Blood Capsule #127

BLACK RIVER (2001)

Koontz Bloody Koontz has ended with a whimper.  I don't know what I was expecting out of Black River, but the listed plot summary should have tipped me off.  It's a multiplex entanglement, so try to stay with me.  "A writer visits a town that isn't what it seems to be."  Quite the morass.  Jay Mohr performs as the writer in question.  He's about as perfervid and impassioned as...well, remember his seasons of SNL?  Yeah, that's the kind of excitement we're working with here.  His character is manipulated by shady customers, but these nefarious powers don't actually do anything.  Their bedevilment amounts to nothing more than a few mysterious phone calls.

The anticlimax hits like a dismantled bomb.  Ugh, I've written too much about this made-for-TV thud.  Thanks a lot, Koontz!

Rassle Inn #31

Lyme disease is a vector-borne malady spread by ticks.  Common symptoms include rash, headache, fever, and fatigue.  Sorry, my mind has been occupied my medical factoids for the past couple of weeks, as I've been incredibly sick, maybe the sickest I've ever been in my life.  I don't mention it for pity.  I'm slowly, slowly getting better.  Recent episodes of Raw have reminded me of ticks, in particular, an old episode of House centering around the parasitic arachnids.  Remember House, the show about a hobbled, pill-popping genius who solved bizarre cases each week?

If I recall correctly, the second season featured a mystery where a little girl fell ill from a presumed tincture of Lyme disease.  Only one problem...they couldn't find the tick!  It was definitely still attached, but where?  In the eleventh hour, the girl's vitals were dropping when House followed a hunch and reached into her snatch.  No, really.  Tick found.  Tick removed.  Child healed.  Are you beginning to see the parallel I'm making here?  Vince McMahon is the tick in our scenario.  Triple H is House, and he has successfully extracted an infection from the snatch of sports entertainment.  For the love of all that is holy, sterilize those tweezers.

Look, it's still not a perfect show.  There are no flawless promotions, unless you're watching through the lens of nostalgia.  The first item on the docket should be to axe the third hour.  I don't even think that sporting events should last three hours.  At least with a football game, you get a breather in the form of halftime.  Wrestling fans receive no such luxury.  And I would probably unify every title, but that's a minor quibble.

So far, the smartest decision that Triple H has made is promoting Io Shirai to Raw (name change notwithstanding).  I'm biased, but you know I'm right!  At house shows, Io has been working with Asuka in singles bouts.  Yes, yes, YES.  That's all I've ever wanted.  Years ago in Japan, they teamed together alongside Mio, Io's sister.  These ladies have chemistry on top of chemistry.  I mean, if I had my druthers, they would main event Wrestlemania.  Then again, if I had my druthers, I would be Io's mouthpiece.  If that sounded salacious, it's because it was salacious.  I will not stand down.

Album Cover of the Whatever

I swear to Lucifer, you are looking at a goatman surfing on the backs of skeletons.  This might be the damndest album cover I've ever seen.  The band in question?  Mactatus.  They play slightly orchestral black metal.  I'm sampling this record - Provenance of Cruelty - right now, and I'm impressed.  Are those female vocals I hear?  I'm working under the assumption that those skeletons were session musicians.

Big Nostalgia

A few days ago, I was at the (decaying) shopping mall.  I hit my usual spots.  Soft pretzel with cheese sauce...check!  Pontificating on the sucking void that is my soul while waiting for my mother to rifle through every single rack at Belk's...check!  Hit up Hot Topic to remind myself why I never need to darken that doorstep ever again...check!  See if Spencer's has any Halloween stuff out yet...they don't, but this is where my tract actually begins.

1988's Killer Klowns From Outer Space is a trendy intellectual property.  Did you know that?  I thought it was a cult classic.  Y'know, a movie!  God, I sound like such a gatekeeper.  Hear me out.  I first saw the film in the late 90's.  Believe it or not, it aired on the Syfy Channel.  Naturally, I was blown away, so much so that I hopped on our dial-up modem to order a VHS copy.  As the years passed, I failed to meet anyone offline who had ever heard of KKFOS.  Today?  Merchandise galore at a mainstream brick-and-mortar retail establishment.  I'm torn.  Vacillated!

A part of me wants to reject a clear example of base marketing.  Pennywise, Chucky, Jason, and all of the "horror heavies" are suffering the same fate.  But remember, I'm torn.  I own Freddy Krueger socks and while I was at the mall, I bought a swank KKFOS t-shirt.  It was blue!  How was I supposed to resist?  On one level, peddling nostalgic wares does keep horror alive.  You never know.  Some kid at a Spirit Halloween might be introduced to cool shit because of what I call "big nostalgia."  The downside is the inevitable proliferation of - say it with me - posers.  I guarantee that most of the consumers who invest in a Child's Play fleece throw blanket haven't seen the original film.  Maybe they've seen Chucky.  Jesus, I haven't seen Chucky.  

