Oh wow, even though enthusiastically following the progress of the Russian scientists located at Lake Vostok in Antarctica for the past year, I still gotta admit I was actually kinda creeped out by the latest claims that the more than a million-years-old bacteria found in the lake is a completely new life form! Of course it’s on one hand super-cool they’ve found a species who’s DNA only matches other life forms by 86% – literally making it alien to us – ’cause it goes to prove that yes, life in itself can survive some pretty grim conditions, making moons around planets like Jupiter and Saturn potential homes of ‘something.’ Still, I am freaked out by this.
Why? Well, to put it short this sucker hasn’t been active on this planet for a million years, meaning than nothing that walks the Earth right now has any immunity resistance to it whatsoever. The life forms that did died out a long time ago. And let’s not forget that the sole purpose of bacteria is to fuck shit up uh, break down decayed organic matter. So even though I’m confident the scientists are handling this material with the utmost care, it’d still only take one ‘whoops!’ to release Chainsaw Sally and get the proverbial Armageddon going.
Oh well. We’ll see how this story develops. Still got me thinking of John Carpenter‘s The Thing though. Let’s hope the movie doesn’t turn out to be prophetic.
The Rat Pack meets alien attack in the brilliant John Carpenter‘s The Thing: The Musical! Created by Jon and Al Kaplan that gave the world Conan: The Musical this comes complete with lyrics so you can swing, baby, swing while The Thing, uh, does its thing I guess. I love stuff like this. Ever seen the footage of Tom Hanks doing the Transformers ThemeFrank Sinatra style?
Please note that the trailer offers some pretty graphic sequences.
Via Eva Halloween I found the second red band trailer for the 2013 remake of Evil Dead. And I gotta admit, for someone who turns into Angry Old Fart way too many times for comfort when it comes to this phenomenon, the trailer looks great! They certainly didn’t skimp on the gore, there certainly are gonna be scenes at least as intense (and with a bit of luck even more) as the original, and even though I think some of the male characters, well, look like wimps, I’m waiting ’til I’ve seen it before I go whining about “bad casting”. Sure, the dub step music is a bit of a turn off, but I doubt today’s 18-year-olds are as big on The Ramones as me.
Now, I know there are some “original, real fans” out there – and just out of curiosity, how would you distinguish a “fake one”? – who sees it differently and sure are spending a lot of time grumbling and trolling about this, but c’mon, does this look like a cheap Hollywood knock-off to you? If the producers wanted to make a quick buck out of this franchise they would’ve gutted it completely! If you’re such a great fan (and have that much free time to spend), treat yourself to a game and pop in your original VHS while taking notes of all the commercial no-nos it offers. Remember that this was released unrated back in the 80s because the MPAA frankly wanted to pretty much neuter it, and when it was resubmitted in 1994 it received an NC-17 “for substantial graphic horror violence and gore.“ Remove all that and what would you have left of the original concept? I’ll tell you: A bunch of stupid teenagers going to a remote cabin. The end.
Just like the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre or The Exorcist, what blew me away with Sam Raimi‘s horror debut was that it was just one long, uncompromising and exhaustingly horrific experience that just kept pummeling you silly for 90 minutes, and when it finally ended you were actually relieved it was over! Now, even though it offers spoilers Ain’t It Cool News offered a script analysis in February 2012 (check it out here, but as I said, there are spoilers) and sums it up “it reads like NC-17″ and calls it a “beast” – not words commonly used when talking about anemic remakes, and pretty reaffirming if you ask me! If still in doubt we’ve got script writer Diablo Cody‘s making comments like it’s “unbelievably violent” and “It was really important again to the filmmakers that it remain totally grounded in reality and timeless. They weren’t trying to make some hip trendy horror movie full of pop culture references” (check that one out here) and you’ll at least know it looks killer on paper. And if nothing else they at least are trying to avoid the typical “ironic” approach so common in horror and remakes. Add the fact that ‘Mr. Groovy’ himself Bruce Campbell have offered statements reassuring fans that neither he, Sam, or Robert Tapert were out for a quick money grab – you really think they need it after the Spider-Man trilogy? – and that they have the highest confidence in both cast and director, well, I for one am pretty assured about the end results.
So, long story short, judging by the new snippets found in this compared to the first trailer I wrote about here, plus the additional arguments offered here, this looks even more like a highly intense remake that once again will scare the crap outta you. I mean, Tom Savini made a great remake of Night of the Living Dead, John Carpenter made a killer job with The Thing, and don’t forget David Cronenberg‘s amazing (and genuine reboot!) of The Fly, so the occasional good remake actually does happen. And to me this has so far the signs of actually being another one. My birthday is in April and I am so treating myself to a movie ticket!
Well, here’s a nice little clip I stumbled across: Evil Dead II – the claymation! For all of you that enjoyed the Pingu version of John Carpenter‘s The Thing (personally I found that version way better than the 2011 remake), director/animator Lee Hardcastle offers up tons more of short and funny reimaginations including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Robo With a Shotgun and Shaun of the Dead.
He recently visited Sweden as a guest at the Lund’s International Fantastic Film Festival (giving a Q&A), and you can see that and much, much more on his official website here and his YouTube channel here. I wrote about the Pingu claymation here.
Well, here’s a nice slice of pop culture history: Fear on Film, a roundtable discussion produced by Universal Studios featuring directors John Carpenter, John Landis and David Cronenberg - who were all working with the studio at the time. Intended to be used as a promotional tool, I think this is just a fascinating time slice as Carpenter was working on The Thing, Landis had just finished An American Werewolf in London and Cronenberg was about to begin Videodrome. Three parts in total, check them out!
This is so cool! I found Michael Granberry‘s animated short film From Beyond on YouTube and it’s great. Being a total nerd for all things H.P. Lovecraft it was nice to see this staying pretty true to the original short story with the same name. Now, Michael has done some pretty nice work including stop-motion and music videos so check it out on his official website here and From Beyond can be found on Lurker Films‘ collection Strange Aeons available here.
Speaking of From Beyond – in 1986 Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna unleashed their genre masterpiece based on the same short story. Starring Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) it got some pretty amazing special effects rivaled only by those created by Rob Bottin for The Thing. Check out the trailer and if you haven’t seen it – DO!
Well, I wrote about this “fanfilm” earlier, but as we all noticed some people just don’t have a sense of humor, so of course it was removed from YouTube. Yes, the Pingu version of John Carpenter‘s damn classic remake of The Thing is perfectly executed and funny as well – in fact, it’s way better than the 2011 prequel/remake!
Speaking of the original remake (how’s that for a weird phrase making it into our vocabulary?), Carpenter’s 1982 movie might not have been an initial box office success – audiences preferred the cutesy E.T. when it came to aliens – but once that baby hit the video shelves it became a cult classic! Dark, paranoid, somewhat nihilistic and with amazing special effects courtesy Rob Bottin (who actually worked so hard on it he was hospitalized for exhaustion) that knocked viewers flat on their asses. Easily available on DVD there’s some beefy 2-disc special editions out there with tons of bonus material, so if you haven’t seen this – DO!
Well, I recently saw the new re-make of The Thing and I gotta admit, the Pingu version is way better. Nothing wrong with Hollywood’s obsession with depicting the every day man’s struggle against expensive computer graphics, but sometimes a guy just wanna watch real flames, see some Karo suryp splattered on the walls and OD on classic Old School latex effects.
