Merry Deathmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody! I firmly adhere to the philosophy that you should never give a gift that you wouldn't want to receive yourself, so here is the second film from this year's Christmas Slasher Marathon!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday and thank you for reading my blog.

Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman

Year: 2000
Director: Michael Cooney
Cast: Christopher Allport, Eileen Seeley, Chip Heller
Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Right off the bat, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman does something most horror sequels don't have the smarts to do: show a survivor who has been psychologically affected by the events of the prior film.

After Jack Frost(Scott MacDonald)'s attack on the sleepy mountain town of Snowmonton, Sheriff Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport) is severely shaken and seeing a psychiatrist who mostly just giggles at his story of a killer snowman. Christmas is approaching, and with it comes the anniversary of the dreadful attacks.

His wife Anne (Eileen Seeley) decides it's best to get away for the holidays so she and Sam decide to accompany their friends Joe (Chip Heller) and Marla (Marsha Clark) to their Christmas wedding in the Bahamas and that's exactly how I want my future marriage to begin.

Jack Frost can be my best man.

Another thing Jack Frost 2 does right in terms of horror sequels is to bring back most of the original surviving cast. Not that this is a Scream level accomplishment, but it is worth noting that at least on paper, this is a great sequel.

Due to some sort of Rogue Science Brigade, Jack Frost is accidentally revived and stronger than ever. He can melt and freeze himself at will and follows the happy couples to their island resort.

And before I get into this, let me explain. This is in no way a well made film. It looks like crap filmed in somebody's backyard for twelve cents. But on the script level, this is quite an impressive film - on the heavily curved scale of holiday slasher films based around bad puns, at least.

But the fact remains that this is a campy slasher films with genuine moments of intentional comedy that is actually quite funny. There are a couple truly sweet, tender moments and a couple of big guffaws mixed in with all the gory holiday mayhem.

Of which there is plenty. Merry Christmas to me.

Of which there is an ample supply. Although they may be low on functioning telephone lines, the Meat Supply on the island is at an all time high. There's Rose (Jennifer Lyons), Ashlea (Shonda Farr - best known as Warren's girlfriend robot in the Buffy episode "I Was Made To Love You"), and Paisley (Granger Green), three college-aged girls on vacation; Dean (Brian Gross) and Ben (Jason Hall - another minor character from Buffy), two dumb but hot Cali surfer boys who have their eyes on the trio;  Charlie (Stefan Marchand), a fashion photographer, and his models Sarah (Melanie Good) and Cindy (Stephanie Chao).

There's also the staff: Bobby (Tai Bennett), the genre savvy Jamaican bartender who nearly survives the entire movie; Colonel Hickering (Ray Cooney), the British owner of the resort who we suspect has been alive since the British occupation of India in the 1800's based on his stories; Agent Manners (David Allen Brooks), the FBI agent from the first film who is now Head of Island Security; and Captain Fun (Sean Patrick Murphy), the party master and somehow not odious comic relief character.

With such a heaping helping of potential victims, Jack has a field day. Either the producers gave more money or less f*cks because the gore is wonderfully done and utterly bananas (sometimes literally). People are killed with icicles and snowballs and ice cubes and iced coffee and banana arrows and it's all just a wonderful explosion of the absurd.

Combine this with the actually genuinely good subplot elements the film carries along with it and you have yourself one of the best B-movie sequels I've ever seen. It's campy, hilarious, fun, and has cute little snowballs.

Exhibit A.

It's one of those hidden gems of the horror genre that I have dedicated my life to finding.

Killer: Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald)
Final Girl: Sheriff Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport)
Best Kill: One of the surfers gets his tongue stuck to a pole in traditional Christmas fashion. Jack Frost rips it off in traditional slasher fashion. One of the best combinations of two very campy genres I've seen yet.
Scariest Moment: A mini snowball dies in Jack's arms. It's terrifying how emotional this scene makes me. I shouldn't be having feelings in the middle of a slasher film.
Weirdest Moment: One of the models ices her nipples with a little piece of Jack.
Champion Dialogue: "You brought caulking on our vacation?"
Body Count: 22; Not including Jack Frost because come on.

