THE PITFALLS OF PIGEONHOLING ANYONE OR ANYTHING (OR HOW TO/NOT TO MAKE A ZOMBIE MOVIE)




State Of Emergency (2013) & Infected (2013)

I'd like to talk about music for just a moment. Why? Because hey, it's my blog and I wanna, okay? For years my favorite band probably had a median fan age of about 16. But they quit. And I was devastated. Okay they were a 'young persons' type of band, but I was hooked harder than with any band ever. Now I'm not alone, there have been much better (and tons more talented) bands whose breakups devastated a ton of people. 


The Beatles. Led Zepplin. Pink Floyd. Eagles. Boston. Many who thought they'd be around always now listen to them with a kind of sadness. I know I do with the band whose name I will no longer say (Now that's childish, right?). Now there is a band that is from my home town - their name is Sunderland and their music is very clean pop music, no autotuning crap, no one phrase repeated endlessly. In fact they've even done some covers that I consider (with a little bit of prejudice) to be better than the originals.

Hood River's own Sunderland

They're just babies (to me) but already they've been able to open for bands like Panic! At The Disco and Weezer. Not bad when they're barely legal to step inside a bar. Since then they've moved to California (rats), released several albums, and done several covers which, to me, are better than the original. Two of my favorites is Demons by Imagine Dragons and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift (BTW, somebody stop dumping that chick so she doesn't write anymore songs about it, 'kay?).

Now I mention them because no, I am not obsessed with them (I AM proud of them though) but because I was insulted by a newspaper article in our home town that said if you're under 25 you've probably never heard of Sunderland. Excuse me? But it wasn't the first time my (ahem) advanced age has caused me to be dismissed as liking something or someone.

The aforementioned band I WAS addicted to had concerts where I was crushed by tons of young people, but hey, there were a few close to my age too - music has no age, sex or race. Why am I babbling? Let's segue (very sloppily) to the Twilight series... I myself have been guilty of scoffing and saying it's a lot of crap only fit for teenage girls under 16. 

That's not really fair (even if the opinion is VERY popular) because everyone has their own interests and style and shouldn't be judged because of them. I learned that lesson very well with my fave band. Words like 'emo' 'punk wannabes' and other not-so-nice labels were given those listening to them yet here I am - a middle aged woman who liked them a little too much.

Okay finally we get to my point - zombie movies. The same applies to what kind of zombie movie appeals to what kind of person. Some people really loved the new movie Warm Bodies (a kind of Twilight with zombies) while others scoffed (yes I admit it I did too) that it was weak sauce. Now The Walking Dead, THAT'S a real adult type zombie series that (insert personal reasons to love it and please no Norman Reedus comments).

Okay I have a mind blowing statement that you will or will not agree with - our likes and dislikes are based on what kind of emotions we have kicking around our subconscious. And those in the entertainment field know that very well. Hate me if you want, but zombie movies are, well, soap operas with dead people in them. BLASPHEMY!!!! I know, sounds pretty sucky doesn't it? 

Think about it though - people liked Warm Bodies because despite the insurmountable problems it was a soap opera with dead people. People are addicted to The Walking Dead - every episode is watched, discussed, picked apart. In the end though, it's a soap opera - with dead people interfering here and there.

Before you chuck flaming things at my house, think about it - each week our TWD family face peril, try to find some normalcy and a decent life in the midst of a horrible world, fall in love, oh and slaughter, stomp and shoot arrows through the head of some zombies. If the human drama element wasn't there, it would be an hour each week just watching zombies blow apart. Not... really a big draw for most people.

So - finally to the two newish zombie movies I just watched and why I took so long to get around to them. Well, there really isn't much to either one of them - except one was a soap opera with maybe five zombies in the whole damn movie. The other was a ton of zombies with a bit of soap opera mixed in. Ick on the first, not bad on the second.

