323
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Hologram Man
Look, I like John Amos, but even if I don’t know what he’s doing an action film like this… Of course his last billed so just because he’s on some variations of the cover might not mean anything. I’m a fan of Tiny Lister to though, and the title Hologram Man is nicely intriguing. Also doesn’t hurt that we start off with a fire fight between cops and guys in long coats in the middle of a field of burning cars.
Despite his prominence on some versions of the cover, Amos is killed by the 13 minute mark because this movie is really about his partner Decoda. Our villian is sentenced to some sort of digital incarceration and we flash forward about 10 years. It’s a nicely dystopian future and we have a domed city with lots of concept cars (like in Demolition Man) roaming the streets, and it’s all controlled by any of a corporation, The baddie up for parole. The hearings aren’t held in person, though you appear as a hologram… Hence the title. He takes this time to escape the holographic matrix as an autonomous hologram, complete with laser hands and a blue glow like 
Automan.
While Decoda trains in a goldeneye video game on the holodeck, William Sanderson from Blade Runner clones a new body out of weird shape changing rubber. It’s now up to Decoda to stop the seemingly unstoppable hologram man
Believe it or not, I actually really like this. It’s exactly the sort of movie that I would’ve rented as a teenager for sleepovers and watched in between Nintendo games at my buddy Mike‘s house. The action is good. It’s not over the top, But lots of entertaining bang bang. It’s awesome always fun to get a glimpse of the Japanese union Church from Prince 
of Darkness as a set in another movie, not to mention watching the cops in black dyed uniforms left over from the visitors in The V mini series. The biggest problem is that there’s very little original here. Joe Lara as Decoda is doing his best impression of Lorenzo Lamas. Michael Nouri is trying very hard to be Chris Sarandon in the entire movie wishes it was Demolition Man. It’s built on tropes rather than a solid foundation story, but sometimes it’s enough for an entertaining rental
Beyond Skyline
When I grabbed this at the dollar tree, I was certain that it would be a mockbuster. Some sort of parody or Asylum knock off that co-opted similar words and names, like Transmorphers… that sort of thing that they do. Imagine my shock to discover that Beyond Skyline is actually a real bona fide sequel to the 2010 film Skyline. I remember commercials for the movie, and thought it was interesting, but never made it out to see it. I don’t think too many other many other people did either, Skyline was a flop… Which would explain why it took seven years for them to cobble together any sort of a sequel. I had my doubts about going into this so cold, and wondered if there would be any problems watching the second movie before the first. Beyond Skyline begins with a cop (Frank Grillo) picking up his delinquent son at the police station, before boarding a subway home. That’s when the aliens arrive. This cryptic message is coming over the CB “don’t look at the light! Don’t look at the light!”. That’s pretty good advice, because the light turns people into zombies obsessed with reaching it. Aliens are happy to oblige, sucking dozens of people off into space.
OK, we have our premise. Looks like I didn’t need to watch that first movie after all.
Frank does his best to shepherd people through the subway tunnels in an attempt to escape the movie I assume that is going on above ground. It doesn’t work, though and ultimately he ends up on a spaceship with a few friends. 
While he’s there, he runs into a pregnant woman, just about to give birth. This is more than a little unusual considering that she’s about six months along, but the light apparently accelerates the pregnancy. In addition to sucking out the brains of their victims and placing them in biomechanical shells, the aliens also experiment and tinker with unborn children. It just so happens though, that the father of this child, Trent, managed to maintain some of his consciousness even after his brain had been plucked out of his dead body and tossed into an alien robot that looks like it’s straight out of Independence Day. He defended the baby, but now needs Frank to spirit it away. Grillo promises to take care of it and he and his friends get off the ship. Turns out, the ships moving this entire time and now they’re in Laos, finding themselves in the midst of a group of freedom fighters. The baby is growing like a weed, almost up to six or seven years old and she turns out to be the day of Deus Ex Machina – her blood is the key to stopping the aliens. If they can shoot some of that blood into their main engine or drive Or something, it will stop all the aliens cold. At least I think that’s the plot… It was getting a little hard to follow at this point. In any event, it all goes terribly wrong, and the MacGuffin drops out of the ship into the middle of the monastery ruins. It gives us a chance for a big fight between two giant alien biomechanical robots while the little girl rushes over to the unit, and places for hand in… Solving everything.
