While I'm working on the mega-post...

Hey! The guys at io9.com are copying me!!! They just posted a review of the movie FROGS (1972)!!! And talked about how the frogs don't do much of anything! I don't know whether to be impressed, freaked out, or pissed off! I went yelling to Dad about it, and he told me that it was a "cool synchronicity," and that seeing these means that I'm on a "good path." And something about the "zeitgeist," whatever the hell that is. I think he's turning into a hippie. (He's going to KICK MY ASS when he reads this! LOL!!!!)

A Quick Update...

Just warning you in advance: The next few reviews from me might not be horror OR sci-fi related. I know, right? This news probably just screws up your plans, but I can't help it. This has been an obsession of mine for the past year now, and now that I've got a place to vent about it, I figure that I might as well as long as I've got the time (it's summer and I don't have to be in school). It might be one big post instead of a few little ones, too. So hold onto your hats for that.

Also, I noticed that I've now got two followers! Holy crap! I just had my first comment, and now I've got my first followers! I don't know who you guys are, but you've got GREAT TASTE!

FROGS (1972)

Okay. This isn't SQUIRM, but it's fun enough. Ray Milland is an old jerk who hates nature and poisons everything that moves on his little private island. Sam Elliott (who doesn't look ANYTHING like the moustached cowboy from THE BIG LEBOWSKI) is a wildlife photographer who winds up on the island after Milland's son nearly runs him down in a speedboat. Elliott must've picked the wrong weekend to go canoeing, because this happens to be the weekend that nature decides that it's had enough of Ray Milland's dickery. Everyone gets attacked by snakes, lizards, tarantulas, leeches, alligators, and, of course, frogs.

My only problem with this is that it takes itself a little too seriously. I mean, it's called FROGS, for crying out loud. (On the other hand, maybe it was supposed to be called something else originally. Frogs aren't the only thing attacking these idiots.) Then there's a big cartoon frog that hops out after the credits and slurps down a cartoon hand, so I don't know what these people were thinking. It's got a "message," which is basically "don't screw around with Mother Nature's plans, or you could get eaten by frogs," but all of these "nature turns on mankind" things have that kind of message (THEM! = "atomic radiation probably has some side effects that you might want to avoid, like giant ants"...SQUIRM = "downed power lines can make earthworms eat your face"). But it being so serious also kind of works in its favor, like a 1950s Big Bug On The Loose movie.

All in all, though, it's got a nice swampy summer vibe going on, and makes for some fun July movie viewing. Dad watched this one with me, said he remembered seeing it on TV way back when. According to him, stuff like this was on TV all the time back then. They even had made-for-TV horror movies just like this. He got off on a rant about how all the TV horror stuff was so great back when he was a kid, and nothing like the stupid CGI "Mega Octo-Python vs. The Sharkinator" stuff that Syfy shows these days, and how the next time he took me and Jack to one of those comic book conventions that we were going to find some of these things. And he wonders where I get it!!!

ASYLUM (1972)

Okay, confession time: this one actually made me stay up all night. It's probably because I started watching it at midnight this past Saturday, and I'm easier to scare after 12 o'clock. But MAN, this got to me for some stupid reason.

This is one of those many, many Amicus anthology pictures that I've already mentioned (TALES FROM THE CRYPT, THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD), and while the *stories* aren't the best in this one, the *framing story* is. The setup is this: Dr. Martin is sent to an asylum for the incurably insane to interview for a job. One of the inmates is the former head doctor of the institute, Dr. Starr. But Dr. Starr has taken on another identity, and Dr. Martin has to guess which one of the inmates he is by interviewing each of them, accompanied by the attendant Max Reynolds. There's really only 3 stories in this: the first one is about a voodoo-practicing wife that gets murdered and takes her revenge from beyond the grave!!! The second is about a tailor who is hired (by Peter Cushing!) to make a strange suit out of a material that can bring things to life, but it winds up accidentally on his store's mannequin for a bit too long. This is probably the best story in the whole thing. The third is some lame split personality (or is it?) BS. The final one isn't really a story -- it's just a link back to the framing story, and is about a guy who makes tiny, anatomically correct (down to the organs!) dolls. He brings one that's supposed to be him to life, and it stabs the current head doctor of the asylum, and all hell breaks loose. In the end, we find out who the real Dr. Starr is, and there's this extended laugh that he does that goes on for FOREVER. And let me tell you, that laugh SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH. It's the craziest thing. Monsters, slashers, whatever...I can handle 'em. But this guy laughing just jangled all my nerves. Crazy.

