Three New Movies! Would I Have Changed Them?

7 02 2023

Infinity Pool examines of the impact that wealth has on the psyche, and it doesn’t bring any new revelations. The acting is great. Direction is competent. There are two montage segments that needed shortening. Somehow it makes sex with Mia Goth boring. The ending leaves you bleak and gutted.

Writer/director Branden Cronenberg made Antiviral, which had a great premise with a confusing crime plot, and Possessor which is frigging great all the way around. Both deal with the impact technology has on identity and social responsibility. It seems Cronenberg breaks new ground here, but doesn’t provide a new path.

Infinity Pool takes wealthy tourists in a fictitious Balkan nation, allows them to bribe their way out of murders while specially created clones take their punishment. Obviously, it plays more as parable than plausible. Unlike his other movies, Infinity Pool adds nothing to their examinations. What would I change?

“Infinity Pool” would make a neat premise for the next Marvel Deadpool movie. Wade gets a blood transfusion from Lobo. Whenever Wade fights, he bleeds new Deadpools, all of them hostile wiseasses. He would enlist incredibly dangerous, absurd characters to try to wrangle the clones. Eventually, he gets help from someone telepathic to control them, then does some genetic handwavium to reset his blood, and no one learns anything. Damn thing writes itself.

Seriously…. What would I have done? First: the movie leaves you angry at economic disparity and despairing over human corruption. It keeps the story tight and close, over a month’s time following the downfall of a single protagonist. Cool. It really hits its marks there. I’d leave its intentions alone.

The problem is that “clones” are a well-worn idea. Could the author pay to create a hitman and kill the other tourists? He lacks the skills. Could the protagonist to dialogue with himself and reason his way out of his despair? He could discover, no, he could not. This could comment on “self-help” movements, but I believe that Michael Keaton movie did that.

As it stands, I lack the imagination to deepen Cronenberg’s treatment of his premise. A mini-series might allow that, but then it may remind one of the Westworld series.

SKINAMARINK

Skinamarink is bleak, too. Two children awake in the middle of the night to find their parents missing and the doors, windows, and toilet gone. It takes its premise from nightmares and should be viewed not as a movie with a plot arc, but a rendering of a child’s subconscious. When you were a toddler, remember how weird your house was in the middle of the night? How little control you had over anything? How you could just experience the moment, no matter how bewildering the moment?

So an hour and a half of that. The space of the ranch home is almost liminal and the very grain of the darkness is its own character, changing shape and pattern.

In its own way, Skinamarink makes its own statement of love versus existence. The sister’s mutilation is a jump scare. The mom vanishing before our eyes is a slow, gut-dropping shock. But when asked to join them, the boy says “no”. Because leaving known existence will probably be worse.

Knock On The Cabin

This movie examines love versus existence directly. A family must murder one of its members or the world ends. Shaymalan sets his intrinsic Speilberginess to fight his intrinsic Hitchcockiness. If you’ve watched his movies, you already know which wins.

The directing starts out labored (the extreme close ups scream “Look at the tension I’ma buildin'”), but recedes well enough.

Does anyone ask “Hey visionaries? After I’m dead, what happens next?” No, no one does.

What we have here is a dearth of style. The Hollywood releases are elevator pitches, not just plot driven but plot-exclusive. They have no space for mood. I would like to see Skinamarink handle disparity or identity, or more deeply, the value of love over existence.





Movie Reviews: “heck” and “History of the Occult”

27 12 2022

You may have heard of “Skinamarink”, the new atmospheric horror coming out January 13. Or maybe you haven’t. It was shot in the director’s childhood home on some tiny budget, but it seems ready to redefine “atmospheric dread” in cinema. Two boys wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing and that their house has no doors or windows. Here is the trailer and man its got a mood:

It’s like a ’70s cheap horror directed by Lynch.

Man-oh-Manischewitz I am primed for this! I am even more primed for it for having watched “heck”. The director Kyle Edward Ball created a short movie to test his ideas and even this short movie is a dunk in cold seawater. This is “heck”:

There are no jump scares, no soundtrack, no worn-out tropes. Just a kid not understanding how badly things have gone wrong.

I got a free trial for Screambox. for a movie I’ve been wanting to see for a couple of months. This was the most popular horror movie in South America back in 2020, “History of the Occult”.

Art creates, the artist changes, the world , and what DID Karl Rove mean by “we make our own reality?”

