#edited by alan smithee it is

[hoochieblues]

I'm currently working on a ms that has some significant classism issues, and it's making me want to chew off my own arms.

Writers. Please. Whatever historical period you're writing, whatever genre, whatever the makeup of your worldbuilding... poverty doesn't make people immoral. Lack of education doesn't make people stupid.

I think the vast majority of people know this, but "The Poors" should not exist in your story to either be "content with their lot" and whimsically prop up wealthier characters' privilege, or to be handwaved or judged as venal, desperate, or cruel by those wealthier characters, especially with the condescending veneer of pity.

Sure, poverty is cruel and can change how you think. It can veer you towards sketchy decisions, limit your options, and embitter you. It can normalise certain things in a community that you don't see in wealthier places. But a lazy caricature of the type of person who is poor is a bullshit avoidance of those issues, and it's pure classism.

By all means, write antagonists or unpleasant characters who are poor. But, for the love of fuck, give them some interior motivation beyond being poor. Contextualise them. Show some variety.

If you've never lived under the poverty line, if you're not sure how to write it, do some research. You have the sum of human knowledge in a tiny computer in your pocket. It can show you worlds you never knew existed, and viewpoints far outside your own.

[urgentkettle]

Goncharov's Return/Revenge discourse is like

[dwn024]

i’m half tempted to edit together my animatic and the final animation side by side to showcase how badly they my group butchered by boards but i’m so unhappy with how this project has gone i would Rather get credited as alan smithee and totally distance myself from this shit

[macchiato-nana]

4 kids and 4 adults

[brokehorrorfan]

Maniac Cop 2 and Maniac Cop 3: Bade of Silence will be released on 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) on October 19 via Blue Underground. The first pressing of each includes an embossed slipcover.

Update: The releases have been pushed back to November 16 due to manufacturing delays.

1990's Maniac Cop 2 and 1993's Maniac Cop 3 are sequels to the action-horror film Maniac Cop. They’re each directed by William Lustig (Maniac Cop, Maniac) - although he used the pseudonym Alan Smithee for the third installment - and written by Larry Cohen (Maniac Cop, It's Alive). 

Maniac Cop 2 stars Robert Davi, Claudia Christian, Michael Lerner, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, and Robert Z'Dar. Maniac Cop 3 stars Robert Davi, Caitlin Dulany, Gretchen Becker, Paul Gleason, Doug Savant, and Robert Z'Dar.

Both films have been newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR and new Dolby Atmos audio mixes. Special features are listed below.

Maniac Cop 2 4K UHD special features:

Audio commentary with director William Lustig and filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn

Isolated music track

Theatrical trailers

Maniac Cop 2 Blu-ray special features:

Audio commentary by director William Lustig and filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn

Isolated music track

Back on the Beat - The Making of Maniac Cop 2

Cinefamily Q&A with director William Lustig

Deleted scene

Theatrical trailers

Poster & still gallery

The Maniac Cop is back from the dead and stalking the streets of New York once more. Officer Matt Cordell was once a hero, but after being framed by corrupt superiors and brutally assaulted in prison, he sets out on a macabre mission of vengeance, teaming up with a vicious serial killer to track down those that wronged him and make them pay... with their lives!

Maniac Cop 3 4K UHD special features:

Audio commentary by director William Lustig (new)

Theatrical trailer

Maniac Cop 3 Blu-ray special features:

Audio commentary by director William Lustig (new)

Wrong Arm of the Law - The Making of Maniac Cop 3

Deleted and extended scenes

Theatrical trailer

Poster & still gallery

Original synopsis

When Officer Kate Sullivan storms a hostage situation, the whole incident is captured on tape by an unscrupulous media crew who edit the footage to show Kate killing a helpless victim. Now in a coma, Kate's only hope is Detective Sean McKinney, who desperately tries to clear her name. But unbeknownst to him, “Maniac Cop” Matt Cordell takes it upon himself to exact revenge upon those responsible for smearing her name.

[petty-crush]

“Burn Hollywood Burn”

-a mockumentary about a director (Alan Smithee) who steals the reels of his action epic that was re-edited against his will; a village chimes in

-this film is almost entirely people talking to the camera;(as opposed to observing them) it gets very repetitive very quickly

-why does Hollywood love to make films mocking Hollywood?

