The Great Japanese Robot Invasion of '84

A Diaclone Multi-Force 14 Robot toy from 1984. 

Before this holiday season comes to an end, I thought that I would wrap up 2011 with a dose of holiday-themed geek nostalgia before we spring-launch into 2012. It's a flashback to another holiday season, when a particular trend that would impact all robot geeks for decades to come dominated toy store aisles across the country. This trend was the import and repackaging of Japanese robot toys, of which there were many. Read on for my eyewitness account of this amazing time, when Japanese robots of all shapes and sizes ruled Christmas wish lists.

The import of Japanese robot toys didn't start in the 80s and it certainly didn't end after the 80s were over, but I'll always remember 1984 as a major milestone for the stateside distribution of Japanese toy robots. By the time the Christmas shopping season of that year had rolled around, the Transformers and Gobots toy lines--toy lines of repackaged transforming robot toys from Japan--had already hit the shelves and proved to be a success, so retailers were gearing up to claim their piece of the Japanese robot pie.

While transforming robots were very popular at the time, they weren't the only Japanese robot toys that were arriving in the states in 1984. Revell had also released a series of robot model kits under the name "Robotech", which left many kids gawking for hours at these amazing, highly-detailed robot designs when they appeared in toy stores and hobby shops. (The anime series with the same title wouldn't debut in the U.S. until the following year.) The Japanese toy company Tomy had already released a few of its motorized Zoids robots and by 1984, it released more Zoids and the Starriors action figure line. But Tomy didn't stop there--it also released programmable, battery-powered robot toys of varying degrees of complexity, toys such as Omnibot, Omnibot 2000, and Verbot.

As if the transforming robots, model kit robots and programmable robots weren't enough, the fall of 1984 also saw the arrival of the Voltron toy series by Matchbox. The Voltron TV series and accompanying toy line was supposed to consist of episodes and toys from three different combiner robot anime series: Beast King GoLion, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, and Lightspeed Electroid Albegas. While the Albegas series was eventually left out of the Voltron TV package and thus never aired in the U.S., Matchbox kept the Albegas robots in the Voltron toy line anyway. That decision left kids like me somewhat confused to see this third set of combining Voltron robots advertised and displayed alongside the two Voltron sets we recognized, but that didn't matter--it just meant that there were more robot toys for us to enjoy.

Matchbox's Voltron II Deluxe Gladiator set
(a.k.a. DX Chogokin Kosoku Denjin Albegas Denjinbox).

To clarify, the aforementioned toy and model lines--Transformers, Gobots, Robotech and Voltron--consisted of robots from different Japanese toy lines that were assembled and repackaged into U.S. toy lines. Some additional Japanese robots that were not picked up under the other lines were released under different, more Japanese-like toy line titles, such as Godaikin. While these other lines weren't as successful as their Americanized counterparts, the robot toys they provided were like nothing else offered in the U.S. at the time. Some of them were even available for mail order in the Sears, JCPenney and Montgomery Ward Christmas catalogs, which was a pretty impressive feat for imported toy lines that lacked name recognition.

From the Godaikin line: Abega, a three-robot combiner vehicle . . .

. . . and Gardian, a three-in-one robot combiner. Gardian currently has a recurring
cameo role as a detective's desk decoration on the Rizzoli and Isles TV show.

All of these imports led up to the Christmas shopping season of 1984, when the trend hit its peak. I remember walking into a toy store at the beginning of this shopping season and beholding a huge display devoted to Matchbox's Voltron toy line (both complete sets and individual toys), which was flanked by other Japanese robot toys (some Americanized, some not). I fell into a state of Japanese robot nirvana when I saw this massive display--it was like witnessing the second coming of the Shogun Warrior line.

A display of Matchbox's entire Voltron toy line from 1984.

Sure, the Transformers line is as popular today as it was back then, Voltron still shows up every now and then, and plenty of Japanese robot toys and model kits are readily available now for purchase online and in toy stores and hobby shops. Nevertheless, I haven't seen anything like this 1984 toy store display before or since then--it's the stuff of which robot geek Christmas memories are made.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our readers from Brian and Khris! Hope you got all the cool comic goodies you put on your wish list!

Trailer Thursday: The Dark Knight Rises

While work and other commitments have kept from from posting the last few weeks, I couldn't let this one slip by without notice. Looks like it's going to be pretty good, though I hate to see Nolan leaving the franchise.

