Literateur: "Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead"

Your first question is probably "Why did you read a 'Doom' franchise book from 1994?"

My answer: Mormonism.

I happened to read somewhere in some dark corner of the interwebs that these old "Doom" books had Mormon characters and Mormon references and- as a Mormon who likes weird stuff- I wondered how I'd never heard of this.

Well, some things were meant to remain unheard of.¹

The first "Doom" book, "Knee-Deep in the Dead," is sewage in print.

It's a wretched, virulent pustule on the buttocks of literature.

It's not good, is what I'm saying here.

First things first- there's not a single Mormon reference in the book. I cried "False advertising!" to anyone who would listen, but then took a closer look at the books' Wikipedia page.

Yeah, looks like all the Mormon stuff pops up in the second book, "Hell on Earth." ARGH!

You'd think they'd at least foreshadow that with maybe some remote hint that there's something Mormon or ex-Mormon about the characters in this first book. But nothing. We get NOTHING.

And no- I'm not gonna get the second book and suffer through that in order to finally see what kooky Mormon stuff is going on there. It might be better than this book. But that's no challenge. "Twilight" is better than this book.²

So- this book. Like the game it's based on, it's a first-person shooter. There's nothing approaching a plot. Some stuff happens. Some people and monsters get shot. And then it ends on the least compelling cliffhanger of all time.³

I'm telling and not showing here, so allow me to show you, dear reader, how this book rolls. When the first space zombie appears to our protagonist, behold his response:

"Maybe Arlene could believe in all that crap and bullroar; she watched those damned, damned horror movies all the- I wasn't never going to watch anything like...a freakin' zombie! I was crazy, buggin', freaked like some hippie punk snot flying on belladonna."

The whole book is like that. This is one of the less criminally offensive passages, but merits a moment's consideration:

"The head was inhumanly large, with maddened slits of red for eyes. It was a monster! It was a demon."

So was it a monster or was it a demon? Why the exclamation mark on "monster" but being totally cool about it being a "demon," instead?

The only thing I'll give the book credit for is mixing zombies and space opera long before the "Star Wars" literary universe made that leap with "Death Troopers."⁴

So there you go. This book is the perfect stocking stuffer for your worst enemy. I read it so you won't have to. You owe me.

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1. The author tips his hat to legendarily bad schlockmeister Fred Olen Ray in his dedication before the book even starts- there's a sign of clear and present danger.

2. Now you may say- "You won't know unless you read it!" To which I would triumphantly say "I've never shot myself in the head with a .45 magnum, either. So I won't know if I like that unless I try that, either!"

3. The threat of more stuff happening in this literary world is scarier than anything in this book.

4. "Death Troopers" is the only "Star Wars" book I ever read. Only because of the zombies. It wasn't good, but compared to this book it's "The Grapes of Wrath."

-Phony McFakename

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Literateur: "Merlin's Mirror" by Andre Norton

So once upon a time I went to my local library's semi-annual book sale. Like I do.

And I got a stack of books. Like I do.

I brought them home and filed them on my to-read shelf. Like I do.

And I discovered I now owned not one, but TWO unread copies of Andre Norton's "Merlin's Mirror."

When you can't even keep track of what books you own and haven't read, it's time to get busy reading or get busy dying.¹

Let's talk about the author.

Andre is a giant. She has an amazing bibliography. Over her 70 year career, she produced an astounding 161 books, according to andrenorton.org.²

I've spoken with several Norton fans that didn't even know she was a "she." "Andre" is a pretty gender neutral name,³ and there's nothing distinctly feminine about her prose.⁴

And my, my, my- that prose. She cranked out several books a year, but still managed to jam them with dense, muscular writing, chock full of colorful descriptions, vivid concepts, unpredictable action, and intensity. Norton's style has a firm handshake.

"Merlin's Mirror" is one I've never heard anyone list as their favorite by the author.⁵ But it's a gem.

What we have here is a science fiction/ fantasy/ secret history retelling of Camelot. King Arthur? Kind of a punk. Lady of the Lake? An evil witch. Merlin's power source? Aliens.

Now ya know.

Norton's humanism is spiced with a nice mix of optimism and pessimism, as Merlin acts as a bridge between mankind and the superior alien race. Humans struggle to be worthy of alien technological gifts and advancement, as our pesky savage medieval natures keep getting in the way.

