Supporting The Art: Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

I have been finding myself in the strange predicament of realizing that I am an adult now and do in fact care about the state of affairs that my field of art is in. That is all to say that I don't file share/ pirate films anymore.

I don't normally prefer to stream movies as there is always a chance of the connection being lost or whatnot. Im not opposed to buying  the download to a film and keeping it digitally on my computer. But in the case of AVGN: The Movie, I didn't feel like buying it outright as it did not contribute to my horror collection. But I did want to watch it so I went Vimeo to stream it for 5 bucks. It didn't work. I had to create an account to get it to accept my credit card of course but try as I might I couldn't get it to work. I am a man who gets set on watching a film if I want to watch it. It takes quite a lot to get me to give. But along the line somewhere I did consider torrenting a download of the film illegally. I had done this in a long while and I knew how to do it. But to me it felt wrong this time. I have been following James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd on YouTube for a very long time. He is hilarious and his inside to video games and film is astounding. He and Cinemassacre made this movie for the fans of the Web series and it felt like I was being directly unsupportive by pirating the film. I decided I was going to give it up altogether. I spent another day or so emailing Vimeo to get my account to work and last night we finally got it to work and I got to rent the movie and the site even sent me an email telling me that I did well in supporting the artists I want see succeed using Vimeo. Th at was a nice touch.

**light plot spoilers **
The film  itself was definitely worth the watch... If you're a fan of The Nerd. Wife watched it with me and while she thought it was funny, the silly effects, blue humor, and over the top action and acting put her off because unlike me, she was not as familiar with gaming or The Nerd. So this film revolves around a silly plot that has to do with topics such as old bad games becoming popular, the video game crash of 1983, the E.T. video game being buried in the new Mexico dessert and the Roswell alien. I loved it. But I loved it because I loved the Nerd. If you're interested in this film but are not sure if you would like it check out his show on YouTube or Cinemassacre.com and if you dig that, you'll dig this.

I do think that what I learned most about my love of film and being supportive of filmmakers has definitely left an impact where I know I will be mindful of the affects my procuring methods have. I don't think pirating is innately wrong. If a film is nigh impossible to get outside that means, I'm going to use file-sharing to get it. But for the sake of making sure the movies I want to be made get made, I'm going to pitch in what I can to support the art.

The good and the not so good: Ghostbusters and Stitches

Yeah well I do realize that there might be some sort of drop off here. Ghostbusters is a classic comedy film revolving around the paranormal whereas Stitches is a throwaway film made in 2012 bout a clown who is killed at a party and through paranormal means, comes to life to take revenge on the brats who lead to his demise. The question being asked might be somewhere along the lines of, "So, what do these two movies have in common?" and the answer to that appropriate query is nothing. Stitches is more or less something you watch because there is nothing else on and Ghostbusters is a movie you watch because that's the movie you wanted to watch. These were both the case in regards to the last couple days. This last Sunday I was up early with my kids, I had them both fed and working on activities and whatnot and I felt like watching a film. I had nothing in mind, I didn't feel like committing to anything heavy, so I turned to Netflix, where I often go to veg out over a flick that wasn't worth it in my opinion to buy on Blu-ray or dvd.

So I watched Stitches. It wasn't bad either. It had a good deal of well delivered humor and a plot that, while not particularly original, I had no trouble following. I'll go ahead and recommend this film for anyone finding themselves in need of an "anything will do"  film.
Next on Monday. I switched to Netflix again. Only this time I had purpose. I became aware the week before that Wife had never seen Ghostbusters and I was determined to set that right. To my dismay I found that it was freshly no longer on Netflix streaming. I was for moment devastated. Well this was important so I was not going to be deterred. I rented the HD version of the film on Amazon Instant Streaming and we hooked my Chromebook to the TV and watched it that way. Ghostbusters, in my honest opinion, is a must watch classic for fans horror or any regular person,  i.e. Wife. If you haven't seen it (and I was utterly surprised to hear anyone had not seen it), do yourself a solid and rent it.