+narcissism. They still get to be the center of attention (and in their mind really can do no wrong)

-this film doesn’t really work, so I’m going to note the stop n spurts that rise above

-most of the most effective material happens early

-the graffiti credits are quite spiffy

-there is a very thorough gag about people in Hollywood claiming to be feminists. This result in the genuinely funny self credit “Eater and Feminist”

-another belly ache is the producer talking about writers “I was loyal to the script. We had six writers re-write it. Then three more. Then another three”

-then it tops itself with the aside “writers have a lot of integrity”

-this is concisely illuminating; it’s beyond moronic to re-write a script that much, but why is there no shortage of schmucks to say yes to it?

-this film is written (and allegedly edited to his whims) by Joe Eszterhas, who has a few bones to pick with the industry

-the direction by Arthur Hiller is first rate, with blocking, hand use and movement being particularly good

-in another funny moment, Hiller (while making a film about a director having integrity and needing final cut) in real life had the film so taken away from his wishes he insisted it be re-credited to the alias of shame- Alan Smithee

-I feel a con is being played here. Why include a moment (as a behind the scenes credit) where Eszterhas is sitting with Arthur if none of his intent is left in the film? Why did he sign consent to that?

-if it’s legit, Arthur was 100% correct in saying (to Eszterhas) “the last thing any director needs is you of all people sticking up for us”

-the music for this film is astonishingly mismatched; it’s a vomit of lofi country, rap, and acoustic rock. While the film is mostly boring and tedious this is legitimately energetic in how stinky it is

-this film has a reputation for being one of the worst films of all time, but it’s far too safe and unambiguous for that. It’s just unfunny

-I have no taste for films that points at cliches as opposed to investing them with humor, energy or conviction

-it would be really interesting to imagine this premise made today with a director stealing the master print for a marvel movie or otherwise must come out tent pole film

+especially how the pawn audience and sucker trade journalists would act (they would definitely take the side of the major corporation)

-this film would have been better with the dark, rude humor of Paul Verhoeven (who sent Eszterhas’s other two scripts to the moon)

-Harvey Weinstein plays a detective here, and I had no idea he had such an awesome voice, of dry detached power (Think Joe Friday from “Dragnet”)

+he legitimately could have had a whole other career as a voice over artist or narrator

-maybe this presence was how he intimidated so many people

-Eric Idle plays many roles with a counterfeit sincerity and that approach doesn’t work as a a director who truly cares about his art.

-there are other tonal problems but that struck me as the most egregious

-it’s a mild treasure hunt to see all the 90s Hollywood tropes-black power cinema, horny thrillers, leftover 80s action bloat, but it’s never framed with any personality

-this film is like an evolutionary dead end; it’s purpose is for completists, and it’s remains a very minor footnote for entertainment

[howsareeasy]

So, I’m distinctly annoyed

tl;dr - Writers with  BP, if you really want experienced Transformative Artists to do your work vs those of us who are learning, please post it on your BP. This is to avoid disappointment from both sides, thank you!

As a follow up to the last paragraph in this post . Long story short, I did a podfic of a fic wherein the author gave BP.  At first, the author left a comment (it was encouraging, not necessarily complimentary, but didn’t need to be), and on a revisit (because I got word that a link to the podfic was borked), and I came back to find that the writer deleted their comment on the podfic.

I won’t lie, the podfic was one of the first ones that I did.

Its seams are there to hear, but I really tried, you know? From the language (not my L1), to the pacing, and the effort of working through the vagaries of GarageBand, edits, having it available in two formats (three, including direct streaming), plus cover art. On reflection I’m  annoyed about it, because it took effort.

I’d have rather the writer not say anything at all than say something and then delete the comment. Or I’d have the writer be highly critical of the effort (and ask to be Alan Smitheed) than be passive aggressive.

Yes, I get the writer’s disappointment, I do. You put up BP and are expecting art - and not get the result that you like. It be like that sometimes.

Still, that is a dick move.

