Martyrs - A Semi Film Review

I was considering micro-blogging the experience of watching MARTYRS somewhere, maybe on Twitter, but I changed my mind, and thought I'd just come here first. This film is horrifying. I mean... barely seven minutes into this film I was jumping out of my skin. I am making an awful decision, right now, to watch it in the dark, in a house, by myself. This was not my smartest move. But this is what I want to make a horror film like, if I did. This isn't by the book, you know? This isn't relying on the rules that American film makers rely on, but making new rules as it goes. I have no idea what's going to happen as this film continues.

I am terrified and excited about this.

Twist of Cain drives my brain! Twist of Cain make me come alive!

I'm having a bit of a crisis of faith, as it were. This is not over my religious beliefs, don't get the wrong idea, this is about my faith in others. And no, this isn't going to be a hate speech directed at George W. Bush or Barack Obama, this is going to be something else. I'll get right to it.

I'm a Creative Writer. I'm not joking, this is the label I have, because I'm doing a course at university entitled "Creative Writing", therefore making me a "Creative Writer". What does this entail, I hear you ask? Well, here's the thing... I'm not entirely sure. Because I know how to write. Writing is all about creativity. So isn't it a bit weird to declare a course on writing is "Creative Writing"? Isn't it just as sane, albeit weirder looking, to call this course "Writing Writing"?

I am creative! I have to be. This isn't me being arrogant, we're all creative, here at Psychotronik, else pursuing this comic book publishing venture would be ridiculous. We are ideas men. We are the future of the medium, or story-writing. We are the future because we are here now and we will be after. The futures of the medium right now will be dead eventually. The writers we are fans with won't live forever (unless Grant Morrison is granted his dying wish and becomes part of the field of creativity that seeps out of the atmosphere... or something) and then we will have to step in place to fill that void. We are our own fans. We are our own favourite writers. There is a cycle there, and no one will ever break it.

But here's the thing. I'm surrounded by my peers. We have to be, duh, we're all doing the same course, but when we're given feedback... it's hollow. And it's obvious. A man is hurting inside so... obviously he should have the smell of alcohol on his breath to really push forward that idea! People obviously can't be conveyed an emotion of loss without a marker! Without a cliché! Need a tortured character? Kill his parents. Need to show how evil someone is without subtlety? Have them murder their parents! Obvious, obvious, obvious... how am I supposed to engage the reader when the reader apparently wants stories spoon fed to them step by step, instead of thinking for themselves?

Let's mess with peoples' heads. Let's buck expectation. Let's go where no-one thought we would. Let's be bloody creative, not freaking obvious. Else doing this course, doing "Creative Writing" is nothing of the sort, it's conforming, you know? And I don't want to conform to the tastes of a majority that shouldn't be in the position it is.

Happiness In Slavery

I might stand corrected.

I love horror films, I think we've established that from the rant I posted last December, but really... I just want them to work. I want us to stop cannibalising old plots and films, I want us to move forward, and do something brilliant.

I want horror to be special again.

But I might stand corrected with a few of my points from the previous blog (Help Me. I Am In Hell) due to the fact that I've seen parts of the new Friday the 13th. And the thing is... it doesn't look bad. It looks... awful... but that's because in this day and age we can't take masked serial killers seriously.

I mean honestly, in Saw, Jigsaw, our villain/anti-hero, wears a pig mask and has a clown puppet called Billy. Those aren't scary (well they were in the first film, the scene with Cary Ewes in the parking garage and Jigsaw crawling out of the back seat... guh, and when the director does that irritating quick IN-YOUR-FACE cut/cut/cut shoot style...), they're funny. If you turn off the sound (ignoring the sultry tones of Tobin Bell) you've got this clown puppet yapping away. Horrifying-- Not.But we don't have masked serial killers walking the streets. No urban myths and legends really have those kind of terrifying figures (Obviously ignoring the Hook Man legend, but even then, he doesn't wear a mask, he wears a hook. Go figure) that instill fear.

Anonymity should be scary.

