Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
Zero Day
We take a day off work and pretend we are on vacation. Listen to some music, hang out with friends, read a book, listen to music, sleep, make your favorite drinks, take a hike, ride a bike, etc.
To participate you have to wear a Hawaiian shirt and do absolutely nothing for the day. Only those few chores are allowed that are truly necessary – like cooking and cleaning dishes. No social media is allowed. In fact technology will be invented to prevent you from accessing any of it. The rest of the day is about resetting your soul to zero back to your calm warm center.
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
16: It might be fun to go back to that age and experience driving for the first time. To feel that freedom you get when you climb behind the wheel and just go. Late 80’s music in the cassette player, hair in the wind (use to have it), and no real commitments.
You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
World peace and no hatred – love who you love with no judgement.
A comfortable life for me and my kids and generations beyond – don’t need to be rich but enough money to not struggle and to be able to travel wherever I want.
Correct the environment and reset it back to when climate change didn’t exist.
Walking or hiking is a great way to get the legs moving. Nice to get out in nature and get some fresh air. I bought a bike recently so I have been enjoying riding it as well.
I have to say, I really enjoyed this movie from the jump. The opening scene had me hooked, instantly, nasty kill with the guts stretching across the room, and after that kill and that scene, I sat back, smiled, and enjoyed the rest of this wild ride from Oz Perkins, who wrote and directed it. It’s filled with his quirkiness and humor and his direction. I am starting to know his style when I watch his movies and I like it a lot. I went on a bit of an Oz binge recently, and I have to say, not a bad movie at all so far. Longlegs, revisit dropping Friday if you are watching this on Wednesday, put me onto his stuff and I am so happy for it. Of the movies recently watched by Oz, I am the pretty thing that lives in the house is the one that I keep coming back to the most. Why? I think it was the vibe nature of the film and the fact that I love a good atmospheric ghost story. And it is both of those through and through. Naturally that one would speak to me. But you can’t go wrong with any of his stuff – so far. Keeper is on the horizon and we will see how that does. Fingers crossed. Moving on, beyond Oz, and his amazing writing and direction, there are a lot of things to enjoy in this movie. Gore. I had heard that the kills were nuts and over the top —- they exceeded my expectations. Three kills stood out to me —— The scene where the girl dives into a freshly electrocuted swimming pool and proceeds to blow up in front of the lead character – who gets hit with a leg – and then says “Was that a leg?” before running off. Had me laughing and the lady showing off the Aunt’s house who got blasted by a shotgun that turned her into literal blood pudding – wow – and the scene with the hornet hive. When they showed that hive. I knew nothing good would come from it. My instincts were correct. I thought the hornets would invade the car, not the man’s mouth – glad I was wrong because it was gruesome stuff to watch when he started falling apart. Another big highlight is the score. I really liked the way music was used throughout the movie. Played well in each scene and the story too. And an even bigger highlight, probably its biggest – the killer – the monkey who loves to set his death march to pounding drums and organ grinder music —— and when you hear that organ grinder music and those arms start pumping. Look out. Bad things are on the way. It’s a true harbinger of doom. Oz also knows how to get the most out of his actors, all of them did a great job in their roles. This movie is more about uncomfortable humor and the Final Destination style kills so if you can read lines and make them sound good then that’s all you really need because nobody is tuning in for the acting.
Allright, now, the haiku.
Tiny toy monkey Pounding on its rhythmic drum Death is listening
Have you seen The Monkey or any of Oz Perkins movies? Let me know the movies you liked and didn’t like in the comments below. Take care and have a good one. Organ music playing.
When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?
Four came to mind.
Close to home: My dad. Grew up without a lot of money. Managed to finish college and get a degree. He isn’t wealthy in money but he had a lot of success along the way. Raised a family and managed to make sure we were all taken care of and loved. To me that’s a success.
Celebrities:
Jimmy Buffett. He had some hits but nothing like Margaritaville. He turned that one song into an empire.
Sam Raimi: He made a low budget movie called The Evil Dead and is now directing blockbusters.
James of the YouTube Channel Dead Meat: Almost 7 million subscribers and is becoming a known name in the horror industry.
Gore and Effects: Top Notch. The kills were nothing original, nothing most of these Slasher movies haven’t done before but they looked realistic. Plenty of blood was shed. That chainsaw kill when that clown lifted that girl in the air, brutal, right after a texas chainsaw style chase through the corn with chainsaw blaring. Good one. The work out kill, with the blade on the bar, gruesome, and there was a nasty head smash too. No let down in the gore department. If you like blood you get it.
Story, Script, Directing: I can’t complain about any of those. It kept my attention both times I watched it. Eli Craig who did Tucker and Dale vs Evil did a solid job behind the lens and he managed to balance comedy and terror without overdoing the comedy.
Acting: No one took me out of the movie with lousy acting. Katie Douglas who played Quinn was a good solid final girl. Not one of iconic stature, but she had lots of spunk and tenacity and she held her own throughout the movie.
