The Curator of Schlock #314: Leprechaun 3

20 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, Irish Literature, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #314 by Jeff Shuster

Leprechaun 3

Vegas, Baby, Vegas.

I wish a belated Happy St. Patrick’s Day to one and all. I hope you all had a good time feasting corned beef and cabbage, maybe a pint of Guinness. I stayed in due to that worldwide pandemic that’s got everyone freaked out. I even closed up the Museum of Schlock and will be blogging from a remote location in the Florida Everglades. I just hope that thieves don’t ransack the Nightmare City display. Those sports coats from the movie set me back six figures.

Leprechaun 3

Tonight’s movie is 1995’s Leprechaun 3, which is also known as Leprechaun 3: In Las Vegas. This makes sense as the movie takes place in Las Vegas. Brian Medwin Trenchard-Smith serves as director this time around, and Warwick Davis returns as Lubdan the Leprechaun. I didn’t know this character had a name. Granted, I’m no Leprechaun expert, but I imagine this series of movies has its devotees much like the Friday the 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I can’t imagine anything in this world sadder than Leprechaun fandom. They probably flipped out over the WWE Studios remake that completely negated the canon.

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The movie begins with a stone statue of Lubdan getting sold for twenty bucks to Gupta (Marcelo Tubert), an Indian pawnshop owner in Las Vegas. Gupta is warned not to remove the magic medallion around his neck. Naturally, Gupta removes the charm and before you know, Lubdan is snacking on his ear remarking, “I love Indian food.” Gupta manages to ward him off with the charm. Lubdan runs away with his pot of gold coins, but leaves one behind. Now this is interesting. Gupta finds a CD-ROM on World Folklore and researches all he can on leprechauns. For instance, leprechauns love potatoes, but can’t stand the presence of another leprechaun. Also, you can wish for anything you want if you make the wish while holding a leprechaun’s gold coin.

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What’s a CD-ROM? Well, before the Internet became the sole source of all knowledge and wisdom in modern society, human beings used to store information on these interactive CDs they’d slip into CD drives on their personal computers. They contained fancy graphic and sound, sometimes even little mini games. Will Smith sung about a 101 Dalmatians CD-ROM that he bought for his son in his 1997 hit song, “Just the Two of Us.” I hope I gave you younglings some valuable history.

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Back to the movie. Uhhhh. There’s a scene of Lubdan the Leprechaun running into an Elvis impersonator, or maybe Elvis himself? Lubdan actually digs Elvis’s threads and Elvis digs Lubdan’s threads. Elvis even compliments Lubdan’s pointy boots and wonders if they come in blue suede. It’s actually a cordial meeting and it’s nice to see Lubdan not try and take a bite out of Elvis. See, we can be civil.

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I remember that Big Trouble in Little China movie. Lo Pan is described as “The Ultimate Evil Spirit,” but I think Lubdan could give him a run for his money. In fact, I’d like to see a Big Trouble in Little Ireland movie, get to see Jack Burton versus the evil leprechaun. Of course, I also want to see Chucky vs. Leprechaun. And how about TRON 3 already! Why aren’t I running Hollywood?

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #313: Jason X

13 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, Science Fiction, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #313 by Jeff Shuster

Jason X

Friday the 13^th…in Space!

Happy Friday the 13^th! Be sure to avoid walking under ladders, toss that spilled salt over your right shoulder, and if a black cat crosses your path, turn around and walk in the opposite direction. And I guess since it is Friday the 13^th, I have to now visit a chapter from the ongoing saga of Jason Voorhees, our favorite mentally-challenged mass murderer. Tonight, we’ll be covering the tenth movie in this series, Jason X.

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2001’s Jason X from director Jim Isaac stars David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer, a scientist who wants to study the regenerative powers of one Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder). Another scientist named Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig) wants to put Jason in cryogenic stasis because Jason has the tendency to go around murdering lots of people. Dr. Wimmer overrules her, but that doesn’t matter since Jason escapes his bonds and massacres everyone except for Rowan, who he stabs before she switches on the cryogenic machine freezing them both.

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Four-hundred and forty-five years later, an archaeological expedition is exploring a now- ruined Earth. A Professor Brandon Lowe (Jonathan Potts) and a bunch of future victims—I mean students—find Jason Voorhees and Rowan LaFontaine still frozen and retrieve them. They have fancy nanobots to repair wounds. Hey, if some machete-wielding maniac chops off your arm, some nanobots will fix you good as new.