Films like When A Stranger Calls are scary because we don't know who the hell is doing what, and by the end of the film, we still don't. He's, like Michael Myers before him in Halloween, a "Shape", ethereal, ghostly, but when he strikes... he strikes hard and vicious. To be honest, the sequences without actually seeing the "Prank Caller" in When A Stranger Calls are the scariest. When we actually see him, he's a human being, and he's just there. Real. It looses something. Faceless serial killers are the best, in that we don't know who they are, or why they're doing what they're doing. Why is Jason killing? Because he nearly drowned and, oh, because of one the funniest quotes of the film: "Kill for mother!" Thank you Pamela Voorhees. And thank you, shades of Psycho (another film that brilliant in it's anonymity, and not diluted by the eventual reveal of "Mother" Bates)!

I don't like knowing why the killer is killing. Certain films work like that, "discovery horror", as I've just decided to call it, where-in the story is moved forward by a mystery, but others, not so much. I'm going out on a limb and declaring the remake of House Of Wax as "discovery horror", as we eventually discover the history of the Wax Town, the twins, etc, but what really matters is how fucking horrifying a lot of the murders are. How happy was I when Paris Hilton got skewered by a phallic symbol? Tres. One of the weaker murders, sure, but some of the events in that film were really bloody scary. The guy at the piano, his mate finding him, prodding his cheek and then-- oh, if you've seen the film, you know what I'm talking about. God. And Elisha Cuthbert's fingers!! Shit. That was a scary-ish film!

So Friday the 13th. I was a bit fanboy-ish outraged at the idea of Jason running. But now, thinking about it, so what? So what if he runs? That doesn't matter, does it? I mean, I may prefer my slow moving serial killers, Michael Myers, aka The Shape, the classic Voorhees... but fast moving can be scary too, in different ways. Freddy Kruger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame jumps around like a freaking ADD afflicted twelve year old, and he's terrifying, the "ugly clown", that glove, the close ups on his massacred face... scary as. The zombies in the remake of Dawn of the Dead and in 28 Days Later (one of the greatest British films ever made) too, are scary in a different way. They will get you. And there's no fun in that. I like zombies that loiter about and then won't stop till they eventually find you, moving in herds, never stopping, slowly but surely catching up with you. In Dawn of the Dead, they just... ran... and it was disappointing. Where was the suspense? Where was the horror?

But Jason Voorhees runs in Friday the 13th. And I don't know, really, I don't mind. I've not seen the entire film, I want to, sure, but I've not got round to it. As long as he doesn't, I don't know, dance about, I think I can be ok with it. So whilst I'm not a big fan of nu-horror, shallow and dilute as it is, I think I can abide it.

(Don't) Save the Whales

Only one blogpost in 2009? This is supposed to be our year, the year of Psychotronik and yet somehow the combined effort of like four or five individuals have only managed to produce ONE blog... and about BRUCE CAMPBELL? No offense to my Fearless Leader, but Bruce Campbell couldn't act his way out of a plastic bag. Why plastic? I hate the environment.

Where was I? Oh yes. The blog. I'm writing a blog right now.

So I should introduce myself in this thing in some fashion for all of those that read this blog and aren't already subscribing to my other blog, all one of you? I am Ramon Villalobos. I am the rabble-rouser of our dysfunctional little clan of comic book creators. There is no subject too insignificant for me to make a fuss over and then drag on until we all have forgotten what we argued about in the first place. That's my role.

At this point, I would usually ask you who you are, but given the format of this exchange, I'm going to leave that to my imagination. To me, you are a cockroach who is so fed up with life you have turned to a life of drinking spilt bear off the ground and have found some way to pound on the keys of the keyboard before you enough to surf the Internet and have stumbled upon this very blog with the hope that it will provide you some semblance of a reason to go on... some life force that will fill the void in your life so you can get your act together and go procreate cockroach style so that you will father the generation of cockroaches that survives nuclear annihilation and will inherit the earth after we humans have completely drove it to ruins. You will be the ancestor of all existence and your kind will evolve beyond my comprehension so that you will rocket away from this planet before the sun burns out and nothing is left of this very blog but the faint dissonant note of information that ring on in subconscious of your great great great great grandchildren and be encoded in their dna. And in that eventuality, I will live on too. That's who you are to me.