TL;DR: With a bigger budget, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman could have been a pretty good movie, but for what it is it's a classic of the form.
Rating: 7/10 - the highest grade I can give to a film this poorly made.
Word Count: 890
Reviews In This Series
Jack Frost (Cooney, 1997)
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (Cooney, 2000)

The Killsbury Doughboy

Every December, while visions of sugarplums dance through your head, grotesque visages and blood-curdling screams dance through mine. For the third year in a row, I hosted my Annual Christmas Slasher Marathon, an attempt to plumb the most vile depths of holiday horror. Although I have forced my friends to sit through at least fifteen of the seasonal psychopaths, we have barely scratched the surface.

Today and tomorrow I will be posting the results of our most recent venture.

The Gingerdead Man

Year: 2005

Director: Charles Band

Cast: Gary Busey, Robin Sydney, Ryan Locke

Run Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A (like the movie ever saw a true release)

Did any of your jaws drop when you saw that this film was but a brief 70 minutes? Well I have news for you. Of that fateful hour and ten, roughly 14 of those minutes were credits. And with the way the plodding narrative pukes along, it could stand to be even shorter.

I'm embarrassed to admit that this film is the product of several of my favorite horror craftsmen. The director Charles Band is the producer behind some of my favorite 80's B-horror works, From Beyond and Re-Animator. It would seem that his dedication to throwaway low budget horror has brought him to a dark place.

And special effects designer John Carl Buechler has worked with some of the best and the brightest on films such as Halloween 4, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, and... From Beyond and Re-Animator. He also directed one of my favorite Friday the 13th films: Part VII, where Jason fights a telekinetic teen.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

The Gingerdead Man opens in a diner as the terrifyingly named Millard Findlemeyer (played by the ewually terrifying Gary Busey) robs a diner and shoots the patrons without blood or intrigue. Cut to two years later as the sole survivor of his bloodbath, Sarah Leigh -geddit?- (Robin Sydney, who has the dubious pleasure of being the only woman who can brag to have been in three Gingerdead films and every Evil Bong film) celebrates the murderer's recent execution by electric chair.

She works at a Texan bakery owned by her mother (Margaret Blye) and staffed by Brick Fields - Do you think his mother is the famous Mrs.? - (Jonathan Chase), an amateur wrestler known as the Butcher Baker and Julia (Daniela Melgoza), a Latina sterotype who defies expectations by surviving the entirety of the film.

When a mysterious package of gingerbread seasoning is dropped off at the door by a cloaked stranger, Sarah doesn't think twice about mixing it into a batch of dough and letting Brick bleed all over the bowl. It's a long story, but it turns out that they've baked Millard's ashes and now he's a vicious cookie puppet with a psychopathic bent.

To make things worse, a visit by competitor's daughter Lorna Dean -geddit?- (Alexia Aleman) and her studly boyfriend Amos Cadbury -the puns, they burn- (Ryan Locke) leads to a catfight that releases him from the oven, free to wreak havoc among the buns and frosted delights.

And to be mysteriously adorable from behind.

He's not really successful, killing a pitiful two people in largely bloodless ways, shouting at a rat, and making puns so weak they couldn't even hold up the wafer-thin plot.

The characters are only in danger because they stupidly refuse to just get the hell out of the bakery, the one set is barren and empty, people are rarely killed and mostly just bonked on the head and knocked out for a bit, and the blood is thin on the ground. For all the gore this movie has to offer, it might as well be Santa and the Enchanted Cookie.

It's not campy enough to justify the butt stupid premise and despite the promise of a seriously deranged Gary Busey, managed to almost put me to sleep on several occasions despite its perfunctory 56 minute net run time.

I'm not entirely sure how much acting he's doing here.

Killer: Millard Findlemeyer aka The Gingerdead Man (Gary Busey)
Final Girl: Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney) and like three other people
Best Kill: Um... No?
Scariest Moment: Amos has an eyebrow ring.
Weirdest Moment: Sarah decorates the cookie before she even puts it in the oven. Laura: This is what happens when you predecorate your cookies."
Champion Dialogue: "Wherever you are up there, I hope they have strippers."
Body Count: 6; including the killer and the 3 in the diner opening sequence.

1. Diner Patron is shot to death.
2. Jeremy Leigh is shot to death.
3. James Leigh is shot to death. 
4. Jimmy Dean is crushed by his own car.
5. Lorna is stabbed in the forehead with a knife.
6. Gingerdead Man-Possessed Brick is baked to death. 

