Not a remake of the Clara Bow flick
So I guess they’re making an It movie?
But I guess they didn’t cast Tim Curry as Pennywise?
So I guess nobody will actually be scared?
So I guess why are they bothering?
Yes, clowns are scary, but do you know what’s scarier than clowns? Tim Curry. Tim Curry is scarier than clowns.
Digging too deeply: Eye of the Tiger
A song I really dislike right now is that Katy Perry song, Roar. But when she gets to the part where she says she’s got the eye of the tiger, all of a sudden, I’m the star of an ’80s movie. Usually I’m plucky. Probably I’m a dude. There’ll definitely be fighting. And, of course, the soundtrack, will be … Survivor.
The best thing about mullets is getting to laugh at them now that it’s not the ’80s anymore.
Rising up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
This is pretty straightforward. I’ve obviously spent some time in the hospital, probably with a broken spine, but now I’m able to walk again. I’m back on the street, I’m going the distance (like Cake!), and I’ve got the will to survive.
So many times it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
*Sniff* It’s so true! Sometimes I do trade my passion for glory. Then I’ve got all this glory and no passion! That’s why, now that I’m out of the hospital, probably walking with a cane, or maybe one of those walkers that you have to put the split tennis balls on the bottom so they don’t scrape up the floor, I have to keep my dreams alive!
Yup. It’s just me and my will to survive.
It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watching us all with the eye of the tiger
Holy crap, there’s a tiger watching me! And I can’t flee very fast, because of my walker! I feel something, and it might by the thrill of the fight, and rising up to the challenge of my rival, but it’s possibly fear! Because I am being watched with the eye of the tiger!
STOP LOOKING AT MEEEEEE!
Face to face, out in the heat
Hanging tough, staying hungry
They stack the odds still we take to the street
For the kill with the skill to survive
OK, this doesn’t even make sense. I have no idea what I’m doing here. I was staying hungry, and then I took to the street for the kill with the skill to survive. Can anyone explain that? What is the kill with the skill to survive? Is it some kind of wily deer?
“Probably not.” — this deer
It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watching us all with the eye of the tiger
Ohhhh, I guess it’s the eye of the tiger.
Seriously, though, does this make sense?
Rising up, straight to the top
Had the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I’m not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive
Wait, I think I’m a boxer? Or I’m in that Stephen King story that was made into a movie? No, the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Now I’ve got my will to survive AND this godawful jumpsuit.
It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watching us all with the eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tigerDammit, Katy Perry.
Damn you, Stephen King
It was pretty foggy this morning, so, as I went outside to get the paper, I announced: “If I don’t come back soon, don’t come looking for me, because I was probably devoured by fog monsters.”
When the dog didn’t come back inside after we got the newspapers, I said: “She probably got eaten by fog monsters.”
Later, after the dog returned safely to her hiding spot under my bed (“probably scared of the fog monsters,” I remarked), it was time to take my daughter to school. “Run straight to the car so the fog monsters don’t get you.”
“For the love of God, Mom,” said my daughter.
“I’m just a little kid and I’m way less scared of stupid things than you are.”
Christine vs. KITT
What’s better than watching one car, slightly bigger than another, run over the smaller one?
But this fictional character battle between two sentient cars comes mighty damn close, I’m sure. (You did know that Christine and KITT were cars, right?)
Let’s get this battle on the road!
Physicality. Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury. That’s pretty hot.
See? Hot.
KITT is a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am. (For the sake of argument, we’re going to pretend the attempted Knight Rider reboot doesn’t exist, because, GAH, it was terrible.) That’s pretty hot too.
Oooh, I forgot he had a sunroof.
But not as hot as a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Damn, girl. Winner? Christine.
Can talk? KITT can talk, because he is a talking car. Actually, I think KITT is a computer program that can talk that was installed in a car, but Knight Rider was on when I was, like, an infant, so I’m not too clear on the details except for MAGIC TALKING CAR WHOOOOOO. Christine can’t talk, which is probably good, because can you imagine the terrible things she would say? Winner? KITT.
“Rawr, I’m going to eat you.”
Will straight-up murder you? Since my parents let me watch Knight Rider as a wee child, I can only assume that the violence was pretty PG-rated, like maybe Michael Knight punched a few guys once in a while, or someone tried to run KITT off the road as he made some sort of clever quip because MAGIC TALKING CAR WHOOOOO. Christine, on the other hand, is the main car-acter (Haaaaa, seriously, though, that was terrible. Never allow me to do that again) in a Stephen King novel, which means OF COURSE SHE WILL STRAIGHT-UP MURDER YOU. Winner? Christine.
Stephen King: Shown here smiling because he just thought of another horrible way to have monsters get you.
