I think I had a lightning in a bottle moment tonight.
I planned on going to a writers’ workshop after work. In true horror movie fashion, there was a darkening sky followed by a storm a few hours earlier.
I’m sure that this happening before attending a writers workshop at a horror bookstore was only a coincidence.
I decompress after work before heading over. Thankfully, the weather held up. I arrive and everyone in attendance as well as the shop owners chat a bit before we introduce ourselves and our writing prompt.
I don’t bring a laptop, only a small notebook and pen. Paper was provided, and as I read our topic on a whiteboard, the room is silent for about an hour. I don’t stop writing.
After 4 and a half pages of feverishy scribbling out a rant regarding a loud and inconsiderate neighbor and turning it into a true crime creepy doll story, my cramped hand puts the pen down and it hits me how stiff my wrist and fingers are as I think about how in this day and age, we live on laptops and the autocorrect of our phones. There was no AI prompt to what I was doing and I kind of impressed myself.
We were then asked if we want to read.
Oh shit…..
I don’t know how I manage to get the ball rolling, but I do it. I read my very very poor handwriting. What’s more, the group seemed to like it. I was even told that there was a lot of polish to it, and that it didn’t come across as a prompted first draft.
I had a lot of rejection letters and busy schedules. My writing took a backseat. I tried to revitalize my motivation a little when I asked my ex to read a finished work, but he would not. Those red flags are a subject for another time, or another writers prompt. There was something about this event that felt very right, much like my knitting group, book club and later the podcast network I joined.
I don’t know if this story was a one time lightning in the bottle miracle, but it worked. I like making a good first impression as anyone would, but I also like that writing can be a voice for people like myself who aren’t always verbose, who can be talked over. Either way, I should at least type it out this weekend. Did I mention my shitty handwriting?

I’m watching Euphoria on HBO max. As I hit the end of season one, I keep coming back to a part of a Jello Biafra spoken word album from the late 1990s or early 2000s. He was talking about how parents overmedicate their children to avoid dealing with them.

To quote or paraphrase, “I fear that today’s ritalin kids are tomorrows speed freaks and junkies.”

Watching those first episodes, it feels spot on. Now, I wonder what will happen to children subjected not just to meds, but their parents putting them on tik tok and doing who knows what crap for likes and sponsorships.

I finally started to do it. On May 1st, I will launch what I hope to be a long standing podcast.

Much like this blog, there will be horror movie reviews. I had meant to focus on slashers and franchises, but I noticed that my choices led to the more obscure. I can work with this.

I have recorded four episodes so far, all under 20 minutes long. I am almost done with the fifth about an indie haunted house movie called The Evil Down the Street. Funny story, one of the screenwriters/actors posted about it in an online group I’m a part of and I figured, why not give it a watch?

I hope to have a stockpile in the next few weeks, and eventually have other people on. This can be found on Podbean under badmoviebunnies.

When I first saw this, I couldn’t help but think that Rob Zombie tried to make Rosemary’s Baby, albeit more graphic and in Salem, Massachusetts. You can even see the witch statue downtown if you look for it.

Watching it again, I caught notes of witchspoitation movies from the late 60s into the 1970s. I’ll spare you puns relating to devils and details, but I couldn’t help but study the setting.

The gloom of the setting and gray skies immediately caught me as a New England native.

The music contained in the Lords of Salem mystery record struck me as Zombie’s fantasy Kenneth Anger movie score. As touristy as Salem, MA got to be, the compositions work very well.

The movie itself, blocked into days of the week, was very fast paced up until the final act. It didn’t even feel like I made the progress into my knitting project that I did. Then, it started to slow down and really focus on the weirdness and surreal horror imagery, an extended psychedelic trip, one can guess as Heidi began using after a long period of recovery.

Overall, I liked the movie. It was experimental and atmospheric to be sure, but the performances were pretty good. Sherri Moon Zombie as Heidi played a recovering addict and radio DJ who innocently enough receives a mysterious record during her show, only to jokingly play it after a Rush song (a joke among her coworkers, but endearing as hell to me!) She and her coworkers play it to eerie effect that was subtle at first, but as Heidi progresses deeper into madness and eventual relapse, it gets scarier and the movie’s conclusion that much more odd and gruesome.

It’s been over three years since I left New Haven, Connecticut for San Antonio, Texas. It was a significant change to be sure, and there are some interesting differences.

One of the most notable is the weather. Forget Philadelphia, it is always sunny in San Antonio. Once, there was a little snow in my time here, shutting down a good part of the city. In contrast, New Haven will get a more than a few inches of snow, slowing a commute but so long as we stop for coffee, we’re okay.

Another thing I’ve found pleasant about San Antonio is that it can get very windy, even on hot days in August. One friend joked about living in Tornado Alley. Major costal storms might hit, but from my third floor dwelling, I hear the winds howl in the dark of night, screaming, threatening….

….to knock over the plants on the balcony.

I will sometimes joke that in moving to Texas, I now live in a Hammer Horror film. I started to wonder, how would that would look in Texas? You’d be in metropolitan San Antonio with any type of one story house, apartment complex and every type of store and neighborhood. Would you start the story at a bar or music venue? What genre?

What monster would it generate?

There’s plenty of howling wind, nevertheless.

While the writing fell behind to a point where I stopped generating webcomics as well as reviews (let me note that for about four years, I self published three different comics of my own creation weekly), I tried podcasting. I was a guest on Chad Denton’s Trash Canon, discussing two Halloween sequels.

My visceral reaction to those episodes was one of, “I sound like that?!!” My stutter and tendency toward saying, “you know,” as filler when said stutter appears, was readily apparent.

I could improve. I want to create one of my own. I wouldn’t stick to horror movies necessarily. Like Rabbit Reviews and the handmade frankenbunny commentary, I’d want a gimmick. Some categories of discussions I thought of so far include:

Fun with Franchises: Movies and sequels

Six Degrees of [TV Show]: Discussion of a movie featuring an actor from a favorite TV show (For example, Russ Tamblyn of Twin Peaks in The Phantom Empire)

Fuck Yeah Source Data: Movies featuring cast or crew I made into a name authority record (few and far between if I can remember!)

