Which Franchise Is Next?

I think that doing all these franchise reviews is becoming my "thing." It has been fun, painful, and at times really, really weird, but still cool to be discovering all these movies that I might not have bothered with before. Search around this blog and you'll see what it was like to watch all the Howling movies, how terrible Wishmaster got with each new entry, how unassumingly awesome Puppet Master could be, and, most recently, how some of the Hellraiser sequels really aren't all that bad. Except Revelations.

There are many more franchises to tackle in the future. So what will my next one be? Here's a hint...

 

 Coming soon!

Movie Review: 100 Bloody Acres (2012)

 

You'd think I would have learned by now not to completely underestimate some of these random movies that I find through Netflix. They go in the queue, and they sit there for months before I give them a chance because I've never heard anything about them. Then I finally watch them, and sometimes they are totally amazing! Case in point is this Australian horror comedy, 100 Bloody Acres, which was written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes.

Reg and Lindsay are the Morgan Brothers, who run a small organic fertilizer business in South Australia. They've found out that using humans in their fertilizer makes for a better quality product, which means bad news for the three stranded motorists that Reg happens upon while trying to make a delivery to their most important customer.

It seems like you can usually tell in the first 10 or 15 minutes of a movie like this, and 100 Bloody Acres has a great hook right in the first scene. Reg pulls over when he sees a crashed van by the side of the road and - because the audience already knows what he is up to from the description of the film - decides to throw the dead driver into the back of his box truck. A great hook moment in this scene is when Reg gives up on trying to drag the body all the way to his truck and instead hops in and backs it up closer to the body. It's something small, but it let me know that this was going to be a very smart comedy, and the kind that I particularly enjoy watching.

These first few scenes also set up a great dynamic between our three travelers who are on their way to a music festival - Sophie, Wes, and James. Sophie and Wes are first seen making out while James is off trying to fix the car, but when they're all together again, it's clear that Sophie and James are the real couple and Wes is the man on the side. James is also secretly planning on proposing to Sophie. This little love triangle is not necessarily that important to the plot, but later on it does provide us with some of those great this-is-not-the-time-to-be-talking-about-this moments between the characters.

All three of these guys are very likable, despite the minor flaws in their morals. James is the sweet, puppy-dog boyfriend, who is countered by the arguably hotter and cooler Wes. Wes seems like he's supposed to be the cocky asshole but he is in fact incredibly likable just because of how funny he is, especially when on acid. Sophie is a great female character that I always like to see because she is not the traditionally super-sexy or hot horror girl. Again, despite the fact that she is cheating on her sweet boyfriend, she has a great personality, and seems genuinely nice when making conversation with Reg in the truck. She also handles herself well as the movie gets even more crazy, while the boys make silly - and funny - little mistakes.

Reg is both like the hero and the villain, and the one that audiences will probably end up loving the most. He's a cute small town farm boy with a heart of gold, looking for acceptance from his domineering older brother with anger issues. The brother dynamic is also interesting to watch and it kind of makes me curious to learn more, seeing as how the film was written and directed by a pair of brothers. Reg is brilliantly played by Damon Harriman. His acting and the writing make you accept both sides of the character - where he is definitely complicit in the crimes with Lindsay (yet you still love him while he's doing it), but you really see the moral journey that he takes. Angus Sampson as Lindsay, who genre fans will recognize as Tucker from the Insidious films, is the perfect kind of quiet-crazy because you really have no idea what he is going to do in any situation.

And really, the whole movie is like that. There are a lot of things that happen in the plot that are just completely out of nowhere and unexpected, and while some of these elements drag the story down a little bit, it's still a joy to watch and be surprised and entertained at every turn. There's a whole thing with the brothers' Auntie Nance that I can't get into because you just have to see it for yourself, plus a weird little bit of side action when Lindsay is chasing a hopped-up-on-acid Wes through a small, closed-down roadside attraction. Right after this, there's a scene that didn't really need to be included but is still great to watch because it involves a small appearance by John Jarratt.

If it's buckets of blood that you want, then 100 Bloody Acres has that as well. I mean, you'd be disappointed if it didn't, based on the title, right? Not every frame is drenched in blood, but there are plenty of individual gags that are just the right amount of graphic and awesome, while providing situational comedy at the same time. There are great moments that include a huge barrel of blood and gore, and of course the grinding machine that the brothers use to make their blood and bone fertilizer.

100 Bloody Acres is definitely my kind of film. It perfectly brings together the kind of smart, subtle humor that I find the most appealing, with the kind of crazy bloody gags that appease the true gorehound in me. There is a Tucker and Dale vs. Evil element to the Morgan brothers' relationship and to the story overall, so if you dug that movie, you'll probably dig 100 Bloody Acres as well. Don't let this little gem of a film pass you by!