10 years later, she and her alien robot father would prepare to lead a group of freedom fighters to the aliens home world… Taking the fight to them.
I don’t hate it. The movie has some interesting moments, and the design is beautiful. The alien robots are frequently a combination of CG and practical suits, very smart way of doing things. There’s not an over reliance on CG until the very end, and unfortunately when the computer generated nasties are on screen for too long, fighting their way through computer generated environments, it does start to look bad. It doesn’t look like they had the budget to really perfect these FX. The deus ex machina solution here also feels a little bit too much like V to me… Our young child, Rose, is basically the star child. This like so many other of the elements of this film feels hopelessly derivative. The film is smart, even though it’s building itself off of bits and pieces that it’s stealing from other better films, it does have the sense to steal the best elements and then throw it on twist. Instead of fighter jets and guns, the combat with the aliens is much more personal and brutal. Frequent Hand to Hand fights involving knives and alien blades seem to be the call of the day. Frank Grillos good at action and they’re playing to his strengths. It’s definitely an attempt to turn him into a leading man after playing second banana in the Captain American films, but 
I’m not sure if I’m sold or not.
At an hour and 46 minutes, the film is too long… They were at least three moments when I was watching the story and thinking… OK, so were at the end now? And would look at the clock and be a palled at how much time this thing still had to go. But all in all, it works as a B-movie. That may be the problem, I don’t think this thing was intended to be a B-movie, but it’s worth watching if it pops up on the Syfy channel.
Bonejangles
Bonejangles was an easy buy for me. We have the horrifying visage of the title character, the Bone Jangler, a.k.a. Edgar Friendly Junior. He’s wearing the half skull mask my buddy Mickey Knox wears for zombie walks, and a quick glance at the back cover reveals an appearance by Reggie Banister. I’m in.
The local police force has captured the notorious serial killer, Bonejangles. Now, all that’s left to do is to transport him to a maximum-security asylum. The only problem is, the handoff will be made at A foggy little town in the middle of nowhere. It just so happens to be one of the cop’s hometown, and it hides a terrible secret. One night a year, the dead rise from their graves to feast on the living. One night a year, this sleepy little hamlet is overrun by zombies. And that night, is tonight.
Of course, that’s business as usual for the cop. He’s completely forgotten about it, he’s more nervous because the girlfriend he left behind still lives there… And tonight is also her wedding night. Once in the town, we get the backstory, that the local Madame was drug out of her house of ill repute, to be burned as a witch. Being a prostitute, she’s not just any kind of which, she’s a succubus. And she laid a curse on the town with her dying breath. Now she lives in the haunted house on the outskirts of town, keeping herself alive in our by capturing young man and using them. Possibly. The only way to 
stop her, would be if there were some violent being with equally supernatural abilities around to kill her.
Like perhaps, a superhuman serial killer?
This is the brilliance of Bonejangle. They manage to turn this into a versus movie… in the tradition of King Kong versus Godzilla, Freddy versus Jason, Alien versus Predator. They take to completely unknown monsters, and set up these two opposing mythologies with the witch and the Jason clone serial killer (he’s got two machetes to show that he’s even scarier than Jason) and turn it into a terrifying show down that satisfies every bit as much as it would have had it been a franchise with characters that we recognize, and the zombies are just the icing on the cake.
Bonejangles does not shy away from blood and gore, particularly in the third act. They do it well, and make their bad guys look really good. Reggie Bannister is confined mostly to flashbacks, it looks like he came in and worked on the movie for one day so they could put his name on the box and that’s fine. He does an excellent job chewing the scenery and hamming it up as Edgar Friendly Senior, a serial killer in his own right, 
before passing his madness down to his monstrous son. He delivers some foreshadowing that pays off in spades towards the end, and gives us everything that we could want from a Reggie Bannister performance.
