Mortal Remains (2013)

Do you remember Karl Atticus?

Mortal Remains first bled on my radar a couple of years ago while on vacation in Evans City, PA.  I was asked that very same question I posed to you, dear reader, earlier.  "Do you remember Karl Atticus?"

Some herald long-forgotten, fringe filmmaker Atticus as a purveyor of the modern Slasher film with his last film, Mortal Remains, being a topic of discussion and debate for decades, even after it had fallen under the banner of a "lost film".  Bizarre tales from its filming and even stranger occurrences when it was once screened for the public serve as a launching point into the abyss.

Horror fans since birth, filmmakers Mark Ricche and Christian Stavrakis set out to uncover the truths about Mortal Remains and Karl Atticus in this riveting docu-thriller.  Through interviews with those who knew and worked with him, Ricche and Stavrakis find themselves closer and closer to Atticus and his hallmark film, with each clue they unearth.  

This film itself carries with it a sense of foreboding dread as Ricche and Stavrakis plummet deeper into their search and inch closer to a horrifying truth.  From the outset, it doesn't feel like such a great idea to be digging up something that maybe should have stayed lost.

Throughout the film, with each new discovery, both men go back and forth as to whether they should continue the film.  Though when one of them appears obsessed with finishing the search, it's quite clear what their decision is.  

In today's Horror world, the idea of unearthing a lost or forgotten film is something that a lot of genre fans can easily get behind.  Let's face it, we live in an era now where film as a medium is disappearing and we're unfortunately losing source materials for far too many pictures that may have only seen the light of drive-in movie theater projectors forty or more years ago.  With that said, I'm right there with our heroes as they search for clues about Karl Atticus!

Mortal Remains is the best genre film that you haven't seen yet!  If you're a Horror fan, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

See it!

For more info and to purchase the film, check out Cryptic Pictures website!

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)

One of my all-time favorite studios for Horror and Cult films is, hands down, American International Pictures.  So many of my favorite, late-night Horror and Blaxploitation films were released by AIP throughout the late 60s all the way up through the 1970s.  If a film I'm watching has the classic AIP logo at the start, I know it's going to be a great time!

Count Yorga, Vampire is no exception.

The film's original title card.

Admittedly, I'd always sort of bypassed both this film and its awesome sequel, The Return of Count Yorga, though I can't really say why.  In fact, my very first encounter with the Count Yorga character goes all the way back to my elementary school days when I'd endlessly borrow a particular book from the school library, Jeff Rovin's "The Encyclopedia of Super Villains".  This book was a treasure trove of, not only comic book baddies, but also film -- the main reason I loved it so much was because of its entry on Freddy Krueger.  Each villain listing had a cool mini-biography of the character it was discussing.  Count Yorga was listed, along with a photo . . . for some reason though, I thought it was stupid and dismissed it.  

Boy was I wrong!

Count Yorga, Vampire is a bit of a slow-burn film, beginning with an ominous narration about vampires as we're treated to a coffin arriving in the port of Los Angeles and heading for a creepy mansion via flat-bed truck.  Next, we're introduced to Yorga himself (played by the late Robert Quarry), leading a seance arranged by Donna (played by Donna Anders) in the hopes of contacting her mother, who has recently died.

Robert Quarry in fine form as the titular vamp.

Among the folks in the seance is Erica, played by Judith Lang.  In a not too unfamiliar plot point, Yorga takes a liking to her and eventually sinks his teeth into Erica, turning her into a pseudo-slave, obsessed with his charm.  

There are some genuinely creepy moments in this film!  One of which is the look of Yorga in vampire mode...

These fangs can cause "a variety of damage", as they say.

The main thread of the film revolves around Yorga trying to get to Erica again and turn her into the Undead so that she can be with him forever.  Of course, Erica's boyfriend Paul (played by Michael Murphy) is going to stand for this and he, along with Donna's boyfriend Michael (played by the film's producer Michael Macready) and Dr. James Hayes (played by Roger Perry, who also appears -- in a different role -- in the Yorga sequel) team up to kick some vampire ass.  

The fun really begins when our heroes infiltrate Yorga's mansion and characters are revealed to be dead or undead; Yorga uses Donna's mother, who is now a vampire herself, as a pawn of his evil!  

