Carnival Fetish

Don't those sheep just look like they are going to eat your soul? This is one of the many reasons I love the carnival. Soul-eating were-sheep (I wish! In my wildest dreams!), giant pumpkins, sideshow attractions (as they were), and lots of disgusting food. Last night, the ex and I embarked on our annual journey to the wonder that is known as the Virginia State Fair. I've been to the State Fair every year for as long as I can remember. And while it's not as great as it used to be- I can actually remember a midway where there was a 10-in-1 with the freaks outside and a barker and the whole deal and last year there was an airbrush tattoo booth where I got 'Lil' Sexy' 'tattooed' on my neck and this year it wasn't there (boo!) and you can't win Motley Crue mirrors at the games booths any more-but we had a good time anyway. Here's some of my pics from the fair. I totally would have taken more but my camera decided to stop working because of an exhausted battery. Fie on the battery operated cam

era! Onward - the fair!

Okay, you know these are going to be some big ass pumpkins if they need to say it twice:

And they were! Here's me with the winner - I think he weighed in at like 1400 pounds or something:

This pumpkin is a motherfucker:

Here's some more lovely, lovely giant pumpkins:

And here's me again:

The monkey maze. Every year they retool this attraction. It's basically a house of mirrors or a house of plexiglass that kinda resembles mirrors a little bit. I think last year it was had a dinosaur theme. Still cool, nonetheless.

Tiki Town. This is another one they retool every year. It's been at the fair since I was a kid. It had a generic funhouse theme forever. I like Tiki Town.

We had to check out Hercules, the giant horse. We always take it upon ourselves to see all the 'sideshow' attractions. Just cause.

Here's me with Hercules. He's a clydesdale, I believe. Not that exciting, really. Still, he's pretty big, I'm pretty small but I have on five inch platform boots in this picture. If that gives you some perspective.

Next up is Black Jack, the giant steer. Here's his hideout:

And here he is:

The World's Smallest Woman attraction. Last year, she was this chick Bruce knows from the post office or something. He actually recognized her. They had a conversation regarding this. Random.

The Snake Girl attraction. Every year we go see the snake girl. Every year we are disappointed. Still. We also checked out the live snake attraction, which was AWESOME. The albino python was freakin' gorgeous.

And no fair would be complete without me completely gorging on fried deliciousness. Last night I ate shrimp on stick, a chocolate banana on a stick, sweet potato fries, a corn dog (yes, it was on a stick) and an deep-fried alien on a bun:

Fun was had, but no rides were ridden, because seriously, who wants to ride something that's held together by duct tape after eating an alien sandwich? Not this girl. There's a picture of me eating that chocolate banana on a stick (literally), but it's a little x-rated. Use your imagination, you guys are a bunch of perverts. I know you.

This House Possessed

Spooky vintage made for TV movie kick continues here at the Cavalcade. We've looked at evil little creepy dudes that want to drag sexually repressed ladies into chimneys. We've delved into paranormal detective drama with Leonard Nimoy, and we've watched a teen monumentally suck at life and become a delusional peeper. Now, we must turn our attention to a THIS HOUSE POSSESSED (1981), a made for television spook fest involving a nurse with a amnesiac past, a rock star (subject to opinion), and a, you guessed it, a possessed house.

The made for TV terror is an interesting animal. You figure the director has a very limited time frame to establish said terror, get you involved with the characters, and somehow evoke some sort of emotion all in less than an hour and a half. William Wiard, the director of this particular flick, does an excellent job in the first moments of THP, and throughout, as we'll come to see.

In the opening shots, we see the giant titular house, a modern marvel as it were, and two teens trying to sneak in for a little makeout time. "It be great to play house here," hunky Donnie muses. "It's pretty nice out here - private, too," his lovely blond girlfriend in shiny hot shorts replies. Yeah, it's private as hell, unless you count the numerous video cameras mounted all over the place. Unable to get inside, the house that is ;P, the couple gets down and dirty in the grass beside the house. The house don't like this one bit and sends a sentient garden hose to spray scalding hot water on our amorous couple. With some great camera work and a wire you can *hardly* see, the hose douses the fornicators and sends them running.

Cut to hunky singer complete with feathered blond mop and black satin shirt unbuttoned to the belt, Gary Staihorn (a rock star name if there ever was one!), on stage in a nightclub. Damn, he sings a fine ass song, one that will be stuck in your head for days. Check it:

Sensitive, you're not.

It's a joke, your sensitivity!

Sensitivity, that's HOT!

You never once showed it to me!

Sing it, Gary! But mid-croon, Gary collapses, suffering from exhaustion, and no doubt, emotion, from having just sung such a powerful song. Gary winds up in the hospital and, at the urging of his manager, Arthur (the venerable Slim Pickens) and a doctor with the worst bedside manner ever ("I'm in in for the money, man!" he tells Arthur), Gary must take sabbatical and focus on his health, as well as his hit music. He hires his hot-in-Valerie-Bertinelli-in-the-early-80's-way nurse, Shelia, to accompany him on said sabbatical and upon being discharged from the hospital, the two take off in no particular direction.

Meanwhile, the house, remember that possessed one, has been watching Gary in the hospital because apparently its TV is somehow linked to the hospital's close circuit security cameras. No doubt a powerful entity (there were some earlier establishing shots of the house's interior, the furniture draped in sheets, the place just crying out to be occupied, accompanied by some great eerie music, almost resulting in a Gothic feel - it's great stuff), the house draws Gary and Shelia right to it. Impressed from the get go, Gary immediately purchases the house and the two move right in.

