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Category: Movies and TV

I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie, Part II

I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie, Part II

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Ice Spiders (Syfy Channel, 2007), Tail Sting (Shoreline Entertainment,
2001), and Big Bad Bugs (SuperNova Films, 2012)

 

Ice Spiders (2007, YouTube)

Giant bugs?

Very large spiders! About the size of a skidoo.

CGI-heavy?

Yes. Mid-2000s quality too.

Any good?

Big bug movie watching fatigue is a real thing. Don’t get me wrong, I could watch monster movies until the camel spiders come home, but sitting through the same old tired format is draining me faster than a Dalmatian-sized black widow.

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Goth Chick News: Lego Jaws? Just Take My Money Now

Goth Chick News: Lego Jaws? Just Take My Money Now

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The original design submitted by Diving Faces (aka Jonny Campbell)

During 2020 when I was looking to fill quite a lot of downtime, I discovered the Lego Ideas website. Though I have never been a Lego builder or collector, I am still endlessly fascinated by the incredible creations true aficionados come up with. At Lego Ideas, hardcore Lego builders create and showcase unique designs. There are regular “challenges” creators can enter, but the big prize goes to those ideas submitted to the new products challenge. In the end, the creation in that category, with the most community votes, becomes a new Lego set produced for sale.

In May 2022, a Lego master builder going by the handle “Diving Faces” submitted a build depicting the final scene in the movie Jaws. In that scene it’s the shark against the three heroes, Quint (Robert Shaw), Brody (Roy Scheider) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), in Quint’s boat the Orca. “Diving Faces,” recently unmasked as Lego-master Jonny Campbell, created a 14-inch-high replica of the boat, as well as the iconic shark, all with Legos.

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Goth Chick News: Bill Skarsgård as THE Classic Vampire? Yes Please

Goth Chick News: Bill Skarsgård as THE Classic Vampire? Yes Please

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It was during the silent movie era, which lasted from 1894 to 1929, that Bram Stoker penned his most famous work, Dracula (1897). However, it wasn’t Stoker who decided to bring his vampire to the silver screen, but instead, German filmmaker F.W. Murnau ultimately plagiarized Dracula for his 1922 film Nosferatu, kicking off one of the first high-profile copyright cases in history.

Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker’s widow, was living in London when she received the program of the Berlin premiere of Nosferatu that proclaimed the film was “adapted from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” She realized Nosferatu was violating Stoker’s copyright and therefore costing her royalties. As his widow, Florence was entirely reliant on Stoker’s legacy, so she decided to act.

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Lovely Ladies and Pleistocene Behemoths: A Visit to the Hollow Earth with Edgar Rice Burroughs

Lovely Ladies and Pleistocene Behemoths: A Visit to the Hollow Earth with Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Caroline Munro, and a pair of Pleistocene behemoths, in At the Earth’s Core

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with “hollow earth” stories, a style of fantasy fiction that presents ancient, lost societies of people (and/or humanoids) living deep under the earth, where Jurassic and Pleistocene behemoths — as well as uncategorized horrors — struggle to survive in the subterranean jungles of a sunless world.

My favorite of this genre is the Pellucidar series, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which began in 1914 when At the Earth’s Core was serialized in All-Story Weekly, before the novel was published in book format.

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I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie, Part I

I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie, Part I

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Arachnicide (See Thru Pictures, 2014)

I’m sometimes asked why I haven’t got around to watching Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon yet, and that’s because I’m too busy watching this sort of stuff. Come with me as we begin our foray into the world of angry insects!

Arachnicide (2014, YouTube)

Giant bugs?

You have to wait for around 53 minutes for anything with more than 2 legs to show up.

CGI-heavy?

CGI HEAVY, as in ALL CG, including the environments, landscapes, helicopters, soldiers walking to helicopters, satellites, and the giant spiders.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Zhang Yimou

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Zhang Yimou

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Hero (China/Hong Kong, 2002)

The Hong Kong cinema industry’s success as an action-film factory for 50 years starting in the 1960s has meant that most of the Chinese-language movies covered by Cinema of Swords originated there. However, once mainland China shook itself free of its painful Cultural Revolution, its own film industry began to reassert itself. Zhang Yimou was one of the new directors of the so-called “Fifth Generation” that emerged in the ‘80s and ‘90s. A native of Xi’an in remote western China, Zhang had a distinctive eye for landscapes and most of all color, and his early films were acclaimed dramas telling stories of the Chinese middle and working class, movies such as Red Sorghum (1988), Ju Dou (1990), and Raise the Red Lantern (1991).