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This is a bizarre movie. It’s a Canadian production like most Friday the 13^th movies, but it has more of a feel of a Canadian science fiction series. Two of the main actors in this movie, Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder, both starred on Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. It wouldn’t surprise if they used the same sets from that series for this movie. Funny. Lexa Doig played an android on Andromeda and Lisa Ryder plays an android in Jason X.

The rest of the movie takes place on a spaceship. The students use the nanobots to save Rowan’s life while they leave what they believe to be the carcass of Jason Voorhees to defrost in the lab. Professor Lowe thinks people will pay big bucks to see a woman from the early 21^st century, but his colleague on a nearby space station says no one will care. However, he suggests that people would be willing to pay to see the corpse of Jason Voorhees since he is a famous mass murderer even hundreds of years in the future.

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I guess Professor Lowe’s dreams of wine, women, and song gets dashed when Jason re-animates and starts massacring the crew. There are some space marines on the ship, but Jason makes quick work of ’em. So much for the BFG. Later in the movie, we get to see a fight between Jason and the android, Kay-em 14 (Lisa Rider). It’s kind of neat because she feels no fear due to her being a robot and all. She kicks his butt and it seems that Jason is finally down for the count. Then some nanobots fix him up and turn him into Uber Jason. I wonder if Jason X is considered Friday the 13^th canon, or if I must forget about it under penalty of torture.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #310: The Black Hole

21 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, Science Fiction, The Curator of Schlock

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Gary Nelson, John Barry, The Black Hole, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #310 by Jeff Shuster

The Black Hole

It’s not the worst thing ever made.

Have I ever covered a Disney movie on this blog? I don’t remember. I know I’ve screamed about TRON enough times, but didn’t review that one. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing about the loathsome animated Robin Hood, but I can’t bring myself to watch it again. I know there are some of you out who do love that movie. Try watching it when you’re not hopped up on goofballs. Anyway, I needed another science fiction spectacular from the age that followed the release of the original Star Wars so get ready for Disney’s The Black Hole.

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1979’s The Black Hole from director Gary Nelson is not a Star Wars rip off. In fact, I suspect this movie would have reached the silver screen regardless of Star Wars. What we get with this production is a kind of Irwin Allen disaster movie meets 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The movie begins with a sumptuous score from the great John Barry, so at least our ears are in for a treat. And then we lay eyes on the majestic, yet foreboding black hole, a decent special effect considering the production team couldn’t get Industrial Light & Magic to lend a hand.

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And the movie features a great cast of 70s motion picture regulars. We have the crew of the USS Palomino, a spacefaring vessel made up of Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lieutenant Charlie Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins), journalist Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine), Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux), and a robot named Vincent (voiced by Roddy McDowell). They go investigate the USS Cygnus, which had gone missing twenty years earlier. Somehow they ship emits a gravity field that prevents it from getting sucked into the black hole. Don’t ask me how this done. I read that Neil deGrasse Tyson was not too impressed with the science on display in this motion picture.

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The crew of the Palomino boards the Cygnus and is greeted by a scary looking robot named Maximillian, this hulking red giant with a glowing red eye and propellers for hands. Unpleasant robots run the whole ship from robed, silver faced drones to bug-faced soldiers. This is not a good place to be, but the crew needs to repair their ship before they can take off again. The solitary human being on the Cygnus crew is the ship’s captain, Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell). I get a real Captain Nemo vibe off of this guy. He’s a mad genius who wants to fly the Cygnus through the black hole and see what’s on the other side.

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Captain Holland asks Dr. Schell what happened to the crew, and he says they left the ship a long time ago. Dr. Schell prefers his robots to people anyway. Dr. Durant admires the genius of Dr. Schell, but the rest of the Palomino crew doesn’t trust him. There are some shocking surprises in store, but I’ll let you experience them on your own. The Black Hole is not a perfect movie, but I was awfully impressed by the set design. The Cygnus is a cathedral of death in the middle of space and might be the creepiest spaceship I’ve ever seen. In fact, The Black Hole might be the closest thing to horror movie Disney has ever produced.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #308: The Stuff

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #308 by Jeff Shuster

The Stuff

You are what you eat.

