GAAAAA - I REFUSE TO WATCH THAT MOVIE 'CAUSE I KNOW IT'S GONNA SUCK AND I HATE 'CHILDREN-FRIENDLY' ZOMBIE MOVIES AND I HATE BRAD PITT AND I HATE CGI AND... OH HELL, I JUST WATCHED THAT MOVIE! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?




World War Z (2013) UK/US Unrated Version

I love it when my husband decides to help me with reviews. We have one of "those" conversations:

He: You said you weren't going to watch that.

She: (Shrugging) It's on Netflix so I might as well.

He: You said it sucked.

She: It does.

He: Then why watch it?

She: (Attempting to point to name of blog, realizing blog is nowhere in sight, puts finger down.) Because it's here and I admit I'm kind of curious as to why so many people were so pissed at this movie.

He: But Brad Armpit is in it.

I like this one...

She: Yeah, I know.

He: He can't act.

She: (Sighs)

He: He's got two expressions and that's it.

She: I know, I know. He has smooth forehead and blank expression or wrinkled forehead and blank expression.

He: So what's the difference between the unrated and the PG-13 versions?

She: About six minutes.

He: You said CGI'd zombie movies were...

She: I KNOW!

He: (Sits down and gets comfortable.) Well, start it up.

Nice matte painting...

For those who say the movie is not anything like the book (and it's not - the only thing that the two have in common is the title and some zombies) - the movie The Shining was not Stephen King's, it was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. AND since Max Brooks sold the rights to his book to Brad Pitt's production company 'Plan B Productions' instead of overseeing a screenplay, it's not his anymore either. 

So here is BRAD PITT'S WORLD WAR Z, both PG-13 and unrated versions currently streaming on Netflix. And don't whine about the freaking thing having no REALD 3D (whatever the hell that is) - this was so bad that even though Netflix only costs $7.99 a month, I was tempted to demand my money back.

I put the title all in caps 'cause PITT is in almost every scene and it's obvious this is merely a massive ego trip. And we begin: The movie isn't even on for a single minute and already it's trying to make us feel guilty and responsible for the Zombie takeover - we ruined everything enough for the dead to get pissed and decide to take us out. In ONE MINUTE.

The "crowded" street look a la CGI

It's horrible from the very beginning - with good reason. And don't believe what you read in the IMDb about what happens and who says what - they had almost more mistakes than the movie did. Some things were obviously wrong or couldn't be verified, other mistakes they just plain missed. In fact, this freaking review took so long because of all the errors that I could have written a whole new screenplay. I should have - it would have been a hell of a lot better. 

PITT (I refuse to give character names, this is the PITT show) is driving his wife and two kids (one with asthma so you know at some point she's not going to have an inhaler, because that's a movie rule) through a packed Philadelphia street (which is nowhere in the US but in Glasgow, Scotland - like we wouldn't notice the UK traffic lights). 

View from back of PITT's silver car...

Then the continuity errors and just plain stupid stuff start instantly. Even without my husband there (he's got an eye for errors and is very helpful with that sort of stuff) it was plain that they didn't even TRY to make things right. Traffic is stopped cold, the whole street is a parking lot. But when a cop on a motorcycle stops to talk to PITT he's mowed down by a garbage truck speeding through... apparently the fourth dimension because there certainly ain't no room for it in the third.

...aaaaand the nice clean front view...

This garbage truck continues without slowing down or sustaining any damage to the front and supposedly continuing to plow its way through cars, although there was no way it could even get that far. Even though it knocked the cars to the side, since this is Scotland, I guess people were too polite to leave it that way, because looking back at PITT's car we see all the cars are neatly parked, none have been squished or moved, and traffic still fills the entire street. Nice and tidy.

Why does her phone show a whole different street?

And the truck, whose driver is inexplicably pumping the gas peddle (if he can't stop, why isn't he pumping the brakes or at least turning off the engine?) continues to flip cars right and left with the engine wound to the nuts (at least in the Foley studio) and yet they come back down perfectly and are still in their designated lanes. This is not an auspicious start to this horrid thing. FIVE MINUTES HAVE NOT EVEN PASSED.