Is it YA? I guess so. There's no pottymouth, nor gratuitous sex or violence. Heinlein's early books in this vein from this time period were labeled "juvies" and that's more fun to say than "YA."⁶

Also praiseworthy: it's a stand-alone. Its open ending leaves almost endless intriguing narrative possibilities across space and time. But Norton cut it off here and let the story be. That's the mark of a writer with ideas and words to burn.

For someone who sometimes cranked out a book a month, Norton's consistency is miraculous. Her lesser work is still fun. And "Merlin's Mirror" is a very fun lesser work.

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1. To atone for my sin of bibliographic gluttony, I read it immediately. But in my defense- I have a LOT of Norton books to keep straight. This stack, impressive as it may appear, represents a small fraction of her work:

2. And unlike her literary peer, Philip K. Dick, she didn't need methamphetamine to pull it off!

3. She didn't hide behind a blatant pseudonym like renowned sf writer James Tiptree Jr.- A.K.A. Alice Sheldon.

4. Though she's always had a fixation on cats, which speaks more for her desire to be a crazy old cat lady than anything particularly feminine.

5. It hasn't been adapted to film, like "The Beast Master," nor is it connected to a popular series of hers, such as the "Witch World" books.

6. Let's call ALL books aimed at younger audiences "juvies" from now on. WHO'S WITH ME?

-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Cinemasterworks: "Survival of the Dead" and Unintentional Humor

So George Romero is coming back to life.

That means it's time to revisit "Survival of the Dead," his last zombie film.

You remember George Romero, right? The guy who made "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead"? Inventor of the modern zombie as we know it?¹

Well- "Survival of the Dead" is the zombie film he made that you didn't see.²

Romero has claimed in interviews that the humor in "Survival" is intentional.

Sure, some of it. All of his "Dead" films, no matter how grim they got, always had clever lines, tension-breaking jokes, and great dark humor. But this time...I don't believe he meant this film to be as absurd as it is. ³

The premise is ridiculous on its face. It's about a pair of old Irish men who have been feuding on an island for decades. And the undead invasion brings their feud to a breakpoint. One of them believes in shooting them in the head, one of them believes we should keep them around permanently, tied up with rope.

We've all seen five billion zombie films and shows by this point. The argument that we shouldn't immediately dispose of the undead has been permanently settled. Decades ago. Keeping hungry undead corpses around your house is the most ridiculous, insane, and dangerous bad idea in the history of bad ideas.⁴

So the central conflict is just dumb. Also every character is just dumb.

This includes a ragtag group of ex-military folk who land on the island and are caught in the middle of this alleged drama. The main ex-military guy is a walking temper tantrum who constantly storms around and screams and throws objects around at the slightest provocation.

The old Irish guy who believes in zombie disposal is cool, but he's also kind of a stereotype in motion. He's so far over the top, I kept waiting for him to talk about Guinness or his Lucky Charms.⁵

His performance is dynamite!

The supporting characters are wafer-thin. Everything they do is arbitrary and out-of-the-blue. People do and say the strangest things in the movie and I'd get it if these things advanced the plot, but most of it just dangles there awkwardly.

Oh, and there's a surprise twin. And there's no reason for the surprise twin to exist. Seriously- there's a girl. We later see this girl as a zombie. We later see this girl alive. Guy says "I thought you were a zombie." Girl says "I have a twin. She's a zombie"

Um. Okay.

There was no buildup, no comedy of errors, no motivation, no distinction made between the two sisters, no foreshadowing that there are two of them, nothing. Just- boom, here's a new character, oh, and she has a twin.⁶

And beyond the plot problems, the theme is also problematic.

Romero always stood apart from the zombie herd on the strength of his themes. Unlike the meaningless walkers in most zombie TV and movies, Romero's zombies always symbolized something and there was always an intellectual idea being argued, the most famous being the anti-consumerism in "Dawn of the Dead."

But this time, he blows it.

The film's central thesis is that if we can get the zombies to start eating animals that aren't human, then we'll be okay.

This is even dumber than the idea of keeping zombies as pets.

Romero seemed to be going a bit batty with his "Land of the Dead" ending a few years before this, where he implied zombies are people like us and they just wanna be left alone.⁷

Romero takes that bad idea ten steps further here. If "Survival of the Dead" is right and we can in fact train zombies to eat other animals, guess what that accomplishes? A diminished food supply for the dwindling human population!⁸

If Romero had meant all this to be ridiculous- cartoon caricature characters, goofy CGI gore, ridiculous central conflict, nonsensical action scenes, random behavior, absurd thematic ideas, heavy-handed cheeseball political commentary voice-over at the end- then this would be a brilliant bit of cinematic trolling.