I finally got around to trying Popeye’s chicken sandwich. For those of you living overseas, the Popeye’s chicken sandwich was a bit of a phenomenon over here in the United States. It’s a good chicken sandwich, but nothing worth crashing your car into a drive-thru line for. I’ve tried both mild and spicy. I prefer the spicy. The filet seems too big for the bun, and it’s a decent size brioche bun. Popeye’s has huge wings, too, not those dinky little things you get at KFC. Are they growing monster chickens over at Popeye’s headquarters? I’m concerned. I like me some big wings, but not at the expense of Popeye’s employees being attacked by mutated, oversized chickens.

The Stuff poster

Speaking of dangerous vittles, tonight’s movie is 1985’s The Stuff from director Larry Cohen. It’s a movie about a deadly, sentient confectionary dessert. One night a railroad worker notices some white crap bubbling up from the earth. Naturally, he reaches his hand in and sticks some of it in his mouth. And he thinks it tastes good. And then he thinks he can package it up and sell it to his fellow Americans. Some time later, a new dessert is all the rage in the United States. It’s called The Stuff. It looks like vanilla soft serve and people are eating it up like there’s no tomorrow. The Stuff tastes great, is highly nutritious, and very low calorie.

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But not everyone is buying into the hype. A boy named Jason (Scott Bloom) wants nothing to do with The Stuff because he saw some moving around in the fridge when he got up for a midnight snack. His family doesn’t believe him, and pester him to try The Stuff. Once you get a taste of The Stuff, you’re hooked. The following day, Jason visits a grocery store after school. He’s disgusted by all the people buying The Stuff and wrecks all The Stuff displays. Eventually, he’s subdued. No one listens to his warnings about The Stuff.

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Meanwhile, the heads of various ice cream companies have hired an industrial spy named Mo Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) to find out what he can about The Stuff like what it is and how is it made. They mention that the same laws that protect the secret formula of Coca-Cola protect The Stuff. While investigating, Mo runs into Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris), whom I assume is based off of Famous Amos. Charlie is upset that his brothers overrode his authority and sold his chain of chocolate chip cookie outlets to The Stuff Company to be converted into The Stuff shops.

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I wonder if they’ll sell more than one flavor of The Stuff.

Rounding out the investigative party is Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), an advertising executive in charge of marketing The Stuff that Mo managed to charm into helping him. As the movie progresses, we learn that The Stuff ends up possessing the people that consume it, and The Stuff then consumes them from the inside. This movie reminded me of a cross between The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I’m sure there’s some social commentary about American eating habits and fads, but I can’t be bothered to go into that now.

I’ve got a hankering for another Popeye’s chicken sandwich. Funny. I’ve already eaten about five of them today.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #307: The Brood

24 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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David Cronenberg, Oliver Reed, Orson Welles, The Brood

The Curator of Schlock #307 by Jeff Shuster

The Brood

Seriously, what is wrong with David Cronenberg?

Criterion DVDs are weird. They have weird special features. On my DVD for David Cronenberg’s The Brood, we have an interview with Oliver Reed on The Merv Griffin Show from 1980. Other guests include Orson Welles and, naturally, Charo. I’m terrified because Oliver Reed starts taking jabs at Welles and I’m expecting the whole affair to get bloody, with Merv Griffin getting set on fire at some point, but Reed spends much of the interview talking about his love of American hamburgers and eventually praises Orson Welles as a god among directors. At know no point in this interview is The Brood even mentioned.

Why did Criterion include it in the special features on the disc?

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1979’s The Brood from director David Cronenberg is a disgusting little movie. The movie begins with Oliver Reed wearing nothing but a robe while sitting in yoga pose on a stage berating his son in front of live audience. No, this isn’t a method-acting lesson, but a public therapy session. Oliver Reed stars as Dr. Hal Ragian, a psychotherapist who runs the Somatree Institute where he employs the use of psychoplasmics, a therapy method that has patients unleash their suppressed feelings by physically altering their bodies through pure will of the mind.

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Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) thinks Dr. Ragian is a quack. Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar), Frank’s wife, is a patient at Somatree, dealing with anger issues while fighting with Frank over custody of Candace (Cindy Hinds), their five-year-old daughter. Frank notices marks and cuts on Candace’s back and doesn’t want her staying at Somatree. Dr. Ragain tells Frank that Nola needs Candace there to help with her therapy. He tells Frank that he’d better bring Candace back the following weekend or there will be legal action.

