TV Talk - "Mountain Monsters"

 A favorite "reality" show of mine is Mountain Monsters. The premise is six good ole boys from the A.I.M.S. research team travel around in their dirty clothes and try to track down and capture all sorts of bizarre and fascinating Cryptids. This season everybody's favorite West Virginian cryptic research team has been pursuing Bigfoot all over Appalachia. This show is so ridiculous that it borders on embarrassing, but I can't help it, I love it. It's so dumb and fun and I like all these big dumbasses running around the woods at night tripping all over each other. The ultimate goal every episode is to capture the creature of the week in some sort of crazy trap that would make Freddy from Scooby Doo jealous. This would be considered a guilty pleasure except for the fact that I don't feel the least bit guilty for enjoying it. Everyone should jump on board with the hillbillies Trapper, Buck, Huckleberry, Jeff, Wild Bill, and Willy. They seem like nice guys and if you live in the Appalachia's and are having problems with a Wampus Cat you should give these guys a call. Fun stuff!

Captain Creepy's Crazy Cult Cinema - "Witchboard"

I love horror movies from the 80's. Many of them are so good and many more of  them are so bad. Some of the best ones though are so good and so bad at the same time. Witchboard from 1986 actually holds up well for a movie from this era. The music lets you know all too well what decade this is from with its generic hard rock soundtrack and electronic drum sounds. The music sounds exactly like any one of hundreds of other movies from the time. I can picture Sly Stallone as Rocky driving around in his fancy sportscar trying to figure out if he should climb in the ring with Ivan Drago while this music pulsates in the background. Getting past the music though, let's move on to the film itself.
Witchboard starts out at a party hosted by 80's/90's dream girl Tawny Kitaen and her boyfriend (no it's not David Coverdale). Linda (Tawny) invited her former boyfriend Brandon to the party, much to the chagrin of her current live in boyfriend Jim. There is heavy animosity between Brandon and Jim. Brandon busts out his Ouija Board and he and Linda use the board to call upon the spirit of a ten year old boy named David. Brandon has been communicating with David through the board for quite some time, he discloses. Of course Jim isn't buying it and things take a turn for the worse. The party ends badly as Jim and Brandon nearly come to blows during which Brandon leaves, forgetting to grab his Ouija. He calls Linda the next day and asks her to return his Witchboard to him later that week. Linda begins experimenting with the board by herself, which is a big no-no, asking David many questions and quickly becoming obsessed with the board and with the spirit of David. Bad things start to happen to Jim, seemingly due to the fact that David doesn't like Jim. Linda starts to act completely out of character as she begins to swear and become very moody and not like her normal self.
Later we discover that Jim and Brandon grew up together as best friends and had a falling out. The movie fleshes out some back story for the characters and does a good job of engaging the viewer and drawing you into the story. Jim and Brandon decide they have to put aside their differences in order to help Linda and defeat the evil spirit that may or may not be the young boy David, or may be someone else altogether.
The boys call in a psychic medium to try and help out the situation. The psychic, Zarabeth, is played by the girl that later played Luke's sister in Gilmore Girls. Zarabeth again hits us up side the head with 80's cliché as her appearance is a mix of Madonna, Boy George, and every punkish pre gothic stereotype that was conceivable in 1986. She is a good actress and a fun character at least.
There are some slow spots in Witchboard but overall I really like this movie. I hadn't watched this in years and must say that the acting is well done and the story is good. There is the typical cheese but much of the movie is played straight. It is a lot of fun but not overly ridiculous, a trap that many films from this time fall into.  Anyone that enjoys horror from this time period and isn't put off by the music and hairstyles may well find themselves happy to add this movie to their collection.
Captain Creepy loves Witchboard! Check it out.

Comic Spotlight - "Resident Alien"

Resident Alien is a comic book series that is published Dark Horse Comics. It isn't released as an ongoing monthly title but rather as a series of mini series that are released maybe four issues or so in a year. This publishing strategy seems to work well for Resident Alien. As of this writing there have been three mini series released with hopefully many more to come. The writer for this series is Peter Hogan and the artist is Steve Parkhouse, both veterans of the industry.
The general concept is that a few years ago an alien crash landed on earth. Now he is stranded here and is trying to make contact with his home planet so that he can go home. Kind of an ET scenario. In the meantime he is biding his time, living in a cabin by a lake, spending his time trying to figure a way to contact his people, and also fishing in the lake. He has the power to camoflouge himself so that only approximately one in a million earthlings can see him in his true form. To everyone else, he appears as a normal looking human man. He lives under the guise of a semi-retired doctor named Harry Vanderspiegle. His cover is that he is retired yet does some research from his home by the lake. Harry keeps to himself and has very little contact with other people in the area.
After the murder of the local doctor, the only doctor in the region, our alien is approached by two people from the nearby town of Patience, the Mayor and the Sheriff. They want Harry to fill in as the town doctor for a short time until a full time replacement can be found. Unable to come up with a non suspicious way of not helping, Harry agrees to help. Harry begins providing medical services to the locals and is surprised to find that he enjoys it. He also begins investigating the murder of the former town doctor and discovers he has great detective skills. This twist leads us off into the meat of the series.
Resident Alien comes across as a mash up of Diagnosis Murder, Murder She Wrote, and Northern Exposure, only featuring an alien protagonist. The small town doctor solving mysteries. Patience is a typical quirky little town with quirky people that seems common in these types of stories. Towns from shows like Northern Exposure, Gilmore Girls, Hart of Dixie, or Picket Fences come to mind. We get to know many of the folk throughout the series and Peter Hogan writes in such a comfortably breezy manner that it feels like I'm watching a series on ABC Family. Steve Parkhouse renders his art in a simple and effective way, with nice linework and beautiful colors that help sell the total package.
You will never see this title at the top of any sales charts or on many end of the year "best of" lists since it is such a low profile, understated, and under the radar book. That's a shame because Resident Alien is a great book and reading it feels like you are slipping into a comfortable pair of old shoes. I look forward to more great mysteries and stories with Dr. Harry Vanderspiegle in the future.