Now that we've gotten the formalities out of the way, I want to address a very important topic of discussion: Saving the Whales.


We've done too much of it. I know what you are thinking if you are on the liberal end of the spectrum, "but Ramon Villalobos, co-writer and artist of Frank and Elenore In... and artist of To Earth with Love, what are you saying? Whales are majestic creatures and we should preserve their species so that they can live noble peaceful lives undisturbed by human interruption!" Well you are wrong. Dead wrong. Why? Because we have to destroy the whales to further promote the evolution of OUR species. Let's be honest here, we are no radioactivevolved future cockroach, we are never going to figure out the key to realistic space travel so that we can leave this planet and inhabit another one. That's just not going to happen when people are mindlessly devoting their lives to religion and rejecting scientific advancement and the slaughtering of fetuses (fetusi?). We'll just never go that far.

So what will we do when we run out of space on earth and need to find new places to build McMansions and Super Wal-Marts? Well after we completely level those worthless rain forests that take up too much space and allow deadly viruses to spread and waste us off, we'll need to venture into the true final frontier. The ocean! It's so obvious of an idea, I'm surprised we are wasting time with NASA's failures and overspending and not putting valuably fleeting resources into underwater breathing technology! We could build whole colonies underwater that would theoretically function the exact same way as society does on land but with Atlantis motifs! Think about it, isn't that the future you want for your children and grandchildren!? (Not you roach, you come into play a little later)

Of course it is.

Why wouldn't you?

Are you some kind of inhumane aquaphobic monster?

I didn't think you were.

So anyways, that brings us back to those fucking whales.

When we eventually do go all Sealab 2020 we are going to have to face all sorts of oceanic wildlife that may not like us lighting up the blackness of the ocean depths and polluting the living shit out of their turf, or tide as the case may be. Among these, the creature I see presenting the most problems to us would be the whales. The sharks would be a threat sure, I think Jaws is overrated, but the threat they presented in the movie was legitimate, sharks are big and have lots of pointy teeth. But at the end of the day, they can be blown to smithereens by missiles and probably eaten as sea-burgers. Whales? They are the raging Goliaths that we will need far more than torpedoes and spears to kill. Once they realize what our intentions are, they will try to resist our hostile take over and use their sonic communication to communicate with one another and lead a revolution against us mammalian outsiders. We will fight bitter wars with them and they will eat our ships whole just like in Pinocchio, except we are not immortal wooden avatars of the child a lonely carpenter was never able to father, no-no, we are people and when people get consumed whole, the stomach acid of larger beast will kill us. Probably.

So what are we waiting for? We all know the day will come when we will have to fight these bastards, why allow the opportunity to grow larger armies and become more a advanced species as time creeps forward? It's arrogant to think the people we look down on and help out today won't try to compete against us in the future, look at Japan. Those kooky little fuckers have already built better cars and created legions of anime obsessed little demonic capitalists the likes of which our good wholesome, pot smoking American mallrats can never compete with in any capacity. Didn't you watch our version of Hole in the Wall? We suck at it and they are probably pretty decent! If that's not a test of superiority, I honestly don't know what is.

At any rate, lets not make the same mistake twice. Let's take any and all opportunities to kill off this fast growing race of water-mammoths while we still can do so with very little effort.

That is all.

My Name Is Bruce

Let me just start by saying that if you are a Bruce Campbell fan it will be almost impossible for you to not like this film. And if you aren't a Bruce Campbell you'll probably think it's one of the worst movies you've ever seen.