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Frank drops Candace off with his mother-in-law while he goes talk to a lawyer. I suppose Candace is having a better time with Grandma, as she seems more mellow than her mother. Granted, Grandma is indulging in some Scotch and it’s not even 3 PM. While going to refresh her drink, she gets attacked by what seems to be a small child in her kitchen. The attacker hits grandma with what I believe is meat tenderizer. It’s quite awful. There’s blood everywhere.

The child shrink at the police station tries prying some info out of Candace, but the girl remembers noththing. Frank’s father-in-law flies over to attend the funeral. Grandpa and Grandma got divorced about ten years prior, but he gets distraught over her death and decides to get smashed in his old house. Guess who shows up again? It’s that same child that killed Grandma earlier. The child beats Grandpa to death with a snow globe.

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Frank discovers Grandpa’s body and we finally see what the killer child looks like. It’s some kind of mutant freak. A really ugly kid. Its face is all caved in. The kid drops dead after fighting with Frank for a bit. Doctors do an autopsy on the deformed child. The kid has a beak-like mouth, no sexual organs, and no navel. This is bizarre. You’ll be seeing more of them as the film rolls on. And trust me, you don’t want to see how these things are born.

I could go on, but I’m about to lose my lunch. The toilet beckons.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #306: Rabid

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #306 by Jeff Shuster

Rabid

David Cronenberg ain’t right.

I’ve got nothing profound to say about anything at the moment. I’m cranky. I’m wishing I could time travel back to 1997. I miss my Nintendo 64, my bubbled out CRT TV, and a new X-Files to look forward to on Friday nights. Or had The X-Files moved to Sundays at that point? I don’t remember.

This is why I like movies. They can be miniature time capsules that let you wallow in a particular decade for a couple of hours.

Tonight, we’ll travel back to 1977 to experience a violent rabies epidemic that could have occurred on the outskirts of Montreal, Canada.

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1977’s Rabid from director David Cronenberg was released in not just a very important year for movies, but also a very important year in the history of the world as it is the year I was born.

Imagine if that hadn’t happened.

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You would not be reading this blog right now. What would you be doing with your life? Contemplating plastic surgery? Speaking of which, our movie begins at the Keloid Clinic for Plastic Surgery somewhere in the Quebec countryside. A young couple named Rose (Marilyn Chambers) and Hart (Frank Moore) are riding motorcycles near the clinic, but get into bad accident because some loser can’t get his RV started and he’s blocking the whole Canadian road.

The Keloid Clinic is the closest medical facility in the area. Hart’s injuries aren’t critical, but Rose is going to die unless Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan) tries an experimental procedure to that uses morphogenetic skin supplements to repair her skin and organs.

Don’t ask me what that is. I ain’t no doctor.

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Rose stays in a coma for a couple of months until she wakes up screaming. A patient named Lloyd (J. Roger Periard) at the hospital goes to check on her, and Rose asks him to hug her because she’s cold and he’s warm. Lloyd complies because she’s young and attractive, like someone out of Behind the Green Door, but then a tendril emerges from her armpit and sucks his blood. This Rose has a thorn.

Rabid - 1976

Lloyd wakes up later with no memory of the attack, but gets transferred to another hospital because his blood isn’t clotting. The next night, Rose leaves the clinic to feed on the blood of a cow, but, naturally, decides to snack on a purvey old farmer instead. Both of these men develop a nasty case of rabies and begin attacking people like zombies. If they bite you, it’s only a matter of time before you start foaming at the mouth too. Rabies shots don’t work either.

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Rose leaves the clinic and begins spreading the rabies as she takes the blood of one victim after another. Martial Law gets declared in Montreal as the rabies zombie army begins to grow. There’s a rather tragic scene of a police officer gunning down one of the infected in a mall, and a mall Santa Claus gets caught in the crossfire.

Rabies ruin Christmas.

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I don’t think this is going to end up well for anyone. Anyway, Rabid is a good little body horror/zombie movie from the late 70s. It’s no Dawn of the Dead, but this will keep your attention on a Saturday night.

Pray for David Cronenberg, though.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #305: It’s Alive

10 Friday Jan 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #305 by Jeff Shuster

It’s Alive

There’s only one thing wrong with the Davis baby: it’s alive.

