Short Film Review: "Jack's Bad Day"

Perhaps the toughest thing about a short film, and the most intimidating to first-time directors, is the need to tell a complete story and develop characters in a very limited amount of time. Much has to be left to innuendo, context clues and clever pacing, and the audience is left to fill in the gaps themselves. For this very reason, I prefer short films (and short stories, for that matter) to full-length works in most circumstances, and the debut clip from director/writer Shawn Ewert, "Jack's Bad Day", is a great example of how to do it right.

The short focuses on Jack, a prolific serial killer who has been terrorizing his neighborhood and leaving corpses in his wake for weeks prior to the film's opening scene. Jack is your everyday guy, someone you wouldn't look twice at. The hilarious comedic timing of actor Steven Good lends a lot to this role, which is written (as is the entire film) with minimal dialogue. Good's performance is solid, and he hits his mark every time; whether it's distress over his morning shower going ice-cold without warning or huffing and puffing as he descends twenty flights of stairs, you are snickering or outright laughing with each expression on his face and inflection of his voice.

We've all had days like our poor Jack, unfortunately; the day when you burn the toast, lose your keys, and mismatch your socks all before even leaving the house. Jack decides that killing a girl will put him in a better mood, but the Murphy's law theme of the film indicates that no, this is not in the cards; not one but three botched murder attempts later leave him a very discouraged man indeed.

One of the funniest background performances comes from Jayson Champion, a tall fellow who looks like he just wandered out of a heavy metal concert. Jayson is portraying a character billed only as 'Scruffy Man', who lurks in the peripheral of several key scenes before the twist ending reveals his true purpose in the short. Jayson only has a bite-sized portion of dialogue, delivered in the last few seconds of the film, but his facial expressions and body language make finding out his role even more funny. Likewise, cameos from local genre legend Abel Berry as a weatherman and the director's husband Jeff Hamielec in a split-second cameo as a drunken lout are like spotting the silhouette of Hitchcock; it's an inside joke that rings true with people familiar with the director and his circle of friends.

The film is not flawless; the lighting is fairly mediocre and at times the sound has a hollow, echo effect from subpar audio equipment. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall product. A soundtrack score by Guthrie Lowe truly adds a professional dimension to the short, and the pacing of the script is clever and funny. The scenes are concise, and while some of them cut a little TOO quickly, none of the gags are milked so long that they outlive their welcome. The film's length makes it a convenient little watch, and the DVD layout is pleasantly sprinkled with special features like outtakes, a behind-the-scenes stills gallery, and a snippet of film involving a toaster that is entirely funnier than it should be.

'Jack's Bad Day' is a funny, quirky little ride done with very little time and money and overall, it delivers. For a first effort, this fun short film shows immense potential of bigger and better things to come from Ewert's Right Left Turn Productions, and fans of humor and horror will do well to keep their eyes and ears peeled for future projects from this promising filmmaker.

Is Two Better Than One? A CD Review of "Evelyn Evelyn"

Having been a fan of Amanda Palmer since the first time I heard her sing "Coin-Operated Boy" as one-half of the punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, naturally I began to follow her various social media sites. Amanda is quite the controversial artist, with constant storms of discussion swirling around her Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, message board and webcam site. She has done everything from pose as a seven-foot-bride busking for cash on street corners to serenading Stormtroopers with her ukelele at San Diego Comic Con, but recent antics such as stripping completely naked on webcam, changing clothes in the middle of the red carpet at the Golden Globes (and consequently upstaging her nominee fiancé, graphic novelist Neil Gaiman), and soliciting over $10,000 in donations from fans and then bragging about her 'haul' on various blogs around the Internet has her audiences raising their eyebrows.

The latest scandal to involve Ms. Palmer is one that is a hotbed of discussion on many forums, debating the morals and merits of her newest project, Evelyn Evelyn. Quite awhile ago, Amanda announced that she and longtime friend and fellow musician Jason Webley had discovered a pair of conjoined twin sisters who were also musically skilled. The sisters, Amanda said, went by the single name Evelyn and had the nasty habit of finishing each other's sentences. They were strange beyond comprehension, refusing to do interviews, afraid of people with facial hair, and terrified of planes; therefore, Amanda said, she thought travel or touring would be impossible for them. But via her blogs and Twitters, she swore that the twins were terrific musicians, had to be heard to be believed, and that she and Jason both felt that it was very important to get their message out to the world. The twins, she said, had been sold to a circus when they were young and had been sexually molested for their entire childhoods, resulting in their fractured and fragmented minds. They were either madly in love with each other or fighting like cats and dogs, depending on the moment, and they were very difficult to get on the phone so that Jason and Amanda could coordinate their studio time.

As time stretched on, the fans began to grow more and more interested in the project, and Amanda's answers became more and more elusive and mysterious. Jason, always the more tacit of the two, remained mostly mum on the situation. Eventually, however, the word got out--- Evelyn was a scam, a product of Amanda and Jason's crazed collaboration, a strange artistic role they were playing for an upcoming project. A designer made dresses that both of them could fit into, to make them appear as conjoined twins; Jason shaved his long-standing facial hair and wore makeup for the single press photograph that the pair leaked.

