Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Riley One Shot
Acclaimed Buffy television writer Jane Espenson is back with answers to one of the surprising twists she and executive producer Joss Whedon introduced in the hit story arc “Retreat”!
In the midst of the battle, Buffy’s former flame, the demon fighting soldier Riley Finn, seemingly in league with Twilight, was revealed as a double agent working for the Slayer army. Now Espenson and artist Karl Moline (Fray, Willow) uncover the secrets of Riley’s recruitment by Buffy, his infiltration of Twilight’s inner circle, and what’s become of him and his superspy wife, Sam.
This essential one shot delivers thrilling spy adventure and is filled with major revelations for the story of Buffy Season Eight!
Fuckin’ Riley.
Me and my friends who watched Buffy hated him so bad that it was requisite and mandatory to prepend the word “Fuckin’” to Riley’s name every time you were unlucky enough to have need to utter it.
Riley is a needy little bitch whose whiny pussy presence is the one thing that threatens to tarnish the absolute perfection of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Hush”, which is probably my favorite Buffy episode of all time. And I wouldn’t have to say “probably” if Riley weren’t in it.
Even if this one-shot turns out to be crushingly crucial to the Buffy ‘verse, even if it turns out to be the best one-shot in the history of comic books ever, I’ll never know because I refuse to read it.
Fuckin’ Riley.
Out of the Dark
The phone sex line was for fantasy… now it’s for murder!
I was surfing On-Demand the other night to find a free horror movie to watch, lazily buttoning around in my usual lackluster manner… until I happened upon Out of the Dark. I could barely believe my eyes: cult stars Karen Black, Budd Cort and frickin’ Divine starring in a film about a slasher in a clown mask with a taste for phone sex girls! Where has this movie been all my life?!
I pressed play and settled back into the lazy boy with a big shit-eating grin on my face. Within the first few minutes some lady’s bare jugs were bouncing across my flat panel TV in larger-than-life-size glory, and I felt like I had struck cheesy horror B-movie gold.
Bobo is one seriously messed up clown, a few rings short of a three ring circus. He’s into self-mutilation and talking dirty, slicing his nipples in masochistic masturbatory bliss while making regular death threats over the phone to the sex girls at “Suite Nothings”. The ladies get a little creeped out, but not too bad… until one by one, they begin meeting grisly deaths!
The first half hour was awesome, but then I started noticing that the killings were a little, well, dead. Not very creative, and not very gory. Downright boring, to be honest. Then Karen Black mysteriously disappeared about halfway through the movie, which didn’t help at all. It was kind of like the writer just plain forgot her character existed. Bud Cort turned in a cheesy but very brief appearance. And Divine was onscreen for only a few moments, playing a startlingly straight role. I learned later that this was Divine’s last role before his untimely passing, which is a little sad.
My initial excitement was slowly getting strangled to death like one of the doomed phone sex girls until it finally breathed its last breath during the last 30 minutes of the movie, which sadly devolves into clichés like “They got the wrong guy!” and “Boo! I’m not actually dead!”. All in all, what started out as a pleasant surprise that I felt lucky to stumble across ended up stumbling unpleasantly, which isn’t very surprising given how obscure this film has managed to remain despite its B-movie star-power. Maybe if I was one of those unlucky folks who are truly terrified of clowns I would have liked this one better…
“High School of the Dead” coming to North America
Sentai Filmworks has announced the acquisition of the 12-episode anime series High School of the Dead, which is based on the ultra-violent shonen manga series by Tetsuro Araki. The anime series, which is being produced by Madhouse (Death Note, Ninja Scroll), follows a group of Japanese high school students who have to take on hordes of flesh-eating zombies. Sentai will release High School of the Dead in North America in both English dubbed and subtitled versions.
Meanwhile the Anime Network is planning to simulcast subtitled episodes of High School of the Dead, which is being directed by Tetsuro Araki (Death Note, Black Lagoon). The episodes will be available via the Anime Network official Website’s online player. The series debuts in Japan on July 5th, and the first episode will be available on the Anime Network site at 12 AM (midnight Sunday) Central Daylight Time. Subsequent episodes will be streamed at 10 PM (CDT) on Sundays.