How ‘bout that Babu Frik? Okay. I’ve got nothing to talk about. It’s a new year and a new decade and why do I get the feeling that this decade will not be as much fun as the Roaring Twenties? Certainly, this year’s offerings from Hollywood don’t exactly pique my interest. Untitled Universal Event Film? What is that? Was Cats the Untitled Universal Event Film of 2019? Oh, I will be covering that at some point, but I will not be paying money for that nonsense. In the meantime, let’s ignore our current era and look to the past for cinematic goodness.

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Tonight’s movie is 1974’s It’s Alive from director Larry Cohen. The movie centers on the Davis family and the troubles that result from the little bundle of joy they are expecting. Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) and his wife, Lenore (Sharon Ferrell), drop their son, Chris (Daniel Holzman), off with a family friend because Lenore is about to have a baby. At the hospital, Frank hangs out in the waiting room for a few hours while his wife and the doctors contend with the fact that she’s about to give birth to a mutant.

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Seriously, the baby has claws and fangs and manages to tear apart half of the hospital staff before going into hiding. Naturally, Mr. Davis is none too pleased that the hospital staff lost his newborn son, but maybe that had something to do with them bleeding out.

The news media leaks that it was the Davis family that brought a killer, mutant baby into the world. Frank works as a publicist for an advertising film, but they’re hoping he’ll take his vacation days during this difficult time for all concerned. By taking his vacation, they really mean that he’s fired. Clients don’t want the father of the killer mutant baby in charge of their publicity. They can be touchy that way. Frank doesn’t let his son, Chris, back home. He tells him the baby is sick. Fortunately, Chris didn’t hear the news about the killer, mutant baby.

I think it’s alluded to that a pharmaceutical company may be responsible for the mutated pregnancy. And some scientists offer to pay one hundred thousand dollars to the Davis family for the rights to experiment on their killer mutant baby. Frank Davis accepts their offer. Can you blame him?

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I know many of you out there would love your baby boy no matter how many people he killed and ate.

Yes, I think this kid is taking chunks out of his victims.

Waste not, want not.

Frank begins noticing some unusual behavior from his wife, Lenore. Seems she’s having the milkman drop off a few extra bottles of milk than usual. And the fridge is stuffed with lots meat she must have picked up from the butcher shop. I bet she’s planning a barbeque for the neighborhood. I guess all that milk is for some homemade ice cream she’s going to make. It couldn’t possible mean that the killer mutant baby is inside their house and she’s feeding the damned thing.

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It’s Alive will end in tears (as if it could end any other way). But it’s got a killer mutant baby in it. That’s well worth your time.

So how ‘bout that Zorii Bliss?

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Aesthetic Drift #24: On Steven Moffat’s Dracula

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Aesthetic Drift, Horror, Television

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Dracula, Netflix, Proverbs from Hell, Steven Moffat

Aesthetic Drift #24 by Michael W. Merriam

On Steven Moffat’s Dracula

I often resent television. I feel better compensated for my time when I listen to audio drama or read books. When I saw there was a new Dracula series on Netflix, I knew I’d only want to see it if somehow Steven Moffat had written it.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker gave the world a complex and cryptic masterpiece. The book is epistolary, a trunk full of letters and clues, and it’s only because it’s famous that we know it will amount to more than the sum of its parts. Though it has some clear plot points, many of its ideas are hard to detect, and much of what passes for its story are assumptions. The “story” inside it is something the reader must make up for himself. To read it is to re-invent it, on the fly.

Dracula

Steven Moffat’s stock in trade is re-invention. His genius is in not in stories, but in his take on them. The first scene of his Dracula re-writes the novel in a weirdly faithful way: the wooden stakes we see in Sister Agatha’s bag before she starts her interview, her hilarious false-interest in Dracula’s sex life, and her rant about God (similar to one given by a sister in Don DeLilo’s White Noise) make the script literate without being literary. This marks the divergence between the subversive and the simply dumb.

dracula netflix review

Moffat rarely settles for a cheap surprise, always holding out for true subversion that makes story twists satisfying. The subversions of this Dracula are so deft and pleasantly startling, the script feels like a promising early work, one left sitting in Moffat’s desk since before his exhaustion at the hands of Doctor Who. Even so, this new Dracula (while very good) is not quite intricate enough to demand a re-watch. As the novel was a bit of a puzzle, I found that disappointing.

