Author: RevVoice

Hey Somethings, I actually had to go back and look through some of my old blog posts to see if I’ve talked about this, and I was surprised to find out that I hadn’t! If the ending of a horror movie ends with the director saying things like, ‘Well, what do YOU think it means?’ like they are your therapist, you may have just watched an arthouse horror movie.

“But Hatton,” you ask, “what IS an elevated/arthouse horror movie?”

Well, it’s a movie that is trying to hide a deeper message beneath its horror. This isn’t new, as films like Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and even Godzilla (1954) were talking about one thing under the guise of scares. Nowadays though, it is a twofold defense mechanism for:

* Movies that have a deeper message
* Movies that want you to think they have a deeper message
* People who don’t want to admit they like horror movies

Movies like Get Out, with its obvious racial overtones use the vehicle of horror to really turn a topic on its head and make you uncomfortable in your own world. Mother is a story of Christian mythology. Babadook is about abuse. These movies tell an engrossing tale of scares while also at the end give you something to think about. Bad arthouse horror, on the other hand, gives you attempts at symbolism that are never explained and plotholes that you hope are intentional until you get to the credits and you end up confused. The truth is, a good percentage of horror movies out there have some other meaning, intentional or not, and brushing aside any movie because its message isn’t deeply imbedded enough is, at the very least, insulting to the people involved. To sit and look at a movie like Hereditary (2018) or Neon Demon (2016) and comment about how the deeper message is beneath the surface and the horror is what you feel and.. well, I could go on, is to ignore that horror has been telling interesting stories about the human condition since the first vampires were born of fears of porphyria and rabies.

In the future, at the end of a movie, you sit there scratching your head while your one friend who only vapes artisanal clove oil and refers to your fruit salad as a ‘reconstructed charcuterie’ tells you how deep the film you just watched is. It’s ok to hate the movie.. it’s ok to think it was stupid.. it’s ok to want a clear answer to your narrative tales.. and it’s ok to kick that dude out, because seriously, you don’t need that kind of negativity.

Back in the day, those 30 second Tiktok clips used to come in longer formats – 3 – 5 minutes at a clip… we called them songs.  A musician would then take 10 or so of them and make an entire album of them!  Crazy times.

To add to that, those albums used to have art and liner notes and production information and lyrics… and this was literally every song ever.  You can still see the remnants of these forgotten artifacts when you load one of those tracks on iTunes and see the square of prety colors.  Imagine that, on a shelf.. like you are some sort of art collector!  Amazing, really.

Well, the Somethings remember that time well and we settle in to talk about not the music – not the artist – but our favorite album covers.

Ready? Ok, here we go!

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Do you enjoy the Evil Dead series? Or are you a goody two shoes? goody two shoes goody goody two shoes

You don’t like that? ………..screw

Ok, I swear, I’m not just being pithy – it’s just hard to not get an edge of snark in your voice when you are talking about Bruce Campbell in his most famous role of none other than the chainsaw wielding, S-Mart selling, boomstick threatening, words sayin, Ash!

Did his three seasons of horror comedy knock those Deadites down or was that just pillow talk, baby?

Find out on this, the last of our SpoooOooktacular October episodes on, The End: Ash vs. Evil Dead

Ok here we……… groovy!

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Sure, Raimi did shakycam first… but did he give an actor a camera and tell them to just act like a dickweed for a few days and then scare the bajeezus out of him?  No, that is Blair Witch territory – a movie franchise you either love or hate.

Maybe you love it because you fell for the gimmick of a movie that might have been real. Maybe you loathe the handicam films that it spawned. Perhaps, you love the whole mythos of the Burkittsville, MD creepy cryptid and need to know everything…

No matter what your stance is, they did a movie in 2016 that you didn’t see – and we’re going to review it. Is it as original as the first one? Does it answer the questions we threw into the damned river? Does it blow snotbubbles and apologize?  Find out on Something In Review!