Five Monstrous Melodies for Merry Christmas Madness

Christmas is my second favorite holiday after Halloween. Where Halloween allows you to indulge in all things morbid and spooky, Christmas allows you to wallow in all things colorful, cheerful, and gaudy. Yet with Halloween being my first love, I feel the need to temper my Yuletide warmth with a few ghoulish chills--and what better way to do that than through music?

Here are five musical suggestions I have to keep the horror in even the happiest of holidays, complete with YouTube videos for each. Read on....

5. The Gremlins Theme, by Jerry Goldsmith

Gremlins is one of my favorite Christmas movies (click here to see my list top Christmas movies), so it's only natural to include the theme composed by veteran movie composer Goldsmith as part of my Christmas music recommendations. Not only does it capture the wild, madcap nature of Gremlins, but it's also festive enough in its own right that you could play it as background music at your office holiday party and no one would notice.

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4. "It's The Most Horrible Time of The Year", by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society

Oh, may the Old Ones bless the H.P. Lovecraft Historical society. They produced A Very Scary Solstice, an album of Christmas music that features lyrics tailored to fit snugly within Lovecraft's warped, bleak universe. My favorites on this album are the ones where the darkest of lyrics are set to the most cheerful of melodies; this one is my favorite, with "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-Men" ranking a close second.

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3. "Shouldn't Have Given Him a Gun For Christmas", by Wall of Voodoo

There are plenty of Christmas songs out there that involve fire arms in the wrong hands, but none of them are as deliciously deranged as this ditty by Wall of Voodoo. It's like a gory, 50s era public safety film about gun safety that you can dance to on Christmas eve.

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2. "Christmas At Ground Zero", by Weird Al Yankovic

Weird Al may be known for goofy parodies of popular rock songs, but he sure does love gallows humor. This is one of his most merrily morbid songs, about World War III starting on Christmas eve. Adding to the fatalistic festivities is the official video, which blends together atomic bomb footage with vintage Christmas movie clips.

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1. "Red Water", by Type O Negative

This is the only song on this list that doesn't feature an ounce of satirical humor--a rarity for off-center holiday songs--which is why this is one of my favorite Yuletide-themed tunes. Type O Negative was a fantastic band and this song is one of their best, about a man coping with severe personal losses and the tortured memories that come with them during the holiday season by seeking solace in the titular crimson liquid. Goddamn ye merry gentlemen, indeed.

The Cult of LEGO Book: Behold the Blessed Bricks

If you're still looking for a Christmas gift for that special nerdy someone, consider this: The Cult of LEGO, by John Baichtal and Joe Meno.

According to the book's description, "LEGO is much more than just a toy—it's a way of life. The Cult of LEGO takes you on a thrilling illustrated tour of the LEGO community and its creations. ... In this full-color coffee table book, you'll find page after page of photos showcasing the fantastically creative and complex models built by the LEGO community. You'll marvel at a life-size stegosaurus, a microscale Yankee Stadium, a 22-foot long World War II battleship, a MINDSTORMS-powered monster chess set, and a remote-controlled Jawa Sandcrawler (with moving conveyor belt!). Visit the conventions where LEGO fans gather to socialize and show off their work. And discover the serious side of LEGO, used in therapy, prototyping, and teambuilding."

I've never had any LEGO sets myself, but I'm a big fan of the LEGO video games and I've admired the countless inventive models and miniatures that LEGO fans have built all over the world. Since I already have the LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary (which is a pretty sweet inventory of LEGO-ized Star Wars stuff, both official and fan-made) to go with my other Star Wars reference books, I'll probably pick up this up sometime soon. What can I say? They had me at "remote-controlled Jawa Sandcrawler".

Furthermore, if you order a print version of The Cult of LEGO from its publisher No Starch Press (click here), you will also get the e-book version for free. That means that you can actually read the book anywhere you want with your e-reader of choice while the print copy remains safe at home in your geek collection. Sweet!

Lou and Yana's JawsFest 3 DVD Set Review

It has been said that all good things must come to an end. With that in mind, I bring you my review of Lou and Yana's JawsFest 3: The Invasion of JawsFest '10 two-disc DVD set. This is the final entry in the trilogy of JawsFest fan films produced by Lou and Dianna "Yana" Pisano. What started out as a fan love letter to Jaws in the first JawsFest DVD has grown to the size of a three-part romance novel with the release of JawsFest 3. (Click here to read my review of the first two JawsFest DVDs.) While it's sad to see this particular chapter of Jaws fandom draw to a close, the Pisanos saved the best for last. Read on for my complete review of this two-disc set.