Some fans were outraged, feeling duped and deceived; they felt that they had come to care about the sisters, the intricate tale of their complex and fascinating lives. They had felt sympathy for the two victims of sexual abuse, social ostracism and workplace exploitation; they had been eager to support these twins in their rise to stardom and their escape from their terrible pasts. Now that they knew that it was just a marketing scheme by Amanda and Jason, a new way to stir up controversy and attention from the notorious talking-point Amanda more specifically, they were angry.

Others were infuriated because they felt it was ableist, completely exploiting the plight of real conjoined twins and disabled individuals as well as those who had suffered sexual abuse or discrimination in order to sell records. "Glorified cripdrag", several feminist and disabled-activist blogs called it snidely, enraged that Amanda and Jason would have the balls to actually pretend to be conjoined. It was a gimmick, nothing more than an attempt to garnish attention to their collaborative side project.

Still others argued adamantly that this was what art was about; it was controversial, it was painful, it made you think. Obviously Amanda and Jason had been successful to some degree because people had been duped for a very long time in regards to the project; its sneaky execution and clever subterfuge meant that there were people completely taken into the illusion, the smoke and mirrors doing their jobs perfectly. Amanda and Jason were creating a buzzworthy project, something that made people argue and debate; that was the entire point of true art, not just putting out records but putting out something meaningful. Was this album really any different than, say, David Bowie taking on any of his personas, Ziggy Stardust or The Thin White Duke, coming out onstage in the costume and mannerisms, singing autobiographical songs about a man who never existed? Was there a difference between this Evelyn Evelyn project and The Who's Tommy? It was just a concept album, about a fictional pair of conjoined twin sisters. If the music was good, who cared if it was actually performed by sisters from Walla Walla, Washington?

When the album dropped at the very end of March (very nearly timed to be an April Fool's joke, actually), I picked it up via iTunes out of curiousity. My chagrin over some of Amanda's more recent publicity stunts aside, I still love her music, and I've seen her play live four different times; seeing the girl whale on a piano or strum a ukelele while she sings her heart out is truly something to behold. And honestly, I'd never heard of Jason Webley prior to Amanda's constantly touting him in her blog; he's got a big underground following, but he wasn't anyone on my radar until the last year or so. So I gave Evelyn Evelyn a try.

Honestly, the first advice I can give you is that if you're a fan of either musician independently, chuck your preconceived notions of how they sound out the window. Amanda's voice is softer, less abrasive than any of her work has showcased to date, and Jason's is feminine and feathery. Their music is strange, definitely capturing the old-fashioned circus vibe of the twins' backstory, but at the same time the tracks with narration, such as "The Tragic Events of September", are genuinely haunting and eerie.

The opening track, "A Campaign of Shock and Awe", depicts several vocalists taking turns as barkers and ringleaders, touting the freakshow that is the sisters. Meanwhile, the sisters harmonize the line "Isn't it nice that they're being so nice to us? / If I'm not mistaken I think they might like us / Aren't we lucky to be here? Stop moving, they're taking a picture! Smile for the camera, Evelyn!", alternating who sings which line each reprise. This is our introduction to the Evelyn twins; they are depicted as freaks of nature, God's blunder, and we hear people arguing over how much to charge for their novelty. From there, we are taken on a whirlwind of oddities. The song "Chicken Man", about the chicken farmer who raised the girls and kept them in a cage, fed like his fowl for years before his demise, is creepy and unsettling, discordant and odd. There is a lot of accordion in this song, as well as strange Danny Elfman-style vocal work. When listening to "The Tragic Events Part II", we are told the story of how the chicken farmer died while the girls were locked in the cage, and no one knew to come and let them out; they were there for days, starving, before they finally broke free and stumbled into the open air. The song "Chicken Man" consists entirely of the two title words being repeated, first in normal singing voices, growing increasingly desperate to get the man's attention before degenerating into howling horror as they realize he isn't coming and they're going to starve. I've never before heard a song that incorporates only two words and somehow still tells a story with them.

The eery unsettling feeling brought on by this song is complimented nicely by "Evelyn Evelyn", the title song where the two sisters sing gently to each other. Amanda plays the more optimistic of the sisters, while Jason's takes a more literal and maternal approach. He is the more mature sister, the one who comforts Amanda's sister in several of the songs. Jason's twin is also the more promiscuous of the two it would seem, singing lines such as "Do you think I should marry him?" while Amanda counters "You just met him yesterday!" The song has a very soft feel of loneliness, and for a moment we the audience are transported into this strange bisected world, sympathetic to what it would be like to wonder if you could be an astronaut or a fireman, if your entire life revolved around your sister and you had never been your own person for even a moment of your life.

Some of the songs, such as "Elephant Elephant" and "Have You Seen My Sister Evelyn?" are firmly tongue-in-cheek and playful, jaunty tunes that will get in your head and refuse to come out without a fight. "My Space" is a joking dedication to finding love on the Internet, pointing to the fictional way that Amanda and Jason 'discovered' the Evelyn sisters (they claimed that someone anonymously sent them a link to the Evelyn sisters' Myspace and that was where the friendship began). The song has a soaring 80s sound to it musically, complete with amusingly epic vocal work and a strange back-echo on Jason's vocals in particular, but I feel that it's a weaker point on the album and doesn't jive with the rest of the sound. On the other hand, if the album is meant to be as confusing, inconsistent and schizophrenic as the sisters themselves, it's a roaring triumph.

