There Will Be Defrosting

At this past spring’s Chiller Theater, events happened that may have forever changed the world I live in for the better. 

1- I met Grant Cramer, the once and forever Mike Tobacco of a little great film called Killer Klowns From Outer Space

2-I learned that there may indeed be a sequel to that little great film premiering in my lifetime

3-I purchased a movie I had previously never known existed, 1991’s VHS only The Refrigerator

Numbers 1 & 2 need no further explanation in terms of importance. Number 3, however, may seem exciting only to the few who happen to know that my line of work (the kind I get paid for) involves household appliances. 45 hours or so a week, I’m immersed inside crispers and condensers, celebrating the easy cleanability of adjustable glass shelves while struggling to find something equally exciting to say about the more common wired. 

And now, let us never talk about that part of my life again.

Quick Plot: Two awfully unattractive people excitedly navigate their trashy Brooklyn apartment to make sweet pigly love on the floor, fuzzy back hair dripping with sweat and (thankfully) clothed anatomy never really aligning in ways that would produce orgasms or babies. Perhaps because it’s just as disgusted as we are, the vintage refrigerator watching over our lovers begins to stir and in the name of evil or eugenics, gulps them down like a Death Bed to a bucket of chicken.

Prologue over, we move to “Somewhere in Ohio” where a pair of bright-eyed newlyweds are excitedly planning a move to the Big Apple. Wife Eileen (Julia McNeal) dreams of being a Broadway star while husband Stephen (Dave Simonds) is eager to climb the corporate ladder. Before they can take the city by a storm, the Batemans need a place to stay which proves to be way easier than it should when a sprawling one bedroom (complete with some familiar antique appliances) is bargained down by the landlord at $200 a month. 

I'd be this happy too!

How great is this quaint little walkup? There’s a complimentary plate of brie smiling inside the fridge! Who WOULDN’T sign this lease?

Because nothing that’s ever too good to be true is, bad things start to happen with fairly obvious sources. Eileen misses an audition when the refrigerator cheekily hides her keyes. Stephen loses some work points when he gets a flat (though any man that would drive to midtown from Brooklyn in rush hour every day deserves some form of punishment). Eileen’s only solace comes from the apartment’s kindly super Juan, a sweet-natured Bolivian flamenco dancer who should totally come with every security deposit.

Naturally, Stephen grows jealous and seems to conclude the best medicine for a failing marriage is sex in front of your refrigerator’s open door.

And that’s not even half the plot of The Refrigerator. I’ve yet to mention the Batemans' psychic neighbor or Eileen’s Debbie Harried banged suicidal mother. 

There’s Stephen’s creepy passive aggressive attempts to start a family and a montage of Eileen taking Manhattan.

Between all these threads, the apartment refrigerator kills (naturally, just by closing back and forth) the super’s assistant and, we learn in a somewhat predictable yet still ironic reveal, that the titular chilly villain is a gateway to hell.

Let me start with fact: The Refrigerator is about 971.333 (repeating decimal) times better than Death Bed: The Bed That Eats . That doesn’t say too much, since that home video of your little brother’s first tuba concert is about 892x better than Death Bed but still: considering The Refrigerator has never had a DVD release, I was surprised at how decent this film turned out to be. With a tone akin to Basket Case,  director Nicholas Jabos creates and a light-hearted and fairly self-aware spirit that meshes well with the rather ridiculous premise of...you know, a refrigerator collecting human souls for something something.

High Points

Though it doesn’t get a payoff, the subplot regarding Eileen’s reluctance to start a family with her eager husband feels true to a young couple struggling with different ideas about their future timeline

Just a small touch but one I loved: the opening credits featuring vintage ads for overly exciting refrigeration

It’s a shame that McNeal and Angel Caban didn’t work more with these kinds of genre films. Both have genuinely likable presences and seem to really click with the quirky tone of The Refrigerator, making us actually care about their characters’ fate

Um. This:

Low Points

No man should ever use “my little kissing fish” as a term of endearment

I shouldn’t really complain about unresolved subplots in a movie about a killer refrigerator, but it would have been nice to learn a little more about (yes, I’m really about to say this) the history and nature of said menacing appliance, plus the result of the Batemans coupling in its frosty glow

Lessons Learned

Making soup that would be ready twenty minutes after you’re scheduled to leave the apartment isn’t the best idea you’re pretty blond head has ever had, is it dear?