Sometimes, Good doesn't always triumph over Evil.

The final reel sees Michael, with a catatonic Donna in tow, frantically trying to escape Yorga and his vampire brides.  

What can I say?  I'm sucker for good-looking vampire dames!

Preceding Carrie by six years, the film ends with a truly terrifying shock moment reminiscent of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"!  This seems to have worked out pretty well, as the sequel also ends on a similarly shocking note.

One of the more interesting anecdotes about this film is that it was originally intended to be more of a hardcore porno film!  Shot independently under this guise, once the film was picked for distribution by AIP, all of the erotic scenes had to go; this is pretty evident in the sequence where Yorga has Donna's vampire mother engage with another vampire bride (the scene just cuts before anything happens on-screen).  

This is a very confusing element of Count Yorga as a whole, as Robert Quarry was eventually groomed as AIP's next Horror star, set to take over the mantle from Vincent Price.  Quarry would go on to star in Yorga's sequel, as well as playing villain to Vincent Price in Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Sugar Hill, and Madhouse (which proved to be the last AIP film for both Price and Quarry).

Despite the erotic scenes being removed, there's still a decent amount of gore present.  Although tame by today's standards, Count Yorga, Vampire delivers the goods for fang fans!  In what is probably the film's most disturbing sequence, Erica is found feeding off of a dead kitten!  This particular sequence was originally heavily trimmed, though it shows up completely uncut in MGM's DVD release under the "Midnite Movies" banner as well as the recent (and limited) Twilight Time bluray.

The film is still readily available, as I said on both DVD and bluray on Amazon, depending on what you'd like to spend.  

Definitely see it!

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) - A 100% Spoiler-Free Review

There's good news and bad news Star Wars fans.

Good news?  This is the Star Wars film you've been looking for.

Bad news?  We've got to wait until 2017 to see what happens next!

In 1999, at the height of the hype and excitement for Episode I:  The Phantom Menace, I'll never forget leaving the midnight screening that we had (at the last minute) at the theater I worked at.  Leaving work that night, I tried so hard to convince myself that it was a good movie and that I enjoyed it.  With the next two films in the prequel trilogy, I felt the same way then, though the last 40 or so minutes of Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith (or at least when Anakin turns to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader) are pretty spot-on perfect and set up the classic, original trilogy.  

Time has been kind to the prequel trilogy though, as I revisited them all -- like most of you -- leading up to today's release of The Force Awakens.

As a kid, I vividly remember my dad relating information from an interview he'd seen or read about how, one day, there would be eventual Star Wars sequels with older versions of Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie telling the story to a younger generation.  Images of my favorite characters with greyed hair and beards danced in my head as I daydreamed about what could be . . . 

That day has finally come.  And it is incredible!

JJ Abrams has done it...

It seems that I'm now at the target demographic age where film and television properties that I've held near and dear for most of my life are suddenly being mined for sequels, remade, and/or rebooted, often times with varying degrees of success; Indiana Jones and Rocky Balboa are two immediate characters who spring to mind.  The latter of which definitely succeeded with Rocky Balboa both taking a nostalgic trip down Memory Lane, but also capping what has been an incredible series of films and, of course, Creed starting the next chapter so magnificently!  

Where parts of the Star Wars prequel trilogy felt like they were created to sell toys or fill in story gaps, I'm happy to report that The Force Awakens feels natural and is certainly a welcome trip back to familiar territory!  Catching up with characters like Han Solo and Chewbacca pretty much made the movie for me.  Harrison Ford and Peter Mayhew effortlessly slip back into their characters as if 33 years hasn't passed at all.  Their dialogue banter made me feel like a kid again, daydreaming of riding with them in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon!  

The same can be said for Carrie Fisher as well, returning as Leia.  Her relationship with Han Solo has been one that, ultimately felt realistic and The Force Awakens deals with it in a way that I've seen all too often in couples.  There's genuine onscreen chemistry between Ford and Fisher which is just as evident as it was in The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. 

