sports for all.

I've never been the sportiest of folk so I must admit I do love a chance to take the piss out of misguided attempts to make the idea of big muscled men kicking balls about and showering together cool......

Way back in 1992 there was a vaguely amusing Nike commercial featuring Godzilla and a giant-sized Sir Charles Barkley (or was it a normal sized Barkley, a man in a rubber suit and a miniature cityscape?) playing basketball in the streets of Tokyo.

As funny as it was (slightly at best) God only knows why Dark Horse decided to stretch it out to 48 arse numbing pages in this full colour one off.

Tho' as a plus point it did feature Godzilla wearing a pair of trainers 'slam dunking' (as those pesky Americans say) a ball.

Marvel obviously had to go one better.

Nuff said?

spider (non)sense.

No idea why but it made me chuckle.....

the parahandy experience.

Everyone and their dog seems to have an opinion on Paranormal Activity right now with camps split between 'it's class' or 'it's pants' - and with a tragic few more interested in the size/shape of the lead actresses arse.

Yes, I did say actress because, contrary to what some sad individuals on IMDB think, it's not real.

The film I mean, I'm assuming the arse is.

Reportedly made for just $11,000 over a period of seven days, does scarily monikered Oren Peli's debut feature live up to the horrible hype or is it just some kind of phantom menace?

Welcome to fright night!

Paranormal Activity (2007).
Dir: Oren Peli.
With Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Ashley Palmer and Amber Armstrong.

What happens when I sleep?
farting mainly.

Young, upwardly mobile (and sickeningly loved up) couple Katie (shelf shouldered, trailer park Katie Perry-alike Featherston) and Micah (rat toothed, bowl headed Sloat) have recently moved into a rather palatial house together after dating steadily for a few years.

Hang on, it's no' one o' them lassies films is it?

Luckily the paint isn't even dry on the walls before the couple begin to experience strange paranormal type bangs and crashes around the house, you know the score; lights blinking on and off, doors slamming, toilets flushing etc.

Micah, like any normal guy rushes out and buys a huge, fuck off camera in the hope of:

A. Getting some evidence of the spook on camera

and more importantly

B. Filming Katie with her kit off.

"I kissed a girl then was damned to Hell".

It turns out that poor Katie is no stranger to world of the strange, having had the willies put up her for the first time as an podgy ickle eight year old, when she had a shadowy night time visitor who enjoyed nothing more than scaring the shite out of her and her wee sister.

This came to an end tho' when the family home mysteriously burned to the ground.

Nice.

Ever since then, the mysterious 'presence' has followed chisel chinned Katie wherever she goes, making itself known by standing over her bed and breathing heavily.

A bit like your dad used to do to you when drunk.

Obviously Micah is oh so slightly annoyed that she never told him any of this before they moved in together but soon comes to see the possible haunting as a new hobby, taking over from his usual masturbation based, Pot Noodle sessions in front of his big teevee whilst watching Pimp My Mooth on MTV, which can only be a good thing really.

"I'm Katie, come sleep in mah bed".

Katie, getting slowly more shot to fuck as the film progresses (you can tell because her shorts keep getting tinier and tinier) persuades Micah to let her invite an eminent ghost-science type, Dr. Jeff Psychic (Bayouth from Wristcutters: A Love Story) around to check all this strange shit out.

Micah, busily nibbling on cheese and dodging next doors cat agrees to the visit but is understandingly shocked when the doctor decides that what they’re facing isn’t a ghost at all but a nasty demon, intent on dragging Katie to Hell.

Hang on, that's another movie sorry.

Recoiling in horror from the flock wallpaper (yet cunningly blaming on the evil energy in the house) Jeff makes his excuses and leaves but not before giving the hapless couple a few useful tips regarding demon possessions (as in if you're possessed by one, not how to take care of their pets, clean their shoes, water their plants etc).

And the phone number of his best mate, Professor Emilio M. Demonologist.