PITT, in movie wisdom, also winds HIS car to the nuts (in the Foley studio) and drives five miles an hour behind the garbage truck. There is now not a single car on the road, no people, no crashed cars, no debris, only those parked diagonal (they were parallel before) on each side of the road.

As PITT continues this mad ride of 5 mph, the garbage truck continues to plow through the cars - as long as you look one way, because when the camera shoots from the opposite angle, there is NOTHING. On the sidewalk is a woman with her smart phone recording this non-emergency - or it would have if she'd been on the SAME street 'cause nothing matches up.

Ladies and gentlemen... the battery powered fish tank!

Why am I describing to death the first five minutes of the movie? BECAUSE THIS IS EXACTLY WHY THIS MOVIE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MADE IN THE FIRST PLACE. They got a book that they ignored, made up a ridiculous story, were given millions of dollars to dink around with, and we get crap. IT. SHOULD. NOT. HAVE. BEEN. MADE.

But PITT is saving his family, right? Umm, no. See, the street in Scotland they decided to use has very recognizable storefronts, plus way back at the intersection is another very recognizable building. In other words, according to the landmarks, they have gone NOWHERE.

By the time they FINALLY GET ONE BLOCK AWAY we see police officers just standing around, and police cars clearly parked to keep people out of the filming area. Wow. This is the worst beginning of a movie I've ever seen in my life. We have TWO HOURS of movie to go. My hubby says it was like watching a steaming pile for two hours. Envision that how you wish.

The first zombies finally show up, snarling and biting. In a convenient plot device (this is PITT's ego trip after all), PITT's daughter has a stuffed toy that counts to twelve, just the number of seconds it takes a bitten human to turn into a zombie. How convenient. These are your sprinting, parkour zombies that are only interested in running, jumping, knocking people down and biting them. Not eating, just biting. No blood, no gore, no taffy pulling in THIS piece of crap.

Hmm... where did PITT go? And why
is that ambulance driver wearing stunt clothes?

PITT shows off his impressive driving skills as he weaves through traffic that isn't there while turning around constantly and yelling at his kids (Don't make me pull over or...) - pfffft. Their car is hit on the driver's side by an ambulance - which appears, disappears, then appears again during the scene, then takes off without even slowing down (we think - if it was still there). Then the scene is finally, thankfully, over.

PITT is called back from retirement by somebody important (we assume) back to duty because apparently they want him out of the country to stop doing all of this dumb shit stuff. PITT, as it turns out (or as they wrote it), was a former UN Investigator. What the hell is that? Did he investigate war crimes? Violation of civil rights? Teaching forehead wrinkling 101?

Even PITT's boss doesn't get the
 concept of a satellite phone...

The government, or United Nations, or whoever the hell is in charge now, tells PITT if he doesn't do what they want, his family will be dropped right back into Philly (The sandwich? Great, now I'm hungry.), instead of lounging on the U.N. Command Ship, U.S.S Argus. The name of the ship apparently changed several times through several scripts but the Argus it is.

Wait a moment, I'm getting a little verklempt. Here, I'll give you a topic: The Argus is neither an aircraft carrier, nor a command ship nor an American ship. It's officially used as a hospital/mortuary ship by the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Discuss.

Okay, I'm feeling better now. He's given a satellite phone so he can keep in touch with his wife. His family are given the magic blankets so you know they will be all right.

This guy lives for about five minutes...

And we finally begin the movie (maybe). They've decided to send PITT on a tour around the world to find patient zero I guess, or at least a way to kill what is already dead. DUUUUUUH. Uh oh, PITT is worried, his forehead just wrinkled. PITT is put on a plane (don't even ask me to tell you all the things wrong with the plane please, I think my computer's about to crash from the DUH) with somebody who's supposed to be a leading authority on world diseases - and who will help them find a vaccine. This is Dr. Fassbach, an inexperienced virologist from Harvard. 

Dr. Fassbach's main argument for explaining zombies and the presence of a virus is the example of the Spanish Flu, a nasty wave of pestilence that swept the world. Now he gives figures, which were misquoted everywhere I looked so first I wrote down what he said, then started hunting. I had to - my brain was shutting down from an overload of DUH and looking at PITT's forehead.