The album is rounded out with a gorgeous cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", featuring melancholy ukelele strumming and absolutely beautiful, soft voice work; in this rendition Amanda is heartbreaking, her voice cracking on the highest notes, and Jason is hauntingly melodic. The two of them sound like they are singing each other a lullaby that is startling in its intimacy, the plinking piano work accompanying it adding to the surreal ephemeral quality.

In short, without delving into my feelings about the controversy surrounding its origin, Evelyn Evelyn is a provocative effort. I believe that it set out to do what it meant to do; it created an outlet for the two musicians to collaborate without being Amanda Palmer or Jason Webley. Amanda was no longer the sassy and shameless redhead who is ever-vocal about her sex life, her discontent with her record label, and it's impossible to picture the beard-sporting street performer Jason toting an accordion and a slouchy hat when listening to this music. No, we are transported into a striped circus tent where for ten bucks a head (the cost of the album on iTunes, incidentally) one can catch a glimpse with the exotic Evelyn Sisters, and that is exactly what was intended in the creation of this album.

At least ONE Film that's worth the title 'to Die For'... "Dread"

I can still remember the brilliant ad campaign for the original run of the After Dark Horrorfest '8 Films to Die For'. I remember the shrieking, haunted soundtrack, tantalizing snippets of gore-soaked victims and maniacal killers and angry spirits, and the tagline about every year some films were too extreme for theaters. And I remember the raging gorewhore inside me arching its eyebrows and going "Well now, that does indeed seem to be something we should look into."

I also recall buying tickets for the film "Wicked Little Things", because in my hometown they weren't showing the full cinema-run of all eight films. I went with a few friends who were also horror fans, in the mindset that 'Oh, this film involves creepy, possibly-possessed children'. As any horror fan will tell you, creepy kids rank up there with mongoloids and unmarked shortcuts on the Thrill-O-Meter; if they're in the film, you're in for at least a mediocre good time.

Usually.

I remember that film being a complete waste of time, a total piece of schlock, and I walked out of the cinema not even angry, just... disappointed. I felt misled. That film wasn't 'too extreme' for theaters, it was too crap and was unable to find a distributor willing to shell out the bucks to promote it. Still, I remained optimistic and rented the rest of the run of those first films... And every single one fell short of its promise. The second run was better, but still a long way from good, and the third... well, it included a direct-to-DVD sequel to The Butterfly Effect, if that gives you any inclination.

However, despite my inherent and oft-vocalized dislike for the Twilight phenomenon, I am indeed a firm Jackson Rathbone fan. If the Twilight films included a single five-minute shot of Jackson sitting there playing with a straw wrapper, I'd go see every one of them in theaters, probably twice. It isn't just his good looks, which are considerable, or his acting chops, which ironically outshine everyone else in the lackluster cast; there is a charisma about this young man that calls to mind a male equivalent of someone like Thora Birch. Jackson sticks to independent films with controversial subject matter, and he can command a shot and eat up scenery like nobody's business. So when I found out that he was the star of the film Dread coming out in this latest batch of '8 Films to Die For', I decided to give it a go on my Netflix queue.

What can I say about Dread without turning into a rabid fanatic?

...it's everything a horror film SHOULD be.

And it may easily be the best psychological film I've seen in years.

Part of this can be accredited to the concept, which comes from the second volume of Books of Blood by Clive Barker. Yes, Clive Barker, the sick fuck who brought us such delights as Hellraiser, Candyman, Lord of Illusions, The Midnight Meat Train, Nightbreed, and a whole slew of other brilliantly-conceptualized stories that've been adapted into films. Dread is no different; it has the same sly, cunning wit that is trademark to Clive's work, yet is brutal enough to make even the most steel-hearted audience member cringe. The terror is not merely a freak with a hacksaw or a businessman who slays hookers by night; this is more carnal, more primitive, getting to the root of mortal fear by addressing the actual cause of the sensation 'dread'.

Still, I've seen films with brilliant scripts that were hard to sit through. So then let's discuss the director, Anthony DiBlasi. Checking out his IMDB won't do you much good; everything else he's done is tied up in post-production, and every single project, interestingly enough, links back to Clive Barker. The two have formed a very tight partnership, and DiBlasi is also helming the Hellraiser remake as well as an upcoming Tortured Souls project. I will say that before Dread, it would've taken me a lot of resignation to see my beloved Hellraiser remade... but if this man is behind the lens, I'll be there opening night. That should speak volumes to the powerful directing in this film. The movie is shot beautifully, with powerful scenes that are well-lit, with immaculate set design and perfect choices for transitions. You honestly cannot tell that this film was an independent feature; it is lovely, and looks better on a screen than some recent big-budget Hollywood-backed films I've seen in latter days.