Franchise Review: Hellraiser [IX]: Revelations (2011)

 

Hey, I did it! I made it through the Hellraiser franchise, and for the most part, it was pretty awesome. There were definitely some surprises along the way in this journey and I found some cool movies. This final installment, Hellraiser: Revelations, was most certainly NOT one of them. Damn, what a sad and sucky way to end the series. Except for the remake, which is probably coming.

Steven and Nico are two douchebag teenagers who run away from their perfect white picket fence lives to go be assholes in Tijuana. Their families don't know what happened to them until Steven shows up again one night at his parents' house while Nico's parents are visiting. Some dumb stuff happens and the new Pinhead sucks. That's all the description you need.

I know I said I was going to try to be a lot more positive about things from now on... but Hellraiser: Revelations is making that so hard. Actually, I can give the film a little bit of props for one thing. Some elements of the plot do resemble that of the first film - Nico is sought after by the Cenobites, he comes back by way of blood, there's some murders, and there's some skin-stealing. The movie is intercut between scenes of what happened to the boys in the Mexico and the present day situation with the parents and Steven's sister, so it does make for a nice revelation at the end. However, everything else about the presentation of this movie is pretty abysmal.

The script is just not good. I was getting annoyed just in the first couple of minutes when the boys - filming their little endeavor to Mexico with a camcorder like all douchebags seem to do - mention bow-legged hookers and knob-gobbling in their conversation. Great. The inaction by the parents, four adults who are just completely powerless without a phone or a car, also becomes a problem later on. There's the weird sexual tension that the sister Emma brings (especially a VERY awkward kissing scene), there's the guy who stands there like a moron while his friend is being attacked, there's the same guy who survives way too long after being shot in the gut, there's the way that the only thing the women know how to do is scream... Gah, this poor movie doesn't have a chance in hell of anybody taking it seriously or liking it.

The thing that I was the most worried about before starting Revelations was the fact that Doug Bradley chose not come back, and from the pictures I saw, the new Pinhead just looked wrong. Really, that was the least of mine and this movie's problems, but it still didn't help things in the least. The new Pinhead, played by Stephan Smith Collins, really threw me off simply because of his look. He has a way different face and body shape than Bradley, making him look more like a linebacker or something. He does do a good job at matching his voice and cadence of speech, I'll give the actor that. But the lines he is given to perform often sound so completely overdone and pretentious that he becomes, again, annoying rather than menacing.

Hellraiser: Revelations is a blessedly short hour and ten minutes long. They pack a lot of shit into that tiny runtime, but that's all it ever ends up being. With such a quick script and turnaround time for the movie being released, they obviously didn't put the effort in that this series deserved. Shame.

See you later, Hellraiser! Time to tackle another franchise!

Book Review: "Darkness Rising" by Brian Moreland

To any horror fan out there who says that there are no more original stories to be told: I know of a couple horror authors that will make you eat those words and choke on them. One of them is the incredibly original and unique Brian Moreland. I've now had the pleasure of reading several works by this great author and he is truly one of the best kept secrets in the horror world because of the amazingly original stories he comes up with and the unexpected surprises that appear in each one.

His latest novella is "Darkness Rising," and it was released by Samhain Publishing on September 1st (you can get the Kindle e-book version HERE). It is the story of Marty Weaver, a tortured and troubled soul who found a way to deal with his abusive and tragic past through the power of poetry, and through the friendship he develops with a girl that he falls in love with, Jennifer. But when Marty is visiting the lake that has great significance in his life, he runs afoul of three killers whose actions set in motion a series of events that bring back the horrible events from his childhood and set Marty on a path of revenge.

What I've said before and will now say again about Brian Moreland is that he has an incredible talent for creating some of the most imaginative and inventive stories I've ever read. All of his books and short stories start off in a similar fashion as other horror tales, but by the end, he has taken the idea to a whole other level that you didn't think was possible. With Darkness Rising, he takes the complex concepts of ghosts, trapped souls, and Purgatory and puts it into a context that is very meaningful for the characters he has created. Without giving too much of the story away, Marty is brought back to life through the power of his words and the energy he has given to an entity or demon in the lake. This force latches onto that deep, dark area in Marty's mind that is filled with rage, and it causes him to do terrible things. But the side of Marty that is still healing is there as well, and there is a wonderful power struggle that goes on over the course of the story where he feels justified in his revenge on some people, but still has moral quandaries over it.