Getting something in writing is usually the best way to secure a deal (surprisingly sound advice from Hector the slumlord)

You should know your refrigerator is working for the devil (aka El Diablo) by the mere fact that it’s hanging out next to your stove (a dumb move that decreases the energy efficiency of your unit because higher ambient heat means your refrigerator is constantly working harder to maintain its cold after you open the door and wow I should stop talking about this already)

Rent negotiation was ridiculously easy and wonderful in the early ‘90s

Satanic refrigerators especially hate humans with poor fashion sense in headware (observe the late Paco’s silly pastel cap and Mom’s weird choice in geometric bangage)

Winning Ling

I am the wafflemaker!

SInce a character triumphantly announces this upon waking up, I’m willing to declare The Refrigerator a worthy followup to Dream Warriors for inheriting the title of ‘best nerd self-titling ever.’ This line may very well be more exciting than “In my dreams, I am the wizard master.” Time will tell. 

Rent/Bury/Buy

At this point in time, The Refrigerator (to my knowledge) is only viewable on VHS or fuzzy transfers. Is it worth the price tag? Probably not, but darn it did I have a good time with this film. Putting aside my own bias as an employee of a refrigeration company, The Refrigerator is rather charming. The characters are enjoyable, the plot appropriately ridiculous, and the filmmaking low budget for cuteness yet slick and competent in execution. $10 on a grainy transfer may be a tad steep depending on your taste in goofy, good-natured cheese, but those who enjoy these kinds of films (i.e., me) may be sated and hey: anything to spread the word around the genre community. After all, if Death Bed: The Bed That Eats has its own special edition DVD, surely a cheery lil gem like The Refrigerator at least deserves a warranty.

I Know Who Spammed Me

A few weeks back, my email spammed a whole lot of people: friends, family, former employers, offices I had once applied to work in, renters on Craig's List, etc. While there may indeed be some people on that list welcoming a message about where to find top quality Viagra, I personally felt as though someone had stolen a piece of my identity, crawling around my inbox and mailing those who knew me with a poorly worded advertisement for something I’m not selling.

In modern banking terms, identity theft in a crime and nowhere is this more evident, frightening, or plain gross than horror cinema. Examine:

Possession

It's one thing to find someone else has been using your credit card, but feeling your body host an entirely different (usually evil) entity seems to violate just about every tenant of natural law. Pity The Exorcist's Regan, a mere teenager taken hostage by the cruel, kinky, and weak stomached demon Pazuzu. Similarly, entire towns seem to face a similar short term squatter menace in Wes Craven's Shocker, the Denzel Washington ripoff (face it) Fallen, and the weirdly experimental ninth installment of Friday the 13th. 

Complicated Disease

It’s not MY fault! The werewolf that bit me made me tear off my clothing and attack local loiterers! It’s an excuse used by a very unfortunate constituent of the lycanthropic population and really, how can you not sympathize with young Ginger Snaps, the confused Wolfman, and very tormented David in An American Werewolf In London? Yes, they all get to indulge their inner animal with a frolic in the nude, but as anybody who recognizes the name Rick Baker knows, those transformations just can’t be a scratch on the belly.

Bait & Switch

Perhaps the most physically complex and real estate-demanding identity theft can be seen in the four films (and assumedly counting) sci-fi series Invasion of the Body Snatchers, wherein imperialistic aliens harvest human-sized pods to grow replacement people that can continue your existence in monotone conformity. Those suffering from high blood pressure may see some benefits, but losing that emotion and individual spark means surrendering that quality that makes us human, for better and worse. Then again, the 2007 remake (shortened to The Invasion to best not confuse modern moviegoers) starred a plastic-faced Nicole Kidman as the feeling man’s last hope. So maybe the ability to show emotion doesn’t have so much weight after all.

Replacement Parts

And that leads us to another form of alternate you-ness that puts a whole lot of pressure on Ms. Kidman, the pop culture landmark The Stepford Wives. Based on the novel by Ira Levin, this satirical thriller of sexual politics in suburbia was made into one great film and another that challenges the English language to find words base enough to reflect a proper insult. The tale of Stepford is arguably the wrongest of all of these identity crimes because not only does it involve (spoilers) the murder/genocide of thinking women; it also means that after said strong women are dead, their names, faces, and bodies continue to be used in chauvinistic ways that would have made their living counterparts burn their bras in horror. 

Baby Swap ‘n Such

Due to the mysteries of human life and black and white limitations of ultrasounds, no woman can ever really know what’s brewing inside her uterus. Still, a consenting soon-to-be-mom generally assumes one guarantee: the child is a product of her and an identifiable male partner. Like any rule, there are always exceptions and one needs to look no further than the Rosemary’s Baby‘s Upper West Side, where poor Mia Farrow learns too late that her drunken night of lovemaking wasn’t exactly with the man in her wedding photo. A similar discovery befalls the illustrious Thorn family in 1976’s The Omen, when U.S. ambassador Gregory Peck trades his stillborn son for what he’s told is another innocent newborn. The next five years are then devoted to raising the antichrist. Hey, not everybody’s kid can be an honor student, but sometimes, it’s good to know what’s growing inside your home.