Now let's move on to the special effects. One word, or possibly two--- 'cringe-inducing'. In the good way, not the 'we can see the wires' way. The few CGI scenes in the film are very few and far between, and tastefully done; they are blended with a real FX artist's work to make a seamless transition, and you could almost swear they aren't CGI at all. Most of the effects used involve an actual layman with prosthetics, squibs, gallons of blood, and peeling latex; this is a dying art in the technology age and it's beautiful to see. The film isn't especially gory throughout, which is actually a nice change. Most films these days that call themselves 'horror' think that if they throw a few buckets of red corn syrup on someone it's 'scary'. DiBlasi understands that fear is much more than gore, and he uses that to the utmost of its potential. Still, the effects are phenomenal, and completely believable. At no point did I call bullshit, and I'm a sucker for a good makeup job.

 Perhaps the most important part of any film is the cast, so let's discuss. I've already professed my love for Jackson Rathbone, but allow me to expand and be more diplomatic. In this film, Jackson plays a young college filmmaker named Stephen Grace. Stephen is shy, painfully awkward, and yet completely endearing; his Robert Smith hairdo and trendy college goatee make us believe that he is the quintessential odd-man-out who is trying to fit in and find his niche in the social heirarchy of his school. One day in his psychology class, Stephen encounters an intense young man named Quaid who invites him out for drinks to discuss their upcoming class project. Quaid is portrayed beautifully by Shaun Evans, who channels a younger and much more psychotic Jeff Conaway--- I've never seen Shaun in anything else, but he has a rare smoldering ferocity in his delivery that sells you on anything that comes out of his mouth. Rounding out the cast are the females--- the cynical and sexy Cheryl Fromme is played by Hanne Steen, and Laura Donnelly is cast as Abby, the beautiful and sweet girl who is disfigured by a dark birthmark that runs the entire length of her body and causes her daily distress and social problems. This cast delivers in a way that is so RARELY seen in current horror cinema; every single one of them brought their 'A' game to this film with flying colors.

The film follows Stephen, Quaid and Cheryl as they embark on a quest to interview people around their campus to find out what they're most afraid of. It is learned through these interviews that Stephen's older brother died in a drunk driving accident many years before, leaving Stephen afraid of losing control, and Cheryl was molested by her abbatoir-worker father, which caused her to become a hardcore vegetarian who can't even stand the sight or scent of meat. The darkest secret by far belongs to Quaid, who witnessed as a child his entire family slaughtered by an axe murderer who remains at large to this day. As the interviews progress, Quaid becomes obsessed with finding the 'true' nature of fear, getting to the most base instinct that causes people to feel true dread; he calls it 'facing the beast', and he decides to take matters into his own hands and force others to face their fears in an attempt to see how far their psyche will allow them to stretch before it snaps under the terror. This begins a series of impossibly brutal, horrific experiments on the people whose stories impacted him the most, and ends in a breathtaking finale that will leave the audience sitting there with their jaws on the floor.

Honestly, I have no idea how this film didn't get wider buzz, particularly with Rathbone tied in; his Twilight connection alone probably guaranteed this a high number of rentals. However, I'd pay money to be in the room when any number of those sweet sparkly-vampire-loving girls puts in this DVD and is treated to the terrifying twists and turns of this psychological thriller. Dread is everything a horror afficianado can come to expect and hope for from a scary movie, and yet it's not specifically targeted to a demographic the way many films in this genre are. There are no wink-wink-nudge-nudge insider jokes, no recurring tropes, no played-out cliches. The most stereotypical thing in the entire film is Quaid's fear of the rogue axe murderer, and the subsequent hallucinations he sometimes suffers; beyond that, everything in this movie is fresh, original, and put together incredibly well.

All in all, go rent Dread. If you want something that'll make your pulse pound and your stomach twist, this is the film for you. THIS is horror too extreme for theaters; THIS is something not for the faint of heart. Finally, After Dark Horrorfest lived up to their promise.

Repossessed: Or, Why The Genetic Opera Is THE Place to Be

Every generation has a 'freakshow', some sort of event or happening or cultural phenomenon that calls to the outcasts, the weirdos, the creative, the lost and the broken. It gives them a place to express themselves, characters to idolize, imitate and adore, a soundtrack to their lives for a few hours at a time.

In my mother's generation it was "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"; she used to go with friends every Friday night, armed with toilet paper and toast and a head full of raunchy callback lines. When I was twelve, my mom took me with her to see it when it screened for Halloween at a local theater. I had no clue what I was in for; my mom tried to explain the intricacies of "Slut!", "Antici----pation!" and "The man you're about to see has no fucking neck", but it was hard to wrap my mind around until I actually saw it in person. Hopping around in the aisles doing the Time Warp, laughing at callback lines that had been around for twenty years but were fresh and brand-new to my virgin ears... it was amazing.

Cut to the present day, and the explosion that is "Repo! The Genetic Opera". The film, which began as an underground theatrical production and blossomed eventually into a cult symbol, is being given the 'Rocky Horror' treatment immediately following its release. All across the world, 'shadow casts' have formed; shadow casts are groups of people who dress up in the roles of various characters and act out the film as it plays on a projector screen behind them.

