Modern Art Is Soooooo Subjective

If movies have taught me anything, it’s that the future is a world I never want to live in. No amount of Wild Stallions or Jetsons-like housekeeping could make me wish myself into a land rife with infertility, leather, nuclear fallout, totalitarianism, android bounty hunters, and more than one scenario wherein Kevin Costner is the messiah. Sure, it can be argued that the better time leaping movies are actually commenting on today’s society, but that still doesn’t mean I’m jumping on a hoverboard any time soon.

Richard Stanley’s 1990 dystopian techno thriller Hardware does little to change my views on the future....which I’m now apparently living in. This recently reissued film borrows a little inspiration from The Terminator, Soylent Green, Z.P.G., and a few other post apocalyptic films of the past, capturing a striking mix of 70s hard edged 70s cinema and 80s action to be its own interesting, if highly imperfect slice of metallic sci-fi.

Quick Plot: It’s the 21st century from a 20th century point of view, meaning the world is a sizzling desert filled with robot rubble, red skies, and intrepid little people. Iggy Pop’s DJ voice informs us that the government is set to pass a proposal to control the population by sterilizing anybody found reproducing, as resources are scarce and radiation is high. It’s an ugly world bathed entirely in an orange fuzz that burns straight through the camera lens.

A lonely and haunting opening follows a ragged gas-masked scavenger searching a wasteland for any goods to sell. He comes upon a few pieces of MARK 13, a failed cyborg experiment worth its weight in trading. Our nameless traveller brings his haul to a tech savvy junk trader named Alvy (Willow’s Mark Northover) and sells what looks like the head of C3P0's rebellious older brother to Mo, a roving soldier played by Dylan McDermott. Mo in turn presents it to his artist girlfriend Jill (Stacy Travis) for a Christmas/sorry-I’m-never-here gift. She’s elated because it’s just what she needs to complete her latest piece (after a hip dose of spray paint that would have gone perfectly with a kicking pair of American flag Converse, of course).

As you might imagine, MARK-13 ain’t WALL-E. Once Mo slips out of the room and Jill falls asleep (irresponsibly with a joint in hand, mind you) the wiry widget juices himself up with the apartment power grid and assembles himself into a homicidal little machine using other electronics in reach. As if that wasn’t enough to make for the worst yuletide ever, Jill’s foul-mouthed voyeur of a neighbor (who resembles what would happen if Jon Lovitz ate John Favreau and washed him down with popcorn butter) forces his way into her hallway with the automatic door sealing tightly behind him.

Hardware is an odd film, and not just because it is blatantly stylized with quick edits, robot vision, and a colored lens. Filmmaker Richard Stanley seemed to put a lot of thought and energy in establishing this post nuclear holocaust society, sprinkling in television commercials and window views that drop eerie hints about just devastated the world has become. Some of Mo’s conversations with Alvy and his friend Shades about how the radiation has affected them are truly haunting in a perfectly post apocalyptic way, and the background politics of sterilization, government assisted living, and drug use could easily have been the central device of their own feature length films. Great care was clearly taken with painting the sky such a rusted hue and yet, Hardware chooses a very different path for its 93 minute runtime.

What I didn’t like about Stanley’s film was, in a word, its plot. We’re presented with this dying society rife with political implications, but Hardware chooses instead to focus on the loud and clunky events of this one apartment. The bulk of the film features Jill’s struggle to evade MARK 13, who I like to think of as what would happen if Robocop’s son was a 15 year old punk hanging out with the wrong crowd. It’s action packed and has a few big payoff moments, but there’s something so limited about Hardware’s second half that can’t help but let down the sprawlingly dystopian setup. 