The relationship between Marty and Jennifer is one that is believable and based on a nice understanding and truth between the two of them. They don't spend a whole lot of time together in the story, and most of their relationship is viewed by the reader through Marty's eyes. We still get it, but it would have been more meaningful to have a more poignant scene between these two characters to make it really hit home. Some other characters in Moreland's story are the trio of masked killers - Tara, Zane, and Seth - who you are first led to believe are just sadistic psychos who like killing, but later learn that they are involved in something much more sick and twisted. Interestingly enough, the leader of them is the girl, Tara, and I loved this shift in the typical gender roles you see in horror. Girls have sick minds, too, that's for sure. The sideplot involving these three characters is no doubt disturbing and messed up, but it was interesting too, and I liked that they were given more a little bit more characterization beyond just being psychopaths. It definitely doesn't make you like them any more, because you definitely shouldn't, but it was a great touch to add to the story.

Another thing Moreland is very good at is keeping horror fans like me happy with the inventive sequences of gore and violence that he comes up with. If you don't think you can cringe and be just as affected by stuff you read in books as much as what you see in movies, give Darkness Rising a read. There is some great stuff involving razor blades that really got to me, as well as a horrific and descriptive scene where a character is dragged to his death behind a car that makes your stomach turn just to picture it. There is far more blood and gore packed into this story than I can talk about here, so I'll just have to leave you to experience it on your own.

Darkness Rising is another wonderful output from the very talented Brian Moreland. He continues to come up with stories with amazing fantastical elements that still have meaning and truth for the characters experiencing them. He is one of the most unique voices in the genre today and you should all get your hands on a copy of one of his books today!

Check out Brian Moreland at Samhain Publishing here, and check out some of my other reviews of this author's awesome work right here on this blog.

Franchise Review: Hellraiser [VIII]: Hellworld (2005)

 

It's been a very sad week over here at The Girl Who Loves Horror, and in the horror community in general. As you all know, we suffered the loss of one of horror's truly great directors, Wes Craven. He was always my favorite and I am incredibly sad that we won't get to see anymore work that he might have created. I have been honoring him this week in my own way, and still continue to do so, but for now, let's get back to the Hellraiser franchise with this eighth installment, Hellraiser: Hellworld.

In this film, Hellworld is a computer game about the Hellraiser world that a group of friends are addicted to playing. One of them got too deep into the game and committed suicide, for which the rest of them blame themselves. Two years later, they gather again to attend a Hellworld party at a remote mansion with other gamers. The party is put on by the Host, and as the friends explore what the house has to offer, it becomes apparent that Hellraiser might not just be a game after all.

You know, I actually had a partial, fairly positive review for this movie written out before I finished watching it. I had some thoughts that I didn't want to forget so I would pause it and jot some things down, kind of enjoying what the movie was doing and the approach it was taking. Then I got to the reveal at the end and that all went out the window. Once again, we have a Hellraiser movie that wasn't originally written to be a Hellraiser movie and was just adapted into the world, and not very well. The other times I felt that approach worked and they made for some good sequels, but here, I am not digging it.

So the plot goes meta here, where in the world of the movie, the Hellraiser films themselves don't actually exist but the legend or myth of Lemarchand and his box do. BUT THE MOVIE IS NOT REALLY ABOUT HELLRAISER. Or Pinhead, or anything really relating to the franchise at all. Spoiler pretty much right off the bat: the whole thing was a set-up by the dead friend Adam's father to get revenge on the other kids for losing his son. This is a huge disappointment because, like I said, I was actually accepting the whole self-aware aspect that Hellworld had going for it. At this point in the franchise's history, the audience knows what's going on, so here they give that knowledge to the characters and allow them to play around in the world, winking at the audience and saying, "Hey, we're doing something a little different here." But that difference ends up being kind of an insult to the franchise, taking advantage of its fantastical nature to give credence to this dumb story of an angry father and his use of some hallucinatory drug to mess with these kids. And really, that kind of makes me angry and makes me feel very, very cheated.

There were a few things that seemed very out of place and which should have tipped me off to the fact that we were being played with here. As one character, Chelsea, actually points out, nobody opened the box. There wasn't even a box at all (until the stupid ending), so how could all these hellish dream sequences be taking place? Another clue: the first murder isn't even committed by Pinhead or the other Cenobites, but by the Host, Lance Henriksen as Adam's father. The next death does actually involve Pinhead, but it's done by him actually taking a medical blade and decapitating a guy. Pinhead has most assuredly killed a bunch of people by now, but he's never actually physically done it himself, so this definitely made me question the movie a bit more. The filmmakers do plenty of things to trick you into thinking that this is still a Hellraiser movie because of all the odd events that happen and the lack of explanation for them. Something just always feels wrong, though.

You hope that this is just because they have some grand reveal in mind for the end, and while they do, it's not at all what you expect or want it to be. I'm just not buying it, and I don't think many other people did, either. Hellworld is sort of fun to begin with - even though it feels like the rock 'n' roll, music video-like installment in the franchise - and I have to say that the deaths were nice and well executed, although not as elaborate as what we have come to love from Hellraiser. But the ending really makes the whole thing fall apart and lose my respect. Watch it for Lance Henriksen being Lance Henriksen. Because you sure as hell won't get what you want in terms of Doug Bradley or Pinhead. Thumbs down, Hellworld, sorry.