When I found out that there was a shadow cast in Dallas, only two hours from where I live, I decided to head up there to check it out. I timed it perfectly to attend my first production of Amber Does Dallas (the name of this particular cast) while one of my best friends Michael was in town visiting from Australia. Michael is also a big fan of the film and had never seen a live performance, so we drove to Dallas and headed to the Lakewood Theater to see what we could see.

The Lakewood is a beautiful historic theater with high ceilings, a balcony, plush couches in the bathroom lobbies, and an elegant carpeted staircase. It also has a bar, which was selling 'Zydrate shots' for the night; brilliant blue mixed drinks in clear plastic cups. The classy theater was overrun with people in every manner of dress; hair extensions, leather bondage harnesses, chaps, corsets, thigh-high fishnets, fetish boots, paintball helmets, ball gowns, tutus and everything in between. This was the cast of Amber Does Dallas, and we were in their world now.

The preshow, meant to warm up the crowd and get the cast limber and loose, consisted of dancing around to various sounds piped over the intercom as well as a 'pure' audience member going onstage to be injected with Zydrate from the Graverobber's syringe gun. The actual film, which is one of my favorites on its own merits anyway, was only enhanced by the crowd's enthusiastic callback lines. The lines were clever, well-timed and often hilarious; the cast also incorporated very funny original moments, such as during the intense "Night Surgeon" musical scene, one of the players came out in a brilliant screen-accurate replica costume for Pyramid Head of the "Silent Hill" video game franchise to represent Nathan's rage and frenzy while killing his victim.

Michael and I had a blast, and when the next performance rolled around I convinced my mother to come with me since she had never even so much as seen the film. This was not the best show to introduce her to the scene; some of the marks were missed, the callbacks fell flat in several instances, and there was a much smaller crowd with much less energy. She was still impressed and enjoyed herself, but she didn't have the exhilarated love of it that had encouraged Michael and I to chatter nonstop and relive our favorite moments during most of the drive home from our viewing.

On March 19, 2010 however, I convinced my mom to attend again as well as two friends of ours from Dallas, Andy and Dione Rose, who are both fans of the film. This show in particular was going to be special; it was half-celebration and half-protest. A film called "Repo Men", which had the same premise and many of the same elements of "Repo! The Genetic Opera", was opening in theaters and the 'Repo!' army were furious that the writers of 'our' film weren't going to make any money off of the blatant rip-off from the big studio release. Thus, the "Repo vs. Repo" show was born, and the 'Repo!' creators Terrance Zdunich and Darren Smith, as well as director Darren Lynn Bousman, teamed up to provide shadow casts across America a special treat in return for their loyalty and devotion to the film. At screenings across the nation, a short reel would follow the film on March 19 only; the reel would include footage from the original stage production (never before seen unless you yourself were in the audience attending one of those performances almost ten years ago), snips of musical numbers and scenes from the director's cut of the movie, and behind-the-scenes clips. The whole reel was only a few minutes long but it had us screaming and cheering afterward; it was aptly titled 'The Repo! Revolution', and that was exactly what it felt like being in that room that night. A revolution.

One of the messages in 'Repo!' is to combat shallowness because, as Rotti Largo sings, "flesh is weak, and blood is cheap". In a world where you can change your appearance at a whim, what stock would you put into physical flaws? Especially when such flaws are sometimes highlighted purposefully to transform them more into unique calling cards or beauty marks. In the 'Repo!' verse, different is better; hence the cast, which consists of people of all shapes, sizes, races, ages, and ethnicity. While mainstream society would consider some of these people unattractive, 'Repo!' celebrates them for the beautiful people they truly are. Stretch marks, bellies, breasts, ass cheeks, cellulite, all of these are things you can and will see in any given shadow cast. And no one bats a lash; these people are beautiful beyond compare, vibrant and alive and passionate and pouring their energy into something born of love and creativity and freedom of expression. These people are wild and feral, and while they are in that theater, mainstream society can go fuck itself; these people are making their genetics their bitch and just by watching, you can't help falling in love with every single person on that stage a little bit. That kind of love, that kind of fever, is contagious. The world could use a fucking plague of it.


'Repo!' is a production that embraces everything that makes eccentricity appealing. The members of Amber Does Dallas have costumes, for example, that could've been lifted directly from the wardrobe department at Lionsgate Films, painstakingly sewn and the fabric matched as close as possible to the real thing. They install hair extensions, buy specific makes of leather boots, and apply makeup with agonizing accuracy. Propmasters on the cast such as Draco and Beau spend their time installing blue LED lights in a modified helmet to create something that truly looks like a professional film-studio item, while cosplay prodigy Zander Yurami creates screen-accurate Zydrate guns by hand. Artists Halo Seraphim and Josh design handmade holiday cards and flyers to promote the shows and raise money for charity; the show that Michael and I attended was a fundraiser show for lupus awareness.

Hollywood hotshots may steal original ideas to make a quick buck, and flash-in-the-pan action films will come and go, but the love and devotion the fans install into 'Repo!' will live on for decades to come. And with good reason; we're not here because of A-list actors or a soundtrack full of remixes. We are here because the original 'Repo!' creators came up with the project with nothing but love and energy and enthusiasm and passion in their hearts, and we are determined to celebrate that with every ounce of our being because by doing so, we ourselves can feel alive in a world full of surgery-perfected stereotypes.