The bordello itself is achieved using curious means, they apparently couldn’t find a house that satisfy them so they built a large miniature, and use some serious forced perspective. We actually get it in frame not only by itself, but also with some of our characters… The big problem is they linger on the house too long, and your eye has time to adjust to the fact that it’s not quite real. Even worse is the use of CGI in this film. A stock blood spatter that hasn’t nearly been color corrected enough, and an explosion that looks like it comes straight out of a video game. The filmmakers obviously don’t know what they’re doing with the CG, but the good news is they’re probably aware of the issue, As they kept it to a minimum. It’s jarring, but there’s so little of it that it doesn’t sink the film.
Altogether, Bonejangles is actually a really fun, bloody horror film that does some very smart things and delivers us some really great monsters. I’d actually like to see a prequel to this, just to see more of the Bone Jangler himself.
85% of the cast is under 25
Bad CGI (common, afterFX, same old blood packs)
Horror con star cameo
321
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
319b
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
The Guild
I discovered Felicia Day a little bit later than everybody else. I’m sure I was aware of her by reputation, and I’ll admit I found her absolutely delightful on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival it was probably around that time that a copy of her autobiography dropped in my lap, and in the middle of that it felt like it was time to finally get around to watching her signature series, The Guild.
The Guild is OK. It’s not my world, but it’s interesting enough and she describes it well enough that you’re drawn in. The fact that you can burn through this entire series in a weekend is also pretty nice. The bite-size nature of the episodes helps.
I’ve noticed the inclusion of guild stories in a couple of free comic book day offerings over the years, but they were never 
enough to really make me sick out the full stories, until I happened across a complete three issue run during one of the comicpalooza events. At $.50 a book, it seemed like a good time to try them.
I’m shocked at how much I really enjoyed this. A lot of theories don’t need a prequel, and a deed… For The Guild it’s still pretty optional. That’s actually part of the beauty of producing this as a comic series. It’s a nice add-on, which doesn’t take anything away from the series if you don’t read it, but if you want to know just a little bit more, its there.
The other thing is really nice about it is the similarly short nature. Easily digestible chunks of story, which, altogether build into a fun narrative about how Day’s character Codex f
irst got into MMO‘s, and how she met all the various characters that would, by the end of the story, form her guild. When we first open the streaming series, Codex is getting over a bad break up, and in the comics we can kind of see what led to that. It’s all good stuff, and the characters voices all seem true. They’re each recognizable and very individual. This isn’t surprising, considering Day was directly involved in writing the comic.
Sometimes these comics adaptions are a waste of time. Sometimes they’re actually better than the source material. Sometimes they’re just meaningless side quests… It’s really hard to tell, and tricky to get right. But The Guild does. It absolutely gets it right and contributes a story worth reading, especially if you’re already a fan of the series.
Feed the Critter
The kids frequently get up before us on weekends. We’ll leave a chore list for them…one day I added “feed Critter” to the list. They did.
319
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Week before Thanksgiving 2022!
It’s mostly comics this week, but I wanted to mention a couple of TV picks first as well!
After a highly accessible episode of Star Trek : Prodigy last week, we’re going into full on continuity mode. In fact, it’s really the one we’ve been waiting for… Where Dall meets the 
real Captain Janeway… And of course messes it all up. The scallywag from the doomed star base they visited a couple episodes ago is still slandering them in an attempt to make himself look good, the crew of the Protostar he’s having a hard time connecting with Starfleet. It’s only made harder by the fact that they are ship has a weapon inside it just waiting to infect any other ship or Starfleet entity they come in to contact with. As much as I enjoy the standalone episodes, I have to admit, the payoff we’re getting here has been really good. This episode feels a little bit more Star Wars than Star Trek though, taking place at a remote outpost that feels like a frozen Mos Eisley. Still, they make it work, and leave us on a cliffhanger that just has me squirming in my seat waiting for more.
