There’s nothing like a classic horror done up classy, I always say. Stalwart ZC reader, Chindi, points us to these beautiful wall-hangers for over the fireplace. Go to Worth1000.com and scroll down the page to view the the Monster Modren artwork.
Why don’t I ever see any of these priceless paintings on Antiques Roadshow?
Before EC Comics, before TV Horror Hosts, and before the mad scientists, psychos, and domestic and foreign ghosties and beasties took over the megagoogaplex screens, there was dramatized horror on radio just a twist of the dial away.
I fondly remember pulling out the old Webcor reel to reel tape player to listen to old time radio shows, and my favorite will always be Three Skeleton Key with Vincent Price, otherwise known as “that one about the rats.”
Imagine being trapped in a lighthouse with a horde of ravenous rats that have eyes and taste buds only for you; inexorably finding their way in until you have no where else to run.
With the advent of MP3 players, it is now easier than ever to rediscover the sinful pleasures of old time horror radio drama. Much of it is in the public domain these days (script writers and budding horror authors take note!), and can be found online or in CD collections for a nominal charge.
Hot on your list should be audio plays from Lights Out, Suspense, Inner Sanctum, The Creaking Door, and The Haunting Hour, though there are many more series extant.
Aside from Three Skeleton Key, other superb radio dramas to listen to are Sub Basement, and Spider, from Lights Out, and The Dunwich Horror and The House in Cypress Canyon from Suspense.
In Sub Basement, a man takes his wife to the sub basement of a big department store with plans of murder on his mind, but something else in the basement has other plans for them. And in Spider, two weary jungle hunters meet their match in another furry, but not so little or cute multi-legged, and very patient hunter. Just what, exactly, is in the closet in The House in Cypress Canyon will make your neck hairs stand on end.
Listening to horror can be quite frightening indeed. As you hear these chilling tales of terror and horror, be careful your imagination does not run too wild.
Go to Awake at Midnight to start listening. And remember, listen with the LIGHTS OUT!
Zombos Says: Classic
A peal of thunder echoed outside, followed by a flash of lightning. Rivulets of water started sliding down the narrow windowpanes of the library; a perfect setting in which to view one of cinema’s more outré movies, Freaks. Zombos passed the bottle of claret over to Uncle LaVey, the blackest of the black sheep in Zimba’s family tree, and I inserted the DVD into the player. Dressed in his black shirt and pants, and with his black widow’s peaked hairline and black goatee, he presented quite the look of the Satanist about town.
As we watched the movie I could not help but wonder what Tod Browning and MGM were thinking when they made this movie? Browning definitely wanted to shock and unsettle his audience, and MGM wanted a horror movie that would rival his earlier Dracula success; but what both eventually achieved was an exploitation styled B-movie with flashes of brilliance and disgust that has entertained, insulted, and outraged audiences since 1932. The story of little Hans (Harry Earles) and his futile infatuation with the considerably taller Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), set against the backdrop of the sideshow and its singular denizens, still manages to make one ill at ease upon viewing.
No other movie has embraced the participation of real-life freaks like Browning’s film does here: Prince Randian, the Living Torso; Pete Robinson, the Living Skeleton; Olga Roderick, the Bearded Lady; Martha Morris, the Armless Wonder; Joseph/Josephine, the Half-Man, Half-Woman; the Pinheads; the Hilton Sisters; Johnny Eck, The Half-Boy; Angelo Rossitto (Master in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) and the others were well off the bell curve average. While Browning was heading down a less traveled cinematic road with movies like The Unholy Three and The Unknown, his need for showing the unconventional hit its zenith in Freaks.
Taking Tod Robbins’ story Spurs, Browning (who had already used Robbins’ novel The Unholy Three with critical and financial success), weaves a tale of murder and revenge that’s more unsettling and ends more horrifically than its source material. Adding a sexual overtone that undoubtedly offended his ‘normal’ audiences when it first hit theaters, and portraying his actors as regular people with incredible physical characteristics, then unleashing them as demonic angels of vengeance when mistreated, Browning makes you squirm and sweat watching it all unfold.
“Gooble, gobble!” LaVey chanted as the infamous wedding feast scene began. “Zombos, this scene always reminds me of your wedding,” he joked. Zombos was not amused.
Come to think of it, it reminded me of his wedding party, too. How odd.
The wedding scene is the highlight of the movie. It is here Cleopatra humiliates Hans and his friends, thereby sealing her doom. Falling back on his more comfortable silent movie direction skills, Browning even introduces the scene with an intertitle card announcing “The Wedding Feast.” While he may be comfortable, we aren’t as unsettling close-ups of the circus friends enjoying the festivities are juxtaposed with Hans’ growing realization he’s made a mistake. The drunk Cleopatra openly shows her affection for Hercules, the sideshow’s strongman. As Hans sits, humiliated, the oblivious revelers begin chanting “gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble, we accept her, we accept her one of us.” While the chant continues, Angelo Rossitto jumps on the table and passes around a large goblet overflowing with wine so everyone can take a sip from it. Cleopatra looks in horror as the cup comes closer and closer, eventually recoiling in terror as the cup is held up to her. She takes it and yells “No…dirty…slimy freaks!” and tosses the wine into Rossitto’s startled face.
In his book, The Monster Show, David Skal notes the wedding feast was heavily censored, and one particularly interesting element that would have intensified and justified Cleopatra’s horror at drinking from the communal goblet was removed; as the cup is being passed around, some freaks dribble into it. I leave it to you whether this possibly more nauseating visual should have been included.
Foreshadowing the horror to come, Browning uses more close-ups of Rossitto’s scowling face furtively peering into Hans’ wagon, watching Cleopatra slowly poisoning him, and again as he peers into Hercules’ wagon to see her and the muscle man conspiring against Hans. What follows is one of horror cinema’s more memorable series of scenes as Hans’ friends carry out their revenge.
As Tetrollini’s Traveling Circus prepares to get under way during a dark and stormy night (well, it was), we see Johnny Eck scampering beneath the wagons. As lightning and thunder play in the background, the camera follows him making his way to the huddled group of freaks patiently waiting, away from prying eyes, for their moment of reckoning.
