In Flight Gold: Extra Ordinary

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For the first time in over a year, I travelled by plane to visit family.

With the pandemic overall, plus my home state easing up on mask restrictions and businesses opening earlier than they probably should have, I was nervous. I even speculated to my mom about my hazmat options. I didn’t go that route, but I followed mask mandates to the letter and they were strict about it, especially on the plane.

I flew Delta, and they had in flight movies. I selected Extra Ordinary. It was a comedy set in Ireland about a driving instructor, Rose, with paranormal talents she does not want. Needless to say, she still gets calls from neighbors thanks to her late father’s TV show, which Rose was a part of as a kid until an accident killed dad.

One such call came from a handsome dad named Martin, haunted by the ghost of his pushy late wife, and later targeted by a washed up musician who made a pact with Satan for a best selling comeback album.

I liked this a lot. I think I will put this on the to podcast list. Will Forte is a great villain and the performances were hilarious all around. The score was eerie, but very sweet.

Bad Movie Bunnies: The Podcast

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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.

The Lords of Salem (2012)

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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.

Gothic Horror in Tornado Alley

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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?

I would be interested in how they’d handle casting.

There’s plenty of howling wind, nevertheless.