Actually, you should also watch it to see a chick roundhouse kick Lance Henriksen in the face. I don't know where the fuck that came from, but it was hilarious.

Wes Craven 1939 - 2015

The loss of the great Wes Craven has been a terrible blow to the horror community. I know there are dozens of posts like this out there right now, and I know that we have lost so many great people recently, but this has truly saddened me and hurt my heart. Last night I was actually in a really good mood, watching a funny DVD, and enjoying the last few hours of my weekend. Then I absently checked my Facebook feed and was hit with the awful news. I thought it wasn't real at first, but it was: an icon was gone, and the life and career of my favorite horror director was no more.

It was a shock to say the least, because Wes Craven has always been an important part of my horror life. I came to horror a bit later in life than other fans - though I had always watched them as a child - and Scream was an important part of that. Then I saw more of Wes's films and realized just how much I loved not only the things this man has created but the man himself. I didn't talk about him enough when he was around, and I won't make that mistake now.

Wes was a kind, soft-spoken soul with a wonderful sense of humor and an aura of sweetness that you couldn't help but be attracted to. It was hard for me to equate the gentle man I saw behind the scenes with the dark things that came out of his mind on film. But at the same time, that's what I always loved about him. He wasn't afraid to bring real horror to film, and be gritty and raw about it. He also wasn't afraid to have fun with the genre and with himself, and he constantly did new and different things. Even then, you could tell when you were watching a Wes Craven film, as he had a distinct style and voice that I always enjoyed. He was beyond smart, analytical and creative, and his films were about so much more than what was on the surface.

Perhaps it seems weird to people outside the community that we are so affected by this, crying over somebody that we never met. As soon as I got home today, I put on my favorite Wes film, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, and as soon as Wes himself showed up on screen, the tears started coming. Reading all the messages that people have left on various platforms proves just how much he touched the lives of fans with his work and what an influence he has had on so many people around the world. We all experienced his career separately, but at the same time together, having the same feelings and gaining the same reverence each time we enjoyed another one of his films.

Thank you, Wes, for being the man that you were, and for bringing all those amazing characters, stories, and worlds to life. We will never forget you and we will never let your legacy die.

Thanks for the nightmares.

Read My Interview with Adam Green!

TOTALLY forgot to share this on here even though it's been up for almost a week now, but hey, that's me.

Anyway, last Wednesday I had the honor and the pleasure of interviewing director Adam Green for the other website I write for, Wicked Horror. If you read my Looking to a More Positive Future post from a little while ago, you'll understand how fucking amazing this was for me. It is so unbelievably crazy and surreal to be that much of a fan of somebody (not only for their work but also for who they are as a person) one day, and then the next thing you know, you're talking to that person on the phone. Crazy awesome.

The interview was about a new online original series that Adam's production company, ArieScope Pictures, has on their website called Horrified!. It's a really cool short format thing where he gets a bunch of people from the entertainment industry on camera, telling their most embarrassing or horrifying stories from their real lives. We did the interview by phone, and talked for about an hour and a half. Sadly, I had to cut a lot of it out to keep it relevant to Horrified!, and to the upcoming season 3 of Holliston which we also talked about, but it turned out to be a great interview. I love stuff like Horrified! and the style of it, so it was really cool to hear more about it. I didn't completely geek out at Adam like I could have, but I did get the chance to thank him for being an inspiration to me and that meant the world.

I also mentioned in that other post I did about how inspirational Adam and Joe Lynch's Movie Crypt podcast has been to me. So then to make my life even more awesome, on the next episode of the podcast, Adam actually mentioned our interview and said something really cool about me and said my name. I kind of rule, you guys.

If you feel so inclined, head on over to Wicked Horror HERE to read my interview!!! And watched Horrified! every Friday until Christmas HERE.

Franchise Review: Hellraiser [VII]: Deader (2005)

 

This was the one random Hellraiser sequel that I remembered watching not too long ago because I was curious about Kari Wuhrer in it. I also remember actually enjoying the entry quite a lot, even watching it out of context with the rest of the films in the series. This has been both a good and a bad thing about Hellraiser, because many of the entries can stand on their own as pretty good horror films, but at the same time, there is not a lot of connective tissue between them all.

Deader is the story of immersive investigative journalist Amy Klein, who travels to Romania after her paper receives a disturbing videotape in the mail. She starts to look into the Deaders, a strange group of people lead by a man named Winter who has found a way to bring people back from the dead. In turn, this has earned him the ire of Pinhead and the Cenobites for entering into their realm, and Amy is caught in the middle as the one person with the power to stop both of them.

