This week I have been mostly watching...

Hey there Friends and Neighbors!  Today at Tales to Astonish bring you a new column entitled “This week I have been mostly watching…”  Here you will find mini reviews in the same vein as “Overdue Reviews” however this article differs in that it will include multiple topics over the past week or so in a condensed offering.  Without further delay… here we go!

Tales From the Crypt:  Season 4

This is a series that was really good.  The fourth season had lost a bit of the edge that was present in the first and second seasons; however the star power was still there.  Many good stories that appear a bit dated but are much like a time capsule of the early nineties.  Highlights from season 4 include “The New Arrival” in which David Warner plays a radio psychologist who makes a house call to an always creepy Zelda Rubenstein to help with her misbehaving child.  Another good one is “What’s Cookin’” in which Judd Nelson cooks up steak made from the local jerks of the town.  The only downside is they skipped a perfect opportunity to make meatloaf reference when Meatloaf played the first victim.   Normally not a huge fan of such puns, but come on – that is part of the fun of “Tales From the Crypt”  boils and ghouls!

8213: Gacy House

                Oh my, where to start.   Okay the back story, John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer.  He killed 33 + people, mostly young boys (yeah, he was a perverted sexual deviant too), and buried their bodies in his basement back in the 70’s.   His story is chronicled many places but well done in a movie featuring Mark Holton of 80’s movie fame (Francis Buxton in ‘Peewee’s Big Adventure’ and Chubby in ‘Teen Wolf’).   So here we have a story that takes inspiration from this.

This movie is filmed in the now common ‘reality’ format.  The footage is said to be recovered from the house wherein the bodies of the filming crew have been found.   Of course this is a faux documentary.  It is made by Asylum.  Enough about the production here comes the fun part – the story.  So this film crew is doing a ‘Ghost Hunters’ routine on the house that Gacy lived in.  Except that house was bulldozed back in the day when they were looking for bodies.  So at least the opening text explains that this house was re-built in the 90’s.   Remember that because it comes back to haunt us – much like Gacy in this film.  Where was I?  Oh yeah so these folks bring with them a psychic to perform a séance to summon the spirit of Gacy.  She brings an offering to appease him and entice the ghost of a murderer to join them… what else but the t-shirt of her young boy neighbor!   Well it works because the fireplace bursts into flames and it is on… sort of.

Yeah like most of these movies it is a lot of people walking around and seeing nothing except for the occasional door slamming incident.   Mostly nothing but some screaming about “that wasn’t here an hour ago” and “Wow man, did you see that?”  Reminds me of some really bad shorts I have made…  So ultimately the group is brought down, one by two by pretty much all at once in the last 5 minutes of the movie.   We even get to see the split second image of Pogo the clown before the static and end of the film.  

So highlights?  Keep your eyes out for the young man who gets de-pansed and dragged to the basement to get molested by the Gacy ghost; and read the autopsy reports about what happened to him… rectal trauma… powerful ghost that!  Also when the recordings playback Gacy saying “Kiss my ass” you can sense a nod to the real life last words of the maniac before he was put to death in prison. 

Finally, remember when I told you about the house being rebuilt in the 90’s?  So what is the purpose of doing a ghost hunt in a house that was simply built over where another house was?  Particularly when you have to do a séance to summon the spirit in the first place?  Well it appears that the ghostly activity not only occurred on the same spot – but it reverted the house to an older style!  The house houses a fuse box – not standard in houses that were made after the 70’s.  What’s more?  This anachronistic house features plaster an lathe in the walls and a layout that is reminiscent of something made in the 30’s.  Wow – what powers these spirits have! 

In conclusion – catch this one on Netflix if you want.  Don’t spend money on it.  Unless you were going to flush it down the toilet or something, same difference!

Eat, Pray, Love

                This rancid piece is perhaps worse than “The Hot Chick” in level of absolutely worthless film.  Not because this is a “chick flick” or that it has no zombies or explosions or anything petty like that.  They could not help this heap.   Oh there are probably scores of people who find this trite offering to be amazing and well done.  It amounts to this.  A stupid woman thinks there is more to life than what she has.  She goes though a midlife crisis and decides that she has to travel the world and learn what secrets these other countries have that clearly the more advanced USA can’t offer her.  No, instead of living in a clean place with ample food and sterile living quarters with people who care for her and friends to relate to, she decides to explore the backwoods of India and Italy.  She discovers… OMG!!! People are all the same?   She just needs to get over herself?   Wow!  Thanks guru!  I can’t believe that if I simply live life that I can find happiness!   What a load of crap.  Of course maybe some people need to be told that.  They could have asked me and saved 3 hours of their life…   Avoid this – unless you just want to die a little inside.

I will keep watching and letting you know what is happening so you can… well be entertained if nothing else. 

Be Excellent to Each Other,

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~BAT