TL;DR: The Gingerdead Man does not make good on the title's promise of low budget camp.
Rating: 2/10
Word Count: 817

The Hollywood Bowl - It's This Cool Little Venue in LA

Sergio and I are going to a concert tonight. It's this cool little indie band I discovered called Vampire Weekend.

OK, maybe they're pretty big now. Maybe they've "sold out" (which as far as I can tell means "started to make money" so I don't see why it's all that big a deal). But once upon a time they were a dinky little nearly unknown band from Columbia University.

And some may call it a stretch but to that I say "screw you, get your own blog" as I present

Brennan's Top 10 Bands You've Probably Never Heard Of

Years Active. How I discovered them. Choice Track.

10. Tally Hall

Years Active: 2002 - Present

Self-described as "wonky rock," Tally Hall is a band from Ann Arbor, Michigan that has a lot of fun making music, and it's really easy to tell just by listening to their songs. They play around with exotic instruments and weird vocal settings and create a soundscape that's unlike just about anything else.

How I Discovered Them: When I joined drama in my sophomore year of high school, I was friends with a group of seniors who loved them.

Choice Track: "Taken For A Ride"

Also Check Out: "Good Day," "The Whole World and You," "Ruler of Everything"

9. Blümchen

Years Active: 1995 - 2001

God help me, but I do love Eurodance music. Blümchen (in English, "Small Flower") is a German dance pop artist who definitely isn't for everybody but her bright voice, peppy beats, and general German-ness win me over every time. She is still around today, but now she goes by the name Jasmin Wagner and has moved on from her old image.

How I Discovered Her: I was browsing the German Pop section in iTunes (I know, right?) and discovered one of her English tracks, "Little Satellite." I loved it and bought it, but when I discovered all of her songs had German counterparts, I left that song by the wayside and dove into her German discography.

Choice Track: "Odysee in 3D"

Also Check Out: "Kleiner Satellit," "Verrückte Jungs," "Boomerang"

8. Amber Pacific

Years Active: 2004 - 2011

Amber Pacific is just another Warped Tour alt rock band but they ruled my world for a good year in middle school with their tight harmonies and angsty teen music. I ate that sh*t up. I still hold a great fondness for them now that I'm older, and I'll defend them to death. Although once their lead singer left, they crashed and burned.

How I Discovered Them: I actually found them on a Punk Goes 80's album, where they performed a cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star."

Choice Track: "Fall Back Into My Life"

Also Check Out: "Summer (In B)," "Temporary," "Video Killed the Radio Star"

7. Fanny Lú

Years Active: 2005 - Present

If I've ever driven you anywhere in my car, you've heard Fanny Lú. Just like most of my favorite people, she started off as a Spanish language news presenter (the other person I have in mind is Manuela Velasco, the star of the [REC] series). However she successfully transitioned to the music industry and is a fairly successful pop star. She's now a judge on La Voz Colombia, the Spanish language version of the reality show The Voice in her home country. Her best tracks are cheerful songs about heartbreak and she's one of the foreign artists that it breaks my heart they haven't successfully made it big in the States.

Also, during my research I discovered that in the Spanish dub of the movie Tangled, she performed a cover of Grace Potter's "Something That I Want" and I cried tears of joy.

I love Fanny Lú. Look at her hair. Look at her face.

How I Discovered Her: A common project in my high school Spanish classes was memorizing the lyrics to a Spanish song. She was never featured in any of my classes, but my friend Laura gave me a playlist of her class and Fanny Lú was featured prominently. I bought all her albums and never looked back.

Choice Track: "Tú No Eres Para Mi"

Also Check Out: "Fanfarrón," "Corazón Perdido," "Y Si Te Digo"

6. Army of Freshmen

Years Active: 1997 - Present

Army of Freshmen is another alt rock band with an airtight collection of albums. Their LP Under the Radar is one of those albums where every single track is strong enough to be a single, a rare achievement in the world of music. They frequently tour along with Bowling For Soup, another band I love that you've certainly heard of, even if it's just for 1985."

How I Discovered Them: In freshman year of high school, I was writing a musical based on Romeo and Juliet for an English project and I searched "Juliet" on iTunes to see what came up. They did and my life changed forever.

Choice Track: "Down at the Shore"

Also Check Out: "Maybe in the Midwest," "Juliet," "Wrinkle in Time"

5. The Sounds

Years Active: 1998 - Present

How could I not love them? They're from Sweden! I have not encountered a single thing from Sweden in my entire life that I have not loved with an all-consuming passion. The Sounds were the soundtrack to my first semester in college with their creative instrumentations and rocker chick vibe.

