His Name Was Jason

I decided to buy the new documentary about the Friday the 13th films, His Name Was Jason, today at work. Yes, it comes out officially this up coming Tuesday but I decided to say 'fuck it' and buy it ahead of time. Danyell was going away and I wanted something new to watch (even though I have hundreds of films on my Netflix queue and a few hundred DVD's I'm behind in watching right now), so why not a documentary showcasing one of my favorite horror franchises?

All I can say it's a fantastic and candid look at the franchise, with great intertwining interviews with everyone from the directors, the Jasons, the victims and even fans of the series, ranging from other horror directors to horror website journalists. It's a great mostly positive look at the series and how it changed the face of horror. WhichI do agree with in some ways.


Before Friday the 13th, horror films were looked at as the black sheep of film. Fine, we had some fantastic horror films before 1980, but even films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and Halloween were independent films that tended to be roadshow movies and/or not heavily advertised by their distributors until afterward when the crowds of people going to see them in theaters were fanatical about them. Paramount decided to take the film Friday the 13th and push it to the moon because they thought by the name alone (which was what Sean Cunningham) it would sell tickets and they were 100% correct.

If it wasn't for Friday the 13th we wouldn't have had the huge influx of great horror films, especially the Slasher uprising of the 1980's. As any movie fanatic would know, the slasher was first started with Alfred Hitchcocks's Psycho, then Bob Clark's Black Christmas and then tweaked to perfection by John Carpenter's Halloween. But it wasn't until they introduced Friday the 13th that they borrowed what they had learned from the previous films and threw in Tom Savini's gore effects and a revolution was born.

Of course we had a huge amount of shit that was produced because of this film, but that happens whenever something new and fresh comes into Hollywood. The copycats come along to take away what we know and love and distort it in a way we the viewer can't even recognize anymore. But we get a few gems here and there, films we can look back on with fond memory or discover again anew so many years later, like I've done with the original My Bloody Valentine, which was one of the better slasher flicks of the 80's. I'll be discussing that in another blog soon, probably when I get to check out the new one finally.

So go and buy the documentary this Tuesday, February 3rd. You won't regret it, especially if you're a horror buff like I am. But now I must sleep because tomorrow night I get to check out the remake of Friday the 13th in a very special advanced screening. Color me excited.

Til next time, the DVD player is shut down for the night.

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Paul Blart: Mall Cop - The 14 Word Review

Did not suck as much as I thought it would.

Good job Kevin James.

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Some movies I think you should check out...

Before part II of Netflixorama comes to fruition, I've been checking out some trailers again for films I can't wait to see. Not sure if all of you have seen these, so I'll take it as me being your dealer of filmy goodness.




Ahhh Chocolate. I can't wait for this film. Kick ass fights, an autistic girl who loves candy and martial arts and stunts gone horrible wrong. From the director of Ong Bak, so story doesn't matter. The choreography matters more in this case.



Bronson. The film I can't wait for, probably more than any other. A new version of A Clockwork Orange might be in our midst, and it seems they didn't try too hard to attain that. Tom Hardy looks absolutely bat shit crazy in the title role and I see he's bulked up a bit since Star Trek Nemesis.



And finally the film I'm so dying to see and was elated last night that Sony just bought the distribution rights to the film. I speak of Black Dynamite, the film that might finally make Michael Jai White the star I've always fashioned him as. People probably recognize him most now as one of the crime bosses in The Dark Knight. I knew him as Mike Tyson in a pretty good TV movie, Spawn himself in a terrible movie and as a great deleted scene in Kill Bill Volume II. Check it out if you haven't seen it.

There's a trio of films, two of which are officially coming out this year. I'll scour the interweb to see if there's any more trailers I think you people should check out.

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Netflixorama: Double Featuroo! Part I

Ahh it's been a long time, hasn't it? Which is why I decided to attempt a double feature article with two movies that have nothing at all to do with one another besides the simple fact that I pressed play on my Netflix account and watched them beginning to the final credit rolled.

The first film is one that I was tempted to see when it was playing in theaters, mainly for the fact that I love a good vampire flick and it was based on a comic book that I liked a little bit (sorry to all the lovers out there, not the biggest Steve Niles fan. And I tried many times, will try again as well). The movie is of course 30 Days of Night starring Mr. Mumbles himself, Josh Hartnett. And I have to say he finally stepped it up, considering I remember him just sleepwalking through his roles in both The Faculty and Halloween: H20.

I sat down and watched it with Danyell, because she had seen the stark colors being used and was as intrigued as I was in the first place. Also, being lovers of the film Hard Candy and knowing that David Slade had directed that first and then 30 Days of Night, it brought my attention level to a higher point. So what is there to say about the film? Not as gory as I thought it would be, which wasn't a bad thing. It had the proper amount of scares, Ben Foster played a creepy and dirty drifter who is helping the vampires in a scene stealing performance, the fantastic and underrated Danny Huston playing lead villain Marlowe with the iconic line of 'No God' working even after seeing the tons of trailers with it in it, the very likable Melissa George playing Hartnett's soon to be ex-wife and ultimately it's all tied together with Josh's subtle portrayal of Sheriff Eben Oleson.

Trust me, I never thought I'd say that. Especially after Hollywood Homicide. You know it!

Seriously, though, he's a regular guy, doing his job to the best of his ability before the month of darkness come to his small town. When a rash of vandalism starts occurring right before total darkness, he likens it to kids just messing about before they're cooped up for the month. But when he sees one of the townsfolk's dogs all murdered viciously, he knows something more is going on then common childish vandalism.

