Saturday, October 31, 2015

Halloween Finale: The Treehouse of Horror Marathon

As I mentioned in my last blog I wanted to do a review of the most recent Treehouse of Horror episode, but DIRECTV didn't see fit to record it. So I'm a little after-the-fact now, but the truth is I just found the special okay, in a long sad series of okay entries.

I was most looking forward to the Sideshow Bob segment, because I can never get enough of that character. And the story was decent enough. The ultimate problem with Treehouse in recent (and not so recent) seasons is the three story format. They're clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel every year to find ideas. Then when they get a good one they don't have enough time to fully develop them. "Wanted: Dead, Then Alive" and "Telepaths of Glory" both fall victim to not being able to explore the concepts in their entirety. "Homerzilla" fares much better and could actually hold its own against some of the classic segments like "Time and Punishment". Although considering Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer were both in the 1998 Matthew Broderick vehicle, you'd think that would have at least inspired a joke or two.

The ultimate question is, why don't they just do full non-canon Treehouse episodes devoted to a single story?

Not that I think it would help much at this point since the current production team is determined to transform The Simpsons into Family Guy (if that criticism happens to be lost on you, it's the equivalent of turning the Daredevil Netflix series into the Daredevil Ben Affleck flick). But, you know. What am I going to do? Spend a whole blog griping about it, or pretend to do something productive?

So let's pretend we're in an alternate dimension where Matt Groening took one look at my Laugh Liberation Front sketch and thought, "This is the nobody on-line we should entrust our high-profile holiday tradition to!" As such, here is the Wikipedia version of what I lovingly refer to as:


Treehouse of Horror XSIV

Opening sequence

It opens with Maggie alone in a Hanna-Barbera type backdrop while the Simpsons theme is played in the style of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. She reaches for a teddy bear which lunges at her bearing its teeth. She swallows her pacifier and scurries into a Springfield-wide music video based on Thriller (preferably the Party City version), where the denizens sing about the joys of traumatizing their children, including Marge jumping off the Simpsons's roof with a noose around her neck declaring "It's all for you Maggie!" It peaks with Sideshow Bob performing the Vincent Price rap, explaining to Maggie how humans are all inherently sociopathic. It ends on his evil laugh, while Maggie smiles for the first time and holds her arms up so Bob can pick her up.


Halloween I - Columbus Day 0

At Precinct 13, Dr. Nick walks into the room where a hearing committee is going on, delivering his trademark "Hi, everybody!" When he's met with silence, he realizes the entire board has been murdered, and the violent patient has escaped. Outside, two carpenters are working at night. "We're never gonna finish the ward, what with all the fog." "Hey John, someone's watching me." "Just hand me the...the thing." He gets impaled with a large knife. The killer is clearly Moe Szyslak wearing a Moe Szyslak mask that has been painted white.

At the Simpsons house, Ned asks Marge to come babysit his kids so he can protest the release of Harry Potter: Just Kidding, This is Really What Happened. Meanwhile, Abe Simpson gets impaled against the wall at his nursing home, although the killer has to awaken him once before he dies properly. Homer calls Marge to tell her that Grandpa died in his sleep from a knife wound. At that moment, the TV show "Continuity Watch" reveals Homer's seldom seen half-brother has been similarly murdered.

Marge becomes concerned about Patty and Selma and runs over to their house to check on them, only to find them dead as well, and she encounters the killer. Running back to the Flander's home doesn't help because Rod and Tod are too preoccupied with listing all the people they want God to bless to open the door. The Simpsons house is locked up as well. She throws a rock at the window to draw Homer's attention, but only manages to knock him out with it.

She manages to get Bart and Lisa's attention and together they subdue him. Marge then tells her children to go running around in the street yelling until the police notice. The killer sits up and attacks Marge again but is defeated by a rifle shot from the actual Moe Szyslak, who's not going to let anyone use his likeness without a piece of the residuals. Marge pulls the mask off to reveal Roy Simpson as the killer.

He's taken into custody, but after an impassioned plea from guest star Rob Zombie that Roy only had an ambiguously troubled childhood and was only getting in the spirit of the season, Chief Wiggum uncuffs Roy and merely offers to drive him home. The police car travels ten feet before it rocks violently from inside, with blood splattering the windows. A moment later, Wiggum emerges, confused by the twist ending, but shrugs and puts on the Moe mask, leading to an audible "Hey!" from Moe off screen.


The Exor-sister

Lisa's having a nightmare. She sits up abruptly in bed clutching her abdomen when she feels something odd. She looks at her stomach to find the words "HELP ME" in red. She passes Bart's room on the way to the bathroom to wash it off, muttering "Very funny." Bart, who's awake in the middle of the night, asks her what makes her think she wrote that on her stomach. "Because I didn't mention it!"

Lisa is back in bed when she's suddenly thrown back and forth violently, calling for her mom. Marge comes in and strokes Lisa's hair. "What's wrong honey? Are you possessed by the devil?" Lisa points at Bart accusingly, who makes a slight attempt to hide a remote device. Marge asks Bart to stop driving his sister insane and sends them both back to bed.

The next morning Lisa wakes up to find her room drenched in pea soup. Particularly when she sees the damage done to her saxophone she loses it, running downstairs to confront her brother. Marge suggests again that Lisa might be possessed, while Bart insists she's really just having a meltdown. "That's it!" she screams. "Lisa's not here anymore!" Her head spins around and she spiderwalks back up to her room. Marge thinks that she should probably call someone.

From there, the Simpson household is swarmed with camera crews trying to capture footage of the exorcism, and Bart is irritated that Lisa is getting all the attention. He tries to tell everyone that she's faking it, but he's ignored. Reverend Lovejoy has his hands on Lisa's head saying "The power of Christ compels you!" "To do what?" Lisa asks. "I...never really thought about it." He shrugs and walks out. Marge grumbles that this is what happens when you question religion. Ned says that they should just try to accept that Lisa is going to hell. Professor Frink tries to disprove the afterlife with science, but Lisa points out that he divided by zero in his equation, sending him flying out the window.

Homer grabs Lisa's shoulders and demands that the devil come into him. Lisa yells no. Homer pleads that it will make him look like the cool dad but Lisa protests that being possessed is the first time Springfield has ever taken an interest in her well-being. Bart finally demands everyone recognize that she truly is faking, and he knows because he's been possessed by the devil since he was five. He demonstrates visually the demonic entity that dwells inside him. The camera crews all respond that it makes a lot of sense and lose interest in the exorcism. Marge wonders aloud how Lisa's head could have spun around, but Homer, Bart and Maggie all demonstrate the ability. "What, you can't do that?"

That night Bart is laying smugly in his bed as Lisa walks by. He sneers, "You don't mess with the master of darkness." Lisa shoots him a grin. "Oh, I've had a word with that devil of yours. It seems he's a little displeased that you haven't been using the powers of hell for the purpose of good and kindness." She ignores him as he argues, "Using evil for good? That doesn't make any sense!" He turns to a figure of a clown sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed. "Does it, life sized stuffed Krusty that I've never seen before?" He lays down, but sits up immediately to find the chair is now empty. "Ay caramba!" he moans as a jingling hand taps his shoulder. "Nope. Not turning around," he says, but the hand grabs Bart's head and spins it backwards causing Bart to scream.


The Tube

Homer sits at his work station, looking depressed. "I hate my dead-end job," he says. Smithers announces that, due to cutbacks, the power plant is looking for volunteers to be laid off, with severance packages to the first twelve people. A huge crowd runs past Homer's station before he's able to process the announcement, so he doesn't bother.

Homer walks into the kitchen at home, oblivious to his family's conversation over dinner. He realizes he's left his wallet at work. He returns to his work station and picks up his wallet, accidentally flipping a switch that brings up the power plant's self destruct menu. The screen says "Are you sure you want to destroy the power plant?" and he sadly clicks "No". He walks back into the kitchen where the Simpsons are still having the same conversation when he realizes he's also forgotten his car keys at work. He returns to claim them but suddenly makes the connection that he couldn't have made so many trips to and from work without access to his car.