'Repo!' provides a home for the freaks, and we are merely keeping house for the next generation.

Book Review - Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series

This past summer, I had the awesome opportunity to attend the infamous San Diego Comic Convention with famous vampire-smut author and Dark Horse Comics editor Jemiah Jefferson and my mom. Since my mom's medical condition got us the big ol' Handicapped stamp on our badges, we found ourselves in priority seating in the first row during the most packed day of panels. After the charming discussion about Stargate: Universe, Caprica, and other shows I don't watch, I excused myself and literally ran from the room, abandoning my mom and Jemiah to the wolves by asking them to save my highly-coveted front row center seat. I bolted through the crowd, dodging and weaving past fanboys dressed as Storm Troopers and girls that looked like anime characters, ducking around overpriced coffee kiosks and vendor booths and random people playing ukelele in the lobby. I ran down a staircase, almost twisting my ankle in the process, and desperately scanned the banners hanging from the ceiling to display the aisle numbers in the vast showroom. I needed to find the Mysterious Galaxy table, and I needed to find it fast--- the reservation ticket I held clutched desperately in one hand would only grant me a thirty-minute lapse until I had to be back in my seat in the upstairs panel room. The SDCC staff thought I was on a bathroom break.

So why was I busting my ass and risking losing my primo spot (before The Big Bang Theory panel, even, when I would be sitting close enough to count Johnny Galecki's beard-hairs)?

Because of a petite little redhead who I had been wanting to meet for a very long time.

Her name is Rob Thurman, and when I first saw her debut novel Nightlife sitting on the 'new release' shelf of the local bookstore, I assumed she was a guy by her name. The book had gorgeous cover art by Chris McGrath, a handsome long-haired emo kid crouching on a rooftop glaring into the bleary night sky. Since I work at a bookstore and am often forced to straighten the paranormal romance section, I am more than accustomed to covers involving men like this--- except they also almost-always involve a terrible tribal tattoo, a superficial scratch somewhere on his ripped six-pack abdomen or chest, or a woman in a bustier. So to see a cover that featured none of those things was intriguing enough for me to pick it up.

It was like a roller coaster ride from the first chapter; the books center on a pair of brothers, Caliban (which means monster, for my non-Shakespeare fan friends) and Niko Leandros, half-Romanian and, in Cal's case, half-demon. The boys share a lying whore of a gypsy for a mother, but Caliban has a demonic elf known as an Auphe for a father. When they are very young, the Auphe drags Caliban through a portal into purgatory; Cal emerges half-insane, feral from his time in Hell and also a couple of years older since time works differently there. From that point on, Niko and Cal dedicate their lives to running, to training their bodies to defeat the forces of evil. Niko is a tranquil, even-keeled meditation junkie with a passion for weapons, discipline and fierce family loyalty. Cal is a smart-ass virgin who can't come to terms with the evil blood inside of him.

From the first book through the sequels Moonshine, Madhouse, Deathwish, and the brand-new Roadkill, the Leandros brothers have grown exponentially as people. Caliban has not only faced off against his evil genetics, but he is casually dating a psychotic werewolf while his brother dates an elegant vegetarian vampire. They have been to Hell and back, fought off hordes of evil, and protected each other through thick and thin. Niko has had to face his biggest fear--- a hallucination of Cal dead which left him mentally scarred afterward--- and accept his biggest challenge, which is letting Cal make adult decisions on his own and accept his own consequences for his choices.

In addition to the two ass-kicking brothers, Rob has introduced me to my favorite fictional character to date, Robin Goodfellow. When I was a kid, the puck in mythology was always my favorite, and I had a soft spot for fauns, satyrs, and Pan as well. In the first novel, Rob has the brothers venture to a used car lot to obtain a ride; they happen to meet the owner of the dealership, one Robin Goodfellow. Robin is the epitome of sex on legs, a slick-talking pan in designer clothes and an expensive haircut, a master swordsman, a lover that makes Caligula look like a blushing schoolgirl, and a smartass who invokes some of the best pickup lines in any urban fantasy  novel currently on the bookshelves. 

She has also taken many established myths and flipped them on their heads--- for example, elves are red-eyed, silver-teethed monsters bent on world destruction, peris are like angels but without the asexual holiness, vampires take iron supplements to keep from killing people, and werewolves run their own version of the mafia known as Kin. The Scottish folklore about Sawney Beane, an infamous serial killer and cannibal of legend, was the basis for her novel Madhouse, a truly disturbing and original work. Her werewolves are born, not transformed, and they can get the same diseases as the neighborhood mongrel. In addition to these, Rob brings out myths you've never heard of; she uses some of the most obscure beasts from a huge variety of cultural lore to add new villains to the story, things like mud-monsters that eat joggers in Central Park, mummies that live in the basement of world-famous museums and are addicted to the internet, and homicidal zombie-cats that take great pleasure in mass slaughter.

