All posts by ERTorre

E. R. Torre is a writer/artist whose first major work, the mystery graphic novel The Dark Fringe, was optioned for motion picture production by Platinum Studios (Men In Black, Cowboys vs. Aliens). At DC Comics, his work appeared in role-playing game books and the 9-11 Tribute book. This later piece was eventually displayed, along with others from the 9-11 tribute books, at The Library of Congress. More recently he released Shadows at Dawn (a collection of short stories), Haze (a murder mystery novel with supernatural elements), and Cold Hemispheres (a mystery novel set in the world of The Dark Fringe). He is currently hard at work on his latest science fiction/suspense series, Corrosive Knights, which features the novels Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon.
Movies

Back to Cracked…

A couple of fun/funny lists via Cracked.com, both dealing with movies…

First up, 6 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Movies…

http://www.cracked.com/article_20649_6-mind-blowing-easter-eggs-hidden-in-famous-movies.html

Perhaps my favorite bit is #5, the many references in Toy Story (Particularly Toy Story 3) to, of all movies, The Shining!  A curious choice to make references to an “R” rated horror movie in a “G” rated (primarily) kid’s movie!

As for some of the other items, the one I was most familiar with (and which most fans of the Evil Dead movies already know as well), is the famous Oldsmobile featured in several Sam Raimi directed/associated films.

Next up, 5 Clever Movie Schemes You Didn’t Realize Were Stupid:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20659_5-clever-movie-schemes-you-didnt-realize-were-stupid.html

I was more familiar with several of these.  The Django Unchained one, in particular, I couldn’t agree with more.  When I originally reviewed the film, I noted that so much pain and possible death could have been avoided by, of all damn things, simply shaking a person’s hand.  But the reality is that the whole entire climax made very little sense.  As noted, there was no reason for Django himself to be involved in the entire climax, and Dr. Schultz could have come up with a far less bloated plan to buy Broomhilda from her owner.  Then again, had they used a far more logical means of getting to this end, the movie wouldn’t have had its “explosive” climax.

Still…

As for the #1 entry, the latest James Bond film Skyfall, I likewise agree with the points being made.  I have to admit enjoying the film as it moved along and it was only afterwards and as I thought about what I had just seen that I realized how nonsensical the whole thing was.  Case in point was the whole climax, as noted in the Cracked entry.  Why was Judi Dench’s M there at all?  She didn’t need to be.  There was no way the villain could have known if she was when he attacked.

And the bottom line is this: The villain essentially accomplishes everything he set out to do, despite Bond.

Way to go, James!

Movies

Prince of Darkness (1987) a (very) belated review

Bear with me on this…

The first -and until yesterday- last time I ever saw the John Carpenter directed/written Prince of Darkness was in a theater with a friend back in 1987 during its initial theatrical run.  I remember both of us walking out of the theater in disgust at having wasted a perfectly good afternoon watching a perfectly wretched film.

Fast forward to last week, when I had to buy some stuff via Amazon and, to make the delivery free (I’m cheap that way! 😉 ), I added a few items to meet the minimal free shipping total.  For whatever reason I was thinking of the 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth)…

…but had never seen the supposedly better TV show it was based on (this according to several people who had seen both), also titled Quatermass and the Pit, that aired nearly a full decade before in 1958.

So, being in an adventuresome/curious mood, I ordered the 1958 Quatermass and the Pit but still needed another order to make that all important free delivery (Yes, in order to save $5 in postage I was willing to spend another $20 for merchandise…never said I was logical!).  Anyway, I looked around the DVD/BluRay sections and, having been pleasantly surprised by SHOUT! Factory’s BluRay release of John Carpenter’s The Fog, a movie I didn’t think all that highly of but proved quite the revelation on BluRay, I decided to bite the bullet and, after 26 years (!!!) revisit Prince of Darkness.

The order arrived a few days ago and yesterday, finally, I had a chance to take a look at Prince of Darkness.  Watching those first few minutes of the film proved a pleasant surprise.  The establishing mood was good, almost deliciously Lovecraftian, and Jameson Parker, who I didn’t recall thinking all that much of when I originally watched the film ages ago, proved to be compelling…at least in those initial moments.

Without giving away too much of the plot, Prince of Darkness involves a fraternity of Catholic Priests who have been tasked for centuries to secretly guard a container of glowing green liquid that, they fear, holds a great evil.  The last of the Priests to oversee the material has passed away, and the Priest investigating this order (played by the always interesting Donald Pleasence) contacts Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) a teacher of high level theoretical physics at a University to assemble a team of students and professors to find out what this container actually holds.

