I never got to know her. No one did.
If she were alive today, she'd be a week or two into her senior year of high school. A 17 year old, who would turn 18 on March 3rd and graduate in May. I can't know what she'd be like or what she would look like. I can't know anything about her, but I can imagine.
I'd like to think that she would have Barry's height and I can't imagine her with anything other than his friendly smile. I imagine her much like my older sister Sara, to be an attractive girl who is impervious to how beautiful she actually is. I can imagine my mother hounding her from time to time saying, "Sydney, if you'd just doctor yourself up a little bit and take some care in how you looked, all of the boys would be crazy about you." I don't think any of that would matter to her though. I don't see her being superficial at all. Matter of fact the only reason she'd own any makeup at all is because my mom bought it for her. It'd most likely go bad before it was ever opened. Being beautiful and popular wouldn't interest her much, although she would be well liked. She might not have a ton of friends, but all of her friends would be honest and pure, a lot like I imagine she would be. As for a boyfriend, I imagine she'd have one. A guy that matched her personality and her demeanor. A guy who would throw on a pair of blue jeans, a t-shirt and an old John Deere baseball cap, blackened on the bill from where he had grabbed it so many times. Substitute the baseball cap for hair combed straight back in a ponytail and the two would practically match.
I'd like it if she took after my mom and me and enjoyed reading, but I can't help but imagine that she'd think that there was too many interesting things going on in the world around her to get caught up in the world of a novel. I think she'd enjoy classes that dealt with agriculture, environmental science and hands on learning but other than that think school is completely a drag. Even though I'd preach to her the importance of doing well in school, I think she'd get by with a B's and C's report card. Post graduation, I see her continuing to live at home with my mom and Barry while she took classes at Indian Hills Community College.
Would she be a drinker? One to party? Seeing how heavily Sara got into it during her teenage years and how I didn't touch it at all, I think Sydney would meet us somewhere in the middle. She'd be too intelligent to ever get behind the wheel of a car after she had drank. She'd be too intelligent to ever allow someone who was drunk to drive her home either. She'd never allow herself to drink to defenselessness and in the case that someone would try and take advantage of her, she'd have the smarts to always have her protective boyfriend and friends near by.
I can't say what her religious beliefs would be, but with my mom, Barry, Sara and me, I can feel rest assured that her morals and values would be pretty high. She'd be the nicest girl in the class, but prove that she has a "take no shit from anyone" attitude anytime someone tried to act superior on her. She'd stick up for the nerdy, the ugly and the weak. She'd tell me stories about how girls who think they're really something special were making fun of a slower girl in the class, and how she put them in their place.
I think she'd find me weird, as do most people, but I think we'd have a healthy older brother, little sister relationship. I'd hope that she would appreciate how I'd stick up for her whenever my mother tried to manipulate her. I think she'd come to me for advice on things and trust that what I told her was honest. When I'd go back home to visit, I'd take her out of dinner and we'd share stories of our lives.
That's who I'd like to imagine she'd be, if she were alive today.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Thursday, September 10, 2015
My Favorite Professional Wrestling Announcers
One of the most important elements to a professional wrestling company's success, yet also one of the least recognized and often least appreciated, is the commentary. A good broadcast journalist, accompanied by an excellent play by play color commentator often enhances the action that is taking place in the ring. And they talk about intriguing, interesting topics when the wrestling in the ring, isn't as spectacular. They make sense of what is happening, feeding us knowledge. They often make agreeable or disagreeable comments based on their biases for certain wrestlers and they often make us laugh. There have been many commentators throughout the history of professional wrestling, that I have enjoyed listening to. Some I've enjoyed so much that I've listened to, without watching, various wrestling cards on my smartphone while traveling down the road. We all have our opinions on who was the best and here is mine.
Good ole J.R. is in the minds of many, including his own, the greatest commentator of all time. In my opinion he isn't the greatest, but he is without question one of the greatest of all time. I enjoyed him most during his WCW years and then his early WWE years. He was so full of information and facts during that time. I loved how he would comment on the wrestler's histories, saying where they went to college, what they studied and if they excelled at a sport. It was fun knowing that some of my favorite professional wrestlers played football in college, or maybe the wrestled or played basketball. It humanized them to a degree, to where they were still real life superheroes and super villains, but ones that liked to play cards or ones that liked to read. He never completely demystified a wrestler's character, but instead added little fun facts that made it easier to like and cheer for them. In 1996, with encouragement from upper management he went from being the man with all the facts, to being the guy that shouted, "He broke him in half!!!!" and "It's a damn shame!" along with other what soon became tiresome clichés. I didn't enjoy this Jim Ross as much. I don't think he did either. Today Ross has his own podcast, where he tells his own wrestling stories and has guest on to tell theirs. I listen to his podcast quite often. I enjoy it quite a bit.
Long before he became "Mr. McMahon" the evil owner of the World Wrestling Entertainment, he was simply a commentator on his own show. He seemed so insignificant and unimportant amongst the wrestlers and even the other commentators that I remember being extremely shocked back in 1992, when I found out that he was the owner and operator of the company. Unlike today, with the internet leaking out information left and right, back then things were much more kayfabe. McMahon had the persona that he was simply a worker for the company doing play by play on the matches and he played the character flawlessly. I enjoyed him as the commentator. I sometimes wish now that his "Mr. McMahon" character has died out and faded away, with Triple H and Stephanie taking the position that he would come back and do commentary. Of all things I've seen him do on screen, I feel he was best at that.
Do you know why they called this guy perfect? He was! That's why. There wasn't anything this guy couldn't do. He could wrestle, he could manage and he could commentate. I enjoyed everything that he ever did and I miss the man immensely. I have no doubt that while his wrestling days would most likely be over, he'd be involved in professional wrestling in one way or the other today. What I loved about his commentary was how quick he was on his feet. He never allowed anyone to get the best of him or any situation to alter him up. Simply put, he was exactly what he said he was, "absolutely perfect."
I thought a lot about Roddy Piper the other night and asked myself, "What made him so special?" Why was he so beloved by so many people, including myself? Why do so many of us miss him so dearly? The answer is simple. It was his realism. He was a very sincere and genuine person, full of a lot of emotion. Sometimes that emotion was raw and sometimes it was crazy, even downright "Rowdy" but that's what made him so interesting. He was never disengaged and he was always intense and in the moment. He made what was happening on the screen real to me, because I think he made it real to himself. He had a magic about him that encompassed everyone he came in contact with, filling the atmosphere with energy. I sometimes find myself getting really into the moment, as I hear ole "Hot Rod" on the commentary and other times I find myself laughing at how insanely intense the man would get. Like Mr. Perfect, the guy could do it all and he did. Commentating was simply one of his many gifts.
To this day, I've only seen a handful of Ventura's matches and to be quite honest none of them have impressed me all that much. It's funny to me that so many people refer to him as, "former professional wrestler" and remember him as a wrestler, because while he was a good wrestler, his wrestling was nothing much above average. What he should be remembered for instead, is how good of a professional wrestling announcer he was, because frankly he is one of the best of all time. Even though he was a heel commentator, I appreciated him because I felt that he did a great job of exposing the fact that the good guy wrestlers didn't always play by the rules either. That sometimes the bad guy wrestlers, even though they were jerks, had more integrity and class than the good guy wrestlers did. People talk a lot about how the Attitude Era of professional wrestling broke boundaries with the idea of wrestling not being so black and white and having more shades of gray, but I think Ventura was illustrating that a good 10 years prior with his superior commentating skills. Like many successful people, Ventura has a variety of useful skills, his voice being perhaps his best.
