Note: This article/review/bitch fest/whatever is full of spoilers for HALLOWEEN (2018) and HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021). If you don't want these movies spoiled for you, stop reading now.
Still with me? Okay...
John Carpenter is my Horror Hero(TM). Growing up, I'd say THE THING (1982) and HALLOWEEN (1978) were two of "The Big Four" Horror films that turned me into a lifelong Horror fan (the others being INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978), and FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981). I loved HALLOWEEN II (1981) and HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1983). What can I say? I've considered myself a big HALLOWEEN fan from an early age.
I was in High School when HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS came out, and of course I absolutely loved seeing Michael Myers back behind the mask. Other films in the franchise followed, some better than others. I saw them all in theaters. I really thought H20 was it: a perfect swan song for the franchise. Jamie Lee Curtis came back and took care of business. It was all over with a nice bow on it. It's a shame they couldn't leave well enough alone. They produced a sequel, and let me tell you: the first 10 minutes of RESURRECTION were so bad I wanted to walk out of the theater. (For the record, the rest of the movie was actually pretty okay).
I wasn't a huge fan of the Rob Zombie HALLOWEEN films. I felt like they gave too much back story on Michael Myers. I had no desire to see him as a child, pulling the wings off of flies. I didn't care about his broken home. I didn't like Malcolm McDowell as Loomis. The mystery of Michael being "pure evil" was no longer a mystery. Yes, these films were brutal and Tyler Mane made a menacing bad guy, but I could honestly take these films or leave them. Zero attachment whatsoever.
Then, years later, along comes HALLOWEEN (2018).
Hollywood stoner goof (or "that EASTBOUND & DOWN guy, if you prefer), Danny McBride, has somehow convinced the studio to hand him the keys to the HALLOWEEN franchise. Frequent McBride collaborator David Gordon Green (PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, EASTBOUND & DOWN) is in line to direct. Jamie Lee Curtis, whose star power has cooled substantially since 2000, is set to return as Laurie Strode (even though she's died once, and faked her death once in this series). Carpenter, of course, doesn't give a f***. He's going to get a nice check for "consulting." For obvious reasons, I'm skeptical from the word go.
HALLOWEEN (2018) is going to be a direct, 40 Years Later sequel to Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978). Say what now? Yes, the plan from the word "go" is to ignore all of the other films. Even HALLOWEEN II. That means that Laurie Strode is just a random victim and babysitter, not Michael's estranged sister. That means Michael's endless body count is wiped out, as are most of his superhuman feats of survival and Hulk-like strength. Basically, they're going back to the beginning to try to give the franchise a proper end. Again, I'm not liking this idea, but they didn't really ask me, did they? Let's see how this goes.
HALLOWEEN (2018) opens, as promised, as a direct sequel to the OG. Michael Myers has been locked up in a sanitarium for 40 years. Two British podcasters (what?) show up at the Smith's Grove sanitarium looking for Michael. They want to do a story about "whatever happened to that guy?" After all, at this point, he killed his sister some 55 years before. I guess no one but podcasters would really care after 55 years (or 40 years for that matter).
Somehow these two dopes have managed to get their hands on Michael's original mask. How? On eBay? Should that not be locked up as evidence somewhere? Is it a copy? I doubt they still manufacture them 40 years later. This is absurd. Plus, how did they talk their way in here and arrange to see Michael? And not get searched beforehand? They just meet up with Michael, standing around chained to the ground, and show him his old mask. Okay, sure. Whatever.
Later we find out that Loomis is dead and Michael's new doctor isn't exactly tightly wrapped. That explains some of it, but regardless, this whole beginning is just off to an epically D-U-M-B start.
So what has Laurie Strode been up to all these years? Apparently she...hasn't left the area at all. Hasn't moved to a new town. Hasn't changed her name. She just hung out and built her home into a survivalist compound (some serious Sidney Prescott vibes here). Had a kid. Did her part as the town recluse. She was attacked 40 years ago and is still extremely traumatized and apparently she has let that "lifetime ago" attack govern every decision in her entire life.
But why?
HALLOWEEN II (1981) and all the sequels don't exist, so Laurie and Michael aren't related. Why does she feel compelled to stay around and keep an eye on Michael? I could see feeling responsible if he was her brother, but he isn't. He's just a loon. And he was locked up before the Internet, so how would he ever be able to find her if she moved away? And why would he even want to find her? Because she's no longer his sister, that makes the 1978 attack random. He was out killing. She got in the way. If he got out, what possible motive would he even have to try to find Laurie again?
Sure, he might make a beeline for Haddonfield again like he did in '78 because that's where he grew up and that's where he killed his sister, but you know what? If you don't want to get killed by the killer who attacked you in Haddonfield, JUST MOVE AWAY from f***ing Haddonfield! But nope...she's in it to win it. Even her own kid is telling her to move on. That just serves to drive home how f***ing stupid this whole thing is.
Now that we've met Laurie again, let's get down to business. Michael escapes from the Sanitarium and the film heads off into fan film territory. The escape scene is a mashup of the original HALLOWEEN and PART 4 and the ensuing hunt down and killing of the podcasters steals the bathroom scene from Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN (2007). None of the sequels exist, yet let's just start lifting things from them wholesale while pretending this is a direct sequel. Podcasters dead? Check. Michael has his mask back now. Good thing the rubber hasn't disintegrated in 40 years. Myers does kill a little kid here, which is not something I expected to see. Points for shock value and "originality," I guess? Bold.
