Skater Boy

Do you skate? Are you in junior high school? Do you cringe at the memories of when you were a skater in junior high school?

Well, check out my latest comedy article, which should hopefully make you cringe just a little bit. That’s the goal, anyway.

Invasion of the Pod People

Train Wreck Alert. These mockbusters are both soul-crushing and so, so much fun.

Guess the Mockbuster...

What does Kid n Play, the 80s blackface comedy Soul Man, wormholes, Jesus, and giant glowing balls have in common?

To find the answer, you have to click on my latest mockbuster article for Slickster Magazine. Like the movie itself, it's a real mishmash of random weirdness. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Weird Cartoons

For the last eighty years, Walt Disney Studios has been the dominant force in animated musicals. Since 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney has churned out cartoons about singing flowers, singing rats, singing fish, singing frogs, and all sorts of other lovable vermin who can’t stop themselves from bursting into song.

Sure, there have been other studios who’ve tried to break into Disney’s cartoon musical monopoly, but they typically came off as slightly off-brand variations on the Disney standard—1997’s Anastasia, for example, or 1998’s Quest for Camelot. Both exemplify the uncanny valley of movie musicals that are almost-but-not-quite Disney. These films typically fade from memory in a few years, like the last few notes of a Russian music box from an amnesiac princess.

These copycat cartoons aren't particularly interesting, though. The interesting movies are the ones that actively reject the Disney model,  the musicals that decide to get a little weirder, a little creepier. These are the movies about plant-magic trolls and mute swans and the distant relatives of Marco Polo. If you want to read my TOP TEN list of weird cartoons, go to Taste of Cinema. This is my first listicle with them, but there will be many more to come!

Almighty Thor

Have you seen Thor, the action film about a Marvel superhero who gets stranded in New Mexico and falls in love with Natalie Portman?

Yeah. Probably.

Well, have you seen Almighty Thor, the action film that came out three days earlier, and ends with the titular hero punching lava into the shape of a hammer so that he can protect a magic tree from Richard Grieco?

No?

Well, you need to.

With the latest entry in my Mockbusters series of articles, I'm discussing Almighty Thor, one of the strangest movies I've seen in a long time. Go read my article. Then watch the movie. Then rinse your eyes out with soap. It'll be fun.

The Final Girls

Let me tell you a little bit about my favorite movie of the last six months: The Final Girls.

I have some majorly conflicted feelings about this film, because A) it's my favorite film of the last six months, and B) I think it really squanders what I feel is one of the coolest premises in meta-horror cinema.

For those who haven't checked it out yet, here's the deal: A group of modern teenagers are at an old cinema, and they get sucked into an 80s slasher film. They have to survive till the end of the "movie," but they also have to interact with the movie characters, who somehow develop deeper personalities just by being exposed to the real world.

This seems like the perfect set-up for a lot of self-referential humor and winks at the camera. It does have a bunch of that, of course (the use of black-and-white flashbacks is genius), but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that the movie cares much more about the emotional stuff than the comedic stuff. More importantly, though, it cares more about the emotional stuff than the horror stuff, and that is what leaves me conflicted.

On the one hand, I love this movie. It made me cry. On the other hand, though, I can't tell you how much I'd love to watch a version of this movie that...
set a more authentic 80s tone...
that didn't treat the murders as an afterthought...
and that actually tried to by scary once in a while.

In my mind, this movie is R-rated. It embraces the sub-genre. It doesn't forget the horror part of "horror-comedy." This version of the movie, however, was not made. The actual finished result is much sweeter, and prettier, and more cathartic. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It just wasn't what I had hoped when I heard the premise.

But like I said, The Final Girls is great. Check out my review to see exactly how much I liked it. But just remember: in a perfect world, there are two versions of this film. One has more decapitations.

Movie Review

I'm a movie reviewer now! Check out my first (mainly positive) review for The Big Short. It's part of the movie section for Slickster Magazine, an awesome new website that has funny articles, insightful reviews, and beautiful women. Expect more to come!

Laughter in Sarnath

 Re-Animator.

Snow White.

The Necronomicon.

Sleeping Beauty.

What do these words have in common? Absolutely nothing… Until now.

Wanderer’s Haven has collected a bunch of Lovecraftian fairy tale mash-ups for your reading pleasure. While my short story was unfortunately not included in the initial roll-out of stories, you can still find it up on their website.

My gory little story Laughter in Sarnath takes its inspiration from Shadow over Innsmouth and all those fairy tales about trying to make a princess laugh. (Seriously. There’s a bunch of them.) I’m really happy with the ending of this one. I was aiming for a Tales from the Crypt vibe, and I think it delivers.

And reader beware: this one is really bloody.