Alyssa Milano – Charmed, Embrace of the Vampire
Alright, this one’s easy. No, no, I don’t mean Alyssa Milano is easy. (Though wouldn’t it be nice if she was). I just mean its a no-brainer to include her in my incredible collection of horror babes. After all, she’s in the top 2 out of 3 hotties on my favorite show to watch with the volume turned off: Charmed
After warming up with Charmed on mute, I finish my workout by popping in Embrace of the Vampire
Sars Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis
The next SARS outbreak will be drastically worse due to a mutation in the virus that turns infected people into flesh craving zombies! With the world in the deadly grip of a global epidemic Thailand is proud to proclaim that they are the only virus free nation in Asia. However the virus manages to infiltrate Thailand’s quarantine and spread quickly through an apartment building. As the number of infected continues to rise its up to a sword wielding hero to venture into the building and battle the undead.This movie has it all! Hot schoolgirls wielding axes? Check! Zombie babies? Check! Giant zombie snake? Check! Zombie ravers? You betcha! A zombie comedy in the in the tradition of Shaun of the Dead starring Supakorn Kitsuwan (Tears of the Black Tiger) and Suthep Po-ngam (Killer Tattoo). This is the best Asian zombie film since Versus!
Me and my buddy Shipwreck Will just watched Sars Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis
Hellboy: The Storm #1
A terrible storm is brewing, bodies are missing from their tombs, and the forces of darkness gather against Hellboy for a final bloody showdown.
Mignola and Fegredo reunite for the final arc of the bestselling saga that includes Hellboy: Darkness Calls and Hellboy: The Wild Hunt.
As we head into The Storm, Hellboy has a girlfriend, which is weird enough. He also has Excalibur, and may or may not be the true heir to the throne of England. But the prophecies hanging over his head this time, having to do with an army he has to lead to take down the Queen of Blood, are stranger, and far more imminent, than that whole Beast of the Apocalypse thing. Unless it’s all one…
Like every other Hellboy fan I know, I would rather have Mike Mignola doing the art than the writing. Let’s be honest, while he is an interesting writer, its his unique and instantly recognizable artistic style that best brings the Hellboy universe to life. Just look at this cover. Nuff said.
But alas, Mike likes sticking to scripting these days, and so if someone has to do the art for him, it might as well be Duncan Fegredo. Duncan does an excellent job of keeping the same tone and feel without ripping off Mignola directly. The recipe is: 1) stick to simpler shapes, 2) make the shadows large, solid and black for maximum contrast, and 3) don’t mess around with gradient shading techniques like hatching or stippling (I’m looking at YOU, Richard Corben).
Get an up-close sneak-peek look at the first four pages of Hellboy: The Storm #1.
Jaime King – Sin City, The Tripper, My Bloody Valentine
While it’s not really a horror movie, any horror comic fan who isn’t a total loser has read (or at least knows about) Frank Miller’s Sin City
Jaime also stars in The Tripper
Cementing her status as a true horror babe, Jaime starred alongside the awesome Jensen Ackles in the 2009 remake of My Bloody Valentine
The Puppet Monster Massacre – red band trailer
I love puppets, I love monsters, I love massacres, and I love red band trailers. So imagine my horrorgasm when they all came together:
I don’t know much about this film other than its supposed to come out this fall, and that there is more info at thedustinmills.com, which is a pretty groovy little site with some cool photography, including nudie horror pics! Morbidementia approved, definitely worth checking out.
Buzzard #1
The mysterious man known as Buzzard is lost, wondering what manner of creature he is, following his brutal showdown with the loathsome Zombie Priest in Eric Powell’s celebrated Goon Year.
Buzzard leaves home, wandering into the shadowy spirit realm of the forest. A dark path leads to a village living in fear of a bestial race of savages. More animal than man, these creatures hunt the villagers and drag them from their slumber in the depth of night.
As a bonus, readers will delight in the new Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities short stories, which revive 2005 series that paired Eric Powell with artist Kyle Hotz and leads up to the three-issue series launch in September 2010.
I’ve been anxiously waiting for the first issue of Eric Powell’s Buzzard ever since it was announced. Buzzard is easily one of my favorite characters in the Goon universe. He is an atypical and unwilling anti-hero, an eerily gaunt old man with cloudy white eyes and a hunger for the flesh of zombies. What’s not to love?
Everything about this issue captures the sorrow and pain that Buzzard feels, from Dave Stewart’s drab grays and blues that show how colorless Buzzard’s world is to Eric Powell’s description of how Buzzard drifts through both time and place, utterly detached with no concept of time, place, or purpose… and unable to care about any of it.