With the traveling circus underway in the downpour, we cut to Hans’ wagon, rolling along in the muddy road. His diminutive friends, gathered by his bedside, quietly watch as Cleopatra once again prepares her poisonous medication. Only this time, Hans confronts her, asking for the bottle of poison. She looks down at Hans, then in horror at his friends who quietly pull out their knives to casually clean them. Cleopatra is understandably alarmed and the spoon of poison drops from her numb fingers.
Now cut to mighty Hercules who is also having a bad night. A knife flashes through the dark and slides into his side, bringing him down to the muddy road, down to their level, where he is relentlessly pursued by a swarm of freaks crawling through the mud and rain, brandishing weapons. The scene is nightmarish. I wonder how much audiences in Browning’s day squirmed in their seats watching it. The ending that was intended, but not used, has Hercules survive, but speaking with a much higher voice. You can draw your own conclusions.
Now back to Cleopatra: her wagon overturns and she briefly escapes the little demons by running into the nearby woods. We see her screaming one last time as they close in on her.
The original ending had a tree struck by lightning fall on her, crushing her legs, and the freaks swarming over her prostrate form to exact their hideous revenge. As shown in the final movie, after her scream we immediately move ahead in time to a sideshow where she appears horribly disfigured as one of the freak attractions. Dressed in a humiliating bird costume and unable to speak, she can only utter unintelligible sounds. The once proud and beautifully statuesque Cleopatra is now a hideous mute freak with a shattered mind and body.
As the movie ended, Zimba returned to snatch Uncle LaVey away. Zombos and I breathed a sigh of relief. Returning to our claret, we pondered the vagaries of moviemaking, and how a daring director got a major studio to produce one of the oddest classics of horror cinema. Forgotten for a very long time and almost lost to us, it was given new life and much needed recognition in the 1960s by photographer Diane Arbus’ successful efforts to bring it to the attention of the cinema art-house crowds.
So we can always remember that “But for an accident at birth, you might be as they are.”
Zombos Says: Very Good
I’m happy to say Night Watch is not a clunker. Instead, it is a whirlwind of special effects, odd characters, and a story that definitely puts Russian horror on the genre map. While the filmed story is different from the book it is based on in some important respectes, the movie is still an entertainingly fast-paced and strong first entry in the Night Watch trilogy.
The director, Timor Bekmambetov, did the movie for Russian audiences, which explains the more melodramatic and flowery-mouth approach to mis-en-scene and dialog. But it’s these Russian nuances, composed alongside the standard but well-executed horror trappings we all know and love—CGI and gore effects—that give this film’s quirky, good versus evil, story a fun and very watchable spin for any discerning horror fan.
It opens with a battle between the forces of good and evil (like in Lord of the Rings and Thor)—here it’s the light and the dark squaring off—as they each fight for foothold on a narrow bridge. Both soon realize they are equally matched and neither can win. So a truce of sorts has them divvying mankind’s fate into having Light rule by day, and Dark rule by night.
Jump ahead a few millenniums and we’re in Moscow, where Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy), our soon to be strong-willed but hapless hero, pays a visit to a witch, hoping to keep his girlfriend from having someone else’s child. Bad move on his part as it brings him into direct contact with Night Watch, the forces of Light.
In short order the witch is subdued, suddenly and chaotically, for engaging in witchy kinds of things, and Anton, caught in the middle, discovers he’s a seer and a Light Other—which means a good guy, sort of. The Dark Others are vampires and other nasty things that go bump in the night, and the Light Others are shape-shifters and magic wielders, who try to constrain the Dark Others from doing harm. It’s been this way for centuries: both sides fighting each other to maintain balance. For those of you who work in a corporate office, just substitute “managers” for Dark Others, and your workmates for Light Others, and you’ll understand the whole concept perfectly.
From the opening salvo with Anton, the witch, and the Light’s shapeshifters, it’s a wild ride. Anton’s entry into the light and dark world will leave your head swirling, but stay with it and all will be revealed in time. Night Watch is a kinetic movie of visualizations first, done in fast cut actions, speeded-up and slowed-down, and herky-jerky scenes spliced with CGI. Short pauses for explanation flitter by before plunging you into yet another whirlwind of chaotic visualizations, which for a limited budget are skillfully done.
Much of the special effects are devoted to the Gloom: the twilight state where the natural and supernatural worlds converge. Director and co-writer Timur Bekmambetov heralds its onset by swirling mosquitoes, which he says remind him of vampires, but, unlike the novel, he does not focus on the Gloom much.
One fast and furious scene in an old Russian barbershop has Anton fighting a vampire who pops in and out of the Gloom to attack him, otherwise remaining invisible. The bloody and gorific fight is a special effects treat that ends with a snap, crackle, and pop.
Other memorable touches include a yellow maintenance truck (think Ectomobile from Ghostbusters), recognizable to Russian audiences as a very slow moving vehicle, but is made fun of in the movie by adding rocket jets to have it speeding madly through the Moscow streets.
And then there’s the owl, a stuffed bird brought to life to help protect Anton, now that he’s gone and killed a vampire. The Dark Forces will not forgive him for that. No sooner does the owl follow him home then it turns into Olga (Galina Tyunina), a sorceress, in a flurry of feathers and goo (looking like the Chinese fast-food MSG variation of goo). Being forced into owl shape was her punishment, but for what is not explained. Since the owl can stand for either good or evil in Russian folktales, we can’t be sure what type of past Olga had, or which side she’s really on.
Did I forget to mention the Vortex of Damnation Curse? Aside from Anton’s issues with vampires, there’s this cursed woman who’s about to bring down the apocalypse (and she’s not even a zombie!) so the forces of Light and Dark can battle again. Considering they were at a standstill a millennium or two ago, I’m not sure why they want to bother.
Why this woman is cursed can almost be taken as a joke by American audiences. Why she’s cursed, and why Anton is causing bad things to happen, is due to the bad decisions they made when they had more control over their lives. Since their destiny is intertwined with everyone else’s, one bad decision becomes everyone’s problem. The premise of Night Watch is simple: each person chooses to join the light or the darkness by the decisions they make; and those decisions affect everyone else. In American horror films, people are usually put into situations beyond their control, then they make bad decisions making things worse – often terminally. So instead of a taste of Hamlet in our horror, we prefer hamburger with lots of onions and bloody red ketchup. We don’t savor the bun or its relation to the burger; we just want to eat it.
Night Watch savors the bun with its moral story, and adds a dash of Shakespearean ketchup to provide a unique and colorful tale combining fantasy, horror, and the choices made by all of us that will lead to either the Light or Dark path. The Russian sensibility of horror is summed up best by this dialog between two characters:
“Damn!”