But I really think he meant all of it.

Much like Tommy Wiseau, legendary star and creator of the greatest awful movie ever, "The Room," Romero probably meant his work to be taken seriously and only backpedaled and called it humor after audiences howled at its idiocy.⁹

Romero hasn't made a "Dead" film since this one and that might be because the economy crashed or because it bombed¹⁰ or because he really hit a creative wall here. I don't know.

The market got saturated, too- "Zombieland" came out around the same time as this one,¹¹ a new "Resident Evil" was coming out about once a year,¹² and "Walking Dead" hit the airwaves a year later. No one was clamoring for more half-baked zombie action from their original creator.

Which was a cosmic injustice. Yeah, his movies were sucking for the last decade or two, but "Walking Dead" owes EVERYTHING to Romero. They're raking in crazy cash by taking a piggyback ride on the shoulders of that giant.

Romero's had some recent success with writing the comics "Toe Tags" and the vampire-vs.-zombie epic "Empire of the Dead," which he's now adapting to television. These comics are entertaining enough, but I forgot what happened in them a few minutes after I finished reading them. Disposable thrills, at best.¹³

But you know what? I don't care if the "Empire of the Dead" TV show sucks or gets cancelled after one season. I support it and I'm happy Romero is finally gonna get a paycheck for his original ideas, rather than watch everyone else make bank by playing in his sandbox.

This photo is 30 years old. And he was already an old zombie pro at the time.

Plus, look at what George Miller did with the latest "Mad Max" movie. He schooled directors half his age on how to crush everything. Romero has the same potential- call me a zombie Pollyanna, but I believe he can bounce back and show these young punks how it's done.

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1. He also almost directed the "Resident Evil" movie and his perfectly fine unfilmed script is available online. Google around. You can also find his original script for "Day of the Dead" before they cut his budget in half. It's stupendous. I'd like to read the original "Dead Reckoning" script, which later evolved into "Land of the Dead." If you have access, holla at yo boy.

2. I'm guessing you skipped "Diary of the Dead," too. Good for you. If you saw "Land of the Dead"- fine. Love it or hate it, I won't fight you on that one.

3. Maybe it was rushed and that bungled the tone. After "Land" and "Diary," this is the third "Dead" film he made in Canada pretty much in a row. Burnout happens, even to the best.

4. Worse than getting Uwe Boll to direct "House of the Dead," even!

5. I can't help thinking he'd offend me even more if I knew more about my Irish heritage.

6. All I can figure is they wanted to save a few bucks on casting an additional actress. No other reason makes sense and I've been puzzling over this since I first saw this film at its American world premiere in Durham, North Carolina in 2009!

7. FYI- if you want to make such a zombie-sympathetic point, you should probably do it before, not after, you show us a stampeding zombie herd devour and tear apart dozens of innocent humans. Better yet- maybe don't show zombies tearing people apart AT ALL if you want us to sympathize with them?

8. Do you really want to compete for wild game with an army of the undead that outnumbers you 5,000 to 1?

9. Now granted, Romero's intentional humor in the film is fine. I'm sure the guy lighting his cigarette off the flaming zombie head was meant to be funny, and it is. I'm not saying everything in the movie misfires:

10. This thing cost $4 million and made less than half a million. I never saw it come to any theaters in the D.C. area, either. Heck, the one before this, "Diary of the Dead," only came to ONE theater in the entire D.C. area and it was on the smallest screen in the building and it only played for a week.

11. And "Zombieland" was a much better film, warts and all.

12. My artistic Achilles heel is the "Resident Evil" films. I like all of them except for the second one, which I hated more than Hitler.

13. Plus- SORRY TO SAY, but another gentleman who owes everything to Romero- guy named Max Brooks who wrote "World War Z" and "Zombie Survival Guide"- ALSO wrote a zombies-versus-vampires comic titled "The Extinction Parade" and it handles the idea MUCH better. And it beat Romero to the punch with the idea.

-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Comical Books: "X Files" in the 90's

The Internet is going nuts about the new "X-Files" episodes currently in production.

But this 90's Topps comics series is as good as, if not better than, the new series is likely to be.¹

They've recently been collected in four hardcover volumes² and if you like yourself some "Files," you will like these here comics.

Not much black oil or high-ranking government conspiracies in sight. We're mostly in freak-of-the-week territory here.