You can check out Trash Canon via Podbean by following the link.

In the two plus years that I have left my home state of Connecticut for a new job, life and mystery allergies in San Antonio, TX, I have seen many a bad movie, but not much in the way of written reviews.

Worse, no B-Fest!

This year B-Fest is in February, so you bet that the minute that tickets went on sale, I picked them up and booked the hotel and flight. My Southwestern app got a workout and I’m sure I racked up points. I hope to do so more often.

Everything is reserved…..so now what?! How to pack, and what will be the knitting project of the Fest?

In the past, it took the form of a blanket, but I have a ton of them and while Texas can get cold (surprise to me as well), I don’t need many more.

Not that this will stop me. The sweater I attempted one year fell flat, and I need something easy.

After a crazy con season, it is back to movie reviewing.  I got to see Stanley Kubrick’s classic, “The Shining” on the big screen. My local bow tie cinema is showing a series of Turner Classic Movies, and with Halloween looming, a few friends and I met up.

Why there were so few people in the theater, I will never know. Either way, I was armed with the blanket I started knitting at B-Fest and ready to see one of Kubrick’s shorter films, and one of my favorites.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about movie adaptations of books. Movie adaptations of Stephen King books in particular tend to disappoint. I liked the 1994 TV miniseries adaptation of “The Stand” a great deal. I think that the miniseries format allowed for more details from the books that would be left out of a film adaptation. I understand that not every little nuance can or should reach the silver screen, but holy shitsnacks, Pet Semetary, both a favorite novel and Ramones song, made for a horrific movie I have yet to brace myself enough to review.

While I found the novel version of “The Shining” compelling, it did get a little drawn out, both when I read it at 14 and for the second time years later. Stanley Kubrick films tended to run long as well, to a point where the succinct quality of the film became a post movie joke among us. Think about it-it really is one of the short ones.

This is interesting in light of how long the book was to me.

The story takes place at the Overlook Hotel, a high end and isolated manse of an inn built many years ago on a burial ground. A former schoolteacher and aspiring novelist, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a caretaker position for the time that the inn would be closed, the nastiest part of the winter when guests and other staff would be sent out. Torrance agrees to the position for the peace and quiet needed to work on a novel, but is warned of the isolation and how the last caretaker went mad and violently murdered his wife and children before committing suicide.

Torrance, with a smile I would see later in his Joker performance in Tim Burton’s “Batman,” states that his wife would get a kick out of the story as she is a “horror addict.”

One doesn’t get that impression as the demure Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duval) moves in with their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who experiences psychic episodes and speaks to imaginary friend, Tony. If anything, Wendy is defending Jack’s drunken episodes, abusiveness and up until the climax walking on eggshells with Jack, all the while taking care of Danny and his episodes alongside her own isolation and visions once the viewer realizes what’s really going on with the hotel….

One could contend that the film shows  the eventual breakdown of Jack’s mental state down to the iconic scene where he breaks down a door with the ax yelling, “Heeeere’s Johnny” stemmed from being alone in a giant hotel that screamed the decades called and they want their brightly patterned carpets and gold ballrooms back. The viewer could also contend that while Jack claimed he wasn’t drinking since an incident where he became irritated with his son and dislocated his shoulder, he probably snuck a drink here and there when the family wasn’t looking, only to break when faced with a hotel where the manager took away the booze for insurance reasons. The point of the story was that the hotel itself, built on a burial ground, possessing inhabitants in the worst way, but some critics felt that the viewer didn’t really see that, and it was just a case of abusive Jack becoming insane from isolation, writer’s block and delirium tremens. I wonder about that. There were shots where I could have sworn the expansive, and brightly gaudy hotel seemed to move. I thought the carpet patterns were going to jump out at me along with the kool aid blood that gushed from the elevators.

All in all, this is a fantastic film with chilling performances from the cast and a nasty reminder of how we shouldn’t be too isolated for too long, even in a storm. I remember when a nasty snowstorm hit a few years back. The city was shut down for days. The university where I work called me to tell me that it was closed, a rare occurrence. As the snow piled in front of my front door higher and higher and I ran out of coffee, I got a little stir crazy, happy when the roads cleared up just enough for me to take a walk downtown. If I were caught in a “Shining” storm, I’d have knitted who only knows what in my cabin fever.

As mentioned before, I took some knitting with me. I didn’t do a lot of work with the B-Fest blanket since B-Fest, but to recap:

 

By the time “The Shining” was over……

 

Now, with more stripes!

I wonder what the pastel monstrosity will be by B-Fest 2017.

This September, I completed both a personal and professional goal. I got to see Portland, Oregon for the first time, and I took Happy Kitty Studio to the West Coast, my first convention that required air travel.

For the most part, I traveled by car. One year at Otakon, I traveled by bus, taking a suitcase of display materials with a duffel bag of plushes shrunk down by a space bag. This allowed me to also pack clothes. Down to two bags and some knitting for the trip, I had yet to find out how useful this was when I got sick to my stomach on 7-11 donuts the last day of the show. At the time, I was gloating over the discount I received for booking early. I was hoping that the same didn’t happen when we boarded a plane bound for the west coast and back.

Also, how was I going to get as much merch into as few bags as possible? 

Putting the labor in Labor Day

I had from August 28-September 8 to get everything together. While I didn’t expect to do as well as I did at CT Horror fest, it happened and I had to restock on a sizeable scale on top of my day job. That week, I drew and cut patterns most evenings. I looked forward to an ace in the hole that was a long weekend.