Spoiler Alert: It isn’t anything good.

The students, teachers, and Priest hole up in the old rundown church hiding this liquid and soon experience odd sensations while noting an odd assortment of apparently homeless people surrounding the church, intent on keeping them there and, should they try to leave, doing them great harm.  The killings soon start and, yes, the film becomes a “siege” tale, something director/writer John Carpenter has worked on plenty of times before and since.

By the time the movie reached its climax and I realized Mr. Carpenter was using a familiar element from one of my favorite films, 1949’s Orpheus (the mirrors) and another familiar element related to the legend (the loss of Orpheus’ lover, Eurydice)…

…I abruptly came to another realization: Prince of Darkness was essentially a remake or reimagining of Quatermass and the Pit!  Basically, Mr. Carpenter (writing under the alias of –how could I miss this?!– Martin Quatermass) took all the main elements of Quatermass and the Pit -the strange object found in a run down area of the city, the impulses it creates in people around it, the world level threat, the bizarre “mind transmissions”, and, especially, the sacrifice of one of the major characters to end the threat- and added a few other elements (perhaps a pinch of the Exorcist) and, voila, he created Prince of Darkness!

What are the odds?!

I purchase Quatermass and the Pit (the TV version) and Prince of Darkness on the same day via Amazon and come to the stunning realization that one film very much influenced (or, if you’re less forgiving, was ripped off) the other!

Ok, now the big question: Is Prince of Darkness any good?

Before I get into that, let me state that many consider this movie John Carpenter’s last truly “great” film, even though he followed it up with They Live and a little later, Into the Mouth of Madness, both works which are considered “good,” if not “great” Carpenter.  There are others, however, who consider Prince of Darkness Mr. Carpenter’s first really big misstep and a harbinger of the lesser works that followed.

Myself?  Well, after watching the film once again I find myself in middle.  I have to admit I didn’t hate Prince of Darkness quite as much as I did when I first saw it in 1987.  On the other hand, I certainly didn’t walk away loving it.  The story features too many characters who are bland and ultimately unrealized.  The script really could have used some tightening and the direction, while decent, wasn’t quite as interesting as I’ve seen in other Carpenter works.  A good example of this is the attack of the green water.  Though it pains me to say this considering how much I admire so many of John Carpenter’s films, this proves to be quite laughable.  Unintentionally so, alas.

So in the end, I can only recommend this film for someone like me who has a fondness for Quatermass and the Pit and is curious to see John Carpenter’s reinterpretation of the themes/story.  SHOUT! Factory’s BluRay is a beauty and features razor sharp images and clarity probably not seen in the film since its initial release.  If you’re interested in seeing it, this is certainly the way to go.

General

Top 20 Dumbest Cars…

…at least according to an article at AOL autos:

http://autos.aol.com/gallery/dumbest-cars-all-time/

Many of the “usual suspects” are present.  I figured the #1 dumbest car was going to either be the Pinto or the Edsel.  Spoiler:  It turned out to be one of them, though the other wasn’t on the list at all!

Back in High School I had a first hand experience with the Pinto as a friend of mine at the time had the vehicle and we drove around with it now and then.  What I remember the most about the car was a) it was ugly as hell in its brown/gold interior and exterior color, b) it wasn’t a comfortable car to sit in, and c) it was really noisy.

At least we shared some good laughs regarding the car…my friend was anything but enamored with his vehicle.

But my favorite “Dumb” car has to be the #14 entry, the infamous 1899 Horsey Horseless.  Words alone can’t describe this idiotic concept so, ladies and gentlemen, the 1899 Horsey Horseless:

Your eyes are not deceiving you.  We have a car with a Horse’s head strapped onto its front.  The theory its creator(s) had, one imagines, is that because some people might be reluctant to switch from their horse drawn buggies and “move up” to automobiles, the manufacturers had to do something to create a sense of familiarity to something new.  So, like training wheels on a bicycle, we have a horse’s head bolted to the front of this car so people take comfort in the fact that…

Hell…it makes no sense at all!!!!

Still fun to look at , though! 😉

General

“Cannonball” record shattered

Interesting article regarding a group of three people who broke the “Cannonball” record for driving (illegally) cross country, from New York to Los Angeles:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/new-york-los-angeles-cannonball-speed-record/index.html

A small part of me admires the thought put into their escapade, from considering the best time and conditions (weekend, full moon) to the modifications made to their car (extra gas tanks and bedpans so they wouldn’t have to make as many pit stops) to having spotters look out for police (naturally).