High Points

William Hootkins supporting role as a foul peeping tom adds a sick but highly engaging touch of oddness to the film


From the casual talk about cancer to the snippets of radio and television ads for radiation-free produce, the environmental and societal breakdown of Hardware is sufficiently disturbing

The wordless opening scene that follows a nomadic junk trader through a dusty red desert is breathtaking

Low Points

For a film with such a carefully envisioned dystopian scope, the limits of one evil robot encounter can’t help but feel like a letdown

It’s a style choice and for the most part, a very strong one but still: so much flashing lights can give even a healthy young woman one mean headache 

Things We Can Expect Sometime In the 21st Century

A completely sealed apartment with occasional bursts of open door radiation will do incredible things for your naturally curly hair

GWAR’s popularity will soar

Housing for those on welfare will be spacious, offer great views, and have a steady supply of running water

Newscasters will style themselves like 1970s era of anchormen

Thankfully, radiation-free reindeer steak will be available for the holiday season and advertised by the same commercial directors that filmed the final montage movie moments of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

Robots will be homicidal and prudish

Rent/Bury/Buy

After nearly 19 years, Hardware has finally received a deluxe DVD release in a 2 disc set loaded with extras. I, however, purchased my copy several months ago from Cinema De Bizarre , a fantastic service with great deals on hard-to-find flicks. On that hand, I can’t really tell you if the DVD is worth an investment but if it sounds interesting to you and you find it well priced, it’s a leap worth taking. I can imagine the extras being somehow more fascinating than the finished product simply because Stanley seems to be a unique artist with a whole lot of dramatic ideas that probably didn’t make the 90 minute cut. I didn’t love Hardware, but it’s a neat little picture stuffed with innovative ideas and a distinct visual style.

Mr. Clowniverse Conquers the World of Modern Art

As someone with a mild case of coulrophobia, Fear of Clowns is both a thundering disappointment and an astounding masterpiece. On one hand, it’s a dreadful mess of ineptitude. On the other, it presents such a laughably designed villain that I may well be cured of any unease I had attending circuses and children’s birthday parties.

Quick Plot: Artist Lynn Blodget has recurring nightmares about clowns and car accidents, but that pretty much has nothing to do with the rest of the film. She’s a young mother in the midst of a messy divorce from her oily psychiatrist husband. An unstable personal life is no roadblock to an oddly successful career painting surreal (by motel wall standards) pictures of clowns. Like any professional artist, Lynn has a successful gallery opening in The Frame Game and leaves halfway through with the handsome (by low budget movie standards) stranger who buys her most expensive work.

His name is Tuck and he’s made a fair fortune designing roller coasters. Little known fact: the roller coaster business is more lucrative than the dot come industry could ever have dreamed of temporarily being. But I digress. Much like the film does more often than not.

Lynn returns home to find a snarling clown at her door. With a half growling smile and a blood red nose, Shivers (Mark Lassise) could almost be frightening...except he’s wearing this:

Now. A muscular clown, in theory, is a menacing villain. Anybody with even a mild case of coulrophobia would find his carefully painted face unsettling, so the idea that he could then beat you to death with his white gloved hands should maximize that fear to the extreme. But you know what? I don’t care if you’re Hugh Jackman or Jason Statham: no man should be forced to wear puffy pants, a frilly collar, pancake makeup, and...no top. No matter how tough his tits may be, Shivers is a bare chested clown. Just...no.

Anyway, Lynn’s fainting spell catches the attention of homicide (“yeah, that’s when somebody dies” wait: no it’s not) detective Peters, a gum snapping slickster she’d met previously when questioned about the family that had been murdered next door. Don’t worry about that plot thread: the writer certainly didn’t. Peters doesn’t believe Lynn’s visions of intruding funnymen, but maybe that’s because he’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and concentrating too hard on channeling the spirit of Bruce Campbell. 

Back at the gallery, Lynn accepts a commission job to paint a husky voiced old man’s dead clown father. Later red herrings will reveal the subject to have been a convicted child molester. And that’s all we learn about that.

