¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #6

HALLOWEEN

(September 2018)

“... It's Michael Myers. Babysitter Murders. 1978. 40 years to this day.”

“Michael Myers loose, with a bunch of nutbags in Haddonfield on Halloween night? We’re gonna have a f*ckin’ circus on our hands.

“But hey, what are we gonna do? Cancel Halloween?”

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this is probably the biggest case of “Manage Your Expectations, Space Monkey” that I’ve had to deal with in quite a while.

This is, after all, the four decades-after follow-up to John Carpenter’s original Halloween.*

And I’m glad to announce that it delivers the goods.

Thank you, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride.

“There’s a reason we’re supposed to be afraid of this night.”

While it isn’t as “pure” a horror film as Carpenter’s original, given that once-victim Laurie (a focused, yet clearly traumatized Jamie Lee Curtis) is now a pro-active force intent on finishing what The Shape started all those decades ago, it manages to explore the aftermath of the so-called “Babysitter Murders,” examining its impact on not just Laurie, but on the two generations that succeed her.

It acknowledges that though the Final Girl may have survived the massacre, the scars she will need to carry past the end credits roll will be deep and ugly.

But maybe… just maybe… she’ll get a chance to prove that she’s more than just her scars…

“He waited for this night. He’s waited for me. I’ve waited for him.”

* Maybe I’m used to it because of comics, but I really don’t mind that all the Halloween films after Carpenter’s original are now retconned out of existence.

As is my attitude when it comes to comics pulling the same stunt, it’s not like the stories themselves have been erased, they just aren’t considered “canon” anymore.

Which is still fine, since the movies (or comics) are still there to be enjoyed if ever there’s a hankering.

(‘Cause the Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch is still a wild and wooly ride, with one of the all-time great ‘80’s horror film endings…)

Parting Shot: A review of the now-no-longer-canon Halloween II can he found here, while a review of Rob Zombie’s Halloween redux can be found here.

Spoilers ahoy!

Parting Shot 2: Now the grandmother Laurie here… now there’s a Laurie I can believe is a crack shot.

So… maybe the Halloween II Laurie, just for a second, cracked the alt-reality dimensional barriers and channeled her 40 years-later self?

Maybe…?

(Halloween OS’ courtesy of cbr.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #5

CAM

(July 2018)

“... I don't do public shows, I don't tell my guys I love them, and I don’t fake my orgasms.

“My rules.”

So says Madeline Brewer’s Alice Ackerman (AKA the cam girl who goes by the handle “Lola_Lola”).

Living her secret life without her mother’s knowledge, struggling to break the Top 50 on FGL (FreeGirlsLive), Alice’s world is turned upside down when a doppelgänger steals her online identity.

“Oh, tonight went so well! I told you people are craving crazy shows!”

“They are! Those guys get so nasty!”

“Yeah… What the f*ck was that?”

Director Daniel Goldhaber’s feature debut, Cam sees Brewer (exceptional as Janine on The Handmaid’s Tale) portray a simple working girl earnestly trying to make it big in her line of work, which involves constantly keeping her "guys"' attention fixed solely on her, lest their libidos wander and turn to the competition literally just a click away.

There is no judgment in the screenplay Goldhaber works from (written by former cam girl Isa Mazzei), no moralizing. Alice’s ordeal isn’t punishment for doing something wrong. If anything, the chilling scenario Cam presents suggests that cam girls are particularly susceptible to this very specific (and very insidious) form of horror film identity theft.

“We were brought together for a reason. Unexpected things happen… to test us. That’s what this is. You’re being tested, but… you’re strong. You’ll make it through.”

After all, we live in a world of Instagram filters, deepfakes, and the persona curation that goes on all the time on social media platforms, where nothing you see online can be assured to be genuine, to be “real.”

Where images, snippets of video, quotes or posts, can be taken out of context, co-opted, and used for purposes entirely divorced from their original intent.

Mazzei and Goldhaber’s tale takes that reality and pushes it into identity horror territory, where a girl who works under an obviously fake name is ousted from her online life by another fake, and can’t seem to get help from anyone other than herself.

“I’ll take care of you, my chickadee.”

Cam is an unsettling and haunting tale of identity and truth in the 21^st online century, where both can simply become mutable commodities on the web, and perhaps the only weapon that can be used in their defense, is our own personal agency.

““I’m, like, this f*cking close to breaking Top 50! I can taste it!”

(Cam OS courtesy of screenanarchy.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #4

CHANNEL ZERO:
THE DREAM DOOR

(October 2018)

“Roses are... lazy. And dishonest.”

“‘Dishonest’?”

“Mmm! Pretty flower! And then a minute later, you’re bleeding!”

Well, hell-loooooo, Pretzel Jack!

Turning to Cronenberg* for some conceptual inspiration, Channel Zero does an awesome quasi-slasher impression with the E.L. Katz-helmed The Dream Door, where an imaginary childhood friend and protector becomes something far more sinister in adulthood.

Channel Zero delivers a fourth winning season by giving us yet another “flavor” of horror (to borrow Channel Zero creator Nick Antosca’s term).

Just as Butcher’s Block was different from No-End House, which was, in turn, different from Candle Cove, so is The Dream Door different from any of the previous seasons.

Gorier and slightly more savage than its predecessors, it’s a tale that delves into the potentially brutal pain of complete honesty in a relationship, a story about love and secrets and distrust, and the intersection where all three collide… with a super-creepy contortionist clown…

“You know, it’s funny. In Jungian psychology, doors are kind of a thing.

“This whole deal with your basement, is… it’s fascinating.

* As well as Lynch, particularly for a brief, yet unsettlingly poignant bit past the halfway mark.