The movie meanders now and introduces a bunch of teens and kids and random townsfolk that we really don't give a flying f*** about. But hey, Michael is home and we need to up the body count. Let's get this baby rolling. What year is this, by the way? This whole section of the film looks right out of the 70s, from the home decor, to the lighting, to the fashion. I get they're going for nostalgia, but it just feels sloppy. Oh, and it's a shame they ruined the "open up the door and Michael is in the closet" scare because that would have been a real pants-shitter of a scene if the trailer reveal didn't ruin it.
Anyway...
Here's where we find out that Laurie Strode, who's given up her entire life and dedicated it to protecting the world from Michael Myers, has...never met the Doctor who took over for Dr. Loomis after he died. What? So...you want to stick around "just in case" Michael breaks out, but you don't want to actually get in touch with the person who's treating him and who is the absolute best person to tell you about it if escape were to actually happen? Ridiculous.
Remember when I said that Loomis's doctor wasn't tightly wrapped? At this point in the film, we find out that the doctor is the one who allowed Myers to escape. He wanted to study Michael out in the wild, apparently, so he let him out. We find this out after Police Officer Hawkins runs Michael over with his SUV and Sartain stabs Hawkins and tries to drive off with Laurie's granddaughter and an injured Michael in tow. Confused? Me too. It's pretty shark jumpy.
Remember that Myers is a 70'ish-year-old man here. HIT HEAD ON BY AN SUV! But he's apparently been training, saying his prayers, and eating his vitamins, brother, because not only does he survive getting run over by the aforementioned SUV, he Hulks out in said SUV and manages to crush Sartain in the front seat by ripping up and pushing the steel-reinforced seats and cage into him in the most superhuman way possible. How is this? Superhuman Michael was primarily a staple of the sequels. In the OG HALLOWEEN, Michael lifted the one guy a few inches off the floor when he stabbed him and somehow managed to move Judith's tombstone into a house. Impressive, but explainable.
This isn't supposed to be the guy who breaks shotguns in half, presses his thumb throgh a guy's skull, and goes Terminator on an entire Police station or any of a hundred other ridiculous things we saw as the sequels unfolded. Nor is this Rob Zombie's Myers who was purposely made Superhumanly massive and strong. Nope. This is a direct sequel to the 1978 film, remember. There's a frustrating lack of consistency and we're caught again doing fan-filmy, fanboy things that pretend the sequels' canon exists, even when it doesn't.
Laurie is going full T2 Sarah Connor now. She's at her compound. She's loading up her weapons. She's ready to rock when Michael finally makes his way to her. Michael keeps busy here, killing a bunch more random people and cops, giving this film a pretty damned respectable body count. Sure, they're all random people that we don't really care about, but it keeps it from being boring, anyway.
Myers arrives at Laurie's fortress and a cat and mouse game ensues. There's some good tension here and some great nods to the original film. This is probably the best part of the film because it features Survivalist Laurie (channeling Nancy from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) using her traps and guile to beat the boogeyman. What is SUPER farfetched, though, is that Laurie winds up GRAPPLING with Michael here. The same Michael who 15 minutes earlier ripped a solid steel wall out of a Police Car and crushed his old doctor with it. But sure. I guess Laurie's been lifting, too? Whatever. We've jumped the shark like 5 more times at this point.
When all is said and done, Laurie traps Michael Myers in a safe room in the basement of her fortress and sets the place on fire. The nightmare is finally over. Michael Myers is dead. Or is he? The post-credits breathing (and the fact that sequels were already announced) says "No." They couldn't just let it burn.
Along comes HALLOWEEN KILLS. The movie opens with a flashback to 1978 that's really well done. It has a great look and feel, and you get a few surprise appearances, but the most important thing is you get to find out the back story of Officer Hawkins and how he was on site when Myers was originally captured after the events of 1978's HALLOWEEN. You get insight into Hawkins' history and you establish some great motive for Hawkins wanting to hunt down and kill Myers himself, 40 years later.
So where's Michael?
The house still burning and Michael comes out of the safe room and escapes the blaze and makes short work of the firefighters here. People started a petition to remove this scene because they didn't think firefighters should die. They should have removed the scene because it was junk. Instead of being directed like a horror scene, you have what is essentially Michael Myers killing a bunch of dudes like a Wal-Mart Great Value John Wick. It's just...well, awful. These firefighters, by the way, turned a full-force fire hose on 70-year-old Michael. Did it slow him down? Knock him down? Break ribs? Nope. He just shrugs it off and keeps killing. Escaping from the fire is one thing, but this whole scene is just ridiculous.
Laurie's off to the hospital. She's hurt pretty bad. Gotta check in on her and fam here before we move back to what's going on in town. Okay? Okay.
Enter Tommy Doyle who, like Laurie, apparently has spent his entire life obsessing about Michael Myers. Why? Yeah, Michael technically stalked him at the same time he was stalking Laurie back in 1978, but Michael didn't kill anyone he really knew or was related to. Not even his babysitter (Laurie). He was just a little kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet here he is, 40 years later, saying they commemorate the night of the attacks every year. This isn't Paul Rudd, by the way. This is Anthony Michael Hall, the quintessential "townie" who you get the idea is probably Anti-Vax and probably voted for Trump. And what's with his baseball bat? This all feels like yet another fanboy nod: this time to Stephen King's SILVER BULLET.
This is yet another problem with making a direct sequel to HALLOWEEN. Michael Myers at this point killed his own sister in 1963. Then he killed a random truck driver in a different town. Then he killed 3 teenagers and tried to kill Laurie. But that's it. He gets locked away for 40 years and THE GREATEST EVIL THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN has basically killed 4 people that the Haddonfield townsfolk would know or care about.