The house was apparently designed by an architect who didn't want to have to do any housework or have any intruders and the whole place is controlled by a nerve center within, complete with television monitors, a state of the art security system, and controls for all the lights, locks, and AC and heating systems. You can tell right away there's something amiss here, in that the real estate agent is quick to get rid of the place, or maybe she's just impressed with how hunky Gary is, hard to tell.

Gary and Shelia settle in and are immediately very comfortable with each other. It's actually hard to gauge their relationship at first. Is she just being a caring nurse or does she have more feelings for Gary than she's letting on? She apparently has a very guarded past, alluded to earlier by her boss at the hospital, as well as in a conversation with Gary about where she comes from. On the other hand, Gary is pretty irresistible, with those close set eyes and tight black jeans.

At one point, Gary tries to get it on with Shelia, but she's having none of it ("It's too soon!" the lady doth protest - three words I don't think I've ever uttered ;P) and the house apparently isn't having it either, in that as soon as Gary gets that rapey look in his beady eyes, the alarms start sounding and the lights start flickering. Non-plussed, Gary's all like, "well, that ruined the mood." Nothing to ruin a rapey mood like a house possessed.

But whatever, who needs Shelia? Gary's a fucking Rock Star with capital letters and before long, his beautiful on-again off-again model bitch girlfriend, Tonya, shows up. Here's where shit starts getting good. Shelia's more than a little jealous, Tonya orders her around like a maid, and insists she won't be needing any sheets or towels because she won't be sleeping in the guest room anyway, IYKWIM. Tonya swishes around, swills champagne, takes advantage of Gary's painkillers, and then decides to take a shower. Like Shelia, the house don't care much for bitchy Tonya and showers her with blood. Cliched, yes, but there are GALLONS of blood pouring out of this shower and the door won't open and the poor model gets so scared she takes off running, once the shower frees her of course. It's a beautiful scene, blood everywhere and Tonya screaming for her life - blood coming out of the shower spray never looked so damn good.

So things take a turn for the predictable, but not in a bad way, and there seems to be some local legends surrounding the house. Shelia finds this out via the town librarian, who decides to dig up some more dirt about the place and bring it over to Shelia in the middle of the night (after Shelia has finally given in to Gary's wiles, IYKWIM). Well, this, of course doesn't sit well with the house, and as the little bespectacled librarian is driving through the gate, the gate crushes her car, with her inside, complete with explosion, you know, to burn up all the damning evidence against it. I want a house that can make cars explode!

What's Shelia to do next but go to the local bag lady's house in search of answers? Not finding much, Shelia and Gary decide to get engaged (what happened to 'too soon!?!' - well, there's the TV time frame to consider) and decide to embark on a six week tour to Europe. You know Gary's probably really big in Germany. Gary calls up Slim to finalize the tour deal, and Slim, having taken a haunted mirror from the house to fix a crack in it, seeing his meal ticket back in the ball game, decides to have a celebratory scotch. The mirror having absorbed the vindictive personality of the house, kills Slim by breaking and firing glass all up in his face.

Let's recap. There's a been a shower full of blood, a librarian crushed by a gate, death by mirror, and coitus interruptus via security alarm, but only now do Gary and Shelia start to think something's not quite right. Oh, and I've forgotten to mention that the house keeps ethereally calling Shelia 'Margaret' and the bag lady I mentioned earlier also refers to Shelia by this name. So, it's no big surprise that Shelia's actually Margaret and the house was her ancestral home in the first years of her life which she has no recollection of whatsoever. I'm seriously not spoiling anything by telling you this, as it's pretty obvious.

I won't get into the particulars of the entire ending, but I will tell you the bag lady get boiled in the pool. And I will say I thoroughly enjoyed this little haunted house romp exponentially. It's got some great scenes, some awesome music, and I care more than a little a bit about what happens to Shelia. You know, in the beginning she's such a loner, she meets Gary, and he whisks her off to this amazing house. She's never really had a relationship before and now all of a sudden she's got a rocker boyfriend and a fabulous pad. Aside from the house being all sentient, she's basically got what I want. Although I don't think I would mind a self-aware house. As long as it cleaned the litter box for me, I wouldn't care if it boiled transients in the pool or blew up librarian's vehicles at the front gate.

This is good stuff and gets most everything right, even the cliched bits. The pacing might seem a little rushed, but that's likely just because of the TV time format. Everyone's believable and the house functions well as a character. And don't I remember a Simpson's Treehouse of Terror episode based on this?

Have Tattoo Idea - Will Travel

Everyone knows I'm a heavily tattooed crazy person who loves the horror movies. Well, I think I'm about to take it one step further and get my knuckles tattooed. I want something horror related, but of course, not something like 'true love' or 'love hate' or 'stay gold.' It's gotta be eight letters (since I'm not a natural born freak) and it has to be cool. Here's where you guys come in because I can't seem to think of anything! So hit it! What should be forever engraved onto my knuckle skin? My original idea involved a little hockey mask, a chainsaw, an axe, a sickle, and a machete, but what else?! Does that sound neat? I kinda wanted it to be more obscure than that. Like the kitties above, you gotta look out for me!

A Bell From Hell

I love when I finally come across something that's been recommended to me for no reason in particular, except for the fact that people who have seen it and know me think I might like it. Such is the case with A BELL FROM HELL; I've had numerous fellow perverts, say, hey, Jenn, you ever seen A BELL FROM HELL, to which I've said no, should I have? To which the reply is always a resounding, YES! No details, no description, no nothing, except, hey, that might suit you just fine. And boy, were you guys right. I love you guys. You guys always steer me in the right direction.