Saturday and Sunday, I completed 24 cats. One day was dedicated to the sewing machine construction and the second to stuffing and putting them together. While I have my system to expedite the process, it is repetitive and time consuming. There is also so much a person can binge watch. Monday was the day to construct 12 Harley Quinn cats. Out of all the villain cats, I think she’s my favorite. Like her knitted doll counterpart, while a little more challenging, the end result is a joy.

Monday was the sewing day, meaning the fabric bodies and head were cut up and stitched back together in the harlequin four quarter pattern before I stitched a white mask, put together ears and tail and by 11:00 that night, I had twelve plushes to stuff and attach.

In hindsight, I should have taken Tuesday off, but, there were tasks I needed to take care of. By 2:43, I was on the phone brainstorming with a colleague as to how to run a script to add online handles in a batch because I was out in 45 minutes not to return until next Thursday. We do it, and I manage to ensure that two other batch loads went through correctly. Feeling rushed, I walked home hell bent to complete those cats.

I was seven cats in when I felt burnt out. By the ninth cat completed, I couldn’t do any more. Camped out with the Hulu criterion collection film, Fear, it hit me that it wasn’t yet 9:30. I was grateful that I took the next day off. I sleep until 10:00,  eat apples and cereal with my pumpkin spice coffee (I love you, fall foods and weather despite it being a few weeks from being official) and hammered out a few travel plans with Stefanie while finishing the last three cats.

It was time to head out….

I picked up Stefanie and headed to casa de Peli, which thankfully is near the airport. We have amazing takeout Indian food with her family. Her dad picks ghost peppers from his garden.

They were wonderful, but I got drooly at one point. Pro tip: never eat the seedy half in one bite!

After a few episodes of Archer, we got some needed sleep and headed to the airport. We got a little turned around, but we made the flight with time to spare.

Part of me was very tempted to head to baggage claim, and while searching for my suitcase, which contained cats on top of the carry on, yell out that I wanted those motherfucking cats of this motherfucking plane now. But, there were no luggage issues and I doubt you could do that even in Portland, Oregon.

Then again, we had fifteen minutes to get from the plane to our connecting flight when we touched down in Chicago. Thanks, elliptical machine.

We get to Portland in pretty good time. I was a little worried that I had to check my bags with the toys. I was a little worried they would get lost in baggage claim. It took forever for our bags to come out of the carousel, but everything was present and accounted for.

Thankfully, my friend, Desiree was waiting to grab us for food, coffee and  merch dropoff at the convention center. Portland, and the west coast as a whole, it seems, is very aware of dietary needs and restrictions from various food allergies and lifestyle choices. People want to work with you accordingly. Living in the northeastern section of the country, there are times when I feel the odd one out for being vegetarian. This can be a little disheartening for group events, and I feel like the sole complainer. Not in Portland. You can even find lavender ice cream in the local shop, which of course, we all had to stop at!

Rose City Comic Con was a bit of a bust for me, plus I was a little disheartened to be stuck behind a table when in Portland for the first time. Well, Desiree, her husband Jason and I more than made up for it when exploring the city proper as seen below:

One thing that I noticed was a lack of yarn shops. I’ve seen galleries, bakeries, eateries of all types, and Powell’s books, the largest independent bookstore I have ever had the good fortune to enter. There was punk rock pizza, but no yarn stores. Either I have to explore this further, something I need to do anyway as I want to take a proper non convention vacation, or I need to explore this and set up shop……

It’s not the craziest idea I ever had.

 

I had meant for this blog to be exclusive to the review of horror movies. However, exhibiting at comic book and anime conventions tend to take up my spare time. Also, including my spokes bunnies, Dexter and Ichabod in my web comic, Project Poppet further links my creative endeavors.

Besides, the following documents a roller coaster weekend. Let’s get to it.

Convention Prep: Pre-Party like a [plush making] Rock Star

As much as I joke about being a plush mogul, I put a lot of time and energy into my cats and dolls. I have a system, and my patterns. All the same, it gets time consuming, especially if I deviate from my patterns in any way. Boston Comic Con is a high sale show for me, and sometimes, I use that to experiment with new ideas and items.

For example, last year’s BCC was the debut of my whale cat hybrid. This was based on Merrilee’s, my friend and webmaster’s cat. Toby is Happy Kitty Studio’s head of Human Resources and a big and beautiful orange tom that likes to crash out in the apartment.

 

This year, I created BatCat.

 

Cute little guy, no? He’s a little bigger than my kitten sized plushes, and making the cape got to be a little tricky and a bit more time consuming.

Also debuting were character sharks. I had leftover fleece from other projects sitting in my fabric drawer after I had switched to a more plush fabric. I modified a pattern with a pocket mouth and knitted a small doll of a rival hero. Photographed below is Sharkpool eating a mini Cable. As I later told BCC attendees, I couldn’t bring myself to knit Ajax.

 

On top of my day job, which can get pretty busy on a normal day, let alone when special projects take me to other libraries, I found myself subject to solitary working evenings and weekends. Boston Comic Con 2016 was on August 12-14. I started marathon plush making the second week of July. I gave myself enough of a break after MASSive Comic con at the end of June to visit family in North Carolina, return to Connecticut, and get my apartment convention BnB ready for friends to come by for Connecticon, where I assisted for the weekend.

After Connecticon, I found myself going to work as per usual, walking home, eating a little before 4:00 while watching the Daily Show on Hulu, and afterward getting to work drawing and cutting patterns, sewing parts in batches based on the type of cat, putting it all together, and stuffing, the process broken up when I need to pick up fabric and other supplies. Again, it got pretty isolated. I saw friends sporadically and if you looked at my time with Netflix, it bordered on unhealthy. I work with background noise. Go insane? Don’t mind if I do. Top it off, there is little time for the gym. Hitting the treadmill and elliptical machine while watching Law and Order not only keeps me in shape, but keeps me on a even keel.

It hits me more and more that only some understand what I do, what I put into it and why. I could go on about dating, time constraints with the expectation some have of pulling geek cred out of my ass while looking cosplay model perfect (a little hard to do when gym time is cut short), but that’s another blog or online post.