I’m tempted to contact the writer and ask her to please state on her BP that she’d prefer highly skilled transformative artists to attempt her work on BP. Or to do like some BNFs and use the ‘and ask’ option as a way for people to audition to do their work, in order to save the rest of us stragglers a lot of time.

Again, I won’t take down the work, because it’s done.

I’ve gone through the trouble of recording, processing, making it available in TWO formats in addition to streaming, plus cover art and hosting in the limited acreage of my Dropbox and SoundCloud account.  So even if the work doesn’t suit, at least appreciate the effort. Or just... be polite enough to ignore it, tbh.

It’s not the... deletion of comment that gets me, I guess? Although it seems like it. It’s the disregard for the work that’s been shown, and the sneer at the effort made. Ugh, writers, you can’t have everything your own way.

As a result, I shan’t be touching their work again.

[donaldkingsbury]

Ye wanted Danny McBride to play Kayne West in his biopic

Ye reportedly asked a white actor, Danny McBride, to portray Kayne West in his biopic, there already is the great & legendary Hollywood director Alan Smithee attached to executive produce, score,edit,write & direct.

#hollywood #ye #ksynewest #alansmithee #biopic

[redantsunderneath]

Does anybody remember the Twin Peaks Holiday Special

I wanted to know if anyone remembers the Twin Peaks Holiday Special with the little man from another place, because it was common knowledge on the newsgroup and boards in the early 90s, but no one seems to recall it when I mention it now.  I had a VHS dupe of this show, with a badly printed jacket, that I had obtained at DragonCon 93' or so (I met Al Simmons, the real life namesake of Spawn and Jim Lee if that helps).  While I was cleaning house, I had accidentally given it with the rest of my VHS tapes to a courier named Roland who worked for us (who was later fired for popping positive for THC and I didn't know his last name, so I couldn't get it back). It was so bad so I wasn't really upset.  I just finished talking to my friend Gaines who I watched this with a bunch of times to just laugh and drink beer, so he managed to corroborate my memories and remind me of some other stuff.  Note that all of this is just his and my memory and may be off, and the stuff about the actors and background info is pure hearsay from whatever groups and boards I was on in that era.  Here is what I remember, if you guys can fill in the details or correct inaccuracies that would be fantastic.

ABC decided to exercise a clause in the Twin Peaks contract calling for their ability to produce up to 3 Twin Peaks related specials.  In the rush of awards show wins and high profile media exposure, they decided to greenlight a Holiday Special in hopes that they could capitalize on the buzz and the small town spirit of the show to maybe wind up with a perennial favorite.  It was to be shot on hiatus, but Lynch and Frost were not interested in working on it.  The execs focused on getting a cast to lure another writer and director associated with the show.

The cast were mostly uninterested in the blind pitch, except for Kimmie Robertson, who thought it would be fun as long as she could “do hair” and Joshua Harris who had just been cast to play Nicky Needleman in the next season and happened to be around when they were looking.  They felt they needed a bigger name to anchor the project and were surprised that Kyle MacLachlan said yes as long as he had final creative approval and a guarantee that the show would air.  MacLachlan had a well known issue with excessive use of human pineal gland extract around this time and the executives simply thought he needed the money (the fad for “organic” drugs was in full swing and HPGE was the priciest drug on the market at that time – Kyle was said to have an 80 donor equivalents per week habit, the highest ever recorded).

They were able to get one of the incoming writing staff (not sure which one) to agree to write it but it was apparently a “Stan Lee” job where the instruction to the story editor (a pre TNG Ronald Moore) was “that dwarf guy goes home for some reason.”  Moore, fresh off of a committed method writing exercise of 6 months living full emersion as a Klingon, decided on a “Pon Farr” scenario of the Little Man returning to his home planet to mate.  Gains remembers that Alan Smithee, who IMDB tells me has had quite a career, was named as director and they were ready to go.  

MacLachlan got heavily involved in the writing.  He and Lara Flynn Boyle had been living in a small shanty in the Salton Sea, and communications with them had become erratic.  Kyle said he had a “vision” as to how this might change the world, and fought Moore the entire time.  When the executives saw some of the pages and, realizing they could not cancel, gave the minimal budget contractually allowed and planned to bury the project.  Instead of at Christmas, it aired at 3 AM, Tuesday October 16th, 1991 with no promotion under a title that did not contain Twin Peaks (I thought it was something like “Trial of Bark,” but Gains swears it was “Our Emancipation.”).  No one saw this thing, but somehow I had that tape in all its cable acess-level production glory.