“Careful what you say. Damn is more than just a word.”
Zombos Says: Very Good
“What’s all that yelling about?” Zombos asked , putting his book down. We were in the study on a beautifully foggy morning.
“It sounds like Pretorious,” I said.
“Well, see what the blasted fool is yelling about now. If it’s not ducks, it’s something else.”
I went down to the front door, opened it, and found the groundskeeper waiting for me. He tossed a small package into my hands.
“What’s this, Pretorious?” I asked.
“Your damn fool something-or-other. Postman barely slowed down before he threw it over the fence. Hit me on the head, it did.” The groundskeeper adjusted his large straw hat. “Now maybe I can trim those corpse plants around the back in peace. Damn things grow like weeds.”
As he walked off, I tore open the package. There it was; my screener of Anchor Bay Entertainment’s release of Cemetery Man.
The first thing I do before watching a new DVD is to look for a commentary or documentary, even if the film is new to me. I watch that first. I know, even Zombos thinks it rather odd, but I prefer to know as much as possible about a new film before I see it, and more about a film I’ve already seen, with the hope that I will learn about those little artistic touches that otherwise go unnoticed.
The liner notes for a DVD can also provide a wealth of valuable information regarding the provenance of a film. (Oh lord, I am watching too many Antiques Roadshow episodes!) Michael Felsher’s liner notes for Anchor Bay’s release of Cemetery Man are exemplary, and I learned much about this quirky, odd mix of humor, horror, sexual desire, necrophilia, gore and surrealism by director Michele Soavi and writer Gianni Romoli (from Tiziano Sclavi’s novel, Dellamorte Dellamore).
Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, the forlorn, laconic caretaker of the Buffalora Cemetery, aided by a Curly-esque, dim-bulb—but frenetic—sort of individual called Gnaghi. One slight annoyance, or nightly chore—if you will—is that they have to keep the newly buried dead underground. For reasons never mentioned, the dead keep wanting to stay undead.
Mr. Soavi, as noted in the IMDb trivia for the film, explains that these “returners” are brought back to life by the mandragola roots that permeate the grounds of the cemetery. But that really doesn’t tell us why, does it? Life is often like that: things happen, but we never really know why. We just go with the flow.
So Francesco and Gnaghi are kept rather busy returning the dead to where they belong. To assist with this endeavor, Francesco keeps a revolver which he uses liberally to shoot the dead, well… dead again. To complicate matters, Francesco refuses to let the town authorities know what is happening in the cemetery for fear he may lose his job, along with having to fill out all that bureaucratic paperwork regarding reanimated dead people.
One aspect of all this bizarre supernatural activity that provides a bit of tension is that we never know, as Francesco and Gnaghi never know, which returners are going to take a few bites out of them, and which returners are just anxious to get back to their daily living routine, but really shouldn’t, considering personal hygiene and all.
Francesco’s nightlife, busy with shooting and reburying dead people, is more interesting than anything else he does during the day, and that is a sad commentary on his existentialistic existence. For a man whose favorite pastime is reading the phone book, and who observes one day that “At a certain point in life you realize you know more dead people then living,” things are not going all that well. But how can he get out of his doldrums?
It’s at this point that the voluptuous She enters his life—The Woman, as played by Anna Falchi. He meets her during her husband’s funeral. He’s captivated by her beauty. How she could be married to such an old man surprises him, but she tells him that it was the sex. Her dead husband was indefatigable in bed. This is an Italian film, after all.
Francesco does what he can to get closer to her, but it’s when he shows her his ossuary—interesting double-entendre here—that she begins to fall passionately in love. It’s here the use of billowing cloth throughout the film first becomes apparen as they embrace and kiss through it. Combined with the cinematography of long perspectives and close-ups, its appearance lends an impressionistic touch to the odd events surrounding Francesco.
The ossuary itself is a wonderfully eerie and claustrophobic chamber filled with skulls, bones, earth and huge mandragola roots, all intertwined and suffused in a brownish-gold light. In the documentary, it’s explained the set was constructed in layers, then put together to create the finished look of so many seemingly separate elements. It’s quite a work of horrific art indeed.
As daylight fades and night comes, blue ghost lights dance around Francesco and his lover. Soon, they’re making love over her dead husband’s grave. Her husband, of course, is not pleased and attacks them, killing his wife before Francesco can stop him. This being Buffalora Cemetery, however, she soon returns in her billowing death shroud to make passionate love once again to Francesco. A little decomposition doesn’t get in the way of his ardor, but her biting a rather large chunk out of his neck does. He makes sure she will not return a second time.
Adding insult to injury, a busload of scouts, the mayor’s fun-loving daughter, and some fun-loving but careless motorcyclists get mashed up on the roadway in a nasty accident and fill up the cemetery, providing both Francesco and Gnaghi with much work to keep the mangled returners more sedentary. Gnaghi, who does have some personality issues, takes a fancy to the mayor’s daughter’s head, and he soon has it out of the grave and into his apartment. She also takes a fancy to Gnaghi, and soon the two are singing and chatting up a storm like bosom-less buddies.
The film shifts from absurdity to downright surrealism as Francesco begins to see the woman he loves in other women. Oh, and the meeting he has with Death I suppose I should mention also.
Death is rather miffed that he keeps sending the dead back to the grave, so Death tells him it would be better if he just killed the living instead. Sure, why not? He does have that big gun.
Francesco’s existentialist angst spirals out of control and he finally seeks escape from it all. Packing a few belongings and Gnaghi into the family car, he heads out of town, through a long tunnel, and into the outside world. Or does he? Has he found a resolution to his problems by trying to escape them?
I dare you to watch this film only once.
Zombos Says: Very Good
“That was disturbing,” said Zombos as we were leaving the theater after seeing The Hills Have Eyes.
“Yes, the hard horror situations were—”
“No, no, I meant the annoying political barbs,” he interrupted.
“Oh,” I said, “you mean the father being a republican and getting them into the hellish predicament in the first place, and the milquetoast democratic son-in-law who rises to the occasion and unloads a truckload of whoop-ass on the radiation-mutated hill people after being pushed to the edge of sanity? I hardly noticed it.”
“The director is French?” Zombos asked.
“Alexandre Aja? Yes, I believe so.”