The film opens peculiarly enough, with John, a mental patient confined to a sanitarium, mixing up some latex plaster stuff to make a mask of his face - a detail we should all remember because it comes up a few times later on. After John's done with his mask, we come to find out his trial date is right around the corner and the institution, hoping he can maintain himself on the outside, has offered him probation. Upon giving him his summons and discharging him, John lights his summons for his upcoming court date on fire (how punk, John!) and takes off on a motorcycle into the countryside.

Before arriving at his dead mother's decaying manse (we'll get to all that in a minute), he takes a brief sojourn through the woods, where he runs into a bearded hermit who he knew from childhood and the hermit's deaf mute daughter. The hermit, an ominous fellow tells John, 'the owl hooted three times when your parents secretly copulated to conceive you. I thought you were far away. Why have you come back? I told you as a child you would be unlucky. Fate has dealt you the cards.'

John replies, equally as ominously, 'But I'll play them.' At this point only a few minutes in, while curious enough, we don't know why John has been confined to a mental institution or what his situation is in general. On the part of the filmmakers, this is a brilliant choice. There's so much suspense building, one of this movie's wonderful, brilliant charms, it almost smacks of Hitchcock, but once again, more on that in uno momento.

So John's more than a bit unsettling at this point, and he arrives at his mother's old home, the place having fallen into disrepair. He mopes about and then, not one to sit about idly obviously, takes a job in a slaughterhouse. Now, long time readers know my aversion towards animal cruelty in a movie. I CANNOT deal. And these slaughterhouse scenes had to be watched through my clenched fingers. It was bad enough I had to hear the cows screaming as John learns how to butcher them, while watching this half-edly through my hand. John dutifully goes about his work, clocking them on the head with knives and chopping off their legs with ease. He quits after a few days, however, and much to my relief, I thought I was going to have to sit through more than one slaughterhouse scene and thankfully I didn't, stating, 'I've learned enough.' Eww, creepy, John, you and your deadpan self.

After the slaughterhouse, John runs into his old girlfriend, who tells him she married a rich older dude who builds stuff in town and is apparently pretty well connected. Never to be ruffled, John's all like, that's cool, and, as the movie progresses, it's really difficult to tell how John feels about anything. But again, more on that in a second. Let get the plot out of the way, calm down.

So John goes to meet up with his old Aunt Marta and her three daughters, and it's here we learn why John was locked up for the last three years. Seems he couldn't keep his rapey paws off of one of his cousins and she was the one that had him committed. But wait, there's more! John's mommy was apparently pretty wealthy and as long as John, her sole heir, stays insane, Aunt Marta can collect all the dough. Soooo, are we to think John's not really crazy and Marta set her daughter as some sort of bait to tempt John? Or is John really a psychopath and needs to be locked up? This is one of the brilliant unreconciled issues in this movie that just makes it so easy to drool over. Yeah, John's obviously disturbed, but how much so? What's Marta really playing at? Anyway....

So, not only is John more than a little creepy, he's also a great practical jokester. He manages to convince his old flame's new hubby that his cousins all perish in a fishing accident, in one of the most well-timed, perfectly paced ghost stories I've ever head, and Marta does only that much more to perpetuate it. At times, you think Marta and John might be in on the sadistic joke together; the film is so brilliantly constructed and well told, it leaves you reeling.

He also manages to get the same man to take out his penis to help him pee, and always the master of disguise, manages to convince his old GF that's he's ripping out his own eyes. Which in turn, causes her to faint, and then he pretends to rape her. How do you pretend to rape someone? Well, track this movie down and watch it for yourself.

So there's lots more suspense building and creepiness and great atmosphere (think old dark decrepit homes and lots of fog), and lots of conversations about the sexy times (but alas, no actual sexy times). Here's one of my favorites between John and the ex, while they're feeding chickens no less:

J:Aren't you happy?

GF: Happy?

J: How often do you need to have sex?

GF: What?

J: You haven't had sex with your husband in three weeks.

If you're asking how John knows this, you can go ahead and add pervert and voyeur to his resume of slaughterhouse worker, mental patient, and special effects master. Seems he rigged up a microphone in the chica's bedroom so he could get info into her love life. It happens.

I won't ruin the ending for you, because it is just one of those endings that you won't be able to stop thinking about for days, I'm serious. Even now, like two days later, I'm thinking about all the underlying yuckiness and atmosphere and everything going on here. It's at times subtle, at other times overt, and all the time, it's just wonderful.

John couldn't be better in his role and Aunt Marta is equally as talented. Even the sexy cousins are interesting in their own right and the backdrops are just superb. There's enough pedophilia, depravity, repressed sexual tension (and that which is not so repressed as well), and Bava-esque camera shots and colors to make me a very happy Jenn. I would even go as far as to say Jodorowsky was inspired by this; and at the very same measure, perhaps even Eli Roth. And as for the titular bell, just like the pretend rape, you have to see it - I just don't want to ruin it for you.

Good perverted stuff, ya'll. And anything with a line like this out of nowhere, you know is incredible. 'Dearest darling, do you know what you are, my dearest darling. A stupid cunt, who doesn't know how to use it.' I say that very same line to my cousins all the time. John's a man after my own heart, truly.

