Vacuum Horror

I bought a Vacuum last week. Uneventful life event you say? A lot you know. I'll have you know that for as long as I've been a "real" person, I've never owned a vacuum. To be fair, there is only one and a half rugs in my house. Well I guess 2 rugs if you count the rug that is positioned right in front of the front door. I do not count this rug however because the only useful purpose this rug serves is that it camouflages my cat's throw up. Why does she only choose to ralph on that rug and not the others? The world is a strange place.

ANYWAYS. I went to Target last week and hauled a vacuum into my shopping cart. I felt proud and big. You know, like a real person. My sister and I were eager to vacuum away the 4 or so years of cat hair, dust and cat puke however.....when we got it going we quickly realized that the vacuum totally sucked. Or rather I should say it totally didn't suck.

Instead, it decided to just regurgitate all the hair and dust out. Thinking we may have set it up wrong somehow, I decided to take it apart today and examine it. I found nothing wrong with it and proceeded to uselessly vacuum the rug today. See? This is why I refuse to become a real person...it just never works out in the end. One day you're all high and mighty because you finally bought a vacuum and the next you're knee deep in dust.

Yeah so I thought I'd just let you all know that vacuums are the worst. As evidenced by this scene from Dream Home. You're welcome.

Oh and also, I discovered that you can watch the entirety of Mr. Boogedy on youtube. You're welcome again.

And Then There Was This

Don't you love it when entire movies can be summed up in their opening moments? Or how about when opening moments are miniaturized versions of the entire film you are about to see? Wait, is that the same thing? Regardless, Lars Von Trier's, Melancholia kind of makes me want to die a little. But in a good way. 

These opening vignettes, these eerie painting-like pictures that move minuscule amounts and that are set against a backdrop of a soul crushing symphony---are quite possibly the best things I've seen in a while. The movie is good too, but these opening moments.....these are what keep me up at night. 

I think sometimes that the beauty of sadness is one of the most taboo subjects out there. People hate  sad. Worse--people really hate watching entire movies that are made up of overwhelming levels of sadness. Still worse---people hate to see beautiful actresses looking sad and ugly. Sadness IS ugly they think. No. No it's not---it's beautiful. And here is our proof. 

One day you'll watch Melancholia and finally get what it is that makes it so unbearable and yet so captivating at the same time. Perhaps you won't know until you too have experienced great loss, have been depressed or fallen to that unreachable place below the depths of despair. Yikes this is getting melodramatic. I don't mean to be. I simply mean that Melancholia speaks to a very simple idea of the inability humans have to relate to one-another---unless they have been through the same. 

This is a simple concept when you think about it. One that is clearly echoed throughout the movie and even right now as I'm talking to you-- because if you haven't seen Melancholia, then you have no earthly idea what I'm talking about. But one day you will.  You just will. 

Dear Sleepaway Camp II: Yes, I Still Have Feelings

Back in the yesteryears of my life, when I was young, scared of everything and wore high heeled jelly shoes, I stumbled across Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers. It was late night style--possibly a school night where I had stayed up too late chatting in various "chatrooms". While channel surfing and trying my best to avoid shows like HBO's "Real Sex, I came across Sleepaway Camp II and was horrified. This was obviously why I had never attended summer camp or had the burning urge to ever go. Girls walked around flashing their boobs at everyone. NAKED PEOPLE AHHHH!  And also...there was blood and a crazy camp counselor who took pure joy and thrill out of killing teenagers. Clearly, I was scarred for life.

As it turns out, Sleepaway Camp II would go on to become one of my very favorite guilty pleasures. What is it about these movies that keep me coming back for more? Is it because I can't help laughing at the ridiculousness and improbability of teenage girls having giant boobs and flashing them around for everyone to see?

Or is it because there just might be something seedy and creepy about the movie that makes me want to both die and rejoice to the high heavens at the same time?

I suppose it's a combination of both. Although not an Oscar winner on any planet (except planet awesome), Sleepaway Camp II does manage to keep me much more entertained and gleeful than Friday the 13th. Oh back off Friday the 13th groupies! I explained my reasons so you can just take it easy alright? I just have fun watching these. They're kind of icky---but a good icky. If that exists.....and let me tell you--it does now! Angela's methods of dispatching the teenagers are so unusually brutal that you can't help but wonder---was being forced to be a girl really that awful? Also, why does no one ever question the sound of chainsaws in the woods at night, or roaring fires a blazing in broad daylight?