In case you haven’t guessed it yet, there’s a whole lot going on inside Fear of Clowns. Writer/director Kevin Kangas apparently was under the impression he was making the straight-to-DVD equivalent of The Usual Suspects. Between Lynn’s divorce, creepy client, and icky stalking suitor, there’s enough to establish her character without two murderous maniacs and at least three unfinished subplots thrown in the mix. IMDB lists the running time as 106 minutes, while my Netflix disc jacket claimed an even 2 hours. I drifted in and out of sleep while watching the film (shocking, I know), but my dedication runs so deep that I kept waking up to rewind and catch what I missed. Hence, I can’t tell you which is the right length but I’d be prone to side with Netflix simply because the film felt more endless than the director’s cut of Return of the King. Either time is longer than Fear of Clowns should have been, but even the given amount couldn’t resolve all the ambitiously plotted stories. 

Fear not, those still wondering about the lukewarm romance of Lynn and Tuck and the whereabouts of the escaped Shivers: there is a sequel. Praise Bobo.

High Points

Perhaps a film that makes such a strong point about its lead character being a dedicated mother should develop its parent/child relationship, but I applaud Fear of Clowns for not subjecting its audience to an inevitably awful performance by a young actor

It’s very kind of director Kangas to cut to a shot of paint ominously sitting on a palette when Det. Peters says the word “greasepaint” to report his findings at a murder site. It’s also nice of Peters to explain that “greasepaint” is something clowns, not painters use. Sensitive touches for the less intellectually inclined in the audience

Low Points

The full body nudity during Lynn’s friend’s death scene feels sleazy and unnecessary in an otherwise tame film

Why does not one character acknowledge the fact that the clown is not wearing a shirt? You’re being questioned by a police officer. “Describe him.” “He’s a clown.” Um, and he's got a ripped body he likes to show off under a floppy spangled collar?

Lessons Learned

$20,000 will buy you a lot of bandwidth

A good detective questions anybody he meets about his/her whereabouts the night of a mass murder. Pity the Starbucks barista, mailman, and housefly he's bound to run into during his day

Being commissioned for one painting will spread the word of your art across the nation

A white clown is not Caucasion: he is clown

Your friend will never believe that you played shuffleboard with the wealthy art buyer who drives a Porsche

Don’t get all ‘apoplectic’ on your soon-to-be ex-husband. You’ll only inspire him to take you for everything you’ve got in the divorce and send homicidal clowns in your direction

Winning Disclaimer

“No animals were harmed during the making of this film. We wish we could say the same about the children.” This is buried in the end credits, leading me to believe that perhaps Lynn’s son had indeed originally played a larger role before being brutalized by clowns, commercial actors, or the sheer poor quality of the film he was in. Perhaps I could credit the filmmakers for having a sharp sense of humor and enough confidence to stick a joke in a place few people would see, but based on Fear of Clowns, I just don’t think anyone associated with the film is that smart.

Rent/Bury/Buy

There’s a lovable badness to Fear of Clowns that makes it oddly watchable, even when nothing onscreen makes any sense or offers any scares. I enjoyed noting how actress Jacky Reres had to kill screen time while waiting for a sound cue, or why the clock that should have read 11:05 had a minute hand on the 2 and the hour hand just a hair before the 11. Still, this is not a film to spend money on, despite the extremely thorough making-of featurette that shows the scariest part of the entire process (including the finished product) was making a face-cast of one of the female victims. If you love those awful but somewhat competent boxes usually in stock at Blockbuster and always available on Netflix, give it a whirl. Then come back and tell me if any of the nineteen subplots are resolved in the sequel.

Apocalypse of the Amphibians

Frogs is like Who Can Kill a Child, but with Frogs.

Frogs is what could have happened if Kermit never met Dom DeLuise.

Frogs is the original version of Jurassic Park II: The Lost World. Speilberg simply subbed lizards, snakes, and toads (not frogs) for dinosaurs, used Pete Postlethwaite’s hunter in place of a WASPy idiot who can’t untie moss, and then, most controversially, added gymnastics. 

Wow. This is harder than I thought. How about this: Frogs is an incredible piece of cinema that rivals The Godfather and Star Wars for best film of the ‘70s...only my definition of ‘best’ means something very different from that of the Academy Awards voting committee. 