Species Conversion

As someone with a history of self-identifying as a morning person, I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than the biological constraints of vampirisim (well, maybe carrying Satan’s fetus but there are prenatal drugs for that). Aside from completely rearranging my natural schedule, the whole “loss of soul” thing is a viable reason to Just Say No to that handsome midnight caller with an unnatural ivory skin tone. One could make the same argument for zombiism, the disease to which no man or woman is immune. Looking past the obvious fear of being eaten, it’s the blankening of identity that makes this the horror genre’s favorite go-to monster. The idea that your mother could become your murderer is scary; that you would have no restraint at responding by hunting your own child is truly disturbing.

Recasted Sequels

In most cases, it’s the actor’s choice whether or not to reprise his or her role in a (usually) successful film’s followup, so it’s hard to ever feel sorry or concerned for the departing star. Still, it’s sometimes a lot to ask audiences to suddenly shift all sympathy to a replacement actor. Patricia Arquette’s Kristen backflipped her way through A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 only to morph into The Dream Master’s Tuesday Knight, a chain smoker who would probably cough up a lung before reaching the squatting position. Julianne Moore had the thankless task of inhabiting a newly redheaded Clarice Starling following Oscar winner Jodie Foster’s decline in Hannibal, and while Moore makes a believable FBI agent, it’s a jarringly confident makeover for our West Virginian brunette.

So how comfortable are you now in your own skin, and if given the choice, is it that bad to bid it adieu?

Where's Mein Gold?

As you might guess from the title of this post, Nazi zombies have more in common with homicidal leprechauns than history textbooks tend to admit. And with that snappy intro, I give you Dead Snow.

Quick Plot:

A group of Norwegian medical students take a sure-to-be-doomed vacation in a snowy mountain cabin. Armed with beer and bad coffee, they revel in the typical young people-on-holiday-soon-to-be-atacked-by-R-rated-menace sort of way: snow mobiling to blasting music and sports channel editing, having sex in outhouses, and referencing the fact that they’re in the ideal situation for horror carnage.

And of course, they are, this time due to the unwelcome presence of buried Nazi soldiers with super strength, super speed, and an insatiable appetite for human flesh (Kosher or Aryan okay). Before you can say marzipan, our somewhat likable (nah; they’re all rather bland or annoying) human gang is whittled down in body parts and beating hearts. 

For whatever reason, filmmakers seem to pair Nazis and zombies like peanut butter and honey. Shockwaves, Blood Creek, Hard Rock Zombies (actually that’s not fair; the Nazis are responsible for the zombies, but the Germans of that classic big-hair ballad stick to eating themselves). On one hand, Dead Snow is simply another entry into a surprisingly packed subgenre filled with other familiar elements of cabin fever and pretty young people in peril (though to be meanly fair, the majority of the cast wouldn’t make it into the door of Melrose Place).

So plot and character-wise, Dead Snow is hardly innovative. At the same time, director Tommy Wirkola thankfully has a few new tricks up his thermal sleeves. After a been there, seen that opening act, the fun eventually picks up. The monster makeup looks great. The longer lifespanned humans demonstrate some spry self-defense and a few of the action sequences give us pleasantly icky twists. 

High Points

As I do a German folk dance around spoilers, allow my lederhosen to tear ever so suggestively with the compliment that the “final girl” twists were refreshingly new

Once Dead Snow gets kicking, there are some nifty gore-riffic moments that we haven’t really seen before, including a cliff-hanging via large intestines and a full-limb tear-off that calls to memory Captain Rhodes demise

Low Points

It’s personal taste (or lack thereof) but the rested metal soundtrack played during early montages made me feel cranky and old

Lessons Learned

Don’t be too surprised if your claustrophobic girlfriend isn’t turned on by you smothering her face with a couch pillow

On the other hand, pooping + slashers = huge turn on for select loose women

One more reason not to listen to heavy duty thrash metal: the volume turned up to 11 means your chance of hearing dying friends’ screams is below zero

Birds don’t respond to the human voice saying “ssshhh”

Rent/Bury/Buy

For the first 45 minute of Dead Snow, I felt a giant cloud of ‘meh’ floating over me. There just wasn’t quite enough promise to lift my expectations above “this is it?” territory, but once the mayhem started rolling, I genuinely had fun. Much like the recent I Sell the Dead, Dead Snow is an earnest and well-made horror film that never really rocked me, but was entertaining in a refreshingly 21st century with a hint of ‘80s throwback kinda way. This is the type of film that easily warrants a direct-to-DVD sequel, but doesn’t necessarily earn a $15 for a purchase. Rent it with friends and a case of Heineken.

