Happy Birthday Frank Henenlotter

August 29th is noted New York schlock horror director Frank Henenlotter’s birthday. Henenlotter films, like Basket Case and Brain Damage, are unique experiences from his gritty vision of New York City to the shocks and humor he fills them with. To celebrate, I watched Frankenhooker which is exactly what it sounds like- a version of Frankenstein with hookers.

The Movie

Frankenhooker opens with our hero Jeffrey Franken conducting experiments on a bodiless brain… in the kitchen… of his fiance’s parents home… during her father’s birthday party. Jeffery seems to be making progress in the area of bodiless brain science but the interruptions by his future mother-in-law are definitely not advancing his significant scientific work. Jeffrey’s fiance, Elizabeth, loves pretzels and her mother is worried by how much she eats, implying she is large though she is not. In fact, as she tells her friend, Elizabeth allowed Jeffery to staple her stomach although he is not a doctor. No, Jeffrey works for the electric company and has been thrown out of 3 medical schools which may explain why ELizabeth’s stomach stapling was not successful. The celebration continues and Jeffrey and Elizabeth present her father with his birthday gift- a remote controlled lawn mower because apparently he can’t push a mower like a normal person. Elizabeth starts the lawn mower but, despite Jeffrey’s warnings, she stands right in its path. Elizabeth dies in a horrific lawn mower accident.

Jeffrey is not taking Elizabeth’s death well. He has begun to work tirelessly on a plan to use electrical currents to reincarnate his shredded sweetheart. Jeffrey is a mess though. He kisses photographs which are all over his room and can’t hang pictures straight. He also keeps a video tape of the news report of Elizabeth’s accident hidden in a copy of Grey’s Anatomy. The reporter on the tape is filled with the typical honor and sensitivity reporters are known for. She tells of Elizabeth and “her personality raining down upon birthday revelers” and that she “was instantly reduced to a tossed human salad.” The big reveal of the report is that some of Elizabeth’s parts have gone missing, including her head- I wonder who has that? As the report ends Jeffrey’s mother lets herself into his room and attempts to console the distraught Jeffrey and offers to set him up with a new girl. Jeffrey bares his soul to his mother but all she can do is offer him a sandwich. After this heart to heart, Jeffrey goes outside to his car and grabs some tools he clearly stole from work and goes to his garage laboratory. Stored inside a cooler filled with a mysterious purple fluid is the missing head. Jeffrey takes the head on a romantic dinner date in the corner of the lab. Dinner is pizza and wine but Elizabeth, apparently still conscious of her weight, skips the pizza. Jeffrey shows the head pictures of it on the bodies of nude pin up girls showing it the many ideas he has to rebuild her. After reading her a love poem of Shakespearean skill, Jeffrey returns the head to the cooler and gets back to work because he only has two days to find new parts and reassemble Elizabeth before a major storm hits the area. Jeffrey needs ideas and he has developed a new method to encourage thought- drilling into his brain. On the second drill, he comes up with a plan. Jeffrey is going to New York City to find hookers to use for parts and he is going to fund it with his Christmas Club account.

Jeffrey drives into the city and cruises the hooker strip looking for the perfect parts. He finally settles on a block and finds a woman. The two negotiate a deal for a party with many women for Jeffrey to choose from but first her pimp, Zorro, has to approve the deal. They find Zorro hanging out in the men’s room of the seediest club in all of late 1980s New York, selling crack. Zorro approves of the deal and manages to sell Jeffrey some crack. Jeffrey does not have any interest in doing crack himself, however. Instead, Jeffrey takes the crack home and, through his genius, manages to turn it into an even greater quantity of supercrack. Jeffrey’s supercrack is extremely potent and causes his guinea pig to explode. The next night, Jeffrey takes his money and supercrack to his party at the upscale hooker motel. Jeffrey is dressed as a doctor and he begins an enthusiastic inspection of the assembled hooker. The women humor Jeffrey but are clearly becoming bored as Jeffrey struggles to find the perfect body. Eventually, Jeffrey begins to have second thoughts about the plan entirely and starts to leave. The hookers will not let him leave until he pays them and Jeffrey gives them his bag of money, forgetting that the supercrack is in it. The hookers find the supercrack and are more excited by that than the cash. The party is reignited but supercrack is not to be fucked with. In fairly short order, the hookers begin to overheat and explode. The gorgeous hotel room is transformed into a fireworks show of legs and boobs that would dwarf the local 4th of July displays. Zorro, waiting in the lobby, grows impatient and goes to find his stable only to be knocked cold by a flying head. Jeffrey bags up the hooker parts, promising to use his estrogen based serum to put them all back together but first Elizabeth.