The story was basically a Christmas Carol.  There are no opening credits and the special starts with LMAP in the red room, when a large head (poorly superimposed with a blurring effect, weird computer imposed black hole for a mouth) tells him he must come back to “the planet Garmanbozia” (Lynch hated everything about this special and disavows it except for this name which he liked and kept for the movie) for the Tantaculus festival (MacLachlan’s suggestion, named after the “world system” he and Boyle were devising in the California desert) in order to mate.  The little man with resignation walks into the mouth and emerges in his house.  This is the only special effects and the only appearance of any of the normal settings of the actual show (all the summoned guests simply “walk on” from the side).  

There are birds on the soundtrack constantly and no music outside of musical numbers.  The house is like a modern Flintstones house (fake chrome everywhere, rust colored Formica table [no idea if this was an idea germ too], but uneven plaster painted ochre.  He sees his wife Brigite (Priscilla Barnes, who acts in a 3 foot cutout in the stage, and just disappears when she is not in a scene – you never see her leave or come back).  She is excited to mate, but he is clearly not and she disappears in a huff.  He says hi to his kids (Bob and Mike, no relation – played by sock puppets worked by a guy dressed in black), who are arguing over what seems to be a beef jerky.  He talks away from them about how he loves them but he doesn’t know if he can handle more.  Behind him appears an unnamed thin giant (Meadowlark Lemon in a part presumably written for Carel Struycken) who says he will show him the value of “whoople” with “three gifts” as the show cuts to commercial.  

The giant proceeds to bring in the three cameos, the first two of which have musical numbers.  Lucy comes in and gives LMAP a makeover and reminds him several times that he is “still sexy” before breaking into that Sinead O’Conner song (Emperor’s New Clothes, I think).  Locked camera shot, but the Lucy awkward dance stuff is fun. Commercial then Little Nicky comes in to remind him that his kids are still lovable and always a gift (more on this scene later) and he and the giant break into a Bossa nova-esque version of Blues from a Gun (the music is very dated and kind of inappropriate).  

Finally, for the last act, Dale shows up.  Most of his lines are gibberish (a lot about division and multiplication and, Zeno’s paradox perseverating), but he eventually gives LMAP a crushed velvet painting of a naked Log Lady (log held strategically).  The little man becomes alert and approaches the painting, rubbing its surface and making a yelping noise.  His wife appears and calls to him “Alf, come to me."  He walks backwards to the rear of the house.  The kids ask Coop if he wants some coffee and, in the one really interesting moment in the whole thing, Dale says “no thank you, if he makes coffee like he dances I’m likely to wind up with a mouth full of grounds.”  Strange sounds emanate from the back of the house (the only good foley work) and we end on a freeze frame of Coop giving a thumbs up and really fast credits.

My main, seared-in memories are the song numbers, the bad blocking and lack of positional continuity (Barnes’ hole), and a few specific oddities.  In the Nicky scene, Bob and Mike (who are always doing something competitive in the background) are bouncing a beach ball back and forth, playing the “don’t let it hit the ground” game (where someone tosses the ball so that other people will try to keep it in play by gently tapping it up – this is before I knew what meta was).   Now remember, it is one guy in a black mask obviously playing with himself but you can see the ceiling fan.  There is a tension that the ball is going to hit the fan, but it never does and they don’t do anything with this.  Meadowlark is wearing a Star Trek-ish uniform that is made out of potholder material. MacLachlan speaks with an intensity like he needs to convince the audience that without math the world will cease to exist, or something.  Lucy’s pre-Elaine funky dance is neat.

It is important to note that, in lieu of backward talking/shooting the scenes, everyone just inflects each syllable up with a tight jaw (they start to forget to do this pretty quickly except Barnes who is if anything a committed actress).  There's no way this thing is canon in any way - Lynch doesn't even answer questions about it (he responds with non-denial stuff like "I don't think Id've done that" and "sounds made up"), and it is really bad. It is tonally nothing like the show and any mythology SHOULDN'T COUNT! It is a fiasco. I can't find references Googling, but I think there has been a lot of self editing Wiki pages and legal action trying to scrub this thing from existence.

