Killer Klowns From Outer Space

There once was a young boy who spent many an evening in the video rental store his Mum worked in watching movies in a backroom. His Mum was a conscientious lady who would always check the video boxes to ensure he only watch appropriate content. Unfortunately she didn't check inside the boxes and that was how, smuggled inside a copy of The Jetsons Meet The Flinstones, the boy came to watch Killer Klowns From Outer Space.

I've never forgotten that movie. Though meant as a comedy I saw it only as a terrifying horror remembering for a long time the cotton candy corpse cocoons and the girl in the balloon. I watched it again on Youtube a few years ago and considered it a bit blah.

I watched it again last night in far better, legal, format. And I have to say, it has really held up well. The music is actually pretty good, the Klowns themselves look amazing considering the movie was made 30 years ago and the acting is vastly superior to almost every other b-movie made since (just look at how bad Hobgoblins was!).

And there's some genuine creepy stuff in this movie. The popcorn creatures (again holding up well), the cotton candy and the drinking straws, the ventriloquist act with the police officer and the Klown trying to entice the little girl out of the fast food restaurant.

Two things let it down:

1) the underpinning of the whole movie of having Killer Klowns from Outer Space. All they needed to do was imply, as done at points with Stephen King's IT, that they only saw the aliens as clowns because the puny human brain can't conceive of what they really are. When we see kill someone with acidic cream pies, we're just IMAGINING that as to conceive of what really happened was too horrific. That would've added a much-needed dimension of creepiness and believability.
2) the comedy is shit. I mean, REALLY shit. The Klown kapers are one thing, but the Terenzi brothers nearly ruin the movie. And they unbelievably survive. There's no justice in this movie.

But overall it really holds up. In the hands of the right people the proposed sequel or a reboot could actually be genuinely terrifying or even funny! This is one b-movie that only gets better with age.

Review: Animal Kingdom: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel by Iain Rob Wright

Book 2 of 2013's reading list! Woo.... And today it is the turn of "Animal Kingdom: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel"

This review is going be a total downer and I wish it wasn't. It's competently written which is pretty good for a book in its price range and shows the hard work the author has put into this novel. But it doesn't work for me.

Set in a zoo on the day that every animal in the world turns against humans, it has a very interesting premise. I've seen this premise work out a little in Brian Keene's "The Rising", although in that book they were undead animals adding to an already pretty serious zombie apocalypse. However the first flaw in the book is the way that premise works out. These now, at the very least semi-intelligent, animals with a bloodlust don't really try very hard to get at the humans. It isn't just mammals affected but reptiles and even anthropods. I just couldn't see how the timing worked. This premise might have worked played out over a day, maybe two. But over a few days? By then the spiders could've slipped into ears, noses and mouths of the people and down untold amounts of damage. Monkeys could've destroyed the window and torn apart doors.

I know, I'm an animal obsessive, but just the presentation of a group of chimps being fairly easily avoided (and luckily killing one of the antagonists) seemed totally unreal. The way the premise played out seemed to defy belief and given with these type of books one has already suspended ones belief that takes some doing.

And I can't decide if the characters were just paper thin or if I just didn't like any of them. They acted in unbelievable ways. Take Bill, whose boyfriend is killed during the opening events of the novel, he doesn't spend a moment (not a single moment) grieving. Now of them seem all that fazed by events. The only person who has anything approaching a breakdown is already on tablets for OCD. And the lead character, Joe, is just unlikeable. The villains are 1) selfish, power hungry businessman, 2) aggressive yobbish former soldier and 3) God-botherer.

I couldn't bring myself to read the short stories that come with this book. I read it to the end simply because I felt I owed it to myself not to give up on my plan to read all the books on my reading list so early on.

I was looking forward to this book (hence it being 2nd on the list!) but I'm greatly disappointed.

Review: Island Life By William Meikle

After a particularly big Amazon binge following some unexpectedly large gifts of Amazon vouchers, my Kindle is overflowing with books. I'm a terrible hoarder and already had a backlog of books anyway. Now something must be done so I'm dedicated to reading as many of the unread books I own as possible this year.

