I Heart Fantasia

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My beloved Fantasia Film Festival out of Montreal has announced that 2020's edition, running from August 20th through September 2nd, will be, by necessity given you know the world and whatnot, going exclusively online for this year's edition. That comes with one big caveat for yours truly and I imagine a lot of you reading this, too -- it's only going to be available across Canada. So if you were thinking about heading Due North and becoming Mr. or Mrs. Justin Trudeau now's the time (actually 2016 was the time) for this fest will prove a sweet bonus to all that. (Swoon.) Anyway since MNPP does have some Canadian readers and I live for what Fantasia does every year I will share some of their first announcement of titles -- it's, per usual, kicking ass. Especially...

... since they're premiering the new flick from Neil Marshall! The director of The Descent has mostly been doing TV like Game of Thrones as of late, and since we are one hundred percent pretending last year's Hellboy movie, which I couldn't even finish, never happened, this one, called The Reckoning, marks his triumphant return to Cinema... or so we hope. Even better it's about The Plague! The Black Plague, to be specific. I posted about it back when it was announced last year -- it's about an accused witch (Charlotte Kirk) becoming a witch witch, and co-stars Joe Anderson, an actor I like very much and find severely under-used.

Other highlights -- the second film from Japanese director Shinichiro Ueda following up his wonderful worldwide zombie sensation One Cut of the Dead (reviewed here), called Special Actors; a horror movie about fracking (!!) called Unearth that stars Buffy's Marc Blucas and (drum-roll please) Adrienne Barbeau; a documentary about Tiny Tim (the terrifying ukulele-strumming singer, not the Dickens character); a haunted house flick from Germany called Sleep that stars Toni Erdmann's great Sandra Hüller; a junkie-nurse thriller called 12 Hour Shift that stars our beloved Angela Bettis... point being I recommend you check out the entire list here! This is only the first wave of titles and I already wanna see like a dozen things. I Heart Fantasia -- every year it feels beamed straight outta my brain. See all of our coverage from previous years at this link.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Two Evil Eyes (1990)

Policeman: We found blood in the freezer down in the cellar.
Det. Grogan: Christ! Rich people...
Sick stuff always turns out to be rich people.

Have I got any fans here of the 1990 duology (is that the right word?) Two Evil Eyes, which consists of a pair of half-length films based on Edgar Allen Poe stories, one directed by Dario Argento and the other by George Romero? And starring horror legends Tom Atkins and Adrienne Barbeau, among others?

Well if you're a fan this is a heads-up -- Blue Underground has just announced they're putting out a super-duper blu-ray set in October -- three discs stuffed with special features, far from the least of which is a 4K restoration of the film from its original negative. The second disc has a bunch of docs and interviews which I'll list down below, while the third disc is the film's soundtrack by legendary composer Pino Donaggio. What a thrill! Now you can hit the jump for all of the info...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Creepshow (1982)

Wilma: Some of these so-called academics make
the shark in Jaws look like fuckin' Flipper!

A happy 74th birthday to the legend Adrienne Barbeau today! We really don't celebrate often or vehemently enough her hilarious bitch performance in Creepshow as the true masterpiece of screen bitchery it is, so take a moment today to call somebody an "etiquette crotch" and do just that!

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13 Mustaches of Halloween #2

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe that the killer Kenny Hampton's "Groucho Marx" mask in 1980's Terror Train is the only slasher mask that's mustachioed? And, uh, I think you can see why. It's not exactly the most chilling look out there. Kenny himself doesn't even sport the look for the entire film - he's offing people at a costume party (set... on a train) and he takes and wears the costumes of each person he kills. I think the "Old Man" mask is actually creepy!

But somehow it's the Groucho mask 

that made it onto the Terror Train poster...

I haven't seen Terror Train in many a moon but I'm feeling the urge to do a Jamie Lee Curtis Horror Movie Marathon what with her triumphant return to the genre that made her famous via this week's latest Halloween movie. So I guess that means there's Terror Train and Prom Night and best of all John Carpenter's The Fog in my direct future! And speaking of...

... hey did you hear that The Fog has gotten a fancy 4K restoration and it's hitting theaters this Friday? Wowza. Here in New York it will play at the Metrograph; you can see a full list of the theaters for the whole country right at this link. And here's a trailer:

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Click here for the rest of our "13 Mustaches of Halloween" series.