JawsFest 3 follows the Pisanos and their jolly Jaws touring group as they travel around Martha's Vineyard to visit the locations used in three of the Jaws films: Jaws, Jaws 2, and Jaws: The Revenge. In terms of presentation, JawsFest 3 follows a style similar to the previous two DVDs: the Pisanos first present their footage and charmingly candid description of a particular location, and then insert a clip from the Jaws movie that features the same location for direct comparison. Of the sites visited in this installment, I particularly enjoyed the tour of Katama Bay, the location where the Orca confronted the monster shark in Jaws. For scenes that look like they were shot out in the middle of the ocean, the Pisanos’ Katama Bay footage shows you just how small the ocean really was in Jaws.

Indeed, after you watch all three JawsFest films, you will have seen every Martha's Vineyard location that was used in the Jaws franchise. To help you keep score, JawsFest 3 comes with a official JawsFest map of Martha's Vineyard that highlights these locations; there are even “map alerts” in some parts of JawsFest 3 that show you where they are in a particular scene in relation to the map. The inclusion of this map with the DVD is a nifty treat for Jaws fans: If you can't afford to visit Martha's Vineyard, it gives you a sense of what the various casts and crews of the Jaws franchise had to work with when they filmed there. If you do get to visit Martha's Vineyard, the map tells you where to go to see where parts of Jaws history were made.

The complete JawsFest 3 set, with the official JawsFest map.

There's much more to JawsFest 3 than just site seeing. JawsFest 3 features great interview footage with some of the cast and crew from the Jaws franchise, including Lee Fierro (Mrs. Kintner in Jaws), Roger Kastel (the artist who painted the iconic Jaws poster), and Tom Dunlop (Timmy Weldon in Jaws 2). The Pisanos also got the chance to talk to Joe Alves, the Production Designer from Jaws who also worked on Jaws 2 and Jaws 3D. It's a fun interview of the man who first scouted Martha's Vineyard for Steven Spielberg, and his interview is complemented by footage of a Jaws presentation that Alves gave at Martha's Vineyard.

As a feature-length video, JawsFest 3 is more polished than the previous two JawsFest DVDs. Lou Pisano put a lot of hard work into shooting and editing his JawsFest series, and it's clear that he put what he learned from his first two videos to good use in the third. There are some running gags throughout the movie that stem from the previous JawsFest films, such as a funny Spaghetti Western-esque showdown between two rival Jaws fans--"Sir" Edward McCormack and Mike "Quint" Hadji--that cleverly ties in to a cameo appearance by one of the more popular Jaws cast members. Yet for all of the extras that JawsFest 3 has to offer, the real star here is Martha's Vineyard itself. The island is lovingly photographed, and you will come away from this DVD convinced that Martha's Vineyard was just as essential to the blockbuster success and enduring legacy of Jaws as its cast and crew.

The Pisanos setting up a shot for JawsFest 3 with cameraman Justin White.

The second disc in the JawsFest 3 DVD set has many fun extras (including a peak into Lou Pisano's huge collection of Jaws collectibles), but the crown jewel of them all is a featurette by Justin White entitled, "The Making of Lou and Yana’s JawsFest Trilogy". This featurette lets the Pisanos and a few of their friends who helped with the JawsFest videos share their thoughts about the history of the videos, what it was like to shoot them on location, and the many other Jaws fans they met along the way.

While JawsFest 3 may be the last of the JawsFest videos, it is hardly the last that the Pisanos have to say about the Jaws franchise. At roughly the same time that the JawsFest 3 DVD set became available, the UK publication SCREAM magazine published the first part of Lou’s three-part Jaws 2 retrospective entitled, “The Guts of Jaws 2: Appreciating An Underappreciated Sequel”. Not only does Lou’s article include an analysis of the plot and production of Jaws 2, but it also features interviews that Lou conducted with Joe Alves and some of the actors who appeared in this 1978 sequel. Even though the other two parts of this article will continue in the next two SCREAM issues, this is already shaping up to be one of the most thorough Jaws 2 retrospectives available and is thus a worthy read for avid Jaws fans (as well as for JawsFest completists, of course). Click here to order your copy.

Lou and Yana’s JawsFest trilogy may have begun out of the Pisanos’ love of the Jaws franchise, but what it has grown into is a fun and informative example of the Jaws fan community at its best. As a Jaws franchise fan and movie monster buff, I couldn’t give this series of fan-made videos a higher recommendation. Click here to learn more about how you can own a copy of the JawsFest trilogy.

