Giving Birth To A Power Tool

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) is a prequel to the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake that didn’t need to be made in the first place. Yep, I said it.

Thomas had a rough start in life. First, his mom gives birth to him in a meat packing plant. Not only did she leave him behind, but the plant foreman, thinking the bloody pile of meat is contaminated after it touched the floor, chucks Thomas into a dumpster.

And if his day couldn’t get any worse, Thomas (later given the Christian name of Leatherface), is found by a homeless woman looking in garbage cans for nutritious food. She doesn’t eat him (he was dropped on a dirty floor and is probably teeming with germs), but drops Thomas off at the Hewitt House instead, the home of the original Chainsaw family.

The luck of it all is Thomas grows up and gets a job at the very same meat packing plant that was the site of his beginning. Guess who his boss is? I know, right? Thomas repays that whole “tossing the fetus in the dumpster” incident by smashing his boss’ head into a Technicolor watermelon. It’s all about closure. Until he finds inner peace, Thomas finds a chainsaw. The rest just writes itself.

Butchering, screaming, cannibalism, screaming, kneecap gunshot wounds, screaming, face-skinning, screaming… It’s all part of Thomas’ pastiche.

Way more graphic and gory than the original, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning follows the same template as the Friday the 13th sequels, just racking up body count numbers in place of a compelling storyline. And Thomas? He’s already changed his name to Jason and got a job at Camp Crystal Lake.

Undead Tribute, Get To Know Bigfoot, Death Personified

As hardcore The Walking Dead fans have burned into their iCalendars™, the 100th episode — and season eight AMC™ opener — happens on Sunday, October 22, 20017. (And you thought the total eclipse was worth watching.)

To celebrate/commemorate, TWD episode director/ makeup effects master Greg Nicotero teamed up with his insanity talented KNB FX design team to whip up some tasty tribute posters, all in the style of one of the coolest horror shows ever on TV. Included with the above slick tribute to Alien is zombie/star character homages to Back to the Future, The Thing, Thunderball and The Omega Man. Pretty swear word cool. (You can find them all by following Greg on Instagram™.)

As the countdown to The Walking Dead marches on, here are a few just released/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that probably stole their ideas from all of the above…

ZOMBIES (available now/VOD/Limited – October 31, 2017/DVD)
“When the world is in shambles, plagued by a zombie outbreak, only the strong will survive, but just how much determination will it take? Will Luke and his crew have enough ambition and ammunition to outlive the undead?”

The title and plot should tell you how high they set the bar for themselves. This is so stock, it should be sold in grocery stores next to canned soup and frozen TV dinners.

DEATH ON SCENIC DRIVE (September 30, 3017/Hard Line Film Festival/Germany)
“During the cold winter months at a secluded countryside home, a young woman named Larissa encounters an entity that transforms her into Death itself. She reins violence against Dallas Henson and the family that resides there.”

Not sure why this one is being premiered in Germany when it’s Canadian-made. Bloody-Disgusting.com says Death On Scenic Drive is a “Gothic filled with gore, madness, weirdness, satanism and screeching, squelching music.” Sounds just like my upstairs neighbors on any given week night.

DISCOVERING BIGFOOT (October 27, 2017/VOD/Limited)
“What we think we know of human origins and evolution is about to change forever as we discover the truth about a species that has remained elusive by outwitting and evading modern man for decades despite his best efforts. Journey into the heart of Sasquatch Country and experience three incredible days in the field with Bigfoot experts. This unprecedented feature film includes extraordinary never before seen Sasquatch footage that will shock the world. Witness a terrifying altercation between Sasquatch Researcher Todd Standing and three Sasquatch creatures in the wild.”

The trailer for this documentary purports to show “indisputable” photographic/video evidence of Bigfoot, and even go so far as to include a few snippets of said proof. I’m convinced — and you’re talkin’ to a guy who stands in line at the Puyallup Fair to get an autograph and a picture with a guy in a Bigfoot suit handing out hot tub clearance sale flyers. Say what you will about the mythical wood ape — that guy can sell ice cubes to an eskimo.

THE PURGE: ISLAND (July 4, 2018)
“The Purge: Island is a prequel that will focus on the events that lead up to the very first Purge event, an experimental test on Staten Island.”

Cool, but I can’t wait for The Purge: Outer Space. In that one we get carte blanche to go all probe-y on those invasive aliens. They won’t know what violated their swimsuit/spacesuit area. Payback’s a b*tch, space b*tches — ha!

Eating Horror With Your Mouth Full

Arriving October 6, 2015, the horror movie Eaters promises to be scary, bloody and blood-curdling. Sounds like just another exam day at the proctologist.

The synopsis is typically uninformative and generic: “Five friends embark on an epic road trip, but when one friend disappears at a rest stop, their search brings them face to face with a violent biker gang. After a narrow escape from death, their nightmare goes from bad to spine-chilling when they find themselves being stalked in an abandoned town.”

Why can’t anyone write compelling press releases? There’s nothing in that copy that compels me to seek out Eaters. Heck, the highly descriptive advertising copy put out by my proctologist had me racing to the phone to schedule an appointment.

The trailer holds more promise, but given the lazy title (another Eaters and The Eaters – retitled Eat Me – came out in 2010) and plot, I’m gonna need a whole lotta beer to convince me to watch it.

Note to filmmakers – contact me via this blog to get my address so you can send me a whole lotta beer. No fancy pants metro beer, either – I want only the good stuff: Budweiser™. In cans, preferabbly chilled. And would it kill you to throw in a bag of Cheetos™?