Nilbog Is Gil Bellows Spelled Backwards? Oh My Godddddddddddd!

I didn't watch 2010's Goblin because it starred the on-a-straight-to-DVD-rolling Gil Bellows, but I have no shame in saying I should have. See, I rented the movie because it's set during Halloween--something that I still find shockingly rare for most horror films--and involves a goblin, and really, what can there possibly be not to like about a Halloween film involving goblins?

Well, as it turns out, teenagers.

But not Gil Bellows. Or goblins. 

Those are things to love.

Quick Plot: An 1831 flashback introduces us to Hollow Glen, a cursed town besmirched during a bad season of crops. How to fix such a Wicker Manny problem? Sacrifice a mutant baby of course!

The fact that tossing the li'l bugger into a bonfire produces a sound like shattered glass should alert the folks that something is awry. More pressingly, the sudden appearance of an 8' tall CGI monster who slashes through period-garbed extras seals the deal.

I know I should move on to the main storyline of the film--wherein Mr. Bellows channels Yoda and his bratty daughter whines--but let's pause for many moments to discuss the titular character. Goblin--I like to think he's really named GOB, pronounced as you expect if you have good taste in television--is pretty amazing. By pretty I mean amazingly. So GOB is amazingly amazing. See what I mean?

He's essentially the inbred cousin of a Nav'i, one who prowls the woods instead of Pandora and eats babies in place of 3D rainbows. Somewhere in his gene pool, I'm pretty sure a Blood Gnome snuck in (though the phalicness was weaned out). Most importantly, he's cross-eyed.

Leading to what I imagine are deleted scenes where the victims awkwardly ask GOB if he's actually looking at them, then GOB lets out a single tear, nods, the victim screams, apologizes because he or she feels really bad and uncomfortable, then screams again when GOB lets it go and kills them. 

Why don't I make movies?

Flash forward to the present day, where Gil--who still looks young and adorable, even if slightly high off of exhaust fumes--is driving his second wife, baby son, horrid teenage daughter Nikki and her skanky friend Cammy into the woods to close a business deal. They stop at the local diner for a hearty helping of ominous warnings, mostly issued by the token Crazy Ralph old guy who can't possibly know what he's talking about when he says the newbies' baby will be eaten by a goblin.

Because, like, there are BIGGER problems to deal with DAD. You don't even TALK about Dead Mom anymore! And you care more about that cute baby you had with the far more pleasant woman than you do about ME! I'm SEVENTEEN! I like, NEED you to care about me.

Dad! I mean, DON’T TALK to me! Especially in front of BOYS! You're like, so LAME! And you hate Dead Mom. And I hate you. And I hate my baby brother who like, TOTALLY needs someone to watch him? Seriously? It's like you hate me. I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now.

Sorry readers, I found myself channeling the character of Nikki. Perhaps my biggest beef with Goblin is the fact that the first hour of the film INSISTS on making its main character THE MOST HORRID PERSON IN THE WORLD. 

Yes folks, my biggest problem in this movie had nothing to do with the half-price CGI monster who wears assless chaps.

Nope, it's the chick, a nasty, angst-filled brat who can't say two words without making me want to call David Bowie to see if he accepts older half-sisters on his Goblin staff. This girl is positively evil.

Granted, I'm the youngest in my family and therefore may just not identify with the plight of the oldest child. So maybe this is all my fault. Perhaps if I was a pretty 17-year-old growing up today with a pleasant dad and nice enough stepmother, I too would have every reason to ditch baby-sitting duties long enough for someone to kidnap my baby brother and feed him to goblins. Or just one. Because that is all you need.

High Points

For a not very good movie, Goblin does boast a few decent sequences, including an excellent baby crib reveal that shows director Jeffery Scott Lando might have potential with better material/CGI caliber goblins

Low Points

Look, I understand that having an angsty teen as your lead could work when she uses the journey of saving her baby brother from being eaten by a goblin as a growing experience. But honestly, making her just a nice young teenager who has to save her baby brother from eaten by a goblin really wouldn't have taken ANYTHING away from the whole saving-brother-goblin thing. And would have made the audience not want to see the star die a painful death

Credits Curiosity

Not something I expect in the opening credits sequence: U.S. Casting by One Person, followed by CASTING By Someone Else. At that point, at least tell us WHERE Goblin was was filmed (and cast)

Lessons Learned

What's in for goblin style in 2010: Assless chaps, Grim Reaper hoodies, and bone earrings

Attractive yet bland eighteen year old boys are turned on by fake blonds with oddly parted hair talking dirty. By dirty, I mean using the kinds of come-ons that befit the Sweet Valley High twins (or at least Jessica). Sample exchange: 

“You are so hot!” 