While revisiting the other six films lately, I've come to the realization that, next to Han Solo, my favorite Star Wars character is probably Chewbacca.  He's the family dog; loyal, lovable, and fierce when he needs to be to protect those he loves.  Seeing him and Han onscreen again (Chewie's extended cameo in Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith was all too brief for my tastes) connected with me in a way I can't really describe.  If it doesn't do the same for you, I'm sorry to hear that.  

Right in the goddamn Feels.

Obviously, there's the nostalgia factor that I'm sure detractors will look for some fault in, but it worked for me.  It didn't feel like a sly elbow to the ribs and a wink to say "See?  It's like the original!" as if to remind the audience of what used to be (and, as is often times the case with nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, recalls a most likely better film).  Again, it felt completely natural and made me yearn to see some of what happened in the 32 years since Return of the Jedi's finale!

Speaking of returning faces, seeing screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan's name back on the credits feels so right!  Kasdan famously penned The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, so the man can do no wrong in the hearts of many.  Kasdan, along with Abrams and Michael Arndt have crafted a story that continues one many of us have loved, while introducing new organic natural plot elements (and twists) that are perfectly at home in the Star Wars universe!  Well done sirs!

When The Force Awakens machine started rolling via the theatrical trailers and onslaught of new action figures and toys, I'll admit, I was skeptical of the new characters joining the story.  Call it post-prequel trilogy syndrome, where it felt like new characters -- with names too complicated to remember -- were only introduced to sell an action figure, I wasn't exactly thrilled about new friends joining my old friends.  Sure, Darth Maul looked cool and fought like a Sith champ, but his appearance in The Phantom Menace was too brief and I think he got swallowed up in the hype of that film's release. 

Kylo Ren is not Darth Maul.

Kylo Ren is a perfect successor to the villain role left vacant by Darth Vader!  During one sequence, he's even got some swagger about his walk that Vader himself often showed.  Even as a kid, I can't say that I was ever truly terrified by Darth Vader or hated him to the point of hissing and booing when he'd be onscreen, but I can definitely say Kylo Ren dances into those categories . . . he's one bad dude who has a lot of depth to his evilness.  And he looks cool, to boot!  Adam Driver takes on the role with gusto and is definitely a welcome addition to the Star Wars family as far as I'm concerned.

Adam Driver as the evil Kylo Ren.

Captain Phasma is a new addition to the villain roster that has seen its share of controversy, though I'm not sure why some people are up in arms.  Maybe it's the characters connection to the Phantasm series that won me over, but I think she's pretty cool and hope to see more of her.

Gwendoline Christie as new villain Captain Phasma.

On the Light Side of the Force, we're introduced to a trio of new heroes; the curious Rey, hotshot pilot Poe Dameron, and enigmatic Finn.  All three characters are played by actors who I'm relatively unfamiliar with (I've only seen John Boyega in Attack The Block), which was a nice surprise and made for a more believable world where the prequels had familiar faces pop up in support roles which was, at times, distracting. 

As Rey, Daisy Ridley rises to the challenge of maybe not necessarily carrying the entire film on her shoulders, but she'll definitely be a central part to the continuing story in the next two films.  There's an air of mystery to Rey that certainly had me craving for more and wanting to learn more about her.

Daisy Ridley as Rey.

Another new character that has already seen some unfair controversy of his own is Finn.  Attack The Block's John Boyega embodies Finn with a sense of realism and familiarity that I'm sure was evident in characters like Han Solo for audiences in 1977.  Again, there's some mystery to Finn and his back story which I hope is unfolded a bit in the coming films. 

John Boyega as Finn.

Perhaps my favorite new character, so far, is Poe Dameron. As played by Oscar Isaac, Poe is the sort of hotshot pilot and confident pilot that fits easily into the Star Wars universe.  He's as if Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Wedge Antilles were melded into one, perfect, heroic character.  I wouldn't mind having him in my corner if I was going up against the Dark Side of The Force!  Poe's scenes were easily some of my favorite; so much so that I wanted to reach into the screen and high-five him!  As with Rey and Finn, I look forward to seeing more of him in the coming films.

Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron.

It's easy to see kids today daydream of going on adventures with these three new heroes the same way we all did with Han, Chewie, and Luke.  