Back home, Jeffrey is hurrying to reassemble Elizabeth as the storm approaches but his organization system is flawed. He just has buckets of parts all over the garage lab. He even gets distracted shaving bunions off of the feet he has picked. I guess if you’re going to rebuild your fiance, you might as well make sure she doesn’t have bunions. Jeffrey dumps the remaining parts in the cooler of estrogen based serum just in time to fire up his equipment. Lightning strikes and

Elizabeth lives!!!!

Sort of. Elizabeth has taken on the traits and language of the hookers and immediately asks Jeffrey if he wants a date. She knocks Jeffrey out and heads back to New York City to ply her trade. When Jeffrey comes to, he quickly realizes where Elizabeth went and tries to find her. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has found her first customer and takes him to the five star motel but she must have too much supercrack because he explodes when they kiss. She then heads to the bar where her pretzel addiction is reborn and she runs into an angry Zorro who recognizes the words, phrases and big Z tattoo on her arm. They scuffle and Zorro nearly punches her head off. In the ensuing chaos, Zorro slips into the background as Jeffrey finally finds Elizabeth and bring her home for repairs. Jeffrey’s problems are mounting. Can Jeffrey save his beloved from the urges of her body? Will he rebuild the hookers? How can he deal with Zorro? Watch Frankenhooker for the answers to these important questions.

How It Fits I With the Day/ Why Did I Choose This Movie
Frankenhooker was an easy choice to celebrate Frank Henenlotter. The movie was my first introduction to his work and one of the first schlock horror movies I ever saw. The movie caught my eye immediately on the shelf of a Blockbuster video in Mt. Kisco back in the days when you could wander around a rental store and discover movies. The cover image of Elizabeth, in full Frankenstein mode with her purple bra, emerging from a subway station was one of the more iconic of that time period. As much as I love Henenlotter’s other movies, Frankenhooker will always be my favorite.

Lessons

• Do not build or operate remote controlled lawn mowers. Think of how many times you crashed that little RC car and now imagine the damage you could do with a lawn mower. Just push the mower. If you can’t resist, don’t stand in front of it.
• Do not let your boyfriend/fiance/husband perform surgery on you if he’s not a doctor. Especially if he’s been kicked out of medical school.
• DO NOT try to bring your loved ones back from the dead. This is an important, recurring lesson. They never come back the same and always cause more problems. Let your mom set you up, go to a bar, sign up for an internet dating service. Do anything EXCEPT reanimation. Please.
• Say no to crack... but run from supercrack.

National Water Quality Month

August is National Water Quality Month. During August it is recommended that people be conscious of the amount of water that they use and how much of the world’s water is polluted and unsafe to drink. What is not thought of in this awareness campaign is the impact on wildlife, in particular, the beavers. So in their honor and for Water Quality Month, this week’s movie selection is...Zombeavers.

The Movie

Zombeavers opens with two half-witted truckers, Joseph and Luke, transporting a load of toxic chemicals. Instead of focusing on their load, the two are far more interested in discussing their sexual misadventures. Luke and Joseph are kind of perverted and the talk gets raunchy enough so that Luke attempts to change the subject. His alternative- nope still not the chemicals they are transporting- is to tell Joseph about how he is no longer allowed to shit at his friend’s house. You see the problem is not necessarily that Luke has a smelly ass as that Luke shit on his friend’s table. After that story, Joseph needs a distraction from his coworker and decides to start texting while driving. Completely distracted by his poor texting skills, Joseph is not watching the road, though he insists he is and slams into a deer. The collision frees a barrel of waste. The barrel floats through a river finally coming to rest at a beaver dam. The barrel bursts spraying its noxious, gooey, green contents all over the beavers.