So,  in the course of two days I watched two films that really represent the range that my genre has to offer. But it's not so well about the quality of the film. Stitches has a lot of good going for it but will likely not become classic. While Ghostbusters has its share of flaws (such as erratic pacing and scenes that go nowhere) but is remembered and referred to as a must-see. Go watch both these films.  And watch whatever you want. The films we can enjoy are not dependent on the critic scores and IMDb ratings.

Absolutely Absurd: ThanksKilling (2009)

Yeah. You already know what to expect from this film, don't you.  I can't very well say that i was expecting anything brilliant. But you know what? I really enjoyed this garbage. I was chilling with my little brother and one of my high school friends and we decided to watch a movie. We went ahead and got onto Netflix and found this movie: Thankskilling. The film opened up and spend five to ten seconds setting up a back story with text regarding the first Thanksgiving. And then... well. The cover for the film didn't lie. The cover for the film actually boasted that there were "tits in the first seconds of the film". Hey you know what that was cool. But it wasn't more than a minute of pilgrim nudity that our antagonist shows up. The fucking turkey. Who delivered the first spoken line of the film, "Nice tits... Bitch!" and with that, chopped the girl up with an axe (off-screen) and set the tone for the whole movie... WE... WOULD NOT... SHUT UP ABOUT THAT LINE FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE. But there was more after that. we get introduced the main cast and get to see some of the most ridiculous jokes in the history of horror. I guess that is why this movie was fun. It was bad. No doubt. But it was not trying to be good. It was going for ridiculous and did wonderfully. and even ended on a "yes there will be a sequel ;)" note with a "To be contiinued.... IN SPACE" Yeah this one was great.

WASTING TIME!: Eaten Alive (1977)

What I wanted to see.

What I got to see.... Throughout the
ENTIRE movie.
(Also, the exact DVD version I ended up buying)

OK! I wonder if... AGH! I had higher hope for this movie then I should have. I know that. But I fanboyed at the idea of a Tobe Hooper (director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) movie featuring Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street). WELL! I was severely let down. I really only watched this movie because it was 2 bucks over at my Half Priced Books, and I was looking for an excuse not to watch more of Lucifer Valentine's "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls".  Anyway, I sat down to watch this movie, and expected a masterpiece like TCM, but... well... It was very much the same style of directing. But it was not nearly as frightening, and just as cheap and Tobe Hooper's horror classic. Robert Englund, who of course played the iconic Freddy Kreuger from all of our nightmares, was moderately entertaining in the film, but did very little to save this Texan-Horror-Letdown.

The film begins with a girl who is working at a brothel and doesn't want Buck (Englund) poking her in the butt, SO she gets fired and sent out on the streets to fend for herself when she comes across a hotel witch is owned by a crazy one-legged old man, and terrorized by a crocodile. I really would like to go on with the synopsis and were this a video review, I likely would, but the girl is soon sexually assaulted by the owner and thrown into the lake where we DON'T GET TO SEE HER GET EATEN ALIVE BY THE CROC!!!!  I'm sure you can understand the disappointment. Several other character are introduced and quickly killed, INCLUDING THE GIRL FROM THE BEGINNING'S DYING FATHER who has been looking to find her and apologize.... so yeah, THAT plot didn't go anywhere. But eventually the remaining females in the hotel throw Mr. Crazy into the lake with the Croc and he is Eaten Alive and we are left with a shot of his wooden leg floating in the water.

I have a suspicious feeling this was actually meant to be better than it was. But to hell with it. This was really just me stalling from having to review Slaughtered Vomit Dolls and the rest of Valentine's Vomit Gore Trilogy. Anybody who reads this, please just wish me luck. And perhaps suggest other films to review in the future!

