Casey's blog

Well folks, the the pain and suffering continues as October rolls along; so far I'm still alive! I've decided this week to break these challenge posts up because otherwise, you're going to have a HELL of a lot of reading to do on Friday! The truth is, I'm an addict. I make up this big song and dance about an October Challenge, but it's not that far from real life! So for today we have the next six entries into the challenge books! Cabin 12 has taken on the challenge, who else is brave enough to take part!

Reader beware: below be scares! (And crap!)

28 Days Later

If there's one thing I love, it's post-apocalypse settings. Death, carnage, despair, I eat it up! (No pun intended!) Now, many people will argue back and for on whether or not "28 Days" is a zombie flick or not. My official ruling is 'hell no'. That still doesn't take away from the atmosphere created in this flick! It boils down to your basic zombie fight in structure but there are technicalities that make it differ from the standard trope. Regardless, Cillian Murphy made great work of his debut and the view of life escaping from a deadly city was quite enjoyable.

Serial Mom

This oft over looked John Waters flicks really cracks me up. It had been quite awhile since I saw this last so some of it was surprising to me again. Such as Matthew Lillard in the cast as well as Ricki Lake. (Ricki Lake in a Waters flick really shouldn't surprise me.) There is so much to laugh at this film. Watching Kathleen Turner scream obscenities into the phone such as 'PUSSY FACE!' cracks me up every time! It's nice and campy as well. It's a pretty big departure from most of Waters films but it deserves attention. Where else are you going to get to see Kathleen Turner beat a woman to death with a leg of lamb?

976-Evil 2

Saturday was a lazy one, so I was able to gorge myself a bit on movies, so chalk up two for the challenge! In this sequel to the Robert Englund directed original, Jim Wynorski takes over the reigns. You may know Jim from such classics "Munchie" or the "Bare Wench Project"; he's a b-movie champion unlike any other! The man's put out so much b-movie fare it's scary. Unfortunately, "976-Evil 2" isn't going to the be the movie he's remember for. Spike returns to fight the evil telemarketer once again, the only actor gullible enough to come back for a second take. This one was a snoozer and hard to get through. It definitely lacked anything that made the original watchable.

And just to through in there, the lead actress Debbie James did happen to bring music to mind every time I saw her on screen: "Oh, my, god. Becky, look at her butt.
It is so big. She looks like, one of those rap guys' girlfriends."

Witchboard

Here's one I bet a lot of people forgot about! In theory, it seems pretty logical for a horror flick; A ouija board brings evil spirits to our world to mess with scantily clad women. Pretty easy to get on board with, right? Unfortunately it's not quite as effective in practice. Tawny Kitaen was a babe, sure, but she always worked much better on the cover of David Coverdale's car. The story's easy enough to follow but the crappy acting makes it a chore. Still, listening to the upper class twit go on about how he's into 'ouija and seances' is pretty funny. I have to admit though, my attention strayed alot through out the viewing. For instance, my most astute observation? "Wow, Tawny Kitaen has man hands."

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

There's a fundamental problem with Kane Hodder playing Ed Gein; the real life accounts of Ed Gein were that he was a pretty quiet and simple man, not frightening or imposing at a simple glance. Kane Hodder pretty much throws that idea out the window. He's a big fucker and scary to boot. Aside from that, it was cool to see him tackle a different type of roll. He did fairly well for what he had to work with. The movie on the other hand was fairly uneventful. There's a handful of gore shots thrown in here and some decent tension, they just don't do much to make things exciting. Ultimately, a pretty boring flick. This movie also has the most bizarre music queues I think I've seen; there are all sorts of dramatic swells that would normal signal something bad coming. The problem is the music swells so many times in this movie only to lead to nothing. So confusing.

Feast II: Sloppy Seconds

I was a pretty big fan of "Feast" so I was pretty excited to hear I would be getting a review copy of "Sloppy Seconds". I wasn't entirely dissapointed but in some ways it's a pretty different beast than the first. This time around the primary focus is to be as gory as humanly possible and in that, they succeeded. There are so many bodily fluids thrown about in this flick, it's downright disgusting! (And pretty fun at that.) The problem is that there isn't much of a story to back it up. Much like the action in "Transformers", too much of a good thing becomes rather boring after a bit. With "Feast 2" you get into the territory that it is obvious that the film makers have a love and respect for the genre, they just concentrated on the splatter and too little of the story. They try for the first ten to twenty minutes or so at least. This movie just screams "I want to be Grindhouse!"