Quick Plot: A shockingly unmustashioed Sam Elliot takes National Geographic-esque photos of toads (not frogs), snakes, meerkats, unicorns, and lots of other animals you probably won’t find in the swamps of the United States. After a boat incident that’s less exciting than the opening minutes of Sleepaway Camp, Elliot’s Picket Smith befriends the rich brother and sister whose drunken yacht steering flipped his canoe and destroyed what seemed to be hours worth of nature photos (I’m basing that on what seemed to be an hourlong credits sequence featuring stills of said nature photos). 

Hard-drinking Cliff and level-headed(ish) Karen (Joan Van Ark) bring Picket to meet their wealthy and wheelchair-bound grandfather Jason Crocket (Ray Milland) on his sprawling southern estate. This is perfect timing for the annual Crocket quadruple birthday party celebration, a giant party set to be booming with top shelf drinks, competitive croquet, and manly pillow fights. 

Only one thing stands in the Crockets’ way: rudely ribbiting toads (not frogs) that have deprived the poor rich family a few snores out of their typical 18 hours of sleep. Despite dispatching a man named after my favorite Muppet to spray pesticide on the Crocket estate, the animal situation seems to be out of control. It’s soon revealed that everything without opposable thumbs and ever to have been captured in stock footage is on a vengeful rampage to annihilate all humans. 

I had heard Frogs was one of the more laughable entries in the eco-horror sub-genre of the ‘70s, but in now way was I prepared for it to be so incredibly Ed Woodian.

To begin....well, I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s just list a few of my favorite deaths (SPOILERS) to see why they’re so gosh darn leapin’ lizards amazing:

-Because they’re in the sky, one character shoots birds and somehow manages to put a bullet in his leg, which in turn somehow manages to paralyze him. This is inconvenient since he lands in a part of the woods populated by an international cornucopia of tarantulas who unite to crawl near the camera and, while the action cuts to closeups of the actor screaming, spin what seems to be deadly tangles of moss to strangle or just confuse the failed hunter to death

-Another grandson enters a greenhouse, unaware that it’s already occupied by a thousand lizards. They spill some poisonous gas (‘cause, you know, that’s what every wealthy southerner stores next to his plants), shut the door tightly with their evil iguanaesque tails, and leave the guy to suffocate in less than 30 seconds

-The eccentric Aunt Iris (possibly the lesser abled little sister of Charlotte Rae) chases butterflies for 20 minutes, frolicking like a woodland nymph high on electric Kool-Aid. Meanwhile, snakes of many colors, bloodsucking leeches, and ominous toads (not frogs) track the touched redhead to eventually bite (???) the poor dear and turn her skin into a shade akin to Violet Beauregarde post gum chew.

-Iris’s husband wrestles a crocodile. By wrestle, I mean he lays on top of it and rolls around as if auditioning for Plan 9 From Outer Swamp.

-The maid, butler, and now single supermodel girlfriend of the greenhouse gassed grandson unite to harness their African American power (I’m not kidding) to escape on their own. Sadly, they see seagulls and hide in a cabin. Later, other characters discover their luggage, thus leading the audience to believe that the defiant trio have been eaten whole by gluttonous birds or a scene too expensive for director George McCowan to film

-Cliff’s wife is killed by a tortoise. Yes. Cliff’s wife is killed by a tortoise.

-Throughout all this bloodshed, Grandpa Crocket holds strong to his party plans, mostly because every killer animal film requires some guy to do so. Naturally, you’d expect such a villain to be saved for a fate worse than all others, and as he wheels himself around his lonely mansion now hopping with slightly oversized toads (not frogs), we salivate in the hopes of seeing a Captain Rhodes-like dismemberment by way of flickering tongues. Heavily edited shots of Crocket’s hunting trophies egg our bloodthirst on. What can a toad (not frog) do?

Um, prank call him. Then inspire him to stand up. And fall. And die instantly. The end.