We now meet Jen who is doing her makeup in a gas station restroom and moping over her cheating boyfriend, Sam. Jen is interrupted by a potential Prince Charming who’s “gotta take shit” and who makes sure to leer lustfully at Jen as she leaves. Jen rejoins her friends Mary, the nerdy girl with the Velma look, and Zoe, the smart-mouthed rude girl and Zoe’s dog. They are on their way to a girl’s weekend at a lake to help Jen get over her dirtbag boyfriend. We know the girls are cool because they do tongue twisters and look at dick pics while listening to some of the worst music ever recorded. Fortunately for our ears, the girls arrive at their destination, a crappy looking lake in the town of Ashwood. Wait, the lake now looks beautiful and, oh nevermind, back to the shitty pond. As they are unpacking, they meet the lady who lives next door, Mrs. Gregorson. As they talk, we learn that Zoe is has a gift for talking with old ladies. Mrs. Gregorson opens up to the girls about her own daughter who is very sexually promiscuous “a real whore” and “not that attractive.” The girls manage to break away from the conversation and head into their cabin only to encounter the most horrific thing they’ve ever encountered. The cabin has no cell service or wifi. The girls are traumatized but manage to overcome the hardship and go out to the lake to swim. Of course, Zoe decides she needs to take her top off to swim with her two friends and runs into the lake topless. The girls swim to a raft and are lounging when Jen sees a beaver dam She convinces her friends to go with her to look in the hope of seeing a beaver but alas there are no beavers to be found but there is an angry bear. A hunter named Smith scares the bear off and introduces himself as Smyth “with a Y”. He asks the girls what they were doing there in the first place and Jen tells Him that they were “looking for beavers.” Smyth, knowing a good set up when he hears one, replies “Hell, ain’t we all.”

After an eventful afternoon, the girls return to the cabin for an exciting night of drinking and truth or dare. As Mary and Jen are about to kiss, they are interrupted by a noise. It turns out Zoe had invited the boyfriends, including cheating Sam, to girl’s weekend. After convincing the girls to let them stay, Zoe, and her boyfriend Buck and Mary and hers Tommy, go off to participate in mating rituals leaving Jen and Sam to talk. Sam seems to think that he’ll soon be engaging in the ritual but that dream ends with an emphatic knee to the balls. Jen goes to take a shower but even that goes wrong as there is an angry beaver already in the shower. Jen runs to get help but by the time they return the beaver seems to have left. Suddenly, the beaver jumps out of a cabinet but Tommy beats it to death, bagged and thrown on the porch. After the excitement, an orgy is proposed but does not occur.

The next day, they gang discovers the bag, empty but are undeterred and go to swim in the lake. Jen, after her beaver encounter, is not eager to get in the lake as her friends swim out to the raft. She is finally coerced into stepping into the lake when something brushes past her leg. Then Buck is attacked by a beaver and loses a foot. Her friends are trapped on the raft so Jen runs to the cabin to use the landline but the beavers have eaten the wires and is attacked by a beaver while her friends are set upon by more beavers. Sam, the heroic dirtbag that he is devises an escape plan. He throws Zoe’s dog into the water to distract the beavers and the kids are able to reach the relative safety of the cabin which is soon surrounded by beavers. Trapped and panicked, the kids do not manage to rally together, instead Zoe reveals that Sam cheated on Jen with Mary. Sam, continuing on his heroic arc, snaps and tears the head off the beaver Jen fought and throws it outside to the other beavers, a gesture that is sure to calm them. Tommy decides that he needs to take Buck and go get help (Oh, look hospitals before revenge. Someone is learning!) and Zoe goes with them. Mrs. Gregorson hears the commotion from next door and tries to convince her husband to go see if the girls need help. Mr Gregorson is unconcerned and assumes that it is just the girls “scissoring to Lady Gaga.” Tommy, Zoe and Buck have made it to a car and are speeding for help. Buck, in and out of consciousness, tells Zoe that he has regrets about his DJ Khalid-esque love life but he is sensitive to smells. There escape attempt is thwarted when they reach a downed tree across the road and then beavers drop a tree on Tommy. Once again, Smyth comes to the rescue saving Buck and Zoe but has no choice but to bring them back. Smyth tells Zoe about a major outbreak of beaver fever in the area during the 70s. Back at the cabin, things are really going to shit and Sam channels his inner John McClane saying “Come out to the lake. Have a few laughs.” but he is clearly useless in a crisis and he watches as the girls board the house. The situation is especially tense since Sam is still hot for Mary and Jen is still mad. Mary tries to ease the tension telling Jen that she has every right to hate her and Sam but the can’t turn against one another because “that’s what the beavers want.” From there things only get worse. Who lives? Who becomes a Zombeaverperson? Who picks the worst time possible to fool around? You’ll have to watch Zombeavers to find out. Know that if you don’t you’ll miss out on Zombeaver whack-a-mole and Sam continuing to lose his head.