Has a cooler owner? I’m not sure if Michael Knight owned KITT or stole him or borrowed him or what, because I was a small child and he was A MAN WHO DIDN’T EXIST. But for our purposes here, we’ll call him an “owner,” why not. Anyway, together, he and KITT the MAGIC TALKING CAR WHOOOOO fought crimes (or possibly committed crimes) and wore a lot of black. Also, he probably had some 1980s style sunglasses, because of course he did. That’s pretty cool.
Sometimes he’d drive around in a tux, because he was THAT COOL.
Christine’s owner was an evil old man and then, later, a zit-faced teenager who got haunted by the evil old man. That’s not very cool at all. Winner? KITT.
Can magically repair itself? I realize I’ve been referring to KITT and Christine as him and her, because one’s a boy car and the other’s a lady car, but they’re technically machines. And machines shouldn’t be able to repair themselves. I mean, I don’t think they can. Who knows what scientists have gotten up to nowadays, other than inventing monstrosities that shouldn’t be.
I kind of feel like a loving God wouldn’t allow this.
But with magic, whooo! Anything’s possible. Especially when you live in a Stephen King novel. Winner? Christine.
Welp, I’ve run out of categories. Yup. Also, the boss is due back soon.
Overall winner? Christine, because I don’t want the haunted car mad at me.
Also, I could never say bad things about a 1958 Plymouth Fury.
Pennywise vs. Ronald McDonald
Gaaaaaah!
Clowns!
Physicality. So we’ve got two clowns. One is Pennywise the Clown, the astral projection or something of some ancient evil spawned from the twisted mind of Stephen King. In the television miniseries, he was played by Tim Curry.
Who is scary enough without the makeup and the monster lizard hands.
The other is Ronald McDonald, who will outlive us all.
Outlive us all.
Outlive us all.
Etc.They both look like clowns. Winner? They both look like clowns.
Wants you to eat a delicious hamburger? Pennywise wants you to die. Die horribly, screaming in pain, terror and possibly a bit of embarrassment over having wet your pants so hard. He does not want you to eat a delicious hamburger. On the other hand, Ronald McDonald is the spokesman for McDonald’s, of hamburger fame. Five Billion Served and all that. Then again, I said “delicious.” Winner? Nobody.
If it looks like a shoe leather, walks like a shoe leather and tastes like a shoe leather, it’s probably a shoe leather.
Has a better name? For a clown, Pennywise is a kind of ridiculous name. It’s probably supposed to harken back to that saying “penny wise, pound foolish,” which kind of sounds more like a diet plan than anything else. Also, it’s not particularly funny, like Fumagalli the Clown or Dimitri. Now that’s funny, right, folks? Ronald McDonald’s first name was chosen probably because it rhymes with McDonald, but at least he was better off than those kids whose parents give them the same last name as their first name, like James James or Henry McHenry. Winner? No one.
I was going to say “Is Fumagalli a clown or a man with a severe, untreated mental illness,” but question answered, I suppose.
Is less evil? Pennywise is an ancient evil, blah blah blah, mentioned it earlier. Ronald McDonald is the spokesman for McDonald’s. Winner? No one. They’re equally evil. Also, they’re clowns, so that makes them equally double evil.
Terrified generations of children? See above.
Terrified generations of adults? See above, wherein you are directed to see even more above.
Overall winner? Nobody, especially us, because we live in a world where such horror continues to exist.
Gahhh! So many clowns up in here!
Jesse Custer vs. Firestarter’s dad
So I was recently re-reading Preacher, and I thought how similar Jesse Custer’s “Word of God” power is to the “Push” power of, you know, whatsisname. Firestarter’s dad. From Firestarter. And then I thought, God, what is his name? And then I thought that I didn’t really care that much.
You could try harder to care.
Jesse Custer: superhero for the ages.
So, on to the epic battle of Jesse Custer and that one guy!
Physicality. So Jesse Custer’s all dark-haired and tall and good-looking, even if, at one point, people wanted to cast Ben Affleck to portray him, I think we can all agree that Ben’s not hideous or anything.
Unlike his buddy Matt Damon here.
Firestarter’s dad had awesome ’80s hair. Winner? Jesse Custer.
Can convince you to do whatever he says? Yeah, if either of these guys is actually trying, they have the psychic ability to make you do whatever they say. It’s like the power of hypnotizing people, but awesome. Winner? A tie.
Can convince you to do whatever he says without suffering mini-strokes or brain aneurisms or whatever? Andy McGee (I totally had to learn his name to do an image search) has the tragic side effect of his superpower is killing him. That sucks. It would be like being Superman, except you got eye cancer every time you used your laser vision.
Gaaah! I can feel the cancer in my eyes!
