THE FACTORY DOESN'T SUCK

I pretty much find most sub-genre movies useless. Here we have a member of the "man kidnaps women and keeps them in the basement" species.

Had the movie not starred John Cusack and Jennifer Carpenter I would never have even known that it exists. There are so many cliches present that they are almost like another character. To say it's by the book or cookie cutter is like saying shitting your pants is bad date etiquette. The film basically plays out like a rip-off of "Silence of the Lambs." The whole time I was watching it the only thought running through my mind was "Why am I watching this?" Then, a beautiful thing happened. It ended.

In a standard none too enthusiastic review of mine this would be yet another chance to rip the asshole of this movie wide open with my hook handed wit. Oddly enough, I am left thanking the shitty movie gods for whatever reason I stayed patient. The ending of this movie kicked ass. Seriously.

The preceding 90 minutes here had me contemplating that time I squashed two flies fucking and reckoned myself as something of a god. But the last 10 minutes or so is awesome. Maybe had I cared a lot (or even a little) more about those 90 minutes I would have seen the twist coming way ahead of the curve. I didn't though, and so said twist doesn't make me feel so shitty about not hitting the reject button. As I write this I have already forgotten that this movie even exists. Still, if you are in the mood for a "Silence of the Lambs" rip-off and you can manage the absence of Mr. Fava Bean eater you could certainly do a lot worse and that isn't so bad.

THIS BAY MIGHT AS WELL BE MICHAEL

 There it is again. The most dreaded words that a horror fan can find themselves exposed to. "From the producers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious."


If you are in fact a fan of real horror this will disturb you more than anything. If you are a fan of what I like to shopping mall horror, well.... actually, this film might disturb you as well. It's not shopping mall horror.

Had this film not been helmed by Barry Levinson, and had I not been so damn curious what a horror film made by director Barry Levinson would play out like, I would have barely lasted five minutes here. The bottom line is that had this movie been done right I would have enjoyed it. It has a really cool idea behind it and I happen to be rather fond of those "the whole town is doomed and we're all gonna die!" movies. There is just not enough of those being made today.

Saddest of all is that when they are made, like this one, they rarely get it right. There are so many levels to this film and since this is a mini-review, and even more because I don't care, I am not going to discuss any of them. It has both brains and heart, but none of its parts seem to be in the right place. Instead of what could have been an entertaining and thought provoking thrill ride we are left with a rich mans Blair Witch Project.

The worst part is that I am not even sure where all the "found footage" from this found footage genre monkey turd is supposed to come from. But, it's there and after sitting through roughly 80 minutes of it I felt like I had just watched the worlds longest running trailer. Not quite as worthless as Blair Witch, it still might be worthwhile for some viewers to marvel at what could have been if the damn thing had been done right. Though what do you expect from the producers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious?

MY PENIS TRAVELS LIGHTSPEED INHERFACE

I don't know shit about science fiction. Just never dug on all that stuff.

I mean, is it just me or does this guy look like he has an ass crack on his face?

Space ships and space stations. . . . Warp speed, hyper speed, lightspeed, light years. . . . galaxies, dimensions. . . . ions, eons. . . . . inner space, outer space, interface. . . . . . none of this stuff means anything to me.

I wouldn't know a black hole from a blacklight or an asteroid from an asshole. . . . . okay yeah, maybe I would know that last one. If nothing else, by smell alone.

I like horror. I have always looked at horror and science fiction as mortal foes. Maybe some people enjoy both whole-heartedly. But I always fathomed that you either dug really hard on one or the other.

Alien life forms.

Klingons. Ewoks and Yodas. Sorry, but I just can't get my juices flowing and nads pumped up over something called Jar Jar Binks or Jabba the Hut. Just sounds silly to me. Bunch of intergalactic fuckheads.

Now, vampires and zombies and demons and ghosts and serial killers? Yeah, bitch. Now you're talking my language.

I remember checking out science fiction type stuff when I was a kid. That whole curiosity thing, ya know? I turned on Doctor Who once and watched about five minutes of that nonsense and then went and turned on some Christopher Lee.

