Critical End!

Nothing quite says "Horrorfest" like a little reverse necrophilia.

To a horror nerd like myself, After Dark’s Horrorfest was nearly a dream come true.  Started in 2006, the concept alone had my money.  Fifty bucks at your local cineplex bought you a single ticket to see eight different indie horror films spread throughout the evening.  At the end of the night, everybody got to vote on their favorite, or so we were told.  I don’t recall ever voting for anything, but somehow a winner was always chosen.

And of course most of the films flat out sucked.  To this day the mere mention of The Final, Lake Dead, The Graves, or anything with Rider Strong is enough to trigger my gag reflex.  In fact, fifty bucks wasn’t much of a deal when you consider that what you really got was one great film, two okay ones, and five complete suckfests.  However, that single great film was always a nice find.  I still consider Reincarnation, The Broken, and the soon-to-be-remade Lake Mungo to be near perfect horror films.

Now it appears that after four years, Horrorfest is calling it quits.  I would assume that they were losing money, as there sure doesn’t seem to be a shortage of crappy horror films.  Add to that the fact that After Dark was bought up by SyFy Films, and perhaps all of this is good news.  Who would pay fifty bucks to see eight SyFy movies?  If anything, they should be paying me.

Oh well.  It was a good run.

Well, it’s Monday again, but don’t commit suicide just yet! First enjoy one of my favorites from last Friday’s batch of online April Fool’s gags. It’s from Telltale Games, makers of the recent/upcoming Back to the Future and Jurassic Park games we’ve talked about on the site. Enjoy!

Happy April Fool’s Day, kids!  To celebrate, here are some stories that should be jokes, but (as far as I know) are 100% true:

Arnold Schwarzenegger is teaming up with obviously bored comics giant Stan Lee to produce The Governator, a comic book/animated series starring Arnold as himself. Except in this version he quits politics to become a super strong action spy crimefighter, unlike the real world where he quit politics to do an embarrassingly self-aggrandizing comic book/animated series. Now, this news COULD be a joke perpetrated by Entertainment Weekly, but so many sites have reported it as true, that I decided to jump on the bandwagon. Mostly so I could post another clip of Stan Lee’s last infamous collaboration with a celebrity:

In other famous person team-up news, here’s a story that’s been kicking around for awhile, but has seen a recent resurgence: Stephen King and John (Sexy Cougar) Mellencamp are working on a musical called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. Have we learned NOTHING from Spider-Man, people? If you’re doing a musical, get someone who writes musicals, not a washed up rock star. Although, I have to admit I’d love to see Ringo Starr do a modern stage adaptation of the Paul Bunyan story. I think it might go a little something like this:

Finally, James Cameron has revealed his next big innovation in filmmaking: using more film. Cameron’s convinced that shooting film at higher frame rates will blow audiences away. Sure, more frames per second adds up to a clearer picture and smoother movement (see modern videogames which almost all average more than cinema’s 24fps), but I still find it funny that the guy who taught us that action films could have decent scripts (Terminator, Aliens) has completely abandoned story in favor of visuals. “MORE PICTURES! DELIVERED FASTER TO YOUR BRAIN! WHAT DO YOU MEAN AVATAR WAS DERIVATIVE? IT WAS SO PRETTY!”

Have a good weekend!

Warner Borthers Executive #1: We need a teaser poster for our final Harry Potter film.  Ya know, something sexy for the ladies!
Warner Brothers Executive #2: Something that’ll get those Twilight tweens in the seats!
Warner Brothers Executive #3: I know just the thing! Picture this: Two of the film’s sexiest stars, about to lock lips…
Warner Brothers Executive #4: I’ve got it!

Warner Brothers Executive #3: It gets me wet just thinking about it!

Another helping of raspberry...TOM?

At least that seems like the most likely explanation for the copious amounts of photoshopped red goo around the characters’ mouths, considering the absence of any apparent lip wounds.  Of course there are other possibilities…

• Harry and Voldemort magically switch bodies.  Voldemort puts a bunch of lipstick on Harry to make everyone thing he’s a nancy.
• Harry convinces Voldemort that he just needs to learn to be human again.  Wacky montage ensues in which Voldemort cuts himself shaving.
• Turns out the climactic last horcrux is at the bottom of a vat of strawberry Quick.

We’ll just have to wait for July to find out!  IN 3D.

Is it weird that when I finally got around to watching the trailer to Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers I fully expected to see both Mila Jovovich flying through the air and zombies?  Needless to say, the trailer delivered on one of these things (I still secretly hope the ResEvil zombies will show up in the final act). 

The weird thing is, this doesn’t look half bad.  Sure, it does have flying ships, ninjas, and Orlando Bloom, so granted, it doesn’t look half good either, but we seem to have all of the makings of a great guilty pleasure.

Thoughts?

