Grrr! Arrg!

Sometimes lots of options aren't such a good thing. I was rather conflicted about what to watch last night so I set aside all of my choices I had in my head and watched Scanners III. Yes, it's the Halloween of the Scanners. Good cheese-ridden movie. Some of it is just so bad its great. I can actually take the first two seriously but this one, no. This brought the psychic battles to new heights, err, I mean lows. This is the heavy sound effects, the weird camera angles, the grunting and groaning faces but yet not voices, full on drama-queen psychic fighting. Mind you this movies also brings us Scanner fights on rooftops, and a Scanner fight under water. Okay, enough Scanners for this year.

There exists a sort of second string of horror villains that refuse to die both in their films and in the box office. Among those there is one that stands heads and shoulders above the rest, both figuratively and literally. His name even says it all, he is The Tall Man. He's not all that an evil guy though, after all he believes in copyright and is against movie piracy. The end credits of the last three of the four installments of the franchise read something similar to this warning from the third film. “Unauthorized duplication, distribution, or exhibition may result in civil liability, criminal prosecutions, and THE WRATH OF THE TALL MAN.“ This is of course the ”Phantasm“ series. The series is chockfull of human corpses turned in Star Wars Jawas (though accidentally through parallel creative processes, which goes to show you can't take forever to get your film in the theatres), flying killer metal spheres with varied weapons packages, and of course dimensional mayhem.

Being second string doesn't make you or your movies any less great, in fact if that were the case we might not have cult hits. Certainly if you talk about being attacked by people risen from the dead the first thing that comes to mind are Romero's most famous movies. Yet looking behind those, or maybe next to them on the shelf, we have some other great dead who just happen to be evil instead of mindless. These ones I absolutely must suggest that everyone see if by some manner they happened to have missed out on them by now. Everybody who loves horror must see the “Evil Dead“ trilogy. Sam Raimi is an awesome director, yes him, the one behind the scenes bringing Spider-Man to life. Evil Dead is an absolute classic, the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror. “Evil Dead II” has an even wider fan base due to its more comedic elements. Then finally (so far) the third and last film ended up with a different name all together when suits thought it would somehow help, so we have “Army of Darkness” a.k.a. “Ash vs the Army of Darkness” a.k.a. of course “Evil Dead III” and this one kills me, a.k.a. “Captain Supermarket” in Japan. AoD is an absolute riot, there are so many great lines and gags you just have to pretty much quote nearly everything.

Lastly, for today at least, with these second stringers I have to suggest one of them who never managed to spawn any sequels, which is a shame and perhaps a blessing because sometimes once is enough simply because it makes them stand out all the more. Wes Craven was behind this one with a character who is certainly no Mr. Nice Guy. “Shocker” was to be a new you know who, supposedly, though maybe it was just fan wishing. That's okay, why mess with perfection. I have to mention that Shocker has an awesome heavy metal lyrical soundtrack with some amazing songs.

Off I go again, 'til the morrow.

Mood: rockin'!
Music: Demon Bell (the Ballad Of Horace Pinker) by Dangerous Toys and Shocker by Dudes of Wrath