Any information, corrections, or links to where I could get this would be appreciated.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Detective Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen) finally catches the serial killer named “Meat Cleaver Max” (Brion James) and watches his execution. McCarthy is shocked to see the electric chair physically burn Max before he finally dies promising revenge. Max has made a deal with the devil to frame Lucas for his murders from beyond the grave. Max scares the McCarthy family (who have moved into a new house) and the parapsychologist they hire. The parapsychologist tells Lucas that the only hope of stopping Max for good is to destroy his spirit.

As the family move in, Donna (Rita Taggart) searches the basement to find their missing cat Gazmo. She discovers their furnace turns on and flings the door open, apparently Max’s spirit is inside the house and focused on the basement. Lucas starts having hallucinations that lead him to behave erratically. Bonnie (Dedee Pfeiffer) goes to the cellar to secretly meet her boyfriend Vinnie, who is later killed by a physical manifestation of Max with a cleaver. The next night, Bonnie tells Scott (Aron Eisenberg) to come with her to look for Vinnie, while Lucas goes to the basement and angrily calls for Max to stay away from his family. Bonnie returns to the basement and finds Vinnie’s body for which Lucas is suspected of the murder.

Max kills Scott with the meat cleaver, transforms into Bonnie and decapitates the parapsychologist before holding Donna hostage. Lucas escapes from questioning and goes into the cellar to fight Max. Lucas sends Max to the electric machine where his arm gets stuck, Lucas and Donna use the chair to shock Max causing him to appear back in physical form in the house where Lucas shoots him dead.

The next day the McCarthy’s are moving out with Scott still alive. Bonnie goes into the basement and runs outside to find Gazmo in a box the family takes a photo as the screen freezes and fades to black.

DEVELOPMENT/FIRING DIRECTORS The Sean S. Cunningham production was written by Leslie Bohem, a gold record-winning country and western songwriter who also served as a member of the rock ‘n’ roll band Sparks and a group called Bates Motel. Bohem’s script-his first to be produced was rewritten by Isaac and possibly one or both of the directors who preceded him on the project. The script is credited to Bohem and “Alan Smithee,” Isaac declined to reveal Smithee’s identity or discuss the genesis of the script, which closely parallels Wes Craven’s long-in-preparation Universal release Shocker (1989), but named Fred Walton and David Blyth as the film’s earlier directors.

“Producer Sean Cunningham didn’t hit it off with (Walton).” said Isaac of THE HORROR SHOW’s first director. “I’m still not sure why. Fred wanted the film to go one way while Sean wanted the film to go another way.” Six weeks before the film’s start date Cunningham hired Blyth to direct, but fired him after a week and a half of filming. Though footage that Biyth directed is still in the film.

“At that point, the original script was not being shot,” explained Isaac. “Then one Friday night Sean called me into his office and told me that he had to let David go. I must admit it was a real shock. Sean wasn’t happy with the dailies. He wanted me to start shooting on Monday. Obviously there were some problems with the script. But there was no extra time to work things out. The original script had a lot more humor in it. Things off-the-wall. It had some wacky stuff.”

Isaac recalled that the mood on the set of THE HORROR SHOW was tense as he took charge of the directing. The cast and crew, he felt, were unsure of him. “I felt especially bad for the actors,” he said. “They were trying very hard to make this movie more than just another slasher film. They also had some input in the script. Of course, I had been involved in the script before they started shooting. But, the actors didn’t know that.”

“Firing the director is the last thing in the world you want to do,” Cunningham said, “because it undermines everything. But if you know it’s not working, you have to come to grips with the consequences of not firing the director. You’ve got to make a change, or walk away from the whole thing.

“When Horror Show started to fall apart I had a real problem. I couldn’t direct it myself, and even if I had been able to, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. On the face of it, Jim wasn’t in line to direct, but he was in the right place at the right time. Jim was Visual Effects Supervisor on DeepStar Six (1989), and there was nothing I could throw at him that he couldn’t handle. I knew he wanted to direct, he knew all the effects, he knew me and I trusted him to ride this thing out and make it work.