He walks back and forth from the kitchen to work a few times before trying a different direction, visiting several Springfield locations in rapid succession. He makes it back to the kitchen where Marge asks him if something is wrong. He thinks for a moment, and yells "Why you little-" to Bart without making a move towards him. Bart begins choking on cue. Homer runs out of the house trying to figure out what's going on.

After getting progressively more panicked he finally gets the idea to visit a fabric store. He casually asks the clerk where the fabric of reality is and the clerk points to the wall before awkwardly attempting to feign ignorance, but Homer is already over there, tearing a hole in it.

A doorway leads to an empty padded white room with similar doors in all directions. He goes through a door and finds himself in an identical room, except it's blue. He runs through several more chambers, stopping curiously when he finds himself in an all black one with red windows and a grandfather clock. The Red Death enters, excited for his big moment but is surprised to find Homer there. He misses his chance to kill Prince Prospero while ushering Homer out.

Homer spends some time going through rooms with dangerous traps trying to solve his way out of the maze when he finds a room with the TARDIS. He throws the doors open only to find a smaller TARDIS inside. The pattern continues three more sizes down until guest star Peter Capaldi reaches through the tiny door offering Homer the use of his Sonic Sunglasses. When Homer hesitates, Capaldi grabs Homer and pulls him violently against the TARDIS. "I said put on the sunglasses!" he demands, before realizing he's twenty minutes late for that reference.

Homer puts on the glasses and finds a door leading to a control room where he meets Billy the Puppet, a Minotaur, and the Lady of Pain, none of whom provide any assistance. He finds a sign that only says "You are here." He goes through several more, only to wind up in the same room, except the sign now says "You are still here."

He sinks to the floor, practically in tears when a band of folk singers walks in and sings "You'll neer get out of the Tube." Homer freaks and starts beating them with their own instruments, but he's stopped by a FOX executive who tells Homer that to return things back to normal he just has to sign a new contract, owing his existence to them indefinitely. Homer reads the contract but the letters quickly devolve into gibberish. "The writing keeps getting worse!" he laments.

He's startled to find himself being heckled by Statler and Waldorf and he realizes he's on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl. Homer thinks he can just run off the stage but he bumps into the wrong side of a movie screen. He begs for someone to help him but discovers he's only being riffed on by MST3K characters on the front row. As they get up to leave, he follows them through their door sequence, covering his ears and screaming as The Simpsons's production teams DVD commentary begins playing.

The doorway ends with Homer alone on a completely white background where he gets erased by a giant pencil and redrawn as Daffy Duck's flower creature from Duck Amuck. It's at that moment he finally just breaks down sobbing. A moment later he hears the soothing voice of guest star Tracey Ullman. "Homer," she appears in her bathrobe, "What's wrong? Aren't you enjoying your Halloween special?" "No," he cries, "I just want to go home!" She informs him that he's always had the ability to go home. "The ruby slippers?" But they both realize he's just wearing his normal shoes. Ullman frustratingly agrees to send him home herself by yelling her trademark "Go home! Go home!"

Homer wakes up in his bed surrounded by his family and the rich Texan leaning in through the window. He tells them he had this dream "and you, and you, and you, and" to the Texan "not you so much." "Well you're home now," says Marge. "It was aaaall a dream." There's an uncomfortable pause. "So," says Homer, "It really WAS just a dream then?" "Yes, Homey. Just a dream." Homer fidgets. "I guess I'm just expecting something...unexpected to happen."

Marge smiles. "What? Like him?" Guest star Chubby Checker comes in without warning, expressing how glad he is that Homer is all right and offers to perform a song. The family is enthusiastic and he begins singing "The Twist". Homer lays there completely perplexed for a few seconds before making the connection. "Oh, I get it."

Credits.


Okay, I promised you a marathon. Here are my favorite individual segments from the Treehouses over the years.

The Raven: Treehouse of Horror I (1990)

Yeah, everybody singles this one out, but this was impressive. With Dan Castellaneta's vocal inflexions and timing, Edgar Allen Poe's original words come to life both humorously and legitimately at the same time. The end result has the very vibrancy that Bart insists it doesn't. Satire has never been quite so artistic.

Bart Simpson's Dracula: Treehouse of Horror IV (1993)

I just didn't find episodes II and III all that memorable (it's not the first time I've said those exact words). Even King Homer, which people seem to love, just struck me as tedious. But then this episode came, and I don't believe it had a weak segment. But it was the parody of Bram Stoker's Dracula that really knocked it out of the park. And the ending homage to A Charlie Brown Christmas capped off the special beautifully.

The Shinning: Treehouse of Horror V (1994)

Was there any doubt? I don't believe the other two segments this year are as good as people claim (they're fine, but nothing grand), but this one segment is so flawless that it pushes the whole episode into unreachable heights.

Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace: Treehouse of Horror VI (1995)

I honestly find the Homer3 segment overrated, and it completely draws attention away from this brilliant gem. They cram a full episode's worth of material into this six minute segment. There are three acts, a back story, a false ending, multiple dreams and a punchline. That's a hell of a lot more than ever happened in The Happening.

It's the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse: Treehouse of Horror XIX (2008)

Jeez, did it really take this long for another good one? I mean, there were prior episodes that had moments, (Four Beheadings and a Funeral nearly made this list) but nothing really stands out until we finally get to the Charles Schulz parody. The Grand Pumpkin winds up being a really memorable character, and I'll never get tired of the Linus and Lucy theme song in any form.

Dial 'M'..etc. (too long): Treehouse of Horror XX (2009)

The timing in a Hitchcock film is surprisingly similar to the timing of comedy (see Mel Brooks's High Anxiety for a beautiful example) and the Simpsons do the Strangers on a Train send up flawlessly. It's always gratifying to see Lisa get pushed to her breaking point, and watching her go after her brother with a knife is quite appeasing to my inner sadist.

War and Pieces: Treehouse of Horror XXI (2010)

A lot of people don't care for this one, and I get it, but the sheer number of nods to classic board games make this segment shine. Oh Milhouse. I'm embarrassed by how much of myself I see in you.

Oh the Places You'll D'oh: Treehouse of Horror XXIV (2013)

This is another one that may not have looked great on paper, but the thought of the Cat in the Hat being a psychotic force of destruction is kind of creative. It's certainly not on the level of Guillermo del Toro's presumably unsurpassable couch gag, but you'll need to pause the segment a few times to catch all the Seussian references.

A Clockwork Yellow: Treehouse of Horror XXV (2014)

The Simpsons really is having to search the American Film Industry lists for ideas, but damn it if this isn't funny. Like Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick is just meant to be parodied. I did a full review of this whole episode last year, but suffice to say this segment is still as great today.


Halloween of Horror (2015)

This wasn't as solid of an episode as I'd hoped for, but the story line works nicely. In fact it's almost reminiscent of the golden years of The Simpsons. It's the first canon Halloween episode of the 27 year old show, unless you consider the original Treehouse as the in-canon excuse for the rest of the fantasies.

Highlight 1: Homer and Lisa's relationship is the emotional core. Some of the best stories have focused on these two conflicting personalities who would never have anything to do with each other if they weren't related by blood. Lisa's emotional instability provides real tension for an understandably death-free arc, and Yeardley Smith really sells the anxiety.

Highlight 2: The bad guys really do come across as menacing, which was a needed element that the regular Treehouse series never HAD to enforce.

Highlight 3: Grown-up Halloween. That was inspired, but due to the dwindling run times it never gets fully realized.

The episode could have been better, but I'll give it credit to The Simpsons for actually doing something new and memorable. Homer is at his best when he has to prove he can be a good father to Lisa. There's still some life in this show. It would be nice to see them hit a home run now and then, but until then I can accept a double.