And that is what My Name Is Bruce basically is - a movie just for the fans. It's like Bruce Campbell's greatest hits. If you were a big enough Bruce fan to sit through McHale's Navy, this is like pure candy. He plays a parody of himself as filtered through his lovable jerk Ash persona. His movies are referenced heavily (with even a made-up one). He does all his best bits and his more famous quotes are littered throughout. And the cast is populated with past players in his less-than-impressive b-movie oeuvre (which of course includes Ted Raimi, the not quite as talented younger brother of Sam and Ivan).

So how do you get to be a Bruce fan? Where did they all come from? I have no idea. For me personally it was a quiet summer night sometime back in the late 1980s when myself and a small group of friends would raid the video rental section of a local grocery store that just so happened to be heavy stocked on scary movies. There must have been a kindred spirit behind the counter somewhere that would order pretty much every single blood and guts flick that came up for purchase and it did not go unnoticed by us. It didn't hurt that the girl that worked the customer service desk at night was a friend of mine so we almost never caught late fees when we found one good enough that it required an extra viewing night. So on that night one friend made note of a particular movie called Evil Dead 2 that reportedly co-starred a local hometown girl who had made it big, Kassie Wesley (later DePaiva, the girl who swallowed the eyeball). We rented it with little idea that it would fast become our favorite movie and would go on to be a heavily repeated rental in the months to come. It was brilliant madness. Frantic camerawork, slapstick horror, and our first taste of the man we would come to worship, Bruce Campbell. And in the years since our admiration hasn't lost steam one iota. A few years back I visited said friend on a trip to his city only to find a copy of "If Chins Could Kill" on his coffee table and him dutifully asking his 4-year-old son to identify the man on the cover. "Bwuce Cammell," his son quickly responded. "That's my boy!" my friend proudly proclaimed. Such is the dedication of a true Bruce fan.

And new generations of Bruce fans just keep on coming. How do they come to learn of 'the groovy' that is Bruce? The happy accident of a late night showing of Army of Darkness? An older brother who was already hip to the coolness of Brisco County Jr.? A curiosity to who this guy is that keeps showing up in the Spider-man movies? They just so happened to glimpse a charismatic yet goofy chap on an Old Spice commercial? It's hard to pinpoint.

Right, My Name is Bruce. A small town is being terrorized by an ancient evil spirit (of which whom they have a catchy song about) so the town's biggest Bruce Campbell fan elects to recruit his hero to help them out. In a plot not unlike Three Amigos the townsfolk have no idea that movie heroes aren't the same as real heroes so they welcome him as their savior. Bruce, playing the usual self-important yet self-loathing shemp is given little choice but to go along with it but soon decides to live it up and soak in a hero worship... until the time comes to confront the menace. In this case his own personal El Guapo is an evil Chinese god named Guan-di. That's where the crazy fun goes up a notch and Bruce reveals his true colors.

It's a fun idea that allows Bruce to be Bruce. But when you get down to it it's not that great of a story. It's not that well acted. The dialogue is extra-cheesy. And the monster isn't really in the least bit scary. But somehow, once again, Bruce makes you not care. He's smarmy and smug. He's a down on his luck drunk and a divorcee. He dances like he wants to hurt someone. He runs readily from the bad guy. He steals cars from old ladies. And he tries to womanize the only single mother in town. But it's still awesome. And when the chips are down and push comes to shove he steps up and makes good on saving the day. Or at least I think he does. The ending gets a little confusing. I will say however that I am supremely disappointed the custom built chainsaw foreshadowed halfway through the movies wasn't brought in for the final act. It was the only major failing of this film which made good on giving the fans what they want on every other level.

So it comes down to this. Bruce Campbell knows his fans. Not quite in the way that William Shatner understands how to poke fun of himself (for being full of himself) and make money on his own name, but it's pretty damn close. He knows his fans well enough that he tours with the film on a limited release and does Q and As along with it. He also knows enough about his fanbase to load down the DVD with extras and charge a little more for it when it is finally released early next month because we will happily pay for it to get the purest dose of Bruceness available since maybe Army of Darkness dropped over 15 years ago. Bruce is cashing in on us and we couldn't be happier.

Hail to the King baby.

(now I'm off to Hulu to catch up on Burn Notice!)