If I find out one day there is a God, and I'm allowed to ask questions, one of the questions I will ask is why he took away (or allowed it to be taken away) a man's greatest asset in life? If I think about all of my favorite things about professional wrestling and what made me fall in love with professional wrestling, listening to Bobby Heenan talk might be the number one reason. Today, if you are unaware, Bobby is no longer able to speak. A vicious battle with throat cancer has lead to his lower jaw being removed. If I could, I'd give him the ability to speak again and I think a lot of wrestling fans would. Professional wrestling is all about entertainment and few if any could entertain as well as Heenan did. He was intelligent, he was witty and above all else he was funny. I've laughed more listening to him ramble on and "weasel" his way out of predicaments he put himself into, than I have watching comedies or comedians on T.V. A great wrestling personality and also a great person, I wish things were different for Heenan. I wish that he could still speak and continue to share his gift with the world. A great wrestling personality and a great person, Bobby is truly one of the best.
I loved everything about the Gorilla, and all these years later, I miss him as much today as I did the day he passed away. Whether it was with Jesse Ventura or Bobby Heenan, his commentary for me is second to no one. He knew how to play off his broadcasting partners and make what was going on in the booth just as entertaining and sometimes even more entertaining than what was going on in the ring. I loved how he was his own person and said what he felt. He never seemed to be controlled or saying something because someone else wanted him to say it. He had a thought, he shared it and I loved that about him. Although he didn't live to see it, he also worked hard to bridge the gap between amateur and professional wrestling and I think he'd be happy to see how far it has come since his passing. I guess all things, good and bad have their place and their time. I'm sad that his time and his time doing commentary for professional wrestling has passed. I feel very lucky and honored to have been alive during his time though. Through youtube, movies and television his memory will live on forever.
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| #7 - Jim Ross |
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| #6 - Vince McMahon |
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| #5-Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig |
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| #4 -Rowdy Roddy Piper |
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| #3 - Jesse "The Body" Ventura |
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| #2 - Bobby "the Brain" Heenan |
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| #1 - Gorilla Monsoon |
Saturday, September 5, 2015
"Kim Davis Lies" (Sung to the tune of Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes)
She’ll
quote the scripture she was told
Huckabee and Santorum will be allies
She’ll be hypocritically bold
She tells Kim Davis lies
She thinks it’s icky that gays screw
she’s committed adultery trice
She herself is a hoe
She tells Kim Davis lies
And she’ll lie to you
She’ll confuse you
all the better just to manipulate you
she’s hideously ferocious
and then quoting biblical scripture that she’s ignored will make her fans hush
she’s got eats McDonald’s every day, thunder thighs
she tells Kim Davis lies
No support from the Pope of Rome
She wants to kill sodomites
she has the face of a boar
She tells Kim Davis lies
She’ll try to convince you
that she herself doesn’t have any Unbiblical vice
Until stories pop up that she didn’t think anyone knew
She tells Kim Davis lies
and She’ll exploit you, cause she knows to
all to get recognition, attention and money from you
supercalifragilisticexpealidoshus
and she hates the thought of world that is equal and just
We’ll probably find out later that she’s bi
She tells Kim Davis lies
Huckabee and Santorum will be allies
She’ll be hypocritically bold
She tells Kim Davis lies
She thinks it’s icky that gays screw
she’s committed adultery trice
She herself is a hoe
She tells Kim Davis lies
And she’ll lie to you
She’ll confuse you
all the better just to manipulate you
she’s hideously ferocious
and then quoting biblical scripture that she’s ignored will make her fans hush
she’s got eats McDonald’s every day, thunder thighs
she tells Kim Davis lies
No support from the Pope of Rome
She wants to kill sodomites
she has the face of a boar
She tells Kim Davis lies
She’ll try to convince you
that she herself doesn’t have any Unbiblical vice
Until stories pop up that she didn’t think anyone knew
She tells Kim Davis lies
and She’ll exploit you, cause she knows to
all to get recognition, attention and money from you
supercalifragilisticexpealidoshus
and she hates the thought of world that is equal and just
We’ll probably find out later that she’s bi
She tells Kim Davis lies
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
My Love for Horror: The 1970's
I wish I could remember who recommended that I see this, but I don't remember for sure who it was. I think it might have been Nicole Smith or maybe it was Eric Bates. Regardless of who it was, I was told that it was one of the best horror films ever made, and if I wanted to list myself as a fan of horror then this was a must see. The film had me hooked from the beginning. As soon as I saw the art work on the VHS cover, I was captivated to see the film. With my short attention span, I often get up at least two to three times during a film to do something else. It is rather common for me to start a movie, watch part of it and then finish it the next day. This was not the case with The Exorcist. I started the film and watched it straight through. I don't think I even allowed myself to turn away from the screen once. I barely allowed myself to blink. The film had my undivided attention. I don't know why I did, but for some reason I thought that it would be a good idea to watch it alone, in my Dad's basement with only a small lamp on. He was staying the night at his girlfriend's place at the time and I was all alone. Two scenes in the film scared the bejeezus out of me. When the demon's face appears for a split second sent a chill down my spine. I think it was very wise of the film makers to only show the face for a spilt second the way they did. Any longer would have allowed the mind to examine the face and determine that it wasn't that scary. The other scene that sent a chill down my spine, was when Regan went down the stairs backwards in that neck-bridge stance. I don't list The Exorcist as a film that scares me, because it didn't scare me upon a second viewing or any other viewing since. It did scare me that night though. I didn't move an inch on that couch all night. I didn't even get up to turn off the T.V. I sat there alone, with that small amount of light coming from the lamp until I finally passed out from exhaustion.
I saw bits and pieces of this film probably 25 times or more, before I finally got a copy of it and watched it all the way through start to finish. Some people don't think it is correctly categorized as a horror, but I think it has enough commonalities with horror to where it can be. This is not only one of my favorite horror films, it is one of my favorite films. If you look closely at my favorite horror films, 100% of the time they all have one thing in common: A heroic protagonist. I think some film makers miss the importance of having a good protagonist in a horror film and that's why their films aren't as good as they could've been. Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is a likable, heroic character that is easy to relate to and I think the movie centers on him much more than it does the shark. I also appreciate how the film examines rather gray issues, such as the decisions that the Mayor (Murray Hamilton) has to make. If he admits to a killer shark in the area, then the businesses in Amity Island suffer. His community relies heavily on tourism. Yet if he doesn't admit to a killer shark in the area, people will die. I love how the movie hits this lose-lose situation head on and how a man must face his greatest fear in order to overcome an evil to save his community. Last but not least, I also find it interesting that author Peter Benchley says that if he had to do it all over again, he'd have written a novel where the shark was the protagonist and the human was the antagonist. I'm not sure how that would have worked with a shark. Another animal instead? Well.....
A lot of people sum this movie up as a rip-off of JAWS and I couldn't disagree more. To me the movie is the exact opposite of JAWS in that the creature is not an evil, mindless killing machine but instead a empathetic, thinking, emotional animal whose determination for vengeance is quite understandable. I also commend the movie, for making the antagonist Captain Nolan (Richard Harris) a multi-dimensional character. They could have easily made him a straight up unlikable character, easy to hate but instead decided to give him some redeeming qualities. The scene where he admits that he is sorry for what he did and that he wishes he could apologize to the Orca for his actions is in my opinion the best scene of the movie. A very underrated film that often gets passed over because of unfair comparisons to JAWS, I recommend to check this out if you haven't yet.
There were a ton of since forgotten horror films made in the 1970's that few people even know exist and even fewer people have ever seen. The truth of the matter is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be one of them if it wasn't for one very specific reason. When I first saw this film, I couldn't believe how awful it was. The writing was bad, the acting was bad, hell nearly everything about the film was bad. You didn't have to convince me that the film's budget was only $300,000 and that most of that was spent on editing. The movie established that from the get go. Yet, this is one of the most influential, beloved horror films of all time. Why? Plenty of other horror films made in the 1970's that were just as good. Plenty of other horror films that no one ever talks about that are actually better, with a better story and better acting. Why is this film listed as one of the all time greatest? Five words. "Based on a true story" and there you have your answer. There is something about a story being based on real events and real people that draws an audience in. The real gag is that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre couldn't be more loosely based on real events than what it is. The story didn't take place in Texas, it took place in Wisconsin. No one was killed with a chainsaw either. Matter of fact, director/writer Toby Hooper got the idea for a chainsaw killer while sitting in a mall one day looking at chainsaws wonder what would happen if someone were to go berserk with one. There is no leatherface, or anyone even remotely close to him. Ed Gein, who he's "based" upon was a disturbed overly religions, pervert who suffered from necrophilia. He only killed 2 to 3 people (two for sure, one is questionable but likely.) In my opinion Toby Hooper or whoever it was that thought of using the tagline, "based on a true story" was a genius. It took an otherwise B film that would have been out of the theater faster than it came in and turned into a million dollar idea. Many films have since capitalized upon the power of "based on true events" but none have benefited more than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Personally, I find the remake much better.