How It Fits I With the Day/ Why Did I Choose This Movie

Zombeavers details the risks of unclean water. Not only is it unsafe to drink but it can spawn outbreaks of killer beavers. The only way to prevent future incidents like this is to keep our water supplies clean and uncontaminated.

Lessons

• If your friend shits on your table, it is entirely acceptable to forbid him from shitting at your house ever again. In fact, you may not want to let him in your house at all. Maybe just hang out at a bar with that friend.
• Swimming in a lake is just like swimming in a pool. Zoe imparts these words of wisdom and they could not be truer. 
• Don’t swim in lakes and oceans. Besides Zombeavers, there are any other aquatic lifeforms that could attack you. Even if nothing attacks you, it’s still just a giant fish toilet.
• Beavers can tunnel and they like to chew on shit. This knowledge may save your life during future beaver fever and Zombeaver outbreaks.

National Resurrect Romance Week

Happy National Resurrect Romance Week. That’s right the week of August 14th through the 20th is dedicated to the resurrection of romance. I would imagine the people who created this week are the owners of greeting card companies, florists, chocolate makers and fine dining establishments envisioning a late summer boost in business six months removed from their greatest creation- Valentine’s Day. The week seems designed to suck money out of people who think a fancy date will resurrect their dying romance. I’m sure there are hundreds of romantic comedies starring Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper but that would be a completely different blog. Instead of resurrecting my own romance (joke’s on you flower cartel, my romance doesn’t need flowers or resurrecting), I watched Return Of the Living Dead III.

The Movie

Return of the Living Dead III opens at a military research center where a group of colonels and scientists are attempting to turn zombies into undead supersoldiers. This is never a good idea. We are then introduced to the film’s star-crossed lovers, Julie, a bit of a masochist, and her boyfriend, Curt, who is all too willing to do anything she wants. They are young and the relationship is new so how could they need to resurrect their romance? Well you’ll see. Date night for these two crazy kids entails the theft of Colonel Reynolds’ id badge and an illicit trip to the base to sneak around the air ducts. Colonel Reynolds is also Curt’s dad. JUlie is in awe of the base as if she has never seen dimly lit halls and air vents before. Before long though, the kids stumble upon a scientist throwing body parts into a furnace to be cremated. Now Julie is really excited and they plunge further into the ducts. Finally, they reach the lab where the actual testing is occurring. As the kids and COlonel Reynolds and his peers look on, the scientists in the lab successfully reanimate a corpse using trioxin gas. They immediately paralyze the zombie with some magic freeze bullet. Curt and Julie sneak off but they miss the real fireworks. The paralysis does not hold and the test subject breaks free and bites a doctor. The remaining doctors are able refreeze the zombie and begin to restrain him completely ignoring their bitten colleague in the corner. Bad move. The bitten scientist dies and reanimates and attacks his former science buddies. The base commences containment protocols. Clearly Colonel Reynolds’ experiment has not been successful and his future in the growing field of zombie super soldier research is in jeopardy.