Saturday

Saturday night, pumpkin muffins, Saturday night. What a fucking day it was - I hate people. I really need a new job. Really so I can get my hands and my neck tattooed more than anything else, but seriously, sometimes I really hate bringing people food and dealing with their bullshit.

So, in the last few days I've been bored at work and suffering from insomnia so I came up with a stupid list of random loves.

1. I love it in a movie when someone shoots all the bullets out of their gun and then chucks the gun at the person(s) they are so inept they can't hit. I know this definitely happens in MITCHELL and it's basically a trope of the 70's. You don't often see it today - although I don't really watch modern movies, so maybe I wouldn't know.

2. I have never seen APOCALYPSE NOW. Never once. But I woke up this morning with quotes in my head from this, a movie that I have never seen - and decided I love cultural osmosis.

3. I love in a movie, usually a holiday themed horror, when someone says, 'Merry fucking Christmas' or 'Happy fucking Valentines Day'. 'Fuck you, Arbor Day.' Damn you to hell, Flag Day!' I love shit like this. You know lines like these are only uttered when some shit has hit the fan and a lot of people have gotten the bejesus stabbed out of the

m. These lines are particularly uttered by cops and/or detectives.

4. John Saxon is the shit! I don't know if he's ever utter a line like the ones described in number 3, but if he did and it was brought to my attention, I think I would have to stop living right now.

5. Rubber suit monsters are awesome and I don't just mean Gozilla. Have you people seen the end of GHOULIES II? If you haven't, you need to. There's a giant rubber suit Ghoulie monster and he's gonna get you. He might get you tomorrow, but he's gonna get you.

6. I always enjoy a good subtle homage or tribute to a Universal classic. Or not so subtle. Seriously, the only thing that really saved BRIDE OF CHUCKY for me was when Jennifer Tilly's in the bathtub and the TV falls in there and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is on. That's good stuff.

I don't know what else. The buzz is seriously kicking in and I have places to be. Well, not really, but I'd like to think that I do. And no drunky post is complete without a picture, so here's Robert Deniro with her morning brew. She likes to get the coffee ready for when I get up. And yes, I have a female cat named Robert Deniro.

Baffled!

Tell me this doesn't sound like GOLD - Leonard Nimoy stars as international race-car driving playboy with unhinged psychic abilities who subsequently becomes embroiled with a Satanic cult. Over the course of said embroilment, he manages to be involved in a high speed car chase involving a super seventies black van, engage in a psychic staredown with a young daughter of a famous actress who is also involved in the aformentioned Satanic cult, the daughter, not the actress, and beat down an old lady, who really isn't an old lady, but the former BFF of the actress' late husband, who both were members of, you guessed it, the Satanic cult. And there's plenty of slo-mo running AND screaming. Nice.

Now, I love a Scooby Doo ending (almost as much as I love the he woke up and it was all a dream ending) and the thought of Spock in a fistacuffs with a meemaw. The mere thought of this makes me dizzy- and I'm glad to say that BAFFLED! delivers this action in spades. But you have wade through a freakin' hour and thirty six minutes of stupid. But let me back up.

So Tom (Spock) is driving his racing car in a race (go figure) and he suddenly gets a psychic vision of an old manor house, a little girl descending a staircase, and a woman screaming. It's an intense vision, and being that Tom's not used to these sorts of things, he crashes his race car. Then he does what most of us would likely do in the same situation - he goes on national television and blabs about how he's a crazy psychic person.

This interview attracts the attention of a lovely English bird, Michelle, who is also a rare books dealer and specialist in occult sciences, natch. She rings Tom up and manages to convince him in several short minutes to accompany her back to England so they can find the source of his vision and possibly help the screaming woman. You can tell Tom can really care less; Michelle is a looker and a half, and so you know that's why he agrees to fly to a foreign country and go on a caper with this woman.

That being said, I would love to be part of a couple that goes on capers together. I'd wear sexy mod outfits and drive the getaway vintage jaguar, because my man and I, we wouldn't be going on any helping people capers like Tom and Michelle. Oh no, we'd be going on dangerous adventure capers to steal rare jewels. I guess I wouldn't mind being psychic, too. It would aid in the capering, no doubt.

So back to boring old Tom and Michelle. Geez, I'm so bored already. They get to England and go to this manor house from Tom's vision. How they found it, I don't remember. Michelle had a brochure or something for it. Who knows. It's unimportant. The proprietress, Mrs. Faraday, is one of those old bitches you just know has something to hide. She's got that written all over her. But, and this is one of my problems with this movie, is that Tom and Michelle are not idiots, Michelle especially what with her esoteric knowledge of history and the occult, but they act like idiots. Most of the rest of this is them walking around speculating on who does what and why and where and walking into cellars with lit matches and getting stuck in elevator shafts. And REALLY, who cares? Why do they care?

If I had psychic visions, I would keep that shit to myself and use it for EEEVIL. I certainly wouldn't travel to England because my mind's eye saw a woman screaming and I felt the need to help her. Are you kidding me, BAFFLED!? So yeah, Tom and Michelle get stuck in places and open secret doors and try to expose everyone else in the house as poisoners or cult people or something and there's the actress and her daughter, who I mentioned earlier, as well as an Italian butcher, two drug-dealing newlyweds, and a butler named Hopkins.

If I had a butler, I would name him Cinnamon. Just so I could say things like, Cinnamon, please to answer the door. And I'll have my tea in the solarium today at precisely four. That is all for now, thank you, Cinnamon.