So there you have it folks, another five days of the October Challenge! Check back this weekend for entry #3 as me and my trusty DVD player continue to plug away until Halloween. Most of these selections are chosen on a whim based on what I'm feeling up to at any given moment. There's probably a psychological profile just waiting to be written in there somewhere!

Be sure to chime in with movie suggestions or your own challenge entries!

Goodbye

There's a T-888 on the loose and he's hitting close to home. Opening the episode we see a man named Martin Bedell getting read to enjoy some barbecue when he comes face to face with the bot. Cut to Casa Connor and we're regaled Reese's story of why the bots are after Bedell: in the future Martin Bedell becomes one of John's right hand men. Schooled in strategy and tactics as a West Point graduate he helps to put a serious hurt on the futuristic oppressors. Lucky for the Connors however, they killed wrong Martin Bedell. There's two more listed in the phone book and its time for the Connor Clan to protect them.

Reese and John team up and head to the near by military school in search of Bedell #1. Going under cover as a student and his uncle (Get it? Cause John doesn't yet!) John quickly locates and befriends Bedell and begins to reel him in.

Sarah and Cameron set off in search of Bedell #2, a young boy who lives at home with his parents. While home by himself one afternoon trash talking on Xbox Live he hears a knock at the door. Thankfully for him Sarah's made it there already and pulls him out of the way when the T-888 blows down the door.

All the while, Catherine Weaver continues to talk the skeptic agent to a slow painful death as she steers him towards running the investigation of the near meltdown from a previous episodes escapades at the nuclear power plant. Still unsure what they're going to do with this angle, the writers continue to throw Ms. Garbage on the screen at random and make her talk in stilted fashion!

Both teams fight bad guys, both teams make friends in the form of a Martin Bedell and eventually, John Connor actually cries!

Well here you have it folks. I've been bitching about the direction of this season for four episodes now; now you get to hear me talk about an episode I liked!

Finally, "Sarah Connor Chronicles" feels like it did in the first season. There's intrigue, there's action, and yes there's drama and I still liked it. Thanks to John Shelton's comments in last week's blog post, I decided to lighten up on Sarah Connor a bit. This episode showcases more of her struggling with protecting the savior of mankind or being a mother. It's still a bit wishy washy, but looking at it in this sense as John pointed out makes it more acceptable. Written off is the idea that we're going to see the hard as nails Sarah Connor of the movies; if you can accept this and be able to take a softer side of Sarah, it works. This episode sees her as she realizes much of where she went wrong or missed out with John as she spends time with the kidnapped Martin Bedell. Some nice moments of her helping him with his homework and such pulls out an 'aww' or two. Not bad and thankfully a minor aside.

Where the true guts of the story are this week is with John and Reese as they infiltrate the nearby military school. We're given some good back story...uh...future story...flash forwards? It's all so confusing! Anyways, we're treated to some insight to the robot war through Reese's recollection of the future Bedell. Showcasing minor skirmishes throughout the time it is a light dosage, but helps to flesh things out. We also get to see a side of John that we haven't seen yet; the military minded John who's a sharp shooter and knows more about guns and such than they've showed us this far. Things like this have always been implied but never shown. As an aside, I do like Brian Austin Green as Reese; he may have been a bagadouche in "Beverly Hills 90210", but he's adjust well and does a good job as a future soldier. His old character slips out once in awhile which is funny but not too jarring.

As I said last week, character development is indeed important, I just haven't been happy with how they've developed John Connor mostly with some minor annoyance in Sarah Connor as well. I've come to terms with their vision for Sarah though finally and I'm ready to give it a chance. John, they finally showed us a harder tougher John this week and it was great! To bad they took away from that with the boo-hoo's on the way home.

As far as Catherine Weaver and Agent Ellison go? DO SOMETHING WITH THEM! I'm sure they have some jaw dropping reveal planned for the finale with these two; we already know that Ms. Weaver's the T-2000. It's pretty apparent too that she's setting herself up to be the creator of Skyenet as well, but all we get to see is her talking a lot and Agent Ellison being skeptical. So far its failed to go anywhere!