“Then that explains it,” he concluded.
“Actually, I think hubris plays a much greater role than politics. The father’s cocksure attitude left him prone to making bad decisions. Oh, right, that does apply to most politicians, doesn’t it?”
“Politics,” we agreed and continued walking.
“It reminded me of Wrong Turn,” I said.
“Yes,” said Zombos, “especially the decrepit, degenerate-owned gas station in the middle of nowhere; and that scene with all those victims’ derelict cars dumped into that huge atomic blast crater. Chilling.”
“The extreme long-shot zoom-outs showing the other huge craters surrounding it are especially effective,” I added. “Great matte work there.”
“What I do not understand is why mutated, inbred, and cannibalistic families in every horror movie are always depicted as more of a solid social unit than the normal, bickering tourist families they prey on,” Zombos pondered.
“Goals,” I replied. “Mutated, inbred, cannibalistic families have fewer goals.”
“I never thought of it that way.” Zombos rubbed his chin.
“Well, they certainly don’t need to worry about jobs, taxes, school, retirement, or the dozens of things that keep normal people awake at night and bickering among themselves. Just finding food is one simple goal that keeps them all working as an insane, but strong, cohesive unit,” I said.
“They sure do eat a lot. The least they could do is cook their food. Revolting.”
“Gore-hounds wouldn’t like that. ‘The redder the better’ is their motto,” I replied.
Zombos stopped walking. “What always amazes me is the sheer dim-wittedness of family and teenagers that are always placed in harm’s way in these movies. You would think after all this time, with all the sordid chaos in the world, they would be better prepared to handle difficult situations and have a little bit of a clue. I mean, here you are traveling in the desert, hundred-plus degree heat, no water, no civilization, and you take the scenic route? And one that a spooky and unbathed
gas station attendant, who obviously does not have much of a social life, tells you to take? In an ’88 Airbus with no air-conditioning?
“Well, at least the detective father carried a few guns with him,” I said. “They shouldn’t have split up though. It’s always convenient to have soon-to-be victims always split up in movies, but that plot expediency is wearing thin.”
“That is another point,” Zombos said. “These mutated, sadistically maniacal families never split up. They always carry out well-orchestrated group attacks on those dim-witted and oh-let-me-go-off-alone family members.”
Zombos was on a roll. I rarely see him this reflective.
“That was quite an horrific scene,” I added, “using the father as a decoy to lure the family out of the trailer, and then attacking that poor girl. Quite a statement about why you shouldn’t wear an iPod to bed, don’t you think?”
“Biting off the head of that little defenseless parakeet, too,” Zombos added, shaking his head. “For shame. I did find that Test Village 3-B to be a horrific setpiece also.”
“You mean when the son-in-law goes through the mining tunnel and finds the mock-up town filled with mannequins? Yes, the mise-en-scene is well executed. His confrontation with the mutated maniacal family members is fast-paced and exciting. His baseball bat against an axe? I think I rather have the axe.”
“The big-brained fellow singing the national anthem was a wicked touch.” Zombos clapped his hands together. “Oh, now I get it, baseball bat and national anthem. Subtle.”
Zombos started walking, then stopped again. “That scene with the children was more horrific than anything else in the movie,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied, “in the midst of all that carnage and insanity, to have a hideously deformed child innocently ask you to play with her and her equally disturbing playmate… it was a masterful, almost poetic touch. I dread to think what snacks she’s been having. No Fig Newtons or Oreos in that place.”
“Definitely not,” Zombos agreed. “I wonder how much longer we can watch such movies.
“Why is that,” I asked.
“It seems every hard horror movie relies on the same basic characterizations and script devices to sustain an often repeated storyline; and let us not forget the gore factor: that needs to keep escalating to provide shock value to those ever more jaded gore-hounds out there. Most of the elements in this movie, given that the direction and scripting is above average, still use the same old hash. Can redundant art sustain itself?”
“I’d say that most horror-heads just want to be scared, or shocked. Take the sequelization-antic ending. It’s a cheap cliché ending that destroys the movie’s triumphant moment, just to imply it ain’t over so wait for the next movie.”
“Yes,” Zombos agreed. “But I hope the sequel is worth it.”
Zombos Says: Good
It took a few attempts to get Shripal Morakhia’s Naina into the DVD player. After the first bottle of Claret, my coordination deteriorated rapidly. I finally loaded the disc and Zombos and I were soon watching this intriguing Bollywood Horror remake of The Eye.
With a matter-of-fact tagline that reads, “Twenty years of darkness, seven days of hell, no one could survive it, SHE DID,” we did not have very high expectations. But the Claret made us stronger and more daring.
Then there are the cultural differences: how would a Hindi version of The Eye fit in with the melodramatic and religious aspects of Bollywood cinema? And most importantly of all, would there be singing and dancing?
“Bring on the dancing and singing Gopis,” hiccupped Zombos. “If I could stand it in Rocky Horror, I can stand it here.”
“There were no Gopis in The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” I told him.
“Not dressed as such, but the premise is the same.”
“Point taken,” I conceded. “But there are no Gopis, nor singing or dancing in this movie.”
“What? Impossible! I thought that was a contractual requirement for every Bollywood movie?”
“Apparently horror movies are excluded from that requirement.” I said.
I started the movie.
The opening shows the accident that leaves young Naina blind, intercut with a bloody cesarean-section of a still-born baby girl that suddenly comes back to life just as Naina’s parents are killed in an accident. Then there is an eclipse of the sun. We move ahead years later to a point where Naina is ready to undergo a cornea transplant operation.
“I am already confused,” said Zombos.
I refilled his glass. “There, that should help.”
Urmila Matondkar plays Naina Shah with a touch of melodrama—after all this is a Bollywood movie—and grandmotherly Mrs. Shah (Kamini Khanna) is constantly by her side. Yet the coloration of the movie, the cinematography, and, to some extent the somber, bittersweet, piano score give this movie a J-Horror style.
Naina speaks briefly to a boy in the hospital who is undergoing numerous brain operations, before she undergoes surgery to restore her sight. After the operation she begins to see dark figures through her blurry vision. These figures lead patients away. She also hears spooky sounds and sees dead people. Every dead person she sees is dressed in crisp white, neatly-pressed, clothes. It’s comforting to know there are laundries in the after-life.
