Blog Archives
Heroes and Villains – Reviewing Recent Comics 6-21-2017
This time on Heroes and Villains, we’ll be looking at a variety of comics out this week and last, from a variety of genres. Meet me after the jump for my thoughts on Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny #1, Dark Days: The Forge #1, Bill & Ted Save the Universe #1, Black Hammer #10, Victor LaValle’s Destroyer #2, Red Agent: The Human Order #8, Plastic #3, Kong of Skull Island #12, Empowered #10, Spencer & Locke #1-3, and Bug! The Adventures of Forager #1-2 from the Allreds… This is another loaded week, so who needs Secret Empires when we have so many other cool things to check out, be warned, there may be spoilers…
Doctor Who S09 E01: The Magician’s Apprentice
It’s been ten months since The Doctor and The Master/Missy/Mistress crossed swords last, and other than a few minutes last night, and a holiday adventure with Santa Claus, we “Doctor Who” fans have been waiting for the new season, series nine, to begin. Finally here, meet me after the time and space jump for my thoughts on “The Magician’s Apprentice.”
Guardians of the Galaxy S01 E01: Road to Knowhere
We’ve talked about this before, and finally it’s happened, the “Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy” animated series is finally here. With the success of the movie, Marvel has done what is only natural and produced this animated series. So meet me after the jump and we’ll talk about the first episode about Marvel’s favorite renegade space heroes. Spoilers ahead!
David Sandford Ward travels to Hell in Clive Barker’s The Scarlet Gospels
The Cenobite bites it. The Order of the Gash lays smashed and shattered upon a mound of bones and blood, confined forever to a sea of dust and ash. This is the worst-kept secret about this novel, which has been under discussion and hinted about for decades: Pinhead dies. I can understand Barker’s choice to do this; he’s quite literally killing his darlings.
Touted as Barker’s “much-anticipated return to horror” (a comment, by the way, that also found its way on to the jacket of his last novel for adults, Mister B. Gone – perhaps it was due to a change in publisher?), The Scarlet Gospels is the closing chapter in the lives of two of Barker’s longest-lasting creations: Pinhead and Harry D’Amour. Admittedly, Harry doesn’t have quite the same cultural resonance as the BDSM angel of death from Hellraiser, but he’s a contemporary of, if not older than, Pinhead. D’Amour first made an appearance in Barker’s novella The Last Illusion (found at the end of The Books of Blood VI and later adapted by Barker for the screen as The Lord of Illusions, starring Scott Bakula as D’Amour), and then he crops up again in Everville, the Second Book of the Art. Pinhead, on the other hand, and despite the innumerable excrescences that comprise the Hellraiser sequels, only appears in one Barker story: The Hellbound Heart and its film, Hellraiser. Read the rest of this entry
Biff Bam Pop Interview: Ron McKenzie talks to SPRING’s Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
Horror Cinema has been experiencing a rennaisance as of late, with indies such as THE BABADOOK and IT FOLLOWS being prime examples of this “new blood” transfusion. Now, we can add SPRING to the list of genre trailblazers.
The sophomore effort by writer/director duo, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (and the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2012 debut, RESOLUTION ), SPRING details the whirlwind romance between Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Louise (Nadia Hilker). Evan is an American ex-pat, dealing with grief and a personal emotional tailspin. Louise is a genetics student dealing with … well, secrets of her own. Deep, dark monstrous secrets. With brilliant practical special FX by Masters FX, bolstered by the solid performances and red-hot chemistry between Pucci and Hilker as well as the sumptuous and eerie beauty of Italy, SPRING is a rare beast in every sense of the word. Weaving horror, sci-fi and romance into a cohesive and fascinating whole that’s been described as “Before Sunrise, as re-imagined by Clive Barker.” A good-enough description for a film that defies comparisons. There’s been a lot of hype for SPRING. I’m happy to report that it’s completely warranted.