The Samurai Predator: An Interstellar Big Game Hunter from Medieval Japan

For those of you who have an die-hard Predator fan on your Christmas gift list and have ample amounts of cash to spend, you're in luck. Sideshow Collectibles is currently taking orders for the Alien vs. Predator Samurai Predator figure from Hot Toys.

This is what the title creature would've looked like

if Akira Kurosawa had directed a Predator movie.

This figure was designed and painted by Takayuki Takeya and sculpted by Yuji Oniki, and it features a newly sculpted head and body, detailed accessories, weaponry, and a diorama base with a partially decapitated Alien corpse. Looking at a figure that's as detailed as this one makes it hard to believe that there was a time when the only Predator figures on the market were those made by Kenner back in the mid-90s.

Of the many never-before-seen Predator collectibles that have been released in recent years (including the organic-looking Ceremonial Predator Mask and the sleek Stalker Predator Mask), the Samurai Predator feels like a story that's waiting to be told. It's easy to imagine this Predator constructing his hunting attire from the armor he collects from his trophies, and then customizing his weapons and gear to match the style of his human prey. The most impressive feature of this figure is its headpiece, which comes in two removable parts: a helmet and a mouth mask. The mouth mask allows the Predator's tusks to protrude through so they are visible on the mask's exterior. Such a fearsome visage makes this Predator look like a monster that came straight from ancient Japanese folklore.

Click here for more details about the Samurai Predator and how to place your order.

Isolation Movie Review: When Genetically Modified Meat Goes Rancid

One of the best things about the horror genre is its ability to approach certain subject matter in ways that no other genre would. Because of its richness of symbolism and metaphor, horror can explore the irrational and insecure psychological landscapes that lurk underneath topics and events that appear rational, civil and mundane on their surfaces.

Along such lines is Isolation, a 2005 horror movie from Ireland that was written and directed by Billy O'Brien. By borrowing some of visual and thematic cues from Alien and The Thing, Isolation explores the nervous uncertainties behind the application of genetic engineering to livestock farming. The end result is uneven, but it's provocative and stylish enough to recommend to anyone who is looking for a new kind of contemporary body horror. Read on for my complete review, which contains some minor spoilers.

Isolation takes place on a small Irish farm that has seen better days. To earn some extra money to keep his farm afloat, Dan (John Lynch) allows two of his cows to become test subjects for cattle fertility research conducted by a company called Bovine Genetics Technology. The intent behind the research is to speed up the growth rate of cattle so that more cattle can be produced in a shorter amount of time than the normal maturity rate. When one of the cows has trouble giving birth, Dan and veterinarian Orla (Essie Davis) discover that the cow's genetically modified newborn calf is already pregnant with a new kind of organism that poses a contagious risk to humanity.

Before I continue my review, I want to share some of my own experiences with Alien/Thing imitations. Since I grew up during the heyday of home video rental stores, I saw plenty of cheapjack Alien and Thing rip offs, with poor acting, poor writing and poor special effects. The set designs (which were usually laboratories and space ships) were unconvincing, and the creature designs looked like shoddy copies of better, more memorable monsters. Since the rip offs wanted to copy the gooey, icky inter-species biological aspects of Alien and The Thing, they often had monsters that wanted to mate with human women. Not only did this serve as an excuse to put exploitation-style sex and nudity in the movie, but it also saved money on additional creature effects that are often involved with species-hopping parasites.

In contrast to these other Alien and Thing imitators, O'Brien wisely uses the actual practice of livestock breeding as the backdrop of his story. Isolation's production budget was small, so having scenes involving veterinary care of pregnant cows and cattle autopsies add tremendously to the movie's organic, visceral feel without having to spend lots of money on creature effects. Many of these sequences have a feel similar to those in The Thing, particularly Thing's dog kennel attack scene.

The livestock breeding plot enables Isolation to exploit modern fears about the possible dangers of using hormones in livestock and genetically modified foods, as well as the possibilities of foodborne illness epidemics that are spread through careless factory farming and food production practices. Isolation was released four years after the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak in the United Kingdom, which spread to parts of Ireland and Europe; I would guess that O'Brien's decision to make a movie that centers on a lethal outbreak on a farm was inspired by this incident.