Stargirl too. Stargirl has at this point, gone full on soap opera continuity. Basically, the show is going to be in accessible to anyone newly discovering it, but then again, I supposed they can afford to be, considering they’re not getting a fourth season.
That’s what makes it so unusual to me that DC would pick this time to launch a new Stargirl miniseries. Stargirl : The Lost Children teams her up with Red Arrow, in a relationship that feels very much like her friendship with Yolanda on the Stargirl TV show. Together they’re out to investigate the disappearance of all of the kids sidekicks from the DCU. Not the current ones, but rather the classic ones… Truth be told I don’t recognize a lot of these guys. Airwave, definitely. But a lot of these are more obscure ones that I’ve only ever heard whispered of long ago in legends. Still, the amount of goodwill that the television series has built with me, it’s got me jumping into this to see where they go. Legacy characters have always been a thing for me, and mixing it with a hero that I’ve recently come to know and love is a great way of doing this.
Really, it feels like it’s teen sidekicks all around. this month.
I somehow missed issue eight of Worlds Finest, so I grabbed that and issue nine together. We still have that kind of kryptonian refugee from another world or dimension and their integrating him into the teen titans. I have to admit, I’ve never been a fan of the Titans, so this is a bit of a low point for me… On the other hand, it’s just nice to spend time here in a DC universe that I know and recognize, as opposed to what the DCU has become in the last five or six years. That’s probably worlds finest greatest strength. Pure superhero stories in a setting in style and at legacy readers. It’s 
why I’m still gonna be reading this thing even when they’re featuring characters like the Titans that I just don’t care about.
Speaking of characters I don’t care about, you can pretty much skip She-Hulk this month. It’s featuring a side quest… Setting up supporting characters or villains or something along those lines… But Jen really doesn’t show up, and this issue isn’t actually about her. I have to be honest. I didn’t buy this one. I was going to, but it’s just not worth it to me this month.
On the other hand, Nightwing just continues to be stellar. I was an issue behind on that one as well, so it’s a back to back read. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Issue 97 is kind of some loose ends with a good straightforward adventure, and one of the great bits of banter that I’ve really been enjoying between dick and Barbara regarding this month’s villainous psycho whos carving out vital organs from his victims.
But issue 98… Oh issue 98!
You may or may not know that I am a fan of bat mite. I mean, The characters in general always appeal to me. Spider ham is another one on that list (no curiously enough, Mr. missile pic isn’t. I always found him frustrating and annoying rather than fun) well it seems like Batman’s not the only one out there in the DC universe who can attract a fifth dimensional imp… And issue 98 introduces us to Nite-Mite.
It’s not all over the top goofiness, but just enough of it, and Nite-Mite is illustrated with just enough cartoonish joy to make him fun but not to push him over the top into irritating. It’s well balanced and well handled, and I love it. I don’t want to see it every issue, but this was a wonderful surprise, and one of the reasons why I still feel like Nightwing has got his groove back. We’re back to the heights of the Chuck Dixon run back in the 90s. It’s just that good. Honestly, they should just bite the bullet and rebrand this as Nightwing and Batgirl… Because it’s just the perfect team the way it’s being written right now.
I Hate Fairyland is back and I have mixed feelings about it. See, the thing is I really enjoyed I Hate Fairyland during its original run. There’s something about that juxtaposition of the hyper violent angry a little girl hacking and slashing her way through a fairy tale universe. It was great fun. But if you want a return to I Hate Fairyland it has to get us back to basics. It has to reestablish the character… And as such we we see what happened to poor Gert after she returned to the real world. It’s not just that she can’t adjust, I don’t think she ever was meant for this world in the first place. She’s a drunken slacker loser. That kind of breaks my heart. Somebody once said that if you really love the characters and survivors of a horror movie, the last thing you want is for a sequel to come out… Because much worse is coming their way if they have to return. I almost feel like That applies to I Hate Fairyland. I liked seeing the psycho little girl, but it feels different watching that grown-up version of her stumble through adult life. Maybe it’ll be better once we get into the thick of the series. I hope so, because this first issue re-introduction was just a downer.