I was at a friends house once and he was going on and on about the enterprise and Spock and all of that shit. Hey, I’m down for whatever. I checked it out. I guess I just can't get past weird dudes with pointy ears flying around in space ships and vaporizing each other. It's even lamer than it sounds when you try and watch it.

Vaporize; neutralize. . . whatever you call it. Goo. Ooze. Slime. I just called it interplanetary jizz. . . . or jazz, depending on the origin of spew.

Battlestar Galactica. . . . . Galaxy Quest. . . . . Space 1999. . . V. . . seriously, give me some flesh eating zombies and a messy decapitation any day.

When you're a kid that curiosity thing just eats you. It killed the cat. But it pokes the hearts and minds of children until they just get bored and wanna go watch Peter Cushing instead.

When I was ten years old I stood in a line down the block just like everybody else to see that Star Wars mess. Just wasn't my thing. As the years went on I dove deeper and deeper into horror and resigned myself to the fact that space suits and Jedi knights were just lame and battles beyond the stars were best left there.

But, I can appreciate and recognize great cinema and there have been some things that I enjoyed that might have been considered either science fiction or crossover sci-fi/horror movies.

Instantly the Alien movies come to mind. After all, who doesn't like those? They rule. Well, the first couple do.

I remember when I was in fifth grade we had this teacher named Mrs. Bayles. She always stuck out with the kids because most of our teachers were these crusty old ladies and she was younger and far more hip to us impressionables.

One thing that I always remember about her was that during homeroom she would sit everybody down and talk about whatever movie her and her husband went to see that weekend. They both were horror fans and it was usually horror movies she told us about. As you might have guessed, I always dug that a whole lot.

One thing that I will always remember was her telling us that her and hubbie had just seen one of the most terrifying movies they had ever seen and we were all probably too young to have our parents take us.

This man had an alien jump on his face and plant an embryo in his mouth and when he went to the dinner table, seeming to be normal, he fell on the table and his chest exploded and this monster thingie ripped out of his chest cavity.Whoa! All the kids whose parents never take them to cool movies were totally flipped out.

I guess I was a little annoyed that she had spoiled the surprise and shock of what happened to this guy though. She figured none of us would be allowed to see it. But while the other children gasped wide-eyed with horror I was busy taking a mental note of the next movie my parents would be taking me to see.

Alien (1979) was a perfect blend of science fiction and horror in my opinion. It was dark and creepy and they made you wait before you got to see the creature in all of its glory.Though it works a little better if you don't know that it jumps out of dudes chest.

As great as this film was I actually found the sequel, Aliens (1986), to be even better.

It did what few sequels have been able to do. Attack the viewer from a completely different angle and present its continuation of the story in a fresh and entirely newfound genius that took everything that made the first film so enjoyable and turned it on its ass.

A lot of people didn't really care much for the third alien film. It’s not as great as the first two. But, as trilogies go I found all three films to be entertaining on their own merits and one thing I enjoyed most about it was surely something many despised. Alien 3 (1992) harked more back to the brooding and gloomy spirit of the first Alien film rather than the explosive jubilance of Aliens. Personally, I thought this was pretty cool.

I can't really dig on the fourth movie, Alien: Resurrection (1997) though. Winona Ryder and aliens just don't mix very well.

Alien is not the first film to mix science fiction with horror elements. Films like these were a staple of the 50's and 60's. All filled with really cheesy looking monsters, robots and space ships that came down to earth hell bent on conquering mankind.

I always thought The Blob (1958) was pretty funny. That remake they did in 1988-kicked ass though. If you are going to see one version of The Blob, this is totally the one to see.

By the 70's and 80's special effects technology had grown to such a level that these monsters and aliens were no longer cheesy but could be quite frightening and do some horrific and gory damage. For more proof check out John Carpenters 1982 remake of The Thing (1951). One of the best films ever made in my opinion. Of any genre.

