Cameron Conkle's Mars Rover Life Cycle

Cameron spent five hours drawing 100 pictures of the Mars Rover's life cycle.

I put some sound effects on it and there you go. Cameron's obsessive personality is perfect for animation. We actually had some creative differences over how many "pops" to use.

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Sam Drog

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Splat

Tree woman

Ten Reasons You Should See The Church (1989)

1. A big event in high school was when a group of buddies and I took the subway to the one theater in Atlanta that was showing Cemetery Man. It was a horror geek pilgrimage to see a bonafide Italian Zombie Movie. A great movie, a great memory. Cemetery Man became a reference point in our marathon movie conversations. The director Michele Soavi did this movie before Cemetery Man, and you can see the same style here, especially when winged lizard man shows up.

2. This movie is all about the atmosphere. Nothing scary happens, but it’s so beautifully shot, staged, and lit that you don’t care. Great atmosphere and takes full advantage of the huge gothic cathedral they shot in. If you get to shoot in an ancient gothic cathedral, it can only help your movie. You got Cathedral? Movie makes itself.

3. Asia Argento is here as a gawky preteen who loves to go out to cheesy Italian discos and dance with preppy little dweebs in Member’s Only jackets. This was way before I met Asia at a Fango convention, married her, only to have the  relationship fall apart under the microscope of public scrutiny. It was nobody’s fault. Somethings aren’t built to last.

4. Hey, it has the degenerate from Gates of Hell, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, all grown up and bald, this time playing a priest. Even in the white collar, this guy is a greasy mess.

5. Speaking of greasy messes, everyone in this movie ends up coated in baby oil. I liked that, lots of greasy hair and greasy, grimy skin, and an alter made of muddy, writhing bodies. I guess that was an alter. Maybe an animal head? Not sure what they were going for, but it looked cool. Bottomline: There are no wet wipes in this world.

6. I liked that they didn’t go Evil Dead make up in depicting  the possessed people. People just start acting crazy. You don’t know who’s possessed, or if everyone is possessed. Is anyone sane in this movie?!? The over the top acting and dubbing adds to this confusion. Are they crazy and possessed, or is this just bad acting? It’s great.

7.  The greatest dubbing comes when someone gets possessed and starts retching and gagging. I can picture the actor in the sound booth making all these noises, the director trying to guide his gacks and groans. Hilarious.

8. Philip Glass on the soundtrack, if that’s your kind of thing, kind of thing, kind of thing, kind of thing, kind of thing, kind of thing, kind of thing. You also get Goblin. So it’s legit.

9.  Goat Head Man was fantastic. Imagine the love scene in Rosemary’s Baby, but with a big rubber goat head.

10. I missed this when it came out in the 80s. I love the homemade feel. All done in camera. I didn’t see one optical.  Feels like theater and photography, not like Home Video with CG monsters thrown on top.

Pairs well with: Prince of Darkness (1987) – It’s Carpenter, so you know it’s awesome, and the two movies share a lot of plot similarities.

Show Stopper! Two words: Subway Train

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Sam Drog

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Crawlspace Beasty

Twitch

Ten Thoughts on “Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell” – 1968

So Hulu has all these Criterion releases, most of which I have zero interest in watching, but with a title like “Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell”, how could I resist!

1. This is my kind of movie. Low budget and schlocky, with a twisted black heart. What will shock you is how nihilistic it is, while at the same time being really corny. It’s like Guernica done in Crayola.

2. The location is brutal. The characters are in a downed passenger jet in the middle of a barren desert. It looks like a Mad Max wasteland, but with lots of Styrofoam rock slides. People are being baked in this metal tube and every time they step outside a rock falls on them or a space vampire tries to give them a hickey. Rough times.

3. The alien is parked in the desert in this plastic UFO, and that’s pretty great...

 ...but the way it turns people into vampires is marvelous and will make you want to throw up. A very convincing special effect goes down that wasn’t just good for the time period, but good for the ages. It’s so effective and cool and weird. It’s one of those great culty moments that give iffy movies big reputations. I'm not going to show it here, you're just going to have to watch the movie. Don't google it. Don't!

4. The aliens seem to base their technology on lava lamps and psychedelic light shows. The inside of the UFO looks like a 1980's Steak Restaurant. I kept wondering if my table was ready.

I should have called ahead.

When the aliens rob you of your humanity you do this tortured agony dance that had to be an inspiration for the Tetsuo Iron Man Boogie.

Same as it ever was.

5. The film stock adds to the retro shag carpet appeal. 1960s Fujicolor. Maybe a cinematographer could let me in on why movies of the period look so fantastic. Nowadays cheap schlock looks like garbage, but back then cheap schlock looked like real movies.

Oh! The colors!

"Mind if I borrow that?" - Kill Bill

6. Similar to Night of the Living Dead where trapped characters spend the whole movie bickering with each other. Civility is gone the moment they are thrown into crisis. Both movies came out the same year, but this wasn’t released state side until ’77 to ‘79 depending where you look it up. I would say the biggest difference would be that instead of an army of zombies, you get one split faced creepy guy. He’s still pretty menacing.

7. My favorite character moment is the sadistic glee that the psychiatrist takes in watching people fall apart. People just don’t have these moments in American movies.