I’m a big fan of The Venture Bros. on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup of programming.  Other than Robot Chicken, it’s the only Adult Swim cartoon I still watch.  The fourth season blu-ray just came out, and having already secured it and quickly wolfed down every morsel of its content, let me assure you that it is a worthy purchase indeed.  And the blu-ray really is the way to go.  The animation is gorgeous in high def.

But that’s not why I’m writing today.  Series co-creator Jackson Publick announced on his blog that not only has the show been renewed for two more pulse-pounding seasons, but a 90 minute TV movie is on the way as well.  That’s huge news, and frankly, a load off my mind, since every show I like gets cancelled after a few seasons, especially quirky niche shows like Venture Bros.

The finale of season four opened up a lot of interesting possibilities, and it’s great that they’ll have at least two more seasons to explore them.  One of my favorite things about the show is that the creators don’t just reset the status quo every episode.  Characters grow and change, taking full advantage of the serial nature of television.  A welcome surprise from a comedy cartoon that first appeared to be a straight forward parody of Johnny Quest, but has grown into an amazingly well-written show that tackles love, failure, growing up, and even death while still remaining funny and packed full of 60s throwback action.

So kudos to you, Team Venture.  Here’s to many more seasons of hilarity, heartbreak, and of course, adventure.

It would appear that there is a God after all.  Look like I owe that crazy religious fanatic on the corner of Broad and 3rd a Coke.  Join me in rejoicing as we all celebrate the following news:

Disney has dropped all plans for the Robert Zemeckis mo-cap remake of Yellow Submarine.  While I would like to think that this is because somebody at Disney sent out a memo that said, “Wait a minute, guys.  I just realized that the whole thing is fucking retarded”, the truth is more likely the fact that Mars Needs Moms, which Zemeckis produced, is on it’s way to being one of the biggest bombs in recent Disney history. 

Bob Zemeckis, let this be your wake up call.  We all miss your live action films.  You were brilliant.  This whole mo-cap things is, quite frankly, somewhat scary.  Even if it is the wave of the future, as you’ve said time and time again, I don’t think we’re ready for it.  Hell, most of us still haven’t come around to George Lucus’ new Star Wars additions, and those started in the ’90’s.  So, do us all a favor and relax, take some time away from the cruel online blog folks (CE! excluded, of course!  We’re your one stop source for sexy entertainment news!), and start thinking about that next live-action film, or series, that we all know you have saved up in that cute noggin’ of yours.

Zemeckis can see the future with his patented Zemec Specs!

Have a great weekend. 

via CHUD

In happier times.

If you look back through the site, you’ll see how excited I was about Hatchet II.  That excitement reached it’s height when AMC pulled the film from all of it’s theaters a few days into it’s theatrical run.  What was so bad-ass about this movie that it couldn’t even be shown in theaters?  They had me.  I bought the DVD the day it hit the shelves (something Irarely do without having seen the film first), and quickly settled in for the amazing holy grail of horror films that would be Hatchet II.

Final thoughts: Eh.

Not only did most of the sequel seem to throw out everything that made the first film so funny, scary, and original, but it also screamed of being shot on video and just overall cheap.  Not to mention that the re-casting of heroine Marybeth was much more distracting that it should have been.  So, yes, I was let down.  But was I ready for another sequel?  Hell, I was already on Fandango trying to pre-order my tickets.

And now Adam Green says it’s going to happen and I fully support him on this.  I always said that Hatchet would work best as a 80’s-ish horror franchise, and I know Green agrees.  Let’s just hope that he cleans up some of the mess he made with Hatchet II.

This episode is 87 steps ahead of you…if you haven’t listened to the first 86 episodes. REVIEWED: Limitless. PLUS: More fun with hypothetical scenarios!

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Depending on how you look at it, I either had nothing to post today or only THE BEST THING EVER.

via Trailers from Hell

…at least that’s what I assume he decided to do halfway through developing Wonder Woman for television. And I think he’s really got something here. Adrianne Palicki only MOSTLY looks like some nerd took a nude photo of her from Playboy and photoshopped his fantasy on top of it.

Here’s a sneak peak of the sense-shattering first episode!

This episode is gonna keep its sheep suit on / Until it’s sure that you’ve been shown / That it can be trusted walking with you alone. / Owoooooooo! REVIEWED: Red Riding Hood. PLUS: Vagina blood.

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Remember this business? Well now we’ve got a teaser:

So look. It’s VERY anime. And normally I’m not into that. Granted the original Thundercats was anime too, but 80s anime occupies a different, more loved spot in my conscious. At any rate, as much as I might normally turn away from this, my heart actually quickened a bit. For some reason, just seeing Wilykit and Wilykat jumping around, Tygra going all invisible, and Cheetara spinning that bo staff brought back so many awesome memories that I just have to believe the creators of the reboot have latched on to what made the original great. I’ll definitely give this show a chance. And when it fails me horribly, you’ll read about it here.

[Via Screened]