So. Different sources (colleges, wiki, etc.) give different dates on when the Spanish Flu was active. The consensus is from 1918 (the end of WWI, how nice) to the beginning of 1920. Statistics on how many died were difficult - this was world-wide and they didn't have the reporting and recording capabilities of today so the total population that perished is anywhere from 3% to 5% of the world.

So Dr. Fassbach's data is a bit off - he says the Spanish Flu didn't exist in 1918. Um, yes it did. He then says by 1920 it killed 3% of the world. Okay, close enough. He bores us with the story of how this zombie outbreak is Mother Nature's fault. Wait a second - they just spent the first part of the movie saying WE did this - WTH? But he explains: "Mother Nature is a serial killer. No one's better. More creative. But like all serial killers, she can't help the urge to want to get caught. What good are all those brilliant crimes if no one takes the credit? So she leaves crumbs (clues). She's a bitch."

The infamous wall climb, pre-CGI...

Nice guy. Real compassionate. But that's okay, because as soon as they land in S. Korea (uh, don't ask why please), this idiot who was specifically told to keep his finger off of the trigger of his pistol doesn't so he slips, falls, and shoots himself in the head. First good thing to happen in the whole movie. 

Look like cheap plastic army guys, right?

Apparently PITT wanted to be the only hero so the other guy had to go. Oh well, they'll just keep flying - even though there's no real airports, gas or... shit, never mind. Their next stop: Jerusalem, because they built a freaking huge wall around the entire city a week before the outbreak. They knew it was coming? That's some pretty fast work. And impossible. And stupid. And why does PITT have to fly there to look at it?

Nope, still looks fake...

We figured that there could only be so many zombies that weren't CGI'd so they'd do some recycling - and they did. We had some mild amusement pointing at the screen every time we saw a zombie we'd already seen get mowed down pop up in another scene.

And it just keeps getting stupider. While PITT is there, some woman (thanks a lot, blame it on us) grabs a microphone and starts singing a song of thanks (...all in all we're just another brick... no wait, that wasn't it). Well gee whiz, in this version zombies go absolutely bat-shit crazy when they hear loud sounds so... ever seen a bunch of ants try to get across water? Hundreds die so that others can climb over them and get across safely. Yup, that's what we have here. On a computer somewhere. And if I ever find that IT Tech dropout that did this CGI work I'm going to kick his ass.

See? Smooth forehead - he's not
worried. I think. It's hard to tell.

Oh, speaking of zombie piles, you know the plastered-all-over-the-entire-damn-world movie poster of WWZ that shows the pile of zombies taking down a helicopter? Never happened. Ever. A helicopter did crash - it was near a roof and some zombies jumped on the runners. DUH.

So here come the Rakshasas. Hmm? Oh, small lesson for today to put some smarts back in since the DUH has ripped so much out... Rakshasas are Hindu demons that sort of have backward hands who eat human flesh. Meh, close enough to a zombie. To show a bit of a human factor and interest (WAY TOO LATE), PITT saves and drags along a female soldier he had to slice one bitten hand off of to keep her from becoming infected, through the rest of the movie for no discernible reason. And the script writers create a clue... the zombies want fresh, healthy meat - just to bite, not to eat. This is a kid-friendly movie (Pfffft!) so there will be NO TAFFY PULLING ALLOWED. They pass the sick and the elderly. YAY! Empty out the old folks home and... sorry, just kidding.

...must be afraid of heights...

PITT has to make another trip to Cardiff, Wales where the last remaining WHO (World Health Organization) is, even though there's no way the plane... never mind. Somehow zombies got on the plane, so PITT does the only natural thing - he throws a grenade. Natch. It causes the plane to crash, and in the realm of incredible coincidences, not only are PITT and the female soldier the only survivors of the plane full of people, they crashed in Wales. They make it to the WHO (Behind Blue Eyes is MY favorite), listening to the sound of cicadas. There are no cicadas in Wales. Bugger.