Mrs. Shah quickly pulls out the eligible bachelor photos for Naina now that she can see, and starts working the old marriage magic on her. But Naina is becoming more and more distraught as her visions become more frightening. As Hindi cinema tradition would have it, the psychiatrist Mrs. Shah brings Naina to for help is handsome, eligible, and immediately infatuated with her loveliness—it’s love at first sight for both of them. A somewhat derailing Love Boat–styled romantic montage ensues and the horror is put on hold while love is in the air.
“Wake me when we get back to the dead people,” said Zombos.
I took a long sip of Claret. And another long sip of Claret.
Eventually Naina sees more and deader people and now they see her. From hanged men dressed in clean white clothes in restaurants, to little girls with little curls in hallways asking, “Have you seen my mommy?” Understandably, she becomes more distraught. Her psychiatrist boyfriend thinks it’s all in her mind (no, really?) and she can’t convince Mrs. Shah that those creepy black figures and talkative dead people are driving her to new heights of over-acting.
Then there’s the elevator scene.
It works well and puts you on the edge of your seat with its scary encounter in a tight spot. After that she’s back in the hospital and seeing more creepy black figures. A walk through the morgue as she follows eerie sounds and black figures is done with her as the only moving figure in a frozen room of doctors, nurses, and bodies in various stages of dissection. Gruesome.
At this point in her travails, she begins to question God. You don’t see much questioning of God in American horror movies unless some victim or madman is yelling expletives. She questions why God is showing her these sights. He tells her it’s time for the intermission.
No, I’m just kidding you, but the movie does stop—remember this is a DVD—with a big “Intermission” shown onscreen. You certainly don’t see this in American Horror DVDs or movies either.
I waited to see if a dancing bag of Buttery Sally Popcorn and Mr. Straw jumping into a cup of Coke would appear, singing “Let’s all go to the concession stand and have ourselves a snack.”
“Thank god,” said Zombos. “I really need to take a p—”
“I’ll get more Sherry and Coke.”
“Capital idea!” he said, hurrying to the bathroom.
INTERMISSION
While we wait for intermission to end, let me direct your attention to how this movie caused a lot of concern when it was released:
NEW DELHI (Reuters, 2005) – Indian eye doctors have asked a court to ban a movie in which the heroine sees ghosts after a cornea transplant, saying it will scare off donors and patients. The All India Ophthalmological Society complained to Delhi’s high court that the movie “Naina” (Eyes), starring Bollywood bombshell Urmila Matondkar, would reinforce myths about cornea transplants, The Times of India said Friday. “This movie could create a fear psychosis among cornea recipients and their relatives as well as among potential eye donors,” ophthalmologist Navin Sakhuja told Reuters. Would-be donors could be frightened off, afraid their eyes would “live on after they are dead,” said Sakhuja, a member of the society. “We have a huge backlog of people, particularly children, waiting to get new corneas. His movie adds to misconceptions and could hurt efforts to get them those corneas.” Naina’s director says the heroine’s visions after the transplant following 20 years of blindness are caused by what the donor had seen and experienced in life. “If such objections are taken into account, no horror film will ever be made,” the Times quoted Shripal Morakhia saying. The court is due to hear the case Wednesday, but the movie was released nationally Friday. India needs 40,000-50,000 corneas a year but only 15,000 are donated. Hindus believe in reincarnation and that what they do and how they behave in this life affects the next. Doctors say some people fear they will be reborn blind if they give up their eyes.”
END OF INTERMISSION
Now let’s back to our movie, shall we?
Naina is riding the train, talking to the psychiatrist boyfriend on her cell phone, when a revelation occurs, forcing her to suddenly question not only God, but who she is and the person who donated the corneas. Naina drags her reluctant boyfriend along to a place she’s seen in a vision. She stops being a victim and becomes resolute in finding answers. This sudden shift in the story is surprising and suspenseful, and adds an intriguing layer to it. Naina overcomes her fear as she investigates what happened to the eye donor, learns why dead people are attracted to her, and seeks to complete a broken cycle of reincarnation, even as those black figures begin to congregate in larger numbers.
Naina is similar to Premonition and Sixth Sense, but the mixing of J-Horror elements with Bollywood-Horror makes a story that’s part horror, part mystery, part ghost story, and worth a view by any horrorhead looking for something out of the ordinary.
And there’s no dancing or singing, either.
It is hard to say whether Dave Carson, award-winning pictorial chronicler of the macabre landscapes and alien creatures of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, is illustrating from some creative well of inspiration, or really just simply drawing his own family members during frequent festive get-togethers in crumbling tombs and chilly, aquatic climes. Whatever the true nature of Carson’s disposition, the fact remains that his unearthly illustrations of those things not spoken of, living in those places not visited by sane men–save for him—bring a great, but disquieting pleasure to the rest of us more fearful worshipers of Cthulhu. Dave put down his drawing implements long enough to answer a few questions scribbled by moonlight and slid beneath his door.
How did you get started in your illustration career?
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a career really. I’ve been illustrating books and magazines since the early eighties or thereabouts, but I also had various full-time jobs while I was doing it, it’s always been a kind of on/off thing with me. There was no way I could support myself solely on illustration. For instance, when I was illustrating H.P.LOVECRAFT’S BOOK OF HORROR, and had about a week to do it, I was in the middle of a six week contract to renovate an old School building. Grueling work to say the least, after which, when I finished for the day I had to get home and do one illustration a day for a week. The friend who I was staying with while the work was going on had to keep me awake with coffee just to get the
drawings finished on deadline. Some nights I just fell asleep on the floor with exhaustion.
Of course for the past ten years I have had no other kind of job to get in the way, but now I’m more interested in doing sculpture and digital artwork rather than the laborious process of black & white stipple drawing. I do miss it at times, but I rarely feel that it’s worth the bother of putting pen to
paper.
When did you begin drawing Lovecraftian landscapes and their denizens?
1978. Seriously. However, I’ve been doodling all kinds of monsters my whole life.
What is it about Lovecraft’s alien, ichthyoid characters that fascinate you?
Possibly it’s that I’ve always been interested in animals, natural history and the sea, as well as having a life-long obsession with all things weird. That’s what inspired me to start drawing them. I love all those winged, tentacled, gelatinous masses, starfish-headed things, deep ones and others that shamble through his writings.