So then I was up all night.

That's my story. Anyway, ASYLUM is great. It's a whole lot of fun, even if it's not the best Amicus anthology, but from what I've seen, you can't go wrong with any of them. Some are more hit than miss, but they're always goofy and lively.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)

Man…This. Wow. I'd been bugging my dad for what seems like FOREVER to let me watch this. His response was always something like "no, you're not ready for this." I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff, right? I figured nothing could be as disgusting as DEMONS, or as scary as SUSPIRIA or something, so how bad could this be? This gets written up in all of the horror movie books I have, and there are reviews all over the internet about it, so it's not like anything in it could be that surprising, right? So I kept going to dad with my arguments. First, it's not supposed to be that violent. There's only five kids in this, and someone always has to get away, so there could ONLY be like 4 victims, right? And everything I had read said that there's almost no blood in it. Everything's all implied. So there's that. Second, it might have been extreme for when it was made, but that was GENERATIONS ago! The whole "kids getting picked off one-by-one by toothless yokels" thing has been done to death by now (no pun intended!).

So he finally gave up.

Holy crap, man. This was disturbing. First off, it's best to go into the movie not knowing anything about it, so I'm not going to spoil any of the plot details, but if you've ever, I don't know, been on the internet, you probably already know all about how the story plays out. But it's not really about what the story is (because there's not a lot of it to go around), it's how it does what it does. And it does what it does by filling every little scene with tension. This is probably the most tense movie I've ever seen. Everything keeps your nerves on edge. Whether it's people screaming, or Leatherface squealing, or Franklin whining on and on ("I'm comin' with ya, Sally! Hold on, I'm comin' with ya!") or the *really* disturbing soundtrack, everything is keyed up to 11. Most horror movies have a big scare every so often, and then things calm down a bit. Not this, buddy! This is constantly uncomfortable, and when the big scares come, we don't go back to normal, we just go back to being uncomfortable. And then it ends, and it's like someone pulled a chair out from under you. After it was over, I barely talked for a good half hour, and if you know me, you know that NOTHING can get me to stop talking. I think Dad thought I might have to go to the emergency room or something!

Anyway, this is a movie that can traumatize you if you're not careful. It's probably one of the best movies out there, just because it does what it sets out to do really well, but it's hard for me to recommend it because of how well it does what it does. You've really got to prepare for it, like a marathon or something.

Invaders From Mars (1953)

Watched this back-to-back with Invasion of the Saucer-Men for a night of invading saucer-men. This one is totally serious, and pretty creepy. A kid named David sees a saucer sink into a sand pit behind his house, and everyone who goes to check on it comes back...different. They get sucked into the sand pit and have brain-control devices implanted in their heads! Holy crap. So he's got the problem of everyone who believes him getting controlled by the Martians, plus having to convince people who *don't* believe him in the first place. Wikipedia says that this film is unique in telling the story from the point of view of a kid in an adult world heading into crisis. Man, I can identify with *that*. The film is amazing-looking. It totally takes advantage of whatever budget it had, and it turns out really bizarre and otherworldly. Even the "regular" scenes on everyday Earth are weird. Which makes sense when you find out the final twist, which I'm not going to spoil. You need to see this. Dad tells me to avoid the remake from '86. I don't see how they could make this any better, even with better effects, so I might just follow his lead on that one.

Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957)

Wow. Picked this up at a local comics convention that Dad and Cady took me and Jack to. I'd seen the little alien guys in this in pictures and posters and stuff, but had never seen the movie itself. This thing is nuts! These little aliens are invading and kill people by injecting alcohol into their bodies with these needles in their fingers. It winds up you can defeat the aliens by shining bright lights on 'em. There's a disembodied alien hand with an eye wandering around for good measure, too. It's obviously not taking itself very seriously, which is good, because there's no reason for it to. It has one of those great 1950s "The End...Or Is It???" endings. SO much fun. Me and dad laughed like idiots the whole time.