Back home, Julie is exhilarated and more than a little horny. Curt has seemingly resurrected the romance and they have incredible sex. In the aftermath of their carnal delights, Julie still cannot get the zombie off her mind. There fun is ruined when Colonel Dad comes home and tells Curt he needs to speak with him “alone. In my office.” The colonel definitely does not like Julie. The Colonel tells Curt that he is being reassigned to Oklahoma City in the wake of his failure. Curt, much like Kevin Durant, has no interest in living in Oklahoma City and tells his dad that he is not going. They argue and Curt and Julie speed off on Curt’s motorcycle. Curt is not driving safely and Julie does not encourage him to slow down. Instead, still turned on by her zombie experience, grabs Curt’s little soldier and kisses his neck. Curt loses control… of the bike and crashes throwing Julie headfirst into a pole, breaking her neck and killing her. Curt is distraught but he devises a plan to resurrect his romance once again. Curt manages to sneak dead Julie onto the base and with the stolen id badge enters the trioxin lab and brings Julie back. In the process, he also manages to release a really juicy zombie from a barrel. Curt and Julie manage to escape but the poor under-armed security guard does not. You would think that a soldier on a base working in zombie technology would have better weapons. The young lovers are not very stealthy and security cameras spot them. Colonel Dad and the military issue an APB for Curt and Julie who flee to the only place to upper class white kids can feel safe- South Central Los Angeles.

Curt and Julie’s first order of business as zombie Bonnie and Clyde is to get her some food because she’s hungry. They find a bodega and Julie begins gorging herself on snacks like any good stoned person. In doing so, she attracts the attention of a group of Hispanic tough guys and a girl. You know they are tough guys because they threaten the kids and use words like esay. Curt tries to diffuse the situation but then accidentally bumps the leader. The ensuing scuffle is broken up by the Korean clerk but while his back is turned one of the tough guys is emptying the cash register. The clerk catches him but is shot. The tough guys run off but not before Julie bites one of them. She now knows what will satiate her overpowering hunger. Curt and Julie leave and are in the process of stealing a van when the wounded clerk begs them to drive him to the hospital. Being the good samaritan that he is, Curt loads the clerk in the back of the van just as the cops show up. Curt drives off with the cops in pursuit. The police begin to shoot at the van and kill the clerk. Julie, in the front seat is exploring her masochistic tendencies by sticking herself with needles but not for long. While Curt is looking for an escape, Julie climbs in the back and starts eating the clerk’s brain and now she knows exactly what her new favorite food is. Curt and Julie manage to escape into the sewers and storm drains of the Los Angeles River, leaving the soon to be undead clerk in the van. The police find the van but one of them is killed by the clerk before the military shows up to spread their containment protocols.

Date night gets even worse as Julie and Curt have a fight and Julie storms off. When Curt finds her, Julie is perched on the edge of a bridge ready to jump. Despite his words, which include telling her that he liked her better when she was alive, Julie jumps. The tough guys are not faring any better. The leader has become obsessed with getting revenge on Julie for biting his friend and won't take him to a hospital until he finds her. The guy is dying in the backseat but South Central Ahab needs to catch his whale. Curt is searching the river for Julie now assisted by a homeless guy he meets in a drain pipe. The homeless guy, soon to be named Riverman, advises Curt to go home as there is no way Julie survived her leap. Curt is persistent and finds Julie but for some reason she still doesn’t want anything to do with him. Just as she seems to be warming to Curt again, the tough guys show up shouting threats. Riverman leads the kids into his sewer hideout. While all this is going on, Colonel Dad has been removed from the search and replaced by his bitchy rival Colonel Sinclair but dad keeps searching with a group of soldiers. Curt and his new friend Riverman leave Julie to rest while they have a deep meaningful conversation. Curt seems to be taking the talk to heart when Riverman reminds him that he is taking advice from a guy who lives in a sewer. Instead of resting, Julie has begun to experiment with piercing and body modification with objects she finds in the sewer. This cannot be very sanitary but I guess if you’re a zombie you don't have to worry about dysentery. Curt comes to check on her and they do it in the sewer while Julie stabs herself with a sharp piece of metal. Curt falls asleep because he is a man in a movie who just had sex and Julie furthers her body modification with a rusty razor she found. The tough guys have now caught up to the trio and beat poor Riverman trying to get him to tell where Curt and Julie are. Curt comes to his rescue but he’s not much of a fighter and gets overwhelmed. The leader demands that Julie show herself and when she does it is a much different Julie. She is now pierced, goth, Super Zombie Julie and the leader is smitten. He has now determined that he will get his revenge through sex and he goes off with her while his friend succumbs to his wound. Sex with Julie is not quite what Ahab may have expected as it now seems to entail having your spine pulled out. Even though she has saved them, Curt is still mad at Julie. Their date night is ruined and it only gets worse but that’s all I’m telling you.