There seem to be a common misconception that H.P.L’s entities aren’t clearly described. I have no idea why this should be, as many of them are fleshed out in great detail. I don’t know how many times I’ve read that “Lovecraft’s descriptions are vague to say the least”, or similar nonsense. Just read THE CALL OF CTHULHU for instance, a clearer description of Cthulhu is hardly possible.
Why do you think Lovecraft’s mythos continues to be a popular and influential
fictional and graphic wellspring?
It’s taken some time for Lovecraft to reach the audience he now has. When I discovered him back in the mid 60’s relatively few people outside of fantasy and horror fandom had heard of him until all the paperbacks of his stuff became very popular later that decade. They influenced a whole new generation of writers who
had never even seen a copy of Weird Tales. I guess the Cthulhu Mythos appeals to artists on the basis of its incredible possibilities and scope for their imaginations, and writers for the same reasons.
How do you do it? Tell us about your creative process from inception to finished drawing.
I do a pencil rough and ink it in, usually with Rotring technical pens – no great secret process. Just hard work, long hours, a sore back, strained eyesight, etc.
Who are your favorite illustrators and why?
Lee Brown Coye is my favorite. His work was extremely strange and remarkably original. Harry Clarke’s work is also outstanding.
What question would you like to be asked and what’s your answer?
Q : “Hey DC, did you see on the News that R’lyeh has risen in the Pacific?”
A : “I already knew.”
What’s your favorite Lovecraft story? Why?
It’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ without a doubt. I love ‘the piecing together of dissociated knowledge’ element throughout the story, and the references to artists and sculptors being more susceptible to Cthulhu’s dreams appeals to me.
What is the easiest and the hardest thing about being an illustrator?
Easiest is being able to work through the night and sleep during the day. Hardest is being broke all the time.
Zombos Says: Excellent
Journeys end in lovers meeting, or so the saying goes. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson do have one rough journey, though, before that ending comes.
Spider-Man 3 is the movie Superman Returns should have been. Take one iconic American comic book character, stir in lots of terrific, dizzying action, add a measure of relationship-woes, sprinkle a dash of rocky romance, and what Sam Raimi cooks up for the third time in a row is a movie that captures the emotional and visual charge of the comic book art form for the big screen like no other superhero movie has done since the original Superman.
Just make sure you sit farther back in the theater to catch it all: it gets rather hectic and you may spill your popcorn trying to keep up with Danny Elfman’s exciting music and all that web-slinging mayhem.
Spidey’s doing pretty well. He’s on top of the world; and when Spidey’s happy, Peter’s happy. Filled with a cocksure attitude that he can take on anything, his Spider-sense doesn’t warn him about those dark clouds on the horizon. He’s so wrapped up in his alter-ego’s success, he can’t see that Mary Jane’s really hurting from a career stumble, or that Norman Osborn’s sinister heritage has been passed onto his son, Harry.
If that weren’t enough to upset his cozy web, there’s the meteor rock that crashes, releasing a spidery creepy-crawling black sludge that wants to make friends with him in a really bad way; and then he finds out that the man who killed Uncle Ben, is not the man he cornered in the warehouse back in Spider-Man 1. The real killer of his uncle is Flint Marko, who escapes from prison only to get his molecules shaken and stirred with a pile of sand during a particle-reactor fusion test.
The result is a villain, the Sandman, that provides much of the onscreen action in swirling sand clouds that pack quite a wallop–and pathos. He’s not all bad, just morphed that way. He desperately keeps trying to steal the money needed for his dying daughter’s treatment, but Spider-Man keeps getting in the way. Thomas Haden Church is perfect as the Sandman. His angular face, striped-shirted athletic build, and ability to convey the internal struggle with the regret for the decisions he’s made add up to one of Spider-Man’s strongest, yet more vulnerable foes.
Venom is not so vulnerable. That creepy-crawling sludge has no internal struggle to slow it down. It just needs someone with enough anger to make it thrive. It finds that anger in Peter. His need for revenge on the man who murdered his uncle is all consuming, and feeds the black parasite what it needs. It consumes Peter and his Spidey costume, creating a darker, more aggressive, more callous Spider-Man and Peter Parker.
In a funny then serious show of his newfound over-confidence and aggressiveness, Peter makes the relationship with Mary Jane worse and uses Gwen Stacy to do it. He also goes after the new Daily Bugle staff photographer, who played dirty, with a vengeance; again making a bad decision that will lead to the creation of a much more powerful foe.
As Peter and Spider-Man struggle with the choices to be made, Aunt May, and Ben (in flashbacks), try to help him find his way out of the darkness. But will he make the right choices to rid himself of his more sinister self? And when the Sandman and Venom team up to end Spider-Man, how will he survive their combined onslaught?
Raimi proves once again who’s your Superhero Daddy. He and the special effects crew create a swirling, spiraling, exhilarating ballet of web-slinging aerial combat that sizzles across the screen. In between the slugfests, he captures the difficult relationship between Peter and Mary Jane, the growing relationship between Peter and Gwen Stacy, and the trade-offs of being everyone’s hero.
Spider-Man 3 is the perfect kick-off to this summer of the cinema, where more potential blockbusters wait in the wings. ‘Nuff said.
Zombos Says: Fair
How does one describe a movie that’s bland? I’m fighting the temptation to go off on a tangent with sentences with the word ‘crock’ in them. While that might help spice the review, it’s an obvious but cheap shot.
This movie is a crock. Its bland by the numbers characters and action, with bland superficial dialog, and less than stellar computer graphics work. Jake Thomas plays Michael Banning, and actually does as good a job as any of the other actors; but he’s not given much to do. At least they didn’t spike his hair. Thomas spends the movie riding around on his bike looking for his dog Lucky, the three-legged run-away.
Then there’s the evil corporation, Gereco–stop me if you’ve heard this one about an evil corporation–conducting secret genetic experiments on man-eating monsters. Rabbits won’t suffice? These experiments blend the genes, by accident, of a Sarcosuchus and a dinosaur. The resulting monster escapes its holding pen because an idiotic scientist walks right in–as it’s killing everything else in the pen–leaving the door wide open. She gets her throat ripped out as she tries zapping it with a pocket-sized stun gun.
Joanna Pacula plays the evil mouthpiece for Gereco, Paula Kennedy, who denies everything even as they send their top, man-eating monster hunter to recapture the monster. Using Lucky, the three-legged dog for bait, Lucky really turns out to be lucky and high-tails it just as the crafty hunter gets eaten instead, leaving only his legs behind. The CGI blur happens fast, but dotes on those legs.