The show’s only bad moments involve the villain’s wise-cracks, marred with anachronistic turns of phrase. It’s tempting to blame Gatiss’s writing, but the same dialogue-landmines were everywhere in Moffat’s Jekyll, so he must shares the blame. Quipping villains (traditionally) help us sympathize with the devil, and at their best they’re like one of William Blake’s Proverbs From Hell: “Excess of sorrow laughs, excess of joy weeps.” Maybe a dim memory of that explains why critics still consider sympathetic villains a sign of excellent writing. That and some nostalgia for Byronic darkness might be why otherwise good writers cram wit into their villains’ mouths. Stoker would not have approved, since his novel’s theme was that mankind is already, by its nature, sympathetic to evil; Stoker’s art shows us why we shouldn’t be. This show abandons that theme, which is why it sometimes lacks daring.

Bram Stoker in 1906.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula was written just as the first rays of 20th century prose threatened the deathless clichés of the 19th. In Dracula, handwritten letters are full of misunderstandings and pompous mistakes, while practical, typewritten ones actually help the good guys win. It’s a book about how an ancient monster was ultimately no match for incredible new wonders of the age, like telephones, and women who can type. When the good guys win, it’s less like David killing Goliath and more like War of the Worlds, where ultimately, the germs of our planet took the alien invaders down. Dracula was not a story of heroic victory, until the reader accepted that true heroism lay in careful, sharp perception. That insight drives the humor, horror, and surprises in the Gatiss / Moffat adaptation. It is absent from all others I’ve seen.

dracula Netflix

Deep faithfulness aside, the show betrays the book in exactly the right way, too: the show’s writing isn’t cryptic—it’s just clever in its exploration the original text. Together, these episodes provide a grandly entertaining vision of the novel. If nothing else, their Dracula is a good way to enjoy the depth and suggestiveness of the old story.

If you feel you’d rather watch something else on Netflix, let me remind you: there’s a library near your house, and you should go there instead.

Michael Merriam

Michael Merriam is a writer and game designer based in Orlando, Florida. His work has been featured in the LA Review of Books, Time Out, The New Yorker, and World Literature Today, among other publications. He is the co-founder of Partly Wicked, a blog that explores escape rooms and other cryptic immersive media, and he teaches Writing for Games at Full Sail University.

The Curator of Schlock #304: Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker

27 Friday Dec 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #304 by Jeff Shuster

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker

It’s Pinocchio.

Merry Christmas everyone! Here we are on Week 4 of Silent Night, Deadly Night month here at The Museum of Schlock. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. Nothing puts a damper on the holidays like psychotic Santas, undead psychotic Santas, sexy witches, and killer toys.

You must watch out what you unwrap under the tree because it just might kill you. We can’t have nice things.

1991’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker from director Martin Kitrosser begins with a kid named Derrick Quinn (William Thorne) answering the door in the middle of the night a couple of weeks before Christmas. He finds a wrapped gift addressed to him with one of those “Do Not Open Until Christmas” tags. Naturally, Derrick tears the gift open only to be interrupted by his father who yells at him for answering the front door in the middle of the night. He tells Derrick to get to bed as he inspects the box. Derrick’s father uncovers a robotic Santa Clause ball that wraps its tendrils around his neck and starts electrocuting him. Derrick’s father then falls and gets impaled through the eye with a fireplace poker. The ball detaches from his neck and rolls into a corner.

Derrick witnessed all of this, which might explain why he hasn’t spoken for two weeks after the incident. Yeah, I guess watching your father die a gruesome death might make a small child glum.

Sarah Quinn (Jane Higginson), Derrick’s mother, decides that a trip to the local toyshop, Petto’s Toys, is in order. A new toy might make Derrick forget about his father getting a poker through his eyeball. The proprietor of Petto’s Toys is Joe Petto (play by none other than Mickey Rooney).

This is funny considering that Mickey Rooney had condemned the original Silent Night, Deadly Night. Joe Petto lives in the toy store with his good friend, Jack Daniels, and his demented son, Pino (Brian Bremer). Pino keeps shoving some kind of worm toy in front of Derrick, but Derrick wants no part of it.

The worm toy ends up in the hands of a local motel owner. It gets activated while the dude is driving home. The worm crawls inside his head and pokes holes trough his skull. How disgusting. The motel owner loses control of his vehicle since he’s dead. The car flips and explodes immediately. I used to have this video game, San Francisco Rush. It was a racing game and every time your car would flip over, it would immediately explode. I always wondered if that would happen in the real world, but Silent Night, Deadly Night 5, with its firm grip on reality, confirmed it.