State Of Emergency (2013): This movie was slower than watching an ant try to walk his way through honey. Plus there was so much CGI that even when there was any zombie violence it was... meh. We've got a man who's immediately lost his love but continues to survive through this localized emergency as his town goes nuts after a chemical plant blows and people (but only most) getting a dose of it start turning on each other and the whole town becomes a buffet. 

That's what we're told, mostly through narrative - not something we see. So this guy finds some other survivors and basically most of the movie is four people in a warehouse. Zombies? Oh there's out there somewhere. Standing. Very. Still. Two original points: One, the zombies have eyes that are redder than red. Two, one actually talked - complete sentences and everything. 

This movie I think tried very hard to present the toll on our humanity if faced with this kind of horror but instead all it did was make you wait and wait and wait for something to happen and... damn, the credits run. Movie over..

Infected (2013): I chose this one for Michael Madsen, a fave character of mine - I wanted to see how he's holding up agewise and I'm pleased to say he looks very, very good. In this zombie flick it's the different flu bugs responsible - they start mutating, the sickness makes its way up through the food chain until the humans are busy chomping each other with gusto. 

These are your fast, sprinting zombies. They're mean, they're hungry and they don't care if you're family or not. This movie also starred Christy Romano and I stared at that name and her face and KNEW that I had heard of her before but... the brain is mush. 

AHA! I didn't recognize her face or voice because she was all grown up - and I had only heard her voice on a cartoon I followed (I'm just a big kid) called Kim Possible. I LOVED that cartoon - she was Kim and it was crushing to watch in this movie first her eyeball then most of her face get demolished by her own grandmother. 



The movie does not have a happy ending for anyone - Michael Madsen gives the narrative for the ending (we don't see him so did he survive or... ?). This was a main problem with the movie - it's like they just ran out of ideas so Michael Madsen sums up. 


His son mainly is the survivor here and we see humanity living in an army-like barracks and try to make a life among the roaming dead. So we had good zombie action and some soap opera - a better mix. Not a very good movie, but definitely better than SOE.


But that's according to my tastes, yours may vary and you have every right to them.

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DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T... DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME

Bad Kids Go To Hell (2012)

I remember first seeing the previews to this movie and groaning. I loved the John Hughes movies of the 80's and although The Breakfast Club was pretty intense for my taste (watching kids be tortured by parents and peers alike is not my idea of fun) a remake sounded just... awful. And it has Judd Nelson in it? Shoot. Me. Now.

Based on the graphic novel of the same name (why not) the premise is hauntingly familiar: a spoiled and privleged group of students (except for one) in an exclusive school are to serve a day of detention. You have the popular girl, the psycho, the jock, the brain.... do I need to continue? Ah, but the movie changes thank goodness. In fact that's this movie's saving grace. It is NOT a gripe session on how the world is unfair no matter what class you belong to. 

And while there's plenty of blood and guts it's not simply a gather-them-together-and-kill-them-one-by-one film either. It's a bit of a whodunit which, while not great or cohesive in a genius fashion, still makes this a better than average teenage movie. Which teenagers should not see - until they're older. Same as The Breakfast Club.

Judd Nelson plays the headmaster of this prep school, sort of mocking himself by being in this could-be, almost-is-but-not-quite movie. His funniest line is when he berates a student for picking on 'the retarded kid' who is actually just a student in a wheelchair. When the kid keeps protesting 'I'm not retarded!' Judd says in his best gushing voice 'Good for you!'

We begin at the end - Matt (Cameron Deane Stewart), the poor kid, is holding a bloody ax as Swat teams burst into the room, finding him alive among a bunch of corpses. He is ordered to surrender and the team can only look at the incredible carnage around them. Then we back up eight hours:

So we've got Matt who shows up even though he doesn't have detention trying to not get kicked out of school, Tarek (Marc Donato of The Final) the school brain, Craig the jock, Megan the uptight girl, Tricia the cheerleader and Veronica the psycho. And like a certain film they don't mention they are given an assignment to write about the history of the school and will only be allowed out for bathroom breaks and lunch. 

And also like a certain film each has parents (or relatives) that either neglect, use or just plain ignore their kids, part of why they're so screwed up. An insulting part was the tagline "Their daddy's money won't save them now." Ahem, excuse me movie makers from the 50's - one of the horrible parents was a woman with political ambitions who appeared to be making plenty of money thank you very much.

The library has recently been remodeled with a Native American theme including statues and paintings. It is state of the art, even having holographic displays. After the psycho girl tries to strike up a conversation, the cheerleader straightens out her the others (and the audience) right away by saying this is not going to be a love-in like Burning Man, or a feel-good 80's movie 'where for seven hours we put aside our diffs and through commiserating about our mutually dysfunctional family lives, or how lonely or alienated we each feel, and we find some common ground, and end up as BFFs'.

So no, it's not going to be like THAT movie. And we're going to find out that at least four of them have spent a lot more time together than the others think. In fact, that will be part of the 'fun'.

Now I'm not going to go into the whole 'who did what to who when and why' because that would make this a novel and my hands still feel like concrete blocks so suffice it to say once it gets down to the nitty gritty, one by one these wonderful example of privileged brats get what's coming to them. As for our poor boy? Oh, his is a fate worse than being killed, and the source of the ending of the rest of his normal life is in the hands of a certain man who's been out looking for revenge on them all for his family's honor. And a load of cash that will be coming his way.

And it turns out that Matt, although just transferring in and not part of this 'clique' is an important part of the whole schmear as well...

This wasn't a brilliant film, but for a slash 'em up teenage film it certainly was different, and the teenagers who are usually exasperating just for being themselves are more sinister, and definitely each deserve what came to them (except the poor kid). Not bad and no ending monologue about how unfair life is - whew.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY - SOMEWHERE

THE TRUTH? YOU. CAN'T. HANDLE. THE. TRUTH. WHATEVER IT IS...

Silver Falls aka A Haunting At Silver Falls (2013)

And a haunting we will go.... the only reason I even bothered with this piece of... film is that it was made in Oregon and supposedly based on a true story. Well guess what - it was. Oregon is a real state, there is a town of Stayton and there is a Silver Falls State Park. We'll ignore that the film was actually done in Salem and Silverton. And there has to be an unsolved murder SOMEWHERE in the Country, right? Twins? Ghosts? Hey, it doesn't say the WHOLE movie is a true story. DUH. 

But I must admit I had to make some adjustments on my horror movie worksheet as it threw a couple of curves in what is the most unscary horror movie I have ever seen. Unscary's not a word? Well it's BASED on a true word, so there.

Now as I've been whining on my FB page my arms and hands are currently at about 30% capacity (long boring story - never mind) and people with fibro don't just bounce back so if I take a few shortcuts here I think you can forgive me.

Our young heroine's name is Jordan so I want her dead already. Actually the actress who played her (Alix Gitter - thank mom and dad for THAT moniker) did okay for someone with very little to work with and a whole lot of screen time. So her Twilight excuse for a facial expression is she's lost her mom then her dad and now has to move from L.A. to a podunk town in Oregon. I live in Oregon so I can call them podunk towns with affection. Hey, YOU can't use that expression - it's OUR word! (See how dumb that sounds folks?)

So now she's living with her aunt, who's her mother's twin sister, and her aunt's husband. Right from the start he gives off that creepy vibe so I'm filling in my worksheet with confidence. A lingering look, a touch that's not quite - right and you know something's up or going to be up with that guy. Being the typical teenager, Jordan attends a party at Silver Falls which in this movie is more of a hangout than a park. Of course they're raided and as they all flee through the forest Jordan finds a ring and automatically puts it on and forgets it. Bad, bad rubber piggy.

Now she's starting to be followed by a slimy girl with long hair (sigh) who wants that ring. Why? Why not? She's pursued and it isn't long before everyone she knows is against her, accusing her of being delusional since she has a 'checkered' past - plus the strain of losing her mom to drowning/suicide and her father to leukemia. And the ghost is dogging her and we're getting tired of it 'cause okay, she has a slimy friend but NOTHING IS HAPPENING. No deaths, no scares, no gore.... geez I'd even go for a cheap beheading at this point.

So she finds out that twin girls were murdered by their father, who was tried and convicted and sits on death row, about to be executed. In a brilliant move of parenting and psychology, everyone is convinced she has to talk to him to convince her that she doesn't see ghosts. They arrange for her to see him. On the night of his execution. As he's eating his final ice cream treat. Yeah that happens all the time nowhere in the world ever. 

Oh, and when he sees she's wearing his daughter's ring, she learns it was some signal of unity for all of them, a three piece ring they each wore one piece of. He gives her his... uh, wait. He's a convicted murderer about to be fried and he has personal jewelry on? The movie got stupider and stupider and my already waning interest was getting... wanier. Based on another true word.

Once she has the ring, things change. Now she has BOTH girls following her (Why only one at first? Dunno.) and with their help (Help?) she knows she needs to leave NOW. I would have figured that out myself when they locked her in the bathroom for the night - do that to me once and I'm gone. But... she's being carefully watched until with the power of the two rings (don't ask) makes her bedroom window opens and she sees a school bus with the twins in it. And her locked bedroom door opens. She leaves and gets on the bus. I wish I could have ridden a ghost school bus, it was brand spanking new. Duh.

But it made no sense and that's the main point of the movie - it's a bunch of events that put together make no cohesive story that you can follow. I mean at one point the ghost tries to drown Jordan but she needs her help? The ghost wants the ring back, even mangling Jordan's finger trying to get it but wants her to wear it as it keeps appearing back on her finger even  if she manages to get it off? 

You go through the movie not really going WTH... 'cause it's impossible to care that much. A What? suffices and you won't get answers so don't be disappointed.

So to wrap the movie up since I've already given it a whole lot more coverage than it deserved, Jordan feels she is going mad like her mother. But her mother wasn't mad or suicidal - her aunt killed her. Why? Apparently good ole' aunt and uncle are your ultimate S&M couple and she's the top. She enjoys it - a lot. 

He's into the pleasure, she's into the pain. So their basement is set up for their... games. All bodies (when they're finished with them) get dumped into the Falls. Okay that was... not expected. I thought the uncle would be the baddie - that was sexist of me, wasn't it? The aunt was even more bloodthirsty and psychotic than he was.

I don't really blame myself too much though - this was a formulaic ghost story with a bunch of nonsense events occurring for no particular reason in no particular order. A small twist just added to the confusion. So Jordan and her boyfriend, who refreshingly is a smart, glasses wearing kind of nerdy kid, overpower the two, knock them out, tie 'em up and put them in a in-floor type of box they'd constructed to keep their 'toys' in. Both dead girls are there, watching. 

As Jordan and her boyfriend prepared to leave he says (and I can't believe he could say it with a straight face and she acted like it was the most rational sentence on the planet), "New rule. Ghosts can hurt you - if you hurt them." They smile at each other and leave. The two dead girls wait until the tied up couple wakes up, then descends upon them, knocking the door over the pit closed and we hear screams. Ummm, what? What the hell does that mean and why does that end the story?

Oh well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, 'cause here comes the credits.

A MOVIE THAT'S LIKE - OKAY, WHAT IF THIS HAPPENS BUT THEN THAT HAPPENS BUT THEN THIS OTHER THING HAPPENS BUT THEN THEY ALL GET MIXED UP AND THEN...

Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal (2001) UK/Canada/US

I'm going to take a gamble and guess that this movie was made before 9/11 just because of the premise, the plot, and really the whole damn movie. What's wild about this third movie in a series I've never seen (and NEVER will) is that the first one wasn't successful. In fact, it was a big flop. So why the hell did they make two more? Trying to get it right? If that was the case, they majorly failed - and some 10 year old who wrote this drivel is probably grounded for life. I say 10 because the plot... well let's get into it. 

