Fat Freddy

"The Burning" (1981) A gang of summer campers plays a fiery prank on "Cropsey," the cranky ol' caretaker -- which goes horribly wrong and burns the poor bastard alive. Five years later, a mysterious figure who wields a mean pair o' garden shears starts picking off a new crew of camp counselors. This is very familiar territory, of course (see: any random "Friday the 13th," "Madman," "Sleepaway Camp," etc.) but "The Burning" was a cut (sorry) above most of its summer-camp splatter competition, due to the truly nasty gore effects from carnage wizard Tom Savini. Watch for a young Jason Alexander of future "Seinfeld" fame (with hair!) as one of the potential victims. Fisher Stevens, later of "Short Circuit," also makes an appearance and supposedly a young Holly "Raising Arizona" Hunter is in here too as one of the campers, but I couldn't pick her out. Extra useless trivia: this film was the very first production from Harvey Weinstein's now-famous Miramax studio. Of course, ol' Harvey has been all over the news this past week due to some supposed improper conduct towards the women who work for him...

"Truck Turner" (1974) Soul legend Isaac Hayes is Mac "Truck" Turner, the most bad-ass skip tracer and bounty hunter in L.A. When he kills the city's most powerful pimp during a shootout, the dude's grieving girlfriend and business partner (Nichelle "Lt. Uhura" Nichols!) puts a price on Truck's head, and soon every bad mo-fo in the city is gunning for him. This blaxploitation classic is tons of sleazy, action packed fun. Groove on the outrageous fashions, the hair, the slang, and especially the funk-tastic soundtrack. Pure '70s gold.

Just finished: Wally's World: The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Wally Wood, the World's 2nd Best Comic Book Artist by Steve Sanger and J. David Spurlock Now reading: The Unauthorized X-Men: SF and Comic Writers on Mutants, Prejudice and Adamantium edited by Len Wein On deck: Batman Vol. I: The Court of Owls by Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo

"The Last Showing" (2014) Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund stars in this low-budget British thriller set in a multiplex. He's a crazed projectionist who traps a young couple inside the theater overnight and makes them unwilling "stars" in his own personal horror film. Not a classic, but not bad for an obscure cheapie.

First Goodwill Store score in a coupla weeks: Sabbat - History of a Time To Come Priestess - Hello Master (promotional copy) Trans-Siberian Orchestra - The Lost Christmas Eve

"Tales of Halloween" (2015) This fun anthology film ala "Creepshow" or "Trick r' Treat" features ten fast, funny, tongue-in-cheek horror stories that all take place in the same small town on Halloween night. Segments include a jack o'lantern with an appetite, a Leatherface-style murderer who meets his match, and a Halloween night kidnapping scheme that goes horribly wrong. Not every story is a home run but there was more than enough good, gory fun here to keep me entertained. Sharp eyed horror nerds will get an extra kick from spotting the appearances by B-movie royalty like Adrienne ("The Fog") Barbeau, Barry "Rocky Horror" Bostwick, Barbara "Re-Animator" Crampton and directors John Landis and Joe Dante throughout the film. A pleasant surprise. Thumbs up!

"Curtains" (1983) A group of actresses gathers at a director's secluded country estate in order to audition for his new film. Soon a masked killer starts whittling down the competition one by one. This slow moving, rather dull slasher/mystery takes way too long to get the body count moving. I'm told that it has something of a cult following nowadays, but it didn't do much for me. Skip it.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" (2004) An alien race known as the "Xillians" has invaded Earth and assumed control of all of its giant monsters ... except The Big G, of course. While Godzilla battles his way through his rogues' gallery of past enemies on the ground, a team of elite super-powered "Earth Defense Force" agents take on the aliens in the sky. This 50th anniversary Godzilla flick is ridiculously overstuffed (there's enough characters and plot for about twelve movies) and it features a variety of flashy special FX (incl. the classic guy-in-rubber-suit stuff, some CGI, fancy 360-degree slo-mo ala "The Matrix," etc.) and tons of action. It barely makes a lick of sense but boy is it fun to watch.