While at the fake-cicada filled Wales, PITT recovers from a wound from blowing up the damned plane. Meanwhile, PITT tries to maintain contact with his wife with the satellite phone. He's in some WHO bunker, she's down inside the fake command ship. Do we see the problem here? Do I really have to explain this one? SATELLITE phone? Anywho, when PITT disappears, the mucky mucks in charge say okay PITT family he's dead so you're worthless - off you go. Nice guys.

Uh oh, wrinkled forehead, I think we're in trouble...

Then they find out PITT is still alive dammit. Whoops. They have to tell him they jettisoned his family (sorry 'bout that dude). He's pissed but still has a job to do. They wrote him a way in the script to figure it all out. So PITT's big plan is get everybody really sick with diseases so the zombies don't eat 'em, kill the zombies (Again?), then heal themselves. Oooh, I would soooo want to do that. PITT volunteers to go into the zombie-infested area where all of the world's diseases are conveniently kept in one small room.

How come the zombie looks more alive than PITT?

One dried apple of a zombie checks him out so he's gotta inject himself now with something (I hope it's nasty). He uses a needle out of a drawer that has no packaging and looks like it's made of metal. How old is this thing? He'll die of tetanus before the pathogen hits. But the zombie no longer wants his body. Neither does anybody else. Except maybe Brangelina - for now.

Nice of 'em to include the boy,
considering they got his parents killed.

He gets back to the others and dammit he'd injected himself with a pathogen with a cure (and gets a tiny sterile needle too) so... yeah. We have a happy ending as he's reunited with his family in Nova Scotia as they set it up for the inevitable sequel - there's still zombies to fight, humans to save and, of course, more PITT expressions to not see. Because you saw the two of them. And that's all there is. Always.

A CREATURE FEATURE THAT'S GOOD, ENTERTAINING, AND HIGHLY AFFORDABLE...

Grabbers (2012) Ireland/UK

As a creature feature and self-described cult film, this movie seems to be very polarizing - people either loved it or hated it. I'm not sure why feelings either way were so strong - like the very popular Tremors, this film was simply what it was supposed to be - a bit of fluff to enjoy with a bit of a story and a big monster. No big whoop.

Forward Films is spanking new. They have only three movies under their belt, including this one, with a Danish Western of all things due to be shown at the Cannes Festival on May 17, with a release date of October 2, 2014. Although it is Danish it was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa (?!?)

Of course, even though I liked the movie a lot, I've still got all my snarks in a row - but since this is mostly Miss Mayhem's

review, I'll just butt in with one or five or so throughout. She enjoyed it also, and was very relieved when I assured her it was nothing like the movie Alien (by the way, we lost an extremely talented Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer who, besides working on the original Alien movie was also known for his art on famous album covers, as well as an, ahem, unique microphone for Korn's Jonathan Davis - H.R. Giger, who was 74, passed away May 13, 2014).

Before I could really get going though, Miss Mayhem reminded me of a few things - one, it's a film from Ireland who really don't have a ton of horror movies out there (true - the wiki only lists 19, but then again I don't know what years they cover). Two, they did a pretty decent job of balancing both actual models and CGI versions of the 'monster' - especially since they only spent what in US dollars equaled around $6.7 million which is.... damned cheap really. Watch the movie - it WILL impress you. So she begins:

Miss Mayhem: Our movie starts on an island off the Irish coast which is just beautiful... which island? Umm... 

Miss Murder: Ireland is itself an island and the list of smaller 'islands' goes on for miles - and those are off the ocean. You should see the list for those on lakes and rivers. But this says Erin Island which may be an inside joke because Erin means both "Ireland" and "west" - the name given by Scotland. But this island (whichever it actually is) IS very beautiful with small towns and rolling hills and beautiful beaches... hmm, I think I know where I want to live. For this movie they had two locations: Belfast, County Antrim and County Donegal. Apparently it was one of the coldest winters they've had in a long time and shooting the film was pretty miserable to everybody.


Miss Mayhem: So at the start, a fishing boat is out at night when they see a massive bright light in the sky which plummets into the ocean...

Miss Murder: And no meteorologist or astronomer saw this coming? Huge fireballs out of the sky and they just sneak up on us?