High Points

Just when you think the film can’t get any funnier, an actual intended laugh is saved for the credits with an adorably animated stinger

Low Points

I like my Sam Elliot grizzled with a glorious garden of greying facial hair. It’s not that he doesn’t look good clean shaven--the man was quite dashing in ruggedly hairy chested ‘70s style--but like Samson and his mighty locks, this cowboy loses a some power sans stubble

Even if it meant messily edited shots of the characters screaming cut with closeups of bird beaks, it would have been nice to actually see what happened to the maid, butler, and supermodel

And the pet toad in the car at the end is supposed to mean what exactly?

Lessons Learned

Toads (not frogs) are quite energy conscious and will turn off the lights when finished with their homicidal business

A mysteriously asphyxiated grandson is no excuse to break party plans

Supermodels are quick with math and know their antiquated terms for time

Being nearly killed by a drunken boat driver will force you into indentured servitude to his WASPy family

Snakes have the ability to emote more than select actors

Winning Line

“I almost came to your room, but the floorboards creak too much.”

Ahh, the ‘70s, a time when bedding the handsome stranger (whom you met three hours earlier) inside your grandfather’s house is impeded only by poor carpentry

Rent/Bury/Buy

Frogs is beyond awful, but it’s a different kind of awful than, say, the miscalculated at every turn It’s Alive remake or a lifeless cheapie like Rattlers . It’s more epically bad than anything I’ve seen in recent months, but when done with the right kind of energy, such a film is enjoyable like no other. It’s a watch-once-with-friends/alcohol kind of film that will give you plenty of chuckles and, possibly, warts. Because by the way: aside from the credit icon, there are no frogs to be found in Frogs.

With a fun fact like that, how, HOW I ask, can you not want to see this film?

I Saw Saw Six on Sunday and Just Developed a Lisp Saying That

At this point in time, I think I’ve written quite enough  about how and why the Saw series is unjustly despised by the horror community. For today, let’s just say that the films are like Doritos. Every so often--in Saw’s case, once a year--a new flavor comes along that nobody was really asking for. Chipotle Ranch in chip form and Costas Mandylor in a starring role don’t sound appealing or seem necessary, but once you dig in, you’re thoroughly satisfied. Plus, much in the way a Habanero can only work in a Collision bag with Guacamole, Saw III can really only be enjoyed followed by Saw II, and so on. Sure, each serving isn’t necessarily good for you but that's never stopped me from ordering pizza and eating it for breakfast.

So like a bag of Cool Ranch, I ended my Super Awesome Halloween Weekend with a Sunday night viewing of America’s second favorite horror film. What follows will be a mildly SPOILERed review, sort of like milk one day past its expiration date. Okay for lightening up your coffee, but a full glass may just ruin everything.

Apparently, my stomach is writing this review.

Quick Plot: Scream Queen royalty Tanedra Howard and an actor I don't recognize that played Walt in The Brady Bunch In the Whitehouse (whoah: huge tangent. Mike Brady was elected President in 2002? This is incredible beyond words) scream a whole lot in the opening scene, mostly because they’re morally mean loan officers who now have to cut off some of their flesh to prove some sort of point. It’s predictably loud, ugly, and lovably ridiculous in establishing just how to sever your own arm in 45 seconds.

A lot more stuff happens in Saw VI, and it seems nearly impossible to merely summarize in any linear fashion. Instead, let me break it up by storyline and character:

-Mandylor's Detective Hoffman continues his reign of tanned terror, capturing a few beaurocratic baddies while trying to maintain an aura of snarling cool around two of the stupidest police detectives to ever survive more than one horror movie. 