The only thing Buzzard cares about is lifting the curse that has transformed him into an immortal zombie-eating zombie, whether by magic or by death. Despite his attempts at both, his curse remains, and he remains, undead and unable to die.
During his wanderings he comes across a village afflicted by marauding ape-monsters. For reasons he doesn’t understand, he attacks the monsters, murdering them in cold blood and hungrily devouring their flesh! The village folk are amazed by his heroic savagery and beg him to help them vanquish the ape-monster threat. They explain that the beasts are actually villagers who have been transformed by some unknown god, monster or spirit, and they want him to fight this unknown threat.
Buzzard accepts their request, not out of the goodness of his heart, but for his own selfish reason; he suspects that a being that powerful may just be able to do the one thing that no one else has been able to do… kill him, and bring an end to his eternal torment! And so he begins his quest…
This issue is a killer kick-off to this 3 issue series, be sure to check out the free preview to witness it yourself.
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
I just finished up the bonus disc of “Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
Freddy Krueger has always been my favorite of all the “slashers”. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I like Jason and Michael alright. But Freddy’s got style. He’s got character. He’s got personality… he doesn’t hide behind a mask all quiet-like, instead he puts his big ugly melted mug out there for the world to see, and he cracks enough one-liners to be last comic standing, (regardless of the fact that he killed all of the other stand-up comics so that he could win).
Unlike Jason and Michael, where you pretty much knew exactly what you were going to see before you even paid the price of admission, Freddy always had a trick up his red-and-green-striped sweater sleeve. Anything can happen in the world of dreams, and anything can happen in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. With the barriers of reality smashed to bits we were guaranteed some insane and nonsensical surprises… but the flip-side was that sometimes this gave the Nightmare directors the freedom to push it a little TOO far. For example, take the ass-snapping towel shower scene in “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge”. Hoo-boy. On second thought, take that whole movie while you’re at it. Intentional or not, it is possibly the most homoerotic horror movie in history, and its fun to see half the cast slyly admit during the interviews that they picked up on that fact, while the other half shakes their heads and wonders how they could have been so ignorant at the time. There are lots of good-natured jabs at the second Nightmare on Elm Street movie throughout the documentary, the cast and crew have a really good time with it.
Full disclosure: I’m accustomed to spending hours doing nothing but sitting on my fat ass, but a 4 hour documentary still usually feels like a 4 hour documentary. Not this one. The first disc is 240 minutes long, but it felt closer to your average feature film length. Things don’t seem to slow down until you get into hours 5 through 8 on the bonus disc, which I couldn’t watch in one sitting. Its lots of cool stuff, but only true Fred-Heads will be able to take it in all at once.
As one would hope with a run-time of 8 unholy hours, this documentary is comprehensive as ALL HELL. Its so chock full of Elm Street info that even the most hardcore Fred-Head is bound to learn something new. Now as much as I love the guy, I don’t consider myself to be a Fred-Head, so I was in for all kinds of surprises. Of all the behind-the-scenes stories, the ones I enjoyed most were the stories about the special effects mishaps… people getting electrocuted, people getting trapped and needing to be rescued, stuff like that. Good times.
I also really enjoyed the part where they discussed what happened when they toyed with the idea of not bringing Robert Englund back to reprise the role of Freddy in one of the sequels. They showed test footage of some guy they hired to try to play Freddy shambling around like some Boris Karloff wannabe while crew members admitted in the voice-over that it was a huge mistake. In a moment of candor, someone mentions that Robert Englund IS Freddy, and no one can replace him because he’s a true original character. Whether this was intended as a dig at the new Nightmare on Elm Street remake is left up to the viewer, but most fans will probably take it as one. I know I did!
There are brand new interviews with just about everyone involved with each and every Nightmare movie except for the really big shots, namely Johnny Depp and Patricia Arquette. Which is really sad, because both of these folks got their start in the Nightmare movies. Literally. It was their first movie ever. It really seems like they could have spared a few minutes for a documentary about the movies that kicked off their careers, but hey, I guess being super rich and famous keeps you busy.
Bottom line… Freddy fans, don’t pass this one up! If you think you’ve seen it all, or that you know it all, you’re dead wrong… “Learning is fun… with Freddy!”
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