“Careful...you might get burned"

Arguing is not helpful

When burying your own wife/mother, it’s vital to dress the part of a mourning family with proper black dresses or suits. Try to avoid dirt stains, but really, what can you do?

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’m not sure whether Goblin was made for the SyFy Channel, but I’d bet a mutant baby that it was. It’s not good, but it’s passable enough light horror along the lines of Skeleton Man. The CGI effects are hilariously adorable, as is the titular goblin himself. So I guess those who like leggy goblins, go for it. All others, stick to a more laughable Gil Bellows as the villain facing Steve Austin in Hunt to Kill. It’s a performance worth goblining for.

It's a Title AND Subgenre In One!

As a 12 year old bookworm, I began, in 1994, reading Peter Straub’s novel Ghost Story on a school band trip. 

I was, as you can imagine, insanely hip.

If memory serves (a lot of it is questionable, since the cool kids clearly beat me up a lot at that age) I got about 100 pages into the rather slow-moving tale before something else caught my interest (V.C. Andrews? Mystery Science Theater 3000? Tonya Harding?) and I never reached 101.

What that says about the book is arguable. 1994 was probably the peak of my literary nerdom, so the fact that after getting a quarter of the way through, I never cared to finish might indeed mean I was bored with the storytelling. 17 years and a few more Olympic figure skating scandals later, the far less time consuming siren call of Netflix Instant Watch (or is that redundant now?) let me at least find out how the story ended. 

Quick Plot: Meet the Chowder Society, a fireside group of senior citizens who gather twice a month to drink brandy, be rich, and regale one another with scary tales. The gray-haired gang has been chums for over 50 years, all reaching professional success in their snowy New England town. Recently, each member has been experiencing sweat-inducing nightmares, much to the chagrin of their there-to-sigh-with-pots-of-coffee-wives.

The widowed Edward (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) gets more tragedy when his successful son David falls out of a window to his death. What no one knows is that David stumbled (full frontal nakedly, no less) after discovering his sleeping paramour was stone cold and corpse facey. Less successful son Don returns home for the funeral to act like a jerk before his mourning pops meets his own end after seeing the same corpse facey woman hanging out on a snow covered bridge.

Clearly, there’s a pattern going on here although thankfully, The Gorgeous Woman Who Makes Men Fall To Their Deaths does eventually vary her act. Sensing some secret between the surviving geezers (another one drops soon), Don talks his way into the club with own ghost story.

See, when Don was a fresh-faced young college professor, he left his dowdy girlfriend for the sexy British secretary. After a month of lovemaking and ice cream sundaes, the beauty--named Alma--proposed marriage in Don’s hometown, prompting their breakup, Don’s well deserved termination, and the subsequent engagement of Alma to Don’s dearly departed brother David.

Mystery afoot! Old men in danger! A 1930s flashback! Ghost Story unfolds as a good ghost story should, with layers of creepiness being built and stacked like a many-tiered cake. Unfortunately, like many a many-tiered cake, not all layers are created equal. 

See, when you have such heavyweights as Fred Astaire and John Houseman, it makes following a dull cad like Craig Wasson’s Don quite a pain. Wasson isn’t awful, but Don sure is. We’re introduced to a thirtysomething underachiever who’s been fired from his teaching job--quite rightfully, as we learn--and “isn’t writing much.” As a writer, few devices irk me more than moany film characters who fancy themselves tortured scribes but produce nothing of note.

That’s strike 1.

So what else does Don do to endear his permed self to us? Act like a jerk to his already sad dad, who recently lost his wife before the bizarre and tragic death of his favorite (and we see why, based on Don’s Donness) son. “Did you know I slept with David’s fiancee?” he taunts the poor old guy over dinner. Cute. Sure, we later learn exactly what he means by thing but there IS a thing called tact, even in New England.

Strike 2.

In flashback, we discover more about Don’s dance with the supernatural...which he brought upon himself by asking a woman out for lunch immediately after kissing his own girlfriend goodbye for breakfast. Come ON dude.

I wouldn’t mind an unlikable protagonist if Ghost Story did something with it, and it kind of almost sort of does. Really all the males are weak, slightly misogynist folks, something that makes sense once the ultimate (and not too shocking) secret of their past is revealed. Perhaps there’s a deeper examination about how Ghost Story explores male entitlement, but I think such an observation is more perception than intent.