First up was Island Life by William Meikle. The Kindle edition was under £2 and I wasn't expecting much but bought it as it had quite a good rating. I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Set on a Scottish island, it details a scary couple of days as supernatural horrors burst forth from a recently begun archaeological dig. It is a very simple story, and Meikle does not waste time on unnecessary intricate details, so the pacing of the book makes for an easy read.

Meikle writes characters well enough that you do worry about what might happen to them. There are a few chilling scenes (especially the main character Duncan's flashback to a time he ended up trapped in caves in his youth), and enough realistic interactions to keep the supernatural aspects grounded.

This is no masterpiece, but it is well-written, genuinely creepy and was a great antidote to Stephen King's (also awesome) 11/22/63 that I had just managed to get through. Stephen King writes masterpieces but they aren't easy reading! Island Life was a pleasure compared to that.

I'd rate it 4/5 and, once I'm through my backlog, I'll be looking up more of Meikle's work.

Night Of The Living Trekkies

As a zombie apocalypse fan and a (recovering) Star Trek obsessive, Night of the Living Trekkies has been on my radar for a few months. But I put off getting it as I just didn't see it being all that good. How wrong could I have been?! 

Basic plot outline in one sentence: a zombie outbreak occurs during a Star Trek convention in Houston. As diehard geek, that sentence is enough to get me extremely excited indeed. But I understand it might not appeal to everyone. I say, give it a go.

The book is superbly, tightly written, with humour woven into the dialogue so well that it feels totally natural. The characters are believable and likeable. It's a short, easy read and I will say it's definitely the best book I've read this year. My only criticism would be that, for those who aren't total nerds, some of the jokes might go over the reader's head. But hey, I am a total nerd so I laughed at every one.

A must buy.


Further Reading


Night of the Living Trekkies - Kevin David Anderson (UK Book, UK Kindle, US Book, US Kindle)

Zombie Apocalypse by Stephen Jones

Full disclosure: I'm a Zombie-aholic. I've seen the movies, read the books, adored the comics and just this last two weeks raved about TV series. So when, whilst wandering through my local bookstore the other day desperate for inspiration, I saw a book entitled "Zombie Apocalypse I could not walk past. 


In retrospect, picking it up and taking it home was an excellent decision. The story is told via the medium of letters, emails, diary entries, blogposts and Twitter feeds which makes it quite disjointed but not unduly so, and is very reminiscent of World War Z by Max Brooks (not a bad thing at all). It helps create a picture of the world far more easily and quickly than a normal narrative story. 


Mixing humour, recent political and news events, horror and an underlying bleakness, the story rolls on quickly to a humourous if despairing end. I got through it in a matter of hours, which shows just how easily it grabs your attention.


You do care about the characters, you do get taken in by the story (I stopped reading half way through and was surprised to find there were no zombies trying to break down my door!) and it will leave any horror or zombie fan very satisfied indeed. 


An excellent book and one I wholeheartedly recommend. 


Further Reading 


Zombie Apocalypse! US Amazon UK Amazon

If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist

Another Shark Movie... With A Controversial Budget

After yesterday's shark post, I've found another upcoming shark movie. This time it comes from Australia and looks absolutely awesome based on the trailer.



Part of this awesome factor might be because this 3D movie is receiving state funding. And that's proving controversial given the portrayal of sharks as killing machines when they are far more at risk from us than we are from them. Read more here.

Upcoming Features: Sharks

Thanks to Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus, we've got a lot of shark related movies coming up. As a fan of Jaws, and of sharks in general, this can only be a good thing. As long as they are better than Dinoshark anyway...

First up is the eagerly awaited Sharktopus and the B-movie lover in me got very excited after seeing this trailer:



Then next we have the less than inspiring Super Shark (it can fly... hmm...)