Ok, here we go.. standing in the corner…

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Who out there can say they are a documentarian, comic book writer, and vampire hip-hop mogul?

Only one guy we know, and if you are a fan of Vampire: The Masquerade or Geek & Sundry, you know him too – it’s B. Dave Walters!

With LA By Night finishing up with its fifth season, and this, the Something Spooktacular month, there is no better time to join in to see who lives, dies.. or dies again, rather..

We talk Vampire, his work on the Dungeons & Dragons comic ‘A Darkened Wish‘, his documentary ‘Dear America, from a Black Guy‘ and his upcoming work ‘ElectroPunk‘ – and if you want to keep track of everything B. Dave Walters does, the best place to find him is on Twitter: @bdavewalters

So grab some 10-sided die and spend some blood points, ok, here we go!

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I’m so proud of the world… it finally discovered one of my favorite sub-niche’s of entertainment: Games of Death

Everyone has gone crazy recently, the meme machine is pumping out hits, for Netflix’s newest gift from across the ocean, Squid Game.

Now, this premise may have some similarities to other things you’ve seen: A group of people are in a game that when they lose.. they die. Of course the similarities are there to be drawn to a dozen other things: Battle Royale, Hunger Games, Roller Games, Running Man, Gladiator, Alice in Bordertown, Saw… it’s a pretty lengthy list of weird movies that I have an affinity for.

In the month since it’s come out, it has already done the life and death of an internet trend. Some people notice it. Some people meme it. Some people declare it is the best thing that has ever been created and that nothing has ever been as unique. Some people hate those people. Some people get sick of it being mentioned and promptly hate it without ever having seen it. And they are the usual round of reactions.

Is it good, yes, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about here. It’s about how cool I am. You see, it’s a weird thing when something you’ve loved since you were a kid hits the zeitgeist. I get why the hipster mindset of ‘I was there before it was cool’ comes out because it feels like something special that you’ve owned for so long and now it isn’t part of your personal entertainment genetic code. There is this gut reaction of, ‘Yes, I know you like Squid Game, but have you ever seen…’ that makes you sound like a complete tool. I mean, they like Squid Game, sure, but don’t they understand that the trope of the character that can’t be good at the game or the bully are simply common features of the genre? Geez people, come on!

If you look inside yourself, you know you’ve done the same thing. Maybe it was when everybody started loving comic book movies and you stared at your longbox full of X-Force #1 and wrote a lengthy angry Livejournal post? Or when everyone got into Sharknado and you, the foremost authority on horrible ‘animals in disaster’ movies felt horrible when nobody called you for an interview.

Here’s the thing you need to hear though: don’t be that person. It’s great to discuss the origins of a genre or note all of these other movies that people who enjoyed Squid Game may have liked, but guess what… you don’t own a niche or a sub-genre. Yes, it’s frustrating that more people are ignorant to the nuance of people being flayed alive by board games, but you get to be the ambassador. Tell them how fantastic Tag is or find interesting comparisons to make about the characters. Use your obsession for the power of good.. and be happy the popularity of Squid Game means you may get a lot more games of death to watch in the future.

It’s spoOooOoOokytime! 

So how better than to bring in the Autumnal Season of Horror than with two of our favorite people out in the internet’o’verse?

This week, the Somethings are talking about a very particular topic. Some horror movies are good.. some horror movies are bad.. but, what SECOND horror movies are worth giving a shot? Of course anyone can talk about Texas Chainsaw X: Leatherspace or Leprechaun: Bring It On, but when you are only limited to the sophmore outing of your horror series, what’s out there that triumphs?

Joining us are none other than the Silver Screams (@Silver_Screams) – Megan Salinas (@themenguin) and Katie Cullen (@kiaxet) – two internet savvy fear fatales that you can find anywhere fans are talking about the things they love.

So get yourself some Pun’kin Spice, and ok, here we BOO!

