Horror Fest VII Day One: The Boogens and Moontrap

 Forgive the shortness of the following reviews but here at Blogorium headquarters it's getting a little late... okay, much later than that to be honest, and I don't have much to add to The Boogens beyond what I wrote here and here.

 Moontrap, well, let's just say that there's not much that ever needs to be said about that movie, but I'll give it the old college try.

 But first, a few random thoughts on The Boogens: I watched it tonight with two people who hadn't seen the film before, hadn't ever heard of it, and most importantly didn't know what a Boogens looks like (yes, I am assuming that since the old man just calls them Boogens that the singular is also Boogens and if necessary the plural is Boogenses). They both confirmed what I and everybody who ever reviewed this film firmly believes: that if you knew what the creatures looked like at any point before the end of the film, you wouldn't be able to pay attention to the story at all. You'd be too busy waiting for the next time you saw a Boogens, so you could laugh at it (or, as they agreed, think it looks kind of adorable).

 While it's a long held belief in horror that the less you see of the monster, the more effective the film is (Alien, Jaws, Halloween), The Boogens relies entirely on the fact that it's creature is so goofy looking that there's no way to show it before the very end of the film. Without knowing that your creature is a half turtle / half octopus with saber-tooth tiger incisors, you're able to be vaguely invested in the story of Mark, Roger, Trish, and Jessica. Even Tiger, the stupid dog that everybody hates (including the main characters) has some level of empathy when he (SPOILER) gets it.

 Also, because I don't think I mentioned it last time, we spend a while trying to suss out where Silver City, Colorado was (because it doesn't exist and Trish would have to drive four hours to get back to Denver if they were in Silver City, New Mexico - the closest actual place) but the movie was film in Park City, Utah. I've mentioned the fact that The Boogens feels like a porno with all of the sex scenes removed (or tamed down) but it was nice to have someone else point out that so many parts of the movie have dialogue that sounds like a set-up for getting down only to cut to the next scene. I still contend that there's a This Ain't The Boogens: A XXX Parody out there somewhere.

 Finally, Rebecca Balding (Trish) was also in The Silent Scream, and Anne-Marie Martin (Jessica) was in Prom Night, Halloween II, The Young Ones, and most importantly, Sledge Hammer. Fred McCarren (Mark), in addition to looking like a long lost Duplass brother, was in Xanadu, and Jeff Harlan (Roger) was in Auto Focus and did voic-eover work for Batman Beyond. Jon Lormer had quite a prolific career doing television and film before playing Greenwalt, the old man (actual credit) in The Boogens, but chances are you either remember him as Professor Dactyl on Batman or as the old man who wants his birthday cake in Creepshow. Clearly the former over the latter.

 Okay so I had a lot more to say about The Boogens than I thought I would, which is good because Moontrap is pretty terrible. Well, by "pretty" I mean "really" and by "terrible" I mean "borderline unwatchable." While it's not uncommon to have conversations during the movie, I rarely get into a long discussion of the relative merits of Prometheus at the expense of the film at hand. Sure enough, we realized that we'd been ignoring Moontrap and, little to our surprise, we hadn't missed a thing.

 Written by Tex Ragsdale (which I assumed was a pseudonym for the person who really wrote this and realized how horrible it was, but apparently it's not) and directed by Robert Dyke (who is a real person that worked on miniatures for Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn), Moontrap is the nonsensical story of Colonel Jason Grant (Walter Koenig) and his flight partner Ray Tanner (Bruce Campbell) - nicknamed "Einstein" and "The Penetrator," if you were curious - two NASA pilots is the presumably near-future that come across a derelict spacecraft in Earth's orbit. It's from the moon, specifically the "Prometheus Crater" (you can see how the discussion started, I hope), and contain the corpse of a 14,000 year old mummified human astronaut, as well as a pod housing a robot. The robot escapes the NASA underground lab and uses the corpse to become a Cylon knock-off (that, or if you prefer, something the modern Battlestar Galactica ripped off in their Centurion design) that Jason and Ray help destroy.

 Ray and Jason are then allowed to fly to the moon to discover the origin of this ship, where they find a giant pyramid and a preserved woman named Mera (Leigh Lombardi) who doesn't speak English or understand why two astronauts are carrying space Uzis, but doesn't really seem to care and joins them. The robots, in the meantime, steal their lunar lander, kill Ray, and leave Jason alone to have sex with Mera in his handy space igloo, before capturing them and taking them on their ship to Earth to unleash an army of killer robots that will assimilate humanity and wipe them out.