Or being Wolverine, and being invulnerable makes you die! (Gods, the irony!) Or being Batman, and awesomeness kills! Jesse Custer suffers from no such side effects, and doesn’t even die when he is killed. Winner? Jesse Custer.
Oh, God, my brains hurt so bad right now.
Faces a more powerful enemy? Firestarter’s dad’s enemy is the government. (What? Just ’cause I learned his name doesn’t mean I can remember it 5 seconds later.) The government is a very powerful enemy. Especially when they’ve got crazy scientists and sociopathic assassins on their side. You’d think Firestarter’s dad would have this in the bag, right? Boom! You’re wrong. Jesse Custer is trying to defeat God. And not like in some hypothetical, bullshit metaphysical way. He actually meets God face to face several times and tries to call him on his bullshit. Another enemy he faces is a secret group that, like, owns the government, which automatically makes them more powerful than the government. Also, he’s got the Terminator-esque Saint of Killers to face, so, yeah. Those are some powerful enemies. Winner? Jesse Custer.
I can't remember who I thought should play the Saint of Killers in a Preacher movie, but whoever he is, he's not scary enough.
Has a tragic back story? Andy McGee’s tragic back story is that the government totally murdered his psychic wife and now he and his adorable little pyrokinetic daughter are on the run. That’s sad, but it doesn’t beat Jesse Custer’s tragic back story of how his father was murdered by his gran’ma and her evil cohorts, and he thought his mother was too, but then it turned out she wasn’t actually murdered, just shot in the brains and left to be eaten by alligators (all they got was an arm), and then they killed his dog and his best friend and put him in a coffin in the swamp for days at a time, and then they made him become a preacher and threatened to murder his girlfriend. Oh, and then they did murder his girlfriend. (It’s OK, though. God brought her back to life.) *Sniff* That is so goddamn tragic. Winner? Jesse Custer.
And after Tulip came back to life, she helped kill the hell out of Jesse's evil family, because she is the best girlfriend ever.
Has an adorable, superpowerful daughter? Firestarter’s dad has an adorable, superpowerful daughter! Jesse Custer, as far as I know, does not. Winner? Firestarter’s dad. (I was feeling bad for him.)
Drew Barrymore was just so wee and cute here! Also deadly. Can't forget the deadly.
Has a cooler best friend? I don’t know if Firestarter’s dad has a best friend. He probably can’t trust anybody, what with being on the run from the government and all. But Jesse Custer has had two best friends: the first being a one-eyed mutant inbred freak and the second being a vampire back in the days before everybody and their plain sister was dating vampires. Winner? Jesse Custer.
Yeah, he's not one of those sensitive vampires.
This seems like as good a place as any to slip in that picture of Arseface that I found, because: wheeee! Arseface!
Came back to life? Poor Firestarter and her dad. When he died, he died for good. Kaput, the end. When Jesse Custer died, God brought him back to life. Also, God saved him when he fell out of a plane, but then he ripped Jesse’s eye out, so that one was kind of a wash. Meh. Winner? Jesse Custer.
Because I’m feeling bad about the trouncing served up to Firestarter’s dad, overall winner? Jesse “Preacherman” Custer.
You know, I'm not sure why he kept wearing the collar after he quit preaching, other than Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon thought it looked cool.
The worst advice ever for when you’re lost
Last night, I had trouble sleeping.
Why was that, you wonder?
Well, it’s because, for absolutely no reason at all (except that weird nightmare I had about a monster that me and my friends killed once but was back again to commit evil acts), I could not stop thinking: who gave Beverly Marsh the great advice on how to find your way when you’re lost?
Remember that scene in It (the Stephen King novel that I haven’t thought about since college)? When the kids have just defeated It (so they believe), but then they’re lost in the sewers? And so Beverly is like, “I have an idea! You guys all have sex with me!”
Like, who thinks that will actually help? I know her dad was abusive, but you still think he’d have passed on the traditional wisdom: “Stay in one place and wait for help” instead of “have sex with everyone around you.”
And yeah, I get that it was supposed to, like, help the kids renew their bond or whatever, and that made them strong and able to find the way home, but golly, wouldn’t some strenuous high-fiving have done the job? Maybe some, “All right, buddy”s and hugs? And if having sex was supposed to strengthen the bond between all of them, shouldn’t some of the boys have had sex with each other?
Anyway, all I’m saying, folks, is when you’re telling your children what to do when they’re lost, omit the group sex, all right?
In related news, thank you SO MUCH, Mr. King, for making clowns even more scary for me. Thanks. Really.
Akira vs. Carrie
Two killer psychics/telekinetics walk into a room. Only one walks out. The other probably levitates or something, I don’t know.