So what is it with these people? Why commemorate 1978? I could understand if all the sequels were canon, but this point, Myers is just a loon who went to the sanitarium for 40 y ears. No one really knows he's is on the loose or that he's killed a shit ton of people earlier this same evening. All of this obsession and pomp and circumstance is not from an endless chain of murders throughout all the sequels, it's from Michael Myers killing 4 people 40 years ago (pretty tamely, I might add) and then getting arrested (in another really well done flashback in this film).
How big is this town? There are always like 30 cops around, so it can't be a town of 100 people. This has to be a pretty sizeable town, right? City even? Look at the size of this hospital! This vengeance and hate all feels like something that would happen if 4 people were killed in a town of , say, 100 people. MAYBE. This is maddening.
Michael Myers is on the loose. He's killing people left and right. Random people. An old couple. He kills a bunch of kids wearing masks from HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (which would have been a badass surprise, again, had they not shown it in the trailer). This is now a PURE SLASHER of the highest order, which I guess is just fine. It's mostly what people want to see. The kills are violent and creative and should be applauded. They got a few golf claps from me. Seriously. This might be the highlight of the film: the brutality and creativity of these random kills (none of which the townsfolk really know about yet).
Anyway...
Laurie's in the hospital. Hawkins is in the hospital. Hey, they have history together. They had a relationship once. Is Hawkins a baby daddy? It sounds like it. Okay. Finally. Some more insight into how this story is supposed to all come together. Maybe. At some point. I mean Laurie was and is the focus of this franchise, right? And she's been in this movie for all of 5 minutes at this point? I checked my watch. I guess Tommy's the hero? Or the town? Not really sure.
Further confusing things: there's another inmate who also escaped from Smith's Grove Sanitarium on the loose. He acts as a red herring throughout much of the movie. He is run down by the chanting horde in the hospital chanting "Evil Dies Tonight" and jumps to his death. "How do we know this isn't Myers? We've never seen him with his mask off?" I'm serious. They went there.
So Michael Myers is out and about, killing, and killing, and killing. This is called HALLOWEEN KILLS after all. It lives up to its name. So Michael is killing, and he's heading back to his childhood home. It's occupied by a gay couple. They die horribly (great use of Anne Murray's music, btw). There's a showdown looming. People die (brutally and coolly), and Allyson, Laurie's granddaughter is in danger. Karen, Laurie's daughter (Allyson's mother), stabs Michael with a pitchfork (not sure what a pitchfork is doing around) and takes his mask off. She runs away from the house, taunting the killer, inciting Michael to follow.
Here's where shit gets REALLY real.
Michael is unmasked at this point and they're showing his old, gray, bald head and face in HD. This seems like a colossal mistake to me (NEVER take the mask off), but I guess that's what we're talking about anyway: one colossal mistake after another. Maskless Michael follows Karen, trying to get his mask back, and finds himself in an alley surrounded by, like, 100 townspeople with weapons. Tommy Doyle is leading the charge. It's a lynch mob. This whole town, that is super angry about....3 people they didn't know dying 40 years ago...decides they're going to kill this motherf***er with blunt force trauma. Along the way, we get to hear "EVIL DIES TONIGHT" like a half dozen more times leading up to this. We get it. It's terrible. But whatever.
Michael puts his mask back on and the crowd attacks.
Michael is on the ropes. The townspeople put him down. Karen grabs and bloody knife and stabs him in the back and then leaves to go take care of her daughter. He's getting the f*** kicked out of him. Stabbed. Beaten. Broken. This is really the end, right? Nope. This is called HALLOWEEN KILLS, not HALLOWEEN ENDS.
In the hospital, Laurie is telling Hawkins that brute force can't kill evil (even though that's how she's been trying to kill him for these past two movies and that's how Loomis tried to kill him, with a bullet to the head). This is apparently how they try to explain how Michael is Superhuman? I guess? All the shit I've been complaining about is being explained away with a throwaway voiceover line. Oy.
This serves as the cue for Michael to start shaking his head and going full Hulk Hogan after taking this epic beating and, you know what? Let's KILL THE WHOLE FUCKING TOWN! Sure. And Tommy? Let's kill that fucker WITH HIS OWN SILVER BULLET BAT!!! I mean, great. If you've lasted long enough to accept all of the bullshit leading up to this, you're probably standing on your couch and cheering at this point. Me? I'm wondering why I paid $9.99 to watch this crap on Peacock premium.
At least I didn't have to go to a theater and deal with COVID and teens on their cell phones the entire movie. Whee. So after killing the entire town, Michael somehow sneaks back into his own house (even though it's crawling with people and paramedics) and wait in hiding so he can kill Karen. Evil doesn't die tonight. Evil wins. Pretty convincingly. Roll credits.
So yeah, these movies are junk. They don't know what they want to be. They are essentially bad fan fiction that on one hand wants to ignore all the sequels, while on the other hand channeling endless shit from these ignored sequels. It's maddening. They want it both ways, and it's a all a big, hacky cheat.
HALLOWEEN (2018) is watchable, if ridiculous, and then HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021) just meanders unnecessarily while having basically no Laurie and no plot advancement. It does, however, have brutal kills that go to 11. So at least it's not a total loss. If you're curious, in my opinion, these are not the worst films in the franchise. PART 6 and RESURRECTION are worse. PART 5 is not great, either.
When this trilogy or whatever it is all wraps up in HALLOWEEN ENDS, I imagine what we'll have in retrospect is enough material to have made either one long movie, or possibly a movie and a single sequel. The fact that this is a trilogy is ridiculous. Normally, when it comes to trilogies, I enjoy the middle film the most (EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, THE TWO TOWERS), but HALLOWEEN KILLS is just....well...meh.
Let's hope that HALLOWEEN ENDS is not only better, but that it's the ACTUAL FUCKING END. I'm not sure how much more I can take. That said, KILLS made $50 million on its opening weekend despite streaming on Peacock and opening during a pandemic. I bet ENDS will only be the beginning.
