Rodney Anonymous Tells You How To Live

Just as the keyword in Comedy is “Timing” and the keyword in real Estate is “Location”, the keyword in Horror is “Atmosphere” (or “Boobs” if you’re making an 1980s Slasher pic). I hope your writing this down because it will be on the Final Exam (which is also the title of a 1980s Slasher pic that featured very little atmosphere but a lot of boobs. Slasher House! I’m revoking your charter!).

Your assignment tonight, class is to watch “The body Snatcher” and make note of the film’s use of atmosphere.

“Vincent Price wasn’t very nice. In The House of Usher he paid the price”

– Mikey Wild

“The Last Man on Earth” is without a doubt the best screen adaption of Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend”. Not that it’s facing stiff competition for that honor from the unintentionally hilarious Chuck Heston vehicle “Omega Man” (1971) or the meh 2007 “fresh Prince of Zombie City” version.

Vincent Price was always a superior actor, but in “The Last Man on Earth” he goes up and beyond the call of duty in a film so bleak that it makes “The Masque of the Red death” look like “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine”.

Highly recommended.

Now that you’ve all had a sufficient amount of time to absorb “The Old Woman of Haunted House” we can move on to Mad Scientists and Nathan from “Ex Machina” is one of the maddest scientists to ever (dis)grace the screen. Actor Oscar Isaac based his portrayal of Nathan on n Bobby Fischer and Stanley Kubrick. So now you know.

The most disturbing Science Fiction films always feel like they’re set five minutes into the future and “Ex Machina” is highly disturbing. I don’t know if it’s as disturbing as “The Old Woman of Haunted House”. That’s for you to decide.

If vampires and witches are now considered to be more sexy than frightening (Seriously, who is gonna flee in terror from Anna Taylor Joy?) and Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and old school zombies are too slow to catch you, what is left to be afraid of?

Enter Werewolves!

Sh!t, Luther. It’s hard to make a terrible Werewolf movie. Even a bad Werewolf movie like “Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory” or “Werewolf of Washington” is actually a great Werewolf movie in disguise. And a great Werewolf movie, like “Ginger Snaps” or “Dog Soldiers” makes “Citizen Kane” look like …whatever that new “Exorcist” movie is called. 

So go watch “Howl”. Because I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by Werewolves, starving hysterical naked.

“Nosferatu Didn’t Sparkle”

– A Natural-Born Philosopher at Comic Con

There was a time when vampires weren’t considered sexy. That all changed with Bela Lugosi’s portrayal suave of Count Dracula. Before that, Vampires fell somewhere on the sexiness scale roughly between rabid dogs and slightly less rabid dogs. I.e. they were seen as feral disease spreading predators.

Thank you, people behind “30 Days of Night” for making vampires scary again.

We’re ten days into the countdown, so I’m going to break protocol and declare today a DOUBLE FEATURE DAY.

Please watch the films in the following order: first “V/H/S/85” and then “Totally Killer”. Trust me on this.

Like all anthologies, “V/H/S/85” has its hits and misses, but it hits more than it misses, so it’s recommended. Whereas “Totally Killer” is scores a homerun by portraying the 80’s as the Hellscape they actually were. And those are the last sports metaphor I hope to ever use in my lifetime.

“Sick” is a Slasher movie. Actually, it’s a Covid lockdown Slasher movie that succeeds almost entirely because of the excellent performances form co-leads Gideon Adlon and Bethlehem Million whose characters, plus a few nice little touches here and there, elevate this film above the average Slasher.

 While it’s hardly the “Citizen Kane” of Slasher films – that honor goes to the original “Black Christmas” – it’s still a pretty engaging watch.