On a more serious note (What? No! No serious notes! None!), Akira is the title character in the excellent manga Akira and the less-excellent movie Akira. Carrie is the title character in the Stephen King novel Carrie and the Sissy Spacek movie Carrie. (You already knew that, but I felt bad about introducing Akira and not introducing Carrie, you know?) Both are powerful telekinetics who rain down destruction on all those who would thwart them/have the misfortune of being in the nearby area.
I'm sorry, Akira, but it appears even Google likes Kaneda better than you. This was on the fifth page in; the rest were images of Kaneda.
I'm glad I didn't go to my prom.
Let the battle! Begin!!
Let’s just get physicality out of the way then, shall we? Akira’s a little boy and Carrie’s a teenage girl, so neither of them are really doing it for me. Although, when you compare cute little Akira to his prune-faced friends (seriously, click on the link; they look like hell), he really looks awesome. Winner? Well, Sissy Spacek’s kind of weird looking, so: Akira.
Locked in a? In Carrie’s case: closet. In Akira’s case: a chamber kept at absolute zero. Winner? Akira, because he got out of that thing.
Source of opposition? Akira had to face the military, other psychic-telekinetics and KANEDAAAA!! Carrie was victimized by her mother and some horrible teenagers. The winner? Hey, the military is evil and Kaneda is a god among perverted teenage Japanese boys, but teen girls are the real evil. Carrie, all the way.
Destroyed? In Carrie’s case, prom and most of her high school. Akira? Tokyo. Not just once. Not just twice. Three times. THREE TIMES did this kid destroy Tokyo. That’s more than Godzilla. (Editor’s note: It may not actually be more than Godzilla.) Winner? Akira, by a thrice-destroying-Tokyo margin.
Made Lokifire weep like a little girl at their fate? It’s a tie. I am a wimp when it comes to the underdog, even if the underdog basically has superpowers and could destroy me. O, Akira! You poor little cutie! If only they hadn’t forced you into that program! O, Carrie! You poor teenaged prom queen! If only your mom wasn’t such a nutjob!
Got to hang out with Kaneda? I really like Kaneda. Winner: Akira.
Overall winner: Akira. Kid’s got it going on.
Things that terrified me when I was younger, leading to lifelong phobias
Everybody remembers the first time they saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers, right? I mean, I remember it. Specifically, I remember two things: a dog with a human’s head and pod people going “Arrrgh” or somesuch. Forever after, I was terrified that I would wake up one day and my dog would have some old man’s face on its head and not for a good reason, like it had eaten most of our neighbor and was saving the face bits for last. No, it would be because the invasion has begun.
And here’s some other stuff that I’m still irrationally frightened by.
1. “Don’t Look Now,” the short story by Daphne Du Maurier. The woman who brought us “The Birds” (yes, the same “The Birds” that the Hitchcock film was based on) brings us this tale of a man discovering he’s psychic and … hey, where the hell did that serial-killing dwarf come from?
GAAAAAAAHHHHH!!
2. “Don’t Look Now,” the film. Serial-killing dwarf, schmerial-schmilling schmwarf: this film featured a graphic look at Donald Sutherland’s naked ass.
3. “Lady and the Tramp.” Siamese cats can sing? They can sing.
4. Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman.” Dear Mr. King: Thank you for writing a story that I read as a 10 year old (what the hell were my parents thinking, letting me read the works of King at age … fine, I was in high school….) once I was finally mostly over my fear of there being a horrible Lokifire-eating monster in the closet (yes, it was high school, all right? No, I wasn’t a bed-wetter. Monsters can smell your terror in urine, hello) that proved, yes, there is a horrible monster in the closet, and it doesn’t just want to eat you, it wants to eat your whole family. Also mess with your head a bit before it does.
5. “12:01 PM.” Unlike the cheerier (?) Groundhog Day, this poor bastard was stuck in a time loop that he would never be able to escape, no matter how much he redeemed himself, plus it was only an hour instead of a whole day and dear god, please let me be one of the lucky ones who is unaware time is skipping like a record, please, please please.
6. “I have no mouth and I must scream.” Computers … so scary … computers … end of humanity ….
7. “Ticks.” Yes, it was dumb. Yes, the special effects were bad. Yes, I screamed like a little girl when something scampered along the ground near the garbage can the next morning, because it was almost certainly a giant tick. (It was probably a rat.)
8. “Twilight Zone: the Movie.” Giant rabbit out of a hat! Giant rabbit out of a hat!!!!
9. “The Sun Dog,” also by Stephen King, the bastard who doesn’t want me to sleep again, ever.
10. “Friday the 13th.” Not because the movie was so scary, but because I had a friend who decided I was an innocent and thus could not see the sex scenes (probably she just hated me, now that I think about it), so she always had one of her older brothers hide my head under a pillow when the characters got busy. Smothery!
Hollywood Hates Me 