Rob has a distinct voice that shines through in her work; she is the cynical tough girl, and you won't find a drop of romance in these books. There's no Harlequin love story, no drawn out sex scenes or even any gratuitious nudity. Since ninety percent of the books are told from Cal's jaded, world-weary point of view, he is not interested in details about anyone's sex life, and thus they're omitted from the story itself. I personally appreciate this touch; if I want smut (and it's certainly not hard to come by in the urban fantasy genre), there are plenty of writers who specialize in just that. Rob's own touch is more adept at a fast-paced, well-plotted story with twists, turns, and occasionally a complete plunge off the edge that you never saw coming in time to catch your breath.

So while I may have busted my ass and temporarily abandoned my front-row-center spot at SDCC for two minutes with a fiesty little redhead, it was well worth it. I now have a full set of the Leandros novels all autographed (I didn't buy new copies, but rather let her sign my dogeared ones. I wanted her to actually see how much I love them, and of course the first copy you buy of anything is always the most poignant one. You wear it through, or watch it so many times it begins to skip, or read it until the pages fall out in clumps, but the replacement always feels like a cheap whore after the genuine love between you and the first copy) except for the new one, Roadkill, and Rob and I talk sporadically through her journal and emails. She is a wonderful, extremely talented writer who stands out in a genre where it's all too easy to fall for the formuliac approach and wait for the paycheck to roll in. Au contraire--- Rob Thurman would rather keep her integrity and her generic mac 'n cheese in the interest of sticking to her guns--- and her gun of choice in this case is Cal Leandros' signature Desert Eagle.

Review: Cabin Fever 2 - Spring Fever

Everyone who knows me is aware that I'm genetically inclined to love shitty B-grade horror films; my grandfather, who was the prime influence on my cinematic tastes during my childhood, is prone to watching the SciFi (I'm sorry, SyFy) channel all day long. Dinoshark from Hell and Killer Flea are the Citizen Kane and Shawshank Redemption of his repertoire, and apparently such a thing is inherited, since I spend a lot of my free time watching movies with screencaps like this:

And yes, that's a shark eating the Golden Gate Bridge. Don't judge me. I love that fucking movie.

That said, I accompanied my mom to a Redbox unit last night. I have Netflix and usually take full advantage of that, but I wasn't quite ready to send back my copies of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and also, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guatanamo Bay, because I love stoner comedies even though I've never been high in my life. I like to live vicariously through Seth Rogen and Cheech Marin and other people who look like their lives are a lot more fun than mine.

So we go on an Academy Award spree, figuring for a buck each we'll fork out for Precious and Up In the Air. Then I see it. The bright orange cover, the horribly-Photoshopped superimposed skull over a school bus. And I know that I must have it... I reach for the touch-screen, my finger quivering in mid-air. Do I dare? This one is untouched by Eli Roth's amazing vision, and is mostly unaided by Ryder Strong's beautiful face. I would watch that man talk about a dishwasher for hours, and have felt that way since 'Boy Meets World'.

Oh, I dare.

So we head home with our movies, and we watch Up in the Air, a delightful film with a wonderful cast and such. I should've saved it for last, it would've been a great cleanser for my palette after the crap sandwich that was Cabin Fever 2.

As I mentioned, I love cheesy B movies, as long as they have heart. The charm of the old drive-in classics and the campy horror films of yesteryear was the amount of love that went into them; they worked because people genuinely thought they were making good movies. This allows the audience to laugh at the film's flaws but take them with an affectionate headshake, like the crazy uncle that shows up every holiday and brings great presents but talks about his dogs like they're human beings and always smells a little like cabbage. You put up with his shenigans because in the end, he delivers. Period.

This film, sad to say, does not.

If you want a complete gore splatterfest, a contest to see if they can make you retch, then this might be the film for you. It's made in a very irrelevant, immature style that goes for the gag reflex, and the overabundance of gruesome effects transcends the plateau of even my tolerance. It didn't make me sick to my stomach; it just made me annoyed, and counting the minutes until the stupid thing was over. No one can say I'm not a trooper, since I decided to see this thing through to the end.

What sucks is that the few genuinely decent performances in the film are overshadowed by everything else's crap; it's as if by mere proximity to the script the actors begin to suck more and more with each passing scene. Anything from the first film that was suspenseful or terrifying has been thrown out the window and peed on by the neighbor's dog. I remember being horrified by the idea that you could be sick with the virus for several days while it incubated inside you and rotted you from the inside out; I remember how disgusting and well-executed the scene was where the girl is shaving her legs and the leprosy has struck those by then. There were moments of absolute sickening disgust and moments of laugh out loud humor, in a combination only Eli Roth can master--- he even brought this mix to his role as the Bear Jew in Inglourious Basterds, because I couldn't decide if I wanted to kiss Donnie Donowitz or have him committed.  That balance of psycho-endearment is what makes Eli a special find in the horror community.

It's also a fine line that must be handled with a light touch, and that was not a skill possessed in this atrocious sequel. The black comedy falls short and instead relies heavily on gross-out gags and shock value for its own sake. You get gratuitous nudity, but it's decidedly unsexy. There's also a scene that I personally found distasteful, where a cute jock decides to have sex with the morbidly obese girl at prom because his friends "told her she'd be an easy lay". She confesses to him that she's a virgin and they begin to make love in the pool. The girl is pretty much a gag joke from the beginning, designed to freak out the audience with plentiful shots of her back-fat rolls and drooping breasts, even though the girl is probably quite pretty for a larger actress under normal circumstances. And of course, she promptly dies a horrible death while the jock's is much more merciful and quick. Ain't it always the way?