Miss Mayhem: Ahem. Soon the three on the boat are killed by... something. The next day pilot whales are found washed up on the beach, ripped to pieces. I was relieved to find that one was a prop, the rest were digital.

Miss Murder: LOTS of CGI in this one...

Miss Mayhem: A local named Paddy (yes, I know), who's the colorful town drunk (besides Coyle) finds one in a lobster trap (obviously a small one) and puts it in his bathtub to keep it wet. He's not worried about safety, he's mostly thinking of money. Meanwhile we have two policepersons (called Garda, and definitely not carrying sidearms) Ciarán O'Shea (Richard Coyle), who drinks constantly since his wife left him, and his new partner for two weeks while another is on vacation, a volunteer named Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley). 

But even though Paddy's 'alien' is small enough to fit in the lobster trap, it's nasty enough to first spit... something all over him, then attack him with what I thought was a tentacle but apparently it's a tongue. It tries to drink Paddy's blood...

Miss Murder: Wait, wait, wait, WAIT... what??? Let's get this straight for the reader. An alien. From space. Crashes unseen to earth (okay the ocean). It needs water and BLOOD? What, did it come from Blood Planet? Planet Of The Bloody Creatures? Planet...

Miss Mayhem: This is not MST3K and we are NOT riffing, okay? Paddy beats the alien to death (he thinks) and takes it to the local marine ecologist...

Miss Murder: Because every small island has to have...

Miss Mayhem: Shhhhh. You're sick, remember? Let me drive. Despite the ecologist wanting to find the genus of the species...

Miss Murder: Did you say genius?

Miss Mayhem: What, you can't read now either? Go sit over there and play with your Wii.

Miss Murder: I don't have a...

Miss Mayhem: READ A BOOK! Anyway, Paddy is determined to call the thing a 'Grabber' since that's what it did to him. The name sticks. Since by now several people have been murdered (they found one severed head - not very real looking but for a small budget film not bad) they wonder why Paddy's still alive. They're quick to figure out (this film's 94 minutes so they gotta move along so you can see the REAL monster) that this alien that somehow needs Earth's water and blood cannot take alcohol (which Paddy thinks is a food group).

Miss Murder: In this land of incredible dumbity and coincidences, a severe storm is coming which means there's no help coming from the mainland - AND there'll be lots of water to keep the other monster very happy (they figured the captive one was female when they discovered she was full of eggs - each one the size of her body - ouch!). They also discover that the male is the size of a house. Okay, we've got the setup for the next silly bit.

Basically, every person left on the island (many had gone to the mainland at the beginning of the film, probably so they wouldn't be stuck in this movie) has to meet at the pub and get stinking drunk in order to keep them safe from the CGI monster.

Miss Mayhem: It wasn't all CGI - they had close ups so they did have quite a bit of real models so it was a pretty neat combination.

Miss Murder: With some movie duh mixed in...

Miss Mayhem: Later. The two Garda draw the people into the pub by declaring that the alcohol is free. They had gotten the newbie drunk (she usually doesn't drink) to find out how much one has to drink to equal Paddy's BAC (that's blood alcohol lever by the way) of .20 and they figure eight pints each at least. They think that's a lot.

Miss Murder: Meh, I've seen one blow .42 before and he was still breathing.

Miss Mayhem: Good for you. 

Miss Murder: Everybody starts to have a good time and all of a sudden they're singing an Irish drinking song that sounds... very familiar. I'm listening as close as I can (it's on the jukebox and their singing is pretty slurred but the one I knew was this (not my video of course, but enjoy):

They, of course, are not the only ones who have re-done this song. I had always wondered why Metallica (with recently shorn locks that upset the metal world) would sing;

I first produced my pistol and then produced my rapier. I said: "Stand and deliver or the devil he may take ya". Musha ring dum-a do dum-a da,Whack for my daddy-o, Whack for my daddy-o, There's whiskey in the jar-o.

The rest of the words to Whiskey In The Jar depend on whose singing the song - The Dubliners, The Grateful Dead, Thin Lizzy, or Metallica. What were the original words? Since it's thought that the song began somewhere in the 17th century, no one is exactly sure.

