31 DAYS OF HORROR 2018-Introdcution

Hey there, dear and loyal Cine-Miscreants!

October, the month that culminates in the most excellent day that is Halloween, is about to kick off, so you regulars know that means it's time once again for my annual month-long journey through the dark annals of horror cinema (and occasionally television).

Scary stories have been around as long as there have been storytellers, and a sizable segment of this planet's sentients eat up spine-chilling tales like a rapacious werewolf devours the tender flesh of an unlucky woodland wanderer, so it comes as no surprise that the horror genre has been a staple of global entertainment and has grown and thrived as the means to enthrall audiences with narratives that evolved along with us. Horror as a motion picture genre goes back to the dawn of the movies and it's been over a century since the first moving images silently flickered across the screen in the darkness as the public absorbed the wondrous diversions that unspooled. While comedies, dramas, romances, and adventure narratives held moviegoers riveted, darker, more sinister material also lurked in the indoor twilight and filmmakers were quick to realize that such chillers were a rich lode to be mined. From there the genre grew like Topsy and filled the silver screen with hordes of shambling revenants, thirsting nosferatu, eldritch demoniacal entities conjured through the wielding of forbidden rites, unrestful spectres, blasphemous man-made creatures, other-worldly wigglies that the mere sight of which drives the most stalwart of men to states of gibbering madness, medical nightmares in which our own bodies become our enemies or the healers who are supposed to grant us their aid turn their skills to dire pursuits, seemingly indestructible wielders of kitchen implements and power tools who stalk remote back-woods to prey upon randy youths, primordial throwbacks that defied extinction to terrorize swimwear-clad nubile young maidens, and even that most seemingly-mundane of threats, the unhinged murderer who walks among us and blends in while committing atrocities that would make veteran homicide detectives blanch and fall to their hands and knees while voiding the contents of their stomachs. All of those and more can be found in a richly-fetid cornucopia that often slyly reflects the needs and climate of the given era of production and examines areas of the human condition that may otherwise be un-broachable if not cloaked in shadow.

But enough of all that flowery film school yakkety-blah-blah-blah. If you've bothered to read this far, it's plain that you care about scary movies and are here to see what baleful chronicles of fright Yer Bunche will dredge up from the celluloid depths for the year of two-thousand and seventeen. As in previous years, there is no real rhyme or reason behind my choices, though there will be the occasional thematic overlap and comparison/contrast of certain sub-groups within the genre. I will also take pains to point out that stories that are ostensibly viewed as examples of other flavors — comedy, science-fiction, "thrillers," and non-supernatural drama — can quite easily be revealed as horror to the very core, and that horror can function equally well as art or junk food for the imagination. And this time around, I plan on detailing a good number of flicks that very much fall into the "monster movie" sub-category.

So sharpen your axe, dust off the Necronomicon, apply fresh lipstick to grandma's mummified corpse, and make sure your homemade shroud of supple human skin is properly secured to your febrile pate. 'Tis once again the month of All Hallows' Eve and we are nothing if not prepared...

STARSHIP TROOPERS 3: MARAUDER (2008)

NOTE: This piece originally ran on The Vault of Buncheness in 2008.

Paul (ROBOCOP) Verhoeven's 1997 space war epic/military satire STARSHIP TROOPERS was certainly not for all tastes, featuring as it did plastic and impossibly pretty protagonists who you pretty much hated on sight (it was the film that singlehandedly ignited my loathing of Denise Richards; I still think she looks like a living bobble-head or a live-action version of one of the marionettes from the old THUNDERBIRDS show), outrageous and gory violence (a Verhoeven trademark, gods bless him), a huge and undulating "brain bug" that looked for all the world like the biggest vulva seen onscreen since LISZTOMANIA, and a look and atmosphere that brought to mind what STAR WARS would have looked like had it been the product of Nazi Germany and Leni Reifenstahl. Definitely a mix certain to polarize the opinions of the general filmgoing public and sci-fi geeks in particular, to say nothing of Robert Heinlein groupies who rightly griped that film had almost nothing to do with the author's classic 1959 science fiction novel, arguably the template for the "future war" genre, post- the era of space opera pulps. But what many in the audience somehow failed to realize was that Verhoeven's film was a straight-faced piss-take on the genre and a none-too-subtle satire aimed at brainless militarism, and as such I found it quite darkly funny, very entertaining and visually spectacular, especially when seen on the big screen, but most people I know completely fucking hated it, so if you're part of that camp you may want to bail out of this review right now.

