The Lair of the White Worm: The Best Hour and Thirty Minutes of Your Life

I'm not 100% sure of this but I'm fairly certain that The Lair of the White Worm is the best movie I've seen all year. Granted my movie watching this year was reduced to such a small number that I can't even name any other films I saw this year but nevertheless--The Lair of the White Worm is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me, not counting yesterday when I got paid and could finally buy wine again.

Seriously though, why hasn't anyone told me to watch this yet? Don't you people know how much I love venomous snake women, British people and bagpipes? No? Hmm I thought perhaps I must have left that vital piece of information out somewhere. Well anyways. For anyone that DOES love venomous snake women, British people and bagpipes--this movie is for you. It's also for anyone who loves sincerely crazy movies where hallucinations look like this

and scenes like this

and this

fill you with uncontrollable glee. Plus also Ken Russell. Need I say more?


In a charming English village, a Scottish archaeologist unearths a large skull belonging to some sort of snake monster.

Later at the best party on the planet,

 we learn of the legend of the d'Ampton 'worm' where a massive snake/dragon? terrorized some people and then some guy cut him in half with a sword.

By the way that some guy was actually a descendent of Hugh Grant!

Obviously this d'Ampton worm thing has returned and is once more going to wreak havoc on the quiet English village. Just ask this mysterious woman who has a great fashion sense…

But is also a snake.

The point here my friends is that The Lair of the White Worm is the kind of movie that I can really get along with. It's funny, outrageous, silly, and insanely good about getting better and better the longer it goes on. These days you're lucky if you get inspired to take 1 or 2 really great screen shots during a movie but here…oh man the party never stopped.

Based on the novel by Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm is an exercise in organized chaos. While you may think the film may make little sense--it's actually extremely cohesive and never confusing. As a bonus though--we also get a really avant garde-ish film that contains just enough ridiculousness to never be accepted as a serious film. The joke is on the people who deem films as 'serious' or not though because The Lair of the White Worm is exquisite.

I don't really need to tell you why that is, I just need you to watch it. I need you to understand that all I want for Christmas is the game of Snakes and Ladders with a board that looks like this.

I need you to know that no film is ever complete without a dream sequence involving fighting flight attendants who make Hugh Grant's pen rise steadily.

I need you to realize that snake charming should still be accepted as a serious profession and that giant snake monsters still live in caves under the ground.

I honestly can't say much more than that--I can only leave you with visions of the brilliance.

And then just hope that you take my advice and watch this immediately. Or else…

The Bay: Don't Drink the Water

Since it's Monday, I think I'll get right to the point. I quite enjoyed The Bay. Well, maybe 'enjoyed' is too strong of a word---because really the entire time I just felt curling up into a tiny ball in a cold dark corner while thinking about the possibility of giant parasites eating my internal organs and biting off my tongue. Not pleasant really. But as far as horror movies go, The Bay is extremely effective and when all is said and done a lesson in how to make an effective horror movie on a smaller budget. And also probably a lesson in why you shouldn't dump chicken poop in the water.

The Bay stitches together found footage of all different types to tell how the events of July 4th unfolded in a small seaside Chesapeake Bay town. The film's narrator is a rookie television reporter who's first assignment was to cover the town's annual Fourth of July celebrations. She tells her story over Skype, while narrating the various bits of found footage. Halfway through the celebrations, the townspeople start to develop strange symptoms---huge rashes and boils, vomiting up blood and then... dying. It's not long before the entire town gets taken by the mysterious parasites growing in the town's water supply.

The good thing about The Bay is that the found footage aspect is so varied. There's not one single medium used throughout the entire film--rather it switches it up constantly which nicely removes you from the monotony that found footage films usually trap you in. It also jumps back and forth along the timeline of events, which builds up the feeling of unease nicely.

Sprinkled among all the found footage of the town, there are two oceanographers who are slowly but surely uncovering the parasite problem sometime in May. Later their bodies are found mangled, prompting town officials to dub their deaths as a shark attack.What makes this bit of found footage alarming is how it continues to raise our anxiety as the oceanographers find more and more evidence--culminating in their demise.

The film also does a really nice job of building up anguish without shoving it in your face. Perfect example is one brief webcam shot of a man showing his stomach to the camera and shouting that he feels sick and something is very wrong with him. We can see the outline of a parasite moving inside of him threatening to burst out Alien chest burster style---but it doesn't.

This is what I wish bigger budgeted films would do. Perhaps the parasite didn't burst out because they didn't have the money to make it look convincing--or maybe they did it on purpose. Either way--the fact that we never actually see parasites bursting out of people's stomachs, or eating their tongues is quite refreshing. It causes us to use our imagination which in most cases is more terrifying than the actual event. There's also a lot of subtle creepiness going on, which is again much appreciated in this day and age when horror movies normally like to throw the scares directly in your face. Take this simple scene where a couple who has been sailing to the town throughout the film finally arrives and sees just this empty sailboat floating along…

Sure there are some burning questions I have, (why it take so long for the townspeople to get the parasite, but it took that one guy only 12 hours or whatever? How come the reporter lady stuck her face in a fountain and didn't get it? OH you probably have to ingest it....but she got that person's blood on her face---some totally got in her eye?) And I'm also a little dubious of how all the found footage was so intact..especially the one of the two teenagers, also I wish the mayor guy got a better payback.