I mentioned the ending - which was AWESOME- so basically what you do is this - find a copy of BAFFLED! and just skip right to the ending, watch that a few times, LOL as if your heart depended on it, I did, and then go back to watching internet porn. There, I saved you a BAFFLING hour and a half. Yeah, you waited for it and I went there. But seriously, this thing was boring AND confusing. All the slow motion running set to super sexy swinging sounds doesn't even save this. And Leonard Nimoy was creeping me the fuck out - smiling and leering at Michelle and attempting innuendo. Do. Not. Want.

So, in theory and on paper, this sounds stunning. In real life, not so much. In fact, it took me two days and three hangovers (something about that math isn't right, but whatever) to watch it. But my made-for-tv seventies movies kick continues.

Inside the Dream Factory

It's Friday night, slags. I love you. I'm done with the grind for the night and am gonna drink up this wine and give you a glimpse into my dream factory. And by dream factory, I totally don't mean what you think I mean. I never do, do I? You are used to this. Here's where I conceive all my greatest ideas - flanked by cats at my dining room table, wine and phone handy.

Also, I was meaning to tell ya'll, I recently woke up in a bathtub full of ice, with a note pinned to my clothes that my kidneys had been removed and I should contact a medical professional immediately. That'll teach me to get fucked up in Mexico again. And those damn chupacabras! They're everywhere. Here's the photo evidence to prove it. The whole kidney thing, not the chupacabras, that is.

So you see why this sojourn into this bottle of pino noir is so well deserved. Working, goat sucking beasts, and missing internal organs. You'd be hard pressed yourself to not want to do the same.

Bad Ronald

Carl has instructed me to stop nappin' and get bloggin' and for Carl's edification, and yours, I'll have you know I've actually been working, not napping, for the last couple of days. I know, it's hard to believe I stopped drinkin' for two seconds, got up off the couch and went and brought people food, but I did, and I'm all the more monetarily compensated for this. But, Carl's correct, I need to stop shirking my blogging responsibilities, as they were, and get these posts up. So, my little pumpkins, I give you BAD RONALD!

This lovely little made-for-TV slice of the 70's opens on the titular Ronald's birthday, as he is about to enter his last year of high school. He ain't Bad Ronald yet. So don't get excited. Ronald and his overbearing mommy share some din-din and some cake, as well as some expository dialogue to let us, the viewing public, get to know them and their situation somewhat. Ronald's daddy's been out of the picture for quite some time and Momma waived her alimony so she could get full custody of Ronald. No need for Ronald to have a father figure in his life - Mommy's all that and then some. Also, we learn through this clever opening conversation that Mommy's having some health issues and wants nothing more than for Ronald to attend medical school upon his completion of his senior year, no doubt for the free health care. She presents Ronald with a toolkit, literally, and a paint set, again literally (to illustrate his story - more on that later), and the evening ends successfully.

UNTIL, Ronald decides to go over to popular girl Laurie Matthew's house to invite her to the movies. Now Ronald looks like an even geekier Screech (from Saved by the Bell - is there any other Screech? But I thought I'd clarify) with horrible giant glasses, lives with a possibly insane matriarch, and is, by all accounts, socially awkward. Why in the living hell would popular, blond Laurie Matthews want ANYTHING to do with Ronald? Answer: She doesn't. She rebukes him almost immediately after he arrives at her swimming pool, and the jocks and bimbos she hangs out with taunt him mercilessly. Come on, Ronald, are you that clueless? Just because it's your bday, that doesn't mean that bitch Laurie Matthews is going to accompany you to the movies.

Okay, so this is getting predicable already, but hang on. There's more. Predictability, that is. But there's some good stuff too. Hold your fucking horses.

So Ronald leaves Laurie's all rejected and such and runs into her kid sister, Carol. He bumps into her inadvertently, knocking her off her bicycle. Carol, a precocious ten to twelve year old, tells Ronald how weird he is and just as an added dig, calls Mommy weird too. Uh oh. Do NOT fuck with a socially awkward withdrawn teen and his mamma. Ronald demands she apologize for the insult and one thing ultimately leads to another and little Carol winds up with her skull bashed in courtesy of a strategically placed cinderblock. Oh Ronald! Look what you fucking did! So if this was a pick your own adventure tale, guess what Ronald does next: a) alerts some authority that Carol had an unfortunate accident while riding her bike or b) buries her body in a shallow grave and returns home to confess the incident to Mommy. If you picked b) we're on to the next chapter in this tale.

Well, since Ronald's Mommy's one and only, she only gets pissed for a sec - 'I warned you about those girls!' and then decides to do the only rational thing. Again, choose your own adventure. A) turn Ronald into the authorities, crying accident or b) hide Ronald in the walls of the crumbling Victorian house in which they live until the heat dies down, then start over somewhere new with different identities later on. Ding, ding, ding, ding! If you picked b) continue the adventure.

Okay, so I TOTALLY knew that toolkit (literally) would come in handy and Mommy and Ronald make a special hidey hole for Ronald to chill out in. They wallpaper up a bathroom/bedroom (ala kinda what they do for Peter Cushing in FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED for his secret lab-or-a-tory) while the cops are poking around looking for clues as to what happened to Carol.

Well, you know how the cops are, and they eventually a'knockin' at Ronald's place. Mommy, forever the good Mommy that she is, tells them Ronald ran away from home and she is unaware of his whereabouts. They search the dwelling and find Ronald's coat with some blood on it (duh duh dunnnnnnn!) and a note stating how he's done something terrible and he's had to go away for awhile and blah blah. Mommy's on the defensive and somehow this doesn't seem suspicious and the cops take their leave....