-Obligatory flashbacks give Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith a paycheck. We learn the contents of Amanda’s envelope opened at the end of Saw III and yet another minor character connection is established. Tobin Bell gets to model a variety of looks, including one where he wears a fuzzy albino caterpillar in a vertical fashion down his chin

-The president of a private health care provider takes on the token guinea pig role, this time being kidnapped and forced to undergo multiple 'tests' that challenge his cold and greedy ways in the eyes of the human beings he so often reduced to dollar signs and paperwork

-A sensationalist journalist gunning for Gale Weathers’ job is trapped in a cage across from a mother and teenage son. Their only hints at their fate are two tubs of hydrofluoric acid and a switch marked Live or Die

-Jill, Jigsaw’s ex-wife, continues to wear an oddly half smile/half sneer while helping heroin addicts and appearing mysterious

Somehow, everything kinda sorta comes together in time for a montage, musical crescendo, and the words “game over.”

I’ve suspended any shame in admitting that I genuinely enjoy these films. Like the latter Friday the 13ths, Saw has lost any real scare value (if it arguably ever had any) in favor of over-the-top murders, but unlike any franchise I can think of, it continues to play with its growing roster of chracter actors and increasingly complex story. Some of the twists are genuinely surprising and even the more obvious (gee, I wonder what could possibly be in Envelope #6?) have carefully executed payoffs.

The most noticeable aspect of Saw VI is its social commentary on the unsolvable rat maze that is the health care system in the U.S. Does it work? Yes and no. Screenwriters Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton have less subtletly than Michael Moore, but it’s an admirable effort to say something with a film that has absolutely no need to do so. I’m reminded of an acquaintance's baffled reaction when I explained the plot of Saw VI. 

“Wow. I just assumed it was a stupid horror movie.”

He is, of course, not incorrect. Saw VI doesn’t break any filmmaking molds and lacks a lot in terms of tone and performance. At the same time, it continues to develop a complex story, tosses in some macabre humor, and offers some good intentions towards making a political point about an issue on many a ticket buyer’s mind. I can’t ask for that much more from the sixth entry of a franchise that keeps me entertained.

High Points

The carousel contraption is one of the more interesting traps. The moral nastiness of its rules works well, much like some of the fan-favorite tests in Saw III

Tobin Bell continues to be a true find as Jigsaw, especially as his voice grows to dangerously unchartered levels of graveliness

Once we get past the turn-it-to-eleven opening scene, the fast cut edit so grating in the past few films feels a little dialed down here, letting the horror of some of the traps speak for themselves, rather than screaming in your face and ramming your head against your theater seat

Low Points

I wasn’t a fan of the plot heavy, ill-defined character stuffed Saw V but I gave it a pass with the hopes that it was done primarily to set up a killer sixth installment. If “set up” translates to “introduce mysterious box to be opened one film later,” I suppose it worked

As someone who spent a few weeks last year laughing at the terribly rushed acting school and hokey set design in VH1’s Scream Queens, it’s impossible not to comment on Howard’s performance. It’s passable, although fairly one note. The hardest part is watching it and not wishing upon a star that Jessica Palette took the crown. Girl was insane in the membrane, and picturing her eagerness in the all-too-angry role is enough to make a gal look up wacky clips of the 5th runner up on youtube:

Lessons Learned (From the Incredibly Obvious Edition)

Never let a man suspected of serial killing hold a steaming pot of coffee in your vicinity, particularly if you’re planning on confronting him about his possible guilt

When cutting off one’s limb, a butcher knife is a far more efficient a tool than a slim kitchen dagger

The privatization of American health care has led to EVIL

Bringing your five year old into a showing of Saw VI is probably not the best idea you’ve ever had as a parent

Winning Line

“When you’re killing me, you look at me!”

I’ll add this to “You can’t fire me, I quit!” as a phrase I’d like to use before I die. Hear that, heart disease/car accident/zombie/potential murderer? We will be making serious eye contact when the time comes.

Lingering Questions (Highly Toxic Spoilers)

-Where is Jeff and Lynn’s daughter, first introduced and last seen in Saw III, where it was implied that she was kidnapped by the Jigsaw Jets. This theory was further supported in IV, when Hoffman was seen with a stuffed animal, explaining it away as being “complicated.” I’ll say

-What was Hoffman’s actual test? Was it winnable in any way as a method of demonstrating to the bloodthirsty bad cop what it’s like to be brutalized?