Smart plotting aside, where Isolation really shines is in its overwhelming mood of dread. O'Brien shoots the farm setting so that it feels like the home of unspeakable horrors, and the performances he gets out of his small, talented cast keep the film's level of tension high throughout the movie. Many horror movies have been unable (or unwilling) to build a mood of unease to enhance their tales of terror, so I'm willing to recommend Isolation for its pervasive and vivid atmosphere alone.

Where Isolation falls short is in its monsters. I could follow some of the ideas of how the monsters came to be, how they reproduce and why they need to be destroyed, but they are nevertheless vague in many of their other attributes. They don't appear on screen much and what little is seen is little more than an indistinguishable, slithering mass of blood and bony spikes. It was suggested at times in the script that these monsters are some kind of severely deformed, blood-thirsty calves, but nothing in their appearance would indicate that at all. While I agree with the approach that keeping the monster unseen is an effective way to maintain suspense (particular in movies where the creature effects are limited), I would also argue that showing too little of the monster can cause suspense to wane; Isolation comes very close to doing just that.

Here's what I was able to understand of the monsters' biology, and this is where I reveal minor spoilers. I don't like to add spoilers to my reviews, but I think that in this case they're integral to appreciating the movie's overarching concept. The monsters are parasitic in nature and they feed on blood, both animal and human blood alike. They emerge from the genetically modified calves, but they themselves cannot reproduce by themselves or with each other. Instead, when they bite their prey, they pass along a pathogen that alters the DNA of the prey so that the prey give birth to offspring similar to the calves--namely, deformed offspring that are born pregnant with more monsters. Thus, someone who is attacked by a monster can survive, but his or her offspring will be deformed carriers of disease-ridden monster larvae. It doesn't matter if the attack victim is human or animal, the outcome is the same. So while the monsters in Isolation aren't as virulent and apocalyptic as the monsters in Alien and The Thing, they have the potential to, as one character puts it, "wipe out a generation".

For me, this concept of corrupted science creating a threat that jeopardizes the genetic health of the next generation is what sets Isolation apart from most Alien/Thing clones and other science-run-amok stories. By reducing its scale of damage away from the world-ending threat that many horror films and TV shows use, Isolation is able to end the story--both in terms of narrative and theme--that it started with the idea of genetically modifying livestock. The world doesn't come to an end for the survivors in Isolation because of bad science, but it still changes their lives for years to come.

It is not without precedent in the real world for industry and/or the military to produce something that causes fatal defects and ghastly deformities in the offspring of those who are exposed to it. It has happened with nuclear radiation, thalidomide, DDT, and Agent Orange, and it continues to happen today. (It should also be noted here that bovine somatotropin, an artificial growth hormones for cattle, is banned in the European Union due to various human health risks associated with the hormone.) O'Brien's decision to couch this topic in a movie monster narrative yields mixed results, but basing Isolation on a real issue and the anxieties surrounding it makes this movie stand out in ways that most other monster movies do not.

As one of the many films that were influenced by Alien and The Thing, Isolation stands alongside Slither and Splinter as one of the better examples. While it may seem formulaic at times, O'Brien provides enough creativity, style and intelligence into his movie to make it a worthy viewing for monster movie fans.

Heidi Klum Exposed--In One of the Goriest Ways Possible

I know that this is dates back to last Halloween, but I just found it and I feel an overwhelming to put it on here because it's so wildly morbid. (Besides, red is a Yuletide color, right?) It turned out that at her last Halloween party, Heidi Klum had her body painted to resemble "a dead body with the first layer of skin ripped off" (Klum's own words).

Excuse me, Ms. Klum? I think you misplaced your epidermis.

In order to make sure that her party guests noticed her unique costume, her entrance was equally priceless: She was wheeled in to the event on an autopsy table by two people who were also dressed as blood-spattered doctors. Did I mention that Klum was wearing high-heeled platform pumps with this costume? I suppose that even the horribly mangled still have to look chic at social events.

I have no idea how I missed this. Maybe I was too preoccupied with Klum's other Halloween costume, a full-body, Planet of the Apes worthy ape suit that she wore to another Halloween party. Her husband Seal wore a matching costume at the same event.

Click here to see more pictures of Klum's anatomically correct costume. I have to give Klum credit: For someone who doesn't earn her living in horror movies, her costume is an amazingly detailed work of gory art.