So all is well, until Mommy's got to go have gallbladder surgery. Seems she just can't wait until Ronald gets out of the walls and becomes the world's most renowned gall bladder surgeon. So leaving Ronald with a multitude of canned goods, she enters the hospital for, what is promised, only a week. Can you guess what's coming next? Do I even need to let you choose your own adventure?

Next thing we know, Mommy's deader than a doornail and Ronald is left to fend for himself between the walls of the house. And if that wasn't enough, he's also got snoopy old busybody neighbor Mrs. Shoemacher to contend with. And how does Ronald fend for himself you ask? By making peepholes all over the house to spy on unsuspecting prospect house buyers, of course. Oh, and he also manages to give old Mrs. Shoemacher a heart attack based just on her sighting him. Does he a) use this opportunity to alert authorities that he's been inside the house all along and that he's totally innocent or does he b) drag Mrs. S's dead body into the cellar to rot for all eternity? We know Ronald, now we can refer to him as Bad Ronald, by now, so you can bet your sweet ass he chooses b).

So one thing leads to another and a family with three beautiful daughters moves into Ronald's abode. Ronald, forever one to harbor deep seeded sexual repression brought on by years of feeling inadequate at the hands of a domineering matriarch, fixates his fantasy and rage on the youngest of the daughters, Babs. At one point, his psychosis manifests itself so much, he thinks he is Prince Norbert of Enchanta (sp?) and Babs is his princess. He goes as far as to hang an ornate lifesize drawing of a princess in her room, and upon her discovering it and the freak out that follows, he manages to get his grimy hands on her, which ultimately dissovles in Ronald's being apprehended by the police, in a IMO, unfulfilling climax.

Yes, this was predictable. Yes, this was a slow burn. Yes, it could have used a grimier, sleazier ending. But! But, this was good shit. It needs to be appreciated for exactly what it is - and that's a great, kinda sort sleazy made-for-TV 70's movie about a dumbass that you just want to throttle for being so over-the-top socially inept. I wanted to yell, RONALD! Don't do that! You're gonna be a doctor one day! Fuck what you heard! You're better than that fucking Laurie Matthews! Evil prince Dwayne? Screw him! Stop nibbling on snacks every time you get stressed and pay attention to your studies! You'll outshine them all one day once you get that medical degree! And stop it with the fucking Prince Norbert shit! Don't just air that out for everyone to know! If you're a psychotic with a enchanted forest fetish, keep that shit hidden. It's like being a furry or some shit - you don't want everyone to know what a fucking freak you are! Draw your shit in private and that's that. And take a bath every once in awhile. Like Mommy used to say, 'stick to the routine!'

Oh, that Bad Ronald. I don't like him. I want to. But I don't. He just makes me mad. I'm gonna hurt him. I want to hurt him. I'll hurt him tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Hangover Continued

Damn, I thought I felt like shit yesterday after a thorough drunkening while watching What the Peeper Saw Saturday night. You would think of all day's, yesterday being my boyfriend Paul Naschy's birthday and all, I could have done something special. But no! I had to have too much to drink again last night and yap on the phone for hours about who knows what. I'm in dire need of a snuggling. And my girl is in town from San Francisco and I can't even will myself out of bed or pajamas to party it up with her. I promise a glowing review of Peeper, as soon as I make myself watch it again, because I know there's gold there - psychosexual gold, the best type! - and I want to be sober for it. For now, enjoy a picture of me in my natural state, sans makeup, not naked, you sleaze balls. This is what Moochie and I have been doing for two days straight:

The Spy Who Came

I've got on my best dominatrix/spy outfit to relay to you the goings on in The Spy Who Came, complete with shiny black mod slip dress, over-the-knee, black leather stiletto boots, and fishnets, and I'll keep the riding crop handy. Just in case any of you get out of line. And I know how you are, you want to be punished. So you act up on purpose. You'll get the bullwhip for that, you will. I have ways of keeping you in line ;)

Detective Harry is overworked, crime is at an all time high, and he's been burning the midnight oil. On his way home to his lovely fiancee, he stops by the local watering hole for a drink and meets the sexy in a trashy, almost drugged addicted way Heidi. After pleasantries are exchanged - he gets her a whiskey sour and asks her twice where she's from, to which she replies, around - they go back round to hers. Some strategically spilt vodka and a ten minute sex scene later, and Byron (a eunuch in a pirate shirt), Otto (a white guy with an afro), and Tessie (a beautiful blond wearing my blogging outfit) spring out of the closet in Heidi's apartment to take Harry to their boss. I smell a set up!

Seems their boss, an Arab sheik, has some dirt on Harry. Said dirt being that Harry likes to frolick with prostitutes and Sheiky has the film footage to prove it. If Harry doesn't agree to help the sheik, he'll show the footage to Harry's woman. But why does the sheik need Harry? It's quite simple really - he needs a cop on his side to help him in his plan of extracting business secrets from wealthy entrepreneurs. How does he plan to extract these secrets? With the help of the perfect woman, of course!

Using tactics popularized (right word?) by white slavers, the Marquis de Sade, and Pavlov, our Sheik has kidnapped beautiful women, drugged them, and 'scientifically conditioned' them (!) to be the ultimate sex machines, thus seducing the good stuff out of these otherwise unseducable men. How does he scientifically condition them? A lot of questions today, eh? Remember, I'm the one with the crop. But I'll oblige you this time. And you'll thank me.