As mentioned before, this is a high sale show, and my expenses piled up. I had to sew up a large stock of cats, 15 or more for some types to break even and profit sales wise. In a month’s time, I made close to fifty cats, knitted a few dolls, two sharks as well as two larger catpool pillows.

The expenses piled up, especially with the hotel, but thankfully, a few artist friends, Aradia, Stefanie, and her friend, Peli needed hotel space as well. We messaged back and forth to make arrangements. I contacted the hotel to let them know that my plans had changed and needed to add more people to my booking. While I was told that they would try to place us in a room with more beds, we kept our air mattresses handy.

The Long Hard Road out of Hell-or the Mass Pike.

Turned out, the hotel charges for parking. To save money among other reasons (including the amazing company), we figured that we would try to cram as much as we could into one car. Due to storage capacity in the trunk, Stefanie’s car was tasked. She and I compared it to my Honda Civic a few days prior to the show. While the engine on a Civic could possibly survive the apocalypse, it had crap for trunk depth. One thing I was worried about was my grid wall display. No way could my four pieces fit into a trunk, and it was questionable that it would fit in the backseat along with a suitcase of shelves and other display items, and not one, but two bags of a merchandise (a big duffel bag and a garment bag). I had my grid cube set on standby if it got to be cumbersome. I knew that I would be using it for Rose City Comic Con in Portland, OR the following month. To give an example of what was coming with me…..

 

All the same, my stuff and my person somehow fit into the backseat. I had to compress the garment bag of pillows down to ensure Stefanie’s field of vision, but it worked. Plus, I planned to come home with significantly less.

Peli came up to Connecticut Thursday. I went to the day job, got home a little before 5:00, time enough for them to come over and stuff the backseat with my gear . Their gear and prints were in the trunk. Aradia, who was based out of Massachusetts, went on to Boston earlier to set up.

Onward!

We managed to make decent time getting to the Mass Pike. There was some lightning, but no major storms, and there was plenty of playlist goodness from Stefanie. However, the Mass Pike can get a little backed up especially getting to Boston. We opted to go to the convention center to set up first. After a few stops for snacks, and coffee, we made it to the loading dock and were directed by con staff to a parking spot. We had a little more than a half hour on the clock. Basically, we could pick up our badges, find our tables and the swag bag from Deviant Art given to artists which included a sketchbook, set up the bare bones of display and drop our things before staff announced that we had to leave at 8:00. Rushed, we had to find the hotel, where Aradia had already settled. I needed to leave a credit card for incidentals, but there were two beds. With everyone checked in, it was high time to go to the hotel bar for a cocktail and the Olympics before we started a crazy weekend.

Boston Comic Con: Friday

First thing was to navigate ourselves from the hotel to the convention center. Usually, I book hotels outside of the con to avoid both extra expense and loud attendees. This time around, I found what turned out to be a pretty awesome hotel. Without the clutter of gear and merch, we were able to stop at a nearby Dunkin Donuts for goodies and much needed caffeine for the day ahead.

We get there early and part ways to set up.

 

Friday is a shopping day, but often since it is the first day, it’s more of a window shopping type of day. Sometimes, I’ll make back the cost of my table space that day, and sometimes, I will fall short of that amount. However, I saw friends both as artists and attendees. My friend, Scott came by smiling, joked that he was with marvel and asked about my copyright credentials before checking out both the Deadpool and Loki sharks. He told me that I was coming up with really good ideas and that meant a lot coming both from him and his girlfriend, Merrilee (aforementioned webmaster and cat owned by whale cat inspiration Toby). They are two highly talented people, and know good stuff when they see it. Another friend, also a Scott, came by and after chatting told me that due to the Harley Quinn tank dress I wore I had a Harley Quinn lineup print waiting for me. When I got some time off, I picked it up afraid I would crush it under my stuff. Other friends, Pixie and her husband Shadow said hello and we talked about her cosplay and caught up-some of which involved cat pictures. It was a kitten sale day overall. At the end of the day, we were a little tired and it was time for food.

The Drink and Draw was just across the way……..

While a little convoluted in location, we make it in due time and despite crowd, we manage to get a table, meet new people, and get a little drawing done. Peli drew a wonderful cat boy and I did a few sketches in the Deviant Art sketchbook as we grabbed a little food and grog-hotel bar fare to be sure, but okay.

Boston Comic Con: Saturday

Saturday is the sales day. Due to high volume, I figured why not stand out? Now, some cosplays can get pretty elaborate, and all are a work of art in of themselves. I was keeping count of movie Harley Quinns and Jokers as opposed to the more classic version. With the release of the Suicide Squad movie, there were a ton of the movie version dotted with other members of the Justice League, Deadpool as well as Marvel and Disney characters.

I opt for Final Fantasy VII. I should pay as much attention to curling my hair on a normal day, but I get to wear slippers.

 

Profit was an understatement. I sold out of the (classic) Harley Quinn kittens (though how I could cat-i-fy the movie version is beyond me) and came very close to selling out of the twenty two Catpools I had. Not getting so much as a break due to attendee volume, I was happy about that, as well as the Loki shark eating a knitted Thor being my first sale of the day. Other than that, the knitted dolls didn’t get as much attention. On the other hand, I did get a commission from my friend Margaret in the form of a fox!

The duffel bag ended up in the suitcase by the end of the day. I was kind of amazed and was hoping that the giant pillows would sell and give more room by show’s end.

Afterward, I learned of the magic that was Chuck Tingle and his entertainingly bad titles thanks to Aradia, our friend, McKenzie, and the terrible vampire/viking/angel romance novel her job pawned off on her. She felt the need to share the love and Aradia shared in turn.

I’m in the wrong line of work.