How It Fits I With the Day/ Why Did I Choose This Movie

Return of the Living Dead III is all about resurrecting romance and the complications involved. It’s not as simple as roses, candy, dinner, weekend getaways or any of that crap. It’s hard work and learning to adapt to one another. Curt doesn’t need flowers to rekindle the passion of his relationship with Julie. All he needs is a stolen id card and some trioxin. There are not many movies that fit National Resurrect Romance Week any better.

Lessons

Keep the military and probably the government out of zombie science. They will only want to find ways to weaponize zombies without figuring out appropriate methods to contain and control the zombie soldiers.

Resurrect romance not bodies. Your girlfriend will not be the same if you use trioxin to bring her back from the dead. In fact, she will probably eat your friends and eventually you.

Hospitals before revenge. No matter how badly you want to get the woman that bit your friend, you should take him for treatment first. Especially if he’s dying in the backseat of your car.

DO NOT tell your girlfriend that you liked her better when she was alive. Accept that the changes in her life have been major and highly traumatic. Give her time to adjust to the new situation and maybe she will go back to her old self only dead.

National Farmers Market Week

The week of August 7th through August 13th is National Farmers Market Week. I would imagine the suggested way to celebrate the week is by purchasing produce at local farmers markets. Well the hell with that. I chose to celebrate by watching a movie about an independent farmer/motel operator named Vincent Smith - Motel Hell.

The Movie

Vincent Smith, aka Farmer Vincent, and his gorgeous sister Ida are the owners of the Motel Hello and a successful pig farm. They are well-known for their smoked meats centered on Farmer Vincent’s special, top secret recipe. Vincent is the brains of the operation while the voluptuous Ida does most of the manual labor. Vincent is a prideful, pious man selling his smoked meats at fair prices and he uses no preservatives or artificial ingredients. He is successful on the merits of his own hard work not government subsidies and Farm Aid concerts. It is clear very early on that the special seasoning Vincent uses is human, harvested from victims of accidents on a particularly treacherous stretch of road. That Farmer Vincent is causing the accidents himself is irrelevant. Sometimes he runs short on meat and needs to supplement his supply. After a horrific motorcycle accident, Vincent goes to aid the victims, Boris and Terry. Vincent assesses that he is too late to help Boris and tickets him for his farm. Terry, on the other hand, catches Vincent’s eye and he brings her home to nurse her back to health. Big mistake Farmer Vincent. Terry is beautiful but not very bright. The following morning, Terry wakes and speaks with Vincent and his self-righteous half-witted brother Bruce, the local sheriff. Vincent is forced to explain to Terry that Boris has “passed away.” Terry does not fully grasp the concept and needs the simple euphemism explained to her. Bruce also takes the opportunity to lecture Vincent on the need to call the police when there is an accident. Further complicating Vincent’s life is the nosy health inspector Bob who shows up to do a spot check of the farm. Bob becomes curious about the secret garden that Vincent keeps but does not ask Vincent about it and obtain answers from Vincent. No, this snoopy motherfucker Bob decides to sneak back in the middle of the night to climb the wall and illegally inspect the garden. Bob is intent on shutting Vincent down but Vincent, in a reasonable act of self defense, clubs Bob with a shovel and adds hime to the special ingredient, head garden that Vincent keeps. Soon, Vincent adds the members of the band Ivan and the Terribles to his garden after their van, driven by a stoned band member, careens off a hill after inexplicably running over Vincent’s bear traps in the road.