So Happy Halloween everyone! May you all overcome something that frightens you.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The Carousel: A Room Without a View

I've been taking a creative writing course for the past few weeks and I wanted to share a little bit of the story I've been working on. This is an except from what I hope will be a full story down the line. Basically Caris and Zel are working as scare actors in one of those hard core haunted attractions. On this particular night they're dealing with protesters, an incoming hurricane, and a possibly actual haunting. Let me know what you think.


A Room Without a View

Another thunderclap pulsed through the walls of the ex-museum, even louder than the one that took away the lights ten minutes before. Caris peered up into the darkness that obscured the metal support beam fifteen feet above the floor.

When the power had gone out, all of the electronic locks on the doors had frozen, leaving Caris and her fellow scare actors trapped in the breakroom. Heath was still across the room, pounding on the door, and Rochelle was attempting to soothe Katy over on the couch. Jay continued muttering obscenities to himself. Caris felt around on the carpet until her hand touched Deitrick’s. “You okay?” he asked her.

“Just making sure you were still there.” She smiled, even if she was the only one who knew it. “Did anything happen like this last year?”

“Nah, we had drunk people last year.”

“Do you think we could get somebody over the wall?”

“What? Into the storeroom?”

“Yeah. Where our phones are.”

“We wouldn’t even get a signal out here!” grumbled Jay.

“We could use them to see,” said Caris.

Heath’s pounding ceased. “What do you guys think? It’s worth a shot, right?”

A silence passed where people were presumably nodding or shrugging, followed by Rochelle’s jovial chickle. “I ain’t going.”

“Katy,” said Jay. “You’re the lightest-”

“No way in hell!”

“I’ll do it,” Caris said. “I mean, I’m five eleven. If I stand on Heath’s shoulders I should be able to reach.”

Deitrick patted her fingers. “Caris, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Yeah. And I’m also terrified of heights. So if the lights come on while I’m up there, I reserve the right to scream like a banshee.”

Heath laughed. “Is that how you got cast?”

Rochelle jumped in. “Girl, don’t you know what a Liberty Lift is?”

Caris was positive everyone could see her blank expression through the darkness. “I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s not when insurance covers your boobs?”

Katy’s disapproving huff could be heard over Heath and Deitrick’s collective laughter.

“You seriously weren’t a cheerleader?”

“They told me I was too tall.”

“But you work out now?”

“I’m a dancer.”

“Hang on.” Rochelle felt around for Heath and groped her way across the room to where Caris and Deitrick were. “Alright, give me your good leg.”

Rochelle positioned her and Deitrick’s hands around Caris’s ankle like a manacle. “Okay, you think you can stand in that?”

Caris flinched as she stepped into her makeshift stirrup. “No problem.”

“Now Heath, you’re going to have to put your hand on her behind.”

“Well, if I have to,” he responded without missing a beat, and Deitrick asked if he could switch places with Heath. But the sadness in Caris’s voice brought the collective mirth to an untimely end.

“Katy, I heard that.”

The darkness of the room felt heavy again, and for a few moments nobody did anything, waiting for Katy to make some sort of acknowledgement which never came.

“What did she say,” asked Jay.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Caris, returning to the task at hand. “So is it ‘3,2,1, jump?”

“If that works for you, hon,” Rochelle answered.

“Will it help if I yell ‘woo-hoo’?”

“Only if you’re Daffy Duck,” Deitrick snickered.

“Okay, just give me a second,” she said to the six hands on her foot and posterior. Visions of every part of her face and head plowing straight into the overhead metal paraded through her mind, followed by an infinite possibility of positions in which sprawl onto her castmates thereafter.

A leap of faith. Not her first, and not her last. But possibly the only one she’d ever have to make straight up.

“I’m ready.”

And they all counted down.

Friday, October 23, 2015

The Twelfth Toll (Part Four of Four)

The final stand against the darkness. Search your memories for Part One, Part Two and Part Three.






In Peractio

My patient number gave me the path I took through the twelve rooms of the house, which were laid out in the same configuration as the telephone buttons on the painting in the Studio. Thus, the North most rooms from West to East were the Kitchen, The Studio, and the Playroom; represented by the telephone buttons 1, 2, and 3. Just South of these rooms were the Dining Hall, the Corridor, and the Bedroom represented by buttons 4, 5, and 6 respectively. The Living Room (my entry point), the Study, and the Washroom corresponded to 7, 8, and 9. And at the Southernmost area of the house was the Cellar, the Library, and the Conservatory, represented by the *, 0, and # buttons.
Taking this into account, my patient number of 78-963-2580*7412 gave me a path of Living Room, Study, Washroom, Bedroom, Playroom, Studio, Corridor, Study, Library, Cellar, Living Room, Dining Hall, Kitchen, and Studio where I made my escape.
I began in the Living Room with no knowledge of how to solve the keypad, and I moved East into the Study, where I also had no means of solving the fireplace puzzle. Further East into the Washroom gave me the first puzzle I could figure out, although it was a waste of my time. The solution was: “Psychologically horror-stricken procrastination counterbalances accomplishments. Congratulations.” How considerate.
Turning North into the Bedroom, I solved the Sudoku, where I retrieved the clue necessary for the fireplace in the Study, “Sweet Home”. Continuing North I solved the Playroom’s maze, releasing Bobby Barrows on my tail. I ran West to the Studio, and subsequently the exit, but I had not a rune with which to unlock the door, so I solved the puzzle on the mirror and ran South.
In the Corridor, I solved the jumble, which had the solution of “I GOT A ROCK” and was successful in destroying Bobby Barrows’s blades. South to the Study again, I entered “Sweet Home” into the first line of the grid and solved the puzzle which ended in the name “Slender”. From that moment on, the Slender Man began pursuing me through the house.
South into the Library, and I solved the puzzle on the shelves and entered the Cellar to the West. By successfully placing the planks, and recording the numbers on the kegs in the order I traversed them, I received the code for the Living Room: 4-6-3-2-2-3-4-6-3-3. Still not having a rune on my person, Pious Augustus left me alone.
I scurried North into the Living Room again, where this time I entered the code to reach the North passage into the Dining Hall. Solving the puzzle of the cake gave me the very rune that Pious was searching for; one that would allow me to escape from the house. Heading North into the Kitchen, I confronted Daniella, who gave me the head start I needed when I answered her rebus depicting “Phantasmagoria”. She followed me East into the Studio where she became distracted by her reflection in the mirror and I used the Rune to unlock the door leading out.
I never set foot in the Conservatory.

Thank you for joining me on this strange journey.

Copyrighted characters I've blatantly stolen from:

Slender Man from Slender: The Eight Pages
Daniella and Fiona Belli from Haunting Ground
Pious Augustus and Alexandra Roivas from Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Bobby Barrows AKA Scissorman from Clock Tower
Pyramid Head, James Sunderland, and Angela Orosco from Silent Hill 2
Henry Stauf from The 7th Guest

with added scenes swiped from Shivers, Zork: Grand Inquisitor, and Banjo-Kazooie.


If you enjoyed The Twelfth Toll, be sure to check out my video about it's creation.


Thursday, October 22, 2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Twelfth Toll (Part One of Four)


I created this tribute to the survival/horror video game genre for the October 2013 edition of the Hoover Public Library's Game Night. These are the introductory pages and the first puzzle (although not necessarily the first puzzle encountered in the narrative). Continued in Part Two...


Sunday, October 18, 2015

The Jigsaw Pieces: Revisiting the Franchise

I'm oddly particular about horror films. On the one hand, I find a certain exhilaration in the genuineness of characters in a life or death situation. Nobody has to be nice or worry about their careers, they just have to survive. It's simple and it's refreshing. But on the other hand, I've never been one to really get absorbed into the whole Roman Coliseum mentality of violent entertainment.