Kevin Durand, I like what he did with his character, Arthur Hill. He added some nice flare to that role and his joker makeup at the end was a nice touch. No complaints in the acting department even the clown fodder teens did a good job in their roles.
Score: Nothing that stands out to me but it fit the movie and set the tone it needed to set when it was used. I can’t say that I was wowed by it or noticed it all that much. But everyone did a great job.
Killer: Frendo looks amazing. I like the look of this clown. You got the costume, the creepy mask, the big shoes that squeak. Nice touch. Frendo looks like a traditional fun clown with some menace added to him or her and when he or she is holding a weapon he or she really looks threatening. I wouldn’t mind more movies with Frendo. All in all, glad I watched it, twice, now, here’s the haiku.
Sharpen your weapons
Bad crop of teens needs to die
Frendo’s time to slay
One more thing: I liked the relationship between dad and daughter. Felt realistic to me. Helped me to root for them and hope they make it out alive. Have you seen Clown in a Cornfield? What are your thoughts about it? Worth the hype or not. Let me know. Take care and have a good one.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
There have been several of those moments in my life, maybe even more than several, but buying a house with my wife, buying my first car, and kids being born. I felt like a true grown up in those times.
Roger Corman. That name should be well known to all horror fans. He was lurking somewhere behind the scenes on this movie. And if you don’t know who Roger Corman is, and why he’s a big deal. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about him.
Corman was famous for handling the American distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Federico Fellini (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), François Truffaut (France) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan).
He mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron, and was highly influential in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
He also helped to launch the careers of actors including Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, and William Shatner.
Needless to say, he was a very big deal.
Moving on, like Monster Island this movie only has to get one thing truly right, the creatures, and this movie shines brightest in that department. Probably the best reason to tune in to it. I love the look of these creatures. Slimy and scaly with nasty mouths and big eyes and claws and long arms and tails and fins and on and on it goes.
These creatures look like nothing you’d want to mess with and when they get to killing they separate body parts nicely and when they don’t kill you they leave a lot of scars behind. That dude in the ocean with half his face ripped off – nasty stuff. Gore is no joke. Plenty of it to go around.
Score, amazing, another one of its biggest highlights. James Horner was the man making the music shine and if you don’t know who he is. Let’s let Wikipedia inform you of that.
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
Horner won two Academy Awards for his musical composition to James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), which became the best-selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time. He also wrote the score for the highest-grossing film of all time, Cameron’s Avatar (2009).
Horner’s other Oscar-nominated scores were for Aliens (1986), An American Tail (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Apollo 13 (1995), Braveheart (1995), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and House of Sand and Fog (2003). Horner’s other notable scores include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982),[6] Willow (1988), The Land Before Time (1988), Glory (1989), The Rocketeer (1991),
Legends of the Fall (1994), Jumanji (1995), Casper (1995), Balto (1995), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Deep Impact (1998), The Perfect Storm (2000), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Troy (2004), The New World (2005), The Legend of Zorro (2005), Apocalypto (2006), The Karate Kid (2010), and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012).
Mr. Big deal for sure and his talent certainly shines in the score of this movie.
Moving on, direction was solid from Barbara Peeters and it was the last feature film directed by Peeters according to Wikipedia and also from Wikipedia, it says there was an uncredited Jimmy T. Murakami directing something behind the lense. Not sure how much he shot or what. But two directors, producer chaos. Sounds like the behind the scenes drama was a lot.
Location, perfect for a movie like this. The scenic little coastal town is a great backdrop for the horrors these creatures unleash. Acting, better than expected. Nothing good enough for Shakespeare but it gets the job done.
All in all, this was a nice revisit for me, and I do think this will get watched more often as time rolls on. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it more than twice throughout my years.
Now, the haiku.
Horny humanoids
Rising from the oceans depths
Coastal town attacked
When did you see Humanoids from the deep for the first time? How old were you? Do you enjoy movies like this? Let me know all that. Take care and have a good one.
If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?
Me – kidding, I think, but in all seriousness a million dollars to various charities and organizations that help the environment would be the way to do it. Pick 10 and give them all 100,000 each.
Jimmy Buffett is my number one. Been that way since the Nineties and through all my musical shifts he’s always been there.
Other bands that are favorites are Dawes, Rush, Metallica, Def Leppard, Tesla, and as of late Stevie Nicks has been one I am enjoying a lot.
I have also gotten into extreme metal and if you can handle it Cattle Decapatation and Lorna Shore are a must for me. Also would throw in Ice Nine Kills too.
Books:
Stephen King, Anne Rice, Jimmy Buffett, Agatha Christie
Movies:
Ozgood Perkins has become a new favorite director. He’s the son of Anthony Perkins. He directed Longlegs, The Monkey, and I am the pretty thing that lives in the house to name a few.
A Poetry Journey 