Two New Jaws Mechanical Shark Replicas from Shark City Ozark

A few days ago, Universal made an announcement that’s very bad news for Jaws fans. As of January 2, 2012, the Jaws attraction at Universal Studios Theme Park in Florida will be shut down permanently. For those of you fans out there who have never been on the Jaws ride and can’t make it there before its closing, you can check out the high definition video of the ride on YouTube (click here) that will give you a good idea of everything the ride offers. You can also stop by the “STOP The Closing of Jaws The Ride at USF” page on Facebook for ideas on what you can do to try to convince Universal to change its decision. Yet even with the ride closing, never fear--thanks to Mike Schultz and his team at Shark City Ozark, you’ll have a chance to come face-to-face with the legendary monster shark right in the (dis)comfort of your own home.

Back in 2010, Schultz sculpted a 37" long "Bruce Nose-to-Tail (NTT)" maquette, a scale-accurate replica of the full-body shark used in the first Jaws movie. How scale accurate, you ask? It's so scale accurate that it won praises from Jaws franchise veteran Joe Alves himself! Even though the entire inventory of the Bruce NTT maquette has completely sold out, Shark City Ozark is far from finished with Jaws. Available now are two more Bruce replicas, a 1/6-Scale Bruce bust (from snout to gills) and an 18-inch, 1/16th scale “Open Sided Shark”. The Open Sided Shark allows you to see a highly-detailed recreation of the mechanics that made Bruce move. To learn more about these replicas, check out these two videos from Shark City Ozark that discuss the specifics of each product.

Click here to learn more about how you can add either or both replicas to your Jaws memorabilia collection. Orders are going fast, and these two products will be discontinued on December 16th, so place your order soon!

Santa "Scarface" Claus Says, "Say Hello-Ho-Ho to My Little Friend!"

It looks like we've come a long way from the days when kids were told that they'd shoot their eyes out if they got Red Ryder BB guns for Christmas.

"In this country, you gotta make the toys first. When you make the toys, 

you then get the guns. When you get the guns, then you get the power."

From Seattle PI: "An Arizona gun club is offering a chance for children and their families to pose for photos with Santa while holding pistols and military-style rifles. ... Ron Kennedy, general manager of the Scottsdale Gun Club, said the business got the idea for the photo op last year when a club member happened to come in dressed as Santa and other members wanted their picture taken while they were holding their guns. ... Kennedy, whose club offers guns for sale and rental and has a 32-lane indoor shooting range, said the event wasn't aimed at children, but the club supports the right of parents to include their children in the photos and believes that's a personal choice."

This story has been popping up at news sites all over the Internet today. I normally wouldn't post about something like this, but the Christmas photos from the Scottsdale Gun Club that have been circulating because of this story are so gleefully morbid that they belong on a horror-oriented blog like mine. Sure, a violence-prone Santa Claus has been the subject of countless movies, songs, video games, and TV shows such as South Park and Futurama. (Also, don't forget "Raging Rudolph", the classic animated short from Mad TV.) But seeing so many people--toddlers included--eagerly taking pictures of themselves with Santa while proudly brandishing an arsenal of high-powered weaponry just makes my dark, twisted soul shine with holiday cheer.

Looking at these photos, the following thoughts come to mind:

• Good little boys and girls get automatic weapons from Santa, but bad little boys and girls only get revolvers in their stockings.
• While the Scottsdale Gun Club Santa Claus photos sound like a novel idea, this isn't the first time that Christmas photos like these have been taken. In 1974, Mrs. Claus received a photo that was a lot like the gun club photos, except that the people in it were wearing ski masks and it came with a ransom note demanding $100 million in unmarked bills and five sacks full of free toys.
• Fun fact: In 1996, Santa Claus accidentally shot himself in the leg because he forgot to turn the safety on before climbing down a chimney.
• Giving toys to children is only a part-time gig for Santa. For the other 11 months of the year, he's an international arms dealer.
• In order to keep up with his Yuletide competitor, the Easter Bunny now hands out festively-painted hand grenades and plastic explosive Peeps.
• While it's OK to kiss someone under the mistletoe, don't do it when Santa Claus is in the room. Otherwise, he'll want to play a game he calls "William Tell".
• The Scottsdale Gun Club also wanted to have a life-size Nativity set for their Christmas photos, but baby Jesus kept dropping the semi-automatic AR-15 with attached grenade launcher.
• Now that he has complete control of the North Pole, Generalissimo Franco Claus plans to install his own junta in the South Pole after he stages a coup against Jack Frost.
• A holiday tip for kids: To be sure that Santa came to your house, check under the tree on Christmas morning. If you're still not sure, check for empty shell casings and gunshot residue (GSR) around the fire place.