How I Discovered Them: Their song "Something to Die For" was used prominently in Scream 4. When I bought the soundtrack, that song dominated, and I eventually researched the band's other tracks.

Choice Track: "Dance With the Devil"

Also Check Out: "Something to Die For," "Painted by Numbers," "Better Off Dead"

4. Joshua Radin

Years Active: 2004 - Present

Of all the artists on this list, Joshua Radin is simply the most pleasant to listen to. His acoustic guitar songs and soft voice are featured prominently on my sister's "Go To Sleep" CD and I listen to him the most when I want to relax. 

How I Discovered Him: The first drama production I ever worked on (David and Lisa) closed with his song "Winter." Dave, the drama director is a huge fan of his and it bled over to me.

Choice Track: "I'd Rather Be With You"

Also Check Out: "Vegetable Car," "Winter," "You Got Growing Up to Do"

3. Ludo

Years Active: 2003 - Present

Ludo is one of them "funny" rock bands. Their first biggish single ("Good Will Hunting By Myself") features a minute long breakup rant that contains the phrase "Oompa Loompa monkey problem." I actually used it as a comedic monologue for an audition once. But their magnum opus album, You're Awful, I Love You is a masterpiece of baroque alt rock that is absolutely captivating.

How I Discovered Them: My friend Laura loves these guys and she shared them with me.

Choice Track: "Such As It Ends"

Also Check Out: "Good Will Hunting By Myself," "Lake Ponchartrain" "Mutiny Below"

2.The Pipettes

Years Active: 2003 - Present

This British girl band has seen some massive lineup changes since their debut album We Are the Pipettes, but that album blows Britpop out of the water with track after track of solid, danceable, 60's-inspired pop confections. Gwenno, Rosay, and RiotBecki are alternately sweet and somber and lovably British through and through.

How I Discovered Them: My dad was raving about them, and I can't help but agree.

Choice Track: "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me"

Also Check Out: "It Hurts To See You Dance So Well," "ABC," "Dance and Boogie"

1. Jay Brannan

Years Active: 2006 - Present

After failing to make a splash as an actor (but having an... interesting role as one third of a threesome in John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus), Jay Brannan set out to be a musician despite not actually knowing the names of the guitar chords. To this day he can't even give tabs for his songs because he just makes it up as he goes along, but it works. Trust me. A gay indie guitarist, Brannan's songs are filled with heartbreak and explorations of how to deal with a world that doesn't want you to exist.

Asialani and I got to see him in concert for my birthday last year and it was one of my best live experiences.

How I Discovered Him: Asia and I were working tech for the yearly dance show in our sophomore year and one of the performances was to his brilliant cover of Ani DiFranco's "Both Hands." It blew our minds and now we're longtime fans.

Choice Track: "Beautifully"

Also Check Out: "Both Hands," "Can't Have It All," "Housewife"

Bonus Artist Who You've Definitely Heard of But Probably Never Knew Made Anything of Merit: Paris Hilton

Years Active: 2006

Boy I wish I was kidding. But honestly, I kind of love Paris' self-titled album. It's not even good, but it's so much better than I ever expected. Produced before the advent of "Anybody Can Make Music Because Autotune is God," Paris' vocals lack the robotic thrum of today's reality star hitmakers. Oh sure, her vocals are heavily altered but her music sounds like actual songs, not a sequence of words run through a vocoder.

How I Discovered Her: Come on.

Choice Track: "Nothing In This World"

Also Check Out: "Stars Are Blind," "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," "Jealousy"

So what do you think? Am I a secret hipster? Heard of all these bands? Think I'm a poser? Hate Paris Hilton? Anyone can comment, so please let me know.

Word Count: 1592

Musings Part 2: Not So A-Musing

Yesterday when I was at work, we got a call to shut the doors and lock down the premises - there was an armed gunman on campus.

My coworker, Nancy, and I gathered the two people from the patio and closed the shop, turning off the radio and staying away from the door and windows. I dug around in the cupboards to find some potential weapons, should things take a turn for the worse. I pocketed a screwdriver and kept my phone out, switching between attempting to call my friend Shannon, who was at an RA orientation event on campus, and checking the CSULB emergency site for information.