We learn that Pino is making the killer toys with the hope that one of them will finally kill Derrick. There’s a cool scene where some obnoxious teen steals roller blades meant for Derrick and ends getting take taken for a wild ride before getting run over by an oncoming car. What else? Clint Howard guest stars as a sleazy department store Santa!

Oh, and Pino is actually a robot created by Joe Petto. Pino wants Sarah to be his mother, which is why he keeps trying to kill Derrick. So yeah, it’s a demented version of Pinocchio. Stick a fork in me. I’m done with this series.

Happy New Year!

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #302: Silent Night, Deadly Night 3

13 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #302 by Jeff Shuster

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

Is that supposed to be funny? The main character is blind!

Is gooseberry pie any good? I have never tried it. In fact, I’ve never seen it sold anywhere. Not even on a restaurant menu. I’m beginning to think that gooseberry pie (and the gooseberry in general) does not exist. It’s what country folk eat in Hollywood movies. Some cigar-chomping producer probably insisted that the gooseberry pie be inserted into movies every now and again in an effort to mislead the public for nefarious purposes. Gooseberry pie is mentioned in tonight’s movie, but it does not, in fact, make an appearance.

1989’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! from director Monte Hellman is the follow-up to Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, which was the follow-up to Silent Night, Deadly Night. The movie begins with a young woman named Laura Anderson (Samantha Scully) being chased down hospital corridors by Ricky Caldwell (Bill Moseley, later of Devil’s Rejects fame). Ricky Caldwell now has a glass scalp with some electronics plugged into it. Through that glass scalp you can see his brain and a pool of blood. Here’s your monster, folks. Someone behind the scenes thought this was a good idea.

Laura wakes up screaming and we find that she’s actually psychic and that a Dr. Newbury (Richard Beymer) was using her to probe a vegetative Ricky’s mind. It seems that all those bullets did a number on Ricky at the end of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, leaving him at the hands of intense reconstructive surgery at the hands of Dr. Newbury. The good doctor even managed to put Ricky’s brain back together and Laura’s psychic probing is proof that something of Ricky still exists in that living catatonic husk.

Laura may be a super psychic, but she’s also blind. She asks the receptionist at the hospital if she could keep an eye out for brother who’s picking her up. The receptionist is very rude to her. Laura falls asleep and has a dream where the receptionist’s throat is slit. You see, Laura can see in her dreams and in her visions. Laura’s brother, Chris (Eric Da Re), and his girlfriend, Jerri (Laura Harring), pick her up as she wakes up screaming from her violent vision. Jerri is beautiful. Chris is hairy. Seriously, I thought the guy was wearing a shag carpet under his shirt, but that’s neither her nor there. The three of them are off to visit Grandma’s house many miles away.

Meanwhile, a drunken Santa Claus roams the hospital halls. He visits Ricky’s room, makes fun of Ricky, calls him a vegetable and what not. Naturally, Ricky wakes up and slaughters him. Then he kills the receptionist just like in Laura’s vision. Then Rocky steals a car and decapitates a gas station attendant. And since Ricky has a psychic link with Laura, he knows where she’s going. Ricky decides to get to Grandma’s before Laura.

Grandma is busy getting Christmas Eve dinner ready for everyone. There’s a glistening roast turkey in the oven that she bastes in its own juices. I’m sure chestnuts are roasting on the open fire. Oh, and Grandma has apparently made Laura’s favorite: gooseberry pie. (Liar.)

A knock at the door reveals not Laura and brother, but Ricky Caldwell. Grandma welcomes him with open arms, even feeds him. It is Christmas after all. Plus, she didn’t see Ricky’s exposed brain because he cleverly covered it with a cap.

At this point, I’m almost thinking the movie will turn into Hallmark Christmas movie. The love and good cheer of grandma will reform Ricky’s psychotic heart. But then Grandma gives him a wrapped present. Ricky gets triggered and turns into the mass murdering Santa Claus once again. Grandma isn’t long for this world. Those of you expecting a scene of Chris opening up the oven to grab some turkey only to find Grandma’s seared corpse will be sorely disappointed. You were hoping to see Grandma’s seared corpse?

What is wrong with you?