I had the chance to sit down with Benson and Moorhead in advance of last Friday’s premiere screening, to talk about SPRING’s genesis, the search for their film’s young lovers, mythology and monsters. Read the rest of this entry
Livin’ In The 80s : The Nerdy Wonder Years
Our genre interests are shaped in those formative teen years. For better or worse, they influence our movie viewing for the rest of our lives, and we always come back to these cinematic touchstones for comfort, for reassurance.
Go take a look at your movie library. Take stock of the titles on your shelf. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Done? Good. Now, I’ll wager easy money that at least 80 percent of the titles in your collection are films that you watched between the ages of 14 and 19. This isn’t an exact science, I’m making a best-range guesstimate here, but chances are…I’m right. Because that’s the lay of the land when it comes to MY library. The things we collect and keep often act as a time capsule for our wonder years.
And for me, that time period was The 80s.
31 Days of Horror 2014 – Clive Barker’s Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut (2014)
In March of 1990, I had just recently turned 13 years old. I was on a family trip to Houston to visit some friends of my father, but for me, the most important thing to accomplish this trip, aside from studying for my imminent Bar Mitzvah, was finding a movie theatre that was showing Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. The film had been rated R in Canada, which meant nobody under 18 was allowed to see it (screw you, Big Brother!). On one of our final nights, Dad (ill at the time), his friend and me schlepped to some out of the way movie theatre, where the film was still playing. Walt, my Dad’s friend, hates horror movies, so he opted to see Look Who’s Talking, while we went and sat through Clive’s monster movie equivalent of Star Wars. Having read both the original novel, Cabal, and the Epic Comics adaptation, I was psyched to see the creatures of Midian come to life. And when they did, I thoroughly enjoyed. Admittedly, I was also thrilled to be seeing a film some watchdogs seemed to think I wasn’t ready for (up yours, Big Brother!). However, my enjoyment was slightly curtailed as the film’s conclusion, when I asked Dad if he liked it.
“No,” he scoffed. “It wasn’t even scary.”
Not scary! Not scary! What do you mean, not scary. It was…it was….
Look, Dad had a point, ok. Even if I loved it.
David Ward On Coil’s Tainted Love
I’m here to speak about a cover of a cover of a cover: “Tainted Love”. The song was originally released in 1965 by American singer Gloria Jones, but it failed to achieve mainstream success (or even hit the charts despite a re-release in 1976) until English duo Soft Cell re-recorded their new wave dance cover in 1981. They’re certainly not the first band to achieve massive success off the strength of a cover, whether or not it was their first hit (Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, The Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn”, Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog”, etc.), and they certainly won’t be the last (Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams of This”, Whitney Huston’s “I Will Always Love You”, Johnny Cash’s “Hurt”, etc.). Covers aren’t going away; they’re a mainstay in the music industry.
You might think I’m here to talk about Marilyn Manson’s 2001 cover of “Tainted Love” (a brief respite in a trite performer’s decline into mediocrity) – nope. I’ve instead brushed the dust off some ancient CDs and dug out my copy of Coil’s 1985 cover of the Jones-cum-Almond/Ball smash hit.
While far more reminiscent of the Soft Cell version than the Jones original, Coil’s lament is simply unnerving as it twists the dance-pop hit into a gothic-post-industrial dirge.
Apocalypse November: Swan Song
Earlier this month, Biff Bam Pop!’s own Marie Gilbert wrote about Stephen King’s apocalyptic opus, The Stand. That is one of my favorite books, and its comparison to another book got me interested in the works of another king of suspense, and his magnum opus of the world after a terrible disaster. After the jump, I’ll tell you about Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon.
31 Days of Horror: Surviving Nightbreed
I was (and still am) a huge Clive Barker fan. I devoured his “Books of Blood” as they came out. I saw Hellraiser on opening night. And so of course I also saw Nightbreed the night it was released. I remember it was pretty good. I remember it had a guy in it that looked like Mac Tonight. And I remember that it scared me, really scared me – scared me enough that I’ve never watched it again. Here I go again, I give the film another shot, after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry
