Universal Dork

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  • Movie Review: Classical Thai Horror of ‘The Maestro: Symphony of Terror’!

    I’m a big fan of the 1989 cult horror flick ‘The Laughing Dead’, If you’ve never heard of it and are a1980’s gore horror fiend, well I’ve a feeling that it’s gonna be your new favorite “lost” 80s gem. Rumor has it that it just might be getting a fancy blu ray release?! I hope that’s true! Well it’s director/cult horror novelist/composer extraordinaire S.P. Somtow is back after a long hiatus starring in and writing the latest creepy outing all the way from Thailand with ‘The Maestro: Symphony of Terror’.

    The tale of a musical genius haunted by his past and pushed into a state of pure insanity, The Maestro tells the story of a mentally unstable man named Arun (S.P. Somtow), a dedicated composer who attempted a run for fame in Europe but ultimately finds himself deeply depressed, back in Thailand teaching rich kids music at a local shopping mall. Behind the scenes though, he’s been secretly planning a wildly dark magnum opus called ‘The Tongues of Angels’, his ultimate goal: premiering it to the entire world on a livestream during the Covid 19 pandemic. His wildly demented ambition however may induce a lot more than musical madness but also death to those who threaten his journey.

    So yeah I’ve been quite excited to check this out, but also had hoped Somtow would be at the mantle as director on the project. I really enjoyed his campy approach on ‘The Laughing Dead’ and the comedic elements incorporated with the heavy effects work of legend John Carl Buechler made it a total blast. That all being said ‘The Maestro’ does definitely deliver some of Somtow’s signature tones, but perhaps with a more artistic approach. Director Paul Spurrier does a decent job behind the camera, giving the movie at times a more slick approach then what I’d ultimately prefered. It combines lighter elements of horror with tense hypnotic dark classical music but also has a few more deeply disturbing psychological aspects at hand here as well that at times made me a bit uncomfortable. The lush locales of Thailand combined with Somtow’s intensely creepy musical compositions sonically assault in a truly unique way.


    To be quite honest, his beautifully dark score is probably the biggest star of the entire movie. I’d been expecting something quite a bit different, with more old school fx leaning in on much more on the horror side of things. Instead this one plays out more a psychological thriller and is the first movie I’ve seen that takes place actually during the Covid 19 era. We finally see people on screen irritated with and fussing with their masks as well as trying to navigate life through these current bizarre times. But that doesn’t stop the shamed Maestro from seeking out his pawns, a crew of young musicians gathered from his mall class and the even from the streets.

    Most of the madness takes place at a stunningly creepy decrepit mansion In the countryside where the symphony of horror begins to take shape. The Maestro has one thing on his mind: his music and will let nothing get in his way of composing the ultimate dark symphony.

    This one’s definitely worth a watch, it’s got a great cast of young actors and Somtow shines again as the villain in a similar way he did back in ‘The Laughing Dead’.

    I’m glad that S.P. has again returned to his horror roots, overall I think this is a pretty solid return to form. Going forward I’d like to encourage him to get back behind the camera again, I think he’s got the chops that the people thirst for today with the 80s cult camp fanatics. If anything ‘The Maestro: Symphony of Terror’ must be watched for it’s incredible musical finale, which blew me away. I’ll be hunting down the soundtrack for sure!!

  • Anthony Ingruber HAN SOLO Deepfake Will Blow Your Mind!

    There was so much hype about the possibility of casting Anthony Ingruber as Han Solo in the Star Wars community that he was actually one of the FIRST people to be given the chance to audition for the role by Lucasfilm. However even though he appeared in the role of a young Harrison Ford in The Age of Adaline, they for some reason chose Alden Ehrenreich….

    Bad move! The ‘Solo’ film was a bomb and many were just left unconvinced that Alden was actually Han Solo, he doesnt look or sound like Ford, that’s for sure. Coming across more as Han’s younger stepbrother who was hangin out with Chewy for a couple hours than the iconic hero of the original trilogy.

    So many had been left wondering just what could have been with Ingruber as Han Solo. Well peeps the wait is finally over as “Stryder HD” just put out the long awaited deepfake of Anthony as Han! The similarities are down right mind blowing! If this is not proof that if we see another appearance of young Han, Ingruber should be recast IMMEDIATELY, then I don’t know what is! Check this shit out!! P.S. Nice damn work Stryder HD!!

  • U-Dork on The MOVIE MELT Podcast: The Horror of ‘PROM NIGHT 3’!

    So in preparation for the Halloween season I joined the Movie Melt podcast to yet again discuss another cinematic oddity! This time we covered the largely forgotten 1989 cult horror gem ‘Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss’.

    This one’s even better than the original Jamie Lee Curtis slasher classic! A great sequel to the Prom Night 2: Hello Mary Lou, which is also a MUST see this ‘Ween season.

    Anyway this episode though covers sooo much more than just ‘Prom Night 3’ take a listen to find out what flicks you should be checking out right now and learn even more useless, but epically awesome movie info you can share with everyone and your cat. Listen here for the scoop on the horror cult comedy and melt your mind with cinematic mayhem! LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE!