-One of my biggest issues with Saw V was the ambiguity of Julie Benz’s surviving character. The film seemed to suggest that she too was in on the Jigsaw game, simply because she’s able to trick the pyromaniac into donating his whole body for the blood that ultimately sets her free. I assumed we’d learn more about her identity but alas, Benz seems to be busy filming Dexter and every other film put out by Lions Gate

See/Skip/Sneak In

If you haven’t seen Parts III, IV, or V, Saw VI will probably confuse the bear trap right off your little noggin. Still, it’s one of the best entries in the series and may prove to those who unjustly pan it that it’s a franchise of some merit. I would say it's a closest match in tone ton Saw III, with the added Sicko-ish slant for the politically inclined. It won't crash the Oscars or even Bravo's Even More Scarier Movie Moments That We Forgot the Last Three Times Around, but it's a good time for those still invested in the story or the curious without a jaded sense of hatred for anything a studio dares to put out.

Goodbye to the Great Pumpkin King

Was it good for you? I hope so, but ten popcorn balls says my Halloween was the best ever! It was actually life changing: I now officially heart New Jersey as it's home to Chiller Theater, a bat sanctuary, and fantastic people that have incredible weddings. 

As expected, our Clueful costumes were a hit. Dear friends/foes Erica and Lisa dazzled as those saucy sirens, Mrs. White and Ms. Scarlett. My Mrs. Peacock was simply divine in a gold lamme top (Burlington), horrendously mustardly flowered blouse (Filene's Basement), and shimmering A-line skirt brought to you by the Gap, Joanne’s Fabrics, Erica’s handiwork, and sticks of hot glue. It held up through gleeful Monster Mash-ing and uncoordinated Electric Sliding, plus countless queries by party guests about where our Colonel Mustard was.

Are we missing something? When did Martin Mull’s military murderer become the most beloved Clue character? Isn’t it more fun to say “Professor Plum?”

Anyway, that was my official Halloween. Sunday was spent at Chiller Theatre, a gigantic horror convention held in Parsippany, NJ, and perhaps the first one I’ve ever attended that was not being trolled by the scowl of Tom Savini. Fun was had, and my highlights are as follows:

-Buying a DVD of Frogenstein, a collection of a few Muppet meetups with horror icons such as Vincent Price

-Touching my cheek to Davy Jones for a photo op that made me swoon. He’s very tan, very sing songy, and still very damn adorable

-Narrowing my eyes at Richard Dreyfuss when he walked through the line I was waiting on without saying excuse me

-Chatting with the Brothers Hodder about disco, Davy Jones’ fans, and Hatchet 2. Apparently those are the kinds of questions I should have been asking at our “interview” last month

-hearing Louise Robey, the flame-haired lead on Friday the 13th: the Series, belt out a few notes to an adoring fan. It was weird.

-Having a very interesting conversation with artist Roger Kastel, the artist who designed such iconic posters as Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back. He had a wonderful attitude about his work and seemed to genuinely enjoy discussing his process

-Discovering that every single female that once posed nude has either the world's best stylish, plastic surgeon, or blood supply from virgins to maintain healthy glows. Also, most actresses that have ever appeared in genre films are so tiny, they make Dreyfuss look only slightly shorter than average height

We closed out the weekend of amazingness with an evening trip to see Saw VI, which I’ll review this week (hopefully) as soon as I find the power to harness any remaining energy bestowed upon me by discounted fun-size bars.

It’s been a beautiful October and I’m sadder than a fat kid with a dropped ice cream cone that it’s over. Dearest horror bloggers and readers, I pose this question: How can we make November a worthy, or mildly not-too-much-of-a-letdown followup?

There just aren’t enough films about killer turkeys, pilgrims, or the voting public. Deep sigh, silenced by an early round of stuffing laced with candy corn.