Look For The Fog

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Asking me to choose my favorite John Carpenter movie would be like asking me to choose which of the many penises growing off of my body I like the best - I love them all! It depends on my mood! But there among the best of the best stands his 1980 ghost story classic The Fog, starring Jamie Lee Curtis with her mom Janet Leigh, and a never better Adrienne Barbeau as the DJ Stevie Wayne - just that name gives me happy place goosebumps - who warns us to "look for the fog." And we do! And we shall - the film has just gotten a big-time 4K restoration and it's going to play The Metrograph theater here in New York as well as a slew more theaters across the country just in time for Halloween. They even released a trailer!

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If you want more details here's the 

entire press release after the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Fog (1980)

Stevie Wayne: I don't know what happened to Antonio Bay tonight. Something came out of the fog and tried to destroy us. In one moment it vanished. But if this has been anything but a nightmare and if we don't wake up to find ourselves safe in our beds it could come again. To the ships at sea who can hear my voice, look across the water into the darkness. Look for the fog.

Happy 70 to the living legend John Carpenter!

survey hosting

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1982

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Welcome to our weekly (or whenever the hell I feel like doing it) series called "Siri Says When" -- last week when I asked Siri to pick a number between 1 and 100 she gave me 80 - today she gave me 82. And truth be told I'm kind of glad that Siri has stuck me in the early 1980s just now because this stuff is comfort food - I was a little kid and blissfully unaware that we had a horrible president, and I would like to pretend now, even if only for a few moments, that I am blissfully unaware of what a horrible president we're about to have. 

Of course now that I've gone and made my choices from the movies of 1982 they're mostly all dark adult films (save one) that would've terrified me as a kid (I mean, two Fassbinders!) so even I can't stick to my escapist principles for very long. Oh well. The heart wants what it wants and apparently what my heart wants is to churn and ache and bleed. Happy thoughts!

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1982

Querelle

(dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

-- released on August 31st 1982 -- 

The Thing

(dir. John Carpenter)

-- released on June 25th 1982 -- 

Fitzcarraldo 

(dir. Werner Herzog)

-- released on October 10th 1982 -- 

Poltergeist 

(dir. Tobe Hooper)

-- released on June 4th 1982 -- 

Veronika Voss

(dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

-- released on May 13th 1982 --

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Runners-up: One From the Heart (dir. Francis Ford Coppola), Tenebre (dir. Dario Argento), The Year of Living Dangerously (dir. Peter Weir), Q: The Winged Serpent (dir. Larry Cohen), Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott), Tootsie (dir. Sidney Pollack), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (dir. Tommy Lee Wallace)...

... Creepshow (dir. George Romero), Basket Case (dir. Frank Henenlotter), Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean  (dir. Robert Altman), Fanny & Alexander  (dir. Ingmar Bergman), Slumber Party Massacre (dir. Amy Holden Jones), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (dir. Steven Spielberg)

Never Seen: Burden of Dreams (dir. Les Blank), Diner (dir. Barry Levinson), Liquid Sky (dir. Slava Tsukerman), Frances (dir. Graeme Clifford),  Koyaanisqatsi (dir. Godfrey Reggio)

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What are your favorite movies of 1982?
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Take My Whole Life Too

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When we saw the first trailer for The Conjuring 2 the above shot was included, and freaked me the eff out. That's a scary image, no? It's weird and funny and wrong and totally transfixing - it makes you want to see more. Well apparently director James Wan agreed, but in this case "more" turned out to be "too much." That shot actually never ends up in the final movie - what does end up in the movie is a CG'd tangle of technicolor monstrosity, a so-called "Crooked Man" (which is admittedly a terrific little moniker) twitching and banging down the haunted house's hallways, poking its Burton-esque umbrella through walls and spoiling all the fun. 

It's disappointing because the original film, for all its flaws - and I wasn't as enamored with it as most people seemed to be - knew how to keep itself situated firmly inside its own walls. Yes it was the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach, but of the old-fashioned sort just turned up to twelve - you want some jump scares we'll give you eleven jump scares. That sort of thing. And a lot of the sequel sticks to that routine too, until that blasted special effect, a silly goosed Babadook, stampeded across my patience. 

