Hey, gang! The only thing we like more than occasional brutality is constant brutality. Check out this great video we spotted on Youtube. Pull out your check lists and see if we’ve got it all covered– knife, tire iron, chainsaw, ax, newspaper. Some of you may be asking, what about guns? To which we reply, “Wimp.” If you need a gun to kill a train station full of psychotic lunatics, just go back to prep school and grow a pair.
On top of the kudos from Doc and Gruesome of 5 Minute Horror, we also have an award from Comic-Con attributed to this fine short piece. Hang out and wait for the end– there’s a nice bit there. Actually, the entire movie is amply littered with bits, some nice and some not so nice, strewn across the screen. Like we said, it’s a good movie. Enjoy!
A 5 Minute Horror Blog
Hey, Gang! Here’s a video we spotted on YouTube, and we just couldn’t take our eyes off it. The only thing more infectious than the bite of a zombie is– this video. Enjoy, and keep running!
Let’s check in on an average couple as they deal with the reality of 5 Minute Horror!
We’re going to skip a bit here, just because this genre is so friggin’ topical. It includes America’s current favorite horror genre—Zombies! “Zombieland” hit #1 at the box office last weekend, to the shock of the people who thought the Vince Vaughn romantic comedy would be more “commercial.” When will they learn?
Zombies have captured the imagination of our generation. Formerly shambling, brainless corpses, there was little reason to fear them, apart from the fact that, ew, they’re dead. They couldn’t catch up to you if you ran. They didn’t have the intelligence to work a door knob or a car. They just ate whatever brains happened to wander in their paths, which, by definition, were very small brains. They tended to overwhelm by sheer volume. Thousands of zombies would compete for five live morons who thought it might be a good idea to stay put in a clapboard house and let the zombies surround it, rather than race off in a car. Did we mention they were slow?
Now we have re-imagined the zombie nightmare. They are fast and vicious, although no smarter than before, more like hyenas then the brain-eating cows of an earlier, more innocent era. And you and me, the American public—we kick their ass!
This began in Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” where after an hour of pointless intellectual discussion, the gun-toting rednecks took to the streets and picked off the zombies one by one. Now, in “Zombieland,” (spoiler alert—I haven’t seen it.) killing zombies becomes mass entertainment. We experiment with ways to violently dispose of these single-minded creatures. “Mr. Owl—How many swings will it take to knock this fucker’s brains out of his left eye socket? One. Ta-hoo-hoooo… Three…”
There used to be two societal fears related to zombies; one, that they would kill you, and two, that you would become a zombie yourself. The infection would destroy your individuality, make you kill the ones you loved. Those fears still exist, but they have been eclipsed by the sheer, exuberant joy of having an easy, evil target to wail on. We have finally found an acceptable vessel for our anger and rage. Zombies are our Osama bin Laden substitute.
I hate to be the wet blanket here. I know that every society needs some sort of outlet for its darker urges, and zombie fiction is more humane than most. Zombies are not human, but have turned into soulless plankton in human form.
But as we thrill to the sight of an eight-year-old girl sawing off the head of a zombie, smiling as the brackish fluid coats her ringlets, we should ask ourselves—what have we turned into?
More on infection at a later time. Meanwhile—keep screamin’!
CS
Hey, Gang! I’m exhausted. I’ve been to the movies. I’m emotionally and physically beat up, from the Cineplex… no, no, I wasn’t attacked by a bunch of hormonal teenagers. I was assaulted by the movie I was watching.
It’s getting tougher to get through a feature of Saw, Hostel and Rest Stop. They’re not movies as much as they’re exercises in how much carnage, sexual abuse and grim depictions of torture one can stand.
The question is this: Are these films entertainment, or porn? Let me say right up fromt, I enjoyed the first two Saw movies. I thought they were inventive and scary. Cabin Fever had a grisly horror quality that aided its low-budget markings. But Hostel’s title was right on the mark. It was a mean, nasty movie that was a collection of sex scenes, gore and revenge scenes. There wasn’t anybody to care about in the film. Now, it was well directed, shot, edited… but does that make it entertainment?
Why write Hostel? It’s a euro-urban legend. Okay, I get that! Then why? It’d be cool to show the gore? The sexualization of the women? The sadism of the butcher? At the end of the film, we learn what? The cautionary tale is what? We, as viewers, gained what?
Grossing us out is becoming tougher and tougher. The body parts, hackings, incisions, hatchets, near naked girls, manic killers, creeps, amplified sounds andmusic are all assaults on our senses. Is it entertaining?
We sit in a dark theater and peek at the carnage on the screen. We all like to view a traffic accident. It’s seeing something horrifying, but torture porn horror is just… exhausting. I need a nap.
Larry Talbot
Hey, Gang! I’m sitting in my favorite Starbucks and wondering about the movie-going experience. Why isn’t it as fulfilling as it should be? As I sip my mocha frappa-dappa drink, I’ve come to this conclusion. Movie studios don’t give a shit about us! They want our dollars… They just don’t care if our movie-going experience was fun or not.