A great thing about the Hellraiser sequels so far is that they have not dropped down in quality. Here we are with entry number seven, and the film is stylistically and visually very well put together. With really only one hiccup involving CGI bugs, the effects work are spot on and fit in with what we have come to love from Hellraiser. The grittiness of the setting in Romania, and the decrepit buildings, dark dungeons, and oddly converted subway cars is also reminiscent of previous films, as is the dark tone of the film. Hellraiser has not yet entered the campy, meta territory and I think that really works best with the stories that have so far been told in each entry.

Amy Klein seems like a bit of a loner with a dark past who uses the shocking stories she works on to maybe punish herself, or see how deep she is really willing to take herself. Is she suicidal, in a way? Perhaps at the beginning, but I think she gets a nice character arc throughout the course of Deader. She's a sympathetic, likable character - a real tough girl with a relatable vulnerability. Black and white flashback scenes hint at her childhood abuse that still haunts her, and the symbolism of the knife in the chest (although I'm not for sure that she actually stabbed her father when she was a child - was that real or her redemption at the end?) is worked in nicely with the story.

Surprisingly, I once again didn't mind all that much that Pinhead and the other Cenobites are not featured characters. Pinhead and the whole Hellraiser world is a metaphor for the hell and suffering that humans are either put through or put themselves through. When Pinhead kills all the Deaders at the end of the film, he's basically scoffing at their stupidity, saying, "Oh, you thought this world was hell? Let me show you what you think you're after, and you'll see that you had it much better off before." It has become more about what Pinhead represents rather than Pinhead himself, and that's great. The fact that Doug Bradley came back each time, except for part nine, to play Pinhead keeps the character's mystique and power alive - when he shows up, you can still feel the fear he brings, even if it is only for a few key scenes.

The blood and gore is pretty minimal, but again, not a problem. When Amy is becoming a Deader, she has this huge knife wound in her chest, which is introduced in a great scene with Wuhrer in the bathroom discovering it. After that, she has to walk around Romania with a gaping and bleeding wound that she keeps trying to hide, which thankfully does not come off as comical when it really could have. Winter gets a nice death at the end much like Frank in the first film when he is skewered by a dozen hooks and then ripped apart, and the other Deaders get a hook and chain that plows through all of their bodies at the same time.

I honestly can't find too much that I really don't like about Deader. The story works, the acting is good, and aside from a couple of scene transitions that don't make sense but you just have to chalk them up to being in the freaky dream/reality world of Hellraiser, it's a nice entry. It works as a stand-alone and it works in the franchise, or at least what the franchise has become with Inferno and Hellseeker. I like it.

Franchise Review: Hellraiser [VI]: Hellseeker (2002)

 

Deadlines and changes have been happening lately, and sometimes they get in the way of other fun stuff I want to do and know I should do - like finishing watching that franchise I started whenever the fuck ago. Rest assured that I have not forgotten about my Hellraiser journey, fiends, so I'm back with it again - FINALLY - and the sixth installment in this kooky series, Hellraiser: Hellseeker.

 

I had to watch the movie again to write this review, and when I first watched it a few weeks ago, I wasn't really sure how I felt about it. This was weird, because for a good chunk of the movie, Hellseeker plays out a lot like the twin version of the previous installment, Inferno. I really loved that one, and Hellseeker has a very similar plot line. But I think it might be the ending that throws me off just the slightest bit.

Hellseeker sees the (real) return of Ashley Laurence as Kirsty, but the main focus is on her husband, Trevor. In the beginning of the film, Kirsty and Trevor get into a car accident that sends them over a bridge and into a river, with Trevor surviving and Kirsty being trapped in the car underwater. However, her body is missing from the accident site, and ever since the accident, Trevor has been experiencing terrible headaches and vivid hallucinations, all while being pursued by two detectives who think there is more to the story than Trevor is letting on.

Dean Winters (whom I absolutely love because of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit) carries the film well as he goes through the motions made familiar by Inferno of a guy hallucinating all kinds of strange stuff. Trevor is an unreliable narrator who spends the entire movie going from one fucked-up situation to the next without much string holding it all together. All of this does have a purpose later on, but you will most likely be spending the first two-thirds of the movie wondering what in the blazes is going on. And like Trevor himself says, when a scene starts, you don't know what's real and what's not until something happens to let you know one way or another, and even THEN, it's hard to tell what might be real because even the really weird stuff can be real in a Hellraiser film, you know?!

Actually, what I really want to talk about with this movie is how the ending works with the rest of it, so I'm going to have to spoil everything right now. In a way, the overall point of the movie is not Trevor at all - it is Kirsty, even though she is only dealt with as a peripheral character. But knowing that she is a huge part of the Hellraiser story hopefully makes one think that her role in this story has got to be more meaningful than just being Dean Winters' wife (although that's not really a bad role to have). Pinhead and the Cenobites were after Kirsty because they're still all hungry for her soul and stuff, and they got to her by going through Trevor. She makes a deal with them to give them five souls in exchange for hers. She uses this opportunity to take revenge on her cheating spouse, who also happened to be in cahoots with another girl to kill her and take her money. It's a fine story, and certainly explains all the weird shit that had been happening to Trevor in the movie - the accident scene at the beginning is retold to show that Kirsty shot Trevor, so he has been dead this whole time and the movie is him suffering through his personal hell. This is obviously why I compare it to Inferno so much, and what is also making it difficult for me to say which movie I liked better, if I ever had to. As third and fourth sequels to a horror franchise, Inferno and Hellseeker are pretty damn good, well done films.

What irks me a bit in regards to the characters of Kirsty and Pinhead is that Kirsty survives yet again by making a deal with Pinhead YET AGAIN. He's all like, "I'm totally gonna take your soul this time!" and she's like, "Um, how 'bout I give you this instead?" and he's all, "Okay." If you all pull this shit again in another movie, I'm going to go ape. I don't even really believe that it happened this time. This honestly should have been the end for Kirsty and she shouldn't have been able to get away with it. The fact that she did diminishes Pinhead in a way, and, even though he's a villain, he's a villain that we really like and to me, this makes him look weak. I don't want a weak Pinhead. I also don't like what this does to Kirsty as a character. She was fucking awesome in the first and second movie, and now she's gone a bit too dark and far away from her character by using her scorned wife status to kill five people - three girls that Trevor was cheating on her with, the co-worker that he was planning to kill her with, and Trevor himself. This isn't the Kirsty I love.

Other than that, Hellraiser: Hellseeker is a really solid sequel with a great story and some cool visuals, which I didn't even get into talking about here. I like the personal approach that these sequels are taking as opposed to something more high concept, because I don't think that would have been as interesting thematically. Bring on part 7, let's finish this!

Looking to a More Positive Future...

I know I always apologize for my extended absences from this blog, but this is going to be much more than an apology, and it is going to be the longest and most personal thing I think I have ever written here. The easiest excuse or reason I have for not updating in the past few weeks is that I had a lot of other writing projects going on simultaneously. They all had deadlines or needed to be posted as soon as possible - one of them was also a book review, so you know, I had to actually take time to read the dang book. Nothing on my blog is really timely, I just do it because I enjoy it and it gives me a chance to talk about movies in my own way, but since I don't technically have to update this thing every day or whatever, it often gets thrown to the side while I do other stuff or indulge in various obsessions.

But something has been changing in me over the last few months that has been making me very nervous, and I guess more cautious, about what I put on this blog. I almost feel like a totally different person, or at least one with a much better attitude and point of view on a lot of things. But let me start at the beginning really...

Screencap of the first thing I wrote for Wicked Horror

This year so far has honestly been one of the best years of my life. For one, by the time 2015 rolled around, I had already been writing for a few months at my new horror home on the web, Wicked Horror. We're not quite on the level of Dread Central or Bloody Disgusting just yet, but hopefully we're getting there and hopefully a lot of people are enjoying the content we're putting out. I know that I have really enjoyed writing all of the articles that I have had published on WH, and my managing editor, Tyler, has been so incredibly encouraging and helpful to me, and I cannot thank him enough. The professional and friendly relationship I've made with him and one of the other writers on the site have definitely helped me grow as a writer, and also as a person. I'm very grateful for all of the opportunities that I have had so far working on that site, and I know it's going to lead to bigger and better things in the future. Recently, I did my first interview with somebody who played several roles on my favorite TV show of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you can imagine what a surreal and amazing experience that was. I also just made the call today to inquire about doing my second interview with somebody that I am incredibly excited and nervous about talking to if the interview happens.

Then in April of this year, I turned 30. Now, as my birthday was approaching, friends and family were all like "Oh, you're turning 30, hitting the big one, getting old" blah blah blah. But I wasn't feeling like that at all. I was excited to turn 30 and to put all the aimless wandering of my 20s behind me. Because for the first time in my life, I felt like I was heading in the right direction of what I wanted to do with my life and the kind of person that I wanted to be. I had spent my whole life thinking that I wanted to be one thing (a writer), then I had gone to college and found this other thing (filmmaking), pursued that, got kicked in the gut once, failed a couple times, and now I'm back to pursuing that thing that I said I wanted to do when I was a child - writing. And I was focused on that and fucking determined to do that, and I still am and I am doing my best to never, ever lose that determination.

Also, my family finally picked up on how important all this horror shit is to me and they threw me an awesome zombie-themed birthday party. Thank you for that!

