the groundhog day project

"I fear this is going to be offensive to women everywhere." - my daughter Saer as ginger Snaps begins again. Ginger to Brigitte: "Just so you know, the words 'just' and 'cramps' don't got together." Saer" That's true... story of my life. Nurse tells Ginger to expect the blood and pain for the next 30 years or so. Saer says--sarcastically, of course--"Yay!"         And she wandered off. Gotta love that aisle--"feminine hygiene" products opposite condoms and hair dye.   As the film continues, I'm wondering where the line falls between being offensive and commenting on the stuff that is offensive. Like Ginger's line--"A girl can only be a slut, a bitch, a tease, or the virgin next door." Sure, she's referencing what the world-- men --think about girls. But, the film never quite contradicts what she's saying here. Brigitte remains the "virgin next door" while Ginger quite lite...

Now, we move beyond the actual Hellraiser sequels past Bloodline because they are, well, not good. Instead, the spiritual sequel-- Event Horizon . Let us get the negatives out of the way: as io9 says, " Event Horizon commits many flagrant fouls when it comes to ripping off other, better films (including, but not limited to, Alien , The Shining , 2001: A Space Odyssey , Solaris , Hellraiser , and The Haunting )." Of course, that same io9 article claims that the film "tanked" at the box office. It was #4 its opening weekend, covering $9 million of its $15 million budget. The next weekend, it would drop to #11 but would still make another $4 million, another #3 million its third weekend, another million its fourth. Sure, its not blockbuster numbers, but I'm not sure that quite qualifies as tanking . Plus, I was there opening weekend, and I think I may have even seen it a second time in the theater. So, regardless of the facts, I just don't feel a tanki...

Back into my comfort zone. Friday the 13th Part 2 was, I think, the first Friday the 13th I bought for my VHS collection of the entire series in my 20s, so I’ve seen this one a lot. I really should buy a DVD set of these things—assuming a boxset exists. I haven’t even checked. How sad is that? Jason is a very nice killer, taking the kettle off the burner like that. I mean, sure, he stuck a screwdriver into Alice’s face first, but does that really make him a bad guy? She did kill his mother, after all. Crazy Ralph is back. They really should have had that same guy stick around for every one of these films. Even though he dies in this one. I suppose, since this sequel comes before Halloween ‘s or Texas Chain Saw Massacre ‘s, not to mention before the first Nightmare on Elm Street , this is where the slasher subgenre really gets going. Leatherface may have survived outright, Michael Myers may have survived his wound swell enough to get up and leave, but Jason is the first real ...

“And only I can get him.” - Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street The opening sequence to Scream 2 includes a remake of the opening sequence to Scream under the guise of a film-within-the-film Stab . Heather Graham in the stead of Drew Barrymore is not just sitting around making popcorn, about to watch a movie. She’s still making popcorn but inexplicably, also just getting into the shower, because the film-within-the-film is a bit more stereotypical of the slasher film than Scream was or Scream 2 is. Given how Sidney slept in more girly wear in the first film, it’s notable that she has grown up and at college she sleeps in boxers, just one detail in blurring gender lines, something that comes along with the slasher film. It’s not necessarily a coincidence, by the way, that her name is Sidney, the name alone sitting right on the brink of male/female. Clover (1987) and Keisner (2008), just to name a couple, make a point of the names of the Final Girls of horror: Stevie, Mar...