Still, while there are several different sci-fi/horror crossovers, the Alien films are certainly the most notorious. After becoming a huge hit the inevitable knock offs and variations were rolled out. Sure, many are pretty bad. But, some are actually worth checking out and damn good movies on their own merits.

Species (1995) is probably one of the more notorious of these rip offs. Sort of like Alien with tits and ass. What's not to like there?

Instead of running amok in a distant galaxy, the blonde haired extraterrestrial pin up doll of the Species films mates and pillages around Los Angeles leaving a trail of death and glop everywhere in her quest to populate the earth with her . . . . . ummm. . . . Species. . . . . and rule the world.

The first two Species films (second one was released in 1998) are great in my opinion. I never saw the other two. Didn’t need to. I got my fill of that whole thing and I'm done there.

Creature aka Titan Find (1985) is a very cool Alien rip off.

Cheesy acting and dialogue highlight this one. It’s also pretty gory and features an appearance by the always nutty, and super fun, Klaus Kinski.

Contamination aka Alien Contamination (1980) is one of my favorite of these films.

This film stars Ian McCulloch from Zombie and Zombie Holocaust in a gory as hell tale about alien eggs that spew toxic goo that makes people explode. It also features a spectacular score by Goblin as well.Greatness all across the board!

Horror Planet aka Inseminoid (1981) is one that toplines the so bad that it's good category.

This sleazy piece of space dung is complete with horrid acting and dialogue, but it's perverted and gory as hell. I found it to be lots of fun.

The Hidden (1987) isn't really an Alien rip off but it would certainly appeal to anybody into those films.

Starring Kyle MaClachlan fresh off Blue Velvet, this action packed sci-fi thriller plays out sort of like a more testosterone-fueled version of the Species films minus the tits and ass, mixed with the fugitive. Think also an intergalactic take on Lethal Weapon and you have an out of this world recipe for thrills galore.

The Deadly Spawn (1983) is a must see.

It's a cheesy and over the top gore fest about an alien life form that comes to earth, grows to mammoth size and eats everybody it can get its teeth into. This one is a favorite.

They Came from Within aka Shivers (1975) is sort of a cross between a psychological thriller and horror movie told ala a perverted sex tale with a dash of science fiction.

This is a classic film and the beginning of ace director, David cronenbergs, horror years. The parasitic chest bursting scene also pre-dates Alien by about four years.

Xtro (1983) was more like a vile response to the more cuddlier alien of the Steven Spielberg kind than the Alien films.

But the scene where a woman gives birth to a grown man is a must see.You'll want to rewind this scene again and again and again.

These films are just some of the more sleazier and entertaining of the science fiction/horror/thriller crossovers that I have enjoyed. The sleazier and the cheesier the better I always have said.

Another early favorite of mine was just given the digital treatment and I managed to re-visit it after having not seen it for many years. The film is called Galaxy of Terror and was released in 1981 at the height of the Alien rip off craze.

This film is certainly set apart from many of the others due to a truly spectacular cast that over acts and reacts in an otherwise typical tale of space set horror.

The film tells a tale of a crew sent to a distant planet to investigate the disappearance of another crew. They are drawn into a cavern at the planets surface that houses a mysterious pyramid. Before long heads explode, body parts are severed and in the most famous scene a woman is raped by a giant space worm.

This film is headlined by a cast that is a b-movie lover’s wet dream.

The ships captain, who is plagued by the demons of a failed previous mission is played by a pre-Twin Peaks Grace Zabriskie.

The cook is a pre-Mr. Hand Ray Walston, who was also of course made famous for playing on My Favorite Martian.

Chachi might have loved Joanie. But that was on earth. In space Erin Moran plays a struggling and unfortunate empath named Alluma and the galaxy loves her more than Chachi ever could.

Before becoming the erotic maverick known for doing the Red shoe Diaries, Zalman King was an actor. He turned in a brilliantly nutty performance in Blue Sunshine (1976) and in this film as a most annoying antagonist who butts head with everybody else.