The Crooked Man is a problem, but he's only one trick up the movie's sleeve, and as with the first film it's got more arms than it can handle, so even with some wonky ones some of them still turn out to work. Wan's ripping himself and my preferred horror franchise of his (the Insidious movies) off with that Nun Demon thing... not to mention the Adrienne Barbeau classic The Convent...

... but the Nun Demon thing (and every time I write that I imagine Nicolas Winding Refn's film The Neon Demon actually being called The Nun Demon and my mind reels) is a blast all the same, I giggled and cringed every time it showed up. It's perfectly silly and appropriate for this franchise's universe, and I liked it very much. 

Also as a spoilery side-note do take note of the mid-film scene set inside the Warrens house where Vera Farmiga's at the kitchen table -- if you look behind Vera, and I mean if you look behind her from all the multiple angles the movie shows her from, you will see a certain name that will come in handy to remember for later in the film. It is ridiculous - the name is on every wall of their house, and their daughter is making a beaded-necklace with the name in it.

Anyway I appreciate The Conjuring films and what Wan's trying to do - jumble the haunted house genre into door-creaking chaos for the next generation - more than I ever entirely enjoy them, much less find them all that frightening. Part of me appreciates their dopey sincerity in relation to religiousness, and part of me is unable to suspend my disbelief in order to catch myself up in the fury of its smoke and mirrors and terrible nothingness. Give me more flash-cuts to Franka Potente in a floppy hat smoking and sneering - she's vibing on my wavelength. 

I'd recommend instead that you watch the great British TV movie - and original gangster of found footage - Ghostwatch, which tackles the exact same "real world case" as this film does. The scariest moment for me, watching The Conjuring 2, was thinking that someone might summon forth the name of Ghostwatch's sinister specter "Pipes" - now that would've gotten me shaking!

The Princes of Darkness

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We've expressed our enthusiasm about this project a couple of times now, and since two batches of news have hit regarding it today I figure we'll post them even though we're inching towards the door for the weekend - Tales of Halloween is that anthology movie about you guessed it Halloween night, which has gathered some great directors for its segments, amongst them Neil Marshall, Paul Solet (he made the memorably creepy vampire-baby movie Grace), and Lucky "May" McKee...

... well Twitch has info on all the directors, all the segments, and the entire cast - as for the latter there are some fun names in there, including yes the terribly attractive Sam Witwer, seen here pursing his pretty lips to Hell and back, but also James Duval, Keir Gilchrist (where the heck has he been lately?), Clare "GLORY" Kramer, Lin Shaye... oh and ADRIENNE BARBEAU. Hells yeah! As for the second thing, there's an interview with neil Marshall over here where he talks about the process of setting up the project, and hints that his segment is sort of similar to Gremlins, at least in tone. I am so on-board for this thing!
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Creepshow (1982)

Wilma: You know what Henry?
You're a regular barnyard exhibit.
Sheep's eyes, chicken guts, piggy friends...
and SHIT for BRAINS!!! 

I don't know exactly what I am learning from that line... I guess it's a lesson on how to be an incredible bitch. Which is a very important lesson indeed. Perhaps the most.

(pic via Final Girl) Anyway can you believe that George Romero's classic anthology flick is 30 years old today? Horror anthologies are all the rage right now, and Creepshow's definitely one of the best examples... if not the best, overall. There's usually a segment or two that sucks in these things but I recall only happy feelings towards all five stories here. Ted Danson's head in the sand! Stephen King as a moss-covered hillbilly! Head cake on a platter! Exploding cockroach man! And of course, my beloved nasty drunken Adrienne Barbeau getting eaten by a crated Yeti. You can't go wrong.

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poll by twiigs.com

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Pic of the Day

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Oh my god oh my god oh my god! Adrienne Barbeau

as Victoria's mother on Revenge first look!
Straight up soapy cougar goodness!

Gay horror-nerd freak-out happening! (via)

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Barbeau's Revenge

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This is one of those moments when I briefly consider that the universe is doling out personalized gifts for something I did in a past life and then I remember oh wait I don't believe any of that jazz but all the same, wowza! Via TV Line:

"Now we know where Revenge‘s Victoria got those cheekbones (and a few other assets) from. The ABC drama has cast ’70s sex symbol and Maude alum Adrienne Barbeau as Victoria’s mother, sources confirm to TVLine exclusively.

