Universal Dork

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‘Curse of the Wendigo’ Delivers the Chills!

March 1, 2014

The wendigo folklore is always intrigues me, I love most anything that has to do with the legend. I was pleasantly surprised when I recently picked up “The Curse of the Wendigo” which had completely gone under my radar when it was released here in the USA in 2011. What drew me in even more to this comic book was the artwork, which was done by The Walking Dead’s Charlie Adlard. It was cool seeing his artwork in full color and I’ll be the first to admit that when Tony Moore left TWD I really wasn’t a big fan of Adlard. Over time though his art has grown on me however The Walking Dead comic series has more recently become a bit of a bore.

I almost imagined I was reading a new Walking Dead story line, which felt pretty damn good. It can be pretty hard to disconnect when Charlie has done well over a hundred issues of TWD thus far. However the artwork is really the only thing similar, this story is a sweet and simple and It reminded me a bit of the movie “Ravenous” of which I am a huge fan of. The story takes place during World War I, French and German soldiers are forced to put aside their differences to try and take out an unseen force that’s slaughtering their men. The story is also a bit of a mystery as well and has a little more going for it than just blood and guts.

It’s a pretty cool little 64 page horror story that was a delight to read. Curse was originally released in Europe in 2009 and Dynamite released it here in 2011. I think this tale would make a great movie concept. The world needs more wendigo on the big screen anyway, I mean just how many wendigo movies are actually out there? Hmm…future blog post I think!

So If you’re looking for a creepy original graphic novel with some great artwork to check out give Curse of the Wendigo a try!
Step Aside Hank Pym, Cuz Here comes Antboy!

February 22, 2014

Just saw this neat little trailer for Denmark’s first superhero film – Antboy! This actually looks like a ton of fun, sure in the trailer it looks a little bit Spider-man-y as far as the origin story goes but this one is bound to be more fun than The Amazing Spider-man 2! This one is set for release in April 2014 and if anything it’ll be a neat little comedy.

I’d love to see some smaller studios bring to life some original or smaller scale comic book heroes, it’d be a great thing to start getting some good indie comic book based movies. I like a lot of the superhero movies, but I don’t love really any of them except for maybe The Avengers and the two Hellboy movies. Maybe this next string of movies will change my mind? In the mean time here’s a superhero movie that won’t piss off any fanboys…
Five Cool Horror Flicks to Watch Out for in 2014!

February 22, 2014

Good horror movies are hard to find these days and 2014 is looking a little slim in the way of quality fright flicks! But fear not! I have gotten together five cool movies that I think everyone should be watching out for this year. Seek these out instead of the next tired installment of Paranormal Activity!

1. The Station: “The crew of a remote weather research station in the German Alps find that a retreating glacier is turning the local wildlife into ravenous biological monstrosities, in this timely horror thriller from director Marvin Kren (Rammbock).”

This one has me pretty excited. It’s reminds me a bit of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” from the trailer and that’s always a good thing! There’s just not enough good monster movies out these days but this one looks like it might have the chops! Plus Marvin Kren’s first movie Rammbock was pretty damn good too!

2. Almost Human: “Mark Fisher disappeared from his home in a brilliant flash of blue light almost two years ago. His friend Seth Hampton was the last to see him alive. Now a string of grisly, violent murders leads Seth to believe that Mark is back, and something evil is inside of him.”

Sounds pretty rad to me, I’m a huge fan of alien movies and this one has a little bit of “Fire in the Sky” type feel to it mixed with classic 80’s style horror. I am excited alone just by the super radical movie poster!

3. Cooties: “A mysterious virus hits an isolated elementary school, transforming the kids into a feral swarm of mass savages. An unlikely hero must lead a motley band of teachers in the fight of their lives.”

It seems Elijah Wood has become quite the horror hound recently. I think that’s pretty awesome as Wood is a great actor and delivers some pretty quality films usually. Although this one is a zombie flick, which I must admit normally doesn’t really excite me anymore, it’s got a unique enough plot and strong enough cast to make this one a cult classic! Unfortunately there’s no trailer yet!

4. Sick Boy: “Sick Boy is about a babysitter (Skye McCole Bartusiak) hired to look after a young boy apparently suffering a strange illness—and things only become stranger once she arrives at the house.”

To me this one looks pretty damn freaky. Kids in horror movies are can be incredibly frightening and the thought of this weird ass sick kid in his room downstairs freaks me out. It’s looks like it’s going to be a great installment in the “babysitter’ horror genre. I think this one might already be available as it’s trailer was released back in 2011, so I’ll review this soon hopefully!

5. The Babadook: “A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.”

From what I have read thus far about this Australian movie is that it’s scary as hell. With a silly name like The Babadook this one better be! I’m pretty intrigued by this one as it’s already been praised as on of the best movies at Sundance in 2013. Check out the trailer:
Comic Book Cover of the Week! Golden Age Hellboy!!