The film also features a young Robert England as a crewman who gets to kick his own ass in a great scene. You also get b-movie legend Sid Haig as well.

There would be several take offs of the Alien films but Galaxy of Terror should be at the top of the list for any film fan to see. If you are looking for cheesy fun, gore, and thrills this is a film that delivers on all levels.

I still don't really enjoy science fiction all that much. Next to war movies and westerns it has become one of my least favorite film genres. But, there shall always be exceptions to the rule.

The films I mentioned top the list. Starship Troopers is great gory fun. I love Blade Runner. Logun's Run. A Clockwork Orange is considered science fiction somehow. These are all some of my very favorites.

I never rush to see new or old science fiction films though. Just not my thing. Never has been and never will be. It’s just too weird for me. Classic case in point?

The 1974 Sean Connery film Zardoz.

Something about building a utopian society while flying around in a giant godhead.

Ah, space the final frontier. Well, maybe for somebody else. Me? I’d much rather hang at castle Dracula or zombie island. Who cares if you might get your neck bitten or your flesh eaten? The air is free and you don't need to wear a monkey suit.

DON'T BE SINISTER OR ABBATH WILL GET YOU

To say "From the producer of Paranormal activity and Insidious", in my eyes, is as enticing as saying "From the creators of the AIDS virus". Yeah, it's like that. Seriously, these shopping mall horror movies that are aimed at the Hot Topic generation have pretty much driven a stake in the heart of my most beloved genre. This one is really no different. A true crime writer moves his family into the house where the crime that begat his latest story took place. He sees Abbath from Immortal in the bushes and they argue over who is the better black metal band, Immortal or Cradle of Filth. Silly Ethan, everybody knows that Cradle has the cooler name but Immortal hail from the land of the ice and snow and their members have ties to the corpse paint mafia. Abbath wins and Ethan is forced to listen to Susan Boyle singing "Mammy was a race car driver" for all eternity. Sorry if I ruined the film for anyone.

READ PEOPLE ARE STRANGE BY JAMES NEWMAN

James Newman was my greatest literary discovery of the previous year. I have found myself addicted to his tales much in the same way a crack fiend would jolly on their next hit. If it has his name on it, I'm gonna read it. Anyone unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with this guys writing might want to ask "What is so special about this James Newman you speak of?" To which my perfect answer is this collection of short stories right here. Everything you need to know is all right in these pages and once you have enlightened yourself all will be made evident you grasshopping fuckbug.

As much as I find short story collections, overall that is, to be uneven I do love them so. This is one of the great ones. It has it all. It's dark, funny, nasty, and more entertaining than having flies circle jerk your ass after a chili bowel. To read James Newman is to become one with awesomeness. To not read James Newman just means you're a dick. Please, for the love of the GREAT BIG GOD HEAD in the sky like the one from that shitty Sean Connery movie.... DON'T BE A DICK.

READ THE GRIEF FREQUENCY BY KEALAN PATRICK BURKE

Grief most certainly is one of the circles of Hell and Kealan Patrick Burke would very much like to take you there. Having survived the journey I can say that anybody who decides to take the ride is going to enjoy themselves and then some. That is what this story is. A ride. You will be blasted down a filthy corridor from the opening line and along the way you will laugh, you will cry, you will shudder, you will squirm, and when it's over you will not be the same. Burke has this way of not only telling a story but bringing it to life. His words will jump right up from the reading device and take you places that you may not always want to go....but, oh yes, you will go motherfucker and even after you have read the last line his stories will stay with you. Bringing the hell to your own little piece of earth ....and you WILL like it. Oh yes, you will.

RAT TURD- THE TALE OF GENITAL BEN

***A guest blog by Ben the Rat. Original post date 9/22/2010***


 So, I guess you all have figured out by now that I'm a Rat. Could be because I have said many times that I am a Rat. Name's Ben. 