Now economic times being what they are, I can understand a little reluctanceto spend more money on marketing a movie. Here’s the question, gang. Money well spent is the key.
Back in the day (I’m talking the mid 50s and early 60s) a filmmaker, like Roger Corman and William Castle , “knew” their audience. Made movies for them, put ‘em out there for the fans. What did this mean? The movie’s birth was by way of Roger Corman coming up with a terrifying poster of a sea beast and a shapely girl. In bold letters… “It came from the ocean to mate with her.” He then commissioned a writer or writers to fashion a script. He cast it, shot it, and then… This is the most telling part. He put the movie in the community of teenagers. (Second run movie houses and drive ins.) Did they always deliver the goods? No, some of the efforts were weak. (Sometimes the posters promised more than they delivered, but they were always fun. Had a spirit to them that is lacking today.)
When you went to see a William Castle film, it was always an event. He had many gimmicks connected with his film (to draw people out of their homes and stop ‘em from watching… television.) In The Tingler , he had several seats in the theater gigged with a small “shock” charge. When the Tingler was loose in the theater, the lights went out and you got a shock from The Tingler . (Get it?) I happen to be one of the kids who got shocked. I ran out of my seat and up the aisle for the exit.
Another Willliam Castle gem was for a Psycho rip-off called Homicidal . At the climax of the movie he has the screen go black. A voice (I think it was Mr. Castle) told us if we can’t take the terror and suspense… we could go to the box office and get our money back. Of course, who would sit through a whole movie, and when you get to the big reveal, go home? We wanted to “see” the big surprise, so we stayed. It was brilliant showmanship. (I think it was called “heart attack insurance.” If you cashed it in, you got your money back.)
Hitchcock had the “Nobody enters after the film begins,” plus “Don’t tell your friends the ending.” The first started movies having screening times. Not just continuous playing. The second had us becoming a part of the movie. Not giving away the ending. It’s a secret we have over those who haven’t seen the picture.
All these gimmicks created a movie-going experience that’s sadly missing today. The sense of fun is gone. The sense of an event is lacking. (We still have a little bit of it with Harry Potter , Star Wars , Star Trek , and Batman .) Today we have big stand-up posters in the lobby of our multiplexes, full page ads in our newspapers. None of these is the same as the old time event movies. These guys cared about their audience. They wanted to give us a fun, good time movie-going experience. What ya think?
Mac Daddy
July 11th, 10pm-5am EST
First off, what’s with the names these days?
Second, I just want to state for the record that I was DONE. I was wrapped on the film, and I had plans to catch a ride to the Buffalo Greyhound station and hop on an early Binghamton bus. Therefore, I was the only one at the table who had any business—
Well, let’s start from the beginning.
We’ve finished shooting for the day. While we’re phasing out, the new cast is phasing in, and there are complications with keys and rooms and medications, as well as issues involving special effects. Greg is grumpy and busy, a bad combination. There seems to be a sense of crisis hovering around the production. (Just for the record—this sense of crisis was absent during the two days of shooting with the Flashback-tors. Take that, New Generation!)
I deal with this muted panic the way I always deal with such scenarios. I excuse myself. Sephera, Wil and I hop in her car and truck on over to the Irish pub, repeating our debauchery from the night before. You can’t blame us. The food is good, the drinks are cheap, and it’s not too loud, not too quiet—it’s juuuuust right.
Sephera and I chose pints of Killians, while Wil stuck to his Jim Beam and Coke, and we discussed the various crises that had suddenly engulfed the set. There was an actor, staying at the Actor’s House, and it was locked, and the actor didn’t have the correct key, and his bags were inside, and he needed his bags. We had suggested to the actor, through John Renna, the production designer, that they all just head on over to Sangria’s, a great restaurant right around the corner from the Actor’s House, and just hang low until Greg and company could get the problem solved. Sandra, Marcos, Carlos and Eduardo were already there, so they’d have company. This solution did not suit the actor, who it must be repeated, needed to get to his bags. There was talk about breaking a window, a lock, etc.
Sephera had wanted to swing by the Actor’s House and see what we could do to help. I took more of a hands-off approach, and suggested that we could help best by staying out of it, and not adding to the general angst. To contribute to the smooth running of the production, all we had to do was take care of ourselves, and keep our noses clean.
Yeah, right.
At some point, we realized that Kealan, my character’s new possess-ee, was just down the street at the FX lab getting de-slimed. We gave him a call and asked if he wanted to join us. About two hours later, he showed up.
Kealan is the guy that pubs were made for. Irish, engaging, talkative, and a drinker, he took things up to the next level. And the next five levels after that. He started chatting up the bartender, the owner, the patrons. Soon, people were buying us drinks, strangers became best friends. The owner sat at our table and told us jokes and anecdotes about Buffalo Bob. It was incredible, magical.
It was also 4:15 in the morning. None of us were in a condition to drive. All of us needed to sleep, none more so than Kealan, who had a full day’s shoot tomorrow—make that today!
