Is the Song Tainted Love

About a man getting his gooch licked?

The Devil's Game, by Poul Anderson

Anybody ever read this? There must be a Poul Anderson fan or two in here. Anyone? Anyone? That is the correct spelling of his first name, by the way, P O U L. Notice that O is at the opposite side of the keyboard from A, soooo that's not a typo. I think the name might be Danish.

Anyway, the story is sort of a cross between the movie The Legacy (1978) and the TV show Survivor. The book I'm talking about came out a long time ago, in the late 70s or early 80s. It's about a bunch of people who get called to a remote island in the Caribbean, to take part in a contest overseen by an eccentric millionaire who is friendly with an entity who seems to be some kind of demon.

It's a pretty old book, but I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone here is a particularly huge fan of The Legacy, Survivor, or Poul Anderson.

Confessions of a Serial Killer (1985)

Anyone seen this? It's based on Henry Lee Lucas and was made, as far as I know, shortly before Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Unlike the 1986 John McNaughton film, Confessions changes the names of everyone involved. So instead of Henry, we have Daniel and instead of Otis, we have Moon.

Even for someone familiar with the real life crimes, Confessions has plenty to offer and despite the fact that it pulls from the same source material, it goes in a completely different direction than Henry.

One of the biggest differences I liked in Confessions is that it's the complete opposite of Henry's art house approach. Confessions is just plain ugly, skid row, and miserable. You may be thinking "hmmm, but wasn't Henry those things?" It actually somehow makes Henry seem commercial and slick by comparison.

I found it to be every bit as powerful, disturbing and nightmarish as Henry. Possibly even moreso if you can believe it.

Let's talk about Prom Night!

The slasher genre was at its peak in the early 80s, but not every one of these movies was breaking new ground. Sometimes, they overanalyzed their predecessors to make a product based on the formula and it didn't always work out. So what about Prom Night then? Where does it fit in?

Two years after Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis was still a go-to option in the genre. If she's in the movie, it can't possibly be bad, right? Well... I'll be honest. I like Prom Night. Truth be told, it really isn't a great movie, but I like it for reasons beyond typical rationale. It takes the idea of a holiday or occasion and makes it into the setting for a killing spree. Nothing wrong with that! Maybe the execution or lack of flavor is what does this one in, but for all intents and purposes, it had to be done in some way or another.

So we start off with our obligatory backstory. A few kids turned primary victims are playing a "killer" variant of hide-and-seek in an abandoned school in 1974, and they scare a girl half to death. The other half of her death involves her falling out a second story window to her death, and the kids vow to never speak of it again.

Flash forward to 1980, and prom is coming up. The same kids are grown up, and they're getting obscene phone calls. They try to overlook it because there's no time to let it sink in, because prom is tonight! Men and women alike are trying to get laid and Jamie Lee is slated to be prom queen, but you can tell right off the bat that she's poised to be the final girl. Someone is targeting those same kids from the backstory incident, as well as a few others who get in the way. Who is it? Well, it's easy if you think about it, but I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

Leslie Nielson plays the principal in a non-comedic role, which is hilarious in itself. Dude was hilarious in anything he's ever been in, so if he tries to play it safe, you know he'll only wind up being the disco king. That's right, this movie was straight out of the 70s, so the musical choices are very disco.

This movie is littered with red herrings that are so obviously red herrings, you know the killer has to be someone much more basic, and it is. For what it's worth, the execution isn't as bad as you'd think, and if you bear with it, the movie is somewhat fun to watch. Jamie Lee wasn't terribly attractive in Halloween, but she only got hotter in her later slasher endeavors.

If you want some standard slasher fare teen-drama final-girl trope with some entertaining chase scenes along the way, Prom Night isn't a bad choice. For some damn reason, the sequels took this series in a completely different direction, opting for an Elm Street supernatural basis rather than a grounded Halloween knockoff, but it still works somehow. Only in the 80s though!

Thoughts on Slashers

I started my genre obsession with slashers because they were realistic. Sequels aside. They all started off as somewhat plausible concepts, so that's how I was able to access the genre from a point of realism.

I haven't seen a great slasher in a long time, so I feel that they're not as relevant as they once were, but I still get excited when the old ones make a modern reprise. I'm ready to cum blood for Halloween Kills.
How do you feel about slashers over the years?

Terror Train (1980)

It's been a while since I watched this, but when in Rome^{Amazon Prime}...

This was a surpringly decent rewatch. A few college freshmen pull a New Years prank on some nerd so that he thinks he's going to make it with a hot woman, but it ends up being a gutted corpse from the med lab. That's funny, right? So the guy loses his mind and is sent to the looney bin.

Three years later on yet another New Year's Eve, the same group of med students are celebrating with a late-night party train. We have some "comic relief" in an ugly mask telling jokes that shouldn't be landing, but they are. He's annoying and needs to die, and thank God, he does and it's satisfying.

So the killer takes his costume, sneaks on board, and this is your movie. It's got a decent pacing with the conventions of picking them off one by one, but the conductor finds some dead/not-dead bodies and wants to keep a low profile to avoid a panic, but that wont last long, will it?

Jamie Lee Curtis was the scream queen of the era. She does good in this, she looks good, and she a few good chase scenes throughout. This movie also has David Copperfield stealing the show, because he's a magician in real life and he's a magician in the movie. Considering there are no cutaways in this pre-cgi era, some of his magic will make you wonder, "How the fuck did he do that?!" He also eyes Jamie Lee any chance he can get, and I don't blame him.