Captain Creepy's Crazy Cult Cinema - "Jinn"

I remember some time ago seeing a trailer for Jinn. It seems like it was at the theater where I saw it, however that may not be accurate and was probably at the beginning of another movie I was watching at the time. What I do recall is that Jinn looked intriguing and when it popped up on Netflix I knew the time was right to check it out.
The mythology of the movie is that there were three types of beings created by God. Human, Angels, and Jinn. The Jinn are basically fallen angels that were cast from Heaven for refusing to acknowledge the superiority of humans in creation. The Jinn have been roaming the Earth ever since causing all sorts of chaos and mayhem and mischief. These are beings that were created from smoke and live in  a dimension just offset a touch from our own from which they can enter into our dimension at will.
Shawn is a man living with his wife Jasmine in Michigan and they want to have a baby but Jasmine is unable to bear children. Shawn begins to notice a shadow man type figure around his house. This is spooky and well done. Bad things begin to happen to Shawn and Jasmine. Shawn meets a man named Gabriel, played by Ray Park (Snake Eyes from GI Joe and Darth Maul from Star Wars). Gabriel introduces Shawn to a priest named Father Westhoff. These two characters take Shawn to meet a man named Ali, who is living in a mental hospital. We learn that Ali is Shawn's uncle and that their family has battled for generations against the sinister forces known as the Jinn. Think the Van Helsings and vampires. Gabriel has been acting secretly as Shawn's guardian angel for many years. The remainder of the movie is our team of heroes attempting to defeat the Jinn and drive them from the land. A coming of age story as Shawn attempts to fulfill his destiny. His heroes quest.
Jinn is a movie that had a lot of unrealized potential. I like the premise a lot, but was less than impressed with the execution. It's hard to pinpoint where exactly this went off the rails. The script isn't bad but could have used a little tightening. Effects are nice and there is some enjoyable atmosphere. It just seemed to lack a punch and fell flat. I really wanted to like this movie but couldn't quit get there. Captain Creepy found Jinn to be not bad, but average at best. This may be worth a watch if the premise sounds interesting to you although if you were to pass on Jinn it wouldn't be a big loss. 5 out of 10.

Captain Creepy's Crazy Cult Cinema - "The Reeds"

The Reeds - A group of friends in England take a weekend trip on a boating expedition. They travel through a reedy area of canals. Strange things begin to happen. A group of teenagers covered in blood are being stalked in the canals by a hooded stranger near the boaters. Then an accident happens with the boat and they are stuck. Will they get out? Will they survive? Who the Hell are these weird teens and why do they appear to be cannibals?

 The Reeds is one of the "After Dark Horrorfest 8 movies to die for" movies. Of course these are often a mixed bag, and this one was somewhat disappointing to me. After a strong start The Reeds begins to fade. The second half of the film isn't very good in my eyes. This is a decent, average movie with some creepy atmosphere that just couldn't stick the landing. The viewer goes through some twists and turns that end up sending them the wrong way down a one way street.

 

Captain Creepy's Crazy Cult Cinema - "Grave Encounters 1 & 2"

Here are a few quick thoughts about some things I have recently viewed.

Grave Encounters - This is a fun docudrama about a team of ghost hunters that have a reality show. They set out to investigate an old mental asylum that proves to be more than they bargained for. Grave Encounters is a little light on the "horror scope" of things. Not especially scary or creepy, but that isn't what they were going for. It succeeds on what it brings to the (levitating) table. Some fun light horror that shows interesting behind the scenes type tidbits from their "Grave Encounters" paranormal TV show in a tongue in cheek manner. I was told of this movie a few years ago by Adam Berry from the actual "Ghost Hunters" show on SyFy Channel. I was at a paranormal investigating event  that he was involved in and he talked about this movie. He said there is a lot of stuff here that was quite accurate with what his experiences have been in relation to being on a show of this nature. Neat stuff overall. This is a fun movie and is worth a watch.

Grave Encounters 2 - Not so much. A college film student is working on his thesis film. He is also obsessed with what happened in the original Grave Encounters movie. It's been a few years since those events took place and he takes a group to the same mental hospital from the first movie. That is where he plans on finishing his film. Needless to say, the group is surprised by what they find. I guess Grave Encounters 2 isn't terrible. It starts out pretty good then falls off. I must admit that it was a struggle to stay awake during the final act. Maybe it was just me but this one didn't work so well. I would recommend checking out Grave Encounters and skipping part 2. Keep it Creepy.