This tips, if you're interested include:

Don't run screaming from the house to a nearby hotel, if you do the spirit will just follow you and possibly shit in the Jacuzzi.

The Demon feeds off negative energy so under no circumstances start swearing at it whilst indulging in a spate of manly posturing.

And most importantly don’t even think about buying (or borrowing) a Ouija Board and trying to contact it, cos if you do, much badness will follow.

Seems easy enough to remember so it's just a pity that mousy Micah was too busy running around in a wheel to pay any attention then wasn't it?

By now Katie is shaking like a jelly and has given up on shorts completely, preferring a large pair of grey granny pants, whilst Mighty Micah, being manly and all, has decided to handle the demon in his own studly manner.

Yep, he's taken to wandering round the house in his boxers shouting "Is that all yo' got fucker?" whilst making fist gestures at the ceiling.

Hmmmm.....I have a feeling that this isn't going to end well at all.

"Fuck me! It's John Leslie!"

Made way back in 2007, Paranormal Activity seemed to appear from nowhere a few months back, hyped to buggery and with a poster quote from Steven Spielberg to boot.

The squinty eyed bearded one, (most famous for taking absolutely no responsibility for Vic Morrow's death at the hands - and rotor blades - of coke monster John Landis, even tho' he was the producer in charge of Twilight Zone The Movie, oh and directing some films as well), reckoned it was the most disturbing movie he'd ever seen (tho' I'd have thought this would come close), not only that but it was reported how his toilet door would mysteriously lock itself after he'd viewed it.

Fact?

Or Hollywood bullshit?

Well, whilst in no way 'one of the scariest films of all time', Paranormal Activity still manages to deliver some finely realised chills by cunningly exploiting the universal fears of the dark and of things unknown in the shadows, cleverly concentrating on the subtle and unseen, strange noises and sounds and the effects on the couples relationship rather than on cheap scares and chills.

And whilst I can appreciate how our American cousins have gone crazy for the film, being as it is an antidote to the seemingly endless glut of anaemic remakes and teen friendly horror fodder blocking up the cinema cistern at the moment, British fans may find the whole thing disturbingly familiar to the classic BBC Halloween spooktacular Ghostwatch broadcast way back in 1992.

Roland Rat and Kevin the Gerbil:
The mooth shite-in years.

from the stories structure and setting, thru to the way information is leaked to the viewers via the use of a 'spooky' area of the house where vital evidence is found (in this case the attic, replacing the Ghostwatch 'glory hole') both are frighteningly similar in both style and substance.

Tho' Ghostwatch, climaxing as it does with it's cross dressing pedo poltergeist molesting a pyjama clad pre-teen in a cellar has the edge over it's American counterpart.

Oh, and it's also got the chat-tastic Michael Parkinson in it too, possessed by the aforementioned spook and whispering nursery rhymes to the viewers.

No competition really.

If there's any criticism of Paranormal Activity it's that after such a slow, atmospheric build up, the shoddily added subplot regarding Micah finding a Youtube video of a previous possession by the same demon jars hideously with the realism of the rest of the film.

The 'secretly' shot film with it's hastily face-painted demon girl and fake severed limbs is laughable at best but at worse goes a long way to destroying the air of tense foreboding that the director had managed to build during the previous hour.

Then there's that ending.

Rumour has it that the film actually has three (the original, a test screening one and a cinema ending), the one that I viewed, with a possessed Katie killing Micah (offscreen) before returning to the bedroom to sit and silently rock herself is fine as it stands but the addition of a couple of gun-happy coppers bursting in and shooting the poor cow seems just too much.

Like the rest of the film, director Peli should've remembered that less is more.

The same goes for the hype and PR surrounding Paranormal Activity because, sadly this nice little scare movie that should have been a surprise Halloween treat has been blown out of all proportion and couldn't possibly live up to the publicity attached to it.

Which is a shame.

So forget the hype, leave it for a year or so then surprise yourself with it on DVD.

Just don't watch Ghostwatch first.

super fly (poster) guy.

