muckman.  You heard me correctly.  The muskeg-born brushwood beast that pops up at the tail end of this b-fop was manipulated frame by frame.  It's killer!  The actual Muckman could win a Man-Thing lookalike contest, but I won't hold that against him.  A TV crew searches for the fabled cryptid.  They stage a fake sighting, but naturally, they stumble upon an honest-to-Pete living monstrosity.  Hey, that's a Death song!  Anyhow, the storyline isn't gold (shades of The Blair Witch Project), but...I need to hit enter twice.

There we go.  Piper is smart to stymie "found footage" pratfalls.  Muckman never becomes a full-blown trend chaser; instead, it topples familiar banalities and surrounds them with quirky characters.  Hmm, I may be overselling the product.  Truth be told, I didn't smile much in the first half.  Muckman picks up the pace as it approaches the home stretch like a chemically imbalanced racehorse.  If I were you, I'd eyeball Piper's filmography (especially 2000's Drainiac and 1996's They Bite).

Announcement Clue #2

Have you pieced it together yet?  I'll officially announce it Monday-ish or Tuesday-ish.  I can only say this much...it will require a new hyperlink at the top of the page.  It would have already been announced, but my flaky ass delayed the project.  My fault entirely.  Trust me, gang; it will be worth the wait!

Blood capsule tomorrow.  Gotta run.  Your mother is begging for more of the "Big D Experience."

Album Cover of the Week

This one hits close to home.

Blood and Lace

Not to be confused with Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, 1971's Blood and Lace has the posture of a stately pot-boiler.  In reality, it's a pulsing gorge of sleaze.  How seedy is this disreputable clough of chastity?  Kids, Uncle Leo of Seinfeld fame plays a hired hand who enjoys groping underage orphans.  That's the ticket.  Now that I think about it, every "mature" character in the film is a lewd scumfuck, even the detective assigned to protect our heroine.  Plot, plot, plot...who has the plot?  Ah, found it.  Ellie is routed to a seemingly high-principled crash pad for orphaned teens following the brutal murder of her whore mother.  Calm down, friend; I'm not making a judgment call.  She was a prostitute, and Ellie's father...well, he could be anyone.

Ellie keeps having lurid nightmares that depict Mommy being bludgeoned by a hammer-wielding maniac, and she fears that she might be the next pretty blonde to meet her maker.  Lace bears the title (and one-sheet, for that matter) of a giallo, but it exercises slasher tropes that wouldn't become slasher tropes for another decade.  Stop me if you've heard this one before; we start from the point of view of the killer.  We quietly enter a house.  We open a kitchen drawer and pull out a weapon.  We find a sleeping female, topless (the goods are concealed, I'm afraid).  We kill the bitch.  We also kill the asshole next to the bitch, but that's impertinent information.

Could it be that director Philip S. Gilbert was ahead of the curve?  Granted, Lace doesn't possess the operose menace of Halloween, but you have to give credit where it's due.  The script was scribed by Gil Lasky.  Again, my brow is furrowed, as Lasky co-produced 1967's Spider Baby.  That was Jack Hill's pet project, yes, but it was a major influence on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I thought it was just interesting enough to mention.  Maybe it wasn't.  Nevertheless, this flick propels itself forward on the shoulders of scuzzy villains and controlled pacing (I'm fairly confident that pacing has shoulders...shut up).  I wasn't bored for a solitary second.  1950's screen siren Gloria Grahame is goddamn captivating as the demented Mrs. Deere.

Across the board, the acting is on the up-and-up.  But of course, Lace isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  Several story nuggets are hard to swallow, and I needed more protagonists to get behind.  As I professed earlier, the sets are littered with douchebags.  How is it that every man in this town wants to fuck a 16-year-old?  Yecch.  Sure, the actresses are tempting, but they're clearly adults.  Blood and Lace is capped off with a perverse twist ending that reaffirms its deviance.  I dug it.  If you can find this puppy on DVD, swoop down and grab that blackjack.  It's extremely rare.  Hell, it wasn't made available on VHS in North America!  What kind of bullshit is that???  Robert Z'Dar says, "I could never date a teenager.  Their chins aren't fully developed yet."

I Dun Got the Shingles

Physically, I haven't felt "well" enough to work on the site.  I was lucky enough to get shingles, which is beginning to abate.  I've just felt sick and weird overall.  However!  I promise to get back to work.  PROMISE!