evilontwolegs.com » Comic Books

Stuff I’ve Been Watching — Needs More Cowbell Edition

Corey — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:36:32 +0000

THE THING

THE THING is one of my favorite films, so i was understandably skeptical when i heard they were making a prequel and/or remake. i was anxious for more ‘thing,’ but it would be so easy for them to screw it up by trying to fix what was ‘wrong’ with the first film since it had such a disappointing theatrical release (yet eventually gathered quite the following on home video). i remember reading an interview with the director, stating his intention to be true to the original — but that’s what every director says to appease the existing fans, while not mentioning all the changes they’re having to make to try to have broader appeal. after seeing THE THING, i’m convinced of two things: 1) it’s confusing to name your prequel the same title as the film it is a prequel to and 2) the director was not lying about staying true to the original.

apart from possibly using cgi where it wasn’t necessary in a few places, there is very little to complain about in THE THING. don’t get me wrong — no aspect of john carpenter’s masterpiece is in danger of being eclipsed by this prequel (most notably in the special effects category), but i doubt making a better film than the original was their goal. it feels like they were trying to make a smart and frightening companion piece to the original that supplements it without contradicting or negating anything already established. if that is true, then they succeeded. everything we know from the original about the norwegian camp is seamlessly integrated into the prequel. many scenes are almost identical in tone and content to scenes from carpenter’s, but there are enough twists and differences that it always feels like a homage instead of a rehash. this may not end up joining the original as a true classic of the genre, but it’s certainly entertaining and well worth seeing.

as i was leaving the theater, happily surprised by how much i liked THE THING, i overheard a girl ask her boyfriend “that’s how it ends?!? what happens next?” i did not overhear his reply, but it’s my hope he’s a true horror fan and already owns the answer to her query on dvd and/or blu-ray.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

i was about to start this off with the phrase “despite not being as original as THE WALKING DEAD…”, but quickly realized that would be completely unfair. it’s true that AMERICAN HORROR STORY is not wildly original, as it borrows shamelessly from well-known genre classics and recent horror successes. however, despite being incredibly compelling, THE WALKING DEAD is an even worse offender, stealing unabashedly from only one coffer (george romero’s), while AMERICAN HORROR STORY at least has the decency to spread its thievery around, often sprinkling pilfered bits from john carpenter, stanley kubrick, and alfred hitchcock evenly about, often in the same episode.

most of the time, the show’s tendency to reference other horror films works, coming across not as laziness or plagiarism — but as a type of horror short-hand. in the most recent episode, the intentions of three home intruders is immediately communicated to the audience in a blink of an eye, not through lengthy exposition but by simply emulating the most famous shot from THE STRANGERS. earlier in the same episode during a flashback set in the 1960s, the familiar violin strings from the score of PSYCHO instantly place us in the correct decade and and convey the intentions of an uninvited guest.

the show’s opening credit may be a little too reminiscent of SE7EN’s famous credit sequence, but minor gripes aside, this is a show you should definitely be watching. i don’t know how long they can keep it up, but so far the haunted house story they are telling has kept me riveted and guessing at every turn, and is scarier, sexier and more unnerving than anything horror television has ever seen. similar to the maturity level seen in DEXTER and TRUE BLOOD, but lacking the lightheartedness and comedy those shows occasionally exhibit, AMERICAN HORROR STORY is a hard-edged series that shows a willingness to push the envelope and go to places that even recent horror feature films seem afraid to.

THE WALKING DEAD

along with everyone else in the world, this week i also watched the season premiere of THE WALKING DEAD. once we get to episodes that frank darabont had little to no input on, i’m afraid the show will take a nosedive, but if they can somehow maintain the quality shown in this first episode, then there will be nothing to worry about. you can already see the impact of the budget cuts in a few questionable cgi effects shots, but other than that, there is little to complain about in this season’s opener.

i will, however, complain about how amc is handling suddenly being in possession of an incredibly successful show. in addition to slashing the budget despite growing success and running off the man who created the damn thing, they also became the first company i know of to greedily double-dip the home video release of a show’s first season before the second season even aired.

behind-the-scenes drama aside, the show is fantastic. and it has also spawned one of the more brilliant parodies in recent memory, which you can see below.