New Star Trek this month too. I guess Star Trek Resurgence is based on a game? I know nothing about this. But it’s taking place in the TNG movie time period, and that’s a definite plus for me. It’s life on a starship outside of the Enterprise… And that’s actually also something I enjoy. An unknown unique ship, a peek into the workings of a crew that we don’t normally see, I’ve always dug that. It’s nicely illustrated and it’s actually got me feeling a lot more goodwill to it than I did with the new Star Trek ongoing featuring Sisko and Paris and Scotty and what not. I almost feel like this may be the Star Trek series to follow… Will definitely find out. But I’m glad that IDW comics are leaning into the license. I’m especially glad that we’re getting stuff outside of the Bad Robot “prime” timeline, the Abrams “Kelvin” timeline, and instead getting back in that separate original Paramount universe. More of that please
I’m still behind on Iron Man and ghost rider I think. By the time I can get into that part of the stack, they’ll probably be a new Spider-Man out too… All stuff I can talk about next week. But before I go I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the Gambit miniseries that’s already in its fifth issue. How did I not know about this? I suppose probably because most of the X books are dreck, and a shadow of their former glory. But this is good. This is really fun. The premise is that after a recent encounter with the villians Nanny and Orphan Maker, storm was de-aged back to childhood. That messes with both her 
power… and her memory. Remy rescues her from the Shadow King and they head off on their own adventures. See the thing is, the storm was a thief when she was a kid, back in Cairo. It’s something that she has in common with Gambit, making him an ideal mentor for her. Marvel is describing this as an untold chapter in Gambits life, which means I have NO idea when this is set and that’s cool with me. Because what we get is a really rollicking adventure with gambit and little storm… And the chemistry between the two is just amazing. I’m a little late to this game, so I’m hoping to get this collected in trade, but either way, it’s definitely worth your time and attention. Go check this out.
Garfield
The Garfield films get a lot of hate and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s just the normal backlash at the kids films with CG characters….I don’t know. What I do know is that when the first Garfield film came out, I was hooked. I’m a lifelong fan of the character and I loved what Iwas seeing. It was funny and sassy and it really FELT like Garfield (apparently a lot of people disagred). My main complain was that the dog Odie, was real and not CG (not enough budget for him to also be a cartoon apparently)
I was shocked when I heard there would be a sequel.
Director Tim Hill has taken a lot of the criticisms from the first movie and addressed them. Odie is still not a cartoon, but there’s WAY less of him. Garfield doesn’t dance (except for a goofy bit at the end) and there’s more of him. Twice as much in fact.
It’s a simple twin swapping story, Garfield takes the place of one of the royal cats of England, trying to save the family manor. Our villain, in a brilliant bit of casting, is Billy Connally who manages not to die in a film for once.
I kind of feel bad for Hill on this one, because while he crafts a funny and entertaining film, this one seemed doomed from the start with the bad press from the first and Bill Murry’s reluctance to come in for the voice – I think the studio expected this to do meager numbers. The movie deserves better. Hill treats the material with respect and is more than just a hired gun on this one. Seriously, if you have good memories of watching the Garfield holiday specials on TV, you should check this out – especially if you have kids!
318
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Critters : A New Binge
Wow. Can I just tell you something? Critters a New Binge is what totally made me into a true critters fan.
I didn’t get around to watching this until a good year after it was made and I’m surprised to find that it wasn’t well received. I’m surprised because it was really everything that I could have asked for in one of these sequels… It’s still had the gore and the violence, but there’s so much comedy and heart to it that it was everything I wanted.
We start off with the weird little beasties making their way back to earth to hunt down a critter that had been left behind the last time they were there… It’s cheap CGI and I could probably even tell you which bitmap they were using to wallpaper the spaceship, but I don’t care – the design is clever 
and I’m here for the gags.
