My Wasted Life - April 1st, 2006:
What’s a boy to do? Choice… it’s a pain in the arse sometimes… I mean… c’mon… take this evening’s multifarious offerings…
I was all set to park me ass on the couch and watch ‘SS Doomtrooper’ on the Sci-fi Channel but with the provision that on a Saturday night there’s a little known and probably littler watched TV network from Barstow or Bakersfield that goes by the name of KHIZ and on Saturday nights shows old crappy horror movies - but attempts to make them interesting by having a scantily-clad bird pop up now and then to do stuff.
Yes indeed folks… the age of the ‘horror host’ is not completely over.
This little shebang goes under the moniker of ‘Macabre Theatre’ and the host in question is Ivonna Cadaver. Now all of this might seem a little old hat to those of you who grew up in the States with the likes of Elvira et al… but for a small town English boy who only ever heard about such things in the pages of Fangoria magazine or in movies such as ‘Fright Night’ it was quite a find when I stumbled upon her one dull winter’s evening.
This evening’s episode is wrapped around ‘Carnival of Souls’ and I’m struggling to work out whether it’s a new one or an old one… Ivonna herself looks a lot less cadaverous than usual… but it has Butch Patrick on the show and the most recent copyright date at the end of a show has been like 2004… so I’m not even sure whether they still make the show or not… it certainly seemed to be in Butch’s past when he was being interviewed by Howard Stern a month or so ago…
It's vaguely interesting to see some old time movies get a bit of an airing… they showed ‘Frightmare’ the other week which I’d never actually got round to seeing on video when the revolution first hit – yes indeed, I’m old enough to remember when the first ever videos came out…
‘Frightmare’ was made in 1972 but had always passed me by – until dear little Ivonna dusted it off and showed it to me.
I wonder what she’s up to now and whether her Saturday night’s are as uneventful as mine?
S. S. Doomtrooper seems completely unsure whether it’s a kick-ass action movie or a poor man’s version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail as there seems to be an awful lot of the ‘run away, run away’ type stuff and not a lot else.
Now obviously two shows is hardly a plethora of choice… but as I was about to sit down with me tea, I noticed that there was boxing on Showtime… another part of the feeble attempt to regain some semblance of legitimacy in the heavyweight division. I know the WBO ain’t one of the big two divisions… but it’s a world championship nevertheless – and there was Lamon Brewster up against some Belarusian – who had a rather charming looking wife.
Well after twelve rounds of two huge men slapping at each other with fists the size of small cars… and yes, I’m just about old enough to remember when boxing matches went for fifteen rounds… now that was brutal.
Anyway… it wasn’t entirely surprising to see Brewster get beaten. Belarus now has a worthy world champ but it does nothing to make the question of who is going to unite the numerous divisions any clearer.
I think I’m giving up on Doomtrooper already… which is a pity… it’s not a totally worthless concept… but the execution is predictably ‘Sci-Fi Channel premiere’ quality… Carnival of Souls is of scant interest only because it’s such a bizarre movie… a one time only deal that has one notable sequence in it and scant else… although the girl playing the lead does remind me of someone I used to like.
Of course… the twin charms of Ms Cadaver were bound to win out…
I find this whole world of KHIZ television very intriguing… it looks like apart from Macabre Theatre that everything else on the network is paid programming… the commercials are the weird old fashioned type… seemingly shot on an old home video recorder and posted in a garage… and featuring lots of commercials for things from the south east rather than south west… like you occasionally see on Comedy Central… commercials for Sonic… compilation CDs that are only available by mail order and presentations for land development in Texas… it makes the whole experience of watching, highly surreal.
I was reading a cartoon in the LA Weekly this morning… it was two people talking… one says to the other… “I have nothing to say… so I thought I’d start a blog.”
Like most things… it’s funny cos it’s true.
The whole point of this being called ‘my wasted life’ means that there should never be anything but the kind of drivel I waste my life with… but I get the feeling I could at least be a little funnier…
Anyway… that Macabre Theatre had a date of 2003 on it… so I’m guessing Ivonna is long gone from these parts.
And with the boxing over and done with – there’s nothing to do but turn back to Doomtrooper and see how the Allied klutzes are doing at defeating this genetically enhanced Nazi warrior.
They’ve got 53 minutes to pull it off… that’s including commercials.
I’ll admit… movies have been confusing me of late.