Also, on the droid side, there's BB-8.  Some may say his appearance is simply a toy commercial, but I have to disagree and say that he is just as lovable as R2-D2.  There's no denying that R2 and his banter with C-3PO have always felt a little Martin & Lewis or Abbott & Costello, so I was relieved that BB-8 doesn't try and impede on that relationship.  In a sense, BB-8 seems like a cute, little pet that everyone is going to want under their Christmas tree....but maybe that's just our culture right now and the abundance of hilarious animal videos and memes on the internet these days?  Either way, BB-8 is here to stay and I'm glad!

BB-8 as himself, a totally functioning, non-CGI droid!

The bottom line?  If you're a Star Wars fan, you will love this film.  It's great and has solid story-telling that ultimately caught me up and left me wanting more, in a good way!  You're able to catch up with pals you haven't seen in 30-odd years while at the same time meeting a bunch of new ones who will, no doubt, be lifelong friends!  

It's FUN and one hell of a ride.  Go see it!

May The Force be with you.  Always.

*Photos borrowed from www.starwars.com

Friday the 13th (1980): Looking Back on Camp Blood

First off, Happy Friday the 13th everyone!  I trust you're all in the midst of your date-appropriate marathons of Jason's greatest adventures!

Give me a few minutes of your time to talk about the original, and for my money, still the best entry in the long-running series....1980's Friday the 13th.  I recently posted my own gut-reaction ranking of all 12 films in the series with the original being at the top.  Of course, this caused a bit of head-scratching among my friends and family, so allow me to explain....

There was a time when all things Friday the 13th were sort of taboo in my life.  The most intense thing I'd seen was the trailer for Leatherface:  Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 before a screening of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 when I was 7yrs old.  Aside from a brief peek on USA Up All Night and maybe a scene or two on Cinemax or HBO while my parents weren't looking or were out of the room, I'd never seen any of the Friday the 13th movies.  As a kid in the 80s, Jason Voorhees was a playground legend; you were considered cool if you'd see a Friday the 13th movie.  Hell, I remember when my hometown movie theater showed Friday the 13th Part VIII and I thought my babysitter's daughter had guts and was cool as hell for going to see it!

I'd say my love affair with Friday the 13th, the first film, goes back to 1993.  I was 12yrs old and it was right around the time that Jason Goes To Hell was being released.  I don't remember the exact first time I saw the original film, but I do know for sure that I went and told everyone that I had finally seen "the one that started it all."  

Shortly before I was born (1980, to be exact), my parents had been dating for a short while and had made a habit of seeing horror movies on their double dates.  Dawn of the Dead and Silent Scream were two that Dad loves to tell stories about!  Of course, his greatest story is that of going to see Friday the 13th; Dad and his friend knew it wasn't over as Alice lay in that canoe and they kept assuring Mom and her friend that "it's all over" . . . as soon as Jason popped up from the mucky lake to pull Alice under, the ladies of the double date had to be peeled off the ceiling of the theater!  Classic stuff right?  You can kinda see where I get the love from, no? 

The film itself is simple and has a home-grown nature to it; sort of like a band's demo tape from "before they got big".  All the traits that will eventually make it a household name are there...they're just a little rougher.  

Everything in the movie just clicks with me.  The music is fantastic and creepy (by the time you hear the same similar score throughout all the sequels, although it was still Harry Manfredini and still cool, it just felt like a copy of the original).  The special effects are top-notch and I think are only matched by Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, again created by Tom Savini.  The acting is...well, I wouldn't say Oscar-caliber, but it's charming and believable to me.  Finally, the story is simple and contains all the elements of a great campfire tale told at a summercamp!  

One thing the series itself is known for is its seemingly endless supply of teenage stereotypes, often times introducing a character only to be machete fodder for Jason mere minutes later.  Again, I wouldn't say that the character in the original Friday the 13th are fully rounded-out characters (this IS a horror movie and I'm not here for Shakespeare, ya know?), I would maybe put them a level or so below the characters in the A Nightmare On Elm Street series.  For me, the teens in Friday's main competitor were more believable and were actually kids that I'd either wanted to be, already was to extent, or would want to hang out with.  The counselors in Friday the 13th seemed real enough to me and I took stock in their untimely fates.