Back on earth we have a couple of dweebs, one of which is trying to impress the local ingenue. Critters show up with one directive – find a lost crite and don’t eat anybody. This f course, is too difficult of a directive and hilarity ensues. Bounty hunters are close on their trail, and unbeknownst to them there’s already a bounty hunter on earth embedded and waiting for them. However when they all converge with the young man, things take a shocking turn.
I can’t help but compare this so much to the killer tomatoes movies. My great complaint with those was that we never saw enough of the tomatoes, and I wanted more creature effects. By the time we hit part three f the Tomatoes series, we were starting to see more of what I wanted and once we got part four we were suddenly introduced to some very distinct individual personalities among the tomatoes… mostly lifted directly from the cartoon. That’s what A new binge gives us. We’re getting lots of critters, but we’re also getting distinct individuals, each with their own unique character designs. We get 
characters like the captain with his eyepatch and the pilot in his goggles, not to mention the president in his shirt collar and tie… It’s all ludicrous and hilarious and a delightful extension of what has come before. Mind you, this thing does not stand on it’s own, and it’s not gonna be any sort of terrifying slasher. We get jokes about how things were in the 80s and misdirects about who the lost crite is, not to mention shot of critters catapulting themselves… No I mean really catapult himself with a trebuchet, into the school to attack. It’s loony gory fun with buckets of blood and miles of intestines and I found myself 
loving every demented minutes of it.
The streaming platform helps, allowing us eight episodes at about 10 minutes each – the series is bite-size and easily digestible, but also just as simple to marathon as a feature if you so desire.
Of all the critters movies, this is the one that I want to come back to, and where, if it’s sitting on my DVD shelf I’d probably be pulling it more often than not. However at the time of this writing we don’t actually have a street date for any sort of DVD release and it’s been a couple years now! Here’s hoping that we get a copy of this on physical media that I can watch over and over again!
317
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Week of 11-9-22
There’s times when I think I’m really enjoying Sventoonie even better than Svengoolie. There’s something to be said for blowing through some of these old Public Domain movies and encapsulating them into a half hour show with host bits rather than trying to present the whole thing and watch the same old movies again and again (it’s one of the things that really burned me out with online Horror Hosts like you see on the Monster Channel). Indeed, it worked way better for Bucket of Blood and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. The quick summary and visit on those was everything I needed to feel satisfied, almost like watching the movie without actually watching a movie (I have similar feelings about movie trailer compilations). It’s even better though last week, because the subject was Night Tide… A killer mermaid movie that I’ve never seen. And yet, I still feel like I’ve pretty much seen the whole thing. The show makes good use of jaws parodies and general schtick , a
nd it’s just in enormously fun to watch. On the other hand, you have nights like this week where they screen clips of Brother from Another Planet. It’s another one I’ve never seen, and now I feel like I must go seek it out. I absolutely have to know what this is about! Again, the real beauty of these kind of shows. I’m gonna actually be pretty sad when I finish up this quickie season.
Stargirl remains solid. Actually, you kind of expect them to be better than solid, you’d expect them to be really good considering we’re entering the end of the series. But this week really felt more like part two, a good follow up from last week and the attack on the elder icicles. Seth Greens Thunderbolt continues to be the high point of the series for me. I feel like they’ve gotten into the right groove with him now. They don’t overuse him… That character could get annoying really fast if overexposed. On the other hand they don’t underuse him either… The way they did all of last season. He is a genuinely good character, and watching him and the two boys kind of do their own mini Scooby gang thing… The young All-Stars instead of the JSA, it’s really been fun. For me that’s the perfect B storyline. A group of young burgeoning superheroes to balance out the teenage jSA that really keeps the show together. Like I said, solid. I will admit though, we got some killing at the end that really took me by surprise. It shouldn’t, considering that since this is the end of the series, anything goes. But still, I was a little shocked and sad. You never know when they’re going to kill off the character that you like.
