We’re on hiatus from The Challenge, so the crew sits down to discuss the forgotten horror movie, The Scorned starring Challenge alum Trishelle, Tonya and Steven. No drama this time around, or challenges or eliminations, but we do discuss blood and gore and death scenes. That’s similar, right?
This week we take a look at some body jumping horror movies with Fallen and The Hidden. After the break we hear from a new listener and discuss The Curse as well as other random horror things.
When I told friends I saw the most recent addition to the Alien family last week, the first question was always the same: Was it more like Alien or Prometheus? And my answer is always the same, Yes but it is also it’s own. Ridley Scott’s masterful direction is both a sequel to Prometheus and a gateway that is leading the audience to Alien. The film’s prologue begins with a young Peter Weyland introducing his latest creation David (played by one of the best parts and performances of this movie Michael Fassbender) to the world. This is where the elements of Prometheus begin, the religious overtones of creation/God making Man. When David asks Weyland, “If God made Man, who made God?”, you can see Weyland’s’s face shift to the realization that his creation has questioned him and asked what he himself would like to know.
Then, piece by piece, the opening title sequence takes you back to Alien and the tone is set of what the audience is in for. It’s 2104, 10 years after Prometheus and 18 years prior to the original Alien. The Covenant is carrying the frozen cryosleep crew of twelve and 2,000 other sleepy frozen passengers along with 1000’s of embryos on a 7 year journey to a distant planet Origae-6 when it is thrown off course by a burst of crap/space storm/neutrino shock wave that shreds this gold shield thing and nearly kills everyone. Luckily, the humanoid watching over the ship, Walter (also Fassbender) wakes up the crew and saves the day, except for (spoiler alert) James Franco. If you are not a Franco fan then this is the movie for you because his demise is not pretty. The crew mourns briefly, fixes the ship, hears a beacon on a seemingly perfect new planet and despite the fact that they have a course set to a destination I’m pretty positive some really smart people have done a ton of research on, they take 3/4’s of the remaining crew and go to this equally inhabitable planet to explore and shortly after that all hell breaks loose.
So here are the pros: Covenant is a dark, haunting, exhilarating exploration in space and bloodier than the previous films in the franchise that brings the scares Prometheus lacked.The Xenomorphs are magnificent in size and scare factor and the introduction of the Neomorphs (add that to your lexicon) are both terrifying and adorable. Plush Neomorphs and baby Groots may be THE gift for the kids this summer. There is also a POV from the Xenomorph that I don’t recall experiencing as an audience member before. As for the performances, the standouts are
DF-14740 – Katherine Waterston as Daniels in ALIEN: COVENANT. Photo Credit: Mark Rogers.
Daniels (Katherine Waterston despite her Floyd Christmas haircut) the female lead reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley cautious, couragous and kicking ass. Faris (Amy Seimetz) the ship’s co-pilot who has the most believable performance from the moment she awakens from cryosleep to her encounter with an ill crew member and what transpires after, she is the only member of the team that follows protocol and her fear looks more than real. The standout and star is David/Walter (Fassbender) who is outstanding and entertaining especially in scenes where he acts with, himself. It is clear that writers John Logan and Dante Harper enjoyed writing the scenes between these two characters with a line like, “Watch me…I’ll do the fingering.”
Which leads to the cons: While practical effects were used, there is a quintessential scene where they were not and in my opinion missed the mark where it was an easy target. Award for worst crew in space goes to…. The Covenant. You have 2,000 lives on board your ship and you decide to go exploring? Last time I checked you had a mission and a destination but this shiny penny planet apparently means more than human existense. And who takes 3/4 of their remaining crew to “check out” a perfect uninhabited planet? Do they not show reruns of ANY television show set in space in 2104?
The character development is abysmal. What angers me about this is the 4 minute teaser trailer released 2 months before of a Last Supper with the crew that establishes relationships, personalites, banter and makes you feel and at least know more than 4 of the charachters names. Why this was not added to the final film I don’t understand because this 4 minute addition would have been that touch the film needed.
Despite the lack of character development and storyline plotholes, Covenant isa gorgeous film that splits the feel of Alien and Prometheus. The Covenant ship is a dead ringer for the Nostromo while the landscape of the planet, both barren of life and beautiful is reminiscent of Prometheus.The production design department led by Chris Seagers will be, in my opinion, nominated and possibly winning many accolades during awards season because of their exquisite craftmandship.
Alien:Covenant is a transition film that is an equal mix of Alien and Prometheus with the horror and tension of the original and the ambition to answer the question of creation and life from the latter. While it did not leave me feeling, anything actually, I do believe it is a film with some misses but a film that should be watched and enjoyed in the theater. I guess my disappointment is that I know this is a an A movie that ended up being a B. This is not the end however, which makes me hopeful. Alien:Covenant opens in theaters May 19th.
Good god I love Indie horror. I grew up on a steady stream of Troma and Full Moon movies as a kid (Ask your parents). There is something about a movie that is shot on a shoe string budget by people who love what they are doing, its elevates the idea into an art form.
Garden Party Massacre is a low budget, indie send up of your typical horror movies. Imagine if you would The 3 Stooges taking on Sam Raimi and you get the idea behind Garden Party Massacre.