After a few aborted attempts to get everyone out of there, I finally succeeded. We staggered back to Sephera’s car. I was elected driver, based on the fact that I could still form consonants. We drove verrrry carefully to the Actor’s House. About a mile away, Kealan pulled out his key at the same moment as I hit a pothole, and the key flew out of his hand. We pulled over in front of the Actor’s House and searched, but could not find the key. It’s probably there right now, lodged in a black hole between the seat cushions. Kealan knocked, but the other actors were asleep and didn’t answer. Now Kealan contemplated breaking in—the Actor’s House would have the distinction of having been broken into twice in the same twelve hour period.
Finally, I herded everyone back to the car, insisting that breaking into a house at 4:45 am was apt to be misinterpreted by the police (although I’m sure Kealan would be able to charm the officers out of using live ammo.) We got back to Greg’s at 5 am, walking in as Greg was waking up. He wouldn’t look at us—a bad sign. We got Kealan set up on some couch cushions in the costume room, and I dozed for an hour before figuring out my transport to the bus station.
That’s how we keep our noses clean in Buffalo.
2:00 pm-9:00 pm EST
Around lunchtime, we started getting visits from the rest of the cast, people who would start shooting the main story the next day. Kealan, Jill and Lee all stopped by to check things out and meet us. This is the next generation of slime, my friends. They’re the actors that play the characters that our characters possess. Confused? Well, see the frickin’ movie when it comes out. I wish them luck and envy them—they get all the kick-ass scenes in the movie. The fights, the gross special effects, the slime oozing out of their pores. But they’ll have a hell of a time topping the work we’ve done so far.
Greg brought a few Slime City DVDs, and I was stunned by the number of people who wanted me to sign theirs. (I don’t think we hit double digits, mind you, but I don’t spend much of my life signing things.) It was a nice way to spend my lunch hour, pretending I was some kind of presence. One guy, Eduardo, had me sign three different DVDs.
Finally, it’s the last scene for us, the suicide scene. I dress up in my black outfit, with the disappearing and reappearing shoes, and sit down with Andrew so that we can figure out the knife. This is the knife gag (FX guys call their special effects “gags”) that I was shown by Rod the night I arrived, so there’s a certain closure going on. The knife itself is different, full of curves and holes—it feels almost organic, like bone. The tip comes off, so it looks like it’s really buried in my flesh, and the tubing runs up one side, so that when the knife touches my skin, the blood can flow. Andrew attached a whole set of tubes to my back, inside my shirt, nestled there with the sound guy’s wireless box. That’s a lot of shit to hide behind your back—but it was a fairly presentational scene, so no worries there.
While I worked with the knife, trying to familiarize myself with it, they brought in the rest of Flashback-tors and the extras. One of the extras, Eduardo, who had been a delight all day, gave us a bit of a scare when he sat on a prop cot, which ripped apart the second his ass touched it. Displaying strength and dexterity I don’t think I could match, he swung from the cot’s edge, upside down, by his knees, and easily let himself down through the center. This is a 58 year-old guy! It would have been a shame to start the last scene with a concussion. Good save, Eduardo!
When I began my speech, which starts as sort of an emotional farewell, one of the extras kept laughing, trying to suppress it, but laughing nonetheless. I guess I was too silly on the set.
While they shot the reactions to my speech, I got a look at the monitors. The black and white images looked incredible. While I half-expected the women to look that good, it still took my breath away. The huge shock, however, was Michael, the guy playing Roman the poet. The camera seemed to capture an anxious sadness in his features. It looked incredible. If the rest of the sequences look that good, we’re golden.
The knife gag went off beautifully. Then I was dismissed to get an appliance added to my arm that would simulate a deep gash. Andrew painstankingly stuck the latex wound on my arm, keeping up a great conversation while he blended the edges of the appliance into my flesh. I extracted a promise from him that he would be as solicitous with the other actors when he was taking the make-up off, and he assured me that that was part of the job. Great guy, Andrew. I got back on the set and fed the other actors their lines while the appliance dried. Then he poured blood on my wound, Greg got his shot, and I was wrapped, along with the rest of the Flashback-tors.
That was the end for me, but of course the crew and the incoming actors were just getting started. They had an early start on the train terminal set the next day, so they were busy loading up and getting out of the office building. There was a crisis at the Actors House and a problem with the slime guy make-up as applied to Kealan, and Greg was peeved. (He was using the letter “f” when he wanted to say “fuck” earlier in the weekend, but tonight abbreviations would not do—“fuck.”) There were some plans to visit a place called “The Snotty Fox” with Brooke, but we wrapped later than expected, and she was just going home to prepare for her trip back home. Sephera, Wil and I decided to go to the Irish pub we’d visited the night before. I bundled up my stuff, threw it in Greg’s car, gave everyone who wasn’t too busy a handshake or a hug (Greg doesn’t hug,) got in Sephera’s car, and we drove off into the Buffalo night.
And then things got interesting!