Getting some extra info on this movie led to a page that said it was excessively detailed and needed to be edited down. I resisted the impulse to wipe the page clean. Hey, it would have been better, and maybe people would have wanted to watch it then. You never know.

What's ultra-amazing to me about this movie is that it boasts the like of Rutger Hauer, Gabrielle Anwar (great in Burn Notice), Craig Sheffer (Nightbreed is one of my fave movies), Joe Mantegna, and introduces John Mann (too bad he's a Canadian folk singer) in a dual role, one being the death metal singer Slade.

This is the plot and I shit you not, I'm presenting it in the clearest way I know how. A death metal rocker named Slade Craven is retiring and wants to go out with a huge bang. But instead of one final BIG concert, his great idea is to get a BIG airplane, a Boeing 747, have a few lucky contest winners on board, do a concert that's also being broadcast on a kind of pay-per-view on the internet, collect his money and leave. Simple, no?

NO. Now we have these FBI guys looking for a master hacker named Nick Watts (Craig Sheffer) who can't be caught. UNTIL he gets careless 'cause he wants to jack into the feed of Slade's concert 'cause he's a major fan but he doesn't want to pay plus he wants access to all the cameras on board. In doing so he finally gets careless and an overeager agent named Kate (Gabrielle Anwar) is tired of just doing desk work so even though her boss (Joe Mantegna) says no, she decides to track him down and take him down anyway. She gets into Nick's apartment and arrests him.

But wait, there's more. It turns out that Slade has brought a gun on board, because his last concert is going out with a bang. Ahem. I'm truly sorry about that. Anywho, he kills the pilot, leaving only the co-pilot in charge (Only two in the cockpit of a huge airplane? Nuh uh.) plus another to prove he's seriously deranged. Filming the whole thing is some reporter (her performance was negligible) and her cameraman (same). So only the co-pilot (Rutger Hauer) is flying this 747 into a storm that's getting nasty fast. Uh huh.

Oh but wait my children, we've only started. See Craven is not really Craven, he's an impostor who's locked Craven up. This false Craven, rather than being a decent, hardworking death metal head, is actually a Satanist, part of the Guardians Of The Gateway cult. No, really. Swear on my dead mother. Wait, can't do that - she's still alive. And he has accomplices on board and on the ground. In fact, they blow up a whole FAA tower. Actually, even though this was probably made early in the year I'm surprised they still released it to video. Damn.

Is that the whole plot? Ah hell no! See, these Satanists have an agenda. Now I know this is getting a little complicated (pffft) but stay with me. These guys want to fly the plane to Stull, Kansas to crash into a small church there since they believe if they do, Satan is free to roam the Earth. Uh, sorry to tell you fellas, but the Bible says that he already does. Oh, but nobody reads that, never mind. 

Now Stull, Kansas happens to be a real town (very small) with a church that has been vandalized A LOT due to occult rumors. Thanks a lot you jerks - your stupid movie and it's so-complicated-you-need-a-program-to-keep-the-story-straight plot has caused this poor little town nothing but trouble. Did you pay for any of it with the money you made off of this straight to video movie? Oh yeah, this one bombed too (no pun intended - ah who am I kidding, I meant every word).

Soooooo... here we are. Two people, FBI and hacker in an apartment watching on all cameras this little stupid story unfold. Craven locked in a room that, gee whiz, has both a camera AND a computer in it and thus the two on the ground can see him and talk to him. Convenient? Hell no. Nothing about this movie is convenient. Slade gets free and confronts his imposter (also played by Mann - they just used a different voice), ripping off his wig (yes, Mann is bald) and blah blah blah the reporter is also involved blah blah blah so is the co-pilot blah blah blah...