Hopefully the beginning of something better for the franchise and for the fans.
Hello all. Damn, did I really not touch this Blog in all of 2019 and half of 2020? I guess so. I should really try to fix that.
Just a quick note to tell you that yes, I'm still alive, and yes I'm still writing for PopHorror. I actually passed the 1000 article mark, recently. Holy shit. That's a lot of horror coverage!
A few of my more recent efforts you might be interested in...
We recently reached 20,000 followers on Twitter (@PopHorrorNews). I'm particularly proud of that. When I took over Tweeting for the site 3 years ago I think we were at maybe 1000 followers. 20,000 is a great milestone! Looking forward to the next 20,000... Give us a follow, will ya?
I'm excited and bummed at the same time. It's Friday the 13th -- my favorite unofficial holiday. That's the good news. The bad news? We're not going to see another one until September, 2019. That sucks! Oh, well. What can you do? I guess we'll just have to make this one count!
This Friday the 13th happens to coincide with my 450th article for PopHorror. As you may or may not know, the Friday the 13th franchise is in limbo because of a legal battle between Victor Miller and Sean S. Cunningham. My article speculates what will happen when the lawsuit ends and the film series can finally move forward.
My son Connor is 4 1/2 years old. He's discovering that he likes board games and I, like a lot of parents, see the immense value in a family game night. "Operation" is a game I've had my eye on for a while. I remember playing it as a kid and loving it. I don't own a copy myself anymore, but I feel like Connor would enjoy it. I've been meaning to buy a copy of the game forever so we could play it together.
"Operation" is available pretty much everywhere. I visit Wal-Mart (against my better judgement) a few times a month. They sell it. I have Amazon Prime, so in theory I could have a copy shipped to the house in a day or two for $19.99. For whatever reason, I just hadn't gotten around to it.
A few weeks back I went to St. Vincent De Paul's. It is a secondhand store akin to Goodwill. I was there looking for cheap board games for the break room at work. There I spotted a copy of "Operation." It was The Simpsons Special Edition where Homer is the patient. The box was in immaculate shape and it carried a price tag of $2.30. SCORE! I picked it up and bought it without even bothering to open the box (which was rubber banded shut).
I headed home and I cracked open the box. I grabbed the game board and quickly compared its organ list to the baggie full of plastic pieces that came with the game. They were all there! Wow! What are the odds of that? I really scored big on this one! Wait. Something's wrong. I read through the instructions and the game is supposed to come with money, doctor cards, and specialist cards. All missing. Crap!
To eBay! In no time I found a listing for missing "Operation" pieces. For about $3.00 + minimal shipping I scored the missing money and cards. Thanks "Buy It Now!" Okay, what's next? Oh. I should probably find out if the game actually works. Duh. I touched the operating tool to the metal plates and nothing. I opened the battery compartment and...NOOOOO! The batteries had exploded! Crap!
I removed the bad batteries and put in 3 new ones and tried again. Nothing. Double crap! Why did I go ahead and order the missing money and cards without checking to see if the game actually worked first? Grrr. And why didn't I bother opening the damned box in the first place before I bought it at St. Vincent's to make sure it was complete? Oh, well. I guess I'm only out about $7.00 at this point.
My wife called a friend and she suggested trying baking soda in the battery compartment to neutralize the battery acid. I went to the store and grabbed a box for $1.00 and filled up the compartment to the brim. I decided to let it sit overnight. Now I'm down about $8.00. Could be worse. I think a pack of Cigarettes costs about $8.00 these days. I'm so glad I quit 10 years ago (to the day, actually).
The next day I cleaned out the baking soda from the battery compartment and tried again. Nada. Damn it! What else could I try? To Google! I Googled "Clean AA battery terminals" and an article came up suggesting vinegar. Vinegar I had, so I put some on a Q-tip and swabbed out the terminals and the springs. Then I swabbed them again with water and then let it all dry.
The next day I put the batteries in again and...success! Homer's nose lit up and he talked. It worked! Alright! So now I'm only out $8.00 and a few days worth of experimentation. Could be much worse! As an aside, it's interesting the game runs on 3 AA batteries. The edition I had as a kid took D batteries! That's crazy! Anyway...
Easter weekend. I took the game with us to the family gathering so Connor could play with his cousins. The money and cards arrived safe and sound, so the game was complete. (Or was it?) This would be the perfect time to try it out. "Hey Kenn, did you know there's a piece missing?" Wait, what now? Yep. Turns out the Heart of Gold was missing. I had mis-counted the pieces. NOOO!
Welp...to eBay! I found another seller who sold the heart for $2.00 + $1.00 shipping. It's on the way as of this writing. I also ordered an hourglass timer that counts down 1 minute at a time to supplement the game and give a sense of urgency to perform the surgery. So now I'm up to $12.00 and probably 4 days worth of work. If I figure out my hourly pay rate, I'm obviously out a shitload of money at this point. But I guess that depends on how you look at it.
So...would I have been better off just having the original "Operation" drop shipped from Amazon to my doorstep for $19.99 and avoiding this whole mess? Eh...I don't think so. The way I look at it, this whole experience gave me:
A chance to shop for random stuff! In the Internet age, the joy of the hunt is mostly gone. It's why I love going to secondhand stores and yard sales and flea markets. You never know what you'll find. I consider finding the game a win.
A lesson learned: if you're buying something used, always open the box!
I used a bit of resourcefulness to gather the missing pieces and make the incomplete game complete. Thank you eBay (and Internet in general).
I learned something about exploded battery compartments. Something I will likely use again considering 80% of Connor's toys take batteries. LEVELING UP as a Dad? Priceless!