Believe it or not, but this is how I first learned about female biology and the menstrual cycle. As a 13 year old boy, I was totally grossed out by the locker room scene and it made me actually scared of women for a while. I know it sounds ridiculous now, but I had a hard time being around women or talking to them because all I could think was that they go through this God-awful disgusting process once a month for 3-7 days. Girls would touch me in P.E. class and want to give me hugs throughout the day and every time they touched me the thoughts of blood would go through my mind and I'd shiver. I never talked to anyone about these feelings and eventually they went away. As I learned more about it in health and sciences classes throughout school, I came to realize how laughable my thoughts were. When reading, The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs I came to discover that I'm not the only person alive who had these thoughts. In a strange way that was comforting.
I also took away from Carrie the importance of being nice to people (unless given justifiable reason not to be) for two reasons. A, you don't know what they go through at home. Carrie's mother reminds me of a relative of mine that I can't stand, only Carrie's mother is a lot worse. People are often strange or weird because of reasons that often aren't revealed to us. If we knew the answers to our questions, I doubt we'd be as quick to poke fun. The other reason to be nice to people, is that you don't know what they're capable of. Being a supernatural movie, Carrie had telekinetic powers. What she was capable of is make believe. However, the torment she was going through and the pain she felt from being ridiculed and made fun of, there wasn't anything make believe about that. While she couldn't have gotten back at everyone the way she did in real life, those telekinetic powers could have just as easily been a gun.
I first saw this along with its first two sequels earlier this year. I don't think it's anything extraordinarily exceptional compared to other religiously based thrillers, but I think it does raise some interesting questions. First off what would it be like to find out that your own child, the thing you love more in life than anything else is incoherently evil? What's even more frightening than that is that mothers and fathers have actually thought this about their children in the past and sacrificed them. Throughout the movie we actually know what's going on and thus sympathize with what Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) is going through. We have to understand that to everyone else in the movie, he simply appears as a lunatic, the way someone would to us if they thought their child was the anti-Christ. It also raises the question of what it would be like to discover that you are evil, you were created evil and you have no real choice in the matter. It is obvious that Damien is unaware of himself and what he is. Is it really fair that he doesn't get a choice in the matter? Especially when you consider the punishment he'll receive for it, if you believe in all of that? I suppose maybe I put too much thought into such things, but as a possiblist, I wrestle with this question. I've always thought of the ideas of being a good or evil person, in regards to religion or not in regards to religion, as a means of personal choice. If The Omen has any truth to it, it is clear that it is not.
This movie holds a special place in my memory because it is the only horror film that I have ever watched with my dad. When I first took an interest in horror back in junior high school, my dad was less than thrilled. He is one of those people who most certainly does not appreciate horror. He thinks of it as mindless, senseless gore. No matter what I was watching with my friends, he'd often refer to it as "crap" and would often make me change the channel and watch something else if he came into the room while I was watching a horror film. For a long time I thought he hated all horror films, until I discovered one night while we were out for a drive there was one horror film that he did like There was one horror film that he saw his senior year of high school that he had to admit was pretty good. That horror film was The Car. My dad and I rented and watched a lot of movies over the years, but The Car was the only horror. To be honest I don't even remember much about the film, other than my dad liked it. A girlfriend of his years later, who was also a horror buff talked my dad into watching Joy Ride (2001) because she thought after discussing The Car that my dad might enjoy that film. She was wrong, he referred to Joy Ride as crap and to this day The Car remains the only horror film my dad has anything positive to say about.
This isn't the first horror film I ever saw, but it is what started my love for horror films. I watched both Halloween and Halloween II (1981) over at Chris Thompson's house on a Friday night after school. I was immediately taken with the story and more importantly Donald Pleasence's performance as Dr. Sam Loomis. I knew right then and right there that if I could I wanted the art of story telling, in one capacity or another to be a big part of my life. Watching John Carpenter's story unfold on the screen, made me want to write screenplays. Watching Donald Pleasence bring the character of Dr. Loomis to life, made me want to act. No one single film has been more influential on my life and what I want to do with it than Halloween.
 |
| The Exorcist (1973) |
 |
| JAWS (1975) |
| ORCA: The Killer Whale (1977) |
 |
| The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) |
There were a ton of since forgotten horror films made in the 1970's that few people even know exist and even fewer people have ever seen. The truth of the matter is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be one of them if it wasn't for one very specific reason. When I first saw this film, I couldn't believe how awful it was. The writing was bad, the acting was bad, hell nearly everything about the film was bad. You didn't have to convince me that the film's budget was only $300,000 and that most of that was spent on editing. The movie established that from the get go. Yet, this is one of the most influential, beloved horror films of all time. Why? Plenty of other horror films made in the 1970's that were just as good. Plenty of other horror films that no one ever talks about that are actually better, with a better story and better acting. Why is this film listed as one of the all time greatest? Five words. "Based on a true story" and there you have your answer. There is something about a story being based on real events and real people that draws an audience in. The real gag is that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre couldn't be more loosely based on real events than what it is. The story didn't take place in Texas, it took place in Wisconsin. No one was killed with a chainsaw either. Matter of fact, director/writer Toby Hooper got the idea for a chainsaw killer while sitting in a mall one day looking at chainsaws wonder what would happen if someone were to go berserk with one. There is no leatherface, or anyone even remotely close to him. Ed Gein, who he's "based" upon was a disturbed overly religions, pervert who suffered from necrophilia. He only killed 2 to 3 people (two for sure, one is questionable but likely.) In my opinion Toby Hooper or whoever it was that thought of using the tagline, "based on a true story" was a genius. It took an otherwise B film that would have been out of the theater faster than it came in and turned into a million dollar idea. Many films have since capitalized upon the power of "based on true events" but none have benefited more than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Personally, I find the remake much better.
 |
| Carrie (1976) |
I also took away from Carrie the importance of being nice to people (unless given justifiable reason not to be) for two reasons. A, you don't know what they go through at home. Carrie's mother reminds me of a relative of mine that I can't stand, only Carrie's mother is a lot worse. People are often strange or weird because of reasons that often aren't revealed to us. If we knew the answers to our questions, I doubt we'd be as quick to poke fun. The other reason to be nice to people, is that you don't know what they're capable of. Being a supernatural movie, Carrie had telekinetic powers. What she was capable of is make believe. However, the torment she was going through and the pain she felt from being ridiculed and made fun of, there wasn't anything make believe about that. While she couldn't have gotten back at everyone the way she did in real life, those telekinetic powers could have just as easily been a gun.