Well, I threatened you all this week with my October Challenge, 31 movies in 31 days, so here is our first recap! I'm three days in and 4 movies up, so off to a good start! Also of note to nobody but me, "Idle Hands" clocked in as the 200th movie I've watched this year! Scary shit indeed.

Day 1

Mother of Tears

Well, it was a work at home day and I haven't been sleeping well. Good thing I found Argento's conclusion to his 'Three Mothers' trilogy, because it was pretty boring. If there is one thing that Argento carried over from the first two flicks, it's the convoluted story line. Blink once and you're lost for the entirety of the movie. However, the gore here was top notch! There was some great kills and what not, so that helps. This movie also helped sway me to Eric's way of thinking for a bit as Asia Argento actually looks pretty good when she cleans up!

The Midnight Meat Train

I've been waiting for this bad boy for a long ass time and thanks to Fearnet, I finally get to see it! Honestly? It was worth the wait because I LOVED it! The story kept me pulled in throughout and I honestly didn't find anything that left a bad taste in my mouth. Vinnie Jones as Mahogany was great and his whole cro-mag brow thing made or some great shots of shadowed eyes and generally creepiness. The gore was off the hook too and I dare say the slow motion effects used for some of them added to them! How often do you hear me say that?

Day 2

The Gate

I love "The Gate". It's a guilty pleasure more than anything, but it's both nostalgic and campy. Hell, Stephen Dorff calling people 'fart face'! How can you get any better? His buddy Terrence was the true highlight with his studded denim vest and his love for black metal. There's really not much that I'd deem scary here, but it's plain old 80's fun. The puppets are great as are the rubber suits, etc. In this day and age of CGI, it's fun to look at what filmmakers did to make 'master demons'; they did it well too.

Idle Hands

Devon who? Devon Sawa? Remember that guy? His lovable stoner shtick worked well here, especially when pared with Seth Green and Eldon Henson. This movie ain't going to win any Oscars but it's good for a laugh. Plus, you get Jessica Alba in her undies. Who can turn that down? The story's pretty loose but works out. What turns into a severed hand flick a la 'The Crawling Hand' in 1963. At least time they just went straight for the zany as opposed to trying to take themselves seriously.

Moving On...

There's plenty more on deck for the weekend, enough so that I have no idea where I'm heading next! I have a handful of classics and modern flicks to choose from so we'll see where the whimsy takes me! You want to challenge me? Post up your suggestions and I'll do what I can to work them in! Just remember though people, this is a 'Challenge'! Don't suggest the easy stuff like "Friday the 13th" or "Halloween"... make me work for it!

"Halloween 3: Season of the Witch" is an acceptable one though cause christ, that's a challenge for anybody to sit through! Well, anybody but Eric!

Allison from Palmdale

This show makes it increasingly harder to call myself a fan.

In the fourth episode of this season, the writers decided that we need to see some more of the softer side of Sarah Connor and more of the damage done to Cameron from last season's finale. Cameron and John head out to the grocery store, Sarah takes the pregnant landlord to the hospital.

I kid you not.

On the good side of things, the Cameron story angle this week was at least interesting. It would appear that she was damaged more than anybody thought and we're looking at another possible 'KILL JOHN CONNOR' order reset. It would appear that the memories of the human that Cameron was designed after, 'Allison from Palmdale', have begun to resurface. Flash backs to another person's life plague Cameron throughout the show causing her to forget that she's in fact a killer robot from the future. It was interesting in that we see some of the methods that the bots use in the future to create their infiltrator androids. They also drop hints towards Cameron's original alter ego having something to do with John; we just don't know what yet. We've already visited the re-programming plot tweest once this season, I hate to see it again. At least they brought some interesting plot points to the table.

On the bad side of things, why oh why do we need to watch a full hour of Sarah sitting at the hospital with a pregnant lady! Sure, they're trying to showcase a softer side to the character and her struggles with trying to raise a son who is going to become the resistance leader that saves man kind. You know what? Freaking get over it. That's pretty much all you've shown us this season! What happened to the crazy ass kicking Linda Hamilton version of Sarah? This one's as emo as her kid.