“Sean brought me into his office and said, ‘Jim, I have to talk to you’, and just stared at me, while I was trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. I thought he was going to say something like, ‘Well, you know Jim, there just isn’t enough work to go around right now and I think I’m going to have to lay you off.’ Instead, he said, ‘I just had to let the director of Horror Show go, I’d like you to take over the picture, and you’ll have to start on Monday.’ Initially there was an idea that we’d direct together, but the more we talked about it the more it was obvious that one person really needed to take hold of Deepstar Six and one person needed to grab onto Horror Show.”

PRODUCTION The film was shot non-union in seven weeks in Los Angeles on a budget of $4 million. “I’d have to get in a certain amount of set-ups a day,” said Isaac. “Id average 25 to 30 set-ups.” After shooting for a few weeks, Isaac was happy with the footage. “Sean was pleased too,” said Isaac. “Yet, I knew when it came time to edit the film, we were going to have some problems. There had been some suggestion of electricity that would bring killer Max Jenke back to life. But since it was a rush job, there wasn’t enough time to make it clear.”

In the director’s first cut, the film was pretty dark. Isaac took about 20 minutes out of the film that didn’t work. “We were left with a film that had some major gaps in it,” said Isaac. “Of course, Sean was well aware of the situation. I asked him if I could add some new scenes and have an extra week of shooting. Sean tried to get some money from UA. That didn’t quite work out. He said we’d do it anyway.”

Isaac spent about two weeks writing new scenes for the film. “We needed to see that Max Jenke is a wacky guy,” said Isaac. “For example, the scene where Max appears in the turkey at the family dinner. Lucas (Lance Henriksen) picks up the carving knife and starts to stab the turkey. The family needed to see that Lucas was going off the deep end.”

“We’ve been really kicking ass with this thing.” Henriksen says firmly. “It’s a surprise to everybody. This has a powerhouse cast; it really took off.”

When the slight similarities to the Nightmare movies are mentioned, Henriksen disarmingly agrees. “Yeah, but it evolved,” he nods. “To Sean Cunningham’s credit, we got together and did a round-table reading of the script, and everything that was bogus, we red penciled. We’re maybe a fifth-generation script away from what it originally was, which is great. For me, this has been a real pleasure the hardest work I’ve ever done on a movie, but the most rewarding.”

The change in directors caused giant troubles.” Henriksen sighs. When you start with a director, you really bond with him. And that bond is something you defend. you work with. you nurture throughout a whole movie. The replacement left us high and dry for about a week, and it was traumatic. The reshoots were very difficult, but as we got into the scenes with Jim Isaac, we realized he was allowing us to do our work, so we were able to get into new areas for this genre. Oh sure. you still have to serve the special efsects, but we were able to take it to another level. Jim has allowed me to be really spontaneous about the reactions of this guy.” – Lance Henriksen

SPECIAL EFFECTS Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurzman, and Howard Berger (KNB) supervised the special effects. Kurzman handled Max Jenke’s electrocution make-up. They used a dummy head that split open for the scene. The effects were designed to make Max unique. “He’s not Freddy and he’s not Jason,” said Isaac. “His facial burns are unlike Freddy’s hideous scars. When Max is electrocuted, he’s fried to a crisp. There’s smoke and sparks all over the place.”

But we wanted Jenke to have a unique identity.” The thing we were all really afraid of was having him be anything like Freddy Krueger,” Nicotero elaborated. “So we devised ways the effects could be used to make Jenke a very different kind of monster. Even the burn make-up is designed so it’s not like Freddy burns-it’s crispy and black.” “Jenke is a murderer who comes back from another dimension to torture the detective who caught him by destroying his family,” concluded Isaac. “He threatens to tear this guy’s world apart, and that’s pretty much what he does.”