Click below for more pictures of Shotgun Santa and his Merry Christmas Militia, and feel free to make up a few captions of your own.

The Muppets Review: The Return of Everyone's Favorite Felt Friends

Reviving dormant franchises for new audiences can be a tricky thing, particularly when it comes to franchises that are based on animated characters. As in any franchise revival, there's always the tension between appealing to new fans while maintaining the interest of the original fans; very rarely do these rival tensions balance evenly. When it comes to animated characters, the common approaches to revival appear to be either dumbing down the characters to appeal to kids (for the sake of merchandising), or putting the characters in the "real world" alongside known actors (for the sake of celebrity name recognition value), or both. These strategies rarely work, but they've succeeded just enough for Hollywood to keep them in their franchise revival playbook.

On the other hand, there are the title characters of the new movie The Muppets. They aren't cartoon characters but they are closely associated with kid-friendly entertainment, and they've had a long history of featuring celebrity guest stars. With these two attributes, one would expect to see the Muppets in their latest movie suffer the same grim fate as Rocky and Bullwinkle (see The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle) and the Looney Tunes characters (see Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action). Thankfully, not only does The Muppets avoid the common revival mistakes, but it succeeds in capturing the very things that made the Muppets so entertaining in the first place. After seeing this movie, two conclusions immediately came to mind:

1. We really did lose something special when Muppet creator Jim Henson passed away back in 1990.

2. The Muppets is a fantastic tribute to what Henson left behind--which is pretty amazing, considering that it was made by the same people who brought us Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek.

Read on for my full review.

The Muppets is a musical comedy that tells the story of Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (voiced by Peter Linz), two brothers and life-long Muppet fans, who find out that evil oil tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) plans to buy the old Muppet theater and tear it down to drill for oil. To stop Richman, they persuade Kermit the Frog (voiced by Steve Whitmire) to round up his Muppet friends and put on a show to raise money to save the theater. Of course, this plot summary barely covers The Muppets' vast amounts of in-jokes, musical numbers, parodies and guest cameos that keep the movie humming along smoothly from start to finish.

At their best, the Muppets are the embodiment of acute contradictions--they are winners and losers, goofy yet sincere, so real yet so fake, simple yet complicated--and they firmly embrace these contradictions with such exhilaration that you can't help but to go along for the ride. I honestly can't think of any other set of characters that pull off this deliberately imbalanced dichotomy so well, which is probably why parodies of the Muppets--such as Meet the Feebles, Wonder Showzen, Crank Yankers and Greg the Bunny--usually fall apart in comparison to the real thing. After all, it's hard to parody something that so readily makes fun of itself and is able to entertain adults while entertaining kids. Then again, there's nothing mean-spirited about the Muppets no matter what kind of jokes they tell, and this essential attribute is something that most Muppet imitators forget.

The Muppets remains true to the schizophrenic nature that Henson bestowed on his creations, and it mines with manic glee every absurdity that emerges from its characters and plot. Since the movie is a musical, it pokes fun at musicals; the movie is also a comeback story, so it too pokes fun at many comeback story clichés. The Muppets deliver heartfelt (no pun intended) and tender speeches that are truly sincere, yet they aren't afraid to kidnap a celebrity to accomplish their goal. Perhaps the most amusing part of the movie is found in its two main characters, brothers Walter and Gary: Walter is a Muppet while Gary is not, but no one in the movie seems to notice this discrepancy at all (although it does become the punch line in a hilarious musical number, "Man Or Muppet").

There's a fart joke here and there, but that's about as "edgy" as this movie gets; otherwise, the Muppets do their kind of humor the way it's been done before and it shows little need for improvement. Come to think of it, with so many reality TV shows serving as talent contests these days, I can't think of a better time to put The Muppet Show back on the air.

Of course, a movie like The Muppets isn't content just to be a good movie with Muppets--it also contains countless references to The Muppet Show that will keep die-hard Muppet fans re-watching this film for quite some time. I spotted a few secondary Muppet characters in the film that I haven't seen since The Muppet Show went off the air in 1981. The human cast, which also includes Amy Adams and Rashida Jones, appear to be having a blast even when they're taking a back seat to the Muppets, and I lost track of how many celebrities appear in smaller roles or cameos. With that kind of attention to detail, a witty script and the attraction of celebrities for on-screen appearances that only last for a few seconds (with even more appearances winding up on the cutting room floor, no less), I can't recommend The Muppets enough to anyone who is looking for smart yet lighthearted fun at the movies.

