Tagged: vs.
Halloween 2021: Who Won? CHUCKY or MICHAEL MYERS?!
It’s been a bit of a “David & Goliath” horror showdown in 2021, two iconic slashers went head to head this Halloween and as far as I’m concerned the little guy has emerged as the clear victor! ‘Chucky’ stomped ‘Halloween Kills’, continuing the horror saga with no need to cancel ANY of it’s sequels, no matter how ridiculous they may have been! Not an easy feat, but Don Mancini has stuck to his guns and once again breathed some fresh air into the fanchise.
Mancini also deserves a lot of credit for clearly how much love he still has for Chucky. He clearly doesn’t need to erase the sequels, keeping everything cannon, something I really respect that oddly works in his favor here with the new Syfy series. He’s built an entire world within his sequels and it becomes even more interesting as some of the most ludicrous plot points of the earlier ones remain intact with this darker toned series that feels much more akin to the original.
‘Halloween Kills’ however is clearly being pushed imo for a different reason, what I believe to be more of an IP “cash grab” reboot thing. ‘The Pineapple Express’ director doesn’t bring much new or interesting to the table for someone who’s erased all of the sequels and replaced them with basically the “Terminator: Dark Fate” of the Halloween franchise. Hey, If you’re going to revise the existing lore, that is beloved by a lot of fans, you better have something bad ass planned for your new time line. ‘Halloween Kills’ personally left me completely underwhelmed & unexcited for whatever comes next. At this point who gives a shit about yet another Halloween timeline?
‘Chucky’ however has introduced us to a whole new cast of (so far) interesting characters, Don Mancini has finally brought us a gay horror protagonist to root for that doesn’t feel forced. ‘Cult of Chucky’ left us with also quite a fresh twist on things, Tuesday night we hit mid season with episode 4, though I’m at the moment starting to slightly feel some padding in the series, I’m hoping that the final 4 episodes will increase the mayhem as they introduce Tiffany and whoever else mysteriously pops in for the story.
Looking at the end of the last Chucky film there’s a lot of interesting directions this current story could now go in. I really hope they take some chances here like they were doing in the last Chucky film rather than trying to just stick to the original basic slasher formula. ‘Chucky’ now has the chance to go completely bonkers and throw the fans a bloody curve ball they’ll never forget. If they continue to incorporate some wild voodoo rituals, human possessions, multiple Chucky’s and one mean mysterious motive for the mayhem, the first season will be off to a sweet start. As it stands Chucky has cut Michael down to size with the authenticity of the original creator at it’s helm who’s clearly hungry to tell a new fresh story. Let’s see if he can deliver a home run in the last four episodes or if it’s flame fizzles into the realm of the tired reboots and bland cash grab “sequels”. Fingers crossed!
Christmas Comic Cover of the Week: Lobo vs Santa Claus!!
It’s time too take a look at some cool Holiday themed comic book covers from yesteryear! Here’s a great one waaay back from 1991, the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special! This crazy Christmas tale feature Lobo as he goes on a hunt to execute Santa Claus, why you might ask? Because the jealous drunken Easter Bunny hired him to do it! A super bizarre Christmas adventure features a total bad ass superpowered Santa to who’s ready to throw down with just about anyone. I love this cover art too by Simon Bisley and the odd disclaimers that can be see on it “Seriously suggested for mature readers” and on the bottom right hand corner reads, “WARNING: Contains Bad Taste In The Form Of Ultra-Violence, Icon-Bashing, And “The Finger.” More Offensive Than Christmas Usually Is.” A total classic 90’s odd ball adventure from DC comics!
Wait but THAT’S not all in 2002 someone made this into a damn short film, no kidding check this shit out!!
5 Reasons Why Netflix Marvel is Better Than Movie Marvel!
I’m really enjoying the latest Marvel Netflix original series ‘Jessica Jones’ and I totally loved Daredevil. It really got me thinking about why these shows seem so far (at least to me) so much better than the Marvel cinematic experience!
After a little thought I decided to nail down my five reasons Marvel should send some of their more popular characters down the same path as Jessica & Matt Murdok!