(Channel Zero: The Dream Door OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

2018 NOVEMBER KOMIKON POST-KON POST

Another November Komikon in the rearview mirror, and, for all you mighty fine folk who dropped by on Day 1, let me extend my thanx for your support.
I hope you enjoy your comic purchases and freebies.

And for all you mighty fine folk who passed by on Day 2 to find me MIA, I extend my sincerest apologies.
I am so, so, SO sorry I wasn't in attendance on Day 2.
I'll spare you the details, but I had a fall Saturday night after NovKon Day 1 wrapped up, so my left knee and foot got banged up and swollen, so I couldn't attend Day 2, as much as I really wanted to.
I'm still recovering and need to ensure that all the injuries are healing properly, so I also need to keep this short.

Once again, SO sorry to anyone who passed by on Day 2.
Rest assured, I fully intend to resume all the discounts and freebies at the next Komikon (since there are still freebie supplies left over), so we can think of the next Komikon as a delayed NovKon 2018 Day 2...

Also, for any artists who might have dropped by on Day 2 in regards to the ARTIST ALERT, another round of apologies.
You can still email us at verse.comics@gmail.com. (Subject Heading: ARTIST ALERT)
As I've said before, we really would love to hear from you.

Okay, so I'll need to leave it at that for now.
Again, thanx to everyone who dropped by on Day 1, and apologies to everyone who might have dropped by on Day 2.
(Also, HUGE thanx to Nida and the Visprint Crew, particularly for having to deal with my Day 2 absence, and to Ace, who tried, but work got in the way...)

Hope to see all you mighty fine folk at the next Komikon, and please, continue to support local comic book writers and artists!

you can’t drink just six,

Dave

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #3

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

(October 2018)

“How can a house, just a collection of bricks, wood, and glass, have that much power over people?"

Just as he did on ¡Qué horror! 2017 title Ouija: Origin of Evil, Mike Flanagan masterfully navigates the seas of traditional horror cinema in his self-described “remix” of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

This time out, unlike the original novel’s researchers and investigators, we see the Crain family move into Hill House, with the express aim of flipping it (or, fixing and flipping it, to be more precise).

The house, of course, uninterested in being renovated and then sold on to some other family foolish enough to open its door and walk down its shadowy halls, has other ideas…

“This house… it’s a strange house.

“I’ve worked here a long time, and all I can tell you is that it’s just as stupid and hungry as anything else.

“We don’t stay after dark, Horace and I. And my child is not allowed to step foot in this place. Not once.”

“For me, the most important thing is if you remove the supernatural entirely, the story and the character need to be just as compelling. The supernatural stuff is the easy stuff. But all of that stuff is really boring to me if it’s not grounded in some kind of really relatable honest human experience.”

-- Mike Flanagan

“This house… it’s full of precious, precious things… and they don’t all belong to you…”

Skillfully utilizing the narrative elegance of non-linear storytelling, Flanagan and company track the family’s ordeals and progressive unraveling, both in Hill House, and decades after, in a tale which is by turns chilling and heart-wrenching.

If this were a different kind of story, the Crain siblings would have taken all the lessons learned from their harrowing stay at Hill House, and ended up becoming a group of ghost-busting paranormal investigators.

But in the story this “remix” chooses to tell--a story more grounded in real life and the vagaries of family--what we end up with are a bunch of scarred, f*cked up individuals, all dealing as best they can with the trauma of their childhoods.

And this, quite possibly, is the best aspect of this particular take on the original material: that the dots that connect the children they once were with the adults they eventually become, are so clearly delineated.

The characterizations--the result of a potent combination of the character arcs as mapped out in the narrative, and excellent performances by the cast--are just as solid as the creepy scares.

“You’ve been knocking on that door for years and years and years…

“We could hear you knocking louder all the time, and finally, here you are…”

“If we were going to be doing this as a long format, it had to be about the way every family is a haunted house, and everyone is wrestling with their ghosts from their own childhood and beyond--that echo through decades.”

-- Mike Flanagan

“I was right here. I didn’t go anywhere.

“I was right here… I was right here the whole time.

“None of you could see me.

“Nobody could see me.”

Directing the entire season of 10 episodes, Flanagan brings both an exquisite cinematic eye to the proceedings*, and a fundamental understanding of the full range of his cast’s capabilities.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that amongst an already formidable collection of actors and actresses**, the paired casting of Timothy Hutton and Henry Thomas are the cherry-so-red-it’s-very-nearly-black on top of this ghostly, sinister sundae, a sickly, sweetly rotten treat sprinkled liberally with mold and familial dysfunction.

“There’s nothing wrong with going at night. It’s just a carcass in the woods.

“It’s just a carcass in the woods.

“It’s just a carcass… in the woods.”

(The Haunting of Hill House OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

* Aided by long-time collaborator, cinematographer Michael Fimognari.

** Shout outs to Annabeth Gish and Dr. Lawrence Jacoby himself, Russ Tamblyn, who may just be overlooked with all the other high-caliber thespianics going on around them.

Parting Shot: Though I have seen Jan de Bont’s The Haunting, I’ve never read the original Shirley Jackson novel (I really should finally get around to it), nor seen the 1963 Robert Wise film adaptation (which Flanagan seems respectfully in awe of).
As it turns out, Tamblyn also appeared in Wise's version, as the "Luke" character. In Flanagan's "remix," Tamblyn plays Dr. Montague, repurposing the name of the lead investigator in Jackson's original novel. (In Wise's adaptation, that character becomes Dr. Markway.)
Remix, indeed.

“Our family is like an unfinished meal to that house…"