Now don't get me wrong, I love physical comedy. I can spend hours watching epic fail videos of skateboarders diving through restaurant windows, probably because I feel they deserve what's coming to them for getting off the couch and doing something productive. But the moment I see blood, it stops being fun for me.

Suffice to say, a horror movie/series has to really have something special about it to get me to engage, but once it has me it has to work really hard to push me away. The Saw franchise managed to do just that. I've seen the Halloweens, Friday the 13ths, and Child's Plays, but they were always in retrospect. Saw wound up being MY horror franchise; I discovered it at its beginning (on DVD, but still) and followed it through its highs and lows and lower lows to its repulsive conclusion.

Ultimately the Saw series feels like that 'wrong' relationship that was great in bed but you really couldn't imagine raising kids with. So being a mere two weeks away from the Elsas and Iron Men that are invariably going to be hammering on the front door demanding handouts that they'll never deserve, why don't we reflect back on one of our great modern horror icons?


Saw

The original film was actually a clever setup. It was 2004. The Room Escape game hadn't really sprung up in its full glory yet, but there's a universality behind the concept of being trapped in a dangerous situation where there IS a way out, if you only use your brain hard enough

A lot of people equate Saw with the torture porn subgenre. I don't think it's an accurate assessment, even if the films do cross the line. But in this first film, the violence is surprisingly limited. We see enough to make us feel like we're seeing even more. We see that reverse bear trap going off in Amanda's mouth, even though we clearly don't see it. The movie is psychologically terrifying. And Jigsaw is at his most enigmatic, being completely behind the scenes for the whole film.

I fell for the story because of how intricately creative it was. Are there plot holes? Yeah, of course. But the thing is done so well that they don't really matter. And I really liked seeing writer Leigh Whannell as a main character.

Highlights: The reverse bear trap. The twist after twist in the third act. The gallows humor. The claustrophobic setting. Billy the Puppet's introduction.

Lowlights: Not much. Dr. Gordon's meltdown at the end maybe feels a little forced.

Saw II

I know a lot of people consider this one to be the best in the series. I disagree, but it was a decent follow up. The big strength is Jigsaw's performance. They didn't have to cast an actor of Tobin Bell's caliber for the tiny amount of screen time his character got in the first film. But they did. Let's face it, the series never would have lasted without him.

Even after he dies in the series, Jigsaw remains the star player. He's the crazed chess master who anticipates your moves well into the next game. His twisted sense of morality is the primary reason I was so captivated by the series. He truly believes he's doing something positive, and it's an exciting horror to watch unfold.

So instead of two characters trapped in a room together, we have an ensemble trapped in a house. This story arc is never fully realized, as two characters essentially do nothing. And the filmmakers kept insisting in interviews that Obi (the arsonist) and his connection to Jigsaw was going to matter at some point. But that never got addressed except in the video game, which may or may not be canon.

Donnie Wahlberg is decent as Detective Matthews. He's not Cary Elwes, but he's effective as the new flawed lead. His story is particularly tragic in that he never finds out his son is still alive. Amanda is back, and Shawnee Smith is brilliant in the role. Dina Meyer reprises and expands her character Allison Kerry from the first film to a likable level, and Lyriq Bent makes his debut as Daniel Rigg. The story is expanding in really solid ways.

Highlights: The new cast. Amanda is a great villain. Jigsaw is incredibly charismatic. The traps are getting a smidge more clever

Lowlights: The B story arc feels really unpolished, they could have had so much more fun with the house. And what is it they're dying of? Also, the opening trap was just dumb, nobody would cut out their eye like that. That guy was dead from the beginning.

Saw III

Yilck. This is our first real misstep. We had three scenes in a row that were uncomfortably gruesome, bordering on abusive to the audience. First, Detective Matthews breaks his foot. Then we have the scene with Troy, that I'm just not going to describe here. Suffice to say, it started the trend of Jigsaw victims doing what they're supposed to do to survive and still being killed anyway, which undermines Jigsaw's appeal. And then Allison Kerry is killed, for reasons I still can't figure out, completely wasting a good character.

Then we get to Jeff Denlon's story, played by Angus Macfadyen. Macfayden is a decent actor but I never warmed up to his character, which meant I was never really invested in his story. And the traps this time around are just mean. I know later we find out that it's Detective Hoffman's doing, but it just doesn't feel justifiable. Story duo James Wan and Leigh Whannell were leaving the franchise on this film, and I kind of sense they intended this to be the last in the series.

We get to spend more time with Amanda, but she's become a little too crazy to care about anymore. And Jigsaw is on his deathbed, so he's not in top form either. Big cringing meh on this one.

Highlights: Hmm, let me think. Um. The single character walking through a series of horrifying encounters works as a formula. The series will do it better in the future.

Lowlights: Just about everything. Jigsaw is killed. Amanda is killed. Kerry is killed. Look, I know it's horror, but these movies still have to have a naughty fun factor completely missing from Saw III. Oh yeah, and the guy on the cross? Way over the line guys.

Saw IV

The most amazing thing about this movie is how the new production team was able to write themselves out of a blatant dead-end.

Okay, let's address the elephant in the room. There is a graphic miscarriage scene in this film. I wasn't bothered by it, but I have male anatomy. My wife was so unsettled by the scene that it put her off to the whole series. Now the scene is important to the plot, so it's not as simple as saying the scene shouldn't have been in the movie. It's also worth noting that not every female audience member will react as strongly to the scene as my wife did, but I do know that she wasn't alone in thinking it was too much.

So who's to decide then? Well in the primary production team listing, I'm not seeing a single female's name. Would having that one vote of approval end the discussion? Of course not. But I have to say that my wife and the people who agree with her have a valid point, and it would go a long way to hear that the team really did have a similar discussion about where the line was before going that route.

But leaving that topic unresolved, the rest of this movie is really entertaining. The fun factor is back and the traps are starting to feel like they actually mean something. Realism may be slipping away, but we're getting a deranged Tex Avery cartoon feel to the proceedings, and it pays off.

Rigg is the central character in this one, and I really find myself rooting for him. Of course it's a Saw movie so it's not going to end well, but the guy really, really tried.

Highlights: We're moving away from horror and more into thriller territory, which gives us a freshness. The multiple story arcs blend together much more smoothly than ever. Both Rigg and Matthews meet tragic ends, and yet it's weirdly satisfying in a non-sadistic way.

Lowlights: The miscarriage scene. Leftover plot points from the past movie are unceremoniously discarded.

Saw V

Costas Mandylor is an underrated actor. But unfortunately, he is probably always going to be known for playing Jigsaw lite. It doesn't help that nobody really gives a shit about his character. Saw V focuses on Detective Hoffman as he takes over Jigsaw's.

But here is the first problem. Why? If his motivation were ultimately to find a way out, then I could relate to him. But he actually seems to want to become the next Jigsaw, and it doesn't make any sense. He doesn't have Jigsaw's twisted conviction to test the world. Instead he may just be enjoying the power to decide who lives and dies. If we were back in Saw I territory that might be an acceptable motive, but by this point we've grown to practically revere Jigsaw as the antihero of the whole franchise. It just feels like we're doomed now.

We've had a Saw movie every October now, which is basically like watching cinematic television, and this is the entry that really starts to feel like a dead horse. There's a plot involving one of the federal agents from the previous film, and some crap about an apartment complex that burned down. But the story is missing its focus, and its star. Damn it! I went to see the midnight showing of this!

Highlights: I'm not convinced there were any. Julie Benz was in it, and her character had some real potential. I think it would actually have been way cooler if the people going through the traps DID in fact figure out how to work together while they were all still alive.

Lowlights: Well, the movie for one. The whole franchise was just feeling stretched too thin.

Saw VI

Okay, how the hell did that happen? They pulled victory from the jaws of indifference. Keeping the movies going after Jigsaw's death was pretty creative, but Saw VI was a freaking magic trick. Unfortunately nobody went to see it.