1.Better Character Development:
It’s clear one of the main reasons why I’ve liked the tv shows more so than the movies is simply because we have so much more time to really get to know the characters inside and out. It can be tough sometimes within only a couple hours to really get a character to the point where you actually understand them and their true motivations without everything feeling a bit rushed.
Netflix gives us the time we need without boring us to really fall in love with the characters. It plays out much more like a comic book taking the time it needs to tell a great story. Some of the Marvel movies simply try and pack way too much shit into too small a time. Not only that but Marvel movies are so concerned with tying everything together between franchises that sometimes you get lost in a big sloppy plot. Imagine for a minute if Captain America would have been a tv series, how much more it would have meant to see Bucky come back as the Winter Soldier after spending a whole season with him and Cap in World Ward II?!
2. Believable Special Effects:
Sometimes when I’m watching a Marvel movie I feel like I’m watching a frikin’ cartoon. There’s soooo much CG and special FX work that it ends up a bit feeling like I’m watching ‘Roger Rabbit’. The Netflix shows have really done a spectacular job with the special effects and they flow nicely alongside the story and the action sequences.
They haven’t required the amount of CG that say The Avengers used but sometimes I really wonder if these big bloated shiny CG stuffed spectacles really need to be telling stories that need that much in the way of FX. More is NOT always better folks and some of these Marvel movies just have NOT aged well and it hasn’t even been that long.
3.Better Villains:
One thing the Marvel movies do NOT have going for them are good villains. The Netflix series works hard at giving us reasons to love and at times really hate the villains. We never really get much in the way of character development for the bad guys in a Marvel movie. Usually they’re just merely there as a reason to see some crazy ass battle go down.
The Netflix series give us the time with the bad guys that we need to really understand them or just really wanna see them get their asses served up. I haven’t once given two shits about any villain in a Marvel movie. And folks your superheroes are only as good as their evil counterparts. So if you ain’t got a good bad guy you ain’t got shit.
4.No Ratings:
Yep, the Marvel movies are all about money and selling boatloads of shit to the kids. Making a killing with merchandise means the movies can never go too dark. However the Netflix Marvel stuff doesn’t have to worry about that, they can cuss, draw blood and have tons of sex if they want to.
The Marvel movies don’t dare go too dark or violent, perhaps that’s one reason why their villains just suck so bad? They’re not allowed to really get all of their evil out onscreen, now imagine the what the Red Skull would have been like in a Netflix series…
5.They Don’t Follow the Marvel Movie Formula:
Let’s all face it, the Marvel movies most definitely have a bit of a tired and predictable formula. I really liked Ant-man but it really felt so “2008”, while watching it’s plot unfold I thought “man we’re really doing this whole thing again?” It felt pretty interchangeable with any other Marvel movies I’ve seen. Good guy gets powers, boring bad guy who has similar powers, cute love interest in danger, big CG fight at end. Blah blah blah..
Or if you’re The Avengers movies you have them all fight a super blah bad guy and then at the end of the movie a big CG slugfest, in a big city, fighting a bunch of similar looking CG clones. The second Avengers movies was really just a retelling of the first, instead of Loki you had Ultron and instead of the hordes of CG Chituari Warriors you had the horde of CG Ultron clones fight at the end in Sokovia instead of New York.
The Netflix shows have broken away from the usual mold at least for the moment and that’s god damn refreshing. Hmm….But then again there is this now:
Conspiracy Theory: The Owl & Wolverine are the SAME person?!!
I’ve always wondered if perhaps there is some secret connection to Wolverine and The Owl in Marvel comics? Is it just me or do these two legendary characters share some unexplained similarities! Have they ever met in the comics? From what I can tell they’ve never crossed paths. So what’s up here are they long lost brothers? The Same person?! Distant relatives or did perhaps Wolverine rip off Leland Owsley’s style? Let’s compare!
hmmm…..
Well let’s see Wolverine again…even though we all know what he looks like!