Speaking of solid, the only comic book worth mentioning this week really was Amazing Spider-Man #13 which resolved the current goblin story nicely while setting up more stuff happening down the line. They are still maintaining that interesting feel with all of the supporting characters, and that’s really the thing that’s been keeping me coming back to this book during this run.
Solid is also the word to describe Nailed It. I know I’m using that description a lot, but average television is still better than bad TV, so I’ll take it. I only have a minor quibble with this particular season. As much as I like the fact that they’re going Halloween this time around, I wish they pick different subjects. Look, I’m familiar with the Witcher, and I’ve heard of the umbrella academy. I don’t watch either of them. Yes, I Realize it’s basically cross series promotion on the same network, but only having a passing familiarity with these series makes me wish they had picked something with a wider familiarity. Do Dracula and Frankenstein instead of 
just hitting your other network shows. With that said, there’s not a whole lot to complain about. Really if that’s my biggest beef, then I’d say the show is still doing pretty good. Honestly, I wish they’d have longer seasons and more of them. This one’s been a perennial favorite in our home since the kids discovered it and it’s really the only context I enjoy Nicole Byer in!
Speaking of my kids, I recently noticed something strange. My younger daughter is obsessively watching the 100. My older daughter just finished seven seeds and is considering going back to the hunger games. My wife is watching a series called the society. Basically they’re all watching TV shows set in fairly post-apocalyptic settings where the kids are left on their own to try and build some sort of a society. They’re all nihilistic and depressing. I on the other hand and obsessively watching Star Trek Prodigy. It’s also about a bunch of 
kids left to their own devices, but in the best traditions of Star Trek, it’s hopeful and optimistic!
The Trek Culture channel over on YouTube made an interesting observation this week. They pointed out that this weeks episode actually acts as a great jumping on point… A good introduction to anybody who has been watching the series. You’re absolutely right about this. Aside from the opening where Jayne was still trying to get information about the lost Protostar from a semi catatonic diviner, the story is actually. A nice straightforward adventure for the crew of the Protostar. It begins with some narration from Dahl, explaining that the Protostar has a weapon hidden on it, one that is designed to infect Starfleet if they ever come in contact with them, or even open up a hail. Until they can figure out how to get rid of it – a task that is driving Jayne come mad – they’re going to continue to try and Explore space, and help people. To that end, they’re answering a distress call (And doing it in uniforms by the way. As much as I’m not a big fan of these uniforms, I’m so glad to see they they are staying in them most of the time now. Uniforms are a PART of the Star Trek aesthetic, even if this current production team seems to hate them.).
What they discover is an unknown planet populated by people with very familiar names like Keurk and Suoo-looh, wearing a stitched together facsimiles of original series uniforms. Turns out, the shuttlecraft Galileo somehow got lost and crashed here with a supporting character from a single episode of the original series, Ensign Garrovick, from the episode “Obsession.” Garrovick accidentally First Contacts them… mostly to warn them away from the forest where fuel is leaking from the shuttlecraft . It’s a fun episode, and good storytelling. There’s a lot of ‘member berries in this one though, and I know that’s something I’ve complained about in the past. The thing is, it works here. This is a story that is built around all those callbacks. It’s designed around the exploration of a society that came into contact with Starfleet, but nobody knew. 100 years later, these characters are the stuff of legend, passed down through oral tradition… Well, oral tradition with a theater kid twist. It makes these callbacks feel organic. 
We have a crashed shuttlecraft, images of the bridge, and all these characters being able to imitate the motions and the controls of the Enterprise. At no point do I feel like it’s just ‘member berries for the sake of “hey remember this?? You love this!“ It’s not patronizing, like watching Mariner on Lower Decks suddenly whip out a batlith to cut someone’s arm with just because it’s random and funny and “remember Klingons? You love Klingons!“ This works. It just feels right, Especially considering it doesn’t happen every week.
I was crushed to learn that the Big Bad B Movie show with Leopold and Lenora has met its end. Change of management means no third season, but you can still catch Lenora on her YouTube show up on the found footage fest channel. Check out Lenora’s Midnight Rental and see what you think.