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016) Second viewing of the "Prequel" which tells the tale of the Rebellion's life-and-death mission to steal the plans for the Death Star. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground on this one among Star Wars fanboys -- they either loved it or they hated it. You can put me in the "loved it" column. "Spectre" (2015) 007 finally learns the source of all the trouble in his professional and personal lives - a shadowy terror organization called SPECTRE - in Daniel Craig's 4th turn as James Bond. This was my 2nd viewing of "Spectre" and even though I enjoyed it to a certain extent, I think it's my least fave Bond film of the Craig era. Visually it's a flashy treat as always, but it runs WAY too damn long and is not nearly as good as the preceding "Skyfall."

R.I.P. to a true original.

I'm on mobile right now and I can't make heads or tails of things. Yikes.

"Skyfall" (2012) Daniel Craig's 3rd James Bond film pits 007 against a disgraced former double-O agent turned cyber-terrorist (Javier Bardem) who carries a pretty major grudge against MI6 in general and Bond's boss "M" (Judi Dench) in particular. Sam Mendes' epic thriller is about fifteen minutes too long but otherwise it's absorbing spy-and-counterspy action.

"Kong: Skull Island" (2017) It's 1973 and the Vietnam War has just ended. A group of scientists and their military escorts set out to explore an uncharted South Seas island... and discover not only the giant guardian ape Kong, but lots of other huge, nasty creatures who don't take kindly to trespassers. If you put "Apocalypse Now" and "Jurassic Park" in a blender you'd have this movie. The casting is great (esp. Samuel L. Jackson as the half-crazed military commander) and the effects are impressive, so fans of Giant Monster Cinema should find this "Kong" entertaining enough in a big, loud, silly sort of way.

"Quantum of Solace" (2008) Daniel Craig's second turn as 007 takes James Bond to Italy, Austria, Haiti and Bolivia on the trail of an industrial criminal who plans to take control of South America's water supply. "QoS" is generally considered to be Craig's weakest Bond outing but it's got enough butt kicking action in it to make me forgive the rather pedestrian plot.

Another Goodwill Store stop, scored some damn fine '70s/80s cheez rock: Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper: The Best of Blue Oyster Cult Loverboy - Classics: Their Greatest Hits Cinderella - Once Upon A... (w/promo stamp) Bon Jovi - s/t * *Yes, I am aware that I've long proclaimed Bon Jovi to be "the enemy" and all that ... but this album has "Runaway" on it and god dammit, I've always kinda sorta liked that song so for $1.99 I couldn't leave it there. I'll turn in my Metal Pounders Union Local #666 membership card on my way out....

First Goodwill Store scores in quite a few weeks... Clutch - Transnational Speedway League... The Offspring - Americana Stone Temple Pilots - Core Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark* *1st U.S. press on Epic Records. I already have a later issue on the Castle Recs. label and while I usually don't re-buy stuff, the Castle copy has always had an annoying, staticky background "buzz" when I play it, so I am hoping this one sounds better.

X-Sinner - Get It The Graveyard Train - s/t Accept - The Rise of Chaos Gene Simmons - '78 solo Paul Stanley - '78 solo Annihilator - Never, Neverland

"One Dark Night" (1983) To gain entry into the "cool" high-school clique a mousy girl is ordered to sneak into a mausoleum after dark and stay inside till morning. Unfortunately for her (and everybody else), the body of a recently-deceased psychic inside the tomb doesn't take kindly to his rest being disturbed. An entertainingly silly (though surprisingly light on gore and boobs) early '80s horror flick from Tom McLaughlin, who later directed my favorite "Friday the 13th" movie ("Part VI: Jason Lives").