Very constructive, thank you.

8. The movie has a cool James Bond influence with the lead bad guy, who looks like he should work for Specter. He does have a split face most of the run time, but besides that… you know.

Sayonara, Mr. Bond.

9. Interesting that political and domestic terrorists figure into the plot so strongly. Da more things change… badda badda boom!

10. If you were going to watch this as a double feature, I would say match it with either Lifeforce or The Blob (‘58 version). Both big amoebas and space vampires show up in Goke, so take your pick. However, Goke vampires tend to be less naked than the Lifeforce variety. Just saying.

You can get with this...

... or you can get with that.

One final thing. You should compare the ending shots of this with the opening credits of Mars Attacks. It will give you that “Planet of the Vampires” feeling.

Same as it ever was.

Same as it ever was.

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Sam Drog

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Ten Thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I’ll try not to spoil anything, but you should run go see the movie before reading this. It’s great. That’s my short review. It’s great. Go see it. See it lots. Below is just some rambling. I don’t remember people’s names. Sorry in advance.

1.  Harrison Ford. Oh man Harrison Ford is so good in this, brings his chops, brings Han Solo awesomeness, brings it. It was everything that the return of  Indiana Jones wasn’t. In fact, maybe my favorite scene is him telling his stance on the Jedi and the force and all that mumbo jumbo. Loved that scene and it also serves as a fix for the Chrystal Skull where you needed to see how life changed and bent him over the years.

2.  Speaking of acting, no one sucks. Everyone is in the spirit, looking alive and having fun. It was joyful. Living breathing people that you wanted to hang around for 2 hours. No Space C-SPAN in this one.

3. Funny! Remember when Star Wars movies had a sense of humor? Well they do again!

4. Very nostalgic. This movie is a big sloppy kiss to the first movie. The plot hits the same notes with little spins. JJ is the first Star Wars director to have grown up watching Star Wars, probably wanted to make movies because of Star Wars, and his twiterpation locks this movie in to the exuberant fanboy geekery zone. That keeps it from breaking new ground or going places the movies haven’t gone before, but it is a solid iteration of all that we love about those first three movies.

5. I loved the struggles of conscience the evil characters have. The Darth Vader 2.0 Guy has a great quiet scene in his chamber, kind of a “to be or not to be” moment, that I really dug. Same with the shell shocked storm trooper. It’s a very optimistic view of the world that the antagonists are just as unsure of themselves as the heros. The dark side here is played as some sort of creepy cult that will steel your babies away. I liked that angle.

6.  The female lead in this is great. Liked the mummy costume. A good guy in a Star Wars movie with a British accent? That’s not right! I’m going to let it slide. 

7. Deathstar 3.0 is a gas guzzler.

8. Big planet blows up, my kid cries and asks “Is Jar Jar okay?”  Look, you raise your kids the best you can, but you have to let them be their own people at some point. Generation gap is a go.

9. So the scene on the bridge. I was a Teenage Darth Vader. Sure, I got verklempt. Held it together but not going to lie. I have wanted to see Harrison Ford be in scenes like this for a long time. After Cowboys and Aliens and The Chrystal Skull, I thought he’d lost it. He is back and the bridge scene, man that gave me the feels pretty hardcore. Wow. See number 1.

10. But the last scene, I couldn’t even talk afterwards. I would have liked one more little thing, a moment, but that is nitpicking. I won’t nitpick, because the moment we’re given is wonderful, we see so much pathos and regret and uncertainty in the eyes…  it’s a great moment. I rambled about it in the car trip home and my throat kept catching. Phew.

Bonus: Loved the Space Nazi Rally scene with the crazy Hitler speech. Who hasn’t wanted to see that in a Star Wars movie?

Nutshell: Fury Road, Jurassic World, and this prove that your awesome childhood wasn’t a complete hallucination.

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Sam Drog

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Keep your hands out of your face!

Hashing out new movie

Working on the next movie idea. Writing the screenplay, drawing storyboards.

Spider dog pincher

Deep Face

JC Penny back to school sale!

Running the show

Fetus Got A Gun

Frankenmonster

Meditate

Don't Mention the Toupee

Scooping grave dirt with hands the size of platters, Raymond the Ghoul dug for his dinner. The full moon lit this nightly ritual, and the ground gave easily as a fresh corpse had been planted earlier that day.

Under the moon’s silver light, Raymond could now see his skullish features reflected off the uncovered polished wooden casket. He wasn’t a bad looking monster, in fact his mom used to call him cute, but Raymond had never been happy with himself.

Opening the casket was a cinch with hands and strength such as Raymond’s. His body nothing but exposed bone, vein, and sinew. All protein diet. His stomach rumbling now. You learn to appreciate the tang of formaldehyde. Eventually you crave it.

The tender body lay before him. Rumble. An old grey man in a well-tailored suit. What strength his flesh would give him. How his bones would crunch under his teeth, how his… what is this? Such a magnificent thatch of brown upon his waxen wrinkled head!

Raymond returned to the underworld with a full belly and a polyester mane perched on his bony brow. The gremlins and goblins would snicker, but Raymond walked too high to hear.

SDROG

Snaaaaake Plissken

Thought you were dead.

Rhino goat