Monday, November 03, 2014

The Oppenheimer Report 11/3/14


It is Saturday afternoon as I begin this report, and we have had our first appreciable snowfall of the season. Yesterday morning it came down as wet, sloppy snow, but right now it is cold enough for it to remain on the ground. Shauna has been entrusted with some of the dog walking duties this week as I mend from my shoulder surgery, and I do not envy her. Jasper accumulates wet snow in her fur as she walks, and by the time she is back in the house, she is the Michelin Dog with big balls of snow all over her legs. My sympathies as well to all local trick-or-treaters and their escorts. Halloween has always been one of my favorite times of the year; this is when I catch up on my ridiculously bad horror movies…

I have been an aficionado of bad cinema and bad television since I was a young man, but horror flicks are my passion. I like directors like Ed Wood and George Romero, the low budget guys who make movies so bad they become cult classics. Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs used to rate horror flicks in terms of breast and body counts, but I feel there should be other considerations as well. I saw a horror flick with my friend Bob maybe thirty-five years ago – I think it was called Night of the Zombies- and even by my low standards,  this one was hands down the worst horror flick I’d ever seen. The very first scene was of a zombie munching on an arm, which seemed promising, but it then descended into complete chaos. This movie had absolutely no plot whatsoever, and, to make it especially ludicrous, in between the gory scenes of flesh eating were nature shots which had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. It was as if the director needed some filler, so he just grabbed some stock wildlife footage, and spliced it in. One minute a screaming woman was being eviscerated by a blood-soaked zombie businessman in some big city, and the next, there was a completely incongruous shot of cranes alighting from a swamp. You don’t need much plot for these things, but you need some plot.
 

Years ago, when I still lived in Buffalo, there was a really crappy low budget horror flick filmed nearby in the south towns, and one of my friends was on the crew. It was called The Burning, and it did have a plot, sort of. My friend got a hold of the script one day, and a bunch of us got very wasted one night and tape recorded our “version” of one of the movie’s more inane scenes. Even by our juvenile standards this script appeared to have been written by a ten year old with no imagination, and clearly no idea what actually happens when a man and a woman have sex. I imagine the writer fit the profile of the misogynist video gamers to whom I referred in last week’s report. The movie could have been more aptly entitled Stunted Development. Anyhow, when the movie was (miraculously) released, a bunch of us went to the local drive to see how it came out. I am quite sure there was weed involved in the viewing, because I do not remember much about the movie other than that it sucked moose gonads. It far exceeded our expectations for badness. Added to the obvious movie flaws - poor writing, continuity failures, and abominable acting- this movie had some laughable technical glitches. At one critical point in the movie, when suspense was intended to build, the cameraman chose to adjust the aperture on the camera lens, so that the viewer clearly saw the click stops as the scene got darker, then lighter, then darker again. Remember the old SNL skit with Dan Akroyd’s character Leonard Pinth Garnell, reviewing bad movies? This one would have been a headliner!

In honor of All Hallow’s Eve, last night I watched an episode of the much-touted series American Horror Story- Freak Show, and frankly, I was disappointed. I was hoping for something as creepy as David Lynch’s Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet (two of my favorites), but the show somehow fell short. It features a great cast, and a nice touch is that the creepiness takes place in the 50’s. I don’t think you can’t go far wrong with a bunch of deformed freaks, and a psychotic, murderous clown in the plot, but something was missing. It’s well filmed, but I think the writing was the weak link. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and watch a few more episodes before I give it the gong. What is your favorite horror flick of all time? Son of Bride of Chucky? Friday the 13th Pt 25?

                     Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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