 |
| The Omen (1976) |
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| The Car (1977) |
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| Halloween (1978) |
This isn't the first horror film I ever saw, but it is what started my love for horror films. I watched both Halloween and Halloween II (1981) over at Chris Thompson's house on a Friday night after school. I was immediately taken with the story and more importantly Donald Pleasence's performance as Dr. Sam Loomis. I knew right then and right there that if I could I wanted the art of story telling, in one capacity or another to be a big part of my life. Watching John Carpenter's story unfold on the screen, made me want to write screenplays. Watching Donald Pleasence bring the character of Dr. Loomis to life, made me want to act. No one single film has been more influential on my life and what I want to do with it than Halloween.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
My Love For Horror: The 1960's
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| Psycho (1960 |
I began my love affair with horror films in the early 1990's. I won't spoil what it was quite yet, but I saw my first horror film on USA Network in 1992 and I've been a avid lover ever since. Throughout the years I had been told that since I enjoyed horror films, I'd be doing myself a favor by checking out Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. I meant to view the film much sooner than what I did, but it wasn't until I was a sophomore in college that I saw the film. Viewing it in Professor Jamie Durham's "Film Aesthetics" class, I immediately saw why so many fans and critics alike regard it as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Alfred Hitchcock realized two vitally important things in making a good horror film. First, the importance of interesting compelling, characters, in an interesting compelling story. Audiences will invest themselves, their thoughts and their feelings if you give them reason to. Second, the proper usage of suspense. Thinking of what could or is going to happen, is often more terrifying than when it actually happens. Hitchcock knew this and he demonstrated it impeccably throughout the film. Although I don't know, I question whether it was the first time (or one of the first times) in a film where the killer wasn't a monster or an obviously evil person. The character of Norman Bates is quite likable and although it certainly wouldn't be today, 55 years ago it did come as a shock when it was revealed that he was the killer. Anthony Perkins played him magnificently and of course Janet Leigh was stellar as well. It also had a small part for University of Iowa graduate and one of my favorite television actors John Anderson as the used car salesman.
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| The Birds (1963) |
Another thing that the mastermind of horror understood was the power of simplicity. I've been guilty of this myself a time or two, so I can't be too judgmental but wanting to be impressive many writers/film makers go all out with complicated, convoluted stories that require so much thought and detail they often lose their audience. Hitchcock understood that you didn't have to do this. You could take a very simple concept like birds going mad and attacking people to death and allow the imagination of your audience to fill in the gaps. 1963 didn't have the technological advancements that we enjoy today in 2015, thus some of the action scenes aren't as exciting a they would be today but I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing. I think sometimes films put too much into special effects and thus the story and the characterization of film suffers. I personally would rather have a very good, yet simple story like The Birds, even if it does lack special effects.
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| Night of the Living Dead (1968) |
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| Rosemary's Baby (1968) |
A librarian believe it or not, recommended this to me about 9 and a 1/2 years ago. I had expressed my interest in horror to her, when she went over to the movie section of the library and asked me if I had ever seen Rosemary's Baby. I told her that I had not and she insisted that it was a must see for any horror fan. During that time in my life, I was slowly making the transition from a Christian to an agnostic, and found myself vastly intrigued by anything that dealt with religion. Seeing this film, and having my own thoughts and fears about what takes place in the film, I got online and examined others thoughts and feelings. Going back all these years later and reexamining those thoughts and feelings it amazes me how much differently I feel today than I did then. How the thoughts and feelings of others whom I once resonated with then, seem so foreign to me today. How the foreign thoughts and feelings of others then, seem so familiar today. I don't completely dismiss the feelings I had then. I still entertain them, but I don't think of them as "factual" as I did then and I certainly don't think of them as the only possibility. I'm not a woman, so obviously I can't imagine what it would be like to be impregnated by Satan, but the thoughts of being used as a catalyst of some sorts to bring evil to the world of any kind is quite frightening. Perhaps this is unfair for me to say, but I think the thought is much for terrifying to someone who outright believes in the Devil than it is to someone who doesn't. I know as an agnostic, who entertains the idea of the Devil being real, it scares me but back when I "knew" the devil "was real" it really scared me. A lot of times a film is simply a piece of entertainment that you watch, and either you enjoy or you don't. Other times it is a work of art that not only makes you examine it, but also examine yourself and what you believe. Rosemary's Baby had no more significance in the transition of me going from Christian to Agnostic (or as I would rather call myself Possiblist) than did any of the other 10,000 pieces of that puzzle. Yet, it begs the question. Is a puzzle 9,999/10,000 pieces put together fully complete?
Monday, August 31, 2015
Why I'm Not Ashamed To Be A Passionate Lover of Horror
I don't even remember falling in love with movies. The love affair was hot and intense, wild and passionate before I even knew it had began. When I say I've been in love with films my entire life, I am almost certain I literally mean my entire life. While I don't remember it, my mom tells me that even as an infant, I was very easy to entertain. She'd throw a Mickey Mouse cartoon into the VCR, and I was good to go for at least a half an hour.
As I grew, so did my interest and love for films. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why people love films as much as they do, but for me it has always been story and performance. I must like a film's story in order to like the film. I don't care how good anything else is, if I don't like the story, I'm not going to like the film. Although not as crucial, the performance out of the actors is also important to whether I enjoy a film or I do not.
I went to college with these big aspirations of earning an undergraduate degree in theatre and then going to graduate school to learn to write screenplays. While attending college, I took a variety of film classes. I met other film enthusiast and had some of the most intriguing conservations and debates about what is good and what is not. As a story teller, wannabe writer, I earned the respect of my peers by producing work that they deemed good. As a film lover, I had proven my opinion as someone that, "Knew what they were talking about" on the subject. I could make cases for anything, drama, comedy, action, mystery you name it. It wasn't until I admitted a personal love for horror films, that people began to question my knowledge and expertise about films. It wasn't until I admitted that I had a desire to write and make horror films, that people began to question my ability and my talent. I have had to defend specific movies more than once in my life, but I've never had to defend my love for any other genre. Horror is the only genre in which I've had to consistently defend my passion.
I ask myself why is this? Why does the genre of horror have to prove it self again and again that it is capable of producing thought provoking, mesmerizing good art? Why do all other genres get a free pass? See a terrible drama, it is the exception. Most dramas happen to be good, but that was simply a rotten apple in the bunch. Horror is just the opposite. Make as many phenomenally good horror films as you can, and no matter how many you make they are the exception. Horror is senseless, mindless, madness! Why are there so many avid movie lovers,schooled in the art of film, who carry this view?
Horror believe it or not, is almost as old as film itself. La Caverne Maduite what many historians believe to be the first horror film, was made in 1898. 117 years ago. This is nearly a decade and a half before the Titanic sunk and long before the start of World War I. Horror films have been around for as long as any other type of film. Yet, no genre of film has experienced more change and transition than horror films. Matter of fact, try and define what a horror film is. An intuitive definition would be, "A film whose purpose is to frighten its audience." Yet, there is so much more to a horror film than that and horror films of yesteryear are very different than horror films of today. The very thing that makes me love horror films as much as I do, is the very thing that makes others loathe them as much as they do. The beauty of horror is that it can be adventurous and full of action, it can be serious and mysterious full of suspense and it can also be comedic and full of laughter. The ugly of horror, is that it can also be stupid and gory. It can be as some like to view it, senseless, mindless, madness.
In order to discover why people like myself love horror and why others hate it, I believe we need to look at the last 117 years of horror and examine all of the ways it has changed throughout the decades.
The 1900's through the 1920's was the era of bringing the monster from the pages of the novel and onto the screen. It is immensely fun and interesting to see all of the many ways in which film makers thought of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula and other characters that for years people could only picture in their own minds. Today these characters are very recognizable by nearly everyone around the world. We can see them, and we identify them easily. What we forget sometimes is that what we identify as Frankenstein, or Wolfman or Dracula may not be what the novelist who created the character necessarily had in mind. What we see and identify as the monster, is the vision of the monster that the film maker created.
We think of remakes as if they are a fairly new device. We hear the word, "reimagining" as if it is something commonly unique to our era. It isn't. Matter of fact, remakes and film makers reimaging original ideas, is as old as horror films itself. We may think of Bela Lugosi as the "original" Dracula but there were many before him. There were many Frankenstein's before Boris Korloff. You can make the argument that Lugosi and Korloff were the best, but they were far from the first.
What makes the horror films of the 1930's and 1940's stick out over those that came 10-25 years before them? Why is Dracula (1931) or Frankenstein (1931) what most people think of as the first, when they were not? I think it's because they were the first (or one of the first) "talkie" versions of the story, where all other films depicting the story were made during the silent era.