Everyone gets stinking drunk, except for Garda O'Shea (Coyle) who volunteered to stay sober to keep everyone safe. But the drunk marine ecologist decides he wants a 'selfie' of the monster and him for National Geographic (and Facebook - his words). He's right in that the monster can't eat him, but it does fling him for what looked like over a mile - and he's dead.

Miss Murder: Are you sure? Did you see the body?

Miss Mayhem: I have duct tape and I'm not afraid to use it. Next to go outside is a gentleman who doesn't want to wait in line for the bathroom.

Miss Murder: The Piss Of Death.

Miss Mayhem: Do we have to....

Miss Murder: THE PISS OF DEATH!!! Or at least it would have been, but he's rescued by the two Garda who've been in their vehicle watching the building. There apparently were a lot of eggs so now we have 'Attack Of The Killer CGI Babies'. Or, to be more graphic, big nasty slugs with round, teeth filled mouths.

Miss Mayhem: Even drunk and without the ecologist, they

figure the huge male is looking for his mate. Paddy makes a comment that the male must smell his mate near the building which is why he's there. O'Shea realizes that the female, who had spit on him also when the 'dead' thing had revived (until they bludgeoned it to death - again) so he 'smells' enough for the male to follow, determines to lead the thing to a construction site. 

Miss Murder: What could they possibly be constructing on a small fishing island? I mean the hole they're leading it to is freaking deep...

Miss Mayhem: Let me tell this, okay? Just take another pain pill. The male monster follows them to the site...

Miss Murder: (slurring words a little) Wait a sec, I remember something...

Miss Mayhem: Go lie down or something.

Miss Murder: No no - this is where I was bashing the CGI really good. See, they're in the pouring rain - I mean soaking wet rain with this huge monster which I know is mostly CGI...

Miss Mayhem: And?

Miss Murder: Well, look at it bit by bit. The shot of O'Shea and Nolan has pouring rain and them soaking wet. Then it cuts to the monster - wet, no rain. Back, rain. Back, no rain. Back, rain...

Miss Murder: I think there's a chocolate bar left in the fridge. Good girl. Now to finish: We get a tense finish as the plan to lure the monster onto a forklift (the idea being to keep it out of water and let the sun kill it) is a no go because there's no forklift - then O'Shea falls into the big hole and hurts his leg. The 'Grabber' jumps in to kill him - and is pinned to the earth as a drunken Nolan, who had found a large piece of equipment, drives it right into the hole on top of the monster, pinning it down and keeping it there.

It's not dead however, and grabs O'Shea again - but he was just given a bottle of the stuff Paddy's been making and it did not like it a bit. Nolan grabs the flare gun they had (with no weapons they were reduced to things like super soakers and household items) and shoots explosives that are conveniently left in the open at the bottom of the pit. After O'Shea gets out of the way of course.

Now it's morning and the two Garda are walking back to town. Then we see the beach, and at least five more monster eggs, one beginning to hatch.

I'm going to end this before Miss Murder finishes her candy bar.

❦❦❦ Miss Mayhem ❦ ❦ ❦

A STITCH IN TIME SAVES YOU... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT IT WILL COST YOU ABOUT 86 MINUTES...

Stitches (2012) UK/Ireland

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.

You all know what I hate worse than seeing a bad horror movie once, right? Seeing it twice, of course. BUT This movie had been described as a good horror/comedy movie, with each slaughter being inventive although I didn't see anything special. Okay guys, I'll take another look but I warn you, I'm still reeling from Hitler in a jar-o so I'm gonna be a bit picky. Get ready... But first, let's check the IMDb on Google shall we?

Huh. That movie sounds AWFULLY familiar... I'm thinking massively popular, there were three of them, its' star is still a total hottie... oh well. 

I wonder who the incredible idiot was who first thought that putting a man in horrid clothes with a ton of makeup on his face would be entertaining for little kids. Sit down Braveheart, I'm not talking about you. Although a painted Mel Gibson IS pretty freaking scary. Actually ANY sight of Mel Gibson is freaking scary. No, I'm talking about the ones with the real big red noses, the ones who get right in little kids' faces and FORCE them to laugh... or wet their pants, either one.