Yes… confusing… me… I’m confused by Hollywood. You see… I’d got my head round the whole notion of the value of remakes… I could even get onboard with the policy and look forward to seeing reinventions of some of me old favourites.
Some surprisingly worked… like ‘Assault on Precinct 13’ or ‘the Italian Job’ but most were the expected dismal failures like ‘Get Carter’ or the god-awful version of ‘the Fog’. I could even deal with the rapid remake syndrome with movies like ‘the Punisher’ where the original was hardly cold in its grave…
But now there’s something different… something altogether more disturbing and much more confusing…
They’re using titles of movies that I know and have seen... but which aren’t remakes… they’re ‘new’ movies but using old titles.
I’m not sure if it’s a deliberate policy or just something I’ve noticed meself… but take these as a for instance. It started with ‘Running Scared’. See… to me, Running Scared is a movie starring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines… it’s directed by Peter Hyams and is actually a very good and highly enjoyable 1980’s cop thriller movie.
So when I went to the movies and saw posters for ‘Running Scared’ I just naturally took it to be a remake of this movie. Only it wasn’t. It was a supposedly original movie.
Which took me by surprise but I figured it was a one off thing, you know?
Of course… now I’m surrounded by posters and trailers for a movie called ‘The Sentinel’. Now to me… the Sentinel is a 1977 movie directed by Michael Winner and based on a novel. I’ve never seen it – like Frightmare it just kinda slipped me by… but I remember it because Winner apparently used real freaks in the movie to represent denizens of hell or something… the first time that had been done en masse since Tod Browning’s 1932 movie Freaks…
Anyway… turns out… the Sentinel is not actually the Sentinel at all… it’s a supposedly new movie called the Sentinel which has nothing at all to do with the movie the Sentinel…
Where’s the pointless, brainless remake when you need it? It’s all very confusing…
And there's also 'Slither' by the guy who wrote the very excellent 'Dawn of the Dead' remake... you see... to someone of my generation and tatses... 'Slither' is actually a book by Shaun Hutson about killer slugs. I shit you not... slugs that kill... yes indeed. It also spawned a sequel and was made into a movie called... you guessed it... 'Slither...'
So you see... I see posters for a movie called 'Slither' in which a bird in a bath tub is being about to be gotten by slug-like things and I automatically think... oh for the love of christmas... they've remade 'Slither'? Only they haven't remade it... they've seemingly 'borrowed' most of the ideas from 'Night of the Creeps' but they furiously deny any connection to that little 'B' movie classic...
You see why it's scrambling me monkey brain?
A Slither Addendum...
So... I just got back from watching 'Slither' and while I was watching it... i realised I was totally wrong and need to make an official correction - no hiding my falabilities around here... no siree...
and what's more... Shaun Hutson was getting props for somehting that was a brain fart on my behalf... you see... 'Slither' the book wasn't the Shaun Hutson book about slugs that I said it was... no.. I should have realised that sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.
Shaun Hutson's book about slugs was cunningly called... erm... 'Slugs'.
you see how I could get fooled?
No?... neither do I to be honest.
So... if slugs was actually slugs... then was I wrong about the whole book called 'Slither' thing as well?
No I wasn't... you see there was a book called 'Slither' but I never read it. I had a copy that I purloined from some dodgy bookstore... but I never read it... cos I used to collect books but not always get round to reading them.
The book 'Slither' had some kind of small green lizard/alligator type thing on it seemingly floating in a bowl of milk... but as to what the book was actually about... I've no idea.
now I'm going to have to go hunt to amazon.coms of the world to see if I can find anything about it - or even just a screenshot of the cover.
does anyone else remember this book?
Yay for amazon... I found it... I knew it was written by someone called John... and I was right... john Halkin... 1986... only there's no cover shot on the website... but you might be able to track one down for yourselves if you try hard enough...
You can pick up a copy for the princely sum of $1.24... now how's that for a bargain... there's even a review of the book to further whet your appetite...
Use the 'related links' bit on the right to check it out for yourselves...
But what about the movie 'Slither? I hear you cry?
Well truth be told you'll have to pop by monkey town to read me review... you see, that way you get to experience more of the website in all of its functioing, cross collateralized glory!!!
Oh an for those of you who like a bit of Los Angeles star spotting... as I was driving home up Cahuenga... I spied none other than Angelyne... she of the infamous billboards of the 80' and 90's... she's still looking pink but was being chauffeured in an SUV rather than her open top pink caddy of days gone by...