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  • Comic Cover of the Week: HULK Immortalized by Alex Ross!

    I’m a HUGE Hulk fan, but I’ll admit I don’t really ready many new comic books anymore, especially stuff by Marvel. I’ve been told by friends that I need to really get into The Immortal Hulk, I’ve read the first trade and found it to be pretty good. However in the landscape of sooooo much media to consume I was just not blown away enough to continue reading. Who knows though, maybe some day? Whatever the case I have seen many of the series brilliant covers and now as it comes to an end with issue #50 I’ve spotted one of my favorites: a brilliant one by none other than Alex Ross! This is easily one of the most epic covers I’ve seen in recent years that features the Jade Giant and his co-stars in ALL of their glory! (more…)

  • A RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT: Is Bill Burr Secretly Michael Moriarty’s SON?!

    I have a new favorite vampire flick: Return to Salem’s Lot!  It’s surely no secret that Larry Cohen has made some amazing movies, ‘The Stuff’, ‘Q The Winged Serpent’, ‘God Told Me Too’ & ‘It’s Alive’  are considered among his best. However, recently I viewed his 1990 totally underrated & under-seen gem ‘The Ambulance’. It luckily inspired me to go back to check out some of his movies I might have missed out on and the sequel to ‘Salem’s Lot’ from 1987 is in my opinion is one of the best vampire movies of that decade! What took me so long to finally see it?!  The only thing I can think of is that is that I’d watched the Tobe Hooper ‘Salem’s Lot’ Mini series from ’79 and found it good but also a bit slow moving.  I simply figured for so long long that the sequel was yet just another mediocre TV mini series, well that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

    So yet again Larry Cohen is at the top of his game in an incredibly colorful tale of ravenous small town bloodsuckers, jam packed with witty dialog, sweet 1980s special effects and of course some totally memorable heroes to cheer for as well as vampirous villains to hate! Michael Moriarty like in The Stuff, leads the cast, and after watching both of these movies basically back-to-back I came to a startling conclusion. Is it possible Michael Moriarty Is actually Bill Burr’s dad?! 

    The similarities are stunning! Am I the only person who’s ever thought of this? They look like father and son to me & even speak and sound like the blood relatives! Throughout the movie I couldn’t help but picture Burr  in the role speaking all of the lines, in fact, even though I’m normally against remakes, if they ever do one I would love to see Burr in the role.

    Hey next time YOU watch either The Stuff or Return to Salem’s Lot, make sure to  Keep this in mind and you tell me if I’m crazy. I think the similarities are at the very least quite hilarious.

     OK so now that I got that off my chest, I wanna at least mention how awesome the foul mouthed teen son played by Ricky Addison was, only to be rivaled by the potty mouthed pre-teen kid in the 1989 wildly unseen gem ‘The Laughing Dead’! He’s also got some great Corey Haim/Don Johnson-esque “Miami Vice” style as well, this kid is quite the spectacle I’d say.

    But that’s not all, the movie’s secret weapon is the old but surprisingly spry, Jewish, Nazi hunter played by Samuel Fuller. He joins the gang, setting his sights on the wicked undead inhabitants of Salem’s Lot! He’s a cool classic horror hero that quite frankly needs a lot more love and that’s one thing Cohen really excels at is bringing memorable characters to the big screen.

    Yes there is plenty to love here for eighties horror fanatics, A wildly unpredictable albeit ridiculous plot, a sweet spooky setting and some awesome vamps! Don’t believe me check this dude out!

    The kind of vampires who don’t just sport the fake teeth, nope we get some bonafide monster vamps with animatronic faces to amp up the mayhem. I’m not sure what took me so long to finally check this out but I’m glad I did as it’s now become one of my favorites standing above most vampire movies of the 1980s. But most impressively featuring Bill Burr’s father?! Hey you never know right? I got it on a sweet blu ray via Shout Factory that looks beautifully bloody!

  • What THE HULK Really Wants: TWINKIES?!!!

    I never got to eat a lot of Twinkies as a kid, but don’t get me wrong I really freakin’ wanted to! I can confidently say as well that one of the reasons why I was so damn obsessed with getting my hands on some Twinkies (and hostess fruit pies) was becuz they seemed to be all the rage with my favorite green superhero: The Incredible Hulk!  I mean let’s get real here, how could you actually be a kid in the eighties and not be influenced by these amazing little Incredible Hulk hostess adventures?! Plus, It appears to feature classic Hulk artist’s Sal Buscema had quite possibly Herb Trimpe doing the art! If someone knows for sure please correct me, but in the meantime check these out and let your tummy rumble and rage for a damn Twinkle!

     

  • Comic Cover of the Week: The 5 Best Classic ‘WHAT IF?’ Stories!