It would help if Don had ANYTHING redeeming, or if any female character did more than sleep with or comfort her man. Sure, Alice Krige wears multiple hats (though rarely much clothing) but she’s a type rather than person. The woman scorned or hungry sexpot, a symbol meant to drive the plot and look good while doing it. It doesn’t necessarily not work on all levels, but overall, it’s just impossible to care.

High Points

The first two deaths unfold with slightly dated (hello Lair of the White Worm style plummets) but still effective build-up and follow-through, particularly with the old fashioned camera trick of ghost fuzzings.

Low Points

As I’ve mentioned before in such films as The Lady In White and The Changeling, vengeful ghost stories tend to lay stagnant with me once the particulars of how to right the wrong is revealed

Lessons Learned

Never trust a woman that realllllly wants to meet your family

In order to keep your enjoyable teaching job, remember to occasionally go to school and teach

If you want your husband to live to that nice and cozy vacation he just promised you, remember to never do anything loving or sweet or that remotely demonstrates that you might have happy days still ahead

Rent/Bury/Buy

Ghost Story is a film made of its time, an odd not always comfortable mix of the 70s gothic revival and incoming sleaze of the 1980s. Aspects of that work, mostly because it includes thespian royalty. Other parts--okay, anything involving the deplorable Don--tried my patience. At 110 minutes, Ghost Story is not a quick watch, but if you’re someone who really digs, well, ghost stories, it’s certainly something worth a glance. I was personally let down, but this isn’t my genre and you know...I really hated that Don.

Rock Me! Shock Me! Paracineme!

Yo, Wuhstah! You know what goes down this weekend? 

Clearly all sorts of amazing things, if a still from A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge is involved. So dig out your Revolutionary War memorabilia and Red Sox gear for Massachusetts' annual horror convention, Rock 'N Shock!*

*Yes, I've been told that Worchester is actually not near Boston, but what else does Massachusetts have going on that I'm supposed to know about?


The point is, if you're anywhere near the DCU Center & Palladium this weekend, come on over to meet the likes of Robert Englund, Lance Henrikson, Roddy Piper, Gary Busey AND his son, and the aforepictured Mark Patton or really, ME!

Don't worry. I'm no longer blond. Or sporting a Jareth bulge.

I'll be heading up with my GleeKast cohostess Erica, The Podcast Podcast's Fozziebare, and Buried In a Book Crypt's Ashlee to roam the floors on Saturday and Sunday.  Outside the Cinema will be streaming all weekend with an open chat room, so if you can't make the trip, pop on there to see the festivities. It's sort of like watching Joan and Melissa Rivers on the red carpet, but with clown makeup and rubber masks.

Which is sort of like watching Joan and Melissa Rivers on the red carpet anyway.


If you're heading to Rock 'n Shock, be sure to say hullo or else once I find out you were THERE and didn't, I'll fear that I fell into a Silent Hill-esque alternate dimension that will forever keep me away from Sean Bean. No one wants that. 

Stop by the Outside the Cinema table or shoot me an email (deadlydollshouse at gmail.com). Now that I have an iPhone, I can know about the Interverse when not connected to my computer. Although I also just upgraded my settings and will probably not actually be able to work it so if nothing else, look out for the short brunette with the loud voice and Merrell Sneakers.

Greatest shoe design of all time.

But juggalo sighting and bootleg DVD shopping isn't all you have to look forward to this weekend. Over yonder at Paracinema, the makers of the greatest genre magazine of our time are feeling awfully generous. If you purchase any issue between today and Sunday (October 16th) you'll be entered to win a free (and awesome) t-shirt! THIS ONE!

I own one myself, and it's comfy AND kickin'. Plus I also own A LOT of Paracinema magazines and they're smart, funny, informative and fascinating. Head to their website and skim through back issues for one that catches your eye, or pick up the new one complete with writeups on Inside, Bela Lugosi, censorship, Turkish ripoffs and much much more. Travel back in time to The Women's Issue (#11), composed entirely of writing by females (including my own take on George Romero's misplaced feminism). Issue 8 is a Tommy Wiseau fan's own bouquet of roses, while Issue 10 has perhaps the writing I'm personally most proud of, my article on Victor Salva's Clownhouse. Browse your choices and pick your raffle ticket, or get an actual subscription to keep you clothed and smart for years to come!

Excitement! 

It's a World of Pure Imagination (or just unconventional zombies)

Having recently read Shock Value, the fine and thorough study of the men behind some of the latter 20th century’s most genre-defining films, I’ve come to the realization that I should really watch more films touched by Dan O’Bannon. 1981’s Dead and Buried comes with his name (among others) on the screenplay, plus it’s a Netflix Instant Watch, so fate was predetermined.