Connor loves the game. We'll have a great time playing it as a family. And now, every time we play it with someone new I'll have a story to tell. A story of how this all came together that's far more interesting than "Yeah, I ordered this from Amazon Prime."
Finally? The experience made for a fairly compelling (hopefully) blog post. I don't blog nearly enough and "The Simpsons Operation" adventure gave me an excuse to do it.
As Stuntman Extraordinaire Rod Kimble once said: "Life is short...STUNT IT!"
It's Friday the 13th -- a horror fan's Thanksgiving and New Year's wrapped into one! I just wanted to take a minute to wish you a very Happy Friday the 13th and ask you to check out the latest article I wrote for PopHorror - Jason vs. Jason: Famous Friday the 13th Set Feuds!
It was a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading it! Oh, and if you're bored, you can also check out the article I wrote for Jason's last birthday: Ranking Jason's Final Girls on Friday the 13th!
This was a fun one to write, too. Enjoy!
Finally, if you get a chance, check out the Friday the 13th Fan Film "Never Hike Alone" from Womp Stomp Films. It releases tonight, 10/13/17, at 11:15pm EST on their YouTube Channel. I didn't have anything to do with it, other than I backed their kickstarter at the Junior Counselor level. Paramount can't seem to get their shit together, so this might be the best we can hope for for a while! Fingers crossed it's as great as I think it will be!
It was a little more than a year ago I started writing for PopHorror.com. It was August 29, 2016. I know because my first piece for the site was a happy birthday article for William Friedkin's 81st. Here we are, 13 months and 100 articles later and I'm still having a blast writing about one of my favorite subjects: HORROR.
Looking back on those 100 articles, here are 8 of my favorites. If you haven't read them yet, please do and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your feedback.
8. Kathy Bates Receives Hollywood Walk of Fame Star - Most of my early articles were birthday wishes. This was the first article I wrote that had a little more meat to it. It was fun finding all of the quotes and images and recapping Kathy Bates's illustrious career.
7. Wes Craven's DEADLY FRIEND Turns 30! - Another fun article to research. It gave me the chance to re-acquire and re-watch the film for the first time in years. I learned a lot about the movie and its development. It's a little heftier than the average piece I write, too. I like how it turned out.
5. Lee Majors To Receive Lifetime Achievement Award - I'm a big fan of Lee Majors from THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN to THE FALL GUY to SCROOGED to ASH vs. EVIL DEAD. Writing this article allowed me to reach out to Lee Majors fans all over on Facebook. Of all the articles I've written, I think this one got the biggest public response.
4. 10 Fun Facts About BUG On Its 10th Anniversary -BUG is a great movie. This was a lot of fun to write. I feel like the article didn't get a lot of exposure when I wrote it because there was no real way to hashtag it or promote it effectively on Social Media. That's a shame. It's one of the best articles I've written so far. Go read it!
3. Watch EVIL DEAD 2 In The Woods With Bruce Campbell - I'm not really a fan of my own writing, but I feel like "Who’s up for a road trip to Austin? All we need are $55.00 tickets and some extra gas for the chainsaw!" is one of my better one (two) liners. Plus I'm a huge fan of Bruce and Evil Dead 2. If I still lived in Houston, I would have made the road trip for this. I wrote this article in record time, too, for a slow news day. When I finished it I realized "Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this."
2. Celebrating 35 Years of John Carpenter's THE THING - John Carpenter's THE THING is my favorite movie of all time. I never pass up a chance to talk about or write about it (or blog about it). I'm glad I got the opportunity to write this one for its 35th anniversary milestone.
1. Meet Our Writers: Kenn Hoekstra - I haven't been interviewed since I was a game developer, so it was fun to do one again. I got to answer some fun questions about movies and horror. Everyone should interview themselves if they get the chance. It's therapeutic.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully I blog again before I hit my PopHorror 2 year, 200 article milestone! :)
The weekend box office chart 35 years ago was pretty amazing. You had Blade Runner, John Carpenter's The Thing, and MegaForce debuting on a weekend when E.T., Poltergeist, Rocky III, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Conan The Barbarian were already out in theaters. I mean look at this! Amazing!
I was 8 or 9 in 1982 (depending on the time of year). I saw a few of these in the theater (back when it was $1.00 or $1.25 to see a movie). I definitely saw Rocky III,, Star Trek II, E.T., and Poltergeist that year. I also remember Secret of Nimh, Dark Crystal, and Tron. The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was Empire Strikes Back in 1980. I also remember Superman 2 in 1981, but I think my theater going ways started in earnest in 1982.
I was too young to see John Carpenter's THE THING in theaters, but I saw it on HBO not long after. What a life changer. It's my favorite horror film of all time. It may even be my favorite movie of all time. It's so good. I took the opportunity to write about it for PopHorror. Check out my 35th anniversary retrospective of The Thing right here.
I watched it over the weekend. It still holds up. I'm looking forward to the next 35 years!
I've written quite a few articles for PopHorror over the past few months. If you're bored and want to check them out, you can do so here.
It occurred to me recently that it was 20 years ago I started working at Raven Software. 20 years ago today, actually: February 3rd, 1997. Working there and the events that unfolded during my time there completely changed my life. Interested in a little trip down memory lane? As the Gilligan's Island theme song goes, "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale..."
I was working as a restaurant manager at my Alma Mater - The University of Wisconsin - Whitewater in 1996. I hired a guy by the name of Jeff to work part time in the kitchen while he was finishing up his Master's Degree. Through him I met his brother Eric who was a level designer at Raven Software (and he still works there). We hit it off and he told me they were hiring designers and that they were willing to train creative types to do the work. Level design sounded way more interesting to me than restaurant management, so of course I jumped at the chance.