    I’ve watched three of the Disney Plus Marvel ‘What If?’ episodes and so far I’m not particularly excited by any of them. I’m not feeling the CGI “hand drawn” animation and I’m not so far thinking these “What If” questions are as fun as they out to be. I understand that they’re working within the confines of the MCU movies, but still even, I think there are more interesting stories to tell. I’m guessing they’re really trying more so to establish an alternate timeline rather than tell outrageously kick ass stories. Well I whipped up 5 cool classic ‘What If?’ covers with questions I think are pretty bad ass and more along the lines of things I’d been hoping for in the series! Check this shit out!!

  • That 1982 TOM SAVINI Hong Kong Horror Flick?!

    I’m willing to bet that even if you’re a huge fan of fx legend Tom Savini that you likely never knew in 1982 he was flown to Hong-Kong to do special fx on an obscure horror comedy called ‘Til Death Do We Scare’!  I never heard of it until a month ago & was completely intrigued. For good reason too, this is one wacky bizarre little mess of a damn movie!

    Directed by Lau Kar-wing this essentially follows the story of a down on her luck widow whose husbands keep dying in mysterious & slightly stupid ways on their respective wedding days. For instance one dies by way of random bird flying directly into his freaking mouth at the altar!

    Well, I guess, lucky for her the ghosts of her 3 dead stooge husbands all meet in the afterlife & team up vowing to watch over her. What we get here is a totally moronic misadventure, with her 3 former lovers for some reason trying to set her up with a wacky yet I’m assuming unintentionally creepy radio DJ dude. Yep he does his fair share of stalking the beautiful widow, with  surprisingly positive results! Who knew stalking could be such a turn on?!

    For some reason the three zany ghosts spend a lot of the time in the movie fucking with him, moving chairs around and making him physically unable to take off his pants when getting ready to get some sexy action! They also spend a little time scaring him thank god and that’s exactly where the film’s real star imo, Tom Savini finally enters the scene with those impressive 80s special effects and creepy makeup stylings everyone loves him so much for. In fact part of me kinda wondered, maybe Tim Burton watched this one, because some of these ghost’s wild scare antics combined with Savini’s make up effects bring to mind his classic film Beetlejuice. 

    On second thought I’m pretty certain Burton never saw a peep of this one! The film kind of shifts gears in its 3rd act and involves our creepy lover boy along with his pathetic best buddy being exiled off to an extra dimensional island of the dead. There everything seems strangely to be made of paper mache(?), paper mache cars, paper mache walls, paper mache staircases, which are NEVER a good thing. But none the less a full on paper mâché nightmare!

    So there the two of them (for some unknown reason), face off against the dead’s annoying overlord who’s followed by a gang of well dressed partying ghosts. The finale of the movie is where Savini clearly unloads his trunk of extra props from Creepshow! OOOOH YEAH! Where he helps bring to life a giant blue Chinese vampire and his horde of wicked zombies! I’m guessing Mr. Savini was working with a shoe string budget here, as the fx work is fun, it def does look a bit unfinished. I’m not sure if I was just too stoned to understand the plot correctly or if this thing was just a crazy giant mash up of weird lost in translation mayhem! By the time it was done I was so confused with what I’d seen, but at the same time completely satisfied. Sure I’d hoped Savini was working on a bonafide gem of a lost Hong Kong horror flick of the 1980’s that I could shout on the mountain tops to my fellow cinefiles! Instead I just relished in all the fun Tom Savini must have had while filming this ridiculous mess in 1980’s Hong Kong….

  • Unpublished HULK #300 Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz!

    Of Course by now you’ve all realized how much I love the iconic artwork of master Bill Sienkiewicz! Well here’s a little treat, an unpublished cover for the Incredible Hulk #300 from 1984 that he did. The truly epic artwork for a legendary issue that pitted a seemingly mindless Hulk up against some of Marvel’s greatest heroes hell bent on ridding the world once and for all of the monster. Instead though Doctor Strange sends The Hulk into an alternate universe called the “Crossroads” for a truly unforgettable chapter in chapter in The Green Goliath’s history. Check out Bill’s cover:

    The original cover by Bret Blevins is equally impressive, but this unfortunately was a time before Marvel cover variants we put out there for fans, Damn how Bill’s cover would have also been perfect…here’s the original: 

     

     

  • 80’s Midwest Horror ‘BACK FROM HELL’ on the Movie Melt Podcast!

    Happy Friday the 13th! Lookin’ for something spooky to listen to? Well here’s the latest episode of The Movie Melt Podcast featuring yours truly where we cover 1988’s midwestern forgotten no budget horror flick ‘Back From Hell’! Yep take a listen right HERE for the scoop on all sorts of useless cinematic information to fill your brain with and a shitload of cool movies you should be checking out right now!

    This sweet little horror flick follows a renegade priest who teams up with his old highschool buddy, who just so happened to sell his soul to the DEVIL to try and make it big as an actor in Hollywood!! They battle the undead, possessed cops & killer bibles!! Directed by cult Michigan director Matt Jaissle better known for his gross out horror classic ‘The Necro Files’ this episode is a must for fans of backyard film making and just loads of cinematic fun facts and nonsense Check out MOVIE MELT & The Companeros Radio Network!

    Check out the trailer for ‘Back From Hell’!