Sitting on the floor next to the soda cooler, we could hear helicopters buzzing overhead.

We spotted glimpses of police cars in the distance past the quad.

I was shaking. Getting a call like that can sweep the whole world out from under your feet, and the only solid ground I could find were the two things that matter to me the most. Unironically, those two things were people and movies, in that order.

When one is put in a situation that threatens to be perilous, all that stupid BS that we worry about day to day stops mattering. I did not think about the new Lady Gaga single, the stress of moving into my new apartment, or the impact the lockdown would have on my work hours. I thought about my friends. I thought about my family. I thought about Sergio.

What it all boils down to is that personal relationships are to be valued above all else. Make sure the people that are important to you know that they are. If somebody you love is struggling with something, make them your priority. Don't blow off important moments with your friends or family for stuff like an essay or a Netflix binge, no matter how important your homework might seem or how lazy you might be feeling that day. Nothing else matters in the long run.

And since this is a movie blog, let me steer the topic to the impact of media violence on our culture. As a veteran watcher of splatter pictures, I am uniquely qualified to address the concern that some people might have over the proliferation of gore and violence on TV and in cinemas.

First off, let me open with a quote from Scream.

"Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative."

Yes, sometimes there will be a copycat murder after, say, a new Hostel movie comes out. Perhaps if that movie had not come out, that person would not have died in that manner. But barring the film from release would not have saved their life. The viewer's psychopathic tendencies were inspired by it, not born from it.

Media violence usually serves one of two purposes for the mentally sane viewer:

1) Engaging the visceral part of the human brain that delights in mayhem in a safe and non-destructive way.

2) Presenting the audience with a situation that they may not have experienced, allowing them to understand the atrocities human beings inflict upon one another from as close to a firsthand perspective as possible and using the horror of the predicament to highlight the depravity of such an act.

Yes, there is that caveman part of us that delights in a young co-ed being ripped in half, and that is why the Friday the 13th movies still enjoy a massive following. Slasher and splatter movies allow us to indulge in that carnal release without actually having to hurt anybody. Think of it as a less morally reprehensible version of The Purge.

Some argue that such films (including the ones I enjoy the most) desensitize the viewers to graphic violence and even encourage it, but that is absolutely not the case. It's true that these films can act as a buffer to help us cope with the brutality of the real world, but for the most part, especially in more thematically intact horror films, the torture is meant to be exactly that - torture.

Films show scenes of torture as a means of denouncing it. By using it to horrify the audience, the implied warrant is simple - torture is bad. This should never be inflicted upon anybody. The screams from the theater seats behind you prove my point.

So please please do not take this recent proliferation of campus violence to be a result of entertainment. In fact that very same "threat" is what propelled me through my waking nightmare.

Yesterday, the first thing I thought of when we closed those doors was What did Mr. Schue do in that school shooting episode of Glee? No joke. Like it or not, pop culture provides a lot of our background knowledge on events and experiences outside of our range. Taking cues from Glee allowed me to keep calm and avoid panicking.

The rules about slasher films that I wrote only a week ago were likewise careening about my head. I gathered weapons because I hate when Final Girls don't fight back. I stayed quiet because I hate when Final Girls give away their positions. I maintained focus because I've seen what can happen when a Final Girl loses her head.

And therein lies the tentpole of my argument. Without having watched the "wicked violent media," I would have felt a whole lot less sure of myself and might very well have dissolved into a weeping wreck on the floor.

That certainly describes my personality, I think. I drew my strength from my loved ones and Freddy Krueger.

Anyway, I would be honored to have somebody learn from my experience if that means they wouldn't have to go through it themselves. The two things to take away from this are to take strength from whatever you can, even if you think it's ridiculous and stupid (I make a good point with that media violence thing too, but my pontificating won't help in this regard) and to cherish the people that love you.

Now, as it turns out, the lockdown was a false alarm. A few students were spooked by a drill we'd had earlier in the morning and mistook another student's phone for a gun (which, to tell the truth, is pretty much how that Glee episode ended). Despite the threat level of the situation being, in actuality, zero, that does not make my reactions and emotions any less significant.

I consider myself very lucky to have gotten the life lesson without the life endangerment and despite the fact that the most dangerous thing that could have happened to me yesterday was burning myself on the coffee machine, we really did think we were in that predicament, and that's what really matters, doesn't it?

Love each other.

Word Count: 1131