When Slade gets into the cockpit Rutger does a kind of meh speech about the coming of the new... uh... well he's gonna get his reward now so he takes yet another gun (apparently everybody's got 'em in this movie) and blows his brains out. Now the plane is on a downward spiral and there's only Slade Craven at the helm. Well - they're dead. They should be - but wait - there's the FBI and hacker duo to the rescue. I guess.

So the two contact Craven and tell him he needs to land the damn plane in Kansas City. Oh, sure, that's what every death metal singer does on his time off. So how many flying hours do the two have between them? Um, well, the hacker HAS played Flight Simulator an awful lot. And we all know how good drivers are who have played Grand Theft Auto. And so yeah, everybody's dead.

Meanwhile, in the Kansas City tower a REAL flight instructor has arrived and is told to help Craven land the plane. But, and I swear by my blog that he actually says this - he can't interrupt the dialogue between Craven and the hacker because 'they have a thing'. Oh, well, easy peasy.

Craven lands the plane, people get off, Craven's a hero, and the FBI chick sleeps with the hacker instead of arresting him and a great time was had by all. Except for the poor saps who watched this abortion of a movie.

If there was ANYTHING even remotely funny about this, it's that Craig Sheffer apparently also was in Turbulence 2. Yikes.

AN ABOVE AVERAGE CREATURE FEATURE WHICH LEAD TO... A WHOLE BUNCH MORE CREATURE FEATURES AKA ATTACK OF THE SUBTERRANEAN B-MOVIES

Tremors (1990)

Well today (July 22) is a day of import I guess. A new heir to the English throne has been born (YAWN) and unfortunately we have lost a very talented actor who will be sorely missed - Dennis Farina. He was 69. Oh, and if you like FB rumors, Eddie Murphy died - again. Woof I am massively tired of rumors. It's gotten so bad that even though I found out about Mr. Farina on Joe Mantegna's site, I STILL looked it up just in case. Some celebrities 'die' on a regular basis and I wanted to make sure. Mr. Farina was 69.

I really don't like creature features, although I will watch one or two if it's supposed to be really good. I suppose you could call the Men In Black trilogy a kind of creature feature, a certain Japanese movie with worms I just reviewed and this one. It's described as a western monster movie. With worms. When Tim Forston, a guy of great wit and insight wanted to do this series I kind of went 'meh'. But then I watched the movie again. I had seen it when it first came out but apparently I forgot most of it because I really enjoyed this. So here we go and I'm going to let Tim start this one:

Tim: If you think of a movie starring Kevin Bacon and Reba McEntire among others the first thing you think might not be a 60's-esque creature feature, with a miserly (in movie amounts) 11 million dollar budget. That would be TOTAL budget friends and neighbors and not just for Kevin Bacon and Reba's talent. But the movie Tremors would be right up there in the list of things I think of.

Me: Truthfully it was BECAUSE of who starred in it that I really didn't want to see it. And since I'm always looking at the inflation index, that budget in today's dollars would be $31,171,650.00. And what the hell is with Kevin Bacon's hair? That gave me giggles through the whole movie - kept wanting to call him 'Chucky'. Child's Play HAD been out for two years when this movie was released soooo...

Tim: Written by Brent Maddock, Ron Underwood and S. S. Wilson (he also wrote Short Circuit and Batteries Not Included among his other credits) the movie has a very basic premise: What if there was something under the ground, and you couldn't walk on the dirt without being hunted?

Me: I'd think I was in a dirt version of Dune but that's just me...

Tim: The place? Perfection, NV, a small (population around 12 and falling) town in the middle of the desert.

Me: HA! There IS sand around there somewhere! And a movie factoid said there were 14 people although 17 people could be seen during the movie....

Tim: Shut up. A haven  from civilization surrounded by mountains and cliffs. First you meet the odd couple of Perfection, Val and Earl (Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward), two handymen whose motto is 'We plan ahead so we don't have to do anything right now.'

Me: So Chucky and Remo Williams hang out together for really no discernible reason.

Tim: Are you going to let me do this?