The sheik and his minions have this creating the perfect woman thing down to, you guessed it, a SCIENCE. They have produced a series of videos, and with the help of creepy mannequins, an omniscient narrator, and the afro-ed Otto, the girls are instructed in all manner of sex positions and how to 'startle the subject into pleasure' including a neat pivot maneuver and the reverse cowgirl. With 'constant continued simulation' and 'exercise' the girls are able to get pretty much anything they want from whoever the sheik wants them to get it from.

It's all very scientific and clinical, even with Otto leering and occasionally positioning the girls during their 'exercise.' But the exercises ain't all. There's more to the scientific-sex-to-extract national-secrets-conditioning than just practice making perfect. There's even more SCIENCE involved.

The gorgeous Tessie has created a 'conditioning unit' - kind of like shock therapy electric chair for the erogenous zones. It emits some sort of radiation to the brain and therefore stimulates the tissue in the nipples. While that's all fine and good, the genitals also get their fair treatment in the conditioning unit and makes it so anything that penetrates the girl after her time in conditioning will fit snugly into place. Tessie explains all of this in a crisp, terse British accent and also explains how the girls get really turned on during treatments, so much so that the next phase is necessary.

The next phase is sadistic Tessie's favorite part, in fact, like the conditioning unit, it's by her design. She prepares injections to keep the girl's complacent, to sap their wills, and make them easy to manage because they are normally so arouse. You wouldn't necessarily think this to look at any of these girls - most have a glazed over vacant look and actually act more like robots than anything. She further explains that conditioning involves punishment, the girls are similar to wild animals in their aroused state so when they receive their injections they must be shackled (nude with sexy black leather gauntlets in a dirty basement).

As Tessie's describing all this, poor Harry, horny as he normally is, can't take it. He tells her how she's wrong, it's wrong to control people. Tessie explains nonchalantly that everyone on Earth is controlled by something and then proceeds to beat a few girls with her riding crop. She approaches Eve and says 'You don't want pain, do you, Eve? You'd rather have pleasure? Close your eyes and pretend you're with your love.' Eve does as she's instructed and begins to masturbate fervently. She goes over to the eunuch, Byron, who's been watching the proceedings this whole time, and Tessie then starts rubbing her riding crop all over Eve, who's still wearing her gauntlets from being shackled. Wait for it. Wait for it. Then Tessie beats the shit out Eve and the girl returns to her automaton like state.

I hope you can take some more, like you've been conditioned to, because now it's Caroline's turn. Tessie explains that after their injections and beatings, it's going to be Harry's job to grade the women. So after Tessie undresses, leaving the boots on, thank goodness, Caroline is unshackled and forced to pleasure Tessie with her mouth. Tessie, reliquishing Caroline to Harry, and not being able to stand hetero sex, goes outside to have a conversation with the sheik.

Seems Tessie's fed up with the way he's been running things and the fact that he made her have a threesome with Harry and another woman earlier in the movie ('You'll start with a strip tease! It will condition you as a woman to have sex with a man.'), and has decided to hide his drugs (he's addicted to drugs) and make him service her out in the garden. 'Don't be shy, pink britches' she tells him as she strips him nude. But they don't get very far...

Suddenly, the cops are on the scene - seems earlier Harry made a deal with his Captain and a Arab man with a French accent who's been hot on the sheik's trail for awhile, to infiltrate the operation. With the French Arab cop in pursuit, Tessie takes off topless, still wearing the boots, through the woods. The conditioned girls get loose and run screaming after Tessie and then kill her in an empty swimming pool. The French Arab cop gets the files he was after and then, for some reason unbeknownst to me, gets into a wheelchair manned by a male nurse (in the middle of the woods), waves to Harry, and FIN.

If I had drawn the words sheik, evil lesbian dominatrix, scientific conditioning, eunuch, 60's, shock therapy, and spy caper out of a hat and then had to write a movie based on those things, I don't think I could have done any better than this. The sexy stuff is super sexy and the SCIENCE stuff is super science-y. But I can't help but wonder, would the sheik's plan have worked?

I'm impressed. You behaved rather well for that. I'll have to think of a way to reward you ;) For now, all you'll get is the crop.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

So Monday night, the ex and I went to see Final Destination in 3D. It was at my choosing, having already seen Halloween 2 on Friday with the BFF and while the ex would have preferred I sat through H2 again on his behalf, I was having none of it. Flaming drinks beforehand and the kitsch factor of 3D glasses did nothing to save FD, but this isn't a post about that shit. It's about the palette cleanser movie after FD that the ex brought over, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a 1974 made for TV exercise that exceeded this movie junkie's expectations tenfold. It made me so happy, I almost started crying. I'm serious about stuff like this, ya'll. I was also seriously crunked. It was so good, we watched it again Tuesday and quoted it to each other over hair of the dog margaritas. I know once you see it, you'll be like, damn Jenn, that was so good and I have you to thank so please accept these gifts of free movies and pony bottles of liquor. Remember, no gin!

I love when a movie tells me not to do something. The very title warns against something as banal as looking in basements or being fearful of the dark. I like that in a title. Tell me right up front what it is that I'm not supposed to do so I can do the very opposite. I WILL be afraid of the dark and I WILL look in that fucking basement thank you very much. I'm like that. Very obstinate.

Anyway, DBAotD is a simple tale of a simple couple, Sally and Alex, who inherit Sally's grandmother's creepy old house. Based on the title, you're likely thinkin', okay, spooky, old dark house movie, I can get down. Might have some psychological thriller stuff thrown in there. We shall see. So Sally and Alex move in and the place is old and a bit of a fixer upper, so Sally, a housewife with nothing much to do while lawyer Alex slaves away at becoming partner, hires a gold chain wearing, three buttons undone on his shirt, bearded decorator to give the place some much needed style. And by much needed style, he's thinking navy blue shag carpeting and neon green walls.