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If there is one thing that the Somethings don’t do.. it’s pitying fools.  We don’t pity the fools, and we have, and will always have a ‘no fool pitying’ rule.

That said, we have somehow stumbled into this pit of fools, specifically the finale of the classic action adventure show, The A-Team.

So settle in as we look back to the finale of this beloved cult classic and ask whether it was worth the journey to get to this moment?  From helicopters to Italian food names. From anchovies to exploding cars – did the A-Team go out with a bang, or more of a disgruntled Mr. T grunt.

There’s only one way to find out… join us for THE END: A-TEAM

Ok, here we go!

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Can we discuss Wonka?

Those that know me know that there are a handful of movies that are ‘my thing’ – movies that, back in the day of VHS tapes and stegosaurii, my copies wore through. The original Wonka, Gene Wilder, 70’s perm and all, is probably the first film I can even think of that I wouldn’t stop watching as a kid. Since then, I’ve learned I wasn’t the only one and Wonka fits similarly into many people my age because of our exposure to it at the dawn of cable and the tape.

We are now getting not one, but two Wonka related movies and I am filled with the fury of a middle aged white man on the internet. So lets take a look at the rumors as to what we’re getting in the Wonderful World of Wonka and gauge how angry I’m going to be… to be clear, Depp Wonka gets me a 9 out of 10 on the Hate’Ometer, saved from a 10 solely by the CGI squirrels.

The first is a ‘young Wonka’ story, as portrayed by acting Wunderkind Timothee Chamalet (to be clear, I have no idea if he’s a wunderkind (or how to spell that)) I just know that he’s in a lot of places, and I don’t know anything about him. That said, this is rumored to be the first in a ‘Wonka Cinematic Universe’ which is a phrase that makes me wince so hard I felt my neck pop. The only saving grace to this entire concept is that the writer connected to it is Simon Farnaby who has done some notable work (including Rogue One, The Mighty Boosh) — but as the Depp Wonka taught us, sometimes, telling us too much ruins everything.

The second one is an animated series being created by Netflix and helmed by Taika Waititi of What We Do In Shadows and Ragnarok fame. This, mind you, I have less of a problem with as I have always wondered why there wasn’t a traditional Saturday Morning Cartoon about Wonka. There were cartoons for Back to the Future, Pac-Man, Robocop.. all that came well after the property had seen its golden days, so why not Wonka? A cartoon also feels quite less important in the scheme of the universe and a lot more ability to be playful without living in a green screen.

In the defense of both of these concepts, I do appreciate that they are being done by not-Americans. Waititi from New Zealand and Farnaby from England, Dahl’s humor and sensibility was most certainly not an American one and we’ve already proven we don’t deserve the rights to write a Wonka film… in the end, a cartoon gets only mild grunt from me, but a Cinematic Universe? Please don’t. Oh dot, please oh please do not. No good can come of it and what other books are you going to tie that into?! Maybe a discussion for another blog.

Unless, mind you, these Wonka properties help bring back Wonka candy bars… the ones that had the graham crackers in the blend… then you’ll get a pass as I sit on my couch with a mouth smeared in chocolate that a Gloop would be proud of.

thunder… Thunder… THUNDERCATS…

If, like me, your brain is now screaming ‘Hoooo!’ – you were likely of an era of a particular vintage of cartoons.  WYou are left with questions … is Cheetara naked?  Do Thundercats mate with their relatives or do they just ignore that cat thing?

And most important question of all…. If there was a Thundercats Movie, who should star in it?

So, this week on THE WHEEL, we are going to throw out our own ideas as to what the perfect Thundercats movie is – and we are not doing it alone.  Joining us once again are the greatest Kevins in all the land – Kevin Gootee & Kevin Israel – also known as Gutting The Sacred Cow, a brilliant podcast where you can hear some of your favorite things torn to shreds.  We would like to thank them for taking this trip to Thundera with us and giving us insight beyond insight.

Ready? Well, ok here we snarf snarf…. 

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