A couple weeks after my birthday was Texas Frightmare Weekend, the one horror convention that I go to every year. Usually the time leading up to the convention is just full of excitement and jitters, but this year was different because I was sick as a dog for the week and a half just before the convention. I wasn't watching horror movies to get myself psyched, I just wanted to sleep and I didn't have the strength or the energy to remember that this was going to be the best time of my year, you know? I finally figured out that I had a nasty sinus infection and got some drugs, and the day before I left for Texas was when I finally felt like a normal human being again. Even when I was travelling to the convention it didn't seem real, because I wasn't mentally prepared. When I arrived at the hotel and saw some of my "people" there and saw the hotel staff wearing Frightmare t-shirts, it hit me hard. I was back. I was home. So then I went to the convention and of course it was fucking awesome as hell. I saw some great movies, bought some sweet swag, and of course, met some singularly amazing people - Brad Dourif, Alex Vincent, AJ Bowen, Don Coscarelli, not to mention all the other vendors, authors, and fellow attendees that I met and talked to and had wonderful conversations with. It was the best convention experience I've had so far.

But after three days it all comes to an end, and maybe some of you have had this same feeling, but those couple of weeks after a convention are a weird time. You're still flying on the high of all the cool things you got to see and do - but at the same time you're SO FUCKING DEPRESSED that it's over and you have to go back to real life. Seriously, how do they expect us to get over being surrounded by all the stuff that we love for an entire three days and then go back home where we have none of that??? But on the flip side of all this, being that depressed over it made me realize just how much I really do love this world of horror and the community for it that exists. Most importantly, I realized how much I never want to let it go. I have to be involved in horror somehow, and being a real horror journalist would satisfy all that just fine.

So while all this determination and hope was rattling around in my head, I discovered something else that hit me with an emotional wrecking ball. At the convention, the people from Killer POV recorded a live podcast, so I was all, Oh, I'm going to listen to that when I get home. I had never been a podcast person before, but had guested on few of them by this time, and listening to this particular episode of Killer POV (with my man AJ Bowen as a guest host) definitely piqued my curiosity about them more. After some web surfing, I stumbled upon The Movie Crypt podcast with Adam Green and Joe Lynch. I wasn't as familiar with Lynch, but of course I knew Adam because I completely love Frozen and all of the Hatchet movies, so I went to iTunes to check it out. What immediately caught my attention when first looking through their feed was the episode where they had Leigh Whannell as a guest. I LOVE LEIGH WHANNELL. So I honestly listened to that podcast just for him (and he's awesome, by the way, it's a great episode), but perhaps moreso, I found myself falling in love with Adam and Joe. I loved their enthusiasm and their fun personalities, so I knew I had to hear more about what these guys had to say. By that time (May of this year), they were already on episode 105 or something, so I began the daunting task of going all the way back to the beginning to episode 1 and listening to every single minute of the podcast, which averages about 2 hours for each episode, sometimes longer. I've still yet to listen to four episodes because they are all film commentaries and I didn't have access to the films at the time to watch it along with the podcast, but yeah. That was A LOT of The Movie Crypt for those two months where I would listen to as much of it as I could almost every day to get caught up, because they were still putting out new episodes every Monday.

I can hardly put into words how much this podcast has affected me. Even just writing that sentence, I had to stop for a good ten minutes to think about what I was going to say. The Movie Crypt contains quite possibly the most inspiring and heartfelt words I have ever heard about what it's like to have big dreams and the struggle to make them a reality. Sure, I've laughed and had fun listening to stories about some of my favorite movies from some of my favorite filmmakers and actors, but goddamn. I have cried so many times listening to this podcast. There was one time that I was listening to it while I was in my living room working out. It was the episode with Pat Healy, who is not only an amazing actor but an amazing human, and something he said really fucked me up in a good way. Pat still has a wonderful outlook on the world despite the cruel hardships he has endured in his career and life. I already had tears in my eyes just from the overall emotion of the episode - not just from Pat, but from Adam and Joe, as well - but then Pat said, in a dead serious and sincere tone, that things will get bad. Things will always get bad, but they will always get better, and quite often they will end up turning out better than before, and you just have to hang on to that hope that it will get better. I was listening to him saying this and really thinking about it in terms of my own situation, and my own past experiences, and where I was and where I wanted to go... and out of almost nowhere, I started SOBBING. Not just tears in my eyes, but full-on sobbing. I had to stop working out, I had to pause the podcast, and I had to just sit there and cry for a few minutes. I cried because I felt frustrated, hopeful, depressed, and determined all at the same time, though that doesn't really sound possible. And it felt awesome to get that out. All the happy tears and sad tears that I've shed over the 200+ hours of listening to The Movie Crypt have been wonderfully needed, and all the words of inspiration have more than fueled my fire to continue pursuing what I want to do.