As you might have gathered the name Ben is quite a thing to be reckoned with amongst us Rats. Stupid humans might be lead to believe that it has something to do with that ridiculous movie. But the truth is that the movie stole the name from an old Vermin Legend. The legend of Genital Ben. He was a real Rat Fuck, that Genital Ben. My cousin actually.

There would be several Bens in my large family. But Genital Ben, his social status wreaked a blemish that would be considered the Blackest of the Black of the Ratted Brood. Blacker than the pits of the Black Death. The true scourge of the Rat community. 

  Hollywood doesn't know shit about us Vermin. Their Willards and Bens have been watered down fairy tales that depict us in ways that are so far removed from actuality that its not even worth getting into. Let us just say that if you see a Rat on a movie screen at any time, the chances of accuracy are a Vile impossibility. The most obvious reason being this..... Do Rats make movies? NO. Who makes movies? Humans. Do humans know jack shit about Rats? Not worth the breath or time to answer that. 

 Genital Ben was a true Rat. He actually gives us Rats a bad name and unless people are dangling us by the tail over a Snake pit, then humans don't want to have anything to do with us. This alone should tell you just how Repugnant of a character this Rat Bastard was, even on his less malignant days. 

First thing I should explain is the name. Genital Ben. I'm not exactly sure where this originated or who coined the phrase, but I do know this much..... Ben had a tendency to gnaw on the genitalia of anything that came within close enough proximity of his choppers.

I had always heard the horror stories of this Dirty Rat that even us Dirty Rats didn't want to draw remote affiliation with, but I tend to take gossip with a grain of poison. I hooked up with Ben at a function on the Neverland compound when I was staying with my good pal MJ.

Being of the Vermin persuasian, we immediately formed a filthy kinship and one night when MJ passed out from drinking too much Kool-Aid, Ben and I set about the mansion for some, what I thought would be, harmless mischief. After all, MJ was my meal ticket in the literal sense of the phrasing as he kept me plump and chock full of the finest cheeses, wines, and party favors. So, it would have made little sense to wreak havoc by biting the hand that feeds me.

Ben immediately set out in proving he could care less about my good fortune and felt it necessary to abuse my generosity in welcoming him into my palace of plenty. He snuck into MJ's private spicy nibbles collection and took GREAT BIG BITES out of each and everything stored carefully by the staff at the masters edible disposal and if that wasn't enough, he went and took the absolute grandest KING SIZED shit that I have ever seen right on the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

Rat turds are rendered toxic when we consume an enormous amount of spicy foods. It's the way the capsicum interacts with our genetic disorder. Such toxicity is also extremely flammable, and Ben took a match to his massive pile of plopage and managed to completely char-grill the cooking area. Luckily, one of MJ'S many Spanish house keeps just happened to be making themselves a glass of horchata and extinguished the fecal inferno.

I was already annoyed as Fuck, but Ben was just getting warmed up it would seem. He set out into MJ's private sleeping quarters which houses several playrooms and bedrooms all decorated with Peter Pan wallpaper. He sharpened one of his claws on a gold bedpost and proceeded to scrawl genitalia on all the pictures of Captain Hook.

Ben is completely obsessed with Genitalia. Anything phallic in nature trances him with utmost fascination. He claims it not to be in a gay way, but rather that dicks are the truest measure of power and Ben is a complete Power Freak. Whatever the attraction I find it to be weird and quite much for my leanings.

I knew that simply asking Ben to stop drawing doo dads on Captain Hook would only piss him off and be met with altercation, so I decided that reinforcements were needed and I set out to find me one of those house keeps. It looked like the party was over and I would find myself choosing luxury over family and be needing to have Ben removed from the compound.

I set forth down the hall towards the security room, but before I got very far I heard the most blood curdling feminine bellowing that I would ever hear in my Filthy existence. I knew from the shrillness of the tone that these screams were far removed from being pleasureable. It was MJ. Ben had somehow picked the lock on his bedroom door and was in the bedroom with him.

I raced back towards the room and what I saw was something that I would find most unsettling. Ben had crawled up onto MJ and was nibbling on his private parts. There was blood everywhere and what may or may not have been a perfectly normal set of family jewels now resembled a partially eaten sausage.

