The apocalypse is the big order for the day, and there’s no sign of entertainment in that sub-genre dying down any time soon. Even Web Series are approaching the sub-genre, and the newest is “Drained World.” Normally I’m rough on web series and demand unique content, and “Drained World” seems to fit my needs so far. The twelve minute pilot is filled with a lot of questions and some healthy ambiguity that I hope gets settled with more episodes in the future.
This is a banner episode for Daryl Dixon, who owes a lot to season two. Say what you will about season two, but it’s where we get a better definition of the character and the rigid guidelines he operates by. For a long time he’s been about himself and Merle, and now he realizes he has something else to fight for. He has a goal to strive for, and he’s dead set on finding Sophia. The Daryl from season one would tell everyone to fuck off, but here he’s saving T Dogg from being chomped by a horde of walkers, he’s out bonding with Andrea, he’s giving pep talks to Carol. And now he’s going all Rambo to find a trace of Carol’s daughter.
No matter how many times I swear off of Star Wars, I just keep managing to go back to it. I can’t help it. I’ve been in love with the mythos since 1998 when I saw it in all of its original glory on my cousin’s old VHS box set, and it’s had a hold on me. Since Disney bought the franchise a few years ago, it’s managed to accomplish so much with the stagnant series, and I’m glad we’re seeing forward motion in the right direction with the narrative. The Expanded Universe is gone, there are more movies on the way, and “Star Wars: Rebels” has been a wonderful precursor to he new trilogy. Aside from being fun, exciting and compelling, it’s also helped improve what the prequels damaged. The show has a ton of great qualities but we settled on five major accomplishments it’s brought to the table. Here are five things the series has done right.
This is the episode where Rick begins his transformation from law man to post apocalyptic warrior. Shane has been intimating for a while now that things are just different and there’s no method to the madness anymore. People will die, people will be killed and people have to be sacrificed. Maybe Otis needed to be sacrificed, or maybe not. Shane definitely felt it was worth sacrificing Otis to get to Carl. Would Shane and he have made it out of the school if Shane didn’t kill Otis and leave him behind? Who knows? I’m not saying what he did was justified; it’s just the law of the new land.
When Rick completely stores his sheriff’s uniform and badge in to a drawer, it’s the hint that this is no longer a man following a code. He’s no longer living by normal rational guidelines that we all once lived by.
It’s always a thrill when an indie horror movie, a good indie horror movie, manages to take America by storm. “It Follows” is the big horror indie of 2015, and for good reason. It’s a creepy, intelligent, complex, and occasionally terrifying glimpse in to a nightmarish world where having pre-marital sex results in dire consequences. Particularly there’s the demon simply identified as It. Maika Monroe is great and absolutely gorgeous as Jay, a young girl who goes out with a guy named Hugh on a date. After they hit it off they have sex in his car, and Hugh proceeds to kidnap Jay. Rather than harm her, he explains that during sex he’s passed on a supernatural curse, and he explains the rules on how to evade the demon. One of the main guidelines being that sex passes the curse on and she must find someone to sleep with to save her own life.
There are two reasons to watch “Howling II”: The sheer utter hotness of Sybil Danning, who walks around throughout the film in a tight leather leotard that makes her look like a Batman villain. And Two: The utterly inept performance by the one and only Reb Brown. It’s a long way to go from Dee Wallace to Reb Brown, but hot damn the creators of the sequel to “The Howling” are more than up for the challenge to remind us which of the pair is more convincing as a human being. “Howling II” is the official sequel to “The Howling”; it’s a goofy, wonky, and camp laden werewolf picture hell bent on celebrating the new wave movement by literally handing us European new wave super villains that happen to be a cult of werewolves.
If I had to pick a cult film that I’d take with me on a deserted island, it’d either be “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”, or Jack Hill’s “Spider-Baby.” It’d probably be the latter if I was pressed. I fondly remember being introduced to “Spider-Baby” as a child, when I used to sit down to watch “Horrible Horror” with Zacharly. I always found the scene of Jill Banner slicing and dicing poor Mantan Moreland to be one of the sickest bits of horror cinema I’d ever witnessed. Years later, I was happy to watch the film in its entirety, and thankfully Jack Hill’s dark horror comedy hasn’t aged a single bit.