This treatise was needled by the announcement of the Killer Klowns From Outer Space video game.  That's dandy, but how about a sequel instead?  The fans have only waited for roughly 25 years to see KKFOS2.  Okay, I'm done carping.  Now where did I leave my Pennywise coffee mug?

Whispers

And so our trip through Koontzville (a commonality adjacent to Weinerville) continues with 1990's Whispers, a direct-to-video trinket directed by the same auteur who brought us 1994's The Paperboy and a short entitled Why Men Rape.  Yep.  I'll be honest.  This review may not be coherent or particularly articulate.  Over the past five nights, I've had one night of decent sleep.  My head is swimming with murk and ground clouds.  We're going to try melatonin tonight.  Failing that, I'll get sloshed on Vanilla Coke and treat myself to a viewing of Rosemary's Baby.  Swear to God, that flick makes me conk out every single time I try to watch it.  I've still never finished the damn thing.

Oh, Whispers.  Right.  Victoria Tennant stars as a woman being macerated by her ex.  The fucker comes very close to dispatching her within the first ten minutes, and again ten minutes later.  Man, this chum is a real wiseacre.  We see blurry flashbacks to his childhood, but nothing is clarified until the stomach-churning finale.  Without spoiling anything, it involves cockroaches.  I will say, for a film with a meager budget, it does develop tension in certain spots.  Director Douglas Jackson (y'know, the begetter of paperboy rapists) spins a gnarly web of distress and consternation.  The gore is light.  In fact, I would surmise that Whispers was a made-for-TV project if it wasn't for the prurient sex scenes.

Prurient?  I sound like a fusspot.  A fuddy-duddy!  I can't wait to eat dinner.  I'm having penne rigate tossed with shrimp and smothered in Caribbean jerk sauce.  See, I told you that my mind was a bit erratic.  Oh, Whispers.  Right.  Chris Sarandon turns in as a sympathetic cop who wiggles his way into becoming the love interest.  In my eyes, he looks bored out of his skull.  The role doesn't require much of him, and yes, he played the exact same character in Child's Play.  Hell, Tennant even resembles Catherine Hicks.  The pace is boggy in fits and spells.  In other words, this chiller-thriller lost its grip on my attention span on a number of occasions.

Don't get me wrong; this is a fairly gross, engrossing scare picture.  It ends at just the right point, whereas my review has loitered on past its date of departure.  Yeah, I left a long, looong time ago.  So who is typing?  Dean Koontz, most likely.  PS (or whatever) - I scanned Whispers on YouTube.  It's a cool VHS rip that includes a pair of trailers.  I am now looking forward to Moon 44 and Repossessed.  Fuck, why didn't you tell me that my copy of Rosemary's Baby is twenty-eight years late at Ballbuster???  There goes the kid's college fund.  I'm glad I killed him.  Oh, Whispers.  Right.  It's so-so.

  

Geek Out #156

Here we have a Halloween episode of Headbanger's Ball hosted by Alice Cooper.  Man, I wish I could find full episodes including the videos, especially from 1994 or 1995.  Make it happen, MTV.

Blood Capsule #126

WATCHERS III (1994)

If you've seen Predator, you have seen Watchers III.  Hell, if you've seen Xtro 3: Watch the Skies, you have seen Watchers III.  This project never had a chance.  The cast is crowned by Wings Hauser, so I was hopeful, blithe even.  Blithe!  He plays Ferguson, a convict chosen to squire a covey of military grunts into the jungles of South America to capture The Outsider.  If you've been following along at home, you know that The Outsider is a monstrosity created to engage in combat apace with our troops.  You also know that a golden retriever was designated with the ability to guide its heinous counterpart into battle.  The plot is so ridiculous, it comes close to carrying Watchers III across the finish line single-handedly.

Hauser could persuade me to drive my wheelchair through a wall of conflagrant cinder blocks.  It goes without saying that he delivers a fine-tuned performance (I imagine that absinthe was involved), but his cohorts come off as limp and abstracted.  I expected more from Gregory Scott Cummins, the furrowed star of Hack-O-Lantern.  I'm a fan of the creature suit.  And the gore is saucy, but that's all I can say in favor of this languid sequel.  Man, I need to watch Hack-O-Lantern again.

Sweet Starchild o' Mine

Woah, it's been a few days since I last saw you.  I didn't fall off the edge of the world.  Promise!  I've been busy with a couple of side projects.  Does "buying nerdy habiliments" count as a side project?  Today, I slipped inside of a gnarly comic shop that was new to me.  I left with a stack of horror books and a KISS-themed magazine from 1985.  80's KISS is unfairly maligned.  Sure, their sound was homogenized, but those are infectious records.  If you don't sing along to the chorus of "Tears Are Falling," you have a serpentine soul.  And Paul Stanley is a sex kitten.

I'm not quite ready to officially announce it, but I've started a band with a buddy of mine.  Time is working against us, as we can only record on weekends.  However, we might have something you can sample in the next month or so.  Don't worry; I'm still planning on sailing the river Koontz.  I'm stretching the margins of this particular review series by including a sequel.  Feel that?  That's anticipation.