In a retro Buenos Aires, reporters for a newsmagazine try to suss out a cabal of industrialists who are…what? In cahoots…doing something black magic? Their live interview show goes off the air at midnight, and each minute the stakes raise from the political to the Weird.

The movie takes ALL the ’80s Satanic Panic elements, secret societies, missing children, mystical corporate logos, all of it, mixes it with today’s strongman politics. It gives new context to Argentina’s “Disappeared Ones.” It even makes the trite phrase “The End of History” chilling. It has a few dangling threads. If one was to take a second, one could guess where the plot is going, but the plot is so quick everything hits in a wonderful surprise. There are a couple of pleasant turns against cliche. No gore. Just plain creepy.

I’ve been lacking inspiration lately, but these have helped me see that Yes, I like thought-provoking and creepy.





Ari Aster Movie FREE On YouTube, Plus Other Horror Movies

20 01 2022

It’s worth just searching stuff on YouTube to see what shows up. Like the first movie made by Ari Aster of Midsommar and Hereditary.

The Strange Things About The Johnsons was released to festivals in 2010. It introduces Aster’s recurring themes of betrayal of the family contract, denial, and society as oppressor. Unlike his later movies, his first film reveals the horror early on, and makes the plot about how the Johnson family copes with that horror.

Come And See often appears in critics’ lists for “Best Movie Of All Time”. After the German invasion of Russia, partisans recruit a teen boy. The boy finds starvation, random death, and finally an einsatzgruppen. The teen survives, but is shattered and still has the rebuilding of his country ahead. The teen is played by an actor with no previous experience, which just adds to the rawness of his emotions. Trauma therapists were on set to help all the actors. Not as intense as say Saving Private Ryan, but ten times more believable. As above, YouTube won’t let me link directly.

Wisconsin Death Trip is not as horrid as the title implies. Imagine Ken Cook documenting the rough decade endured by a rural Wisconsin county. An influx of immigrants copes with land fraud, brutal winters, an overwhelmed health care system, disease, and crime. No, it is not contemporary; this happened in the late 1800s. The stories are respectful. They remind that our current woes are truly quite old, and that our ancestors were just like us, people just trying to get through. Come for the scandals, stay for Mary the Wisconsin Window Smasher.

I don’t get why YouTub is restricting this link. You see worse on PBS, seriously.

I don’t know why I’m watching things like this. I used to write humor. I used to perform sketch and improv comedy. Comedy on TV doesn’t make me laugh anymore. There isn’t anything worth binge-watching. Improv based movies just annoy me at the moment. It’s expected that nothing will compare with what I liked as a teen, but even Monty Python is not aging well. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are still my faves. Does anyone do smart comedy with good sight gags anymore?





Good Movies Made By People At Home

8 05 2021

These movies have different comedy to horror ratios. If you can handle “X-Files” episodes, you’ll like these movies.

Murder Death Koreatown: This movie leans hard into its Found Footage premise in that there are no production credits at the end, nor any credits in its IMDB page. What looks like a True Crime story turns to Weird Horror.

The protagonist has been laid off from his job and is producing little video projects on his phone instead of looking for work. The townhouse he shares with his sullen girlfriend has an access street behind. One night there are gunshots. A neighbor shot her husband and instead of running for help, he staggers to die near a set of garages. Our protagonist is puzzled and records his investigation. The investigation does a neat trick in riding the edge between the protag’s dissolution and a realization of a Weird Horror. The filmmaker used elements of his neighborhood: bodegas, graffiti, anonymous storefront businesses, street corner preachers, to hint at otherworldly connections.

On Amazon Prime

Leaving DC: Why don’t White people leave their haunted house? “Leaving DC” comes up with an off-beat, elegant answer.

The protagonist is a tech engineer moving from Washington DC to a rather nice house in the West Virginia mountains. Ghostly stuff happens, etc. The man’s money is tied up in the house, but that reason to stay always came up short in other movies. Why doesn’t he leave? *Because he is chronically compulsive*. We first meet him in DC with his OCD Therapy group. We watch him move into his spotless house devoid of personal affects. We watch him crater his relations with a visitor, who then leaves because his house creeps her out. Does he leave? No, he will not be bullied. He will understand what is happening by buying cameras and microphones and scrutinizing the late night flute playing, the apparitions, and the Mysterious Signs In The Woods. Then he will formulate a detailed action plan. The end is inevitable, but like I said, elegant.

On Amazon Prime.

Creep: Movies with tiny casts work if the cast is compelling. This movie’s co-writer and lead Mark Duplass radiates charm.