On the side of the head of MJ's penis was the first of a series of bite marks. The plumpness of the tip of his cock had been gnawed like a meatsicle and the flesh was all grinded up and spewing and oozing blood all over the sheets of MJ's bed. The bites were all down the side of the penis and caverned into a large gash in his left testicle. Blood was pumping in rivers down the side of MJ's body and was piled so deep upon the bed that he almost seemed to be submerged in the pools of his plasmic gushing.

His screaming pierced my tiny eardrums with daggers of sound and a clarity that was painful to the point of nearly making me nauseous. I needed to leave the room to get a grip and catch a moment of silence, but I was overcome with the even more definitive notion that Ben needed to get the Fuck out the house, off the property, and as far away from me as possible.

I had never wanted to bring harm to another member of the Vermin species until that night. But I had welcomed my cousin and brother in Filth into the comforts of my existence and he had not only literally shit all over the place, but he took a chunk out of my master and good friends penis.

The staff came to call and it took three of those pricks with snappy suits on to get Ben off of MJ's cock and put him off the grounds. He was in fact ripped away from the sex toy made chew toy in mid-gnaw and tore off a large sliver of skin from the underside of the organ. I was standing across the room on a toy chest to be out of the way of the commotion and saw this from a really grotesque angle.

Ben was nibbling on the flap underneath the head of MJ's penis and had sunk his front teeth deep into the meaty rolls of flesh and at that instant was pulled away. With his extraction came the unrolling of penile skin and it unfurled the entire section of the bottom portion of MJ's member. It was almost like watching somebody unwrap a tootsie roll made of man meat, and I was so overcome with revulsion at the squirming and screaming of MJ when this happened that I found myself wincing and looking away.

Ben was tossed off the property and I would never see him again, which is good for both me and him because if I ever did see him again I don't think I would be able to refrain myself from sticking a toothpick into his tiny Rat asshole and breaking it off.

MJ never held me responsible for what happened. He knew I was just being hospitable to family and that hospitality got abused terribly. Not my fault, and while I did respect him for never taking it out on me, things were never the same for me at the Neverland Ranch Compound after that and I completely believe that whole experience directly lead to me being forced to leave there.

MJ became obsessed with trying to repair his ravaged and shredded manhood, but he could never repair the damage done. I saw some home movies on the internet many years later that he made with Macauley Culkin and his junk was truly junked.

Not being able to replenish the beef on his baloney pony took its toll on MJ and he eventually went mad. He started getting nose jobs and face fucks and before long he didn't even resemble a human anymore as much as he did some bizarre freakish atrocity.

I always found it ironic that when MJ was only a little boy he had sung an ode to Ben. But when I asked him about the whole movie and song thing all he had told me was that some Hollywood execs had said they were making a movie about a Rat and would he be so kind as to contribute a theme song. So, the song Ben was actually sang from the purest heart that would ever beat inside of a human chest cavity and be a complete work of fantasy.

That movie was fantasy too. It didn't even begin to touch on the Filth and spoil that is my cousin Ben. Genital Ben.

That night Ben seemed Hell bent on wreaking havoc in the house and life of MJ. He had never said anything to me, but maybe he was upset about that song and the movie. If that was the case he picked the wrong tool to chomp on. I can think of a ton of bloated Hollywood movie Fucks that deserved to have their sausages grinded into Rat food way more than boy wonder did.

Ben wouldn't have listened though. He marches to his own beat, that Rat Fuck Prick Chewing Turd Burglar. He gives us Vermin a rusty nail of a reputation. I have no idea where he is and I don't ever wanna know.

I wasn't named after that furry shit stain. The name Ben has been around for centuries. Genital Ben is just one of legion. Despite my tolerance for my own kind, I hope that he gets a hold of some diseased and rancid sausage and gets the meanest case of Rat shits known to infect a Rat bowel. Although, knowing that fucker.... he would probably enjoy that.