Also, as a kid, you can imagine how many kids I know who went to "the camp from Friday the 13th"...probably the same amount of kids I knew who swore they either had a hoverboard or knew a kid who had one.  When I later found out that the movie had indeed been filmed in my homestate of New Jersey, that made it even cooler!  

The movie LOOKED like areas that I either played in right outside my house or the "summer home" that we had in upstate Pennsylvania in LeRoy Township.  Hell, the road that Ned/Jack/Marcie drive down on their way to the camp, as well as the "town" of Crystal Lake itself, all looked like they were right out of LeRoy, PA!   You look at the sequels and, aside from part 2 (which was filmed in Connecticut), you can tell they're not filmed on the East Coast.

Me, circa 1986, on the front porch of the house belonging to my Dad's hunting club.

They should have filmed the sequels up here at Sunfish Pond!

Another shot of Sunfish Pond.

This may as well have been a cabin in Friday the 13th!

 

 

 

Me, the last time I visited Sunfish Pond.

The fictional Camp Crystal Lake also looked like a very real area cubscout camp I had attended for a few brief hours (long story short...I didn't stick around after the initial tour and left my fellow pack members).  

Some people get freaked out by the faux-realism of a horror movie that's done in the "found footage" style...but me, just film it in my backyard and I'm sold!  

Speaking of the actual locations where the film was shot, the fact that I've been able to visit them multiple times over the years probably has something to with my undying love.  

Checking out the Mechanic's Lodge, which doubled for Alice's cabin!

Standing in front Jack and Marcie's cabin.  This is where Kevin Bacon got the arrow in his neck!

 

Sandee and I on the REAL Crystal Lake!

Kirk Hammett's Fear FestEVIL blog!!

Hey friends!

Check out the new blog from Metallica's resident Horror film lover, memorabilia collector and all-around Monster Kid, Kirk Hammett!

http://www.fearfestevil.com/kirksblog/

So far, it looks like Kirk is reviewing movies he's recently seen and passing on some of his personal recommendations!  His most recent post is starting a really cool discussion about Horror sequels and remakes!!

The Green Inferno (2015)

Nothing makes a film more desirable to see than having it unreleased, shelved indefinitely, or even banned.  In the Horror genre, this has worked out quite well, generating a buzz that almost ensures fans will be there once a film finally sees the light of day.  The most recent examples of this would obviously be Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (filmed in 2000, dropped by Universal, picked up by MGM and then subsequently dropped, only to be finally released by Lionsgate -- and make them a ton of money -- in 2003) and All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (filmed in 2006 and finally released in 2013).  In terms of being banned, pictures like Faces of Death and Make Them Die Slowly ("Banned in 31 Countries!" as its poster swore) played up that angle which certainly helped put butts in theater seats and definitely made me want to see them on video back in the day! 

In short, it all goes back to that primitive instinct of wanting to experience something that's been deemed forbidden.

When Eli Roth announced that he was making a film that was essentially a love letter to the Italian Cannibal subgenre of such classics as Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust and Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (the aforementioned Make Them Die Slowly has many titles depending on which country you're in), there was immediate buzz.  Personally, I was interested to see a film like those listed actually playing at one of the mega movie theater chains in the US...I didn't think it was possible!  When the film encountered distribution woes, its buzz only increased.

Filmed in 2013 and finally just released this past weekend, Roth's The Green Inferno tells the story of Justine (expertly played by Roth's real life wife, Lorenza Izzo), a college Freshman seemingly trying to fit in with the local group of political activists on-campus. The basic plot is that the group of activists blindly follow a charismatic leader who fancies himself as the next Che Guevara (though he's more Jim Jones than anything) literally right into the line of fire to expose big industry's murderous effect on primitive, indigenous tribes in the Amazon.  The kids in this film aren't so much "tree huggers" as they're "cause huggers". 

Naturally, that's only the first half of the film; things soon spiral out of control as members of the group are captured by an indigenous tribe, where they're forced to stay for dinner...and breakfast...and lunch.  Sorry, the pun had to go somewhere!  