There isn't much of John here either. Just him running around trying to find Cameron. Really, this whole episode just felt off completely from what they built up over the last season. They bring back Catherine Weaver for some screen time, but by god they still haven't bothered to do much of anything exciting with her yet. All she does is talk a lot and drop cryptic hints. Somebody wake me up when she finally kills somebody or does something evil.

I swear, this show is starting to border on the "O.C." for the SciFi set.

Today is October 1st and you know what that means; it's Halloween season! As Andy Williams once said, "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" Cool temperatures, changing leaves, bonfires and pumpkin beer, who needs Christmas when we got October!

At any rate, this year I'm taking on 'the Challenge': 31 Horror Flicks in 31 Days! And you get to come along for the ride!

Check back every Friday afternoon for a recap of the week's flicks to keep tabs on if I've survived the challenge! Each Friday I'll post capsule reviews of each flick, so it should be fun!

Wish me luck!

The first flick of the challenge was: Argento's "Mother of Tears"!

Capsule review up on Friday!

Chuck Versus The First Date

It's season premiere time again, this week bringing the brand spanking new season of NBC's "Chuck" starring Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski, and Adam Baldwin!

For those of you new to the series, "Chuck" is an action-comedy surrounding the CIA and the NSA. Chuck is a lowly employee of the local electronics superstore's (Think Best Buy) Nerd Herd. Having been expelled from school, Chuck's life is a day to day existence consisting of work and gaming with his nerdy friends while he lives at home with his sister. On his birthday he receives an email from his old college roommate who had gotten him expelled; little did Chuck know, his ex-roommate was a CIA agent who had sent him data encoded pictures from the 'Intersect', a government owned super computer. Now Chuck is the 'Intersect', his head containing all of the nations secrets! CIA Agent Sarah and NSA Agent Casey are assigned to protect him as various foreign spies do their best to either kill him or kidnap him for their own nefarious purposes.

That's it in a nutshell....

Season 2 kicked off this week with special guest star Michael Clark Duncan holding Chuck over the edge of a building by his ankles, trying to get his hands on the 'Cipher', the device that is going to form the brains of the new intersect. Having successfully kept Duncan from obtaining the Cipher, plans move ahead on the new super computer and Chuck is promised that he can return to life as normal. Reeling in his new found freedom, Chuck gathers the nerves to ask out the lovely Sarah on a date since they no longer were in a working relationship. In the meantime, Agent Casey is ordered to eliminate Chuck in order to keep him from falling in the wrong hands. Too bad Agent Casey has grown attached to Chuck and doesn't want to carry out his orders!

As far as season premiers go, "Chuck" started out with a bang and packed with laughs. It was nice to see Chuck finally grow a pair with Sarah and ask her out and it was fun to watch Agent Casey figure out how to avoid his orders on eliminating the man he now has grown to like. Michael Clark Duncan was a great addition as well, even if it is only as a guest star.

Duncan showed up as an operative ordered to steal the Cipher, the brains to the new super computer. Not much was given as to who he worked for or why the wanted it. They danced around many times on trying to figure out how to get the information but there were always zany situations popping up to give them this info. This is a possible hint that the writers plan on expanding the over all story arc with a new nemesis organization for the CIA and NSA to fight against, a la KAOS from the king of spy comedy "Get Smart". The show was always entertaining and funny throughout the first season, this could be a great way to ad meat to the plot and give them something more to work with in the second season. I'll definitely be looking forward to more.

Levi and company put in great work for this premiere, as could be expected. Adam Baldwin always plays well in the side character spot and handles the tough as nails Agent quiet well. Yvonne Strahovski came into this series as a relative unknown and has definitely left her mark. She's there primarily for the awkward love story side plot to help keep Chuck confused, but it works well and ads some definite humor. Plus, she's a babe. Dare I say...Mega Babe!

Check back every week for more "Chuck" love as I plan on keeping up with it through out the season! It's not a horror show, but it's niche enough to warrant coverage I'd say. By god it's not a freaking CSI/Lawyer/Hospital drama so why not! Oh and lest I forget, "Chuck" stars your favorite Candyman and mine, Tony Todd. That's gotta warrant inclusion here at Bloody Good Horror if nothing else!

And just to add, this is why Eric will read this post and decide to start watching:

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