Of course, a little research (or informed opinions from the good people over at the Palavr forums) let me know that Dan O'Bannon had absolutely nothing to do with Dead and Buried, save for selling his name to smack on the title after the success of Alien. So that's that.

Quick Plot: We open on a beach in Potters Bluff with the very strange flirtation between a photographer and random blond, who figures a chance meeting with a man and his camera could guarantee a modeling career. It helps when you show him your boobs.

Unfortunately for the almost-lucky stranger (whom the blond insists on calling Freddy), the day isn’t quite as peachy as a naked beauty would lead you to believe. Just as he moves in for a kiss, a herd of townsfolk (including a young Robert Englund) knocks him out, dragging him to a post to burn him alive. 

Dating is HARD.

Elsewhere in town we meet Sheriff Dan Gillis as he investigates the mysterious death of the unidentified passerby. On hand to help (sorta) is the town mortician Dobbs, played with extreme grumpiness by Grandpa Joe himself, Jack Albertson. See, Dobbs loves his art of repairing mauled or burnt or blown apart faces, and the fact that his town keeps giving him closed casket funerals is like asking Gordon Ramsay to turn country fair winning pig meat into ballpark hot dogs.

When another non-Potters Bluffian is found dead, Gillis’ suspicions grow to extreme levels of scowling. You can’t blame him, especially when the barely surviving and hospitalized “Freddy” is murdered in his mummy body wrapped immobile state, only to later reappear as a cheerful gas station attendant. Throw in the slightly odd behavior of Gillis’ own wife (Flash Gordon’s Melody Anderson) and you have some eerie mystery building, 1980s small seaside town style.

Dead and Buried is an interesting little film, one that never seemed to find any cult status. On one hand, I can see why: while it has some surprising actors and a neat premise, it’s a slow trail. Then again, so is Dan O’Bannon frenemy John Carpenter’s The Fog, a film with a very similar tone and style and one of which I never quite understood the intense genre adoration for.

I don’t know that Dead and Buried is necessarily better than The Fog, but it might be just as good. There are some genuinely tense scenes--witness the nighttime shadow attack on a young family with the nerve to make a bathroom break in a mystery town--and lots of macabre humor, most of which comes courtesy of the hilariously crotchety Grandpa Joe and his pride in corpse transformation. The makeup effects are credited to Stan Winston, and while they certainly look makeup effecty, they also boast that late 70s/early 80s charm that marks a film with a specific time stamp so near and dear to many of our hearts.

Ultimately, Dead and Buried was a far more interesting film than I was expecting, although its slow pacing in revealing the not terribly well-kept secret certainly kept me from feeling overly impressed. Director Gary Sherman has an uneven but not boring resume, beginning with the enjoyable subway slaughter film Raw Meat and stretching through the not-as-bad-as-it-quite-is Poltergeist III. His touch on Dead and Buried works well, blending odd humor with horror in an effectively creepy village setting. The film dragged for me, but that’s probably more due to that halfway through it, I realized there was a new episode of Hell’s Kitchen AND the annual Miss Universe Pageant to watch. That will make anything feel too long.

High Points

The central death of the film--I won’t spoil whose--is done with an outstanding balance of horror and sadness

Low Points

While I liked the reveal of what’s been plaguing Potters Bluff, I found something lacking in how it unfolded. We already suspected most of the secret, but the ultimate explanation just seemed clumsy

Lessons Learned

Photographers don’t get famous in St. Louis

You can always count on a diner waitress to be named Midge. Also, for her to burn people alive

Shells = bullets

1980s Alert!

An attractive but ill-fated hitchhiker dares to hop into a grungy truck. Remember folks, VHS tapes were still new and kids back then didn’t have the luxury of watching so many horror movies that they learned important (or Doll’s House official) life lessons explaining the horrors of hitchhiking in a movie

Overacting Drunk Alert!

I just adore any actor with the guts to go all-out slurry. So thank you, dude playing a drunk in Dead and Buried. Thank. You.

Rent/Bury/Buy

I liked Dead and Buried quite a bit. I did. I just really wanted to watch living mannequins known as pageant girls parading in Barbie gowns while attempting to incorporate God into their 10 seconds of allowed non-quiet time. It’s one of my many fatal flaws. Hence, Dead and Buried doesn’t get the fairest shake from me, since I just really wanted it to end for reasons that weren’t *necessary* its fault. I did like this movie and recommend a viewing (probably just a rental/stream) so long as you’re in the mood for something early 80s, something slow, and something starring Grandpa Joe.