The writing varies. Some of it's pretty cheeseball, with bad puns and weak jokes, such as this gem from Kevin J. Anderson:

Get it? "Dig up"? Can you "dig" it?

There are also some wacky supernatural shenanigans that go way beyond anything you'd see on the show, such as the soul-sucking camera demon that gets defeated by using the camera to suck the demon back into its own camera:

Is that tech based on the Ghostbusters' trap?

And heck, let's talk about the trenchcoat that has a magic mirror inner lining that drains people's lifeforce and transfers it to the coat's wearer:

So yeah, the comics aren't all peaches and cream. There's some sardines in this ice cream treat. But even when it's bad, it's entertaining.

There are a few different artists at work, but the best stuff is by Charlie Adlard. He later became known for the long-running "Walking Dead" comic- maybe you've heard of it?³ His style is so distinctive, parts look like colorized panels from his black-and-white "Walking Dead" work:

Dead-eyed villains are an Adlard specialty.

It's all surprisingly colorful, too. The show was all shadows and dark rooms, but there are plenty of primary colors splashed across these pages. Makes for more of a fun read and it's refreshingly non-gritty.⁴

There's a new series of "X-Files" comics, too. They're called "X-Files- Season 10" and they continue the story from where we left off on the show:

I've read a few volumes of them. They're solid. More long-range arcs and fewer freaks, but fun. They resurrect some of the show's villains, which smells a bit like creative bankruptcy. But hey.

So there you go. Plenty of "X-Files" goodies to tide you over until the new series comes out and we can all nitpick it to our heart's content!⁵

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1. Heck, if it's new "X-Files" stories you want, there are countless spin-off books and two feature films. Did any of you see the 2008 "I Want To Believe" film? I hated it the first time I saw it, appreciated it the second. Very flawed and interesting, lots of odd narrative choices.

2. Available on Amazon as "X-Files Classics" but watch out for the Season 1 comics- they're literally just adaptations of the show's first season. Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

3. As a bonus, they even foreshadow his work on the zombie comic a DECADE in advance when they drop its title at the end of one of his issues:

4. If you're not experiencing media grittiness fatigue, you're not paying attention.

5. And if you really don't feel like waiting, just re-watch the original episodes. They hold up pretty well! Heck, you probably haven't seen or don't remember seasons 6 through 9 where they were meh with a good episode here and there. Even better- watch "Supernatural" or "Warehouse 13" or any of the infinite number of shows that owe a lot to "X-Files."

6. BONUS FOOTNOTE! I discovered these comics' existence while flipping through old cardboard boxes on a sentimental journey through my hometown comic shop. Public service announcement: Support your local comic shop while you still can! You'll help them stay in business and find all kinds of goodies in the process.

-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Literateur: "Freddy Krueger's Tales of Terror #1: Blind Date"

Now THIS is the piece of crap I was expecting the "Friday the 13th" YA books¹ to be!

This 1994 "Nightmare on Elm Street" cash-in book is so badly written...it's scary.

Right off the bat, there's a non sequitur of a prologue where Freddy appears with sunglasses and a walking stick and makes a bad pun about blindness before we cut to a character in the middle of a distinctly non-Freddy related story.

I know, I know. You're thinking: That's exactly how every episode of "Freddy's Nightmares" starts! If that's not what you're thinking, then heads-up: "Freddy's Nightmares" was an incredibly awful short-lived anthology show from the late 80's where Freddy introduced each episode and sometimes popped up to make wisecracks before commercial breaks.²

I would love to know who thought it would be a good idea to take that unwatchable show and turn its format into a book series. And then I would like to give that person a stern talking-to. By golly!

Because in my heart of hearts, this is the only contemporary horror franchise I still kind of care about. Now yes, you may be jumping up and down and yelling that I reviewed the "Friday the 13th" YA books, but I was never really a Jason "fan." I just watched the movies out of youthful nihilism.³

I had a complex relationship with the "Nightmare" films as a kid. I was terrified and fascinated every time I saw Freddy's burned visage on movie posters and video boxes. I had genuinely disturbing nightmares about the guy. I'd always had nightmares, but the ones with Freddy were the worst. I mean, c'mon- the notion of dying in reality when you die in your dreams is scary!

But you can't spend your whole life being afraid. So how did I finally overcome my fear of this Freddy guy?

I watched "Nightmare on Elm Street 4."

And I loved it. Plus, it felt really empowering to face the demon and find it not to be as scary as I expected.⁴

And the nightmares went away.