At any rate, if there's one thing that always stuck with me from that first ever viewing of Sleepaway Camp II--- it was the outhouse massacre. Those who are privy to the delights and wonders of the film obviously know what I'm talking about but for those that don't--let's recap!

Angela is a crazy psychopath camp counselor who systematically kills all of her campers for being "bad" in one way or another. Ally---big boobs McGee gets caught having sex in various places which doesn't fly with Angela which of course prompts her to dispatch Ally. After writing Ally a fake note composed by camp hottie Sean--Angela proceeds to berate Ally for being a raging slut. She then shoves Ally into an outhouse and forces her head down to look at the shit and piss---because obviously Ally is shit and piss.

THEN she shoves Ally all the way down the outhouse into the hole and drowns her in the shit and piss by holding her head down with a giant stick. Plus also there is a surprise cameo by some poop leeches.

It just might be the most horrifying and gross thing I've ever seen.

Aside from that little ditty--the movie is also just insanely entertaining. It's so crappy but good crappy you know? Plus it features one of my favorite things ever---the revealing of all the dead bodies where nobody looks even close to what they used to look like. In fact they look like crappy mannequins.....oh wait. Actually, I take that back--these are definitely real people because if you look closely, the poop leech double's tongue moves. So good work, stand in dead bodies!

Yeah. Sleepaway Camp II I still have feelings for you. It's comforting to know that after all these years, the spark is still there. Keep being pervy Sleepaway Camp II. Keep it right on coming.

We Need To Talk About We Need To Talk About Kevin

If you want to talk about disturbing books or movies, then We Need to Talk About Kevin is your bitch.
For serious. This is a terrifying and utterly disturbing double bill of horror and despair. But not in that, holy shit blood and guts, having sex with a baby way. More like...holy shit my son might one day grow up and have sex with a baby kind of way.

Now that we've got crass out of the way, let's start at the beginning.

I've been wanting to see We Need to Talk About Kevin for the better part of its inception. Tilda Swinton won acclaim as per usual in her whole as Eva Khatchadourian, the mother to sociopath Kevin. The story intrigued me as possibly the answer to that age old question of, "but what about the parents." What about them? Is it really a parent's fault if a child is a psychopath from the minute he exits the womb?

Before I saw the film however, I decided it was my civic duty to read the novel by Lionel Shriver first. For anyone on the fence about the movie (if there is someone out there on the fence about it) then I highly suggest you read this. The book completely sucked me in and had me in total shock and despair for the better part of the week that it took me to read this.

I suppose the entire book is like a bad car accident you can't look away from. While the movie did its fair share in painting Kevin as the villain--I sometimes felt like he didn't seem all that bad. The book however is the complete opposite. Kevin Khatchadourian is the anti-christ.

Even as a infant, the way he is described with his black lifeless eyes, how he pulls hair not out of curiosity but out of pure hatred just chills me to the bone. His evil shenanigans are amped to 9,000 degrees of scary. Like, tying his sister up and feeding her gross concoctions of food until she pukes, or dousing his sister's eye with liquid plumber resulting in her having to wear a glass eye for the rest of her life.

Perhaps most infuriating and terrifying however is how clueless Eva's husband is. It's the kind of anger that truly and honestly gets your blood boiling. Really though, what is scarier than having your son be a sociopath and having your husband not believe you?

I often bitch and moan about how it's been awhile since I've been truly shook to the core while watching a  horror movie. While perhaps not a direct horror movie, We Need To Talk About Kevin both in film and novel version is still one of the most terrifying things I've voluntarily subjected myself to. I mean really, what was I thinking immediately watching this so soon after finishing one of the most heart wrenching novels I've ever read? Is that same morbid curiosity that drives us to peer into the eyes and brains of serial killers? That same grotesque longing to see actual carnage during a wreckage? And then the inevitable....I've seen too much now I'm going to faint side effect? Yes. Yes and Yes.

To top it all off, We Need To Talk About Kevin employs one of my favorite movie techniques of all time. RED. And it uses it in a way that is incredibly genius. The amount of actual blood in the film is actually quite low. Instead, our eyes are ravaged by this constant presence of the color red.

And not just you know.. red...but... RED! This is full on, Suspiria style, paint red, RED. The red, the color red in this is so violent that it practically makes you think you're watching the most violent film known to mankind. And you are in a way. Because the violence in We Need To Talk About Kevin isn't necessarily up in your face. It's more like it's inside of you, taking hold of your heart and soul and ripping it out of your mouth. This is not a joke and it's not used to entertain. This my friends----is the terrifying horror of reality.