Terry is adjusting to life on the farm very well, though the fresh air is not making her any smarter. The family and Terry go on a picnic where Terry fails to pick up in the hints that the ham she is enjoying is partially human. Vincent even tells her “It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.” Terry is amazed and tells Vincent “No wonder you're famous. How come I never heard of you?” Terry may be suffering from a brain injury. Simple things confound her but she is thriving on the farm. She seems to take a shine to Bruce and goes boating with him. That night Bruce takes Terry to a drive in, sort of. He busts a make out spot near the drive in and pulls out binoculars because he’s too cheap to actually pay for the movie. Then Bruce tries to make out with Terry who turns him down. Bruce does not take no and starts to force himself on Terry but he is interrupted by an emergency. A woman is being chased by another car whose driver wishes to kill her. It turns out Vincent used the fake cows in the road trick to stop the woman and her friend in the road. When her friend is caught, the woman speeds off with Vincent in hot pursuit and soon Bruce not far behind. Bruce, however can’t drive and gets his car stuck in the mud. The garden grows even richer when two horny swingers show up at the motel thinking it’s a swingers resort. They trash the room and begin to engage in bizarre fetish behaviors so Vincent and Ida are forced to protect their property.

Terry continues to be a problem. Vincent decides he would like to take her under his wing and teach her the art of meat smoking. That sounds dirty but Vincent is too pure for that filth. Predictably, this makes Ida very jealous and she tries to drown Terry but Vincent gets there just in time to save Terry. Terry, very thankful to be alive, tries to seduce Vincent but Vincent will have none of that unless they are married. Vincent is very virtuous and Terry decides to accept the proposal. Bruce is stunned and extremely jealous of the pending nuptials. He makes horrible accusations about Vincent including that he has “syphilis of the brain.” He also finally decides that maybe he should do his job and investigate the disappearances near his brother’s farm. Bruce soon stumbles upon the truth while Terry is unable to recognize the difference between normal champagne and green drugged champagne. Like I’ve said she’s not the sharpest tack. Things devolve into chaos for Vincent and Ida including escaped human plants and an epic chainsaw duel.

How It Fits I With the Day/ Why Did I Choose This Movie

Motel Hell, with its depictions of the complications farmers face, is a great way to honor Farmers Market Week. As a pig farmer, Vincent excels at his craft creating smoked meats that are none throughout the county. He is so dedicated to his craft that he only sells his meat locally to ensure freshness. He embodies the hard work and dedication a farmer must have to be successful. Vincent and his family have long known that “meat’s meat and a man’s gotta eat” and have gone to great lengths to provide the finest product they possibly can.

Lessons

None of us are ever alone. We have ourselves. At your darkest, loneliest moments there is always someone there for you even if it’s the reflection in a mirror.

Traps give you the chance to explore your creative side. For Vincent it is bear traps and fake cows. I’m not giving you any ideas for traps. Be creative.

The most important lesson though is to skip the smoked meats if you don’t have a full ingredient list- sometimes they actually do use preservatives. Read the label. You don’t need polysorbate 60, sawdust or human in your smoked meats.