Boston Comic Con: Sunday

 

Down to my last few kittens, a shark and the giant pillows that filled out my display, I had a slower Sunday. I chatted with my neighbors and enjoyed wearing jeans instead of dresses and my Slytherin shirt. The show was winding down but the crazy part happened after we packed up…

Holy Aftermath, Batman……

Packing up, helping others and saying goodbye was uneventful enough. We waited for Stefanie to pull into the loading dock. It took time for everyone, and we pack and pile into the car, stopping for gas in Waltham. I was looking forward to a coffee.

Only, I learn then that my bag with cash, wallet and essentials was left at my table. I call friends nearby, friends on staff and convention security to see about retrieval. No one had seen it. I was freaking the hell out. I call my landlord to report a lockout and explain the situation. He left me spares to borrow until I can make copies or if the keys return. I knew that it was all I could do for the time being, but I was pretty upset. I’m grateful to Stefanie and Peli for helping me cart my crap up the stairs. When they leave, I cancel my cards, and stop worrying about what else could happen, and what was I going to do long enough to get some sleep.

Monday, I post about it online. Margaret shares the post asking other convention friends to let us know if they saw the bag. My friend Dave, who was on staff emailed other staff to see if anything was turned into them. Overall, there was an outpouring of support that really humbled me.

I’m losing my mind waiting for convention security to call. I have to admit, I assumed the worst knowing that there was cash in the bag. I check my Happy Kitty Studio email to see about any information for my next show later in the afternoon and I get a message from my neighbors informing me that someone gave them my bag thinking it was theirs and about to be forgotten. They take a look, find the sweater I wore all weekend (and part of the week at work….it needed washing, shall we say) as well as knitting supplies and knew it was mine. One went to college in West Haven, and I was on the way to her dorm. They stated that everything was there when I tore open the bag and thanked them profusely, but the first words out of my mouth were something to the effect of how the sweater stank to high hell, but it was home.

I really hope it wasn’t too ripe on the ride back….

 

I could not put my cash in the bank fast enough.Those two are getting some free Catpools!

Again, this humbled me more than I can write. I know that stress made me careless, and I am going to be more mindful in the future…and the con season is not over yet.

 

And now, it is time for the main event, I thought to myself, my mind still on wrestling even as my belly filled with Ethiopian food.

Scott piled the lot of us into his caravan and we found our way to Northwestern University and a parking space. We grabbed the essentials, be it pillows, change of clothes, coolers of snacks and drinks, and in my case, knitting.

To give a little context, since B-Fest 2007, there was something I at least brought to the fest to knit. Believe it or not, I can knit and watch a movie at the same time. Come to think of it, at either the 2007 or 2008 B-Fest, I was making a sweater.

This time around, I took pastel scrap yarn for a purely garter stitch blanket. I needed the never ending project, a use for yarn that once belong to a friend of a friend’s coworker…well, yarn just ends up in my apartment and I can’t spin yarn into gold, but I can do blankets. I was also greeted by Natasha, who had both a red velvet cake loaf as well as a green notebook. While this blog is over seven months old, I swear, I took notes during the movies. I didn’t add composite drawings as I did my undergraduate Art History course notes (mind you, this was well before the days of iPads-think closer to zip disks), but I jotted enough down to jog my memory of basics and quips.

 

Let me note that the following are the movies that I stayed awake for. Some were just too cheesy from the title and synopsis to be anything other than an excuse to nap. Let this be a lesson, never judge by title or synopsis. Entertainingly bad can be just bad. I say this as an owner of “The Thirst” on DVD. On to the movies!

“Adventures of Hercules” 6:00-7:35pm

I have few words beyond cue the Hulk jokes. Lou Ferrigno plays the title role and I’ll give it this-he does look like a Hercules. I had a feeling that the Twelve Labors of myth were going to be fudged if not omitted….and I was right.

In this version, Herc starts adventuring and battling. Notably, he did so with amazons, and an Amazon Queen. In the myth, he ends up marrying her, but in the movie he kills her along with Medusa at one point. I am pretty certain the warrior, Perseus did that, but what do I know? I also don’t remember so many robots, especially in a universe where science was deemed chaotic. However, the highlight was the cheese-tacular laser light effects. It was needed as the acting was awful.

 

“Caltiki: The Immortal Monster” 7:35-9:00pm

Caltiki is a blobish terry cloth monster. This particular film opus is “loosely based”on a Mexican legend. I’m wondering how loose this is, probably the caliber of a cheap towel. A group of archaeologists stumble on the monster while exploring a cave. One man is killed, and his colleague driven insane and disfigured. I’m curious if the creator of Two-Face combed this movie for inspiration. A sample of the monster is taken from the cave and that sample later regenerates into another blob monster. Hilarity ensues.

I love older sci fi movies, and I like the creativity employed in lieu of the CGI effects that came later, but all the same I don’t really want to see this movie rebooted for the modern era.

“Americathon 1998” 9:00-10:30pm

This is a contender for my fest favorite. John Ritter stars as the philandering president of the United States, more or less reprising his character on “Three’s Company” only a lot less of a lovable doofus due to power, which played a part in America going completely broke to a point where people are living in cars that no longer run. The adviser plots against him with foreign powers and there is an evil corporation run by India to contend with. How do you save the country? With a telethon hosted by a washed up actor with performances from outrageously bad rockers to plucky kids that biked to get there all the while keeping reporters, mistresses and the American public happy as the money collects. Ritter, as I mentioned before, was reprising “Three’s Company” to a slightly darker level, but all in all, it was good political satire, even if it’s a possible future given our present election.

 

“Calling Dr. Death” 10:30-11:45pm

Good grief, I needed that energy drink….

Time for some film noir starring Lon Cheney and arguably one of the most beautiful film stars of the 1930s and beyond, Patricia Morison. I was looking forward to this film and had a feeling that I was going to have to make a tough choice between this and Americathon 1998 as my fest favorite. Little did I know…..

Lon Cheney stars as a doctor who has a very pretty wife who cheats on him and a much better looking assistant, Stella, played by Morison. Now, if it were me, I’d serve the wife with divorce papers and run off with Stella. However, there wouldn’t be much of a movie if logic were present.