The 1950's from what I gather were an experimental time for horror films. There were certainly some gems during this time, including House of Wax (1953) and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954.) Yet, the 50's also produced some crazy, not so great films like Tarantula (1955) and other killer insect films with horrible effects and laughable blue screen shots. The 50's also introduced us to the wild and whacked mind of Ed Wood and his films that can be easily summed up as, "awful." Today, we'd categorize these types of films as, "So bad, they're good" but movie goers didn't know to do that 60-65 years ago. All they knew is that they were bad films, and they didn't know well enough to laugh them off as such.
The 50's also believe it or not, was well aware of itself. Sure, some displayed their garbage on a pedestal thinking that the smelly rubbish was something good, but others were aware of the fact that no matter how many air fresheners you stick in the basket, it's still garbage underneath. While they're not well known or remembered, the 50's had its fair share of parody films. Tongue in cheek films that purposefully poked fun at moments like seeing the zipper in the back of the costume or the string on the obviously fake airplane, next to the obviously fake mountain. These parody films didn't take off though, because it was too difficult for fans to see the difference between what was trying to be actual horror and what was purposefully being a spoof. I suppose it is similar to how it's often difficult to tell the difference between what it posted in The Onion and what we see on what it supposed to be the actual news.
The 1960's came back with a vengeance, redefining itself and more importantly establishing itself as the pioneering time of modern horror. The mesmerizing, psychological, captivating films I think of, when I reminisce about the horror films I love, originated in the 1960's. One of the people we can thank for this is the late mastermind Alfred Hitchcock who created such masterpieces as Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) which were so much more about the story and the development of the characters than they were about the scary moments they went through. The 60's also explored with our fascination and fears of religion with such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968).
The late 1960's, 67',68', 69' was more of a beginning of the 1970's genre of horror than it was the end of the 1960's. The 70's much like the 50's was an experimental time, but in many regards more successful. The envelope was pushed many times throughout the late 60's, through the 1970's. Things that were never seen on film before were seen. Things that were never done on film before, were done. Take Night of the Living Dead (1968) for example. It was the first time a fully nude woman was seen on screen in a non-pornographic film.
It is also important to note that during the 1970's, people were no longer afraid of the imaginative monsters they knew weren't real. Film makers instead had to scare them with the ideas of, "this really happened" or at least, "this could really happen." Writers and directors knew that as seriously as people took their religion, movies such as Alice, Sweet Alice (1971), The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) would scare the shit out of them. Throw "based on a true story" on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) and suddenly people are avoiding shortcuts down old country roads. Know anyone who won't swim in the ocean? Jaws (1975) or Orca (1977) have anything to do with that?
The 1980's, which also began more so in the late 1970's, began a shift back to the monster themed horror films, but these monsters were different than the monsters of 35-50 years prior. These monsters didn't exist in novels already written. They were created on the pages of a screenplay and first brought to life on the screen. Michael Myers from Halloween (1978), Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th (1980), Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Chucky from Child's Play (1988), Pinhead from Hellraiser (1987) and so many more of our beloved horror icons, we must thank the 1980's for. If being honest and examining the evidence thoroughly we must also examine why these films were as good as they were. Was it simply because they had such well developed, interesting antagonist? Or was it also because these antagonist had equally as interesting protagonist who were just as developed, with a stimulating and provocative story? If you want to know why the original of these films and some of its sequels were so good, while others got progressively worse or even downright sucked, there you have your answer.
For a long time, the 1990's of horror, I don't think ever knew what it was trying to be. It certainly didn't establish itself on its own terms and instead seemed to want to be a bit of everything from the beginning of horror all the way up into the 1980's. This was demonstrated with sequel after sequel rehashed again and again throughout the entire era. Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, you name it, the original was made in the 1980's and the sequel(s) came out in the 1990's.
The 90's also mimicked the 1950's with a fair share of ridiculousness with The Ice Cream Man (1995), Mosquito (1995) and The Dentist (1995) which are all enjoyable films, but none of which take themselves seriously. I can't say that the 90's didn't at least try to take itself seriously by creating it's own monsters such as, The Candyman (1992) The Puppetmaster (1993) and Leprechaun (1993) but at least in my opinion these monsters were not near as iconic or memorable as the ones created in the 1980's.
In 1996, after six years of simply doing what had already been done 100's of times before, the 90's finally sat itself apart in two distinctly unique ways. The first was so innovative and creative, that I don't think film makers knew the magic that they created. Either they held pure gold in their hands and didn't realize it or they knew what they had created and they simply didn't know how to create it again. The Frighteners (1996) was the first and to my knowledge still is the only film that is nearly impossible to categorize easily under horror or under action. It has everything that a horror film could ask for. It's suspenseful, it's frightening and it deals with a frightening monster. Yet it also has everything that an action film could want too. Horror? Action? Horror-action? Action-horror? I think something was stumbled on that could have lead to whole new genre of beloved films. Unfortunately though, no one else must have seen the potential besides me. It's been nearly 20 years, and to this day it remains an idea that has sat dormant, waiting for someone to come along and capitalize upon it.
The other ingenious idea that sparked in the 90's was the idea of a non-comical parody, which came in the form of Wes Craven's Scream (1996). Before we had horror films and we had parodies of those horror films but we had never seen the two come together to create something new and that is what Scream gave us. It was an idea that I would like to think had been thought of before, but so indifferent to what people were used to, that it was probably shut down because people didn't have the imagination to envision it. While its three sequels built upon the idea, like The Frighteners it seems to be very unique unto itself.
As the 90's began to come to an end with Deep Blue Sea (1999) and Lake Placid (1999), the 2000's began with the era of "This is real footage" horror of The Blair Witch Project (1999) which is in one way where we are today with horror. For some this type of horror is fun and for others it is totally lame. I personally fall into the latter category. Matter of fact, the whole supernatural craze with the umpteen Paranormal Activity(2009) sequel, The Gallows (2015) and Unfriended (2015) is making me sick. I have to admit I sort of liked, It Follows (2015) but even that turned me off with its supernatural, paranormal undertone. I'm sick of the paranormal, supernatural horror film. I want something else.
Many people say they're also sick of all of the remakes, reimaginings and sequels and I can understand their frustration. I enjoy the good ones, but enough is enough already. When are we going to see something original? When are we going to replace Halloween Part 87 with a new horror film, that takes place in a new location, with a new killer and new protagonist that try and stop him/her? Why is everything these days, not only horror, but literally everything a sequel, remake or reimagining?
You want to know what I think it is? I think it is another consequence of being overexposed do to the internet and social media. People see an original idea come out and say, "That's a rip off of (insert movie the already know here)" You want to know something? Many of the films people loved in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's were "rip offs" of films that had come 10, 20, 30 years prior? Only, you didn't know that because you didn't have the handy, dandy internet to look it up. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago and even longer ago, people simply watched these movies. They didn't fixate themselves on the idea of everything having to be original. They did obsess themselves with worry of whether someone else had done something similar in the past or not. Our demand of originality is the very thing that is killing it. A young film maker makes a horror film about a killer that stalks his brother out of revenge, we refuse to see it because it is "too much like Halloween and not original enough" but we'll make some young buck millions upon millions of dollars for reimagining/remaking the original Halloween or making the 10,000th sequel. People need to realize that no idea is truly original. Not in this business anyway. You can put your own spin on things, change the name, change the location and change the story overall, but the original concept was already thought. Someone already had that idea. Why we are so afraid of that and so eager to dismiss it in hope that someone will come along with something that seems totally brand new to us? I'd hope by now people are so sick of twist endings that are about as shocking as not being able to fit into the same pants you wore in junior high. The sooner we accept the fact that it has all been done before, we just simply have to figure out new ways to do it, the sooner Hollywood, especially horror films will be great once again.