What primarily interests us, of course, is Zhang’s work in the wuxia genre, which he took up after the success of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Zhang’s Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004) are big-budget productions with leading stars such Jet Li and Zhang Ziyi, but it’s really Zhang’s incredible art and action direction that make them instant classics.

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Goth Chick News: From Wolf-Lover to Wolf – kit Harington Gets Hairy

Goth Chick News: From Wolf-Lover to Wolf – kit Harington Gets Hairy

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It is no secret around the Black Gate offices that if the “King of the North” ever drops by asking for Goth Chick, I am absolutely, unequivocally always available. It’s true that Jon Snow could be a little too angsty at times, but it was never about his dialog and all about how he looked saying it.

So pairing actor Kit Harington with one of my favorite classic movie monsters had me watching this trailer for The Beast Within over and over when it dropped Tuesday morning.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Wolves and Scorpions

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Wolves and Scorpions

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Brotherhood of the Wolf (France, 2001)

The boom in heroic fantasy novels in the wake of the success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Conan revival means there is plenty of imaginative literary fodder available for film adaptations, providing heroes, villains, and plot structures ready-made for cinema. But there are also original fantasy films, of course, movies with stories and scripts written for the screen rather than drawn from books. These are often wilder and less moored to reality than their literary siblings, occasionally resulting in unlooked-for gems that are enjoyable even for repeated viewings, especially when created by a director with a strong, personal vision.

But just as often we get a by-the-numbers retread made by Hollywood hacks that is, at best, merely professional entertainment. This week we have one of each from just past the turn of our current century.

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Goth Chick News: Saving One of the Best Vault Treasures for Last

Goth Chick News: Saving One of the Best Vault Treasures for Last

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An American Werewolf in London (Universal Pictures, August 21, 1981)

I am relieved to report that this is my final week of traveling which has been utterly unassociated with any fun save for my horror movie marathon. Notice how I carefully avoided additional adjectives like “classic” or “retro” for fear of catapulting you and me into a tailspin of denial. What I will say is that my binge-watching has been confined to movies that have celebrated their 40th anniversaries, so we’ll just leave it there.

Though nearly every evening of the last five weeks has seen me streaming my way through a list of titles inspired by my personal DVD archival vault (a couple of plastic tubs in my crawl space), I’ve chosen to do a deep dive on my favorites. This week’s marathon included The Lost Boys (1987), Prince of Darkness (1987), and Fright Night (1985), all of which would have made wonderful articles. But when the opening of American Werewolf in London (1981) started rolling on my laptop, there was no question what I’d be talking to you about today.

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Goth Chick News: Now It’s The Fly’s Turn to Crawl Out of the Vault

Goth Chick News: Now It’s The Fly’s Turn to Crawl Out of the Vault

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The Tingler (Columbia Pictures, July 1959), and The Fly (20th Century Fox, July 1958)

Though I have previously described how my Dad first introduced me to classic horror, Mom would likely be mortified to know I credit her as well. Though there is one lone, totally fabulous drive-in movie theater left in Chicagoland, Mom used to tell me how there were a dozen or more ‘back in the day.’ She explained how, when she and Dad were dating, there was no finer way to spend a summer evening than seeing the latest film under the stars. What seemed strange to me about these stories were the titles of the movies they used to see. Apparently, in her youth, Mom also liked horror.

I remember listening with rapt attention as she described a scene from The Tingler in which the disembodied spinal cord crawled up over the front seat to attack a couple at the drive-in. She said this was the scariest thing she had ever seen as she and Dad were watching The Tingler at the drive-in. Mom also talked about The Fly (1958), starring David Hedison, Patricia Owens, and Vincent Price. Apparently, Vincent Price’s performance gave her nightmares.

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