Logic was not at all present. When the wife’s cheating ways land her in the morgue, the worst drug fueled investigation follows.

When 11:45 rolled around, I figured that it was time to channel my disappointment into a nap. I’d seen “The Wizard of Speed and Time” as well as “Plan 9 from Outer Space” more than a few times, and I had tossed my share of paper plates. I also skipped “The Human Tornado” and the “Garbage Pail Kids Movie.” I owned Cabbage Patch Kids as a child, repudiated the Garbage Pail Kids proudly, state as such at the risk of my goth card and walk in on the tail end in time for “Blood Mania” thankful that I did not walk in on the tail end of an awful scene in “Street Trash” as I did in 2007. That still gives me the creeps every now and then.

“Blood Mania” 5:05-6:40am

I walked in on another bad noir, and this time, I didn’t have the benefit of looking at Patricia Morison. Thank you again Natasha for the red velvet cake loaf. It was a help as  I was babbling in my notebook at this point. Blood Mania is about two sisters that want their rich father’s estate and while one is sweet and innocent, the other schemes and blackmails a doctor to drug everyone using sex and drugs. The movie itself was a bad drug trip, one that shouldn’t have been filmed. The only discovery more horrifying than the many plot holes and shitty twists was the realization that I own a copy of this movie thanks to my buying a number of random European horror compilation DVDs for cheap. You get what you pay for sometimes.

“Moon Zero Two” 6:40-8:25 am.

When I think of Hammer Films, I think of melodramatic Gothic horror, decrepit castles and stories very loosely based on classic literature. At some point, Hammer decided to branch into sci-fi. Well, they certainly kept up with the risque smut featured in the horror movies, but I wasn’t 100% on board with this stowaway space odyssey. I ended up napping through part of it.

“Low Blow” 8:25-10:05am

Oh, cheesy action movies, I love you so. This movie centers around Joe Wong, a former cop that now works as a bounty hunter with a long suffering big haired secretary in the nastiest dump of an office. The only thing junkier is the car he keeps crashing in minor bumps. This loveable scrapper specializes in stopping purse snatchers and petty crooks until a rich man approaches him to discreetly rescue his daughter from a cult. A series of misadventure and fight scenes follow. I really enjoyed this, and after Calling Dr. Death, Americathon 1998 had competition for the fest favorite. It had some cheesy running gags, including the messy office, Wong’s love of circus peanuts and bad parking. The best part was a scene involving rotweiler puppies. Puppies tend to cure everything, and this movie needed it at times.

“The Fifth Musketeer” 10:30am-12:30pm

I smelled the handlebar mustache ride cracks a mile away….I might have made one at some point, but I was a little sleep deprived. Overall, it was a fun swashbuckling adventure with a little costume porn and a pretty good performance by Alan Hale. If you need fodder for your Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, the dungeon escapes and sword fighting is pretty to fun. Be mindful of too many jokes involving how you critically fumbled your attack rolls, however.

“Roar” 1:05-2:55pm

A man creates an animal sanctuary in his jungle house….his large jungle house. He needs a sizable house as many cats live there. Lions, tigers and panthers roll, frolick and act like giant adorable kitties.

I spent a good chunk of this movie squeeing over the kitties on the big screen. Now, the man’s family came to the sanctuary not knowing all of the residents. Hilarity and kitty action ensue.

Let me note that giant cats are still cats and they love to play. They also hunt and eat. Kitty will eat you.

For those of you that are reading this and didn’t hear my squealing over kitty cuteness, I am going to declare Roar the fest favorite.

 

 

“Kansas City Bomber” 2:55-4:40pm

A roller derby movie starring Raquel Welch as a skater trying to make it on the professional roller derby circuit while trying to be a mom to a young daughter raised by her grandmother that believes she should marry a nice man instead. Welch opts to have an affair with a team owner that skeezes on her and her drunk rival skater.

I couldn’t help bur notice that there was limited padding for a roller derby team engaging in wrestling moves. I have half a mind to screen this to friends in derby to find any further errors.

“The Super Inframan” 4:40-6:00pm

Toho, you are the greatest. No kaiju this year, but we have super science, aliens and a hero that gains super powers in time to save the day from an evil alien queen in an outlandish getup that I swear that I will cosplay!

 

The fest wrapped up at 6:00 and laughing, tired and sore, we cleaned up our trash and other belongings and make our way to the cars and to Portobellos for dinner. We also stop at a grocery store and for the first time I try green river soda.

 

I should have bought more for the trip home. As it turned out, weather precluded my flight from taking off Sunday. After many delays and hours in O’Hare, I book a nearby hotel and squeeze my way into a Monday afternoon flight, which got delayed a few minutes. I get to New York to find that my airport shuttle was delayed due to bad weather, but I make it to Grand Central and a late train back to New Haven. It was almost one in the morning when I get back home.

I cannot wait until B-Fest 2017. I only hope the weather holds up and I can acquire more Green River.

 

The following entries chronicle B-Fest 2016, January 22nd and 23rd. I had meant to blog about this no later than February, but conventions and life happen, and so it goes. I feel bad about putting it off because my friend, Natasha, brought a notepad for me to take notes during the movies for the purpose of blogging! I still have it and plan to bring it with me in 2017. Whether I blog that fest on time remains to be seen…

That said, let’s head back to the third week of January shall we?

Wednesday:

I have forced myself to be a morning person for a good chunk of my life, be it school, work, or comic convention preparation. One might think he or she would get used to it, but rarely have I wanted to bounce out of the safety of the blanket fort to greet a new day anytime before 9:00 or so. You’d think that since I am going to Evanston, IL and B-fest, I would be out of bed and ready to go.

Not at 6 in the morning, I’m not.

Plus, I found myself greeted by potential stowaways….