Horror more so than any other genre has seen its good days, its bad days and everything else in between. You want to name a list of horror films as long as my chin, that absolutely suck? I'm sure you can. I can name plenty of them myself. However, there are plenty of horror films out there that do not suck. They do not suck at all. Matter of fact, I'd put some of them up against what you feel is a great drama. I'd put some of them up against what you feel is a great action film. I'm a fan of horror, because in many respects horror is a fantastic genre of film. Films full of drama, action, adventure, mystery, suspense and mesmerizing, thought provoking characters and story. I'm not ashamed to be a fan of horror, not ashamed at all. Matter of fact, I'm just as proud of my passion and love for horror as I am of any film genre.
As I grew, so did my interest and love for films. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why people love films as much as they do, but for me it has always been story and performance. I must like a film's story in order to like the film. I don't care how good anything else is, if I don't like the story, I'm not going to like the film. Although not as crucial, the performance out of the actors is also important to whether I enjoy a film or I do not.
I went to college with these big aspirations of earning an undergraduate degree in theatre and then going to graduate school to learn to write screenplays. While attending college, I took a variety of film classes. I met other film enthusiast and had some of the most intriguing conservations and debates about what is good and what is not. As a story teller, wannabe writer, I earned the respect of my peers by producing work that they deemed good. As a film lover, I had proven my opinion as someone that, "Knew what they were talking about" on the subject. I could make cases for anything, drama, comedy, action, mystery you name it. It wasn't until I admitted a personal love for horror films, that people began to question my knowledge and expertise about films. It wasn't until I admitted that I had a desire to write and make horror films, that people began to question my ability and my talent. I have had to defend specific movies more than once in my life, but I've never had to defend my love for any other genre. Horror is the only genre in which I've had to consistently defend my passion.
I ask myself why is this? Why does the genre of horror have to prove it self again and again that it is capable of producing thought provoking, mesmerizing good art? Why do all other genres get a free pass? See a terrible drama, it is the exception. Most dramas happen to be good, but that was simply a rotten apple in the bunch. Horror is just the opposite. Make as many phenomenally good horror films as you can, and no matter how many you make they are the exception. Horror is senseless, mindless, madness! Why are there so many avid movie lovers,schooled in the art of film, who carry this view?
Horror believe it or not, is almost as old as film itself. La Caverne Maduite what many historians believe to be the first horror film, was made in 1898. 117 years ago. This is nearly a decade and a half before the Titanic sunk and long before the start of World War I. Horror films have been around for as long as any other type of film. Yet, no genre of film has experienced more change and transition than horror films. Matter of fact, try and define what a horror film is. An intuitive definition would be, "A film whose purpose is to frighten its audience." Yet, there is so much more to a horror film than that and horror films of yesteryear are very different than horror films of today. The very thing that makes me love horror films as much as I do, is the very thing that makes others loathe them as much as they do. The beauty of horror is that it can be adventurous and full of action, it can be serious and mysterious full of suspense and it can also be comedic and full of laughter. The ugly of horror, is that it can also be stupid and gory. It can be as some like to view it, senseless, mindless, madness.
In order to discover why people like myself love horror and why others hate it, I believe we need to look at the last 117 years of horror and examine all of the ways it has changed throughout the decades.
The 1900's through the 1920's was the era of bringing the monster from the pages of the novel and onto the screen. It is immensely fun and interesting to see all of the many ways in which film makers thought of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula and other characters that for years people could only picture in their own minds. Today these characters are very recognizable by nearly everyone around the world. We can see them, and we identify them easily. What we forget sometimes is that what we identify as Frankenstein, or Wolfman or Dracula may not be what the novelist who created the character necessarily had in mind. What we see and identify as the monster, is the vision of the monster that the film maker created.
We think of remakes as if they are a fairly new device. We hear the word, "reimagining" as if it is something commonly unique to our era. It isn't. Matter of fact, remakes and film makers reimaging original ideas, is as old as horror films itself. We may think of Bela Lugosi as the "original" Dracula but there were many before him. There were many Frankenstein's before Boris Korloff. You can make the argument that Lugosi and Korloff were the best, but they were far from the first.
What makes the horror films of the 1930's and 1940's stick out over those that came 10-25 years before them? Why is Dracula (1931) or Frankenstein (1931) what most people think of as the first, when they were not? I think it's because they were the first (or one of the first) "talkie" versions of the story, where all other films depicting the story were made during the silent era.
The 1950's from what I gather were an experimental time for horror films. There were certainly some gems during this time, including House of Wax (1953) and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954.) Yet, the 50's also produced some crazy, not so great films like Tarantula (1955) and other killer insect films with horrible effects and laughable blue screen shots. The 50's also introduced us to the wild and whacked mind of Ed Wood and his films that can be easily summed up as, "awful." Today, we'd categorize these types of films as, "So bad, they're good" but movie goers didn't know to do that 60-65 years ago. All they knew is that they were bad films, and they didn't know well enough to laugh them off as such.
The 50's also believe it or not, was well aware of itself. Sure, some displayed their garbage on a pedestal thinking that the smelly rubbish was something good, but others were aware of the fact that no matter how many air fresheners you stick in the basket, it's still garbage underneath. While they're not well known or remembered, the 50's had its fair share of parody films. Tongue in cheek films that purposefully poked fun at moments like seeing the zipper in the back of the costume or the string on the obviously fake airplane, next to the obviously fake mountain. These parody films didn't take off though, because it was too difficult for fans to see the difference between what was trying to be actual horror and what was purposefully being a spoof. I suppose it is similar to how it's often difficult to tell the difference between what it posted in The Onion and what we see on what it supposed to be the actual news.
The 1960's came back with a vengeance, redefining itself and more importantly establishing itself as the pioneering time of modern horror. The mesmerizing, psychological, captivating films I think of, when I reminisce about the horror films I love, originated in the 1960's. One of the people we can thank for this is the late mastermind Alfred Hitchcock who created such masterpieces as Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) which were so much more about the story and the development of the characters than they were about the scary moments they went through. The 60's also explored with our fascination and fears of religion with such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968).
The late 1960's, 67',68', 69' was more of a beginning of the 1970's genre of horror than it was the end of the 1960's. The 70's much like the 50's was an experimental time, but in many regards more successful. The envelope was pushed many times throughout the late 60's, through the 1970's. Things that were never seen on film before were seen. Things that were never done on film before, were done. Take Night of the Living Dead (1968) for example. It was the first time a fully nude woman was seen on screen in a non-pornographic film.
It is also important to note that during the 1970's, people were no longer afraid of the imaginative monsters they knew weren't real. Film makers instead had to scare them with the ideas of, "this really happened" or at least, "this could really happen." Writers and directors knew that as seriously as people took their religion, movies such as Alice, Sweet Alice (1971), The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) would scare the shit out of them. Throw "based on a true story" on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) and suddenly people are avoiding shortcuts down old country roads. Know anyone who won't swim in the ocean? Jaws (1975) or Orca (1977) have anything to do with that?
The 1980's, which also began more so in the late 1970's, began a shift back to the monster themed horror films, but these monsters were different than the monsters of 35-50 years prior. These monsters didn't exist in novels already written. They were created on the pages of a screenplay and first brought to life on the screen. Michael Myers from Halloween (1978), Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th (1980), Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Chucky from Child's Play (1988), Pinhead from Hellraiser (1987) and so many more of our beloved horror icons, we must thank the 1980's for. If being honest and examining the evidence thoroughly we must also examine why these films were as good as they were. Was it simply because they had such well developed, interesting antagonist? Or was it also because these antagonist had equally as interesting protagonist who were just as developed, with a stimulating and provocative story? If you want to know why the original of these films and some of its sequels were so good, while others got progressively worse or even downright sucked, there you have your answer.
For a long time, the 1990's of horror, I don't think ever knew what it was trying to be. It certainly didn't establish itself on its own terms and instead seemed to want to be a bit of everything from the beginning of horror all the way up into the 1980's. This was demonstrated with sequel after sequel rehashed again and again throughout the entire era. Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, you name it, the original was made in the 1980's and the sequel(s) came out in the 1990's.