In order for an audience to 'enjoy' a horror film, you have to make it 'okay' for characters to die. That's why in slasher films the victims have to be doing drugs, or having sex, or flashing their breasts (I've never been clear on why that last one is such a problem). This movie gives us the insurance company that denied a pre-Jigsaw John Kramer coverage for medical treatment that he needed. It's a great premise, and it probably gives Jigsaw his most screen time since Saw II.

But the predominant mystery here is about Jigsaw's wife Jill (not Hacksaw like we were hoping) and whether or not she is A: in on his life as a vigilante, and B: going to make it out of the plot alive. After Hoffman loses any sympathy we may have had for him, it's Jill to the twist ending, sticking the fallen detective in the infamous reverse bear trap. He manages to escape it, but not without permanently damaging his face. It's gratifying in a way, and Saw VI is the closest the series gets to a happy ending.

It really could have ended there.

Highlights: The traps have a metaphorical significance again. More Jigsaw! I happen to like Jill's character. Hoffman overestimated himself and got burned. The new characters are actually engaging.

Lowlights: I can only think of one. This wasn't the way the series ended.

Saw 3D

F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! Son of a f*cking- You HAD to do it! Didn't you? You had to ruin the whole f*cking series with this f*cking crash grab! Alright, let me take a minute to remember there might be children reading my review...(F****CK!!!!)

The Saw series is essentially for two audiences, the ones who love character studies (me) and the lovers of gore (people other than me). The original film found an audience in the former, then picked up the more mainstream second audience along the way. For several years they were doing a decent job appeasing both audiences. But then this damned thing happened with the studio telling my audience that we were no longer needed. Sorry, just one more. F*ck you a**holes!

Even director Kevin Greutert was appalled at having to fulfill his contract to do this movie. Former cop Hoffman is willing to kill every cop in his precinct just to get Jill, and I lost track of the body count, but he may have succeeded. Yeah, cops don't really last long in horror films, but there's a threshold where it just stops being okay.

And on top of everything else, Jigsaw's superpower is his ability to out-think anyone else. But his 'way out' that he provided for his wife is the very thing that gets her killed gruesomely in the reverse bear trap. Everything about this movie is unforgivable, and I have never gone back and watched any of the previous movies (that I used to love) since.

Oh yeah, there's another B story, with a guy who lies about being a Jigsaw victim to sell a fake memoir. This gets quite a few people around him murdered; including his completely innocent wife, who burns to death in front of him. I didn't just walk away from this movie heartbroken, I was honestly unsettled.

Highlights: None. Please refer to the profanity above.

Lowlights: I will never forgive this series.


Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan took over the writing responsibilities beginning with Saw IV, and the only happy ending I can pull out of it is their over the top gorefest The Collector and its sequel The Collection. The first movie was written as a potential Saw prequel but then became its own thing. I mention them because I just can't encourage anyone to even check out the earlier Saw films, thats how mad the last movie made me. But I can say The Collector/tion is the spiritual successor to that franchise. It's way bloodier if that's what you want, it has a really awesome protagonist to face off with the killer, and the single most satisfying ending to a horror story that I've ever seen.

Sorry Jigsaw, but I've moved on.

Game over.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

The Haunted Hayride (100th Post Party)

It's a nice, crisp evening out. There are still more leaves on the trees than the ground, but the world has turned a melancholic shade of harvest brown. The horse-drawn wagon full of hay creeps in my direction, with Misty holding the reins. She's been my inner voice of poetry since I was thirteen. And even though we don't talk as much as we used to, I always know she's there for me.

The sunlight has about half an hour left, and it's probably going to get a little chilly, but there's no indication of rain. It's going to be a nice ride.

My unnamed journalist character from Scooby Doo's Unsolved Mystery is snapping pictures while I'm gabbing with the Big Bad Wolf who towers over me by at least two feet. And that's when the Carousel crew shows up, sans Molly. Caris is her usual chatterbox self, scurrying up to the wolf and throwing her arms around him like they've known each other. Brandon and Zel make their way over and greet me politely, perhaps with a bit of apprehension. When you're a fictional character, interacting with your primary writer is always a little awkward.

Marguerite regrettably won't be attending the hayride as I think she's still a little shaken from her experience, but we'll be picking up Walter P. Sullivan along the way, since I feel as though I owe him one. The journalist won't be joining us for the ride, but gets a shot of the five of us in front of the wagon, with Misty in the background. And then we all pile into the hay and we're off.



"So what exactly is this?" the Wolf asks me.

"I don't know, really. It's the hundredth blog. I thought it might be fun to try something off the wall."

"Is it that big a deal?" laughs Brandon.

"Probably not. But, you know? I honestly thought I was going to stop writing it after that whole Food Network thing, but then I got attached to it. And I've certainly been writing a lot more this past year as a result."

"Here, here," Caris raises an imaginary chalice to me. "To the power of fiction."

Brandon shakes his head. "I just can't get past how weird this is."

"Do you have a favorite blog?" asks Caris.

"A favorite? Not really. I'm probably proudest of the Scooby Doo because it was so thorough. But, no. I wouldn't say I have a favorite."

"I like the questionnaires," she tells me. "Those are always entertaining."

"So is that what we're doing to celebrate?" Brandon chimes in again. "Just a series of links to other blogs?"

"Well no. We're still doing a month long Halloween theme, so I thought it might be fun to take a memory stroll through  the nightmares of my childhood."

Zel sighs, rubs her eyes, and mutters, "theme park attractions".



Walter P. Sullivan now sat in the wagon with the rest of us, unspeaking and expressionless. We'd spent a few awkward moments trying to casually acknowledge his existence, but quickly relegated him into the background of our focus.

"So our first sight on the tour is this braying donkey, which you can see off in the distance."

"Why so far away?" Caris asks.

"This was actually not one of my memories, but my mom's. She said when she was a little girl she rode this ride called 'The Old Mill' and this donkey appeared at the very end. It was apparently meant to be a surprise. Left quite an impression on her, because she spent the rest of her life afraid of dark places."

"Like an actual phobia?" says the Wolf.

"Inconsistently, yes, but it clearly affected her in a way that probably rubbed off on me a little. She said it looked like some kind of monster, and she was so petrified that she bit my grandfather's arm."

We pull up into children's attraction with Humpty Dumpty frozen in time with outstretched arms and legs. Just behind him are several other depictions of nursery rhyme characters. Zel moves closer to Caris and stares down at the ground.

"And up here is old school Storyland from City Park in New Orleans. I used to demand being taken there every time we came into town."

"So why is this a nightmare?" the Wolf asks.

"Look at them. They've got an uncanny valley thing going for them. This one afternoon I asked for permission to walk through it alone. By the time I got to Jack and Jill I was out of sight from any living person, and outnumbered by King Cole and Miss Muffet and company. The looks on their faces suddenly seemed to have a sinister subtext, and there was no direction I could turn without making eye contact with one of them."

We pass fairly close to an ostrich made from plaster with a stiff neck that moves up and down.

"This old girl is from Gooney Golf in Baton Rouge. I think she was the seventh hole, maybe? I always had to get my grandmother to retrieve my ball from under her beak."

Brandon stifles a snicker. "So why did you keep going there then?"

I think for a minute. "That's a really good question. I don't know exactly."

"I mean, if you're afraid of something, doesn't it make sense to stay away from it?" he continues.

"You'd think so, but you guys are all fictional characters. Your motivations tend to be a little more simplistic just by virtue of story clarity. In the non-fiction world, people are strangely drawn towards the things that frighten them."

"Do you like being scared?" Caris asks.

"No. I hate it."

We ride on to the indoor portion of the trip, where the next encounters all come from various theme park water rides that I've been on. There's a giant bear from Opryland's Grizzly River Rampage, the one that stood motionless at the entrance to the cave. There's a smaller but equally intimidating bear roaring from inside a smaller cave, from some river ride at Six Flags Over Texas. And of course I have to include the huge animatronic spider from The Spelunker's Cave.