Written, directed and starring Gregory Blair, Massacre begins as typical get together of several friend but quickly turns into a comedic romp that had me giggling throughout the film. Massacre doesn’t take itself seriously and neither should you.
One of the hardest things to do is nail horror comedy, and Garden Party Massacre hits all the bloody beats in its brisk 1:10 play time and it uses every moment it has to full effect.
The pros – There are a lot of chuckles to be had and when you think you have the movie figured out, you don’t.
The Cons – Its a low budget indie movie. Some of the acting is questionable, but I still had a damn good time watching this flick.
Garden Party Massacre is currently making the round on the festival circuit and from what I have seen, audiences are eating it up. Check out the trailer below.
This week Bryan leaves Scott and Doug to host alone, and that means two things; a spider movie is on the list and a short episode was recorded. They discuss the two early 90s John Goodman films Matinee and Arachnophobia, and that’s about it.
This week it’s just Bryan and Doug. (Scott’s busy working on a secret clown related fanfic.) They manage to keep things together long enough to discuss a couple ghost movies; The Haunting and The Changeling [spoilers from 56:41-1:13:27].
After the stunning cinematic suppository that was Seed of Chucky (I still defend Bride, but that is another article entirely), it was a welcome return to form of the popular killer doll franchise when Curse of Chucky returned to its outright horror roots, and it seemed to have done well enough to actually get a new sequel greenlit as well.
We have known the title for the 7th installment of the long running series, Cult of Chucky, for a while but little has been mentioned as to what the movie will even be about, until now.
Cult of Chucky will pick up right after the events of Curse with the wheelchair bound Nica, played by none other than Brad Douriff’s (Voice of Chucky and Charles Lee Ray) daughter Fiona Douriff, being blamed for the vicious murder of her family.
“[‘Cult of Chucky’] picks up the story of Nica after the bloodbath that happens in the last movie, and Nica has taken the wrap for all of Chucky’s murders,” Mancini told the Monsterpalooza audience. “She was sent to a mental institution, and after four years of shock therapy and drugs, doctors have convinced her that Chucky was just a delusion and that she had actually murdered her entire family.
“It’s a cool prescription for suspense, right?[…]Then her doctor complicates matters by introducing into her group therapy sessions…a Chucky doll.”
Chucky is such a versatile character that you can plug him into different sub genres,” says Mancini, who calls the new film surreal. “This one is the mind fuck, Chucky meets ‘Inception’ because you’re dealing with a bunch of characters whose perception reality is altered by their madness, the drugs that their on, and by hypnosis.”
And there is good news for the gore hounds out there…
“The gore effects in this movie….this is definitly the goriest of all of the movies,” Mancini stated while assuring the audience that he wasn’t pandering to them. “[This] wasn’t something [we] set out to do, it just sort of turned out that way.”
Cult of Chucky is due to hit our screens sometime around October.
This week on the show, we once again celebrate Bill Paxton by spotlighting a different actor. This time, it’s Gary Busey. We review Predator 2 and Silver Bullet, plus look at Time After Time and Shut In.
Time for week two of Bill Paxton memorial month. This week we honor Bill by taking a look at a couple of Matthew McConaughy films? Join us as we review Reign of Fire and Frailty [spoilers from 58:00-1:28:00]. Also…10 to Midnight and XX.
I’m a huge King nerd. That’s not a secret. I’ve been on record that I just don’t know about this IT remake. Not that I don’t think they could improve on it with a higher budget and less restrictions but the big point of contention with me is Pennywise. I mean how do you even come close to living up to Tim Curry’s performance?
Well we got our fist look at the new trailer and while everything looks good and it has a creepiness to it there is still no real look at the Pennywise performance. We see some flashes of him and such but no dialogue and no real interaction with the characters. But I know I’ll still be there opening weekend as since I’m a constant reader I have to. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think.
This week on episode one of Bill Paxton memorial month, we take a look at a couple of vampire westerns with Near Dark (yes, Doug finally gets to talk about it) and John Carpenter’s Vampires. We also discuss The Monster, He Never Died, as well as some other randomness.
Note: we do NOT talk about Logan at the end of the episode, despite what we claim. That segment went on long enough that we decided to make it its own bonus episode.
This week we discuss a couple of Frank Henenlotter films in what might be our shortest episode yet. We try to put together some intelligent thoughts about Basket Case and Brain Damage, but it doesn’t go so well. We wrap up with Bryan’s thoughts on Get Out, so there’s at least that to listen to.
Welcome to sci-fi week number 2. This week we discuss two of the best sci-fi, no…best FILMS ever made, Total Recall and Robocop. We also have a lot of other movies and tv to discuss including Out of Print, Split, Pet, River’s Edge, and Westworld.
All right, kiddies. you know you have been waiting for the ball to drop for the latest installment of the prequel for the Alien franchise, well, GeekNerdery is standing right next to you with our mouths agape.
It’s been a couple years since we have seen any Xenomorph action (Very little hinted at us in Prometheus), but now we get a look at the origins of the Alien, and I for one am looking forward to this one! Check out the trailer for Alien Covenant Below!