What commences is a tense thriller mixed with a different take on the vampire lore we're all accustomed to in film. Gone is the normal fare from films such as Twilight where all vampires are flamboyant and emo hipsters to what they should be; a visceral bunch of animals who have but a smidgeon of humanity left in them peeking on through their suits. But when it comes time to feed, they let loose and the animal instinct comes through, while they tear the throats out of all the town members who aren't quick enough to get into hiding or strong enough to fight back. Throughout the next 30 days, it's a nonstop fight for survival of Eben and his small band of survivors who keep dwindling down in number.

Weaknesses are found, hints at how the vampires work, even the sadistic nature of the vampires is shown when they let a victim go look for help, but use the person as bait, hoping that any survivor would be a good samaritan and come out there to help their brethren. Luckily Hartnett's Eben is a smart guy and doesn't fall for that, which is when we see Danny Huston's lead vampire Marlowe utter the familiar line "No God" to his bait when not being able to do what he set her out to do in the first place. And instead of just killing her, he has his minions slowly beat her up and get some slashes in before they ultimately feed on her.

Of course there's some proper gore posted throughout the film as well, a lot of corn syrup goodness which is always a favorite of us gorehounds out there. Blood is splattered through the winter landscape and looks really nice in the HD sharp contrast of the film. Sometimes it wouldn't work, ala Underworld, but I prefer it in this film. I think it's Slade's directorial expertise in music videos of yesteryear and his first film tweaking it to the full potential.

In no way am I saying this film is the end all, be all of vampire films. Give me John Carpenter's Vampires, Near Dark, The Lost Boys or Blade/Blade II any day, but 30 Days of Night is a nice addition to the vampire myth on the silver screen. Sadly films like Twilight sell to the teeny bopper crowd that prefers vamp to vampire.

Part II of Netflixorama: The Double Featuroo will continue later tonight or tomorrow. It's on a film that I know and love for years and re-watching on Netflix for the first time in about 5 years has opened various other doors in my psyche that I had to write about it. Can you guess the film? It stars one of my favorite comedic actors. And directed by a former Ghostbuster. Til then, the 360 needs to cool down.

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I was writing a dual post...

But then blogger decided to shit on me and just not save it, so when I went back to finish the blog (which was a double feature Netflixorama), I had a few sentences, even though I had typed out about 10 paragraphs worth of funny and great banter about two movies. Pissed me the fuck off to no end, I tell you.

So this will be a stream of thought blog, because I'm exhausted from work and can't think straight right this second.

Got to work today at 6 a.m., as per usual and everything seemed fine. We went inside, went to punch in, I put my coat away and then noticed that the MP3 cage we have was shattered and everything was missing. We told our manager, went up front and found out that burglars came in the middle of the night and actually burgled the place. My friend Mike and myself had to count two sections we could see were hit, Digital SLR and iPods. Sure enough, after our counts were done, we noticed we were missing $18,000 worth of iPods and $15,000 worth of SLR cameras. What a day already!!

The funny thing is, all these cops came, looking around, wondering if TVs were taken. Which shows I should be a detective because we knew how they came into the store (through the roof hatch in the stockroom). There's only one way to get that unlocked (a manager) and on this past Saturday we supposedly had 2 new people from the roofing company to check our heating ducts. So what I deduced was they never gave the lock back, so therefore they either came back last night at 3 in the morning when nobody was around (we know this because our lights came on, which the camera shows at that time) and that they came in and left in about 10 minutes. The hatch is small, so there's no way television sets could get out and luckily they also didn't take laptops either, which is a miracle. Another thing that seems fishy is that the camera doesn't see anybody come in or out at all. They knew were the cameras were and there's no way you would know where they are unless you had an inside man (or woman) helping you out, letting you know the schematics of the camera layout.

It's funny, I hate the place with a passion, but I hate thieves even more. There's something about people stealing shit they don't necessarily need (which means if there's a poor family in need of food and they steal something to eat, I wouldn't get as pissed) I want their head on a platter. It just attracts the negative attention our store doesn't need, which is when you get all these corporate whack jobs coming in, asking stupid questions to the wrong people and making life a living hell. I can't wait for the next few weeks. Maybe they'll finally listen to me about certain precautions they should have been taking a year ago when I first started this position.

But anyway, that's the main reason/reasons why I didn't get my Netflixorama out to you fine folks. I'm going to attempt to get back to it a little later, after a much deserved nap. I'll let you all know for sure. Thanks for understanding.

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I have a blog?

I almost forgot this was here, sadly. The holidays killed my creativity big time, which is a big bummer to me considering I attempt at being a writer at all times. A creative person at heart yet I haven't been able to garner the strength to write my thoughts via this blog and/or continue my Netflixorama. I know the few of you out there were hanging onto every word. :)

But seriously, thanks to my friend Ryan for waking the demon inside me up and reminding me that I do have a blog and that I should get back up on the bike even though I fell down. And what's weird about that analogy is that I can't ride a bike because I fell down horribly when I was a child.

But I do want to write, so that's a good thing. I have a few ideas. I sent out my second article for Paracinema Magazine, the up and coming magazine every film lover needs to get a subscription for. This time I wrote about remakes and why they aren't such a bad thing after all. Interesting topic that I could write continuously about, which I might do down the line on here anyway.

Also have a ton of films lined up on my Netflix queue, one of which I was sent the other day and watched a bit with friends. The Patton Oswalt approved Death Bed: The Bed That Eats and from what I've watched, it's a real doozy of a film.

Also have something lined up about a favorite genre of mine that doesn't get as much credit as it should. And no, it's not Nunsploitation. I already covered that in Paracinema issue 4. And yes, I'm being a big time mark for it. More people should learn about films like School of the Holy Beast. So I'll keep that under wraps for now.

Until next time, I need sleep. Work still beckons my call.

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