I asked how I should dress for the interview. Should I wear a tie? Business casual? I was told that I would be laughed at and tossed out of the office if I showed up dressed like that. I think I wound up wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap. The interview was me sitting with a group of other designers answering questions about my favorite movies and TV shows, comics, RPGs, board games and whatnot. It was very casual. They were cool guys. Afterward I went to my eventual boss's office and watched him work for a while and he asked "Do you think you can do this?" I said "Sure. When can I start?" He said I could start in two weeks. Yeah!
"Night of the Living Designers"
Even though it was a salaried position, it was truly entry level. I actually took a pay cut from the big *cough* bank ($22,000 per year) I was making at the restaurant job to take the gig. Raven was still independent then. It was pre-Activision acquisition (though Activision was in the process of publishing Hexen II) so things were running very lean. You had to make games quickly and pretty much every game had to be a hit or you were out of business. It was hard work. Long hours. But I loved every minute of it.
Taking this job was a huge risk for me. Not only was I taking a pay cut, I was relying on myself to learn and do a job I'd never done before that had nothing to do with restaurants or my English Degree. If I failed, I would be out on the street. It was a big leap of faith.
I grew up in a town of less than 1500 people before moving to a farm in the boonies. When I went to school in Whitewater, that was a city of maybe 10,000 people. I was living in Fort Atkinson and that, too, was a tiny town. The idea of working in "the big city" of Madison scared the shit out of me. I had to drive an hour each way every day and driving on the beltline in the mornings was terrifying. But I did it. I even moved to Madison a year later. I laugh about it now, but this was a a huge step for me. The first of many huge steps. Luckily I had the newly reformatted 94.1 WJJO morning show to keep me sane on the morning commute. Happy 20th anniversary to you, too, Johnny and Greg!
My first title was Take No Prisoners. Raven was working on that, the aforementioned Hexen II and a third title called MageSlayer. Three PC games. Three different publishers. Less than 30 employees. It really was a different era. My first workstation was a Pentium Pro 200 with 128MB of RAM running Windows NT 4.0. My only previous Windows experience was with 3.1. I had to learn 3-D Studio Max. I'd never seen or touched 3-D design software in my life. It was a steep learning curve, but I did okay. I definitely put in my share of extra hours. I was 23 years old and single and I was used to working 60 or more hours a week at the restaurant, so living at the office was natural for me.
Take No Prisoners was originally called Riot. The only problem? Halfway through development, Monolith announced that they were working on a game called Riot. (Interestingly enough, Monolith's Riot would later become SHOGO: Mobile Armor Division so what follows was pretty much for naught).
SHIT!
We had to come up with a new name. We all brainstormed and we sent the publisher tons of name suggestions. They wanted to call it Outrage. The project lead thought that sounded like a 3 year old having a tantrum at a K-Mart, though, so it didn't really fly. There was a lot of back and forth and Take No Prisoners eventually emerged and somehow the name stuck. We didn't come up with it. We weren't really huge fans of the name, but we felt it was better than Outrage. I liked it, though, because I was (and still am) a big fan of the Megadeth song of the same name.
Toward the end of Take No Prisoners' development in 1997, 3dfx released their new Voodoo 3-D Accelerator card. The Voodoo Rush, maybe? I remember walking across the field behind Raven to go to Best Buy with another designer (Hi Jon!) to buy a couple of them and bring them back to test. They were pretty badass at the time. At least until nVidia came along a short while later and blew everyone away with their TNT, TNT2 and GeForce cards.
Anyway, the programming team that was working on the Vampire Engine (which powered Take No Prisoners and MageSlayer) wanted to take advantage of the colored lighting that could be done using these new 3-D cards. They put in support for the technology, but the team was on a tight deadline to finish up the maps so we didn't think we would have time to touch them all to add it. At this point I went off the reservation and decided I would try to do it all myself. I lived at the office for two days and slept under my desk so I could try to get it all done. By the time anyone realized what I was doing, I was more than half way there so we decided to finish the job...because we really had no choice.
Looking back, I'm honestly surprised this little stunt didn't get me fired. I imagine I have my original boss, MRJ, to thank for shielding me from that shit storm. We got it in. We got it done. It was pretty rad. That game really did come together at the last minute. The engine technology was in development the whole time we were working, so it was only at the end that things really started working the way they were intended. We got multiplayer in in the last few months and we even supported a half dozen (or more) custom game types. I put my blood, sweat and tears into Take No Prisoners (as did everyone on the team) and the day it released I couldn't have been prouder.
It bombed. I was heartbroken.
No one really knew how to market the game. Raven was known for first person shooters, so the whole top down perspective was making people scratch their heads. The view was adjusted to make it more 3rd person than top down, but that didn't help, either. To make matters worse, Activision was in the process of acquiring Raven, so I get the impression that the publishers of both Take No Prisoners and MageSlayer had little interest in these games making a ton of money that would only end up lining Activision's pockets. I believe they tried to cut their losses at that point and just put the games out there to see what they would do. Unfortunately, they didn't do much.
Hexen II was a moderate success, though. Activision was happy. The acquisition went through and we started work on the Hexen II Expansion Pack - Portal of Praevus. That was a lot of fun. It was my 2nd project. I had to learn the Quake tools and our modified QuakeEd editor. I did it. I learned a lot. My career as a game developer was off and running.
In the years that followed, my time at Raven coincided with some of the biggest events in my life. These events included, but were not limited to:
The death of my father and meeting my future wife in 1998.
Moving to "the big city" of Madison.
The Internet boom and the rise of eBay, Amazon and countless other online empires
Buying my first "new" vehicle in 1999.