There just so happens there's a mysterious locked room in the house which Sally eventually procures the key for. Seems it's an old damp study with bricked up fireplace. Sally, 'the perfect woman, stubborn and curious' (her own description of herself), becomes obsessed with opening up the fireplace. Mr. Harris, a whizened old carpenter who came with the house, warns her against it, being as how he himself bricked it up for Sally's meemaw fifty some years ago.

Screw Mr. Harris, the thing must be opened. Sally takes an axe to it, and in no time, there's a gaping whole in her study, literally. Well, that proved to be a real lark, she sticks her head down in there, sees nothing, and goes to have a scotch with her husband. She's gotta fix him dinner too, you know.

Unbeknownst to the happy couple in their overly stereotypical gendered roles, Sally has let forth an unspeakable evil into their midst. And by unspeakable evil, I mean these guys, the cutest little demon dudes I have ever seen:

Some strange shit starts happening around the house, ashtrays get broken, Sally's dress gets ripped, she's starting to hear voices. Alex tells her basically to grow up, I mean, he can't be bothered since he's this high-falutin' lawyer hoping to make partner. So who cares if Sally's having a mental breakdown or what, Alex needs her to throw the party of the century to impress the bigwig lawyers. Well, there's only one thing that can happen during said party, Sally sees the little guys and has a massive screaming freakout right in the middle of dinner.

Seemingly calmed down a bit now (has this woman never heard of valium?), Sally decides to take a shower in the dark. The demons, they're only about a foot and half tall and oh so adorable, sneak in through a secret passage way in the linen closet. They're carrying a strait razor and have the following conversation, one of the best conversations I have ever heard in a movie:

Demon 1 to Demon 2 who is brandishing a strait razor: Don't! Wait! Don't hurt her!

Demon 2: But I want to! I want to get her!

D1: Wait until tomorrow. Just scare her.

D2: Scare her! Scare her!

D1: We'll get her in the bedroom!

I don't know if Sally can hear this convo over the roar of the shower spray, but it is so terrifying. What if you were just minding your own business and two tiny little demon guys came into your bathroom and had a conversation about how they were just gonna scare the shit out of you today and then give you 24 hours to think about your impending demise the following evening by their hand?

She gets out of the shower and the demons have disappeared, but she finds the strait razor and is completely whacked out by it and tries to go lay down. The demons run all over the house repeating to themselves and the others (there are about four, I think), 'We'll get her tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.'

So Harris, who knows about the little buggers, natch, comes by to get some tools he left at the house. Seems he won't be working there any more. Well, he tries to warn Alex that 'some things are better left alone' and goes to the study to get his crap. The goblins are waiting for him and they know what he's been up to. 'You told,' they whisper at him menacingly. 'You told! You know what happens to people who tell!' Where'd these guys get their dialogue from, a mob movie? Alex comes to check on Harris and the little guys let him be....for the moment.

The next day, Alex has to leave on business. The demons couldn't be more thrilled - they emit some green light and keep repeating 'Sally, Sally' in their whispering throaty little voices. They string up a trip chord at the top of the stairs and beardo interior decorator strips over it and dies instead of Sally. Another freakout later - they actually reveal themselves to her and tell her they need her spirit - and Sally's got the cops, a doctor, and BFF Joan in the house with her. The doctor, thinking she's suffering from some sort of mental breakdown, prescribes sleeping pills. Joan, or the demons, it's hard to tell exactly because Joan seems like she's cool and Sally doesn't really want to take the meds, slips her the pills in some coffee and she's off to acting drugged out. A few cut power and phone lines later, and it's all hell breakin' loose!

The demons make their move and drag Sally through the house, as she makes some really suggestive noises IYKWIM, to take her straight down to hell, or wherever it is they come from. Maybe they just live in the fireplace. But she shows them, and grabs a camera and takes their pictures. I guess they don't like to be photographed. She only proves to incense them more and they take her ass into their fireplace hell and she essentially becomes one of them and fuels their desire for world domination.

Oh boy, did I have a good time watching this thing! The little demons are so fabulous, so cute, and I love how creepy they are with their whispers. I can tell you one thing, had I seen this as a kid, I would have been so fucking freaked out, I probably wouldn't have slept for days. I would have been thinking those motherfuckers were in my closet, coming to drag me down the chimney. I don't think I would have gone near a fireplace.

There's plenty of subtext too, lots of sexual repression going on, and lots of stereotypical sexist stuff that almost seems out of place in a movie set in the seventies. Having said that, Sally could have been hotter. She's frumpy and not very entertaining to watch in her shape hiding cardigans and mumus. She could do with a makeover. So the aforementioned shower scene is kinda lost. And this is made for TV, so what the hell are they really gonna show?

The house is also under-utilized; I like how some of these movies with this type of setting almost incorporate the house as a character; this one doesn't. At first, I was thinking it was an old dark house movie and it probably could have functioned well as one, but introduce those creepy critters and all the better.

Pour the wine and get ready to start telling all your friends 'I'm gonna get you tomorrow.' It'll freak 'em out, I promise. I sent the BFF a text message earlier today telling him that very thing. Thank you, hilarious and creepy little demons from a all but forgotten made for television movies from the seventies. Thank you.