Roth famously cast a real-life Peruvian tribe that had never been filmed or photographed -- this only added to the maddening realism of the film, coupled with the fact that most of the trained actors are relative new faces.  While Cannibal Holocaust had its pseudo-documentary style benefiting its believability and strengthening its impact, Inferno's most effective strengths lie in its casting decisions.  It would have been much more difficult to believe someone like Brad Pitt was being eaten alive by a cannibal tribe, ya know?

Special effects duties are masterfully handled by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, expertly portraying the on-screen carnage.  Not gonna lie...there are some truly brutal and nasty bits in this film, although seeing Nicotero and Berger's names in the opening credits made it a little easier to separate the onscreen carnage as fictional, whereas both films from Deodato and Lenzi surely had shoestring budgets, making their gore all that more impressive and shocking ("did they really just kill that actor?"). 

Also, like any Eli Roth film, there is an abundance of his trademark black humor . . . several hilarious bits and one-liners carefully break the tension during some of the most disturbing sequences!  In fact, one particular kill even treads levels of absurdity reached previously by Monty Python & The Holy Grail!  In terms of the film's violence, as brutal as it is, it's difficult to take seriously and be offended by because it's so over the top.  Truthfully, the most shocking moment in the film -- which genuinely made me jump -- occurs near the end and recalls Carrie and Friday the 13th.

Another interesting element in line with the film's humor is its constant poking and prodding of social justice warriors and the need to find a cause to rage against on college campuses.  As someone who was bored to tears by the on-campus activists while attending Rutgers, I found this angle to be extra humorous!  In fact, this is where one of The Green Inferno's most terrifying ideas comes into play; never mind the rampant cannibalism and savage blood-letting, the scariest part is how easily some people can forget their principles, no matter how much their gut is telling them they're making a bad decision...they still blindly follow and make that bad decision, all in the name of an attractive person or some radical cause.  The entire first half of the film before the kids get to Peru has that sense of dread in the form of a knot in the stomach screaming "this is not going to end well!"

If you're an Eli Roth fan already, you will love this film.  If you've never seen an Italian Cannibal film and had no desire to, this probably won't change your mind.  If you're a Horror fan though, your curiosity surely has to be piqued.  See it!

Somebody Please Tell Me WHY?!?!

Earlier this week, someone asked me, "Why do you like scary movies?"  Even though this was a question I attempted to answer when I started this blog, I still don't think I've come up with a definitive answer and, obviously, I couldn't really give a clear answer when that question was thrown at me.  Sometimes, it's as simple as "You can't understand it if you're not into it."

This pic says a couple of things about me, don't you think?

For me, that's like asking some of my friends "Why do you like football or other professional sports so much?"  In their cases, I'm sure it was something that was passed down from a parent, uncle, older brother, etc and more of a family tradition.  In my case, that'd certainly be true since I've got fond memories of watching, not only horror movies, but movies in general with both of my parents; in fact, some of my earliest memories revolve around movies or television.  Hell, that could even be why I love pizza so much, as a lot of my favorite childhood memories revolve around Pizza Friday at my house!  Before I was even born, when my parents were still dating, they often went to see horror movies like Dawn of the Dead, Silent Scream, and Friday The 13th!  This stuff is in my DNA!  Maybe if my dad had a football in the house while I was growing up, this blog would be dedicated to something entirely different, eh?

As with any bands that I find myself getting into, I feel the need to learn as much about "it" (whether it's a band, tv show, or a movie) as I can . . . this includes behind the scenes stories, photos, making-of's, meeting the cast and creators, and if possible, visiting the locations where said movie was made!  Deep down, I think this sort of "expert" mentality goes back to my childhood, being an only child and often times getting the short end of the stick from others . . .

In my early grade school years, I remember trying to be like my buddies and getting into some recreational sports; T-ball and soccer were my choices.  I hated both.  I hated the practice part and, basically, just wanted the glory of winning . . . never cared much for learning the rules of the game or any of that jazz, ya know?  Same thing in the 6th grade when I joined the school basketball team -- I wasn't very good and, no thanks to my team mates, I found very little encourgement to improve my skills.  I'd jump on a couple other bandwagons in the latter part of elementary school as well; for some reason the Miami Hurricanes were a "thing" at my school...so naturally, I had a t-shirt with their pelican mascot on it (though I remember the thing being a bit too tight on me).  Of course, you couldn't grow up in the early 90s without Michael Jordan fever and EVERYTHING was Chicago Bulls . . . so naturally, I had a Chicago Blackhawks hat that I wore pretty frequently.  Never saw a single game back then as a matter of fact!  Who knows, maybe I was predicting my future of eventually moving to Chicago and the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup a few times once I became an Illinois transplant! 