A double shot of Italian horror weirdness: "Suspiria" (1977) Dario Argento's candy-colored nightmare about an American girl caught up in witchcraft at a fancy schmanzy German ballet school doesn't make a hella lot of sense, but it's got tons of style. "Inferno" (1980) Follow up to "Suspiria" moves the witchy action to New York City, where a guy comes all the way from Rome to find his missing sister and learns that her apartment building is Evil Headquarters. Just as trippy and weird as its predecessor, but I think I may actually like this one better.

"Ban the Sadist Videos" (2005) Ahhh, the mid '80s and their moral panics. While American teens were facing down Tipper Gore and the PMRC, who wanted to keep W.A.S.P. and Motley Crue records out of local K-Marts, the U.K. was dealing with a censorship battle of its own. A well-meaning but ultimately misguided group of would-be censors sought to protect Britain's children from the potentially mind-altering effects of the ultra-violent, gory horror movies in video shops. This intriguing 2-part doc examines the national hysteria over the so-called "Video Nasty" phenomenon and its lasting effects on the British movie/video industry.

The Onion ran this beaut a week or so back. Taylor Swift Unveils Even Darker Persona With New Single ‘Skullfucking Maggot Shit Boyfriend’ NEW YORK—In a dramatic break from the singer’s past incarnations, including her more aggressive recent image, Taylor Swift unveiled an even darker persona Friday with the release of her new single, “Skullfucking Maggot Shit Boyfriend.” “From the moment we see her chewing the entrails of a bound-and-gagged man wrapped in coils of barbed wire, it’s obvious this is a version of Taylor we definitely haven’t seen before,” saidBillboard magazine writer Joseph Wohl in a post analyzing the new song and its accompanying music video, which feature graphic images of self-mutilation, a bass line sampled from a recording of cattle slaughter, and multiple lyrical references to genocide. “In the pre-chorus, when she sings, ‘I’m going to hatefuck you till the worms feast on your eyes,’ it’s not clear if she’s referring to ex-boyfriend Tom Hiddleston, her rival Katy Perry, or her ongoing feud with Kanye West. But it’s obvious from the bursts of industrial noise and mid-song interlude involving an imagined phone call with serial killer John Wayne Gacy that this new Taylor isn’t playing around.” At press time, several music blogs had reportedly criticized the single as overly derivative of artists like Throbbing Gristle and Anal Cunt as well as for appropriating imagery from Pier Pasolini’s film, The 120 Days Of Sodom.

6th and final entry in Stormspell Records' Fall 2017 new release six-pack: PALANTIR, "Lost Between Dimensions" "Interstellar Symphonic Power Metal" from Sweden, for fans of Blind Guardian, Nocturnal Rites, Evergrey, Lost Horizon, etc. Review @ my blog: https://hubpages.com/entertainment/Palantir-Lost-Between-Dimensions-2017-album-review "War of the Worlds" music video:

"The Cloth" (2013) A youthful unbeliever is recruited into a top secret Catholic organization that hunts down demons on Earth. The team then has to stop a particularly nasty underworld something-or-other from bringing about the Apocalypse (again). If this plot sounds familiar, it's been done before (way better) in flicks like "Priest," "Legion" and "The Rite," to name just a few. Everything about "The Cloth" screams "cheap," from the D-list casting (when your biggest names are Eric Roberts and Danny Trejo, and yet together they're in the movie for less than five minutes, you're in trouble) to the terrible acting, awkward comic book dialogue and CGI effects which make even the worst of SyFy or The Asylum's output look competent. The ending of "The Cloth" teases a sequel (of course) but so far, none has materialized, for which we should all be thankful. In other words...AVOID.

Looks like the rebranding to MTV Classic has been an epic dumpster fire. (from Wikipedia)

"The Video Dead" (1987) A brother & sister moving into a new house find a beat-up old TV set in the basement. When bro plugs it in, he finds out it's not just a TV - it's a portal, which allows zombies to crawl out of an old horror movie and into the real world. Yeah, that's not good. This cheap, one-joke movie has a couple of good gore bits and decent zombie makeup but otherwise "The Video Dead" is dumb as a box of rocks. AVOID.