In the years that followed, I had a lot of seriously nasty nightmares about the "Killer Klowns from Outer Space"- no, I'm not kidding- but I never once had another nightmare about Freddy.

So in a case of cinematic Stockholm syndrome, I grew to love the movies that scared me the worst. I obsessively sought out any books or movies that were remotely gross or scary.⁵

They also fired my imagination. I visualized scenes and thought about how I'd make my own "Elm Street" films and I wrote a TON of Freddy Krueger fan fiction and ripoff stories.⁶

Now, I recognize that Freddy is EXTREMELY morally problematic. They downplay this everywhere but in the wretched 2010 remake,⁷ but Freddy was a child molester and murderer before he was torched and became the dream demon. That's all kinds of not okay.⁸

Especially as an adult who has kids of his own now.⁹ I identify more with the vigilante parents that set the evil guy on fire than anyone else in the series.

Bottom line: to this day, I have opinions on all things Elm Street related. Comics, cards, music videos, tie-in books, remakes, Bollywood ripoffs, American ripoffs, you name it.

Which brings us to this book, which I'd never heard of until a few weeks ago.

Let's dig in.

For starters, the writing is wretched. Behold:

"Alicia shivered- from cold or fear, she wasn't sure which."

"Alicia bolted upright in bed! A nightmare...Or was it?"

And that's just in the prologue.

This literary atrocity happens later in the book:

"With the speed of a guillotine blade, Alicia's mood went from low to high."

You could probably write a master's thesis about everything wrong with that sentence.

Our story starts with a girl waking up from a dream- OR WAS IT?- and going downstairs. Getting excited yet? You should be! Because then, apropos of nothing, our protagonist's mom accidentally cuts her hand in the kitchen and leaves a TRAIL OF BLOOD across the floor but insists she's fine. Our protagonist helps clean up the blood and then right before leaving to go to school, she doesn't wash her hands. She just rubs her bloody hands off on the back of her pants to dry them!¹⁰ Was "bloody butt" a fashion trend in the mid-90's that I missed?

From there it's blah. A kid gets bullied and is pushed too far and takes revenge...OR DOES HE? Our protagonist tries to help the bullied kid and then she randomly develops hysterical blindness. So basically this is Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood," but with less "wise" and more "blood."¹¹

The bullying teenagers never once resemble actual human beings. Though, in fairness, neither do teenagers IRL. They're horrible people. So writing about teens is kind of a lose-lose proposition. You do it wrong, it comes off as stupid and sloppy. You do it right, it comes off as annoying and infuriating.

Most chapters end with ridiculous fake-out cliffhangers. They become almost comical by chapter four: "The teenagers screamed at the top of their lungs as death in the form of several tons of steel rushed at them."

And then they hit the brakes and nothing happens. Everyone's fine. As always.

The book basically trains you to take nothing seriously. Whenever there's a gunshot or a scream at chapter's end, you instinctively shrug and say "That was nothing." And it always is.

The ending is dumb and abrupt, too. Our protagonist is in mortal danger...then she isn't. And it's over. And there's a completely unnecessary- and unnecessarily cruel- bonus ending where the poor guy who got bullied suffers even further. What was that about?

This story has pretty much no "Elm Street" connection, either. Freddy introduces the story and drives away on page two, only to reappear at the very very end. The book is halfway done before Freddy's name is even mentioned in passing.¹²

And it's not like there weren't opportunities for Freddy shenanigans. The main character falls asleep and passes out like every other chapter. For goodness' sake, she falls into a COMA in one scene. And we get nothing. For all the fake-out cliffhangers in this book, it would have been more than fair to throw some Freddy-related nightmares in and fake us out with some mayhem there. But nope.

And when the twist ending comes and the story finally actually directly involves Freddy, it flagrantly violates the rules of the "Elm Street" series in the exact same way as the legendarily bad- and unintentionally homoerotic- "Nightmare on Elm Street 2."¹³

And where in "Elm Street" continuity is this even supposed to be happening?

Buckle up, because this is gonna get geeky:¹⁴ the book's cover has Freddy's face from 1994's "New Nightmare," a world where the "Elm Street" movies exist and Freddy was a fictional character. But this story takes place in the "fictional" town of Springwood. So that ain't right. It's briefly mentioned that Freddy is a topic parents in this town don't like to talk about, but that doesn't give us any context or timeframe. I mean, if we accept it as part of the fictional "Elm Street"-verse, well, this was written after 1991's "Freddy's Dead," in which EVERY KID IN SPRINGWOOD has already been murdered. So what gives?¹⁵

And of all the "Elm Street" stories you could tell, why THIS one? A generic bullying tale?