February 14, 2014

Hellboy and the BPRD have both moved up the ranks these days as probably my favorite comic book series currently on the market! The reason for that being really being one man, Mike Mignola! Mignola is a visionary, he’s been doing comic books for ages and his artwork is unmistakable. He has always been a fave of mine since the 1980’s and his Hellboy universe has grown extensively through the years. I am personally surprised at how many of my friends that read comic books still AREN’T reading the Hellboy and BPRD stuff! It’s better than anything Marvel is putting out that’s for sure-here’s one of my fave Hellboy covers-number 14 where Mignola creates the Golden age Hellboy!!
Don’t Fear The Davis Baby! Just Download it for Free!

February 10, 2014

I’m taking a moment here to share a new song from my latest musical endeavor The Davis Baby! Yes it’s named after that little mutant monster baby from the 70’s horror flick “It’s Alive”. See back in the mid 90’s I lived in Wisconsin & I played in a pop punk band called Ben Grim, we were inspired by bands like Descendents/ALL, The Doughboys, The Hard-ons ect, we released some records and toured around the US with our best buddies Fun Size (one of the best pop punk bands of the 90’s). It was some of the best times of my life, as Bryan Adams might say. So I decided to put together a group today that sort of brought that old Ben Grim sound back.

We wrote four songs of crunchy old school power pop the way we would have done it back in the Ben Grim days. The project features my former band mate Joel Vega, who sang and played guitar in Ben Grim with me, my old pal Kevin Carl from lates 80’s/90’s band G-Whiz & Jim Wadsworth my good friend/fellow D&D player from Portland, Oregon band Danger Death Ray. We posted a FREE/name your price download of our new song “Laid to Rest”. It’s meant to be free but bandcamp doesn’t just let you list the track as purely “free”. So please no need to pay just download it!

It’s gonna be featured on our upcoming split ep with Higley (Kevin Carl & Duane Kiener of G-Whiz, Kris Roe of The Ataris & Bill Stevenson of Descendents/ALL/Black Flag) out soon on SP Records. The song also features Mark Arnold from Big DRILL Car on guitar. Which we were fully stoked to have play on it as Big DRILL Car remains to this day one of my favorite bands ever!

Download The Davis Baby for FREE here https://thedavisbaby.bandcamp.com/

Like us on Facebook HERE!

I’m trying to get the word out on this project, and it’s tough in this day and age to get anything out there on your own in the vast sea of the internet, so if you like it please help me share the song-maybe we’ll record more or start playing live!
All Zombies Step Aside! Make Way for ZOMBEAVERS!!!

February 8, 2014

You’ll be DAMNED! Or Beaver Dammed that is! Just saw this trailer today and though I’ve said in the past that I was almost completely over the zombie genre these days I never mentioned anything about Zombeavers!! Yes! You heard that right, we’ve got a full on zombie beaver movie coming out this year to look forward too!

Now normally I’d pass this off as some terrible Syfy original movie trying to reap the success of movies like Sharknado but this one looks pretty awesome. It also doesn’t look like it entirely relies on bad CGI but perhaps a little bit of cool practical effects too-also I’m hoping that when people get bit that they actually do start to become human/beaver hybrids and that wasn’t a mere dream sequence in the trailer! This one is on my radar, check out this outrageous trailer…
Junkyard: A Truly Breathtaking Animated Short!

February 5, 2014

Check out this animated short film that was just released online today called “Junkyard” by Dutch animator Hisko Hulsing. It’s easily some of the most breathtaking animation I’ve seen in quite some time. Here’s the trailer:

It recalls Ralph Bakshi in style by utilizing rotoscoping as in movies like The Lord of the Rings” and “Fire & Ice”. This is a pretty powerful little film clocking in under 18 minutes in length. Check it out in it’s entirety HERE!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Superman the Werewolf Slayer!

February 2, 2014

Superman #422 is quite an interesting issue to say the least, Superman battles werewolves! Yeah back in 1986 Superman had a full on battle with some seriously pesky lycans . To me it’d seem like Supes would have no problem kicking a werewolf’s ass-but that’s apparently not in this issue titled “Bad Moon Rising”. He not only gets his ass handed to him but the werewolf, after the beat down, rips off Superman’s costume and dons it himself! Yeah he leaves Superman naked in the streets of Metropolis and what’s even more funny is that Superman’s worried about “being arrested for indecent exposure”!!!