I remember this day vividly...that's the smile of a kid who's trying to fit in.

Looking back, perhaps there was a even a deep-rooted sense of being left behind that made me not want to tag along with what everyone else was into.  Being that I wasn't familiar with the rules of a football game, didn't know any professional skateboarders outside of Tony Hawk, and wasn't able to tell the difference between the members of the Wu-Tang Clan, I'm sure there was an unwritten attitude of "Alright then...forget that shit!"  Today, it's Fantasy Football picks...I scratch my head on how that stuff works.  Could I have taken the time to learn these things?  Probably.  Were they my ultimate interests or would I just be trying to fit in?  Absolutely the latter. 


Not sure what I was going for with the hair here...

Oh wait, this was it!

However, when it came to liking movies and horror movies . . . I was the king of my domain.  And that fact was comforting, acting as a suit of armor, protecting me from the mixed feelings I was experiencing, but not yet being able to fully vocalize until just now.  Perhaps Freddy and Jason slicing and dicing random teenage stereotypes helped to voice the feelings I was experiencing.  Of course, being on the verge of puberty didn't help matters either...talk about trying to find your identity!  On a side-note, when Black Sabbath were inducted into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Metallica's James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich were on-hand to do the honors.  During Hetfield's speech, he got choked up when he described how the doomy, monstrous guitar riffs lived inside of him, speaking the feelings he couldn't find words for, and helped crack the shell that he found himself stuck in at an early age, helping him find his own creative voice.  That totally resonates with me when it comes to horror movies and, ironically, Metallica's music even!  My grade school class was small...we had the brainy kids, the skaters (my friends), the nerds, the jocks, etc.  Now, after a couple years of half-heartedly chasing trends, I'd found my own identity.  I was the Monster Kid (and "Metallica Bob")!  Nerdy or otherwise...I was me.  I found myself just in time for high school, so I didn't have the same hellish experiences in grades 9 through 12 that a lot of other people talk about. 

While my friends were out doing BMX or skateboarding, I'd be tucked away in my bedroom watching my other friends like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, or hordes of zombies or aliens.  That kind of stuff was as cool to me as skating a half-pipe may have been to my buddies!  The heroes on my bedroom wall were Indiana Jones, Freddy Krueger, Rambo, and Metallica. 

Granted, at that time -- obviously pre-internet -- my fandom was a pretty isolated experience.  Outside of my older cousin Tim, there really wasn't anyone I could "talk shop" with except for a couple of buddies who liked Army of Darkness, Aliens, and Predator. 

As I got older, I realized that being a horror fan is actually pretty communal.  Through posting on message boards to meeting up with like-minded folks at conventions, I've made a lot of friends around the world through our mutual love of all things morbid and scary.  That's the thing though, being into horror movies is, nine times out of ten, just one of the many things that we can connect on.  We all enjoy this stuff for different reasons; some of it is from a technical standpoint on the special effects or story-telling/filmmaking, some of it might be a childhood nostalgia, and some of it might even be a fantasy element that acts as a cathartically, soothing alternative to whatever is going on in daily life. 

On the surface, being into this stuff is pretty nerdy . . . but what exactly is "nerdy"?  Is knowing every tiny detail about the three different "main" cuts of Dawn of the Dead or being able to recite every line of dialogue from Aliens any nerdier than knowing all the stats on Eli Manning?  I think not.  Collecting DVDs/blu-rays and movie posters isn't any different than collecting baseball cards (in some sense, both hobbies are just as expensive, too!). 

Today, I thrive on talking about horror with my friends either on-line, in person, or via almost daily text messages like "Dude, ever seen this movie?" or "Dude, check out what I just picked up!"  I love being thought of as the horror or movie guy to my friends outside of that smaller circle.  Like I said before, it's just me. 

While this pic is a bit old, it still personifies me to this day.