Found these on my (internet-based) travels and had to share (a wee bit like I would if I had crabs).

Pay attention, here's the history part.

In the dim and distant 1980's the uprise in video cassette technology gave birth (not literally in a kind of David Cronenberg way - that would be sick) to the mobile cinema phenomena in the West African country of Ghana.

These touring cinema's (usually created by hooking up a TV and VCR to a portable generator) would travel from village to village using large barns or even tents as temporary venues.

In order to promote these showings, local artists were hired to create large advertising posters of the films. These were usually painted on used canvas flour sacks with the artists working from very little - and in some cases no - reference materials at all meaning that they often added elements of their own baring no relation to the actual movie.

The mobile cinema craze sadly began to decline in the mid-nineties with the greater availability of television and video to the countries populace and, as a result the groovy painted film posters were replaced with shoddily photocopied versions of the actual covers and advertising artwork.

So here, for your enjoyment are a few examples from that bygone age.

Enjoy!

I shall stop now before anyone begins to mistake this for one of those 'proper' film blogs with well researched posts etc. I mean, I'd hate you to come away from here thinking you'd learned something.

the tedious footsaw massacre.

Staunton Hill (2009).
Dir: G. Cameron Romero.
Cast: Kathy Lamkin, Cristen Coppen, David Rountree, Kiko Ellsworth, Christine Carlo, Paula Rhodes, BJ Hendricks and Charlie Bodin.

It's 1969 (OK?) somewhere in a part of America that has loads of trees and stuff and where group of faceless and fairly interchangeable friends - hunky behatted Cole (co-writer and drummer with Blur Rountree, best known for appearing in the Britney Spears Oops, I Did It Again video), the token politically minded black dude Boone (shiny browed co-producer Ellsworth) and his granite jawed missis Raina (star of Nora's Hair Salon, Carlo), teeny tiny Trish (actress, composer, writer tho' obviously no judge of quality Rhodes) and the terrifyingly toothsome Jordan (Coppen, I can't be arsed looking her up) - are busy hitch-hiking their way to Washington D.C. for a rally of some sort or another.

By the year we can assume that it's either to protest against the war in Vietnam or to demand equal rights for someone, seeing as that's all folk did in the sixties.

The writer obviously doesn't care enough to give a specific reason so why should I be bothered to think of one?

Not having any luck finding a ride (tho' you'd need a bus to carry all of them) they decide to stop at a roadside garage, store for no other reason than to give the writer the chance to have a pock-faced Hick use the word 'nigger' (shocking) and to introduce car driving cut-out Quintin (Bodin, all pube beard and ticks) so he can offer them a ride.

So far so clichéd.

"Hello, I'm bad".

Well would you believe it, halfway down the road Quintin's truck breaks down, leaving our party stranded in the woods with a storm brewing and no shelter.

But wait, didn't they pass what looks like a deserted farm a few miles back?

Maybe they could stay there till morning.

I mean what's the worse thing that could happen?

Heading off thru' the trees and over a hill (the sound of thunder and local traffic rumbling in the background) our merry band of cipher's take refuge in a big barn and bed down for the night.

I feel that I have to interject right now to point out that it's taken about 35 minutes of the movie to get this far.

Yup, a third of it's running time is over and absolutely fuck all has happened.

No character development, no suspense, no hope of a quick and painless end to the viewers suffering, nothing.

Waking the next morning (which is more than my arse had done by now) the friends come across (and I so wish I'd been literally) hulking, moonfaced inbred Buddy (another co-producer and living potato BJ Hendricks) raping a cabbage patch.

Actually the last bit is a lie but I'm trying to brighten up the review in a way the writers didn't bother with the film.

"For Gods sake somebody throw a pie!"

Buddy's (like all big boned movie mentalists) response to Cole's friendly greeting is to hit him in the face with a spade.