Writing my first book (the Brady Games strategy guide for Soldier of Fortune)
Getting married and building my first house in 2000.
My first puppy dog (who was with me for 16 years)
The 9/11 attacks in 2001.
My first ever travel outside Wisconsin (nationally and internationally)
Attending various E3's, gaming conferences, conventions and press events
Writing my first Screenplay (Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix)
Working on some of the biggest franchises in entertainment: Star Wars, Star Trek and X-Men
My divorce and selling my first house.
Seeing my mother battle and eventually succumb to brain cancer... :(
Outside of game development, my time at Raven taught me how to manage, support and promote projects -- skills that served me well years later when I was a Producer at Pi Studios. I also learned desktop support, customer support, and a variety of Information Technology skills which would eventually allow me to transition out of game development and back into IT when Pi Studios closed in 2011.
I worked with some really talented people and made a lot of lifelong friends...many of whom still work at Raven today! I loved working with all of those friends (and going to their weddings). I loved the work itself. Most of all, I loved promoting our projects in the gaming press. It gave me great satisfaction to help get so many eyes on all the fantastic work everyone was doing. It was never about me. I never wanted to be (or tried to become) a rock star. I just wanted our work to be seen and wanted our games to succeed. I took pride in that back then, and I still do to this day.
Thank you Brian and Steve and MRJ and Mike and Eric and all of the rest of the 100+ Ravenites I had the pleasure of meeting and working with over the years. It was a great opportunity and it shaped the person I am today in so many ways. I hope you remember me as fondly as I remember all of you. :)
On a final note, I was sad to hear that Charlie Bernstein, the fine gentleman who replaced me as Raven's IT Administrator when I left, was recently in a major car accident. I'm very proud of the way the Raven family (and everyone else) from around the world is banding together to help support Charlie during this terrible tragedy. "Charlie's Army" has raised $65,000 so far, but there's a lot more work to do. If you can, I encourage you to make a donation to support one heck of a great guy.
John Lynch? Come on, man. Or should I say MEDIA DARLING John Lynch? The NFL is actually considering enshrining Lynch in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year. Yep, he's a finalist. I admit Safety is a vastly overlooked position when it comes to the Hall of Fame, but Lynch? LYNCH?
I guess he was pretty good. But let's compare Pro Football Hall of Fame candidate John Lynch to another "pretty good" Safety who will never even come close to being nominated to the Hall of Fame...the Packers' LeRoy Butler.
John Lynch (Tampa Bay Buccanneers, Denver Broncos, New England Patriots)
John Lynch Hoisting The Hardware
HIGHLIGHTS:
9x Pro Bowl
3x All Pro (1st Team)
1x All Pro (2nd Team)
1x Superbowl Champion (1 Appearance) STATS:
13 sacks
16 FF (8 recovered)
26 INT
89 Passes Defended
0 TDs
1051 tackles (4.7 per game)
224 games
LeRoy Butler Inventing The Leap
LeRoy Butler (Green Bay Packers) HIGHLIGHTS:
4x Pro Bowl
4x All Pro (1st Team)
90's All Decade Team
1x Superbowl Champion (2 Appearances)
STATS:
20.5 sacks
11 FF (8 recovered)
38 INT
95 Passes Defended
1 INT Return TD (Culminating in the invention of the Lambeau Leap)
726 tackles (4 per game)
181 games
So in 43 less games, Butler has 7.5 more sacks, 12 more INTs, 6 more passes defensed and a TD, while Lynch forced 5 more fumbles. Who's the Hall of Fame nominee here?
This somehow resulted in 5 more trips to the Pro Bowl for Lynch? Based on fan voting, no doubt. Lynch always had a pretty amazing media presence, whereas LeRoy kept to himself. That will ultimately be Butler's undoing when it comes to enshrinement. It'll never happen.
Another guy who probably deserves the Hall of Fame more than Lynch? Steve Atwater! But that's another story.
2x Super Bowl Champion, 8x Pro Bowler, 3x All Pro, 90's All Decade Team, 1180 Tackles, 24 INT
I think I speak for just about everyone when I say "Fuck 2016." It's been a shitty year that won't be missed by many. Let's start with celebrity deaths. There have been more than 100 of them this year. Some really big names, too: David Bowie, Prince, Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman, Muhammad Ali. The list goes on and on. This video is a nice farewell to those we lost this year...
People die. Time is the fire in which we burn. Blah, blah, blah. I get it. It doesn't make it suck any less. 2016 was brutal. Sadly, all of the faces from my youth are getting older and grayer. I don't see it getting any easier going forward. :(
On to politics. President Trump? Seriously? What have we done, America? It continues to boggle my mind that mass amounts of people will vote against their own interests in the name of protecting guns and religion and winning the so call "war on terror." Yet here we are...again.
All of these impoverished, minority, and women voters propping up a man and a party that can't keep laws off of women's bodies and want to strip any kind of social welfare and socioeconomic safety nets down to nothing so they can give tax breaks to the 1% and add Trillions to the National Debt. His cabinet picks are the equivalent of draining the swamp and filling it back up again with toxic waste.
President Trump terrifies me. I fear for the world I'm leaving for my son. I hope for everyone's sake that I'm wrong, but I guess all we can do is wait and see.
The Cubs won the World Series after falling behind 3 games to 1? Against the Cleveland Indians? What in the actual fuck, 2016? Ugh. Crazy how close BACK TO THE FUTURE II was to predicting it! Just one year off!
I got in a car accident in November. That was no fun. Fortunately, no one was injured. Even more fortunate, my son wasn't in the car at the time. I'm not sure I could ever forgive myself if I caused that little boy harm.