Happy Birthday Wes Craven

August 2nd would have been horror icon Wes Craven’s 79th birthday. Along with other visionaries like John Carpenter, George Romero and Tobe Hooper, Craven’s movies serve as a large part of the foundation of modern horror. In his honor, I watched 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The Movie

A Nightmare on Elm Street Introduced the world to a fresh faced Johnny Depp. Nightmare is his first acting credit and his role is fairly straightforward performance as an average teen boy named Glen. His girlfriend, Nancy Thompson, is the true hero. Nightmare On Elm Street opens with their friend Tina having a horribly realistic dream in which she is being chased by a man in a red and green sweater, hat and burned face. She wakes to find her nightgown torn in the exact spot where the man slash her with his knife fingers. While walking to school, Tina relates her dream to Nancy and Glen. Nancy seems to be having similar dreams. Their discussion is interrupted by Tina’s Classy, tough guy boyfriend Rod. Rod joins the conversation, telling Tina of his dream “ “I had a hard-on this morning when I woke up, Tina. Had your name written all over it.” Despite this romantic description, Tina is not impressed and tells Rod (haha ROD) that her name is only four letters long and therefore too long for Rod’s rod. Aside from Rod, all of the kids seem to be dreaming of the same creepy man. The situation worsens that night during a coed sleepover. Glen and Nancy are apparently waiting for marriage but Tina and Rod are definitely not. After a surprisingly satisfying romp(remember Rod’s rod is not even big enough to fit four letters on it), Rod confides that even he has nightmares and rolls over and falls asleep. Tina falls asleep too and is soon confronted by the man from her nightmares again. Tina is not able to escape this time and is brutally murdered. Rod quickly becomes the prime suspect and the police, led by Nancy’s father pursue him instead of reaching the logical conclusion that a creepy man in her nightmare killed Tina. Rod is not much of a fugitive and is arrested.

Nancy does not believe that Rod is the killer. She believes that she is now having regular encounters with the killer including in her English class during an impassioned reading of Shakespeare. She wakes screaming in the middle of class with a fresh burn on her arm which is also how I used to react to Shakespeare readings too. Nancy is sent home from school. Later that night while trying to relax in the bathtub, Nancy dozes off and a knife gloved hand emerges from the bath water and attempts to kill Nancy. Nancy concocts a plan to capture the man from her nightmares, who to this point has only once been given a name. She will go to sleep with Glen standing guard waiting to wake her when she has caught the man. The plan results in near fatal consequences as Glen can’t be counted on and falls asleep. Nancy is ab;e to determine that Rod is in danger and rushes to the police station to try to save him but in the time it takes her to convince them to let her see Rod, he is killed in his cell. Sleep studies fail to help Nancy’s nightmares and she is now hardly ever sleeping. FInally out of desperation, Nancy’s mother tells Nancy some truth and we learn the name of the man from the nightmares. Nancy’s mom explains that Fred Krueger was a local man who was a “filthy child murderer.” Krueger was caught and put on trial but walked on a technicality. Nancy’s mom and other local parents took justice into their own hands and burned Krueger to death. So problem solved, they all live happily ever after except not so much. To go to much further would be to spoil the end but Johnny Depp’s greatest cinematic moment is still to come.



How It Fits I With the Day/ Why Did I Choose This Movie

A Nightmare On Elm Street was one of my first experiences with horror and a lasting one. At the time, it was one of the scariest movies I imagine existing. Few things scared a younger me more than my dreams having direct consequences on my survival. Craven created a monster that i could transfer into real life not like zombies, psycho killers and other supernatural types. Those were never quite real but a dream monster resonated.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is absent of many of the hallmarks of the series. It takes over 50 minutes to even hear the name Fred Krueger and only once does he refer to himself as Freddy. With very few exceptions, the wisecracks that are unavoidable in future installments are nonexistent. Craven had been making amazing horror movies for more than a decade but A Nightmare on Elm Street was the movie that brought him widespread notoriety.


Lessons

If you're going to be a big star don’t start out by wearing a white polo and sweater vest. It’s really a horrible look even for the 80s and really highlights scrawny arms.

Believe your kids when they tell you that a deranged man is killing their friends while they sleep. Just because it sounds odd does not mean it’s not true.

100s of people a year get killed in tubs- falling asleep and or getting out. Nancy’s mother believes this and so do I and you should too. Tubs are dangerous even when Freddy isn’t trying to feel you up.

Nobody knows what dreams are or where they come from. This lesson is from the doctor conducting Nancy’s sleep study. He’s a doctor and he doesn’t know. I don’t know. I bet you don’t either therefore nobody knows anything about dreams.