Off the top of my head, allow me to present a way cooler idea: set the story a few years after "Freddy's Dead" and show us the first family with children to move into the now-Freddy-free Springwood. The family is aware of Fred Krueger's legacy, but they also know he's dead now, plus they're in a financial bind and can't resist the town's low real estate prices. Zero in on the kid in the family- let's say it's a teenage girl- and have her explore the haunted town and discover evils deeper than Fred Krueger. Maybe she discovers the evil that drove Freddy to madness and she gets possessed by it herself. Or she discovers and fights someone who gets possessed by it. Or maybe the whole town's possessed by it. And at the end, she defeats it...or does she?

Bam. There's a setup for a new "Elm Street" series with a supernatural mythos all its own that's still kind of connected to Freddy. And you can write as many sequels to it as you want.

Or heck- how about set a story DECADES after "Freddy's Dead" and show life returning to relative normalcy in Springwood. Families have moved back in, couples have had children, schools have students again, and everyone is starting to feel better. The town has this deep-seated wound of the dream demon's memory, but he's dead and it's history, so it's all good. But then kids start dying in their sleep again. Panic erupts, families start leaving town immediately- no one is taking any chances with their kids in that town anymore. But after this mass exodus, ADULTS start getting killed in their sleep. Here's the punchline: there's a new murderer in town and he's sneaking into houses and killing people while their sleep to make it look like Freddy's back.¹⁶ Here's the double punchline: after he's caught and arrested, an angry mob storms the jail where he's being held and kills him and he becomes the town's NEW dream demon.

Bam- you can use that as a springboard for even MORE sequels. The possibilities are endless.

I just came up with two ideas for an "Elm Street" novel series that are ten times better than this one. You're welcome, whoever wants to write and publish them.¹⁷

Bad as this book is, it's probably no worse than the R.L. Stine/ Christopher Pike YA dreck that was all the rage at the time.¹⁸ And all three customer reviews for it on Amazon are positive, so this worked for somebody at some point. Shrug.

There are six of these "Freddy Krueger's Tales of Terror" turds. I'm gonna take a bold guess and say that they don't get better as they go along.

As your blogger, I advise you to just come up with and write your own "Elm Street' stories instead of reading these. You can't do worse!

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1. Reviewed HERE and HERE. Fun fact: they were written the same year as this masterpiece!

2. I reviewed every episode HERE- back when I had more time on my hands.

3. The sixth "Friday" film- the one with the intentional humor- is the only one I'll still say has merit.

4. As Peter Gabriel said, "The monster I was so afraid of lies curled up on the floor."

5. I am REALLY glad the internet didn't exist yet- I would have gone down some seriously dark rabbit holes!

6. I remember LOVING this book of Freddy short stories. Haven't re-read it, don't wanna be disappointed by seeing it with adult eyes.

7. The remake merits a moment's consideration. I was sleep-deprived and loopy when I saw an advance screening of it. My main memory is we all hated it and at the end, my mohawked friend- the one who invited me- turned to me, pointed, and screamed "This is YOUR f**king fault!" I'm always getting blamed for stuff.

Well, I made the mistake of recently re-visiting it with a clear mind. I figured it couldn't be as bad as I remember it. Well- I was right. It wasn't as bad as I remember it.

It was worse.

Really wretchedly bad. Almost everything about it misfires. It fails in every way that the original succeeds. It's a hideous, super-gritty take on the character. Never fun, never really scary, just mean and nasty. The teenage characters are all completely unlikable.

It actually bummed me out. They came so close to doing the idea I always talked about- Freddy was actually innocent and was a dream demon seeking revenge for being wrongfully killed- but they BLEW IT! Bad Hollywood. No cookie.

Beyond the lack of humor and 100% unsympathetic characters, they really REALLY emphasized the child-molesting aspect in the remake. Freddy is super-rapey. The climactic "showdown" in the film is just him holding the main female character down on a bed against her will while he licks her and gropes her and talks about how much he liked molesting her when she was a child.

In all fairness- horrifying as that is, it's not out of character. Wes Craven built the child-molesting tendencies into Freddy's background. But he pretty much never mentioned it. He tended to say Freddy was "abused" as a child and that Freddy "abused" kids. We got the message from that. Didn't need our faces rubbed in it.