Watchers

I'm a dog person.  That's important for you to know because my opinion may be colored by my affinity for cute canines.  I mean, I turn into a barmy, foaming twit whenever I see one in public.  Try as I might, I had a similar reaction to Furface, the hyper-intelligent pooch in 1988's Watchers.  Indulge me as I piece together a semi-coherent synopsis.  Scientists developing weapons of war chance upon precipitance when their research laboratory erupts in flames.  Two experimental subjects manage to escape unscathed.  Guinea Pig #1: A snuggly golden retriever described as a homing device.  Guinea Pig #2: The missile being guided, a bloodthirsty creature who instinctively hates his quadrupedal counterpart.

I'm fighting the urge to label Corey Haim as the third subject.  Aw, I'll be nice.  He tackles the role of Travis, your average teenager.  Furface hitches a ride in his pick-up truck, unwittingly painting a bright orange target on the backs of Travis and his mother.  The requisite girlfriend is caught in the crossfire.  Her father is mutilated by the aforementioned missile, which brings me to a lamentable drawback.  The kills are mostly dry and cut in a ponderous manner.  At times, I felt like I was watching the edited-for-TV version.  I've read reviews that poke fun at the monster suit, but I thought it was up to snuff.  Of course, I live on a strict diet of disgraceful scuzz.  I'm not exactly an unbiased judge.

The pacing is swift.  I was generally engrossed in the storyline, and despite the predictable outcome, I was invested in following the third act through to its denouement.  Why is this thing called Watchers?  Grand question.  I'm hoping that the source material does a better job of delineating the specifics of how the shadow-wreathed beastie was hatched.  For what it's worth, I've heard that this adaptation takes a plurality of liberties with the Koontz tome.  The novel doesn't even star Corey Haim.  Or Michael Ironside!  If I could read, I would be super pissed.

And I have nothing else to say.  Consider this an extended blood capsule.  On the whole, I enjoyed Watchers.  Y'know, I was up for the role of Furface, but Sandy (the mutt thespian) slept with the studio brass.  Heady play, bitch.

   

Album Cover of the Whatever

I know very little about Ocultan, but I know that's a rad album cover.  The band plays competent blackened death metal.  If you're into that sort of thing.

Koontz Bloody Koontz

Pretend that I made this announcement a few days ago.  As you can surmise from the brilliant title, I'm going to survey a handful of Dean Koontz adaptations.  Ol' Koontzy doesn't get as much love as King or Barker, but he has spewed worthwhile monster books into the world.  Keep an eye on this space!

Phantoms

The late 90's are known to horror historians (heh) for discharging slashers at an exhaustive rate, but there was another trend at work - monster movies!  It wasn't a successful trend.  I stagger to confab how it became a trend at all, and you may contend that there was no modish furor behind it, but these films did exist.  The Relic, Mimic, Deep Rising, Virus...they refused to be brushed off as mild alternatives for those of us who tired of masked assholes wielding acicular silverware.  In the end, they were brushed off at the box office.  Whether or not they found legs on home video is irrelevant 25 years later, at least as irrelevant as this opening paragraph.  Let's talk about 1998's Phantoms.

A young Ben Affleck stars as Sheriff Bryce Hammond, a former FBI agent investigating the designs behind a dropped call.  He finds a pair of sisters and precisely no one else.  The setting is a desolate, hibernal town in Colorado that has been plundered of life.  Residents?  Vanished.  Cars?  Empty.  Cadavers begin to accumulate, however, and there are no clues to be found.  This is where I'll chime in with a note of praise.  The first act is beautifully set up.  You would never guess that these establishing moments of austere doom were directed by the same guy who manned Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.  Could it be that, independent of intrusive studio fingers, Joe Chappelle is actually talented?  Go figure.

The flawless build is short-lived.  You can almost smell the spot in the script where it realizes (yes, it's sentient) that it might have to explain away the mystery it took such great care to constitute.  We never get a clear answer.  What kind of heavy are we dealing with here?  Um, it's ancient!  How does it attack?  Um, off-screen!  How does it know the name of a random scholar, the exquisite Peter O'Toole?  Um, it's ancient!  Other points of uncertainty are left dangling.  Like Deputy Stu.  I don't mind Liev Schreiber, but what's up with this fucker?  He's the most childish, featherbrained cop in existence.  We are led to believe that he's under the influence of "phantoms," but I'm calling bullshit.

The CGI is spotty, though my nostalgia has intensified to where I'm almost fond of those bumbling, graceless varmints.  Would it be presumptuous to claim that early CGI spectacles are my generation's half-baked redactions of stop-motion effects?  It's something to chew on (and spit out).  The ending is scientific drivel.  Our ancient enemy is ravaged by a compound used to combat oil spills or some fucking shit.  There is room left for a sequel, but mercifully, it's been radio silence on that front.  Robert Z'Dar says, "I'm genuinely happy for Bennifer."