 Wait... maybe I'm getting this all wrong. Maybe Prometheus and Battlestar Galactica ripped off Moontrap, and not only that but Tex Ragsdale and Robert Dyke beat Star Trek: The Next Generation to the punch with the whole "Borg" thing. Or maybe Moontrap is a sloppy mess of screenwriting where one plot point rarely leads to another, characters do next to nothing that makes sense, and depending on whether the budget can handle it or not, there is or is not sound in space. There is definitely Walter Koenig voice-over that's used in order to trick us into thinking he's saying something while floating around the derelict ship. I know that much, because his mouth isn't moving but he's clearly addressing Ray and not the audience.

 We watched Moontrap because of a request, and I like to entertain requests when possible, but this certainly was just as bad as I remembered it being. Maybe worse.

Cap'n Howdy Presents Handy Answers to Your Questions

Today I thought I'd throw a bone to visitors that happen across the Blogorium via Google, Bing, or one of those other search engines that I've forgotten about (seriously, Ask.com is still out there?). This is also a way to address the many strange queries, subjects, and searches that bring folks here, in the hopes that this entry will be a handy portal to other essays, where I may not directly address your questions.

In case regular readers weren't aware, the Cap'n gets a bunch of one-time visitors, often coming in based on the oddest of criteria, so I'll share that with you as well.

Are the Coen brothers auteurs? - this question pops up more often than any other, in various forms, because I posted an essay from my final in a Theories of Authorship: The Coen Brothers to the Blogorium (found here). For people looking for more information on Joel and Ethan Coen, I also posted a series of other essays on The Ladykillers, Forever Young Film Preservation, A Serious Man, Barton Fink, Doppelgangers, Incongruities, Social Commentary, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Hudsucker Proxy, Music in their films, Influences of Film Noir, No Country for Old Men, Uncertainty, Re-adaptations, True Grit and the "other" Coen brothers.
What is the source of Hamlet's melancholy? - Apparently, high school students have trouble with Hamlet, and go to the internet to find answers. Sometimes, they end up at one of the Hamlet Week posts. In Hamlet's own words (from Act II, scene 2):

HAMLET
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

Now, astute readers will note that Hamlet is toying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, upon realizing they were sent for by Claudius and Gertrude, and that his "wherefore I know not" is a ruse. He is principally irritated because of this:

HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

I will not explain what it means, high school students, but if you have the slightest idea what's going on in Hamlet, this should sufficiently answer your question.


What is different in The Other Guys unrated? - One visitor was referred to my review of The Other Guys, which clearly didn't help out, as it was a review of the theatrical version. The answer to your question is "not much": there are about 9 extra minutes worth of footage, including a car chase fist fight, another Hoitz argument with an ex, a more specific monologue about corporate greed, and a new stinger at the end of the credits. The big difference is that the dialogue is considerably filthier, with most of the "tame" versions of cursing replaced with their vulgar counterparts.

Did Anton really shit on Joaquin Phoenix? - No. According to IMDB: "the 'feces' was [sic] actually a combination of humus and coffee grounds. The mixture was inserted into a tube that was taped onto Antony Langdon's (Anton) back that went down to his butt." As the review and supplemental materials on the disc assert, nearly everything in I'm Still Here was manufactured through camera trickery.

No Country for Old Men hotel scene. - I see that I was not the only person who was skeptical with the assertion that Anton Chigurh was, and then magically was not, in the hotel room before Sheriff Ed Tom Bell walked in. The sequence analysis, which goes (nearly) shot by shot can be found here.

Now, some of the really weird ones.

Expendables Stallone cap. - It took me forever to realize that "cap" was in reference to "screencap" and accordingly I had no idea why so many people were looking for "____ cap" and being sent to the Blogorium. There's not a lot I can do about this, as it's simply an unfortunate side effect of using the slang term "Cap'n." Sorry.

"cop knows how to use his dark side for good" - Another reference to The Other Guys, from Ice-T's narration, one that I suspect is a reference to the Showtime series Dexter - the narrator suggests that the cop in question should move to Miami, where Dexter is set and that is a rough approximation of the show's concept.

Alicia Marek - Alicia Marek plays Jeff Fahey's wife and Lindsay Lohan's mother in Machete, and spends the second half of the film naked. Because I mentioned her by name in the review - along with the rest of the cast - anyone looking for naked photos is invariably cock-blocked by an actual review of the film. I'm not sorry for that.

Slutty renaissance - My absolute favorite way that someone found the review of Satan's Little Helper. I'm almost positive it wasn't what they were looking for - unless you weren't looking for an actual "slutty renaissance" - but it does match my description of Katheryn Winnick's costume for most of the film.

Tron XXX Parody - An unfortunate combination of recent reviews for Tron Legacy and a Video Daily Double post about The Simpsons: A XXX Parody led some poor guy to the Blogorium. Alas, such a thing is real, is being made, and is titled "Pron."

Grandfather Granddaughter Porn - No. Just, No. I don't know why this sent anyone to Blogorium (thanks, Turkish Google search engine!), but you won't find that here. I don't know where you would find it, I'm not going to help you find it, so yeah... good luck with that, pal.