One of the highlights in this film–I’m stretching a mile here– is what, unexpectedly, happens to Thomas as he goes searching for Lucky late at night in Gereco’s wildlife preserve. What happens ends too abruptly. What should have ended abruptly are the dialog exchanges between the crocodile hunter they bring in, Dick Sydney (Costos Mandylor), the Grant’s Lake Animal Shelter control officer, Diane Harper (Jane Longenecker), and Michael’s brother, Tom Banning (Matt Borlenghi). The action bogs down when an old romance–queue the piano tinkling–is rekindled and the hunter tries some really bad pick-up lines.
A predictable insert-scene-here time-killer has two drunk hunters poaching on the Gereco wildlife preserve; quickly scratch off two poachers. To speed things up, the Gereco scientist hunting the monster spills the beans about the whole mess to Harper and Tom and they volunteer to help. As they search in the preserve, they come across a pile of man-eating monster doo-doo and the scientist quips “Holy sh*t.”
Dinocroc Vision kicks in as the monster gets hungry. I don’t mind monster-point-of-view vision–I love the Snake ‘o Vision in Snakes on a Plane–but here it’s not very inspired or enhancing. Another oddity is how all these would-be hunters carried only single-shot rifles. What, automatics would’ve blown the budget? The thing’s as big as a mobile home and they hunt it with pea-shooters.
The scientist goes down for the count when the group crowds a skimpy motor boat and tries to hunt Loc Nesses’ land-legged cousin with single-shot rifles and tranquilizer darts. More people get eaten as people crowd the water’s edge for some relaxing horror movie-victim involvement. The local sheriff’s Keystone Cops deputies get eaten. Lot’s of people get eaten. Mostly off-camera or in “shaky-cam” CGI blurs. There’s no suspense, no build-up to a climactic ending that brings the beads of sweat to your brow.
I really really wanted to see Lucky either get eaten or save the day. Instead, they use other dogs to lure the monster into a trap. The animal-loving Harper doesn’t go along with this so she’s cuffed along with Tom after he tries to help her. But Tom is a metal-sculpting artist. He lights up the acetylene and before you can say I should have watched Rogue, they’re racing ahead of the dog-eating monster to release each and every stray dog chained between the monster and the trap. As they race against time to free the dogs and come closer and closer to the trap, the hunter finally does something and jumps in to lure the monster away from them. They start yelling “Dick! Dick!” as the monster gets closer to him, in passionate close-ups of concern. It is funny I admit.
The trap is sprung, but since they only have one bolt cutter to release all the chains holding the trap’s doors, the sheriff must race from one end of the long trap to the other to release the doors to lock the monster inside. But the monster gets out and chases Harper and Tom some more. It finally gets run down by a train and Tom determinedly walks over to its stunned, prostrate body to poke it in the eye with a metal rod. It doesn’t move.
Not much in this movie does.
Zombos Says: Good
“Ya know,” said Curly Joe, “that supernatural slasher film from the Netherlands just popped into my head. Must be all this walkin’ through these dark, creepy tunnels; reminds me of the old mine they were trapped in.”
“You mean Slaughter Night?” I asked.
“Yep, that’s the one”
“Yes,” I said, pausing to hit my flashlight, hoping to make it a tad brighter. “At least we aren’t being chased by the ghost of some maniacal killer who cuts people’s heads off.”
What sounded like a maniacal laugh echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off the walls with a screech like gritty chalk on a blackboard. We looked at each other, then walked faster in the opposite direction from where the sound came from. Never hurts to play safe, I always say.
The backstory within Slaughter Night would have been a more engrossing movie, but overall this 1980s-styled slasher is still a Dutch treat with good
acting, an eerie story, and a moderate pace moving the action along. Although the overuse of shaky-cam blurs that action at times (probably intentionally to
lessen the strain on the budget), and an unexpectedly jarring point-of-view for some scenes, along with a few head-scratching plot logic lapses, all come
together to almost weigh the movie down, but at least the earnest victim by victim mow down is lively enough.
There’s something evil afoot in the Province of Limburg as children are mysteriously kidnapped. When the latest victim is snatched a clue is left behind, leading the local constabulary to the home of one Andries Martiens (Robert Eleveld)–just as he slices off the head of another poor kid. Martiens’ basement is definitely not a rec room in the usual sense: there are heads mounted on poles stuck in the earth, and lots of candles cast a nice warm glow over the glistening , maggot-crawling faces of the dead. It’s Voodoo and Satanic Mass nastiness Martiens has been conducting, paid with ritual slaughter to buy his passport to Hell and back again. He’s pissed his parents died without leaving him an inheritance and he’s hellbent on making the trip to annoy them into revealing where the family fortune is. With four heads for the compass points and four heads to represent the elements, he’s off accruing all the frequent flyer miles he can between Hell and Earth.
What a backstory!
Unfortunately this filled-with-possibilities period piece ends too quickly with Martiens’ capture and we jump to the present day into a frenzied nightclub scene. Kristel (Victoria Koblenko) and her High School buddies are out partying, but when her car refuses to start, she calls Dad (Martijn Oversteegen) to pick them up. One of her friends, Lies (Carolina Dijkhuizen), the Tarot-card reading seer, accidentally mentions Kris’ plans to leave town. After he drops her friends off, Dad and Kris argue themselves into a fatal car wreck. Kris blames herself for her dad’s death. After the funeral, her mom asks her to go to Belgium to pick up her Dad’s manuscript. Sure, why not? I suppose FedEx would have been too expensive. He was working on a book about serial killers, writing it at the mine museum where Martiens did his dirty work. Packing her friends in the car along with her guilt, they head to the mine.
A montage of road trip antics set to rock music–what the director considered rock music, anyway– is mercifully brief and they arrive at the mine. She finds her Dad’s tape recorder and listens as he explains the Satanic aspects of Martiens’ serial killing and the need for eight heads to open the gateway to Club Hell.
She also finds a Ouija board–always useful for getting into trouble in a horror movie–a heavy and rather large music box, and his thick manuscript. She stuffs all this in her already cumbersome backpack, and LUGS IT on a last-minute tour of the historic mine. Her friends join her. They huddle around the tour guide as he tells them how Martiens’ met his end in the very tunnels they will now walk through. A condemned murderer, he was given one slim chance at life if he could survive being a “fireman,” the role an unlucky convict played years ago, sent into methane-filled tunnels to ignite the firedamp. He didn’t play the role for long.