8. And the fact that this nasty character became an anti-hero that people were basically rooting for by the fourth film is a whole 'nother can of worms. Heck, I thought he was cool when I was a kid. What that says about our society and about art and life and the universe and everything is a subject for a blog that's way above my pay grade.

9. I won't be showing any of my spawn any of the "Nightmare" films. Unless they're way older and seek it out themselves, in which case yeah, I'll watch it with them and explain that it's just a movie and morality and stuff. And that's mostly selfish- I'm only interested in keeping them from having nightmares so they won't wake up in the middle of the night and bother me.

10. I'm not making that up. Exact quote: "Alicia wiped blood off her own hand onto the back of jeans as she hurried over to her car."

11. And there was a fun line during the blindness part:

"You will need an eye donor...Do you have medical insurance?" 
"No." 
"Then I guess you will have to break into an eye bank."

12. I'm guessing this started as an unrelated YA horror book that they hastily rewrote and inserted some Freddy references into so they could sell it as part of this series.

13. Spoiler alert: an old guy had a near-death experience and Freddy took over his body and was using it to kill people all along. Because Freddy- in addition to being able to kill folks in their sleep- can take over people's bodies at will, apparently?

14. Even geekier than it's been so far...

15. Talkin' to you, author Bruce Richards! Although I'll accept a response from publisher Tor Books, or rights holder New Line Cinema.

16. He has some twisted motivation for this- financial or revenge- you come up with that part.

17. Maybe I should. Is there any way to get paid for fan fiction these days? I should Google that...

18. No, I won't go back and read any of those to confirm this.

19. Bonus footnote: SINCE YOU ASKED, here's my take on the "Elm Street" films now that I'm an adult:

Part 1- Good film, well made.

Part 2- Hilariously awful. Fun to watch with friends in a MST3K way.

Part 3- The first half is decent, it gets dumb and goes off the rails when the "dream warriors" start mobilizing to fight Freddy. Too many cheesy lines. The Dokken "Dream Warriors" video is gold.

Part 4- Has its moments. Very colorful.

Part 5- The gore in the uncensored version is pretty fierce. But it's pretty bland and cold overall. Making it all about pregnancy and responsibility was probably a bad move when your target demographic is teenagers.

Part 6- Stupid. Some cool ideas, such as turning the town into a "Twin Peaks"-ish purgatory, but not really funny or scary.

Part 7- They went postmodern and commented on the Freddy phenomenon here and a lot of it works. Ironically, it's at its worst when it resembles a horror film. The visual effects don't hold up, either.

Freddy Vs. Jason- Meh. Disposable domino redshirt characters. Lotsa blood. When the two characters FINALLY ACTUALLY FIGHT in the last ten minutes or so, it's decent. I would have liked this one a lot more as a kid.

2010 Remake- Awful. See footnote numero 7.

-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Comical Books: "Nightbreed"

In 1990, Clive Barker's second film, "Nightbreed," bombed at the box office.

But, Phoenix-like, it spawned a comic book that continued for years after its release.¹

The first four issues loosely adapt the film script,² but from there- it goes its own way.

There's a lot to like. Imaginative creatures, interesting storylines, unexpected twists, and some gruesome concepts worthy of Barker's best fiction.

And it's neat to see this Barker-approved narrative arc, as the demonic Messiah, Cabal, seeks out a new sanctuary for his fellow misunderstood monsters. Some creatures go their own way and disregard their law against eating humans. Some stay faithful. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. It's a dream come true if you didn't want the "Nightbreed" film to end.³

It has some flaws, the first being that it often loses its focus on its goal. The creatures are just wandering in the wilderness for the most part.⁴ And it was a mistake to focus so soon on a group of rebel flesh-eaters. It needed more time to clarify its quest and build momentum before presenting a gang war between good 'breed and bad 'breed.

The quality is wildly uneven, too. Some issues are awful and amateurish, in both writing and art:

I could draw this.

While some issues have some well-composed and shaded artwork:

For the most part, it's functional. Looks about as good as any mainstream comic from the early 90's, that brief boom time when everyone and their brother was putting out a "COLLECTIBLE FIRST ISSUE" with "LIMITED EDITION" tinfoil covers or whatever.

