From the depths of the sea...A TIDAL WAVE OF TERROR!

A rare photo on the set of Schindler's List.  I think.

"Attack of the Crab Monsters hits all of the notes you would expect, and to top it off, this crustacean's exoskeleton is drizzled with Roger Corman flavoring.  For the record, Corman has the same general taste and mouthfeel as orange dreamsicle shaved ice."

That's an excerpt from a Blood Capsule that you will only be able to find in my upcoming book.  Speaking of which, I'm giving myself all of March to stockpile reviews.  Then, and only then, I'll be 95% ready to publish.  Start saving now.  I'm setting the suggested retail price at a cool million dollars.*

*Price subject to change.

Blood Capsule #182

PROPHECY (1979)

Another one I'm surprised I hadn't seen, especially considering that I've owned it for some time.  This eco-horror nugget is notorious for all of the right/wrong reasons.  If you watch South Park, you have no doubt been acquainted with the Man-Bear-Pig.  Well, this is its origin story.  Like any good cult classic, Prophecy has no idea that it's patently ridiculous.  Sober on the surface, the plotline pits Native Americans against obdurate loggers.  Someone must shoulder the blame for the alarming number of missing campers, which is to say nothing about the campers who have been found.  Headless.  It won't shock you to learn that the offending party is the malformed upshot of mercury poisoning and acid rain, probably.  If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...we've got to abolish paper mills!

Prophecy is loopy, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.  John Frankenheimer directs it with panache.  In fact, he guides it along as though it were an Oscar contender.  Who am I to say that he was deluded?  The acting is strong on all fronts.  I loved Armand Assante as the somber defender of the forest ("I'll tell you what right now!!!").  And you have to hand it to Talia Shire for delivering heavy-handed abortion dialogue with a straight face.  Did I mention that this flick was self-important?  It's okay.  You can be self-important when you have the Man-Bear-Pig at your disposal.  Prophecy earns extra credit for the bog-set finale.  The misty, nebulous backdrop is positively gorgeous, so you don't mind the false finishes.  On par with Grizzly, methinks.  Recommended to fans of groundwater pollution.

My Patreon!

I hate the fact that I have to promote my Patreon.  I feel like I'm saying, "Give me money!"  The truth is a little more nuanced than that.  Patreon allows me to make a little pocket change writing about the stuff I love.  For real, yo!  I'll give you an example.  Just the other day, I used my Patreon funds to buy two cheeseburgers and a cassette tape.  Did I NEED two cheeseburgers and a cassette tape?  Of course not, but that's beside the point.  What I'm trying to say is...I appreciate the support.  I still don't feel comfortable advertising this deal, but it is what it is.  If I were a YouTuber, no one would blink an eye at my soulless shilling.  Just think of me as another soulless YouTuber, only without the annoying videos.

Blood Capsule #181

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (2001)

Y'know, I'm just now realizing that I haven't seen the original Earth vs. the Spider.  That's odd, considering that I have seen the four other films in this series.  What is this series?  Back in the day (like, way back...VHS was still a thing), Stan Winston forged an alliance with Cinemax to produce five loving tributes to b-movies from the 1950's.  Titles ranged from the execrable (Teenage Caveman) to the paper-thin (She Creature).  Yeah, these weren't exactly consumer-grade affairs, but the passion is there.  This is a remake in name only.  The plot follows Quentin, a security guard who spends his paychecks on comic books and action figures.  I can relate.  In the chaos of a botched burglary, this idiot willingly injects himself with an experimental serum that turns him into an eight-legged freak.  We'll call him Brundlefool.

Okay, that was a different pest, but this film clearly wants to remind you of David Cronenberg's The Fly.  While the make-up effects are proficient, the meat of the script doesn't quite measure up.  You would need to care about the main character for this set-up to work, and well, that doesn't happen.  Dan Aykroyd receives top billing.  Mm-hmm.  For whatever reason, there is a subplot involving his lush of a wife.  It doesn't go anywhere, though.  I'm finding it difficult to fill two paragraphs on this paltry porch-climber.  I wonder, do spiders get offended by incendiary slang?  More to the point, would a tarantula be insulted by Earth vs. the Spider?  These are questions that someone has to ask.  In any event, go watch Tarantula or Eight Legged Freaks to get your "killer arachnid" fix.