THE WALKEN DEAD

Friday the 13th Comics

Corey — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:47:00 +0000

jason voorhees has found his way into the comic book realm many times over the last few years through various publishers. he’s become friends with leatherface, fought with bruce campbell, and even battled the futuristic jason x version of himself. i may look at some of these mini-series later, but the series i want to look at right now is the first one i found and my favorite thus far: the first 6-issue mini-series published by wildstorm simply titled friday the 13th.

can jason work on the printed page? i distinctly remember reading the novelization of friday the 13th in elementary school and being utterly freaked out by the scene where the cook, annie, gets her throat slashed… so yes, jason’s effectiveness in print can be similar to that in film. but can anyone write and illustrate a comic that properly conveys the mood of the early films and treat the character of jason appropriately? i didn’t really think so and expected to find only ridiculous plot-lines and bizarre match-ups like those mentioned earlier. and that’s exactly what i found in the majority of the comics out there… jason has become rather ridiculous in the film series and that’s doubly true in the world of comics. however, i was quite surprised to see that the latest publisher to get their hands on the rights to the crystal lake killer seems to be treating jason with an incredibly amount of respect. it’s not perfect and i’ll dig into the details shortly, but it all boils down to this… this comic should be made into a film — this story has the potential to be the best sequel in the entire series.

the comic starts off strong with jason chasing a naked, bloodied girl through the forest. the girl is rescued by an older couple in a winnebago who take her to a hospital. from there the rest of the story is told in flashback as the girl recounts how she came to be in the horrific circumstances in which she was discovered.

from there the plots hits familiar territory, echoing many things from the early films. there are some hitchhiking kids who stumble into a diner near crystal lake. there are kids smoking weed, a strange guy indicating impending doom and, most importantly, someone is trying to open camp crystal lake again. the twist this time is that they plan to use the camp’s unseemly reputation as a selling point. kids all go to camp and listen to ghost stories around the campfire… at ‘camp blood,’ the stories are true. i don’t know if kids would really be begging their parents to be sent to ‘camp blood,’ but it’s largely irrelevant since we know the camp will never actually open — not when a large group of young, attractive teens have just wandered into jason’s turf.

from there we spend a little time learning about the characters who will undoubtedly all be dead soon. there’s the gay guy, the angry jock, the tough guy, the slut, the crazy girl, etc. etc. the interesting thing about the structure of this is that it’s far more similar to a screenplay than a comic. apart from the opening scene which frames the real story, jason voorhees doesn’t make an appearance until the last page of the second issue. that’s a lot of pages of setting up characters and mood… but, just as it would be on screen, it’s time well spent and makes the final two thirds of the story work much better than if they’d rushed jason’s introduction. there’s lots of nudity and spring-loaded-cat scares to keep the audience interested, but the bulk of the time is spent setting up backstory and plot threads that will pay off in later issues.

it may start a bit slow, but by issue three jason has shown up and all the familiar plot devices start popping up. someone stole the cell phones… cars won’t start… tires are popped… the roads are washed out. all the classics are used to isolate our group of teenagers from any hope of help or rescue.

what follows is much what you’d expect — a whole lot of jason stalking and killing people. what might surprise you, however, is that there’s actually a story unfolding at the same time. there’s not much i can say without giving a lot of it away, but the story features a rather clever plot twist that i’d thought i had all figured out… until it twisted again. the story also gives a new version of jason’s origin, actually explaining how he could have drowned in the 1950s and yet be walking around killing now. i won’t say it’s the absolute perfect origin story for jason voorhees — but it is several magnitudes better than anything offered in the films thus far (yes, i’m looking right at you, part 9).

where the story fails to work is in some of the character interactions. some characters are simply annoying and there are some ridiculous moments like when two gay men have a lover’s spat while knowing full well a maniac is stalking them… or when a character decides they absolutely have to go get their medication right now, despite there being a killer outside.

as for jason’s look, he’s hidden in shadows a lot of time (as he should be) and, surprisingly, when shown fully, he actually looks scary… a rather drastic change from his appearance in most other comic adapations and in all the sequels since part 7. visually he’s shown as he should be — an intimidating and terrifying monster who cannot be stopped.

if you can dig it up somewhere, i highly recommend checking this series out. it’s structured well, it treats jason with more respect than he’s seen in decades and, since it’s obvious it can be done well, it makes me hopeful that the next film in the series (the remake currently in production) might actually have a chance at getting things right.