The voluptuous veteran actress, who portrayed Maude’s daughter Carol on the groundbreaking sitcom, will play Mama Harper – ”somebody who knows how to use people,” Revenge executive producer Mike Kelley tells TVLine. “She taught Victoria what it takes to survive with very little, with your wit and your looks, really.”

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First things, the second season of Revenge has been wonderful already, hasn't it? I was cackling like a loon watching it the other night. It's one of those shows that every time a commercial break I am convinced the hour's already passed, so much has already happened, and I look at the clock and there's still twenty more minutes - twenty more delicious minutes! And now this! Adrienne Barbeau! Be still my heart, or you know, my heaving chestal region, in honor of her.

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Happy 67, Adrienne Barbeau

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"No one was even listening to me. 
They were just watching my breasts precede me."

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There's Something In The Condensation!

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Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau), The Fog

"There's something in the fog!"

Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn), The Mist

"There's something in the mist!"

Well which is it?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Daisies Ways Not To Die #5

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Yes indeed it's another glorious installment of MNPP's Daisies Ways Not To Die series! Wherein we celebrate the gorgeous technicolor slaughters of the much beloved television program Pushing Daisies, with some assistance from the show's creator Bryan Fuller.

Previous Installments of Daisies Ways Not To Die:


#1 - Deep Fat Fried In My Own Unique Blend of 500 Herbs & Spices
#2 - Aggravated Cementia #3 - Scratch & Snuffed
#4 - Window Dressed To Killed!

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And stay tuned on thru the bottom because yes, we've got another super duper special something for you. But for now, tis time to die...

Pushing Daisies
Episode #18 - "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy"

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MNPP: So whose sick idea was this grisliness anyway, and what not-so-buried layer of depravity begat it?

Bryan Fuller: This episode started to coalesce when handsome Doug Petrie spun the yarn about a lighthouse that disappeared from the East coast and reappeared on the West coast (or vice versa – I forget which) completely in tact, brick by brick. Evidently a true story.

MNPP: Y’all always made gratuitous violence so whimsical! What were the priorities with this specific corpse’s decoration? (so close to desecration…)

Bryan Fuller: Fried egg. The number one priority was that this corpse look like a giant harpooned, fried egg. Crafting a corpse to look like a fried egg of course required all sorts of discussion. “What’s the yolk?” “What’s the whites?” “Should there be a rogue vein?” All the things you think about when you think about eggs, we discussed them.

MNPP: Besides just the occasional notes from the higher-ups, what sort of difficulties – special-effects or budget or time limitations - did y’all face getting your vision for this episode out, and what do you wish in retrospect you could’ve done here that you didn’t?

Bryan Fuller: To be honest, and I know this is boring, but I couldn’t be prouder of “The Legend of Merle McQuoddy.” As a consolation for the lack of good dirt, I give you my favorite Standards and Practices note of this episode concerning Kristen Chenoweth’s breasts:

Page 10, sc. 17 Strong caution on Elliot’s face inadvertently ending up on Olive’s bosom, avoiding his face touching Olive’s breasts or Chuck’s breasts when he is pushed her way.

MNPP: Every episode’s stuffed with homage to previous pop touchstones – what ones stick out to you in this specific episode?

Bryan Fuller: Well, mention the word lighthouse to me and my brain goes two places: Antonio Bay and Passamaquoddy. And my brain goes to those places with Adrienne Barbeau and Helen Reddy.


So as pop culture DJ’s, we at PUSHING DAISIES mashed up the ghost story of THE FOG with the musical whimsy of PETE’S DRAGON and sent Chad and Dara Creasey off to craft a ghost story of a man lost at sea and presumed dead that emotionally paralleled Chuck’s personal ghost story with her father returning from the grave. I will forever love them for naming a character McQuoddy ala Passamaquoddy.


Also, we did the bat signal.

MNPP: If you had to choose one single thing from this episode to frame and hang on your wall – a scene or a costume or a reaction-shot or a line of dialogue - what’d make the cut?