So. Richard Grimble (Ross Noble, a stand-up comedian in his first acting role - which he does surprisingly well) is a clown who goes by Stitches. He has an egg with his likeness because all clowns MUST have an egg in a jar-o (Oh God, flashbacks!) to keep in some mausoleum in one of those monk-chanting type ceremonies that this little boy can conveniently see from a telescope in his treehouse (apparently this town is so freaking small he can see EVERYTHING from it).


Here's your Hey-I-didn't-ask-why-are-you-telling-me lesson for today: The practice of painting each clown's face on an egg is REAL. I shite you not. This is thanks to a website The Straight Dope at  http://www.straightdope.com/ :

The tradition began in the U.K. around 1946 at what was then the International Circus Clowns Club but is now called Clowns International. A member named Stan Bult started recording clown images on chicken eggs with the insides blown out. Clown Bluey became chairman of Clowns International in 1984. This time a professional artist was used and the faces were painted on china-pot eggs instead of chicken eggs. Over the years, many of the lost older eggs have been reproduced, and new eggs are added frequently.

In the U.S. collection, the faces are eggs-pertly hand-painted on goose eggs (more durable than chicken eggs), and decorated with various materials (such as clay, wire, felt, tiny flowers, glitter, etc.) to obtain as accurate a representation of the clown face and costume as possible. The collection is meant to preserve the uniqueness of each clown's face makeup. Quoting from the Department of Clown Registry information sheet: "It is an unwritten law among clowns that one must never copy the face of another." 

Stitches isn't a great clown. He isn't even a really good one - he's shite (look it up). He shows up late for Tom's (the boy with the telescope) birthday party and tries his tricks but kids are really jaded and they mock him and mess with him instead. And since we know this is about a zombie clown who gets revenge on the ones who killed him, he gets his eye non-comically (which is hard for a clown) impaled on a large knife sticking up in an open dishwasher (because everybody leaves them open with sharp implements sticking up around small children).

Stitches dies after spurting a couple of gallons of fake blood all over the damn place. I am not exaggerating. Through the WHOLE MOVIE it tries to tell you that most of the body's blood supply is in the head. Duh. Nice effect of a knife through a split eye though. After a clown funeral (which Tom watches with that magic telescope - MAN that town is SMALL!) everyone pretty much forgets Stitches, who lies, nicely preserved in his grave. 'Cause his egg is still intact. Does that even make a lick of sense? No? Well, I must have the right movie then.

Because the movie says so, time fast forwards to Tom turning 17. He wants just a small party with his best buds - you know, the fellow clown-killers? But they have other ideas - and a huge party containing more people than are probably in the whole bloody town are going to show up - including a girl Tom liked as a kid when he watched her... say it with me... SAAAAAAY IT.... THROUGH HIS TELESCOPE.



Now I'm going to stop for just a moment... HEY GET BACK HERE YOU COWARD!!!!  A moment with something I noticed and thought it was a nice nod to Wes Craven. Either that or they couldn't think of something original so hey, copy copy copy away, right? Since Tom was traumatized by the clown incident, he is now on medication. That medicine is called Hypnocil. That sounded verrrry familiar so I looked it up and yup, it is what the kids in Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors AND Freddy vs. Jason were dosed with so that they wouldn't dream. Cute. Fake, but cute.

Bobo... umm, I mean Baggy Britches... dammit I mean Bozo... <grits teeth> I. Mean. Stitches. Stitches the clown comes back to life because, uh, because the movie says so. That's their story and they're sticking to it. With one eye stitched up (GET IT????) he decides to join the party. He still has his red clown nose which is good 'cause he now only has a hole where his nose used to be... sometimes. Most of the time it is VERY obvious that his nose is intact. Duh.

Totally random, just thought this was a cool shot...

Now I was going to make my usual sarcastic remarks and ream this film out for its stupidity but soooo many horror sources say these killings were soooo inventive that instead I'll go through the characters then and now because each killing is supposed to be inventive and ironic. Names are not necessary 'cause who cares, right? We just want blood and gore. This movie tries to rival Dead Alive (Braindead) in amount of blood and guts, but also in trying to make the gore funny.