This issue certainly leaves something to be desired (I think it’s awesomely funny as hell though), but it has the most terrifying cover of any Superman comic book, brilliantly drawn by The Killing Joke’s Brian Bolland!! It’s funny how such a creepy cover could contain such a ridiculous comic adventure beneath. One thing is for sure, Bolland doesn’t fuck around when he draws comic book covers-it’s one of my personal faves!
Bryan Singer’s X-Men: In Need of a Serious Makeover!

January 29, 2014

Somebody call the Oprah-cuz we need to get these Bryan Singer Mutants in for an Extreme Makeover! Now I’m sure that I’m going to enjoy Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. I’m fully confident that it’s going to be maybe one of the best superhero flicks we’ve yet to see. I have good faith in Singer’s ability to bring some magic to the franchise he started. A reunion of sorts is almost always very exciting!

One thing though I’ve been noticing with all of these recently released photo stills from the upcoming movie is that their costumes are really starting to look…well….stupid. Frumpy maybe is the word? I’ve never been a huge fan of the whole slick cool guy black leather X-Men movie look but I’ve tolerated it. I will even say it worked for a while. However some of these costumes just look plain sad.

Maybe it’s just me? These costumes just don’t make the cut! At this point I’d really love to see a more classic look attempted. What would be the harm? It is a fictional comic book based movie. So why can’t we get a little more of the comic book in the look? I mean the costume’s colors could be way toned down. It doesn’t have to look all early 90’s Jim Lee or anything. I mean really this is the BEST they could come up with for Quicksilver? This is some wretched bullshit. He looks like a total tool. Somebody slap this guy now!

If this is the type of shit that we’re getting at this point in time I don’t see what the harm would be to try and give the X-Men their actual comic book costumes! It surely couldn’t get any worse than this! This is where The Avengers and the Marvel movies have gotten it right, The Avengers actually look like The Avengers! It worked! So why the hell can’t Fox get this shit dialed in? I think it’s time that we see the X-Men the way they were meant to be. At this point what’s there to lose? One of the main reasons I love comic books super heroes is because of their costumes.

I honestly can picture something like this being done today tastefully. So get with it Hollywood because your X-Men are in need of a serious makeover….
Knights of Badassdom: The Most Bad ASS Movie of 2014?!

January 28, 2014

I finally saw Knights of Badassdom last night, a movie that I’ve been waiting to be released for years. It first started filming iway back in 2010. So the question remains, was it worth the long, long wait? You Betcha!! I’ll go ahead right now and say that this flick will easily be taking ranks in my top ten list in 2014. It’s really too bad that this one is getting such a limited release theatrically, because it’s better than half the comedies that are coming out these days and it works incredibly well as a horror movie too. When I first checked it out I wasn’t aware of how much the movie truly dabbled in the horror, genre I thought it was pretty much a straight up comedy, so I was pleasantly surprised when the heads started rolling. Luckily I was able to catch it here in Portland, Oregon in the theater. I tried to see twice over the weekend but both times it was sold out. Finally we bough our tickets online! I was determined!

First though let me say the movie has a great cast, Peter Dinklage, Ryan Kwanten, Summer Glau and Steve Zahn who I always love, serve up nonstop laughs from beginning to end. Dinklage has got to be the movie’s main draw and without him I really wouldn’t have enjoyed the movie nearly as much as I did. I almost wonder if they’ve been waiting to release the movie because of how popular Dinklage has gotten in last few years with Game of Thrones and his upcoming role as the main bad guy in X-men: Days of Future Past?

The plot is ridiculously simple, metal head Joe, True blood’s Ryan Kwanten is dumped by his girlfriend and to cheer him up his friends get him ridiculously wasted and bring him along to their weekend LARPing outing. Joe’s a bit resistant until he notices his guild has the incredibly cute Gwen (Summer Glau) playing as well. To get the games started the Wizard of the group played By Steve Zahn chants a spell from a strange mystic book he found on Ebay and somehow awakens a succubus that greatly resembles Joe’s ex. She doesn’t show up til later though and in between we get a full on play by play from Dinklage of how to kick ass in the game of Live Action Role Playing that’s one of the movie’s finest moments as he continues throughout to steal the show.

The fun really begins once the succubus emerges from the shadows of the forest. Suddenly the movie starts feeling more like The Army of Darkness than a straight forward comedy. Something that I really enjoyed was all of the old school special effects. The movie features a little bit of well placed CG but by the end of the movie you’ll be cheering in your seat as the evil succubus becomes seriously a little less than human!

The movie is all out fun, the perfect Saturday night popcorn flick and it also delivers one hell of an ending that’s more than worth waiting for. It’s jam packed with, laughs, action, monsters, heavy metal and plenty of surprises! This one was directed by Joel Lynch who also did the awesome Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. If you see this playing near you check it out, it’s got a limited theatrical run before it’s released on Feb. 11th via VOD. I also hear this version may have been heavily edited so that’s just a little more incentive to check out the DVD when it drops!