Cue some slow fighting and staged wrestling till the farms owners - wheelchair bound alcoholic Geraldine Staunton (Weston) and her lard loving daughter Louise (Lamkin, playing exactly the same role that she did in the Texas Chainsaw remake) arrive in time to break it up, apologise and invite their guests to stay for a big meaty breakfast.

Cut to lots of long, lingering close ups of Buddy actually cooking the said brekkie followed by even more shots of the cast eating it, intercut with close-ups of Quintin calling the chef a retard.

Realizing that the movie has almost finished yet no-one has died yet (except me, inside) our cardboard crew decide to head out to the fields in an attempt to fix the families van in the hope of borrowing it to travel to the next town or something tho' Trish, desperate for a wee stays behind to look for a toilet.

"That was a damn fine bit
o' mooth shite-in there boy!"

Wandering aimlessly (and whining annoyingly) around the farm she first stumbles across Buddy having a sly Barclay's whilst looking at pictures of Tiny Tears dolls (which isn't as funny as it sounds, I mean the cast are so uniformly unattractive that given the choice I'd probably choose to crack one off over your gran than anyone on offer here) before taking a wrong turn and ending up in a scary (re: filthy) operating theatre built onto the back of a shed.

Taking it all in her stride (tho' unfortunately not in her mouth) Trish tiptoes around opening every door and cupboard in the hope of finding a loo (or a bucket - she's been needing a piss for what seems like days) just as Buddy, brandishing a hammer, turns up and beats her to death before cutting her throat and skinning her.

I'm no medical expert but I'm sure that if you needed a slash (of the wee kind, not your throat) so badly then at least a little bit would come out at the moment of death?

But not to complain, at least we finally get a killing.

Pity it's so boringly directed really.

Which, if I'm honest wouldn't be that bad if we actually gave a toss about any of the characters.

"Hole in mah neck!"

It's not long (thank fuck) before the surviving friends find themselves being hunted down by bad boy Buddy and his family and discover the true horror behind the seemingly random acts of slaughter.

Which (as far as I can gather seeing as my finger was permanently attached to the fast forward button) seems to involve them running an illegal severed foot farming operation led by Quintin (the ex medical student brother of Buddy) out of the converted coal shed behind the house.

Yes, really.

Beard of evil.

Those regular readers of this fine blog will know that this is the point where I usually wax lyrical about the movie in questions production, cast etc. in a cutting yet oh so amusing fashion

adding clever observations and sometimes scandalous lies for the enjoyment of those childish enough to find references to 'mooth shite-in' and the overuse of the comedy catchphrase 'laugh now' the height of cinematic criticism.

But frankly when it comes to Staunton Hill the only thing that comes to mind are three little words over and over again.

Absolute fucking pish.

Look, I'll show you what I mean:

Direction: Absolute fucking pish.

Acting: Absolute fucking pish.

script: Absolute fucking pish.

And so on and so forth.

It's as if the movie has somehow fallen thru' a crack in space/time from some bizarro world where good plotting and character development have no place, it's as if someone decided to remake the Frederick Friedel classic Axe but without any of that films suspense and tension (for any American's reading this is what we Britfags call irony).

I can imagine Cameron and his buds sitting around drunk after reading the script and saying "Hmm, you know what, this script seems a lot like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre....how can we make it different and unique?".

"Well, that film's got Leatherface in it, so named because he has a mask made from human skin..."

"Gee you're right! Every major horror movie villain has a trademark look; Freddie with his hat and finger knives, Michael Myers with his Quick Fit overalls and William Shatner mask and Jason with his hockey mask and machete!"

"Let's give the folk watching a real fright...let's make our killer fat and ginger..."

"And almost myopic from constant masturbation!"

"But what can we call him....His name needs to strike fear into the hearts of cinema goers everywhere..."

Scratching his head Cameron glances over at his record collection catching glipse of the Chesney Hawkes hit 'The One and Only".

"I got it! how about Buddy?"

The only way you'll get viewers to
sit thru' this crap till the end.