Me: By all means, please continue.

Tim: They finally decide that they have had enough working for money that's just enough to get by from meal to meal and plan to move to the 'big city' (compared to Perfection) of Bixby, oft spoken of but never seen (in this movie). In town we meet most of the populace. There's Walter, the proprietor of Chang's Market which is the only hangout and business. Also Nancy, the town hippie and single mother of Mindy (Ariana Richards, most popularly known as Lex from Jurassic Park).

Me: Except she's all grown up now and living in Salem Oregon, concentrating on her painting in between acting gigs.

Tim: There's Burt and Heather Gummer, the valley's survivalist para-military paranoids. 

Me: Today we call them realists.

Tim: The main characters and stars of the film are the oft hidden graboids.

Me: The best choice of the names they (the characters) considered giving them I think. The other choices were snakeoids and suckoids.

Tim: You don't even see the creatures for the first half of the movie but it just adds to the mystery. The storyline is a little jaded. Guys trying to leave town find a dead body, go back, and conveniently get trapped in the valley by a 'graboid' induced rock slide. But there is just something about it.

Me: Yeah, it's called the land of incredible coincidences.

Tim: Hush. I'm driving. The cast couldn't be better. There are nice explosions and a good shoot out in the basement of the aforementioned survivalist. Even a little bit of falling in love. One of the best things they did in my humble opinion is cut the cliche' scene of 'finding the spaceship' and leaving the origins of the graboids open. It really worked out better if you look at the big picture. All in all I give Tremors a 10 out of 10, but I am a bit biased as it has been my favorite movie since I was five years old.

Me: FIVE? Way to make me feel incredibly old, Tim.

Tim: You're welcome. All in all it is a cult classic (and I am in the cult) that spawned three sequels and one season of a television series (13 episodes in all, one of which guest starred none other than the talented Michael Rooker, or as you may know him, Merle from The Walking Dead). A fifth Tremors movie is supposed to be in process (for the last six years, so there you go). Now I will turn it over to Shoy for her two cents - I give this two big thumbs up!

Me: Whew, I'm glad it'll only be two cents, I'm broke. Thanks Tim - it's fun to hear about a movie from someone who loves it like that, it makes teasing you about it fun! I looked up the possibility of a new Tremors movie - for a while they advertised that the same writers would have Tremors 5: The Thunder From Down Under (gee I wonder where this one films <insert sarcasm>) starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward and Michael Gross again - with Paul Hogan. The latest information I could get on that was from 2008. Here's the movie poster but, sadly, either this was total wishful thinking or the project just fell apart. The last time the question was asked (over a year ago) unfortunately had the same answer - nope.

As for THIS movie, like I said I must have forgotten most of it, because I actually liked watching Chucky and Remo... sorry, Val and Earl's back-and-forth dialogue, the relationship between Burt and Heather (the survivalist couple), and the fact that the romance between Val and Rhonda (the only single female in the movie, duh) wasn't pushed throughout the movie. Instead the romance was saved for the end and just added to the movie instead of being distracting.

Another thing I liked about this movie is that it is not about ONE person saving a whole town. It's the survivors of the initial attack of the graboids getting together and working as a team - that is much better than, say, have the movie be 'The Kevin Bacon Show'. And the movie duh stuff is mostly left to the young.

If you haven't seen the movie - the graboids come out of nowhere, kill a couple of the townsfolk (who were not being dumb, just being victims) and so Val and Earl stay to save the rest. Among them is Rhonda, the one single girl in the movie - that was a LITTLE convenient that a a graduate student conducting seismology tests would show up JUST NOW. But eh, it's a small point in a pretty good movie. And the explosions - courtesy of the Gummers - were pretty cool. The way the whole thing came together without, as Tim said, trying to explain why all of a sudden the Graboids were there or where they came from was pretty original.

Thanks Tim and I hope you don't mind a little good natured ribbing in the process. Hey, it's what I do.

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