Coming some eleven years after the original film — I didn't bother with STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION because it's supposedly legendarily bad and has none of the original cast — this direct-to-DVD sequel came as a bit of a surprise to me insomuch that it managed to channel some of the spirit of the original film and maintain the anti-military satirical aspect, something I find welcome as the war in Iraq bloodily and pointlessly plods on with no end in sight.

Casper Van Dein's Johnny Rico: a nuanced examination of the career soldier (yeah, right).

Casper Van Dein returns as Johnny Rico — looking almost exactly as he did eleven years ago, except somehow more Tom of Finland-style buff — but he's the sole returning cast member and the new story is crammed to the rafters with yet more pretty, vapid and disposable cannon fodder, returning the viewer to what amounts to "90210 meets interstellar conflict." What passes for a plot involves a jingoistic Sky Marshall (Stephen Hogan, who rocks the ridiculously uber-patriotic and Toby Keith-like hit "A Good Day To Die") becoming stranded on a hostile world while Johnny Rico faces execution for insubordination at the hands of a former friend (Boris Kodjoe) who's now a general. Said general is in love with Captain Lola Beck (surfer hotness Jolene Blaylock, best known to one-handed sci-fi geeks as T'Pol from four seasons on ENTERPRISE), who apparently once knew Johnny Rico very well, if you know what I mean, and when her starship gets blown out of the sky it's up to her to safely herd a handful of survivors — including the increasingly insane Sky Marshall, a dimwitted cook, a tough guy engineer/grunt, and an annoying Christian flight attendant — toward a site where they can await rescue without getting ripped apart by the alien Bugs who infest the planet. But what Beck doesn't know is that a Federation admiral (the strangely named "Enolo Phid," played by Amanda Donohoe, the nekkid snakey vampire chick from Ken Russell's THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM) has vetoed all attempts at the survivors' rescue...but why? Anyway, after many intentionally asinine (but played straight) space soap opera developments, the paths of Johnny Rico and Captain Beck converge as Beck's general boyfriend puts his career on the line and illegally sends Rico and a squad of power-suited soldiers (the "Marauder" program) to to the rescue, giving Heinlein purists the power suits they've been bitching about since their exclsion form the original film.

The effects are a marked step down from the original, but that's to be expected in any sequel, especially one that isn't made for theatrical release, and keeping that in mind the effects on display here do the job well enough. The odd thing though is that the finished product feels like a random episode in a STARSHIP TROOPERS television series (I wish!), a feeling perhaps bolstered by the presence of former ENTERPRISE regular Jolene Blaylock, and that's by no means a complaint. Her role as captain Lola Beck is a lot of fun and she proves to be every bit as tough as Johnny Rico, something that proves invaluable as she pulls a LAWRENCE OF ARABIA while guiding her charges across desert wastes and trying to deal with the Bugs.

Captain Lola Beck, the coolest space hero in who knows how long.

In fact, I would have been perfectly happy if the film hadn't bothered with Johnny Rico's (intentional) one-dimensionality and had given the spotlight over to Captain Beck, something I hope they do should this be successful enough to warrant a sequel.

The only place where this sequel overreaches itself is in its criticism of religion, especially faith bolstered or found under fire; it's heavy-handed to an eye-rolling degree and is clearly a swipe at Dubya's ruinous clusterfuck of an administration, especially when the Federation newsfeed bluntly informs us that "faith is okay, peace is not," or something to that effect, a sentiment uttered by the aforementioned Enolo Phid. But, whatever. This is a perfectly enjoyable way to fill an hour and a half, and I welcome further installments if they're half as entertaining. TRUST YER BUNCHE and add this to your Netflix queue (provided you liked the original STARSHIP TROOPERS, otherwise it's like coming in at chapter seven of a thirteen-part serial).

Captain Lola Beck: give this character her own sequel, gawdammit!!!