I’m sure i’m not the first to notice this ahem…striking similarity! but just for the record The Owl first appeared in Daredevil #3 in 1964! Well good ol’ boy Wolverine didn’t appear until 1974 in Incredible Hulk #181! So looks like Wolverine just might have copied Leland’s look for his own! Damn! But still I’m fairly certain The Owl decided he realllllly like Logan’s claws so he had to make a pair for himself. I’m not sure just when The Owl’s claws made their first appearance…STILL though I think it’s totally possible that Logan just might be Leland! Most people make aliases with the same letters in the first name right??! The conspiracy deepens!!
Finally the Fight We Have Been Waiting for: Batman vs……Dexter?!
Boy do I love a good fan made film, often times they are more inspiring than the big blockbusters! We’ve had some cool superhero fan films over the years but this one is quite a bizarre match up when Dexter Morgan moves to Gotham and decides to go after The Penguin and put him on his table to pay for his crimes!
Not a bad idea, until Batman shows up to stop him! Check this one out, it’s a pretty fun little piece of work…maybe Batman isn’t quite as cool looking as he could be, ok I admit it..he looks pretty bad but it’s the thought that counts right?!
oh yeah and if you missed this one check this out, an awesome return to animated Batman by the series cartoon legend Bruce Timm, truly amazing!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Superman vs He-Man!! Who’s More MAN?!
Check out this awesome cover way back from 1982, us kids had our wildest fantasies come true with Superman and The Masters of the Universe! As a kid we’d always be pondering important things like “Who’d win in a fight He-Man or Superman?!” Well our wish came true in the form of this comic book! Of course the only reason the two fight is because of Skeletor taking control of Superman’s mind-DUH! It was a damn good fight too! Now if only we could see He-man Fight the Hulk!!
ADI: Wizards of Special FX!
I just wanted to post a couple videos from ADI, they are an effects studio that specializes in hands on practical effects. Their work never ceases to amaze me. Today they are still pushing the bar with their makeup and animatronics, which I hope more people take notice of. I’ve heard recently that most movies today are made to look like video games, as so many kids expect their movies to look that way and that glossy shiny video gamey look may actually be intentional. There’s a time and a place for both styles of fx, practical and CG and when they are used together it’s often times has created the best moments in cinema.
But for movies today ADI is pretty much the best at what they do. They’ve done a ton of work on some great films, the biggest controversy was all of the special effects they did for the prequel to “The Thing” which ended up a box office flop. The work they did for the film was replaced with shoddy CGI and this outraged the real fans of the iconic 1982 masterpeice. Had they used the ADI versions the prequel would have been the perfect companion piece to that movie. I just watched a great mini episode of Fangoria’s Blood & Guts with Anthrax’s own Scott Ian and it was worth posting again here.
It just goes to show you that these type of effects aren’t dead and in many cases to this day are better than CG. It also reminded me of how rad the monster design was for Goro from the campy Mortal Kombat. Seeing stuff like that done over fifteen years ago makes me wonder why they chose to go fully CG on characters like The Incredible Hulk. Well I guess I am going to have to at least watch Mortal Kombat again! I recommend subscribing to their Youtube channel, there;s some amazing stuff on there!!!
Also any chance I get I love to show this Green Goblin they were working on for the Raimi Spider-man movie. A total shame they didn’t go with it, however my bet is that in the newest reboot of The Amazing Spider-man, The Green Goblin will most likely appear in the third movie-Hollywood don’t blow it get ADI to design his look!!!
The Two Most Annoying Horror Icons Do Battle!
Ok I just saw this little video recently and just had to post for anyone who may have missed out. Yeah I did a blog here a while back on the incredibly irritating Wishmaster. Yes people he’s so damn annoying it’d be hard to take him seriously if he was terrorizing you! Then There’s Leprechaun-equally annoying especially when he’s in Da’ Hood! Well what would happen if these two losers battled it out? Wonder no more cuz here you have it!!! Enjoy!
AVP…NO! AVN…Alien versus Ninja! Yeah!
Normally I would just laugh off a movie concept like this…kind of like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. But much the same reason I endured Mega Shark, I am just curious to see what a film makers vision for aliens and ninja is going to be like. To date, the details are few, so I am sure that it will be sometime till we see the final product. But I am sure once this goes direct to video in the US, I will have it on my Netflix queue!
More after the jump YO!
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Universal Dork 