Cameron Romero, hang your head in shame and George, if I were you I'd get a paternity test done as soon as possible because if this is the kind of shite your 'son' is producing then I'd check your missis wasn't playing around with John Russo behind your back.

It's the only explanation I can think of.

just a thought...

Is it just me or does Gaylen Ross get hotter the more shot to fuck her nerves get in Dawn of The Dead?

Just curious.

deady! kenny! joe!

If you're a fan of 'the films' here in 'sunny' Glasgow (that's in Scotchland near London, England for our American readers) then you can't help but have felt spoiled over the last few months what with the almost unheard of big screen showings of Suspiria, Cut And Run, Macabre and House By The Cemetery.

Surely such a feast could never be beaten?

Tho' thinking about it I'm not sure you can actually beat a feast unless of course it was totally egg based.

Like a huge 19th century omelette (usually cooked with around six or eight beaten eggs unlike our modern day equivalents that are mostly made separately for each diner with only two or three eggs) or the like.

But if this weeks offering at the Glasgow Film Theatre was indeed egg themed it would undoubtedly have been hailed as the giant Sir Humpty of Dumpty of the horror calendar, as for one night only (or two if you fancied getting the train thru' to Edinburgh) we were treated to the spectacle of a rare cinematic outing for the George A. Romero classic Dawn of The Dead and his criminally under-rated Day of The Dead.

And if that wasn't enough to send you into a state of complete arousal then the news that Genre Gods (and stars of the respective movies) Lord Ken of Foree and Sir Joseph Pilato would be in attendance would have caused spikes in this fair cities pregnancy rates over the weekend that will be felt for years to come.

Omelette: serving suggestion.

Being one of those geriatric folk who looked old enough to see Day on the, um, day of release way back in the heady days of '86 (then jumping into screen 2 to watch Lifeforce, my 'O' Level grades suffered but my film education was finally complete) only added to the general air of fanboy glee surrounding the proceedings and, coupled with the chance to finally see Dawn, a film I've loved since the tender age of 9, on the big screen (and in the form of a sparkling new print) was too good an opportunity to miss.

Plus the venue has a top notch bar and well comfy seats.

So armed with my battered but well loved Intervision VHS copy of Dawn of The Dead, a box of ciggies and a heartful of love I bravely ventured into the city centre.

And on a school night too.

But could the event live up to it's promise?

My well loved Intervision VHS
copy of Dawn...yes I am that old.

I think everyone present can safely say a rousing Weegie "Aye son!" to that.

Even the shuffling old tramp that wandered in halfway thru' Dawn looking for a warm bed for the night seemed to enjoy himself, thanks in part to our admirable host, film journo and smart suited tie wearer Calum Waddell, a man whose affable charm and self deprecating sense of humour gave the event a warm and fuzzy feeling akin to a group of friends sitting watching a movie together at home, his gentle ribbing, playful banter and ability to play the straight man (when needed) to his guests only adds to the all round friendly atmosphere sadly lacking from most big horror events.

And the fact that Glasgow crowds are the best in the world probably helped a little too.

Foree: Sexy man.

But whilst it's great to see such classics on the big screen, the events main draw was the aforementioned appearance of big Ken and Joe.

And the pair didn't disappoint.

With topics ranging from horror cinema and politics via staying over in his pals New York 'lady lair', Foree had the audience entranced whilst Pilato with his quick fire comments on everything from his non appearance in From Dusk Till Dawn to the size of Ving Rhames cock gave the impression of a horror genre Keith Richards, giving the crowds exactly what they wanted and much more besides.

Hey Joe.

If there had to be a criticism of the night it would be that the event just wasn't long enough, oh and the fact that Day of The Dead's poptastic end theme World Inside Your Eyes was cruelly faded down before it had even started, meaning that the 200 plus Karaoke sheets I'd photocopied and carefully left on every seat were rendered useless. Hopefully next time it can run over a whole weekend (or maybe over a fortnight - with toilet breaks obviously) and culminate in a Band Aid style re-recording of that John Harrison penned classic.

Well, I can dream can't I?