It’s a very small part, however.  The part that as a younger person enjoyed the whole “car chase/crash” movie genre that was quite popular from the mid to later half of the 1970’s and into the early 1980’s (it probably died around the time Cannonball Run 2 and Stroker Ace, both Burt Reynolds -ahem- vehicles, flopped).  I loved Ron Howard’s directorial debut, Grand Theft Auto and the mayhem it featured (saw the film recently aaaaaannnd….it doesn’t hold up).  Loved -and still love- the original Smokey and the Bandit.  Loved both The Gumball Rally and Cannonball (1976) though the later film had a pretty brutal climax that really twisted the movie away from being a “comedy”.  As for the first Cannonball Run movie, apart from a couple of chuckles it didn’t do all that much for me.

A larger part of me finds the fantasy versus the reality of what the gentlemen above accomplishing…scary.  In the article, Ed Bolian, one of the trio driving the Mercedes cross country, mention the following:

“Apart from a FedEx truck not checking his mirrors before he tried to merge on top of me, we didn’t really have any issues.”

Oh, really?  The FedEx driver, at least in the quote above, was in the wrong even when you’re traveling at an average rate of 90 mph while at times moving as fast 158 mph (their top speed)?!  Though the quote doesn’t give details of this merging vehicle, one can’t help but wonder just how fast the trio were driving at that time.  If they were doing high speeds (70+), one can hardly blame the FedEx driver for not noticing a car barreling down on him/her.

Regardless, the story worries me more than anything else.  Now that these three have a speed record in this illegal activity that surely put others on the road at risk (not to mention the drivers themselves), how long before others try to break that record?  Will they be as “cautious” and well planned as this trio were, or will they be even more reckless?

And even if they are as cautious as can be, accidents can -and sadly do– happen.

Watching those old car race/crash movies as a kid was fun.  But it was also fantasy.  Even then I knew this wasn’t something that should happen in real life.  Having people driving around this recklessly for such a long distance in the real world makes me more than a little nervous.

General

9000 Year Old Painting of Volcano Linked to Real Eruption…

This is the type of stuff I absolutely love to read about: An ancient painting of an exploding volcano has been linked to a real-life eruption that happened in and around that same time in Turkey:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/9-000-year-old-painting-volcano-linked-real-eruption-8C11498570

The bottom line is that the painting is about 9000 years old and scientists have been able to determine that the Hasan Dag volcano erupted “8,970 years ago, plus or minus 640 years, according to a new dating technique that analyzes zircon crystals in volcanic rock“.

Which means that the painting was probably made in and around the same time the volcano actually erupted.  Therefore the painting may well be our very distant ancestors making a note of something they personally witnessed!

Fascinating, fascinating stuff!

General

More on the War of the Worlds Broadcast…

Yesterday I linked to an article from Slate magazine that explored the reality of the “panic” created by Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast of 1938 (you can read about that here).

Here’s another interesting article by Michael Roffman for Time magazine concerning the broadcast and its effects on culture.  As with the Salon article, I agree with many of the points Mr. Roffman makes.  Even if the so-called “panic” that supposedly resulted from the broadcast was probably more myth than reality, this does not negate the huge impact the broadcast had on the media, both then and -yes- up to and including today, even if many may not realize this.

Just goes to show, that Orson Welles fellow was pretty damn clever and anticipated many  of the things to come…

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/31/the-real-legacy-of-orson-welles-war-of-the-worlds-broadcast/

Books/Literature

Two Sentence Horror Stories…the redux

A while back (you can read it here) I found an interesting bit on io9.com regarding two sentence horror stories.  Several of the ones featured in the article were genuinely chilling.

Salon.com has now presented twelve examples of the same, two sentence (very) brief thrillers/chillers.

Enjoy!

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/30/12_novelists_tell_their_scariest_bite_size_stories/

General

The Myth of the “War of the Worlds” Panic…

1 Comment

I’ve always had this nagging suspicion that the stories of the panic that followed the broadcast of The War of the Worlds for radio by a young, pre-movie stardom Orson Welles and based on the equally famous science fiction novel by H. G. Wells (no relation) were exaggerated.

Granted, all this happened a long time ago -1938 to be exact- and mass media wasn’t quite as overwhelming as today so most of the stories I read furthered the idea that the broadcast did create a panic.  Yet I couldn’t help but think for this to have happened, we had to believe people back then were, bluntly, rubes.  Easily swayed.  Easily fooled.