Overall,this is a solid film that really leaves you feeling unsettled. Or maybe just nervous about ever drinking from the tap again. At any rate, it's an excellent entry into the found footage/contagion subgenre and I'm totally into it. Check this one out on Netflix Instant Watch--one of few movies I haven't seen and doesn't completely stink. Hooray!

A Day Without Blood is Like a Day Without Sunshine

I think I have a problem. My doctor said not to worry but it keeps itching and……okay fine I'll tell you. It seems that after 27 years of existence, I cannot stop watching movies about the Vietnam War. Totally weird right? Movies about puppies sure. Romantic comedies---could be worse. But Vietnam? WHY am I glued to the TV like an oily handprint? Why do I find myself watching the same movies over and over and over again. I'll tell you why. Unlike most other war movies, movies about the Vietnam War somehow seem more relevant to me. The themes, the artistry and underlining message in these always sparks a truly unique reaction within me.

Previously my obsession began when watching Apocalypse Now for the first time and deciding that it embodied my ability to embrace horror movies as a way to disintegrate the fear. Last night, I noticed Full Metal Jacket was playing on IFC and I got all excited again. When I was younger, I watched Full Metal Jacket and thought I felt some inkling of genius. I lacked the real brain power to put the pieces together but the important thing was---the movie spoke to me. Me-- a kid without the slightest knowledge of the Vietnam War aside from what I learned in Forrest Gump.  Imagine that.

So after watching Full Metal Jacket not once but twice in two days, I've come to appreciate it more than I ever thought I could. Putting aside the obvious motifs about military brainwashing, the inherent evil of the Vietnam War, and the duality between love and war---I'm more interested in the 1,000 yard stare.

A concept brought to the public thanks to Tom Lea, who emphasized the horrors of war and the lasting effects on the soldiers in his painting, "Marines Call It That 2,000 Yard Stare". The 1,000 (or 2,000) yard stare signifies a kind of deep, traumatic understanding. It represents the idea that there are two kinds of people. The ones who see and the ones who do not. The ones who have been there. And the ones who have not.

The 1,000 yard stare is brought up in Full Metal Jacket when Joker claims he's been in combat--but others disagree citing that he lacks the 1,000 yard stare to have been there. By the film's end, Joker makes a decision to end the life of the wounded teenage girl sniper and then at that moment develops the iconic 1,000 yard stare. It's important to note that after all Joker has been through---the horrors of boot camp, witnessing Pyle murder Sergeant Hartman and then blow his own brains out,

seeing Vietnam Civilians carelessly killed and discarded like an afterthought, his best friend getting shot----Joker does not develop the 1,000 stare until made to look death straight in the face.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Gomer Pyle developed the 1,000 yard just by caving in to his own weaknesses.

Pyle's essentially bullied until his mind can no longer take the fact that he's stuck in 'a world of shit.' The truly fascinating thing then is that the 1,000 stare doesn't need to be restricted just to those experiencing war and the horrors of combat. It's life fool.  I'm not trying to make light of the depth of the 1,000 yard stare and its true meaning but I'm just saying that I think it's bigger than that. And I think Kubrick was trying to point this out. It can't be a coincidence that one of his iconic filming techniques is dubbed the "Kubrick Stare" right?

I still think there's something much more chilling about Pyle's 1,000 yard stare than Joker's. I think it's the revelation that Pyle sees himself stuck in a world of shit and unable to get out. A desperation of the mind encountered by those who are suicidal. Joker on the other hand while still admitting he is in a world of shit, grows from it and becomes stronger. Seeing the surrender of Pyle chills me and continues to chill me long after the moment has passed and the credits roll.

The real horror of Full Metal Jacket is that more people aren't like Pyle. Not in the sense that they didn't kill themselves but because everyone else seems to have an ability to turn off their mind and just kill and be OK with it. The end scene for example, after having killed a teenage girl sniper, the soldiers march off into the flames while singing the Mickey Mouse March.

It's a scene so jolting that I instantly compared it to the end of Salo. The scene where after senselessly torturing a group of children and teens, the soldiers start up a friendly waltz with each other--blissfully ignoring all the crazy shit they just did. It's enough to make you crazy. And I think that's at the heart of the sadness of Pyle. The ability to realize that you're not made of what they want you to be made out of.

Clearly I've lost my train of thought and am just rambling now but that's what happens when movies about Vietnam and I get together. It's like an Italian Horror movie. It starts out making sense and then all of a sudden, a man is dressed as a woman and a monkey walks in with a telephone, while a midget recites poetry.

So, apologies for this rant. But my mind is doing this crazy thing where it can't stop thinking and wondering and loving and battling. Life man. Life is hard. You've either seen it, or you haven't.  The trick is---what will you learn about yourself once you have seen it?