The 90's also mimicked the 1950's with a fair share of ridiculousness with The Ice Cream Man (1995), Mosquito (1995) and The Dentist (1995) which are all enjoyable films, but none of which take themselves seriously. I can't say that the 90's didn't at least try to take itself seriously by creating it's own monsters such as, The Candyman (1992) The Puppetmaster (1993) and Leprechaun (1993) but at least in my opinion these monsters were not near as iconic or memorable as the ones created in the 1980's.
In 1996, after six years of simply doing what had already been done 100's of times before, the 90's finally sat itself apart in two distinctly unique ways. The first was so innovative and creative, that I don't think film makers knew the magic that they created. Either they held pure gold in their hands and didn't realize it or they knew what they had created and they simply didn't know how to create it again. The Frighteners (1996) was the first and to my knowledge still is the only film that is nearly impossible to categorize easily under horror or under action. It has everything that a horror film could ask for. It's suspenseful, it's frightening and it deals with a frightening monster. Yet it also has everything that an action film could want too. Horror? Action? Horror-action? Action-horror? I think something was stumbled on that could have lead to whole new genre of beloved films. Unfortunately though, no one else must have seen the potential besides me. It's been nearly 20 years, and to this day it remains an idea that has sat dormant, waiting for someone to come along and capitalize upon it.
The other ingenious idea that sparked in the 90's was the idea of a non-comical parody, which came in the form of Wes Craven's Scream (1996). Before we had horror films and we had parodies of those horror films but we had never seen the two come together to create something new and that is what Scream gave us. It was an idea that I would like to think had been thought of before, but so indifferent to what people were used to, that it was probably shut down because people didn't have the imagination to envision it. While its three sequels built upon the idea, like The Frighteners it seems to be very unique unto itself.
As the 90's began to come to an end with Deep Blue Sea (1999) and Lake Placid (1999), the 2000's began with the era of "This is real footage" horror of The Blair Witch Project (1999) which is in one way where we are today with horror. For some this type of horror is fun and for others it is totally lame. I personally fall into the latter category. Matter of fact, the whole supernatural craze with the umpteen Paranormal Activity(2009) sequel, The Gallows (2015) and Unfriended (2015) is making me sick. I have to admit I sort of liked, It Follows (2015) but even that turned me off with its supernatural, paranormal undertone. I'm sick of the paranormal, supernatural horror film. I want something else.
Many people say they're also sick of all of the remakes, reimaginings and sequels and I can understand their frustration. I enjoy the good ones, but enough is enough already. When are we going to see something original? When are we going to replace Halloween Part 87 with a new horror film, that takes place in a new location, with a new killer and new protagonist that try and stop him/her? Why is everything these days, not only horror, but literally everything a sequel, remake or reimagining?
You want to know what I think it is? I think it is another consequence of being overexposed do to the internet and social media. People see an original idea come out and say, "That's a rip off of (insert movie the already know here)" You want to know something? Many of the films people loved in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's were "rip offs" of films that had come 10, 20, 30 years prior? Only, you didn't know that because you didn't have the handy, dandy internet to look it up. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago and even longer ago, people simply watched these movies. They didn't fixate themselves on the idea of everything having to be original. They did obsess themselves with worry of whether someone else had done something similar in the past or not. Our demand of originality is the very thing that is killing it. A young film maker makes a horror film about a killer that stalks his brother out of revenge, we refuse to see it because it is "too much like Halloween and not original enough" but we'll make some young buck millions upon millions of dollars for reimagining/remaking the original Halloween or making the 10,000th sequel. People need to realize that no idea is truly original. Not in this business anyway. You can put your own spin on things, change the name, change the location and change the story overall, but the original concept was already thought. Someone already had that idea. Why we are so afraid of that and so eager to dismiss it in hope that someone will come along with something that seems totally brand new to us? I'd hope by now people are so sick of twist endings that are about as shocking as not being able to fit into the same pants you wore in junior high. The sooner we accept the fact that it has all been done before, we just simply have to figure out new ways to do it, the sooner Hollywood, especially horror films will be great once again.
Horror more so than any other genre has seen its good days, its bad days and everything else in between. You want to name a list of horror films as long as my chin, that absolutely suck? I'm sure you can. I can name plenty of them myself. However, there are plenty of horror films out there that do not suck. They do not suck at all. Matter of fact, I'd put some of them up against what you feel is a great drama. I'd put some of them up against what you feel is a great action film. I'm a fan of horror, because in many respects horror is a fantastic genre of film. Films full of drama, action, adventure, mystery, suspense and mesmerizing, thought provoking characters and story. I'm not ashamed to be a fan of horror, not ashamed at all. Matter of fact, I'm just as proud of my passion and love for horror as I am of any film genre.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
If I Got To Plan and Orchestrate My Life the Exact Way that I Would Want It to Go.
I'd have been born in the spring of 1958, in Sigourney, Iowa. I would have entered my freshman year of high school in the fall of 1972 and went out for the wrestling team and theatre, where I would have excelled in both. I would have gotten the supporting character role in a multitude of plays and a few leading roles here and there as well. On the wrestling team I'd have qualified for the 1974, 1975 and 1976 Iowa High School State wrestling tournament placing 5th in 1975 as a junior and 3rd in 1976 as a senior. Upon deciding where to attend college I'd have taken the advice from a beloved English teacher to put aside all of my fears and follow my dreams to attend UCLA to wrestle and earn a degree in Film and Television. As a walk on the Bruin wrestling team, I'd make the team in 1979 as a junior, barely missing qualifying for the NCAA tournament by one match at the PAC-10 tournament. Entering my senior year, I'd be informed that this would be the last year for the wrestling program at UCLA. Bound and determined to represent my school well, I'd do better on the mat than I ever anticipated. In my Film and Television classes, I'd utilize my knowledge to spread awareness around Los Angeles about UCLA's wrestling program and why it is important to save the sport. I'd go into the PAC-10 tournament unseeded and upset my way to qualification. Then as the NCAA tournament, I'd again upset my way to an All American finish, finishing in 8th place for the Bruins. I'd graduate with a degree in 1980, feeling that I did all I could to help save the wrestling program.
Looking for work around Los Angeles, I'd meet and befriend a group of bodybuilders, learning a multitude about bodybuilding while getting a job at their gym and working odd jobs around Los Angeles, while being given a small but comfortable room at the gym to stay in. I'd be busy trying to get work as a writer and as an actor, while going back to UCLA to attend theatre events and roam the grounds that used to be the wrestling room. I'd also drive across town to attend wrestling dual meets at East Los Angeles Community College. While searching for love, I never quite find it because while I'm popular with the ladies, not wanting to get married or have children is often a deal breaker.
One day I try out for a role on "The Incredible Hulk" television series and find myself getting a rather large part. It's my first break as an actor. I form an immediate bond with Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno and Jack Colvin. They all think I'm a terrific guy and really enjoy working with me a lot. While my character was supposed to only be in two episodes, everyone enjoys me so much that they want to make me a reoccurring role. Suddenly, I'm a Hollywood actor. One day while discussing the show, I take a script I've written for an episode and show Bill. Bill thinks it is a magnificent idea for an episode and runs it past the producers. They say that they love it too and that it will be made into an episode.
During the filming of the episode in front of a live studio audience, I perform some of my own stunts that catches the eye of a professional wrestling promoter. After the filming is complete he comes up to me and ask me if I've ever thought of a career in professional wrestling. I tell him that I was an amateur wrestler, an All American for UCLA and that I grew up watching Bruno Sammartino on television and have always been a fan. He tells me that I have the look for it and more importantly the personality for it and he'd like me to train with him. I tell him that my commitment first and foremost is to "The Incredible Hulk" and other acting/writing opportunities in Hollywood, and as long as he understands that I'd like to train with him.