There's a two-issue side-series with the now-unfortunate title, "Jihad," where the demons from "Hellraiser" fight our friends from "Nightbreed." It's fine, and it sheds light on both Clive Barker franchises, but it also contains a MAJOR plot point: Cabal combining his physical form with the god Baphomet and becoming a hybrid creature. If you didn't read these crossover issues, you would have no idea why Cabal is all of a sudden running around the "Nightbreed" comics looking like Baphomet and being referred to as a god instead of a Messiah.⁵

And there's another crossover with another Clive Barker literary creation, the super-vicious king of monsters, Rawhead Rex,⁶ and that worked pretty well, too. This was the first legitimate visualization of Rawhead and his conflict with the 'breed made sense.⁷

There's a storyline involving forgotten Aztec blood sacrifice gods, revealing that they were actually Nightbreed. This was the most out-of-place and disconnected of the bunch, but it was brimming with strange and compelling texture and anthropological details.

The one-shot issues are fine, too. The "subway cannibal" issue is oddly touching.⁸

It falls flat with an arc involving werewolves on the loose in a small town. Those issues feel like "X-Men" comics with demonic creatures in place of mutants.⁹

Peloquin is a bit overused in that arc, and in several other arcs. He has maybe three lines in the film, but they made him the star here in the comics. Now Peloquin is cool and compelling, don't get me wrong, but more Cabal would have been better.¹⁰

Because most of the Cabal stuff is weak. He's mostly whining about being a latter-day Moses and wagging his finger at the human flesh-eating 'breed. The melodrama with his girlfriend feels a bit forced, too. There's enough cool stuff going on that we don't need soap opera drama between the main couple.

Plus- Narcisse gets decapitated and then reappears in issue 6 without any explanation.¹¹ Several readers in the letters column ask what that's all about and the editors keep promising it'll be explained. It never is!

But look at him- he's so happy! Let's let him be.

The final issue ends a bit abruptly, but apparently that's because it was canceled and they had to cram five issues' worth of story into one issue. Good for them for pulling that off and not leaving it unresolved!

Now there were problems with the source material, too.¹² For years, us fans assumed the film's problems were due to the studio drastically recutting the film. But last year, the "Director's Cut" hit Netflix and we could finally see the truth. And the truth is not always pretty.¹³

Now they rebooted the "Nightbreed" comic just last year.

The new issues are slicker-looking and the writing is better. But they feel flatter. They're smooth enough and are less wordy and awkward, but there's just not as much to them. It's cool that they fill in some background and story holes that left the movie feeling slim- such as Cabal's initiation into the 'breed- but after there, it becomes a generic chase between the vengeful priest and the 'breed. It ignores the original run of comics, which ended with them finding their new paradise.

Basically- it doesn't feel as bonkers and subversive as the original comic. Anything goes in comics these days, but in 1990, they were doing something odd and new. Not always good, but always interesting. And isn't "interesting" the most important attribute for a comic?

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1. I was only able to find issue 17 when I was a pre-internet kid and was delighted when a friend recently let me borrow the entire run of the series.

2. Including several scenes, including the original ending, that were cut from the theatrical film. Also there's no cussing or "adult content" in the issues that adapt the film, but for whatever reason- it goes bonkers with that stuff in the issues that follow.

3. It's like high-quality fan fiction, for better and for worse. Also worth noting- Barker wanted "Nightbreed" to be the first film in a trilogy. It never happened and these comics are the only material that followed-up on the story.

4. The writers are aware of this- there are frequent references to Moses and the Exodus.

5. Not to mention that- SPOILER- "Jihad" casually kills off ALL THE BERSERKERS. The most powerful creatures are wasted. Offscreen, to boot. Sheesh.

6. Rawhead fell victim to an AWFUL film adaptation in 1986 that sucked so bad, it motivated Barker to direct his own scripts. "Hellraiser" was the result.

7. At four issues, it was padded. But that's a small qualm.

8. This is the issue I had as a kid, and was pleased that it held up pretty well to adult eyes.

9. You know, the X-Men and the Nightbreed have a lot in common- they're both physical metaphors for discrimination and outsiders. But "Nightbreed" is at its best when it's mystical and transcendent and not so much monsters fighting each other. That's a comic cliche that's been done to death elsewhere.

10. He's the dark Messiah, for evil's sake.

11. Now the theatrical film was reshot so that Narcisse wasn't killed, but the comic follows the original script, so no excuse there.

12. Yes, the film "Nightbreed" was an adaptation of Barker's novella "Cabal," but the comic mostly ignores the book and follows the movie, so we're gonna stick to the movie here.

13. This is just a comic review, so I'll do a whole blog on the film someday. Suffice to say- the movie has problems.

-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.