Kill #1: Male bully - at the party he made fun at the clown when he tried to perform a trick. First he gets his ear ripped off. When he swings (with his right arm), he misses and turns around for another swipe (with his left arm, duh). Stitches pulls the arm out of the socket and... very bloody, very gory - or is it? 

Stop the frame when the socket is shown. The top is clearly a half circle of plastic that is either stapled or stitched (no pun intended) to the shirt and there is definitely some sort of pin holding the gore to the plastic (that's the wrong kind of gore for a shoulder socket anyway) so a B- effect goes down to a C-. 

Good effort, sloppy effects. Stitches messes with him some more before kicking off his head. The head flies off and lands in a pond, eyes wide open. 'Kay. But when the head resurfaces, the eyes are shut. Sigh.



Kill #2: Homosexual friend - at the party he flung a scoop of ice cream at Stitches. He loves to eat. He shuts himself in the pantry and eats can after can of strawberries in light syrup. Urp. Stitches opens up his skull with the can opener and scoops perfect little balls of brains into a bowl. Too bad they show one of the balls bounce when it hits the bowl. Rubber brains? Sure, why not. Oh and as the kid dies, for whatever reason these 21st century kids suddenly listen to and sing along to Cutting Crew's I Just Died In Your Arms. That was popular in the 80's guys. Sheesh.



Kill #3: Female bully - she flipped him off at the party. She's the only one who puts up a fight and impales his neck with a shoe heel. He pulls it out and she attempts to get away. He throws his umbrella and it impales itself through her skull, pinning her eye on the end and shoving it into the camera. If this had been 3D this would have been a perfect shot for it.



But. The eye is perfect and blue. No ganglia, no gore. The pupil constricts. Uh, no. Fail on that one. But wait - now she falls backwards, shoving the rest of the umbrella through her eye socket and tons more blood shoots out. Huh, no eyelashes. Weird. Also when the camera pans out, no blood except for a bit on her face. Huh. The perfect eye pops off the end of the umbrella and she swallows it. The dead can swallow? Huh. That part was the hubby's favorite movie trick of the week. The umbrella opens and she is saturated with black... guck. Black? Really? Did they run out of red already? Huh.

Should we even talk about the fact that the model they used when shoving the umbrella through had no eyelashes, or that the 'patch' job they did to make it look real was so bad that it looked like a teenager had fun with Photoshop? No? Enough? Okay, let's go on...

Kill #4: At the party this boy wanted a dinosaur shaped balloon animal. When Stitches made a dog, he popped it. Stitches now slashes the boy's stomach open, does a little taffy pull (lots of blood and gore) and slices himself a section of intestine (now clean and pink). He makes a balloon animal out of it. The boy, guts hanging at his feet, tries to run away.



Stitches isn't done with him yet. He takes his balloon pump, shoves it into the boy's skull and pumps. The boy protests and yells as his head looks like... you guys are probably too young to remember Big Trouble In Little China, huh? 'Cause boom goes the dynamite and his head blows - twice. Guess they wanted to get their money's worth. Sparks are visible from the charges they set to get such a big spray - all blood, no skull, brain or other icky stuff.

With three survivors, Tom realizes that the only way to splat this clown good once and for all is to smash Stitches' egg. 'Kay. They make their way through the cemetery and Tom goes into the mausoleum and finds... hundreds of glass cases with eggs in them. This was actually a pretty elaborate set, and since the egg was on the top shelf and Tom knocks the whole thing over but nothing breaks, each case must have been plexiglass or something.

But inevitably, the egg is smashed and so then is Stitches in a scene that somehow was grosser than all the blood, gore, and body parts in the rest of the movie. Finally his yolky body is spread all over and we fade out to...

Tom is moving - down the street. Wow. His now-girlfriend Kate gives him a bigger telescope so he won't miss her bedroom which we assume not only can see the entire town, but can also see around corners, buildings, and whatever else is in the way of her bedroom window.

Meanwhile the high poobah of clowns is busy with brush and glue carefully putting Stitches' egg back together. Well, they couldn't afford all the King's horses and all the King's men... ahem. Sorry about that. We're done here.

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