When I first started listening to the podcast, I had not seen the horror sitcom Adam created, Holliston, yet because I was one of those people who did not have FEARNet when it was still on the air. I of course had heard about because it was Adam Green and because it was a horror sitcom - a horror sitcom, how weird is that, right? But because I didn't get to see it, I eventually just forgot about it. The Movie Crypt was originally created for Adam and Joe to help promote Holliston so the first batch of episodes are pretty Holliston-heavy. I realized I finally had to see it, and ordered the Blu-Rays from Adam's website, ArieScope.com (I include the website because you should go there and buy shit), and settled in for an experience I knew I was going to love. Just like with The Movie Crypt, Holliston affected me on a level that I was not expecting at all. Any horror fan who has seen it hopefully appreciates the positive way that Adam portrays horror fans - that we are not gothic freaks sitting in a dark basement jerking off to bloody death scenes. We just talk about and enjoy horror movies in the same way that the guys at work talk about sports or whatever boring shit other people are into (sarcastic voice there, I'm not that big of a bitch). More importantly, though, we do also have hearts and feelings and emotions, and we feel them HARD. So, yeah, there were a lot more tears and feelings while I watched all of Holliston in two days.

(I'm avoiding saying too much about Holliston here because I think I'm going to do a series of reviews on each episode... We'll see...)

All of the things that Adam has created have been deeply personal to him, and he puts himself out there in a way that is so rare for anybody in the entertainment industry. He makes himself very accessible to his fans, and acknowledges how much he loves and appreciates them whenever he can. The personal things he has admitted to and talked about on the podcast are all about him being real and honest, not only because it is probably like therapy for him, but also maybe because he realizes that him saying it, being the public figure that he is, that somebody else will hear it and relate to and hopefully be helped by it. The number of guests that have done the same thing - Darren Bousman, Travis Stevens, Kane Hodder - have also been immensely helpful to me personally, often telling me exactly what I needed to hear, exactly when I needed to hear it.

Maybe you're wondering what is the point of me telling you all this, if anybody is actually still reading. Basically, I feel like I have a totally new outlook now. I've always been aware of the certain amount of negativity that exists in the horror genre - all the trends that everyone is sick of, what is considered "good," what is even considered horror to some people - and I suddenly realized that I'm just over it. I think back on all the snarky things I probably said in my reviews, and I don't want to be like that anymore. I don't want to read about negativity, and I definitely don't want to contribute to it. I've always felt like even my reviews of movies I didn't like were still pretty fair, because it has always been really hard for me to write a bad review (Project Terrible perhaps being the one exception because the movies we talk about there are usually well known and loved because they are bad). People made that thing, and maybe it was the most important thing in the world to them. I know they'll understand that some people may not like it, but there is no reason for them to read anything truly scathing or mean-spirited. That's why I always try to write my reviews in a way where it is very clear that this is what I, and I alone, thought of the movie, and that I'm not making any definitive statements about it. I'll really talk about and explain the things I may have a problem with, but again, hopefully not in a way that will offend or hurt anyone (although one comment on one review showed that I didn't do that very well that one time...), and then I'll try to focus on whatever positives I found with the movie. Or, if I see a movie and don't like it, I just won't talk about it. The Internet is a cesspool of douchebags who say whatever they fuck they want, things they would probably never say to someone's face. And for someone like me, a female horror fan living in the middle of the country, that one convention every year and the Internet is the only place I have to go to if I want to commiserate with other people about the thing I love - horror. And seeing as how horror really is a community made up of some of the nicest, most giving people I have ever met, why would we ever want to bring negativity into it? 

Now, I'm definitely not saying that nobody should ever voice their honest opinion or never write a negative review ever again, or that I'm not going to be as honest as I always have been in my reviews. That's actually the one thing that a lot of people have commented to me about why they like reading my reviews (which still surprises the hell out of me and freaks me out). But there is a respectful way to do that, and even then, I have never taken pleasure in it. Movies are subjective, and everyone has a different opinion about them, which can bring about great discussion, and that's what makes being a movie lover fun. But I am going to try to focus more on the positive than the negative, and revel in the things that I love rather than bitch and moan about the things I hate, because that is just exhausting, and talking about the things I love is way more fun. I've also found out that I want to be a real champion for movies and filmmakers from now on. I want to tell other people about and support the people whose work I enjoy because many of them really deserve it - and because if you support their work, guess what? That means that you just might get more of that work that you enjoy, and horror will continue to grow and expand.

Well, it's been a rant and a half here today, but all of this is something that I really needed to get out, and you fine readers are the recipients of it. I don't even know if I got across what I was trying to say. Basically, I'm more inspired now. I have a deeper appreciation and respect for people in the genre, and I want to start showing that more and supporting them more. I'm going to work harder to achieve my personal goals, and I'm going to have the same kind of excited, infectious attitude that I am drawn to in other people. Things can only get better.

Stay spooky you horror fiends!

- Michele