1990’s “Tremors” and I go a long way. It’s not just one of my all time favorite monster movies, but it’s also a childhood favorite and has a ton of nostalgic value. I first started watching it when my mom recorded it on VHS off of cable TV back in the heyday of the 1990’s. I wore that VHS out, suffice to say. I loved it and still love it. So imagine my surprise when in 1996, in came “Tremors 2: Aftershocks.” While this follow up is not at all like the original film it still manages to be pretty darn fun.
Tag Archives: Comedy
Interview with J. Zachary Thurman, Director of Viral Short “Finley”
Virality seems to be the new aide to indie filmmakers these days. Especially with movie studios treating films like disposable products that they can use as a simple tax write off, many times the best way for filmmakers to get traction on their work is through viral means on the web. Among one of the more notable is J. Zachary Thurman’s short “Finley.” A horror comedy with a genuinely interesting story, “Finley” recently went viral on the likes of Youtube and apps like Tik Tok, the latter of which has inspired many horror tik tokers to post live reactions to Mr. Thurman’s short.
Genuinely funny, and downright fun, “Finley” is the tale of a haunted doll named Finley that comes to life to torment the owners of a new house. The problem is that Finley is really bad at trying to kill people, and eventually becomes an utter nuisance. Filled with great puppetry, a genuinely fun concept, and oodles of clever humor, “Finley” (now available on youtube) is a short film deserving of huge attention. J. Zachary Thurman took time out of his very busy schedule to discuss the short and his thoughts on horror comedies and filmmaking.
Bad CGI Gator (2023)
See here’s my problem with “Bad CGI Gator.” It’s not that it takes a short coming and tries to turn it in to some kind of schlocky B movie element. It’s that the movie is only fifty eight minutes and it’s called “Bad CGI Gator.” And said Bad CGI Gator doesn’t make an appearance until at least seventeen minutes in to the movie. If you have only sixty minutes to work with, and your movie is called “Bad CGI Gator,” and you’re promising a Bad CGI Gator, I would think one would try to plaster the titular Bad CGI Gator on every frame as much as humanly possible.
The Marvels (2023)
What hinders Nia DaCosta’s “The Marvels” is that it literally is all over the place. This feels like Marvel is trying to squeeze in so much in ninety minutes, and while often it succeeds in getting the idea across, it can also stumble here and there. Nonetheless, “The Marvels” still winds up being a bang up Marvel entry, one that’s packed with some excellent fight sequences, wonderful conflict, and a great trio of characters, all of whom present a common goal in spite of how they operate as superheroes. Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeua and Kamala Khan are all heroes in their own right approaching the ideas of the superhero in their own mind set.
Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Hare Remover (1946)
2023 marks the 85th Anniversary of Bug Bunny’s first animated appearance in 1938’s “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” Debuting originally as Happy Rabbit, Bugs eventually became one of the most iconic animated characters of all time. In honor of the landmark anniversary, we’re discussing every animated appearance by Bugs Bunny. We’re big fans of Bugsy and we hope that you are, too.
Follow us on this massive journey where we discover and re-discover Every Bugs Bunny Ever.
Hare Remover (1946)
Directed by Frank Tashlin, Bob McKimson
Written by Warren Foster
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Richard Bickenbach
“Hare Remover” is one of the rare misses by the Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny team up. Usually their team ups and rivalries amount to some great laughs, but “Hare Remover” really hits the mark at all corners. It’s not to say that the short is bad, but in the long line of Bugs and Elmer shorts, this is not even top tier. If anything, “Hare Remoer” feels shockingly like a precursor to “Hair Raising Hare” where Bugs Bunny confronts an evil scientist and becomes the rival to a vicious monster. Here, much of the set up allows for a really raucous and funny short but everything really is just a complete misfire.
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023)
It goes without saying that I like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and I enjoy the whole twist of implanting the formula in to a horror setting. The fact is though that “It’s a Wonderful Knife” is so much more concerned with being a dark bittersweet Christmas fantasy, rather than diving head first in to the horror framework. For a movie that advertises itself as a slasher movie and whodunit, there’s a lot of surprisingly low stakes, and not much suspense at all. The writers frame the movie as a whodunit with the killers’ identities being revealed almost immediately, all the while the slashings all take a back seat for a majority of the movie.
“Airborne” at 30: Still The Fantastic 90’s Bonanza
In the 1990’s everything was “Extreme” or “Mega.” Everything had to be what with the introduction of things like X Games, which gave way to a huge tidal wave of things that were more adrenaline fueled, faster, and often times advertised “This isn’t your daddy’s:” Insert product here. Along with the sports being more extreme, the movies were more extreme, and the 1990’s carried over the skateboard generation from the 1980’s. Where the massive influx of skateboard movies permeated cult cinema, the 1990’s were where there were even more efforts to integrate it in to mainstream cinema. While it didn’t quite succeed (we did get “Brink!”, I guess), we did manage to get great films like my childhood favorite “Airborne.”