In his territory that runs all throughout California, into Nevada and Utah, I become a masked professional wrestler, popular amongst fans who comes in and out of the territory depending on when I have work on "The Incredible Hulk." About two years into the gig, I learn that "The Incredible Hulk" is going to be canceled and I take on more of a full time gig working for the promoter, making more money and eventually buying out the gym I had worked at, having the two guys that did own it operate it while I continued my pro wrestling career.
A few months later Bill Bixby phones me and tells me he has this idea for a major motion picture that he wants to direct. He wants Lou to star in it and he wants me to write it. I sit down with Bill and Lou as we bounce ideas off one another and agree to write the script. We get funding and begin shooting and the film ends up being a major box office hit. I'm now financially set for life, as I make improvements to the gym I own in town and pour a significant amount of money into the wrestling territory I work for to make it five times as big and powerful as it once was.
I then go to UCLA and speak with the president and the athletic director. I give them a proposal to reinstate the wrestling program and they agree to my idea. As it becomes news around Los Angeles and around the country that Hollywood actor/pro wrestler helps to reinstate wrestling program at UCLA, other coaches and wrestlers from around the country start to mail and call me asking for help to reinstate and/or save their wrestling programs. As I'm getting work as an actor and as a writer in Hollywood, I decide put my professional wrestling career on hold while I work on helping to popularize collegiate wrestling and help save programs and get programs started. I become the savior of collegiate wrestling.
After years in Hollywood as an actor and as a writer, I get the unfortunate news that my good friend Bill Bixby is dying. I stay by his side while he passes away, realizing that I owe so much to him for the way my life turned out. Had it not been for that chance encounter landing that role on "The Incredible Hulk" all those years ago and meeting him, my life could have turned out a lot different.
I decided to write a book on my life that I entitle, "The Incredible Bill Bixby: The man who opened up the door of opportunity for me" that speaks about how Bill helped me to succeed in life. My Hollywood agent introduces me to a writing agent who like me has no desire for kids and feels that marriage isn't necessary to love some one. My book is published, it is a huge success on the New York Time's best seller list and I fall desperately in love with my agent.
I continue to act and write in Hollywood, as I come up with an idea for a television show that I pitch to a group of executives that love the idea. The show is entitled, "Mr. Green" a show about a group of kids who have an eccentric and weird neighbor who is consistently doing strange things. The show is an instant hit on primetime, as I write a significant number of the episodes.
After a 10 year run, the show is canceled and I have desire to get out of Hollywood and spend the rest of my life back in my hometown of Sigourney, Iowa traveling about the country with my woman attending amateur wrestling events, pro wrestling events and theatre productions while speaking to students at various colleges, universities and schools.
After having a very happy, satisfying life, one night in 2033, at the age of 75, I lay down to go to sleep and I never wake up again. My will states that part of my money will go towards taking care of my significant other and family members specified in my will and the other part of my money will go towards helping wrestling teams to be saved and started throughout the country.
Ah! What was I thinking! I forgot one of the most important things. I would also spend a significant amount of time at animal shelters, playing with dogs and cats and providing medicine, medical care and food to them. Part of my will would be dedicated to these places to take care of cats and dogs.
Looking for work around Los Angeles, I'd meet and befriend a group of bodybuilders, learning a multitude about bodybuilding while getting a job at their gym and working odd jobs around Los Angeles, while being given a small but comfortable room at the gym to stay in. I'd be busy trying to get work as a writer and as an actor, while going back to UCLA to attend theatre events and roam the grounds that used to be the wrestling room. I'd also drive across town to attend wrestling dual meets at East Los Angeles Community College. While searching for love, I never quite find it because while I'm popular with the ladies, not wanting to get married or have children is often a deal breaker.
One day I try out for a role on "The Incredible Hulk" television series and find myself getting a rather large part. It's my first break as an actor. I form an immediate bond with Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno and Jack Colvin. They all think I'm a terrific guy and really enjoy working with me a lot. While my character was supposed to only be in two episodes, everyone enjoys me so much that they want to make me a reoccurring role. Suddenly, I'm a Hollywood actor. One day while discussing the show, I take a script I've written for an episode and show Bill. Bill thinks it is a magnificent idea for an episode and runs it past the producers. They say that they love it too and that it will be made into an episode.
During the filming of the episode in front of a live studio audience, I perform some of my own stunts that catches the eye of a professional wrestling promoter. After the filming is complete he comes up to me and ask me if I've ever thought of a career in professional wrestling. I tell him that I was an amateur wrestler, an All American for UCLA and that I grew up watching Bruno Sammartino on television and have always been a fan. He tells me that I have the look for it and more importantly the personality for it and he'd like me to train with him. I tell him that my commitment first and foremost is to "The Incredible Hulk" and other acting/writing opportunities in Hollywood, and as long as he understands that I'd like to train with him.
In his territory that runs all throughout California, into Nevada and Utah, I become a masked professional wrestler, popular amongst fans who comes in and out of the territory depending on when I have work on "The Incredible Hulk." About two years into the gig, I learn that "The Incredible Hulk" is going to be canceled and I take on more of a full time gig working for the promoter, making more money and eventually buying out the gym I had worked at, having the two guys that did own it operate it while I continued my pro wrestling career.
A few months later Bill Bixby phones me and tells me he has this idea for a major motion picture that he wants to direct. He wants Lou to star in it and he wants me to write it. I sit down with Bill and Lou as we bounce ideas off one another and agree to write the script. We get funding and begin shooting and the film ends up being a major box office hit. I'm now financially set for life, as I make improvements to the gym I own in town and pour a significant amount of money into the wrestling territory I work for to make it five times as big and powerful as it once was.
I then go to UCLA and speak with the president and the athletic director. I give them a proposal to reinstate the wrestling program and they agree to my idea. As it becomes news around Los Angeles and around the country that Hollywood actor/pro wrestler helps to reinstate wrestling program at UCLA, other coaches and wrestlers from around the country start to mail and call me asking for help to reinstate and/or save their wrestling programs. As I'm getting work as an actor and as a writer in Hollywood, I decide put my professional wrestling career on hold while I work on helping to popularize collegiate wrestling and help save programs and get programs started. I become the savior of collegiate wrestling.
After years in Hollywood as an actor and as a writer, I get the unfortunate news that my good friend Bill Bixby is dying. I stay by his side while he passes away, realizing that I owe so much to him for the way my life turned out. Had it not been for that chance encounter landing that role on "The Incredible Hulk" all those years ago and meeting him, my life could have turned out a lot different.
I decided to write a book on my life that I entitle, "The Incredible Bill Bixby: The man who opened up the door of opportunity for me" that speaks about how Bill helped me to succeed in life. My Hollywood agent introduces me to a writing agent who like me has no desire for kids and feels that marriage isn't necessary to love some one. My book is published, it is a huge success on the New York Time's best seller list and I fall desperately in love with my agent.
I continue to act and write in Hollywood, as I come up with an idea for a television show that I pitch to a group of executives that love the idea. The show is entitled, "Mr. Green" a show about a group of kids who have an eccentric and weird neighbor who is consistently doing strange things. The show is an instant hit on primetime, as I write a significant number of the episodes.
After a 10 year run, the show is canceled and I have desire to get out of Hollywood and spend the rest of my life back in my hometown of Sigourney, Iowa traveling about the country with my woman attending amateur wrestling events, pro wrestling events and theatre productions while speaking to students at various colleges, universities and schools.
After having a very happy, satisfying life, one night in 2033, at the age of 75, I lay down to go to sleep and I never wake up again. My will states that part of my money will go towards taking care of my significant other and family members specified in my will and the other part of my money will go towards helping wrestling teams to be saved and started throughout the country.
Ah! What was I thinking! I forgot one of the most important things. I would also spend a significant amount of time at animal shelters, playing with dogs and cats and providing medicine, medical care and food to them. Part of my will would be dedicated to these places to take care of cats and dogs.
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