"So this thing," I say, completely shielding my eyes from it, "I had my cousin who was ten years younger than me in the boat, and I'd been talking very casually about the different characters we'd seen on the ride, so she wouldn't be scared of the dark. We went right by this spider, and I didn't make the connection as to what it was. We came back later and rode the ride again, and this time I figured out what the hell I was looking at. I must have called out about nine obscenities right into her ear."

"Do you still go on rides like this?" the Wolf asks.

"Yep."

"And they still scare you?"

"Most of the time I don't even look."

He folds his paws thoughtfully. "So where exactly is the fun in that?"

"Maybe it's not about fun," offers Caris. "Maybe it's about understanding. These things aren't real threats. Nothing is going to step in here and get you. But even if you understand that consciously, your brain has a chemical reaction to it that you experience as fear."

The Wolf turns his massive snout to Caris. "So you think he's trying to overcome his fear?"

"Maybe not quite," she answers. "Those fears can't ever be fully overcome. But at least to the point of comprehension where you can override the flight impulse if the need ever arises."

Brandon asks, "What are you guys most afraid of?"

Caris is ready for the question. "In character, or as a character?"

"Well in character, you're afraid of heights," he says, "But as fictional characters, what is our biggest fear?"

The Wolf points nonchalantly at the immobile Walter P. Sullivan. "Him."

The Carousel Crew looks to Mr. Sullivan and back to the Wolf. "Is it the grey hair?" says Brandon.

"It's the complete vacancy," says the Wolf. "Walter's whole life was contained in one single story. He was born, lived and died all within a space of about a thousand words. Where does a character go when their purpose is fulfilled?"

Walter P. Sullivan offered no reaction to Brandon's appraising of him. "I have to admit you're onto something there. This guy is a blank slate. He's pretty much the equivalent of the grim reaper."

"It's Our Town," says Caris, "And he's Julia Gibbs. Is that what we have to look forward to?"

Six human and two canine eyes suddenly focus on me as if I have the answers. "I really don't know," I say, feeling a little ill-prepared for the direction this hayride has taken.



We must be pushing eleven at night. We've been through the whole Disney-themed section, including Snow White's Witch, Peter Pan's crocodile, and that doubly damned abominable snowman from the Matterhorn. The finale of the tour was the big guy himself; the King Kong head of legend that once graced Astroworld's River of No Return (I swear I almost left the boat the first time that bastard laid his eyes on me).

Walter P. Sullivan is gone, probably forever. Both Caris and Brandon have fallen asleep against the Big Bad Wolf's furry shoulders. He's probably the warmest thing in the wagon at this time.

Misty has been completely quiet up until now, but with accompaniment from no sound other than the horse's rhythmic clomping she chants a lullaby I've not heard before.


"In solitaire are you still there, imaginary friend?
An empty prayer. I'm unaware, imaginary friend.
Though wear and tear and disrepair, the mavens dare to mend,
We rarely share a sitting chair, imaginary friend.
Perhaps 'tis worse immersed in verse the curses left unpenned
Than face the wrath, and aftermath of tokens that offend.
With full reprieve, inapt, I grieve. Believe, not comprehend.
And yet, I tell you, rot in hell. Imaginary friend."

I lean into Misty's ear. "You're a bitter woman. You know that?" She smirks at me.
 
And then comes Zel's voice, with the words I've been expecting all night.
 
"I need to ask you something."
 
I look at this sweet creature. Zelphina, my lost princess of Lotus; a world from the second edition setting Planescape. Lotus no longer exists.
 
I've known Zelphina for almost twenty years now. She was designed to have had everything in her favor, and yet everything else working against her. She's been through more heartbreak than I have. Every insecurity I've felt, Zel has had to work through. She has (in as much as a fictional character can) literally been to Hell and back. Twice. She suffers from my own depression, augmented, with no foreseeable end. Death is a hope she gave up on a long time ago.
 
Because of me.
 
I won't insult her by smiling at her. She deserves honesty. "Whatever you'd like to know."
 
"Do you hate me?"
 
"Hate you?" I say, not having been ready for that. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"
 
"You took away my home."

"No, Zel. Your home slipped away from both of us."

"Why do I have to feel the loss? This sadness, loneliness, anger? I used to be fun. Maybe a bit shallow, but I used to have my own dreams. Why did I have to become the dumping ground for everything nightmarish in the world?"
 
I sigh, because she has a valid point. "Would you prefer a happy ending?"
 
"I don't really know what I want."
 
"Yes you do. It's the same thing you've always wanted."
 
"I just wanted to...be important."
 
"Zel," I sit down in the hay with her. "Lotus had almost two hundred characters with different personalities and mannerisms. And about half of them were in my head. There was everybody from Sailor Moon characters to the Olympian pantheon. And somewhere in the nebula of it all, there was you. You kept coming to the surface, sweetie. No real story arc, but something demanding the attention."

I brush her hair out of her face. "And you wanted it badly enough."
 
"What?" she barely controls her voice. "What was it I wanted?"
 
"To be a star. A protagonist. You wanted the story to be about you, and you were willing to die for it."
 
Her face turns completely blank. "And you keep putting me through misery for that?"

"Zel, you're not a writer. You're a character. I'm debatably a writer, but before that I'm a real person in a real world with headaches and stoplights and small talk and tons of extraneous details that I'd love to edit out. I don't deal with the threat of monsters. My tension comes from ennui and clutter."

"I'm not trying to be rude," she says, "but that doesn't exactly sound like real problems."

"Point taken. But I went from kindergarten to twelfth grade and then into four years of college hearing the horror stories of what was going to happen to me when I got into 'the real world'. And being told that- all of those nightmares we just rode past, that I could defeat by covering my eyes until the wagon moved on? Those would be nothing compared to terrors 'the real world' was going to throw at me. So I got my B.A., walked to the door, and braced myself to be impaled by the tentacle of a kraken. And I waited. And nothing happened. And I kept waiting. And nothing happened. And the next day nothing happened. And the day after that. And days turned into weeks, and months. And I started working at jobs that didn't matter. And that became years. And my twenties started slipping away and they hadn't mattered."

I shift my position in the wagon so Zel and I are leaning against the same side, staring up at the beautiful Halloween sky.

"See, the biggest nightmare in the real world is irrelevance. In stories, everything has at least some purpose. In the good ones, everything is irreplaceable. Out there, we all run the risk of being superfluous. You're the one who outlived Lotus because I knew you weren't done. You had some real potential in you, like you were just getting started. And I've been writing you for seven nanowrimos. You and Caris are actually in a book on the shelf in the library where I work."

"Can you maybe ease off on the hyperlinks?"

"Sorry sweetie. But you go through pain for three reasons. One, you're my star; you're obligated to be dealing with the struggle or else there's no story. Two, because you can take it. Any issues I find overwhelming, I always know I can work out through you. You're stronger than I am."

A single tear trickles from Zel's eye. "And three?"

"This one is cruel, and uncomfortable for me to admit. But writers who love their characters put them through sheer torture. We abuse them, break them, and tear them apart. All in the name of watching them overcome us, and loving them for it. And you, Zelphina Blade-"

"That's a stupid last name," she grumbles. I chuckle.

"Zel? You're my favorite."

She takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. "Okay. I'm in." We smile together.

Misty glances over her shoulder at Zel and politely offers her the the horse's reins. Zel looks to me for guidance, and I tell her, "Go ahead. Take us home."

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Ladies and Gentlemen...Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper strikes me as one of rock and roll's most intriguing figures. Paraphrasing his words, when he and his band (at the time, Alice Cooper was the name of the band) were starting out, every rock singer was Peter Pan; there was no Captain Hook. And so a talented young man of vision named Vincent Furnier stepped up to fill the void, and issued a change to the face of rock and roll comparable to Monty Python's effect on comedy.