And finally, actually looking quite good, we have a Jaws tribute with a twist: Swamp Shark



I think Swamp Shark might just be my most eagerly awaited monster movie for the next few months... :)

Predators

I'm a franchise fan. Predator was a masterpiece, Predator II was great, Aliens Vs Predator was alright and AVP:R was.... well absolutely awful but I watched it. That's how much of a fan I am. 

I've had July's release of Predators set in my diary for a while and was really looking forward to it. Alas, it turns out to be yet another bitter disappointment. 

The pacing was all wrong. In Predator, the slow parts were short and useful for building up the tension. In Predators, the slow parts of the bulk of the movie and were useful for story advancement but failed to build up the tension at all. I didn't feel the characters were in constant jeopardy, as they should have been, and I didn't feel excited or interested about their fates. Each death came with inevitability rather than surprise. Each death was in fact far from sudden. You knew it was coming. And you just don't care. 

The acting was decent, the filming alright, the overall story had promise. But the weird, glaring errors (despite being out in the open often, none of them noticed the planets above their heads until they reached a scenic clifftop setting!!) and the total lack of pacing leads this movie to be on a par with AvP. Alright but not recommended. It's worth a watch if it comes on the telly, but don't part with any hard earned money for it!

Alien Prequel Vs Predators

With Predators due to be released later this year and Ridley Scott's return to the Alien franchise almost a given, it's time to start getting excited!

Below are the first on set pictures from the production of Predators, a film I trust will see us put the AvP franchise to bed and return us to firmer movie ground.

And if the rumours are to be believed we might even get a brief cameo by his most sexiness himself...

And an Alien prequel would be very, very exciting. With the mess made by Alien3 and Alien Resurrection, it's probably good to return to a time when the Xenomorphs were terrifying. Most exciting stuff indeed!

Dead Snow (Død snø)

Dead Snow is a Norwegian horror-comedy featuring Nazi Zombies. Now there is more to it than that but if you fail to think "Wow, Nazi Zombies!" after reading that sentence then this is probably not the movie for you. 

But if Third Reich zombies do it for you, this movie is actually much better than I thought. There is no toned down gore here, no pulled punches, but there are a few laughs in the Evil Dead vein. The acting is alright and despite being set up as a somewhat cliched group of young people in a cabin horror movie, it manages to break out of this with some tremendous fight back scenes. This is no "last girl standing" movie, nor a typical zombie movie (these are more Undead Nazi's than zombie ones) and it's all the better for that. 

I really didn't have high hopes, but was pleasantly surprised. This is no high minded masterpiece, but it is enjoyable.

Walking Dead TV Series Greenlit!

There's no way of pretending otherwise: I'm a comic book geek. Sure, due to monetary constraints, I'm a repressed comic book geek but nevertheless I still get to read some awesome books from time to time. One of those is Walking Dead. 

A zombie apocalypse story may have been done time and again across all forms of media but it works particularly well in Image's Walking Dead comic series and thus I was excited to hear that finally a Walking Dead was getting a pilot. Not only that but it is partly the brainchild of Frank Darabont, director of such wonderful Stephen King adaptations (did I not mention I'm also a Stephen King geek!) as The Mist and Shawshank Redemption.

Am I eager to see this? You bet your cotton socks I am!!! *jumps up and down with childlike glee*

Erm... There's A Scream IV???

According to Bloody-Disgusting.com

Ok, I thought this was already reported 90 times, but maybe I'm wrong. In an interview with MTV, star David Arquette confirmed that Wes Craven will in fact be getting behind the camera for Scream IV, assuming it actually happens (I don't have a lot of faith in Dimension Films these days). "Yes, Wes [Craven] is in, Neve [Campbell] is in, everyone is in," Arquette said. The lovely Cox didn't sound as sure however. "I know they're trying to make that work," she said, referring to bringing the "Nightmare on Elm Street" creator back on to direct. "They'll make it work," she said, quickly adding "I hope." There you go, back at square one. I'd love to interview someone and talk in circles.

I don't know whether to smile... or to scream...

And in a Jurassic Park IV-esqe twist, it might be the start of another trilogy! *joy* *groan*

Conflicting emotions, much?