Take Jenke’s execution. “Bob did the electrocution make-up,” explained Nicotero, “which took four days to shoot. The first stage burn make-up comes after they put the headpiece on him and start the juice, you just have a series of little burns around his temples. The first prosthetic stage starts with his face looking normal, then the skin begins bubbling and little veins show through. The second stage of make-up has more burns, and Bob scored the bladders so that when they started swelling the skin would split…that took us to the third stage, where we had a full dummy head and torso that Howard did, with the skin split open even more. We were able to squib that with a lot of sparks, so you could actually see sparks on his body. There were smoke tubes in his clothing the whole time, so you also saw little curls of smoke. The fourth and final stage was a straight prosthetic make-up so Brion can get up out of the chair and move towards Lance.”

With his dying breath, Jenke-who has been secretly experimenting with a home electric chair, devising a method by which he can project his spirit into another dimension as his body dies-threatens to make McCarthy’s life a living hell.

That he makes good on his promise is clear from the following sequences. “There’s a scene where the daughter, Bonnie (DeDee Pfeiffer), is in bed crying. Lucas comes in, she pulls her nightgown up and she has this huge, pulsating pregnant stomach, then Jenke’s face appears stretching through from under the skin,” noted Nicotero. “And it goes one step further-Jenke starts talking to Lucas, saying really obnoxious, offensive things to him about his daughter.

“We were actually able to get all three of them into the same shot. DeDee and Brion were both dropped through a fake bed; we positioned her off to the left and him to the right. He had his face stuck up into the belly appliance and Lance is leaning over them both. The shot is really disturbing, because you can see they’re all there in the same space.

In that same scene, Lucas falls back against the wall and pulls his chest open-there’s a dream sequence earlier when we see Jenke bury a meat cleaver in Lucas’ chest, so we know its something he’s touchy about-and is trying to keep his heart and every. thing else inside. It has a Videodrome feel. We did a full torso appliance and put Lance through the wall on a slantboard-only the head, arms and shoulders was really Lance.”

Horror Show also features the nastiest uninvited dinner guest scene since the debut of Alien’s chestburster. As the McCarthys gather for a moment of family harmony, “Lucas looks down at the turkey and sees it’s not the same turkey anymore-it’s a weird, stretching, mutated turkey, a la The Thing.” Nicotero explained. “In the first shot all these tentacles shoot out and grab hold of the table. In the next shot, the turkey leg lifts up and it’s got three human fingers and two turkey fingers, as though it’s metamorphosing into something. Then this big turkey head that’s been lying on the table all covered with slime, lifts up and looks at Lucas, and there’s a little mechanical Jenke face growing out of the side that starts to talk to him. At that point Lucas picks up a knife and starts to stab it. It’s a whole creature transformation, and it’s pretty weird and gross.”

The corpse of a little girl in a nightdress, her head loosely attached by a bloody line, dangles from the wall. This is one of Max Jenke’s (Brion James) victims from Horror Show. There’s also a hot-melt vinyl head found in a deep-fat fryer in Horror Show, which comes up from under the fat with exploding eyes.

The Things I Have Done To Our Love Gleaming Spires Performed by Gleaming Spires

CAST/CREW Directed by James Isaac David Blyth

Produced by Sean S. Cunningham

Written by Allyn Warner Leslie Bohem

Lance Henriksen as Detective Lucas McCarthy Brion James as Max Jenke Rita Taggart as Donna McCarthy Dedee Pfeiffer as Bonnie McCarthy Aron Eisenberg as Scott McCarthy Thom Bray as Peter Campbell Matt Clark as Dr. Tower David Oliver as Vinnie Terry Alexander as Casey

Special Effects by Howard Berger … special effects Kit Cathcary … special effects apprentice Keith Claridge … special effects technician Ken Ebert … special effects technician Robert Kurtzman … special effects Greg Nicotero … special effects (as Gregory Nicotero) Doyle Smiley … special effects technician F. Lee Stone … electronics specialist Richard Stutsman … floor effects supervisor

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#81 p.36-39 Fangoria#81 p.40-43 Gorezone#07 Horrorfan#02 Cinefantastique v20 n03

The Horror Show (1989) Retrospective SUMMARY Detective Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen) finally catches the serial killer named "Meat Cleaver Max" (Brion James) and watches his execution.

[phillipcole]

On air with Ryan Seacrest part 2

Seacrest: We’re back.  I’m Ryan Seacrest, talking today with Phil Cole, co-author with Hank Williams III of an upcoming album and film, which he acts in, produced and...did you direct the film as well, Phil?