The twist isn't unexpected, but the whole thing is pretty fun to watch. The kills are good, the characters are actually likeable, and the killer is a real creep.

Interesting story

I like this story. I am pretty sure it was based on the Winston Niles Rumfoord character, in the Kurt Vonnegut book "The Sirens of Titan." That would make this story sort of a cousin or sibling of Watchmen, because the Dr. Manhattan character was also based on Winston Niles Rumfoord.

Anyway, this is an interesting story, but it has sort of a complicated style. I think it's worth spending time figuring it out. The basic idea is the a guy who had trained as an astronaut is hired for a time travel experiment, and he does travel in time, but on his way back to his home time something goes very wrong, which ends up resulting in a pretty large nuclear war. Any nuclear war would be "pretty large," of course, but my point is that this war did a hell of a lot of damage, but ultimately did not extinguish humanity altogether. In the story, you get glimpses of people gradually rebuilding, over many centuries, sort of like in A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Anyway, I could say more about it, but here, just read it, and if anybody wants to talk about it, I'm game.
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791542/9781625791542___2.htm

Literary Challenge Results!

Hey guys, I hope you had a wonderful May. This challenge is fun, and I will definitely bring it back next year! The slasher cahllenge is now underway, if you haven't joined, then come on! What are you waiting for. Slashers are awesome, and their are tons out there. But before we get well into the month, here is the results for the liteary challenge.


Snowy_Owl:103
Bambithedeer: 93
Box_a_Hair: 51
Der_Table: 51

Ballz: 36
Tromafreak: 4
ZombieCPA: 3
Markus-san: 1
OnyxHades: 0

I hope everyone had fun.

Coscarelli's Beastmaster

In the days of my dvd obsession, I was always open to blind-buying the Anchor Bay disc of this movie because I enjoyed Don Coscarelli's work after watching Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep, but this title always evaded me. It fell out-of-print, so I was screwed.

Thanks to Amazon Prime, I was able to catch this movie over dozen years after my initial interest, and I figured it would probably underwhelm me at this point in my life. I'm happy to say I was wrong. This movie was a lot of fun.

Back in 1982, Conan the Barbarian was taking all the glory for the swords and sorcery scene. Arnold was buff as fuck, he had his floozies, and he cut people apart with a sword. What more could you ask for? A few months later, Beastmaster came out, and maybe it was overlooked because it wasn't the first. It has a lot of parallels in regards to story and visuals, but it also has one thing that Conan didn't have: a PG rating.

PG, huh? Keep in mind that this was before PG-13 existed, but even so, this movie would be a hard PG-13 by today's standards, likely jumping straight to an R because of at least three sets of titties. Tanya Roberts plays the protagonist's love interest, and the first time we see her, she's bathing topless in a lake where our hero plots to have his animals steal her clothes so she can run around trying to find them, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the plot first...


Rip Torn is our antagonist in a role not unlike that of James Earl Jones from Conan, plotting to kill the king's unborn son so the prophecy that this kid will destroy him doesn't come true. The son is magically transferred into a cow so it can be led elsewhere, gutted, and an old hag can kill the kid. A traveler witnesses this and stops her, raising the boy as his own. This kid has an affinity with animals and is able to communicate with them, thus being called the beastmaster. Years later, Rip Torn leads an attack on the now grown beastmaster's village, leaving them all for dead. That's when the beastmaster embarks on a journey to get his revenge.

Along the way, he gathers a party of animals and humans, fights a few monsters along the way, and infiltrates the lair of his nemesis to duke it out with him in what plays out in a fantasy epic nature that's plenty entertaining.


This was quite an ambitious project for Coscarelli after his low budget moody atmosphere piece Phantasm. There's a lot of animal coordination going on, heavy set design, makeup, costumes, stunts, and visual effects. He wanted to make a fantasy epic and he did it. It's got a lot of genre tropes and it works. It also has some good horror vibes too, even at a PG rating.

When it comes to pushing boundaries, this movie gets away with a lot for its rating. It has blood and violence, dead bodies impaled on spikes, boobs, child sacrifices, and even incest. Good job, Coscarelli!

#Review

Literary Challenge 2020

Starts May 1st at midnight and ends June 1st at midnight!

Hey guys, this month the challenge will be a literary challenge. This means that any movie based on a novel, novella, poems and short story will count. Graphic Novels and Comic books will count this year.

The book must be the basis of the movie, and not the other way around. Books spawning from movies, like Star Wars, will not count.

There will be several ways you can earn points
**1 point if the movie is based on a book
1 point if it is a First Time Viewing
1 point if the Title of book is mentioned in the movie.
1 point if the author Cameos in the movie
1 point if the author is a screenwriter for the movie
1 point if the author directs the movie

A bonus point if the author Cameos, Screen writes, and directs the movie**


This challenge will also have trifecta points•:
**Three movies based on books by the same author
Three movies in the same series
Three movies of books you have read**

Movies can only be counted for one trifecta and must be watched three movies in a row.
Double and triple trifectas are in effect but can be completed at a later time. It does not have to be right after the first trifecta
**Single Trifecta: 3 points
Double Trifecta: 6 Points
Triple Trifecta: 9 points.

•Trifectas start over after earning the third one.**

At the end of the challenge:
1 point per movie if you have read the book.
A book may only be counted for one bonus point at the end of the challenge. For example, Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 will only count as one point, since it is only one book.

Grab your spots guys! And have fun!


https://trashepics.com/post/176/11/