But let me back up a moment.  The story of the radio broadcast of The War of the World goes like this:  The radio-play was presented as a “newscast” and it was the nature of the serious “reporting” within the play itself that fooled many people into thinking the events unfolding were actually real, that Earth/New Jersey was being invaded by Martians at this very moment.  Naturally, this was what supposedly caused the panic that followed.

Again, the question I (and others of course) asked was exactly how much of this panic was true?

In honor of 75 Anniversary of the transmission, Jefferson Pooley and Michael Socolow offer a fascinating article for Slate.com exploring the myth and reality of what actually happened when Orson Welles and company staged their infamous radio play, and the reality of the “panic” that followed:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_welles_war_of_the_worlds-panic_myth_the_infamous_radio_broadcast_did.html

At the risk of ruining a big chunk of the article, the authors state there is scant evidence there was any “massive” panic at all (the article goes as far as saying almost no one was “fooled” into thinking there was a genuine invasion and what panic there was was so minimal as to be “immeasurable”).

Which brings up the more intriguing question: Where did this panic story come from and why?

I found the answer to that one of the more fascinating things in the article and, no, I won’t give it away here.

Give the article a read, it offers a fascinating window into myth making.

Movies

For Halloween…

Two lists.  First up, 10 Scariest Movies You May Have Never Seen, at least according to Time magazine:

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/28/hidden-halloween-10-scary-movies-youve-never-seen/slide/the-vanishing/

I’ve seen seven of the listed films and, for the most part, their inclusion on the list is good.  However, I would disagree about at least two of the items: the original Evil Dead and the 1922 Nosferatu.  I suspect many people have seen at least bits of either film and certainly they’re well known.

In a list like this, I expected more oddball/unknown features.  In this case, the one that most intrigued me was the French film Inside.  Sounds pretty creepy…

Next up, Time Magazine again, this time offering a list of the 10 Greatest Stephen King movies:

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/21/the-big-chills-10-greatest-stephen-king-movies/

Once again, a decent list that few will probably argue with.  If there is one film on the list I might not include it is The Secret Window.  Much as I enjoyed Johnny Depp’s acting in the film, to me the movie unraveled when the revelations came in the climax.

Then again, that’s me.

Movies

This Is The End (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Dying is easy.  Comedy is hard.

Now this is a tough one to grade.

On the one hand, there were many scenes in This Is The End, the Seth Rogen/James Franco/Jay Baruchel/Danny McBride/Jonah Hill/Craig Robinson film that had me laughing out loud…

…yet there were an equal number of moments that tested my patience.  Eventually I had more than my fill of the movie and turned it off perhaps a half hour before its end (no pun intended!).

Once I shut the film off, I didn’t think I’d return to it.  That’s how tired I was of the whole thing.

Nonetheless, I knew there wasn’t much left to see so I decided to finish the film off.  Lo and behold, I greatly enjoying the movie’s climax/last act.  I’m certain the one day rest away from the film greatly helped as I found these parts fun and very funny.

The moral of the story?  Watch This Is The End in at least two sittings.

So that’s the crux of the movie’s problem:  While quite humorous at times, the film feels way, waaaay too long at 107 minutes.  The film’s concept, by the way, is this: Seth Rogen and his Hollywood friends play Looney Tune versions of themselves and while partying at actor James Franco’s house the Apocalypse hits Earth and their numbers dwindle as they ineptly fend for themselves.

Had the boys brought a good editor with them, s/he might have trimmed down the film’s excesses while sharpening the admittedly funny jokes and giving us an overall better product.

A good example of this is the sequence involving Emma Watson beating the boys up and stealing their food/water supplies.  This sequence, as presented in its abbreviated form in the theatrical trailer below, is hilarious.  In the movie, we get this extended -and not as funny- bit where the boys let Emma Watson back into James Franco’s house and then get into a discussion of the fact that she’s the only female in this house full of men…and of course the dialogue gets into the potential for one or more of them getting the urge to rape her.  Emma overhears this conversation and this is why she ultimately splits.

But the joke, to my mind, works better in the abbreviated form of the trailer: Emma breaks into the house, intimidates and beats the boys up before stealing their supplies and they lament the fact that they got their asses kicked by “Hermione”.

As I said before, the film does have its share of very humorous sequences.  The problem is the film is way too overindulgent and could have used more judicious pruning.  A shame.  Had the film run perhaps 90 minutes or so it might have been far better.