PBC: Officially this is an Alan Smithee production.

Seacrest: For those of you who don’t know, Alan Smithee is usually listed as the director when someone drops out in the middle or doesn’t want his name associated with the film.  Is there a dark story to this, Phil?

PBC: Not at all.  I directed the biggest scene in the middle, when the flying oysters attack a southern clam bake.  Jon Stewart, who directed The World’s most disgusting Comedian, is also in the film. No one has to tell him what to do, so he dominated his scenes, you could say he directed his part of the movie.  There’s some improv too.  You see, the play has been performed all over with just the bare bones of script, so when you get good people together they don’t need much direction, just editing.  So, who directed those scenes?

Seacreat: I see.  Now the film is called Attack of the flying Oysters.  Is it a gruesome movie?

PBC: There’s some blood but the oysters mainly take one bite each.  There are only 2 attacks on camera.  They both go on a long time.  The clambake scene is about a third of the movie because Hank performs 8 songs.  The oysters interrupt the last one.

Seacrest: Now on that point I should mention, Amber’s song is part of a 2-song release that precedes the whole album, but she’ll be on the soundtrack album as well, and we have this second song: Man of my Dreams.

PBC: Are you going to play that?

Seacrest: Right now.  Maybe you can set the setting, because this fits the film, right?

PBC: Yes, the leading lady is Katie Cassidy, playing a bacteriologist who hasn’t dated since college.  She sees the reporter Peter French, played by Tom Holland and gets excited like never before.  So this song plays while she shaves her legs, puts in contact lenses, just gets ready to make herself presentable.

Seacrest: Alright, here it is Amber Riley singing Man of my Dreams.

[recentanimenews]

Fumi Yoshinaga's What Did You Eat Yesterday? Manga Gets TV Drama Adaptation

It is confirmed today that a live-action TV drama adaptation of Fumi Yoshinaga (Antique Bakery, Ooku: The Inner Chambers)'s Kinou Nani Tabeta?/What Did You Eat Yesterday? manga is set to premiere on TV Tokyo's "Drama 24" programming block in April 2019.

  The cooking-themed manga has been serialized in Kodansha's Morning weekly magazine once a month since 2007. 14 tankobon volumes have been released in Japan, and it has printed more than five million copies. Its English edition is published by Vertical since 2014. The publisher introduces its story as below:

  Shiro Kakei, lawyer by day and gourmand by night, lives with his boyfriend, Kenji Yabuki, an out-going salon stylist. While the pair navigate the personal and professional minefields of modern gay life, Kenji serves as enthusiastic taste-tester for Shiro's wide and varied made-from-scratch meals.

  47-year-old Hidetoshi Nishijima (Kiro Honjo in Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises) is cast as Shiro,

while 50-year-old Seiyou Uchino (Alan Smithee in Lupin the Third vs. Detective Conan: The Movie)

plays Kenji. The manga author Yoshinaga says about the cast, "They are so true to their characters

that I tend to think, 'Since this is live-action, it doesn't need to be so close like this....' I was so surprised!

I am looking forward to it very much!"

  【ついに解禁！】 よしながふみ『きのう何食べた？』、西島秀俊＆内野聖陽ダブル主演で待望のドラマ化が決定!!!　テレビ東京「ドラマ24」4月クールで。 https://t.co/1hFI1dcwRJ pic.twitter.com/6Aod5vJQ7o

— モーニング公式 (@morningmanga) 2019年1月23日

   Manga tankobon 1st and 14th volume covers

    Source: TV Tokyo, Morning official Twitter

  ©"Kinou Nani Tabeta?" Production Committee

©Fumi Yoshinaga/Kodansha

  By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[oppaiokudasai]

Music Video of the Day: Destroyer by Saint Motel (2017, dir by Alan Smithee)

Much as I do with the video for their song My Type, I love the retro feel of this video for Saint Motel’s Destroyer. The credited director is Alan Smithee.  Mr. Smithee has had quite a career in the world of music videos.  He has been credited with directing 73 videos and editing 19 more.  He also has 8 cinematography credits and 2…