Packed and ready to go, I head to Union Station. With time to spare, I make sure no one else tries to sneak into my stuff and caffeinate myself for the train to Grand Central terminal and ensuing shuttle trip to LaGuardia airport. I hoped to hell I wouldn’t find a CBGB diner, like the one proposed for Newark Airport.

LaGuardia did not co opt punk rock to sell burgers, not yet anyway.  Ever since I flew from Cancun to home with an infected corneal abrasion, my fear my flying dropped significantly. I’m one of those people who squirms at the prospect of contact lenses, false lashes, eyeliners, well you get the idea. I eschew those things still (bad goth: no Bauhaus) but I have a better ability to take long flights, plus my anxiety over heights and lifting off dwindled significantly. Bridges are still an issue, but I digress.

I arrive at O’Hare airport in record time, grab a cab and talk 80’s music with the driver and check in to my hotel room. Running into Jacob, I come to learn that other B-Festers are still en route, so I opted for a power nap and Dateline.

We all reconvene to the lobby later that evening. Jacob and Natasha are big fans of WWE and WWE Next. As it turned out, there was a wrestling themed restaurant. We purchase subway cards, marvel over the heat lamps at the stops and head on our way. We make it over, note the used bookstore en route and I revisit my childhood interest in pro wrestling. I think my last Summer Slam was viewed in the early 1990s. I had seen a few episodes of RAW in the early 2000s, but the Squared Circle and  WWE Next offered something very different. Natasha had explained that this was a good venue for the up and comers, and she added, women wrestlers. Check out the women wrestlers. Sure enough, I was impressed. One wrestler, Carmella, looked a little like a friend of mine that is a longtime hula hoop performer and fire eater and holy god, could they wrestle! I might have enjoyed watching those matches more than Myopic Books, even though I managed to pick up a Raymond Chandler novel among other things.

Thursday:

We met for breakfast at an area diner called Seven Brothers. One thing that I love about the midwest is that they want to feed you. After a wonderful omelette, I spied cheesecake in the display window and my mind immediately cued the chorus of REO Speedwagon’s “I can’t fight this feeling anymore.” We had to get to the conservatory and zoo before I stuffed myself to a point where I had to be rolled out into the parking lot……

A walk around the Zoo proved to be a lot of fun as well as a means to burn off breakfast.

For example…..lions. Little did I know that this would be a prelude to a squeeing shit fit later in the weekend, but as you can see, kitty isn’t taking any of your shenanigans!

Our next stop was the Mold-o-Rama stand where one can get a small vinyl toy pressed on site. Afterward, we make our way to Hollywood Mirror, a fantastic memorabilia shop where I acquire a squeeze toy tiki statue.

And, of course, you can’t help but love being greeted by this guy:

From there, we all made our way to one of my favorite spots in the Chicago area, the Hala Kahiki bar. At the risk of my subculture card, I will state for the record that I love anything tiki themed. Not so pleasing are the number of rum drinks. I like rum, but it gives me a headache. Luckily, I discovered the happiest drink on earth, namely the wine and lime juice combination called the Tahitian cooler. My tiki statue collection expanded in the gift shop. I should note that the proprietor is very chatty, so it’s dangerous to go alone, as stated in the first “Legend of Zelda” game.

It was a fantastic evening all of us just nerding out and commiserating, Tim and Bryan dressed to the nines in their 70’s loungey finest, the best and worst ties and color combos. You’ve got to give the proper credit.

I didn’t make it to the after hour movie fest in the lounge. I was beat, plus I remember getting sick as a dog one year, and didn’t want to chance anything.

Friday: Pre-Fest

First stop: The Omega Diner for power breakfast. I knew that I was planning to embark on a 24 hour movie marathon with but a few naps. I tried to be as healthy as possible, and for the most part, I succeeded.

Coffee was my friend, nevertheless.

That said, we took a trip to Berwyn for Horrobles and Reel Art. Both cater to horror, comic and sci fi fans and collectors. Maybe I came home with a few Bandai Godzilla figures….a few….

After some Ethiopian for dinner, we were B-Fest bound…..

 

 

 

I could watch Jeremy Sisto all day. As a matter of fact, I just binge watched the ABC series, “Wicked City” where he plays a detective trying to solve a series of sunset strip murders while facing his own demons. I had little hope that “The Thirst” was going to be a quality vampire movie, but it was in the clearance bin, and I like both Sisto and Clare Kramer.

This wasn’t the first or last time that I asked myself “How bad could this possibly be?” I should probably stop at some point, yet I am continuously compelled, and I have put this off long enough.

Our direct to video story begins with red close ups of a coffin being handles by a lace cuffed hand and a blond woman walking the city streets past motels until she finds something especially skeezy. I would have run once the lights started flashing red over the opera music, but that’s atmosphere, right?  Up until her client decides to show himself as a vampire to possibly protest that her prices are a bit much for the services, or that he wants to shove a lampstand down her throat while drooling profusely.

Our next shot shows our recovering addict hero, Maxx (Matt Keeslar), complaining about his user girlfriend, Lisa (Clare Kramer) possibly stripping and using drugs at his NA meeting. As it turns out, Lisa has cancer, and it isn’t improving despite aggressive treatment. She can’t tell Maxx for fear of messing up his recovery. Lucky for her, Lisa has attracted the attention of a ‘shrink’ by the name of Mariel….who likes to come in her hospital room at 3 in the morning….and bite her while drooling.

I know that some hospitals are very underfunded, but this is ridiculous.

After the scare, Lisa calls Maxx and tells him of her illness. He is angry, storms out and turns to a friend, Macey, who comes on to him. When he tries to see her at the hospital, they learn that she left with Mariel. He returns home to find that she killed herself, but there is a little more to it. After a mourning hermit period, Maxx sees Lisa dancing at a goth club despite his friends’ insisting he’s crazy. Lisa is alive after a fashion, and she turns Maxx into a vampire. They join a coven of much older vampires led by Darius (Jeremy Sisto) and turn their addiction from hard party drugs to blood.