The bright side? I'm back in Wisconsin again, close to family and friends. I have my health (*knock on wood*). I'm writing for PopHorror.com and enjoying that bigly (Thanks President-Elect Trump). I got a new car...a 2017 Honda Accord and I like it a lot (the car, not the payment). I may even be able to get out and see STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE before the calendar flips!
What's on tap for 2017? More writing. More reading. More exercise. Less alcohol. Better nutrition. More family time. Cross some movies from the "greatest films of all time" off of my "to watch" list. Oh, and the new Friday the 13th game!
Last, but not least, more blogging! I'm sure I'll have lots more to say in 2017 than I did in 2016. Until then, Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Happy Festivus! Happy New year! Beef jerky time!
How goes it, true believers? This just in: I watch too much television. I was behind before, but now that Fall is here, there are new seasons of THE FLASH, SUPERGIRL, AMERICAN HORROR STORY and MARVEL'S AGENTS OF SHIELD to contend with. Oh, and a little series called WESTWORLD. And THE WALKING DEAD is due back any day now! How am I ever going to get around to GAME OF THRONES at this rate? First world problems, for sure.
My horror writing continues. My latest Pop Horror articles include:
I'm so excited! It will be in hand in time for Halloween. I think it deserves a special screening on my new(ish) 4K HDTV! The special features are amazing and I hear the audio has never sounded better. A new Blu-ray Special Edition of WAXWORK and WAXWORK II is also coming out this month. It's a bit pricey, but I think it will make a great birthday present...for myself! :)
I saw this meme floating around and it really got me thinking...
Let's bring back the vs. movies! FREDDY VS. JASON was fun! BRIAN MILLS VS. MICHAEL MYERS sounds amazing! How about after JOHN WICK 2 we get JOHN WICK VS. JASON VOORHEES? Seriously, I'd pay big money for that! JASON BOURNE VS. FREDDY KRUEGER? JACK REACHER VS. LEATHERFACE? These movies write themselves!
That's all for now. Happy Halloween (if I don't post before then)!
I was listening to the radio on the way to work today and Johnny Danger from 94.1 WJJO was talking about a survey that voted for the greatest cereals of all time. He starts out with LIFE at #97 and works his way up through APPLE JACKS at #40 and FROOT LOOPS at #38. Then he starts talking about the Monster Cereals at #30, #27 and #17. He rattles off a chunk of the Top 10 and then says "Guess what Number 1 is?"
*DRUMROLL*
I pump my fist and yell "YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!" at my radio when he says "QUISP!" The greatest cereal of all time...OF ALL TIME! Man, I loved that stuff. My dad and my stepmother used to buy it for my brother and when we visited them on the weekends as kids and I'm pretty sure we killed an entire box, at least, every week. It was so amazingly badass. It's like CAP'N CRUNCH without the total roof of your mouth destruction that comes with it.
So, it's a good list. A "Tremendous" list, if you listen to Donald Trump. They got #1 right at least. It got me thinking about my favorite cereals. After much deliberation (and countless thousands of boxes of cereal consumed in my youth), here they are...the Top 10 Cereals of All Time!
My profound apologies to TRIX , APPLE JACKS, LUCKY CHARMS, GRAPE NUTS and HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS, which all narrowly missed my list.
#10 - FRANKENBERRY - No disrespect to COUNT CHOCULA or BOO BERRY (or even YUMMY MUMMY), but this is my favorite Monster Cereal. I love drinking the strawberry milk from the bowl at the end!
#9 - SUPER SUGAR CRISP/SUPER GOLDEN CRISP - I guess at some point it became politically incorrect to call out a cereal for what it is: pure sugar. That's when the name changed to SUPER GOLDEN CRISP. A shout out here to SUGAR SMACKS, which are essentially the same thing. I "Dig 'Em!"
#8 - C3POs - C3PO is not my favorite STAR WARS character. Not by a mile. In fact, he kinda sucks. Regardless, I have fond memories of eating these in the 1980's at my friend John's house. We loved them. Many boxes destroyed on the weekends. I wish they still made this stuff...
#7 - COOKIE CRISP - Yum. I could eat a box of these in one sitting, I swear. They've had a ton of mascots over the years. Check this out:
#6 - CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH - Sugar overload! Delicious. Ditto eating a whole box in one sitting. This stuff is ridiculous. God damn it! I have the commercial jingle in my head now!
#5 - HONEY NUT CHEERIOS - Classic. My son loves it. My wife loves it. Good luck keeping a box in the house for very long. I could do without the mascot, though. I hate bees.
#4 - GOLDEN GRAHAMS - Yummmmmmm! I love me some GOLDEN GRAHAMS. There's a fine timing involved in eating these where the milk has started to soak in, but the grahams haven't gotten soggy yet. It's an art, really.
#3 - CRACKLIN' OAT BRAN - How the hell did this cereal not even chart on that Top 100 list? Sure, it looks and sounds like Old People Cereal(TM), but it's not. It's fantastic! I'm craving some now. I might have to go buy some over lunch.
#2 - CAP'N CRUNCH PEANUT BUTTER - The classic. The standby. Probably the cereal I had most often growing up. We always had a box in the house, it seemed. I think my mom must have stopped and bought a box every night after work before coming home. She was the greatest. LOVE YOU, MOM!
P.S. The balloon racer on this box was amazeballs!
#1 - QUISP - I own a QUISP wrist watch. I'm not even joking. This stuff is the bomb. I'm happy to say that even though the cereal was discontinued in the late 70's or early 80's, they still sell this stuff online at Amazon.com!
I think it may be time to introduce my son to the glory...
IT Professional. Packers, Brewers, Bucks and Badgers Fan! Aspiring Screenwriter who loves Movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Humor, Playing Chess - University of Wisconsin - Whitewater graduate.
Opinions are my own.