Splinter (2008)

Hey everyone. So I have been surfing the net in search of new films to view (or old ones if I somehow missed them) and saw on IMDB that the 2008 film, Splinter, got a 6.4 out of ten stars in its user review. So I'm sure any normal person who read that would think, "Gee, 6.4 kinda sucks. And Pat's a moron," or something along those lines. But comparatively speaking, when looking through EVERY film in a genre especially if that genre is horror, 6.4 is pretty good. And man, am I glad my standards are that low, because this movie is surprisingly underrated.  It's one of those antagonistic virus/bacteria/micro-organism kinda movies with the like of Cabin Fever, The Thing, and every fucking zombie movie out there.  And it really follows through. It movie features a plentiful level of character development, and a movie monster premise that ends up surprising you even if you're ready for it. The gore in this one is good too without keeping the movie up all by itself, and the horror is not forgotten for even a moment in the film. This movie does not drag, is carries you along very well and doesn't let you get bored. I gave it a 8 out of ten. Definitely worth the watch.

Guinea Pig (1985)

So I finally got around to watching this one. One that now I'm disappointed to say has been on my watch list for a long time. Guinea Pig was the first of eight films in this Japanese gore series. An alternate title for the first film has been "The Devils Experiment" Since every film after this one claimed the same title as the first such as Guinea Pig 2: Flowers of Flesh and Blood, which I'm working my through currently. This film doesn't have much going for it other than the shock factor, which wears pretty thin when you start to realize that the female lead in this faux snuff film is not very convincing. I mean if I had the flesh in my arm get twisted with a pair of pliers, my reaction would be a little less like, "mhf >_< eh..." and a little more like, "AAAAHAAAGHHFFFFUUUCK!!!" or at least I'd like to think something like that would be normal. This film does have a nifty concept to it. "This is an experiment on threshold of bearable pain and the corrosion of the senses" dude. After that very promising (although unsettling) opening, i was really expecting more. I mean this really could have gone somewhere. Maybe sometime in the future, Quentin Terrantino will dicide to remake it as an actual fim. Or maybe even James Wan? (was that racist? I'm not sure. I dont think he's Japanese, but i doubt it'd mae a difference (he DID do Saw after all)) I'm sorry I didn't mean to double parenthesize.  But As it is, the movie not really worth the look because like I mentioned but didn't go into detail about, this has been on my watch list for a while BECAUSE I thought I might not be able to stomach it. But the gore is actually very tame. If you're a horror fan like me its not worth the plastic the dvd used to distribute it, and if you're a gore freak like me, then watch it anyway and sit through to end of the forty something minute feature till the needle scene. GET YOUR KICKS and have fun with it. i might do a review of GP2 FOFAB but I'm not sure it'll be worth it.

Arachnid (2001)... ON VHS!!!

One of my players broke my copy of
"Killer Clowns From Outer Space"

Okay. So I'm sitting at home alone with my kid. And after giving him his bottle, I decided i wanted to watch a movie (very little else i do anymore). I figure I might as well watch a horror movie since those are my faves and I wander into my study to see that I left all my VHSs on the floor sprawled out from when I wall trying to fix one of my ANCIENT VCRs. Anyway I look to the ground and in a totally "fuckit" moment i see Arachnid and decide "Ok, I'll watch this one uh-huh uh-huh." I put it in and get to sit through the Preview. ::sigh:: on a VHS video. COMING SOON TO THEATRES and all that mess for movies back in the early 2000s. Always Fun.  Now I'm not really going to review this movie in the traditional sense because... well... its not really worth reviewing. The acting is terrible, the guns look like toys, and the plots very mismanaged. The Spider was really cool though. I wasn't sure about the year when I watched it so I was expecting CG monsters (which used to suck) but instead I got to enjoy crappy practical effects and a fairly decent monster spider.  But what this post is really about is VHSs. I have a whole separate collection of VHS horror movies on my shelves and I pride myself on that fact. And they're so cheap to buy now (yes i still buy VHS movies). Because why not spend a buck or so to watch some two-bit horror movie. I'm not sure how much two bits is, but I'll assume its somewhere around that much. I watched Aliens on VHS not too long ago, perhaps earlier this week and LOVED it (I'll Likely right about them too after seeing Prometheus). But I love those movies anyway. And there's something nostalgic about watching movies on cassette. I hope I start getting comments on these because I know people are reading them. AND I'D LOVE SOME FEEDBACK!