When his character hires a videographer to come to his remote house and record sentimental messages, you pay attention. Mark’s character reveals traumas, only to admit he lied. He takes menacing objects and gives them absurd histories. The videographer is pulled between getting paid, politeness, and fleeing Mark’s increasing menace.

On Netflix along with its sequel Creep 2.

I guess I like these stories because they are efficient. As writers we are taught to write characters who are flawed with a recent tragedy highlighting those flaws. (Note that Duplass subverts this expectation by implying then denying any tragic backstory, which frustrates and adds to the unease). Writers are told to keep the motivations simple and relatable. Last, stories are to be economic in word and action.

A common criticism in the Amazon comments is that these movies lack strong endings. That makes sense, because none of the characters are given resources for a satisfying character transformation. “Murder Death Koreatown” and “Leaving DC” remains committed to their goals to their unfortunate endings. The time constraints keep the writer from introducing a secondary plot to give impetus to transformation. Changing their minds and fleeing would also bump up their budgets. That said, the videographer in “Creep” does flee and his arc is the more satisfying for it.

Or maybe I’m wrong. The movie “The VVitch” was shot with a cabin, a farm, and a bonfire. The parents each had a heartbreaking transformation. Certainly that movie was great and had few resources, but then it comes back around to character portrayals.

Strong character voice and motive. I’d been fixated on compelling images, but I need to work on characters more.

PS: Happy Birthday, Me!





Trying Advertising Campaigns and BOOK TWO IS GO!

29 10 2018

I’m trying Amazon Sales Marketing to promote Lampreyhead Book Two. I have set a “per-click” budget of 22 cents per click with a limit of $100. The goal is to see if the twenty two cents brings in a purchase at $2.99. If not, I will have to change tactics, or ad copy, or maybe even venues.

The audio book is on hold until I can get the advertsingbudget established. My dayjob is in retail. I do not want to take out of savings, because I already did that to do the cover art.

So! Book Two is out!

“The action scenes are fantastic! Wow. The story really pulled me in.” – Dona Fox, Amazon horror author

Ned didn’t dare turn to look. He burst through the doors and out the back door. Sprayed the threshold.
He scooped up the bag he’d left at the door. Ran around the side of the store to the front.
Bag bouncing in left hand and squirt gun raised in his right, Ned clenched his jaw and rounded the corner to the side of the store. He slowed as he approached the next corner. He crouched and peered.
The glass doors glowed with divine light. Along the door sat several white propane tanks, obviously brought by the Banquet.
Hands at his eyes, Bogen snarled. “Let us in!”
The other three played with Don like cats with a mouse. The woman seized his face. She lifted him from his feet. She reached under her hem and produced a gleaming knife. She lowered her mouth onto his. Waggled her head in mockery of a passionate kiss as the knife came down onto his face. Don thrashed and kicked.
What do I do? I can’t let him die!
She dropped him, Don’s face black with gore. His lips seemed impossibly wide, showing blackened teeth in the blue light.
She sliced his lips off.
The rest fell upon him.
Pieces flew. Something like cloth flipped away then flopped like a wet towel.
Don’s legs kicked in electric agony.
Above the scene, a voice called in their strange, hissing language.
Atop the roof, glowing sickly yellow from the Top Tech sign, the Judas in a chef’s hat waved a white-clad arm. He thrust a white arm behind him to the roof.
The skylights!
Ned cursed himself.
The roof had a dozen skylights. Each were protected only by a grill of thin iron.
I have to shut him up!
It was easily twenty feet up to the roof. Ned didn’t remember the last time he’d leapt that high.
He set down his bag and took out the jug of holy water.
He crouched. Hesitated. Took three steps back. Cursed himself and ran to the wall. Stomped with all his strength.
Mid-air, his foot as his work shoe went flying. The jug loosened in his grip.
For a hysterical moment, the jug gurgled inches from his face. He bobbled it and thrust it above his head.
He landed on the roof off balance. His right foot slid from beneath him and he landed on his ass. The plastic jug skittered away against the tar paper.
The chef hissed again, joyful and grotesque.
His white ass pointed at Ned.
Scooping up the jug, Ned removed the cap. A beam of light shot from within. He held the jug at arm’s length.
Ned crept behind the chef. He threw the plastic bottle and ducked away.
The chef’s back exploded.
The chef screamed. He clawed at his back as the holy water savaged him. Scrabbling and twisting, he lost his footing. The chef tumbled over the edge of the building.
Ned gained a lease on his lamprey-themed, vampire-prototype life. His new handler Amanda is ready with fashion advice, business acumen, or her gun. He provides days-long orgasms to now higher-paying clients. Ned wants to bury his selfish past. Thanks to his new magic books, he resolves to fight his family of fellow prototypes, the Formulae.
When Amanda finds Evil at a big box electronics store, Ned leaps in ready to fight and get that employee discount. But the best employees disappear. Mysterious customers buy startling amounts of stuff. TVs show visions of cannibal blood-feasts. Spirits say the store is doomed.
Are the Formulae involved?
In the spirit of Clive Barker and Stephen King, Ned gets fishy. Can he save the missing employees? Save the store from massacre? Or will he just swim away with quality electronics at a low price?