Let the grown up after school special begin!

Good gimmick to treat vampirism as one would treat drug addiction, but bad acting, and bad follow through. It’s different that the vampire characters are drooling as opposed to sparkling, but that was far too much red lighting for one movie.

I guess they want to emphasize blood….blooood…..BLOOOOOD!

And about that blood,  I think I saw better blood effects with Kool-aid. Nevertheless, Sisto’s first scene where he rips open a bouncer’s throat, drinks and later get’s his coven to follow suit with overly dressed cyber goths once he enters the VIP lounge had its humor. Jeremy Sisto, who I think is a good actor, phoned that role in a bit. I can’t blame him, though I wish the Eastern European accent was consistent. There was a less than star turn from Adam Baldwin as crazy redneck vampire Lenny. The mannerisms suggest the Lenny character from “Of Mice and Men” might have been a loose inspiration, but probably should have left John Steinbeck out of this. Those vampires might have drooled over prospective victims, but this movie left me pretty dry.

There was a time when I had cable. Real premium cable with channels such as TNT, TBS and On Demand services that allowed free movies from HBO, Showtime, Starz and Cinemax. Nowadays, I rely on streaming services, but I remember On Demand pretty fondly. I was able to find some interesting gems, and some interesting stinkers.

One such stinker was Hideaway, based on the novel by Dean Koontz. Koontz, as it turned out, hated the adaptation and wanted his name removed from the credits.

I didn’t quite know this factoid, nor did I read the original novel when I looked at the movie blurb. I selected play upon seeing Jeremy Sisto in the cast.

Don’t judge me. I know I am not the only one that watched a movie good or bad due to having a crush on one of the actors. I liked Sisto in Law and Order, and I watched a bad movie because the man is not only hot, but delivered a good performance. That said, I will pass this love on to you, dear readers, in review form.

The opening credits greet me with industrial band, KMFDM’s “Go to Hell,” a very promising indicator to the soundtrack, with the camera panning to a shirtless Sisto as Vassago.  That would be pretty damned good, except Vassago is a Satan worshiper who had sacrificed his mother and younger sister to the devil in the supposed safety in their suburban home. The camera pans to him at his altar where he kills himself with that same knife to further ensure the damnation of his soul.

Meanwhile, a family consisting of father Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum), mother Lindsay (Christine Lahti) and teenaged daughter Regina (Alicia Silverstone) are out on a drive. A car accident ensues and even though Lindsay and Regina escape with superficial injuries, Hatch is pronounced dead.

All is not lost. Specialist Dr. Jonas Nyebern, played by Alfred Molina, is able to revive him. The drawback to this miracle is that he begins to see through the eyes of a serial murderer of women. After one too many news clips reporting these women as ‘missing’ and a trip to a psychic, Hatch comes to learn that the murderer is Vassago, the devil worshiper who killed his mother and sister before turning the knife on himself. Wait a second….isn’t he supposed to be dead? Well, let’s overlook the rubbery nature of the knife he falls on (you don’t have to look that hard, plus imdb points this out in the goof section). Vassago’s real name is Jeremy Nyebern, and his father is the same doctor that revived Hatch. Too bad Vassago kidnaps Regina and takes her to his abandoned amusement park hideout as the ultimate sacrifice….

This movie had a good cast, and a fantastic soundtrack for you goth/industrial fans including acts such as Miranda Sex Garden and KMFDM. Godflesh even makes a cameo appearance in the nightclub scene where Regina (who snuck out with a friend) first meets Vassago in darkly gorgeous yet creepy as hell glory. The story was solid on its face, but a few things seemed a bit needless and overall, it fell flat as did some of the acting. Part of me wonders if Alfred Molina took some of his Dr. Nyebern character to his later performance as Doctor Octopus in Spider Man 2. I really wanted to like this movie, but it was tedious, and the ending showed a needless twist that fell flat with the rest of the story. It’s a solid rental if you want a psychic twist to a horror movie, or if you have a thing for goth guys and Jeremy Sisto, who is an appealing villain, but I can understand some of the Rotten Tomato reviews.

 

Movie blurbs describe this as a ‘cautionary’ tale featuring a fictionalized and ‘highly exaggerated’ take on marijuana smoking.

Highly exaggerated isn’t the half of it. This movie was so over the top that it became more funny than cautionary. When a very well done, but equally hammy musical featuring Neve Campbell gets the green light nearly seventy years later, how seriously can you really take this?

Back in the days when the world’s lumber barons shit paper wads over the prospect of the mass paper making potential of hemp, a scare film such as “Reefer Madness” was probably necessary to protect all interests. If the populace were unfamiliar with any potential dangers of any drug, I guess, it needed to be exposed whether the danger in question was real, imagined or fabricated.

Back then, it appeared that parents all over the country feared that their children will become addicted to drugs, alcohol, promiscuous premarital sex, and jazz music all the while attending unsupervised house parties.

On its face, this is a valid fear, especially since the parties in question center around a house party thrown by a pot dealer that is all about profiting and seduction in every form. The woman he lives with shows a little more of a conscience when it looked like truly innocent teenagers might get mixed up in something that they can’t handle. But, lo, for all her arguing she caves to that big strong man and his stash, even as a wholesome couple meet up for a little party after school only to fall prey to pot, sex, addiction and later death topped off by a poorly done but somehow plausible frame job.

“Warn your children” the movie blurbs.

This is one of several period propaganda films preaching the dangers of whatever illicit drug that scared the masses on that particular week. The melodrama of the story and actors is what sets Reefer Madness apart from the herd. It has everything, noir, protagonists so sweet that their image on the screen even to this day adds to a risk of diabetes, a jazz pianist that falls to utter insanity and a frame job. You are drawn to this film, even though it is more funny than scary. It might drive you to smoke more, but this film not only survived the cult test of time, but it was Rifftraxed with Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy to some acclaim. Also, how many of these were made into musicals?