Gimme Five

You may have noticed that this blog’s poll has been stagnant now far longer than usual. I typically like to start each month with a fresh question that gauges my audience’s taste in one random field or another.

So why, you may be wondering, has May’s Cinco de Pollo not made a June exit? The cynical may say it’s due to slackerdom on my part, but those true of heart should trust in my powers to know I’m simply speechless over the recent results.

It’s an industrious little franchise that reaches the 5 mark. Also quite often, a stale one scrounging for spark. Looking at the choices I assembled, how in the Hellraiser: Inferno did Halloween 5 and Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning get so close to nipping at the tiny heels of Seed of Chucky?

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a quick moment to examine the runners-up:

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (Zero votes)

A terrible title and a film I apparently watched on the SyFy Channel a few months back, yet have absolutely no memory of. Did the Men In Black stop by the Bronx, or is this really that forgettable? Hard to believe, considering IMDB includes David Carradine and my dream pimp, Fred Williamson in the cast. 

Hellraiser: Inferno (1%)

A film I definitely have never seen (and not just mentally blocked), this fifth installment has no Clive Barker backing but does star Nightbreed hunk Craig Sheffer and Ajax himself, James Remar. The latter makes me happy, but the latter also popped up for a scene or two in The Unborn  and look how well that turned out.

Leprechaun in Da Hood (3%)

As surprised as I was at the poor showing of this wannabe cult classic, I’ll chalk some of the sway over to that other (far superior) horror comedy starring a different vertically challenged redhead. Despite a superb premise, watching Warwick Davis rap is far less fun than should ever be possible.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (4%)

Maybe not the worst of the series but certainly the dullest (though the more critically acclaimed New Nightmare works hard to take that title). You’d think that the complexity of fetal dreams could at least birth some subtext (even Freddy’s Revenge managed to salvage its awfulness via homosexual metaphors) but aside from the apparent pro-life stance taken so early, this fifth Freddy romp is devoid of just about anything interesting. Lisa Wilcox’s Alice enters with mild residual sympathy, but her new batch of everyone’s-got-a-gimmick friends don’t bring much weight to the saga. Aside from a neat-enough comic book inspired death, Nightmare 5 is a snooze.

Hannibal Rising (6%)

There was a time when I was really excited to see this film. Most of that yearning came from the fact that Dominic “McNulty” West and Kevin “Lucious Vorenus” McKidd were listed in the credits. Four of you readers out there in the world would, it would seem, convince me to indeed rekindle that urge I once had. Perhaps one day when I find myself with a meat craving, I shall.

Saw V (6%)

The worst of the series and the epitome of what people who haven’t seen the films (but really want to complain about them anyway) would use as ammunition. Convoluted plot, characters we have no investment in, various loose ends, and an uninspired setup that manages to recycle plot points from just about every film before it. Power to Saw VI  for rescuing a franchise I had almost declared dead (Donny Walberg head smash dead, not Dr. Gordon is-he-or-isn’t-he deadish).

Diary of the Dead (8%)

In my personal estimation, Romero’s fifth in his Dead quintology (well now, sextology? stop giggling) series receives some unfair panning. Its weaknesses are glaring, but so were Day of the Dead’s (actors without indoor voices anyone?) and I will argue to my death that were the monotone narration removed, this would be considered a genuinely okay film.

Halloween 5 (22%)

Danielle Harris returns to give another fine underage performance, but aside from that, I have absolutely no idea why 14 of you presumably smart, kind and beautiful readers find anything to love about this lesser slasher. Enlighten me. Please.

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (22%)

Much like Halloween 5, this (spoiler alert) Jason-free installment teases audiences with the possibility that the previous film’s child survivor is now donning a dime store mask to match a bloody weapon. It's a tease that doesn't pay off, and the film's sole interest point seems to be the utter sleaziness it proudly sports. Are there really people out there in the world that dare to cite this a superior film to Jason Takes Manhattan???

The Winner, thank goobers:

Seed of Chucky (25%)

I’ve yet to fully expand on why I love this gleefully camped-out entry, but for now, heed my recommendation that if you haven’t seen Seed of Chucky, you're missing out on something really neat. 

It’s funny. 

It’s gross. 

Touching. 

Rather adorable. 

Bizarre.

And John Waters gets a cameo. 

Get to it.