We’ll be back with more television and comics next week! (Probably).
Lake Fear 3
You know how a lot of the times, these dollar store movies have a spectacular cover that the film can’t possibly live up to? Sometimes it’s the opposite, and the cover just doesn’t do the movie justice.
At first glance, Lake Fear 3 looks like it’s going to be a ghost hunters knock off. We begin with spooky intro credits from one of those ghost hunting shows on discovery, complete with a goofy cameraman doing his thing. We pull out of the TV and into a bar where people are watching the program. A man wanders in, ripped shirt, and bloody. His name is Remmington and he brings some surprise gore and demons with him. While I’m confused and don’t know for the life of me what’s going on, I sure do like it.
We cut to the credits burning in the sky over a spectacular drone shot, and switch to a desolate phone booth and gas station. A girl is trying to post “missing” posters in this one horse town, and one of the locals tells her that if the person in those posters was lost around here, she’s just dead.
unsuccessfully trying to hock autographs, but opportunity and another great drone shot are laying right around the corner for him, as the girls come to meet him.
“It’s my right to refuse service to anyone! Especially Hellspawn!”The next 10 minutes are full on, gore fueled, relentless, monster attacks. It’s largely practical as well, with Aftereffects really only providing glowing elements to the whole 
affair. And just when you think they can’t keep this pace up, they do.
Vincent and Remmington toss Chloe into the backseat, bandaging her up as best they can and head out. No one‘s talking much, everyone’s pretty well in shock. Everyone that is, except Remmington. It’s not enough to flee though, monster Revol materializes in the car and goes after Chloe again. The evil is following them. A quick shotgun blast to the face is enough to propel her through the window and out of the car, but monster Revol picks herself up and puts her self back together, getting ready for another go around.
46 minutes in, we get our explanation. Apparently Remmington went on vacation to a cabin and unleash some unspeakable evil from the TV that now follows him (The flashback is inexplicably told in a bizarre and cheap looking flash animation). Now his plan is to lure it back to its own home, and he’s going to need Vincent and Chloe to help.
Chloe breaks and flees as Vincent stands confused. Remmington is blinded by the blood the creature is spitting, and takes time to recover; then attacks, charging the creature which vanishes into the darkness. Vincent is bitten though, and the wound begins to twist and morph, a monster emerging from the shoulder. He gingerly picks at it with his fingers removing it as the possessions spreads over the side of his body. The creature re-emerges and Remmington bludgeons it with the shotgun. Vincent seems to be free of its hold once Remmington has administered the beat down.
makes the sudden monster reveals that much more effective.I’ve read in several synopses that Revol is looking for her sister who originally went to the evil cabin… I can only assume they’re referring to one of the four girls in the original film, because this movie was shot in Texas (and it LOOKS like Texas), where as part two is obviously in Florida. Still, the connection is never firmly made, and the film could’ve benefited from a stronger tie to the original Lake Fear. Likewise, I’m perplexed at why our flashback scenes were these weird flash animations rather than simply cutting to shots of the original film. It’s been the same distributor all along, I would hope that that would smooth over any rights issues.
The filmmakers very much wear their influence on their sleeves, you can totally see Evil Dead and The Thing represented here. While I criticize the make up in the original, Gerald Crum’s creature FX in this are stunning and excellent. The monsters are every bit as chaotic as what we see in Carpenters The Thing, and many of these effects shots are comparable. There’s a definite Evil Dead vibe once we get to the cabin, but these creatures supersede anything that I ever saw in Raimi’s classic. I love it when people succeed, and Michael and Gerald Crum have both knocked it out of the park with this one. It’s astonishing what a difference four years makes.
Of the three films, this is far and away the best, and worth sitting through the first two to discover this one, And it’s enough to actually make me want to go back and take a second look at the original Lake Fear!
Tom Welling
I’m happy to have gotten this one through the mail, but I wish Tom Welling had either signed in a more visable place or used a diffrent pen…it sadly looks like scribbles….
315
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
632
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
314
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Argo City Comics 