The film is full of truly disgusting moments, a few of which actually had me turning away from the screen. Scenes like an infected man peeing blood into a punch bowl (and then shots of the teenage prom-goers subsequently drinking glasses full of the bloody urine), a girl vomiting what looks like congealed caramel syrup into a man's mouth while giving him a lapdance, and for those of you who've seen the first film, let me pose the question to you--- what would happen if a nine-months-pregnant teenage girl got infected with a virus that rots you from the inside out? I'll leave the answer to your imagination, but the scene made my stomach churn.

In addition to the poor writing and the shock-value special effects, the potty-humor and the badly-conceived plotline, the film makes no sense and is completely out of continuity with the end of the original film. Parts of it make you wonder why the director wouldn't scream 'cut' when he realized how wooden the delivery had become. Other parts lapse entirely into cartoon animation, suggesting that the budget had either reached its breaking point and the shots couldn't afford to be filmed, or that they were trying an edgy crossover technique between cartoon and live-action, in which case it fell flat on its face. The soundtrack was uneven and cliched, and mostly ineffective; the music didn't warn me of danger or give me false security. It was simply there, something to drown out while watching the ridiculous scenes on my screen unfold in gory full-color.

In short, only the most die-hard fans of gratuitous gore will appreciate the film. Fans of the original will cry foul for its diversion from Cabin Fever's plotline, while the casual filmgoer will be turned off by a level of sickening shameless splatter that makes Sam Raimi look like a nun. The film can't decide if it wants to be seen as an actual follow-up and thus a contender for an actual horror title, or a self-deprecating black horror comedy that merely manages to fall flat. Either way, this indecision and unwillingness to committ to the film's execution is what damns it, and the credits couldn't roll fast enough for me.

Wilkommen, bienvenue, bonjour...

Hello, my darling anklebiters... If you're reading this introduction post, then you likely already know me. Either you followed me over from Livejournal or Facebook or one of my various other social networking ventures, or you have the bad luck to know me in real life. However, there is the chance that we just stumbled upon each other like two ships passing in the dark, and in the interest of establishing a good relationship off the bat I'd like to post a brief biography about myself. Indulge me, won't you?

I live in Texas, in a small town that's exactly the midpoint between Dallas and Austin. I was born and raised here, and live with my mother, which is unquestionably cool despite my age creeping near the mid-twenties mark. My mom is my best friend, my biggest critic and ally in one, and my wingman; she is a crap roommate but she knows how to shop and is pretty good at putting the groceries away, so I don't mind sharing space with her. She's usually mistaken for my big sister when we go out, and I can't decide if that makes me look old or her look young. She also has MS, multiple sclerosis for you non-WebMD types, and I get to do fun stuff like inject her with medicine once a week and seal Ziploc baggies for her when her hands stop working right. Also, no matter where I take her, she ends up making more friends than me.

I also have a dog, whose name is Charley (after the Steinbeck book). He's half -Schnauzer, half-poodle, super-neurotic, and every time I go to the bathroom without him tailing me he becomes convinced that I'm pulling an Amelia Earhart on him. He's a rescue dog I got when he was only four months old; he came to me covered in bite marks, scabs, missing chunks of hair, underweight, and peeing everywhere any time you looked at him sideways. Now he's super-happy and borderline-fat, but he still reminds me of a methed-out Woody Allen sometimes.

I love photography, and I carry my camera around with me almost everywhere. I annoy everyone around me by constantly making them stop what they're doing to strike a pose. I sometimes even do actual gigs, like shooting live concerts, promotional shoots, headshots, or weddings. Those are pretty cool because they mean that I can put gas in my car.

I'm also really into promotions; I'm a member of like six street teams and while I'm not as active on them as I used to be, I still love the thrill of helping spread the word about something I love or believe in. My dream job would be to be some kind of tour manager or promoter, traveling on the road with a band and documenting their journey.

However, my hobbies, fun though they are, don't pay the bills, which is where real life comes in. For eight years now I've worked at a kickass independent store that's three-quarters used books, one quarter comic books, and a smattering of antiques and estate sales thrown in for flavor. The crew I work with are pretty eclectic and fun, and they make every day an adventure. I'm the epitome of geek chic, a fat chick with glasses and a nosering who tries to convince customers to buy Neil Gaiman novels and spends a lot of time on eBay researching how much a tiny glass fish from France is worth (for the record, more than a month's car payment). I love my customers, even though there are a great many days when I feel like Dante from "Clerks" from the minute I wake up until the time I crash out in bed.

So I guess that's it, the basic information about me. This blog is an experiment, a place for me to post thoughts and essays and occasionally-maybe-hopefully-humorous rants and raves, a place for me to expand people's horizons by reviewing music, books and movies I'm currently stuffing my own cerebral cortex with, and a haven for the ones like me. Maybe through our weirdness, we can find kinship.

So in the words of Shel Silverstein, who could always say it better than me (and rocked a SWEET beard while doing so):

“If you are a dreamer, come in!

 If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer,

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin!

Come in! Come in!”