Bryan Fuller: I’m torn between Lee Pace’s pitch-perfect performance of Ned on his first man-to-man with Chuck’s dad; and Chi McBride and Kristen Chenoweth’s “Boo-yah!” chest bump...

... and last but not least Kristen Chenoweth doing Helen Reddy proud. One of those things is on the wall.

MNPP: Two other things that happened behind the scenes while shooting this episode… go!

Bryan Fuller: Watching our second season premiere live on a lunch break with all of the cast and crew, taking up an entire sound stage on the Warner Brothers lot. That was neat.


Listening to all the varied and glorious ways Ellen Greene said “I don’t get pissed. A gypsy once told me it brings on hemorrhoids.” to the delight of everyone on set. I think it is a crime that no one has set them to music.

MNPP: And finally, if you gotta go, and we all gotta go, would you wanna gotta go like this?

Bryan Fuller: She was taken violently from behind and fried like an egg. What are you suggesting?

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Thanks to Bryan Fuller once again for his spectacular generosity, extending to the following bit of magic: Yes, we've got another mp3 to share! There's only a brief portion of Chenoweth's rendition of the Pete's Dragon song "Candle in the Water" in this episode proper, where she's joined by a yellow slicker'd quartet of fellows giving her some sweet sweet harmonies. And a soundtrack of Jim Dooley's music for the second season lingers cruelly unreleased - "Shut the A capella up," as Emerson would say. So what I'm saying is, you won't find this anywhere else! Enjoy!

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Download "Candle on the Water" here; or here;
or you can listen to it right on here now ya see...

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Previous Ways Not To Die: Acid Dip -- On a Wing and a Prey -- For Standing in the Way of Sappho -- Busting Rule Number Three (For The Purpose of Number Two) -- Daisies #4 - Window Dressed To Killed -- Hands Off the Haas Orb -- Bullet Ballet -- A Single Vacancy at the Roach Motel -- A School Bus Slipped Thru The Ice -- Trache-AAHHHH!!!-tomy'd - For Mel Gibson's Sins -- A Wide Stanced Slashing --- Daisies Ways #3 - Scratch n' Snuffed -- The Victim of a Viscous Hit & Run -- Curled -- Kabobbed -- Daisies Ways #2 - Aggravated Cementia -- Boo! Nun! -- 2009's Ways Not To Die -- Bug Scratch Fever -- Daisies Ways #1 - Deep Fat Fried in My Own Unique Blend of 500 Herbs & Spices -- By the Yard End of the Stick -- Screwed From A Very Great Distance -- A Righteous Bear-Jew Beatdown -- Fisted By Hugo Sitglitz -- Xeno Morphed -- Fuck-Stuck -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 4 -- Lava Bombed -- The Cradle Will Rock... Your Face Off!!! -- The Food of the Nilbog Goblins -- The Slugs Is Gonna Gitcha -- Phone Shark -- Hide The Carrot -- Sarlacc Snacked -- Avada Kedavra!!! -- Hooked, Lined and Sinkered -- "The Libyans!" -- Axe Me No Questions -- Pin the Chainsaw on the Prostitute -- The Wrath of the Crystal Unicorn -- The Ultimate Extreme Make-Over -- Drown In A Sink Before The Opening Credits Even Roll -- The Dog Who Knew Too Much -- Don't Die Over Spilled Milk -- Inviting the Wrath of Aguirre -- An Inconceivable Outwitting -- The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique -- Nipple Injected Blue Junk -- Your Pick Of The Deadly Six -- Thing Hungry -- Don't Fuck With The Serial Killer's Daughter -- DO Forget To Add The Fabric Softener -- Any Of The Ways Depicted In This Masterpiece Of Lost Cinema -- Rode Down In The Friscalating Dusklight -- Good Morning, Sunshine! -- Mornin' Cuppa Drano -- The Cylon-Engineered Apocalypse -- Tender-Eye-zed -- Martian Atmospheric Asphyxiation -- Maimed By A Mystical Person-Cat -- The Sheets Are Not To Be Trusted -- Handicapable Face-Hacked -- I Did It For You, Faramir -- Summertime In The Park... Of A Pedophile's Mind -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 3 -- Strung Up With Festive Holiday Bulbs By Santa Claus Himself -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 -- Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye -- Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away -- Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door -- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue -- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!! -- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded -- Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head.