Random Match Alert

Here's something to watch while you wait for me to write another Blood Capsule.  Bam Bam Bigelow versus "The Rocket" Owen Hart...this match is so awesome, it's stupid.  As an added bonus, it features "Macho Man" Randy Savage on color commentary.  I can't think of a better way to spend eight minutes.

Album Cover of the Whatever

Boom.

My thoughts on the new Pearl Jam song...

So I guess I was dreading hearing this single.  Every other 90's band officially sounds old.  Recent material by Foo Fighters and Smashing Pumpkins has been awful offal (ha!).  But you know what?  "Dark Matter" is a solid Pearl Jam song.  It even features that propulsive groove that had been missing from the last couple of albums.  Thank you, Matt Cameron!  Eddie still sounds like Eddie.  Perhaps most importantly, we get a screaming guitar solo, and yes, I was going to complain if we didn't get a screaming guitar solo.  Using my trusty Abbath scale, I'd give it a cautious 4 out of 5.  Let's see what the other tunes sound like.  Grunge will never die!

"Patience, Dom. Patience."

Just a brief update.  Non-capsule content will be returning to the site because, well, things look sad and lonely.  While I may be in the home stretch of the book, I'm at least a month out from being ready to publish.  I'm still in the process of gathering reviews.  And by "gathering," I mean "writing."  I want there to be something you haven't read yet, even if it's a scatterbrained breakdown of a film that you will never watch.  Can you tell I'm getting antsy?

"Patience, Dom.  Patience."  Easy for you to say!

Blood Capsule #180

THE MONOLITH MONSTERS (1957)

In the 1950's, Universal sci-fi was just as ubiquitous as Universal horror.  In fact, the fabled studio hammered out quite a few pictures that dealt with outer space.  The Monolith Monsters submits a unique concept, and off the top of my head, I can't think of another film that grapples with this particular subject matter.  Maybe The Magnetic Monster?  No, that was an isotope.  I guess I should fill you in.  Meteorites are crashing in a parched desert bed near the small town of San Angelo.  Once they shatter on impact, the landscape is flecked with black stone fragments.  I know that doesn't sound very exciting, but wait until it rains.  When these shards of space gravel are met with moisture, they begin to grow.  WARNING: Exposure to spooky wet rocks may cause alarming side effects including lockjaw, granite hand, and ovarian magma.

I enjoyed Monolith.  If I were randomly using baseball jargon (just oblige me), I'd call it a solo home run.  There are a couple of impediments, however, that keep it from being a grand slam.  The third act is overwhelmed with technical scientific mumbo-jumbo, and well, I wasn't too keen on learning the intricacies of hydroelectric power.  Seriously, the characters will tell you everything you need to know with respect to floodgates.  I'm just not sure if that leaves us with a gripping script.  I mean, you could turn The Monolith Monsters into one hell of a textbook, but I'm in the business of reviewing movies.  As such, it's alright.  We get a forced love story, although I did like the main players.

The special effects are well-mounted.  And yeah, that about covers it.  Recommended to fans of irrigation.

Blood Capsule #179

DARK CARNIVAL (1993)

I came THIS CLOSE (insert hand gesture here) to not reviewing this movie at all.  It doesn't deserve the exposure, but someone out there might see the title and expect, oh, I don't know, legitimate entertainment.  I can't let that happen.  There is so little information on Dark Carnival available, that I'm actually finding more information on the WCW stable of the same name.  This unsound no-budgeter wishes it could be associated with the likes of Vampiro and Violent J, as opposed to...dear God, who are these people?  Director Eric Worthington ditched the industry after funneling resources into this washout (resources that could have gone to anything else), having absconded with about as much pride as - nevermind, I shouldn't make this personal.

On second thought, I'm taking it personally.  Dark Carnival is miserable.  The plot follows a group of friends who decide to celebrate Halloween by staging a haunted house attraction.  They spook patrons for all of ten minutes before claiming that the house itself is evil.  What are they basing this on?  No, I'm asking.  And who is their target demographic?  They construct tableaus that range in ripeness from a hokey mad scientist's laboratory (bolt-necked monster included) to a Satanic castration ritual.  Yeah, that's sure to scare the kids in attendance (???).  The acting is dreadful, the "characters" are morons, and of course, the production values are grotty.  Hey, I can put up with cheap sets if you have something else to offer.  This is basically 1991's HauntedWeen, only without the charm.

Do not, under any circumstances, watch Dark Carnival.