A gimmicky and jarring use of point of view has them mugging the lens, ruining an otherwise atmospheric tableau in another montage of kids running wild down in the mine; until they realize they’ve been locked in.
To while away the time they whip out the Ouija board from Kris’ backpack to communicate with Martiens, the maniacal, head-removing butcher since they have nothing better to do. Lies explains the intricacies of the planchette and board. In little time they summon Martiens who promptly possesses one of the idiots. She takes out the tour guide first.
Going through the horror movie victim’s litany of things-that-will-certainly-get-you-killed, her friends start getting the axe, the pick, and the shovel on the receiving end. In-between the mayhem and carnage, Estrild and Kris whip out the Ouija board again to dial up Dad for some fatherly advice on coping with Martiens.
Dad’s cryptic advice stymies them for a bit. While they figure it out, Martiens keeps possessing her friends one by one and chasing after the others. Unnecessary shaky-cam fuzziness ruins the details of death, but the panic-acting is frenzied to a turn, providing satisfying denouements at proper terminal velocity.
There’s one more moment when the Ouija messaging board comes into play, helping Kris realize why the music box she’s been lugging around is so heavy (and should have been left in the car except the plot needed it here).
All in all, while Slaughter Night uses gimmicky camera work and the standard horror movie mechanics of shock, drop, and die, it’s still watchable and involving.
Three interconnected tales of terror set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse…
- A young vampire couple struggle to survive as the zombies eat up all their food.
- An obsessed writer powers his computer with a chip that runs off the life force of others.
- A survival nut takes in a woman and her child who are on the run from a group of renegade priests hell bent on destroying the child.
…Welcome to The Edges of Darkness.
Currently in post-production, the indie horror thriller is written and directed by Jason Horton and Blaine Cade, with makeup effects by Tom Devlin. Actor Lee Perkins plays a renegade priest battling the anti-christ in one of the tales of terror.
Jason was kind enough to chat with us about his work.
With Rise of the Undead and Edges of Darkness, you seem to have a flair for “end of the world and zombies, too” movies. Why is that?
I’ve always been fascinated with end of the world stories. Extreme circumstances seem to bring out the “real” in people and I don’t think there is anything more extreme than an apocalypse.
As far as the zombie thing goes, one of my earliest cinema memories is of my older brother taking me to see a midnight showing of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. It moved me like no other film had. Ever since I had a thing for zombies. So when it came time to do my first movie (ROTU) it seemed like the only choice. Having them be a part of Edges was sorta my way of making up for some things that weren’t so right about Rise.
How did you become interested in independent filmmaking?
I always wanted to make movies. Exploring that in the realm of Independent moviemaking made the most sense to me. I’ve worked on a few bigger features and just didn’t fancy working another 15 or 20 years in the trenches before I got a shot to direct, and then have to do it under someone else’s thumb. When you’re doing it all yourself, you have only yourself to answer too and only yourself to blame if things go wrong (or your co-director.)
What is it about horror filmmaking that draws you to it?
I love movies. All kinds. But there’s something especially fun about working in horror. You get to explore more of the human experience. Create new and unique worlds that could never exist, and see how real people would react in them. Plus there’s just something about the visceral fun in watching a woman shove a bowling ball through a zombie’s head.
What challenges did you face making Edges of Darkness and how did you meet them?
I suppose money is the cliché answer, but it’s so true. When you’re doing something for little money, no one gets paid what they’re worth. And even though most of the people who worked on it are friends, it’s still a pretty big favor to ask someone to invest so much time into something that may only compensate them months or years later. I overcame that with preparation. Being prepared keeps things moving, that way no one thinks I’m just wasting their time figuring out what I want.
Which directors influence you the most and why?
Romero: To me he’s created the definitive view of an apocalyptic world, and did so with rich character work and social relevance. Peter Jackson (especially his earlier work): His love for movies shows in every frame. Tarantino: He opened my eyes in ’92 to a whole slew of things. Hong Kong Cinema, Walter Hill, Peckinpaw, French New Wave, Blaxploitation. Joss Whedon: For really nailing home the notion that you can make a joke in your work without making your work a joke.
Did you have to compromise between your role as co-writer and co-director on Edges of Darkness?
Not really. The only compromises that were made were due to time or physical limitations of the sets and locations. Even though the three segments intertwine, they also very much stand on their own. I wrote and directed Undone (the anti-Christ segment, and Overbite (the vampire segment) Blaine wrote and directed Entanglement.
What’s next on your list of projects?
Next for me is most likely a prequel of sorts to Edges. Following the earlier exploits of the Vampire Couple. It’s larger scale and should be a lot of fun.
Can you share with us any funny or interesting stories regarding the filming of Edges of Darkness?
Don’t work with animals. There was originally a dog in Blaine’s story. He brought the dog to the set. It was a huge, horse of a thing. It sh*t all over the warehouse and wouldn’t do anything we needed it to do. The cast and crew were complaining so Blaine decided to axe the dog. He replaced it with a rat. It works better than it sounds.
How did Edges of Darkness come about?
I was working in LA. Shooting and cutting ultra low budget features for several different companies and getting pretty burned out. I was watching these cats turn out pretty shoddy work for next to nothing, turning it over and making quite a bit. It was disheartening. I was tired of working for people who were really only in it to make a buck.
I met Stephen Kayo while camera oping on a project of his. Convinced him that quality work could be done for little money, and started work on Edges.
What advice can you give to independent directors just starting out?
First, watch more movies. You can never see enough. Love movies. If you don’t love movies, don’t direct. Go work at a bank. I’m sick and tired of running into directors and producers in Hollywood that don’t even like movies. They don’t watch them. WTF?
Second. Make movies. Work on someone else’s. I went to film school. I wouldn’t give that time back for anything. But my real education happened on sets. I did Rise of the Undead right after film school. I did Edges after working a few years on sets and in post production. You only have to glance at the trailers to see the difference.
What’s the one question you would love to be asked and what’s your answer?
What’s you’re favorite color? Blue.
Can you give us a “day in the life of an independent horror director?” What’s it really like?
Get up. Work on something else. Making your own flicks doesn’t always pay the bills. Then put every other waking minute into finishing your current project or prepping the next or watching a movie.