And (Ye gods!) 26 studio albums later, Alice Cooper is still making music, and is still brilliant. So who better to present a virtual concert from in honor of Halloween month? Did you know in 2011 he released a sequel to his classic 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare? Well, he did. Go look it up and then come back and apologize for doubting me. It's called Welcome 2 My Nightmare (which naturally makes a potential third entry a little difficult to title) and I will go on record saying it's as amazing as the original.

So I want to celebrate Mr. Cooper's contribution to the season by taking you through both albums. I'm not going to do straight reviews, but instead try to unravel the story being told across both nightmares, or at least my audacious interpretation.

See in case you don't know, the albums center around a boy named Steven, who in turn dreams his way into the fictional character of Alice Cooper. Laughter and merriment ensues. Steven gets name dropped on other albums as well, and (the singer) Alice Cooper has stated that other albums have continued the story started in Welcome to My Nightmare. But for simplicity, I'm treating the two albums as isolated, and I'm ignoring the Nightmare television special because I haven't been able to find the whole thing online. I'm also going to refer to the singer as Cooper and the persona as Alice.

This is all purely my interpretation. Here we go.

(Oh, incidentally, the sales for his 2011 album were sadly below expectations. So if the (average) 23 of you who regularly read my blogs wouldn't mind running out and buying a copy, it would really help my chances of getting invited to a bar-b-que at Cooper's place. Thanks in advance.)


Welcome to My Nightmare (1975)
 
1. Welcome to My Nightmare
 
We've got a sultry opening on this. I don't think guitars ever sound as seductive and predatory as they do on an Alice Cooper album.
 
It may not be clear at first, but Steven already seems to be asleep when we join him, and Alice steps out immediately as the master of ceremonies. In a way, Alice is like Bugs Bunny in a sense that the rabbit was consistently his own entity even if the Chuck Jones bunny was notably different than the Robert McKimson version.
 
This is Steven's Alice. Being a dream, Alice has the fluidity to be whatever pertains to Steven's nightmare at that moment. As such, his 'nightmare' is a combination of Steven's nightmare and Alice's show, but the 'breakdown' invariably belongs to Steven.
 
2. Devil's Food
 
On it's own, this song isn't all that special, it's really just a bridge into the better things to come. Alice makes no pretenses about who he is, a lady killer. Like literally. He's premeditating the murder of an innocent, anonymous woman. Now admittedly this is still in the dream, but it's serving a long term purpose, which we'll come back to soon enough.
 
Cooper has said that Steven is the seven year old boy in all of us (Brenda for girls), but I think we're going to find that Steven is actually a grown man who is only experiencing the nightmare as a young boy.
 
So with the song portion out of the way, we get to the special guest appearance. Vincent Price's inimitable voice (unless you're Maurice LaMarche) takes us into a museum scene. Even though it's a dream, this is probably also one of Steven's memories from when he actually was the age he thinks he is now. The curator description of the black widow's personality resonates with Steven, and some part of him (the Alice part) wants to be that creature.
 
3. The Black Widow
 
This song is amazing! If you're going to do an all Alice Cooper Halloween mix, The Black Widow is unavoidable. Aside from awesomeness, there's not much happening here. Except it's significant that Steven takes what he's learned about this spider and turned her into a male figure. It's telling what Steven is afraid of being versus what he wants to be, perhaps even the undecided gender association of the Alice Cooper character.
 
4. Some Folks
 
It's odd. Whenever I listen to this song I always picture a spider singing it, with other spiders on backup and the instruments and stage hands.
 
The 'red' that some folks love to see is possibly rage, but more likely blood. So again, we're seeing Alice giving his credo about being a serial killer, maybe even trying to justify it. Is he addicted to killing? I don't think so. I think he just really loves it.
 
I'm going to take this repeated line "I'm just no good with out it, I'm not a man at all," and set it aside for an important connection later.
 
5. Only Women Bleed
 
In addition to being a drop dead gorgeous, tear-jerking, tragic ballad about abused women, it's the most curious entry on both Nightmare albums. Alice is still singing, and Alice is still a killer, but Alice is expressing a genuine sympathy for women who are in abusive relationships. This song almost seems to stand in direct contrast to what the rest of the album is about.
 
Perhaps Alice is a Jack the Ripper type of killer. Who is the lady he's getting ready for in Devil's Food? Is she of ill-repute and somehow unworthy of living as opposed to a victim in a marriage? And The Black Widow indicates he views people as either predators or prey, but Only Women Bleed lies somewhere outside that simplistic scope.
 
6. and 7. Department of Youth/Cold Ethyl
 
I'm combining these together because I honestly don't know how they fit into the story, or if they do.
 
Cold Ethyl is a song about necrophilia, which isn't a subject that really belongs on an album without 'Nightmare' in the title. Some people online have vehemently argued that the song is actually about alcoholism, but I remain unconvinced as Cooper didn't start addressing his alcoholism for a few more albums.
 
Department of Youth is just silly, and may have been a follow up to School's Out. I won't spoil it, but the song has the funniest fade out ever to appear on a non-Weird Al album.
 
8. Years Ago
 
At last, we're getting to it. Until this trio of songs, Welcome to My Nightmare may as well have been 'an album' as opposed to 'a concept album'. Alice has disappeared and Steven is now dreaming himself. The significance of the carnival may have been an actual carnival from his past, or just a metaphorical representation of his childhood innocence.
 
What we can take from this song is Steven wants to be a little boy, but he's not. It's tapping into a defining moment where his innocence ended, even if it doesn't specify what that moment is. But it had to do with his mother coming home. The echo of her voice confirms Steven to be the character in the spotlight right now.
 
9. Steven
 
Obviously from the title we're still with Steven, but he's still not giving us the full picture. Instead he's relaying his feelings about the experience. Apparently, hearing his name fills him with terror. Then we find him standing over a dead body and experiencing peace.
 
A moment of.
 
Then like The Tell-Tale Heart, Steven begins hearing his name called from outside his door, which sends him into hysterics.
 
So what happened? Clearly Steven killed somebody when he was a child. Whether the sound of voices calling him at the end are the authorities or simply in his head remains in question. Regardless, Steven is a killer, and that's why he's dreaming about Alice.
 
10. The Awakening
 
This literally is Steven waking up from the nightmare. He's an adult, with no memory of how he wound up in the basement. He can't find his wife, and he discovers blood on his hands.
 
Clearly he's killed his wife, with no reason given. But when he realizes that, he concludes with a tremble in his voice that "it makes me feel like a man". Tying that back to the line from Some Folks, we get a decent picture of what Steven thinks a 'man' is, and why he's so reluctant to be one.
 
So where did he get the idea from and who did he kill in the previous song? I'm cheating by looking ahead to the next album; his father. Steven's abusive father. In addition to having killed his father, who was abusing him and his mother, Steven's nightmare is about him becoming his father, which it turns out he has.
 
11. Escape
 
It feels like Alice is back on this final song, and I think he's basically saying his work with Steven's nightmare is done and he's returning to whatever lawless, rule-less ether dream characters reside in. Bye Steven. Good luck with the conviction and all that.
 
 
So we have a 36 year intermission to fill with something, so I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the incredible talent of producer Bob Ezrin. You may not recognize his name, but you're familiar with his work. Ezrin does brilliajntly what a record producer should, which is taking something written and knowing exactly how to dress it up and present it. His efforts on the two Nightmare albums really are amazing.
 
Bob Ezrin produced Pink Floyd's The Wall. Having mixed a disco drum beat onto Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 he sensed the potential for a single. The band responded to his suggestion with at least one profane expletive that they didn't do singles and would NOT be recording any extra lyrics to pad out the 1 minute and 20 seconds of recording. Ezrin went behind their backs and recorded the infamous second verse where the cockney children repeat the verse. When Roger Waters listened to the result, he conceded that Ezrin was right.
 