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Amazon Review: FIVE STARS for Lampreyhead Book One!

24 10 2018

He was created to please Satan, then – abandoned. Our hero is an abominable creature who, though…

Says author Dona Fox!

Click it! Click it and read!

My romp has emotional underpinnings that may out-Herzog Herzog. If you like the idea of Herzog creating a “Buffy” episode, it seems this may be the series for you.

Find out for yourself! Click the cover to read on Kindle Unlimited or purchase it outright. It’s just in time for Halloween. Takes only three hours to read. Try it today.

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Get Your “Lampreyhead” On Today!

9 10 2018

The buzz is getting buzzier! Page reads are flying on Kindle Unlimited. Says a reviewer:

I could see this as a series on SyFy.

Starring Bruce Campbell? Swoon!

Is the reader right? Could this be sponsored by Geico?

Have a look for yourself. It’s on Kindle Unlimited or get it for free on today!

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Tomorrow Get “A Toothsome Romp”! For FREE!

8 10 2018

A reader declared “Fishtown Blood Bath: Lampreyhead Book One”:

A toothsome romp from start to finish. Juicy but not too gory.

Don’t miss out on a book filled with vampire prototypes, evil magic, the personal growth regimen of the undead, and why Satan hasn’t shown up on Earth yet. Read it for free starting Tuesday. Or click below and read it on Kindle Unlimited today.

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Fifteen-Horror-Movies-For-2017 Suckage

28 12 2016

Thirteen of fifteen are either reboots or sequels.
WTF.
Looking forward to two. Intrigued by a third.
The only ones I’m looking forward to: “Alien: Covenant” and that’s because Ridley Scott’s onboard. Neither of the writers give me hope (one exec produced/wrote for TVs “Heroes” and “Smallville” , the other wrote the last Bond movies and “Penny Dreadful”), because their work screams “QUIRKY ACTION ONE NOTE ADVENTURE SO MARKETABLE!”
And “Kong” because giant ape.
Not “IT”, as it has director of “Mama”, who got better performances from the CGI than the talented human cast, and the writer of goddam “Annabelle” (and “Annabelle 2” also on the list).
“Leatherface”? “Friday the 13th”? No, no. Could you conceive of anyone bringing any fresh nuance to “It kills horny teens. Go with it”?

“Dark Tower”? Lost interest in Stephen King. The latest SK adaptations have been really over the top bad, except for “The Mist”, which the movie improved.

So….what intrigues me?
Could it be “Insidious”? “Saw”? “Rings”? Uh-uh. Lay off the MTV movie effects.
“Resident Evil” only to see if Mila can still make those leaps.
“The Tom Cruise Action Adventure Movie thatohyeahhastheSorceressfromSucideSquadinoneshot” written by Guy Who Writes All Tom’s Movies and directed by the guiding hand of “Hawaii Five-Oh”?
“Susperia”! That must be what intrigues me! Nope. Never got into Giallo. However! The writer scribed black magic Nazi B-Movie “Blood Creek”. And the role of the mysterious ballet master is played by TILDA SWINTON. So maybe.
What movie intrigues me?
“The Bye Bye Man” is written and directed by a married couple who’ve worked in B Movies for years. Director wife almost exclusively in horror. Writer husband as actor in dozens of TV shows. These are the kind of folk who bring fresh ideas. Granted, the trailer seems to show a rehash of “Sinister”, but I have hopes here.

So, my perfect 2017 movie would have shadowy killers fighting xenomorphs until Kong gets sick of it and bashes it all with a helicopter.

At least Damon Lindelof isn’t anywhere to be seen.





Our Fascism Will Be Prettier

14 12 2016

 








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