Has that sunk in yet? The anthem, excuse me, THE anthem of youth rebellion happened because Bob Ezrin had enough confidence in his own talent to believe he knew better than Pink Floyd did about their own song. Rock on Bob.
 
 
Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011)
 
1. I Am Made of You
 
Oh yeah...this is a song. I rarely love songs the first time I hear them but I Am Made of You knocks it out of the park (and I've noticed I respond well to most songs with Desmond Child's stamp on them).
 
So we're opening the second nightmare with Steven's theme, but Steven hasn't fallen asleep yet. So this is Alice lurking in the background of Steven's subconscious, and serenading him with a dark delight reminiscent of the Joker to Batman. And despite what the gripers on Youtube say, this song makes the most effective use of auto-tune since GLaDOS.
 
2. & 3.Caffeine/The Nightmare Returns
 
Meh. These songs are just okay filler; kind of the Devil's Food of this album. Caffeine has Steven still awake knowing that a horror is going to befall him when he goes to sleep (which he eventually does, in kind of a neat ending to the song). The Nightmare Returns may not have been necessary, only clocking in at 1:14. We're really just padding out our way to the good stuff.
 
4. A Runaway Train
 
Does anyone know where the image of a train taking dead souls to the other side originated? I think I first encountered it in Final Fantasy III(6). Anyway, from this point on there's really no distinction between Alice and Steven. Alice seems to be both causing the nightmare and experiencing it.
 
His first concrete scene involves him as the passenger on a train destined for derailment, with no indication how he got there. There are other people on the train with him who are a bit more accepting of their plight.
 
Then, crash.
 
5. Last Man on Earth
 
I love the character exploration of Alice in this song. Clambering out of the wreckage lands him in a ghost town, but unlike most people who would be dismayed by the realization they are completely alone, Alice embraces it. Complete solitude is a paradise for him, which isn't what you'd expect from someone who loves killing as much as he does.
 
He only discovers at the end of the song that he is in fact surrounded by other natives, who probably materialize out of nowhere.
 
6. The Congregation
 
It's heavily implied that this is Hell, and Alice gets a quick tour of the inhabitants. It's worth noting that Cooper's follow-up album to the original Nightmare was Alice Cooper Goes to Hell, which allegedly continues the Steven story with Alice negotiating his way back out.
 
I'm not sure how well that album conveyed the concept, at least lyrically, but it's possible Cooper is revising the history here as Alice seems to be experiencing Hell for the first time. Rob Zombie makes an appearance as the guide, and the denizens (though pleasant) give Alice the simple truth that he's here to stay.
 
7. I'll Bite Your Face Off
 
The Wikipedia article I'm reading insists the female figure in this song is the same as the one coming up later. I'm not sure where that's coming from, but the writer may be making an interpretive call on Cooper's intentions (and I HATE it when people do that). No, this is exactly what Cooper was thinking: This character is some kind of feminine underworld creature, like a succubus. She represents a retaliation from all the women Alice has murdered over the years. The difference is, she can fight back and win. And Alice accepts her threats at face value (and that pun wasn't intentional).
 
That's kind of a big step for him, accepting he's helpless in certain situations.
 
8. & 9. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever/Ghouls Gone Wild
 
The next two songs don't have much to do in the way of advancing the plot, so much as to show what goes on in Hell. Ghouls Gone Wild is just a kind of mosh pit involving the undead. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever has a little more to it, as the souls who are in a perpetual Club 54 get mowed down by bullets. This is apparently a regular occurrence, like pest control.
 
10. Something to Remember Me By
 
This goodbye song really is beautiful. No idea who he is singing it to, but Alice is accepting that he's not coming back. Perhaps this is about one of his intended victims that he let live (a concept explored in greater detail on the previous album Along Came a Spider). Whether he's giving her a baby or one of his earlobes isn't addressed. The point is, there's a genuineness to Alice here. Even evil has a human side.
 
11. When Hell Comes Home
 
One of the more uncomfortable songs on the album. We're back in Steven's memories, and this recounts the abusive father he killed (remember I spoiled that earlier?). This was also the moment where Steven invariably met Alice for the first time, even if he didn't realize it.
 
Now this leaves me with an unanswered question. Steven flips out over hearing his name being called, because his father is abusive. He kills his father. But there was something significant to him in the previous nightmare about his mom calling to him as well. When she saw what he'd done, did he wind up killing her too because she wouldn't stop screaming?
 
That might explain why Alice expresses a sympathy for innocent women.
 
12. What Baby Wants
 
A lot of people have very strong opinions about Kesha. I for one don't, except that I refuse to spell her name with a dollar sign. But for the song at hand, she's quite good. Everything about this works. I'm particularly fond of seeing an old school rocker like Cooper embrace current musical trends to such impressive results.
 
The main reason I don't believe this is the character from I'll Bite Your Face Off is this Devil figure is way too much of a diva to make a casual entrance and then a grand one. She'd save it all for now.
 
All right, so what's happening here? We've seen what Hell is going to be like, and When Hell Comes Home reminded Alice of how he got here. Now the Devil herself is informing him "I own your ass". I love the way he protests at first he's not going to be her pet, but the second time through he's submitted to her.
 
13. & 14. I Gotta Get Outta Here/The Underture
 
Track number lucky 13. Alice has accepted that he's not going to force or con his way out of Hell , so he's left with only one last hope; waking up. He takes an inventory of all of the songs which have happened up until now to prove he's dreaming. But for some reason he doesn't wake up. Eventually, the voices of the congregation spell it out for him. "What part of dead don't you get?"
 
Alice can't accept it. He protests, he waffles, and he babbles, but he never really figures it out, leaving the story in an ambiguity. Then we have The Underture, the antithesis of an overture, which I suppose is meant to be the closing credits.
 
 
Well, that's a hell of a way to end a story. Who wrote this thing? Frank Stockton? But for Welcome 2 My Nightmare we have a unique situation. Depending on the format in which you purchase the album (none of which are the CD I bought) you may get one of three different bonus tracks. It's sort of like the musical version of the movie Clue.
 
So what's the real ending? Well I'll tell you in a minute. Also, the guy chose the lady, the woman who smiled was the other guy's wife, DiCaprio wasn't dreaming, and the chicken came first.
 
 
15. Under the Bed
 
The Under the Bed ending suggests both nightmares actually did take place in Steven's head as a seven year old. Perhaps his father isn't actually abusive in real life, or perhaps he is. The point is, the night life of a seven year old is horrifying. And creatures do live under the bed. This song also borrows musical passages from both Welcome to My Nightmare and The Black Widow.
 
Why wasn't it included in the mainstream release?
 
It's a great song, and thematically it fits. But plot wise, not so much. Even in something as surreal as a nightmare this song doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. Although I wonder if it was originally meant to go in the spot where The Nightmare Returns is.
 
16. A Bad Situation
 
This one is catchy. It summarizes the presumable Cooper-Alice Cooper's ultimate nightmare, which is a regular job. Who can really disagree?
 
Why wasn't it included in the mainstream release?
 
Because it really doesn't fit in at all. To make it work as part of the narrative, we'd have to pull the action out of the fiction and into the non-fiction, meta-style. So far, our resolution is between "It was all a dream" and "It's just a story." Come on, give me one more.
 
17. Flatline
 
Yike! Not a song so much as a sound effect. Unpleasant ambient music accompanied by a heart monitor. The heart stops within the first minute. And then that flatline stays there for the rest of the track before we hear a demonic voice. I've never been able to make it out, but Wikipedia assures me the voice says Steven's name.
 
Why wasn't it included in the mainstream release?
 
Tedium, I imagine. Or maybe Cooper wanted to leave the ending ambiguous. But as this track only appears on the vinyl release (the format the Alice Cooper band started on) I maintain this is the true ending. For whatever reason, Steven (as a grown man) was in the hospital on life support, and is now dead. And Alice, having been brought into existence through his attachment to Steven, is trapped forever in his personal Hell.
 
 
Well, good night I guess.