The Narrative of Victor Karloch: Haunted Horrors in Miniature

A friend of mine just let me know about a movie project that sounds like a unique exercise in the genre of horror: The Narrative of Victor Karloch, by Spirit Cabinet.

According to the Spirit Cabinet site, "Victor Karloch is a Victorian ghost story puppet film and live stage performance (at selected theaters) produced by Heather Henson's Handmade Puppet Dreams Films and The Jim Henson Foundation. ... The film incorporates 30" tall bunraku-style rod puppets, shadow puppetry, traditional in-camera effects, and digital atmospheric effects to present a gothic tale narrated by Victor Karloch, an alchemist, ghost hunter, and scholar who has devoted his life to the exploration of the supernatural." Victor Karloch was written by Kevin McTurk, a special effects artist whose previous projects include Batman Returns, Jurassic Park, and King Kong, and it will feature the vocal talents of Christopher Lloyd, Chris Parnell, Lance Henriksen, and Doug Jones.

Judging from the preview trailer on the Spirit Cabinet site, Victor Karloch looks like it's going to be a rich visual treat for horror film fans. Since puppet films are so rare in the U.S. as it is, it's hard to think of a horror film that's performed completely by puppets and miniatures. Yet as the trailer shows, this particular production scale, along with the puppets' physical details and movements, add a distinct sense of dread and disorientation that most live-action horror films lack. Such an unusual approach to telling a cinematic horror tale reminds me of the 2005 film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story, "The Call of Cthulhu". That film, which was produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman and distributed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, was produced in a way so that it would appear as if it were a monochrome silent film from 1926, the year when Lovecraft's story was first published. Between Victor Karloch and the Cthulhu adaptation, it seems that unusual tales are best told in unusual ways in order to maximize their impact on audiences.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry I've been away for a while, but I wanted to stop by and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. And as always, here is our tradition visit from Captain Thanksgiving!

Batman: Brave and the Bold Bids Farewell, while Young Justice has a Haunting Halloween

Last weekend, Cartoon Network aired the series finale of Batman: Brave and the Bold. The final episode, titled "Mitefall!", was written by noted DC vet Paul Dini. In "Mitefall!", inter-dimensional fanboy Batmite has grown tired of Brave and the Bold and decides to sabotage the show so that it will be cancelled and replaced by a darker, more dramatic Batman series. In a curious twist, this is the only episode of Brave and the Bold that isn't so much of a tribute to the Silver Age of DC Comics as it is a satirical jab at how TV shows--both live-action and animated alike--"jump the shark". Each of Batmite's strategies to undermine Brave and the Bold are textbook examples of shark jumping, such as the addition of cute yet superfluous characters, needlessly changing central locations, and casting Ted McGinley. Yet for as unusual as this episode is, it still makes for a fitting finale to one of the smartest Batman shows to air on TV. Adding to the finale's fun is Henry Winkler, who provides the voice of Ambush Bug. It's a shame they saved Winkler for the last episode, because his take on Ambush Bug would have been great to see in more Brave and the Bold episodes.

I've written before about how skillfully Brave and the Bold has paid tribute to the Silver Age (see my previous Brave and the Bold post here) and while this attribute is directly recognized in the show's finale, I think that Dini is trying to make a larger point outside of his shark jumping gags. Some comic book fans begrudge the campiness of many Silver Age superhero stories, but that period of time was an integral part of superhero history. Not only did that era see the birth of Marvel Comics, but it also featured significant and lasting revisions to several classic DC superheroes, superheroes such as Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Atom. Most importantly, the sense of creative, colorful playfulness that permeated the Silver Age played a major role in building most of the DC universe. (It seems that no matter how many reboots DC does, many of their superheroes retain backgrounds and traits that originated in the Silver Age.) If I didn't know any better, it would seem that Dini's underlying message in "Mitefall!" is that even though darker and more dramatic superhero stories are the current style of choice, it would be a mistake for comic book fans to forget the Silver Age, what made it work, and its many contributions to the superhero genre. I couldn't agree more.

Shortly after the Brave and the Bold's finale was "Secrets", the Halloween episode of Young Justice that somehow got pushed back to November. I've been impressed with Young Justice since its first episode, and it continues to hold my hold my attention. Instead of basing a cartoon on some pre-existing teenage superhero team from DC's comic books (such as Teen Titans or the Legion of Super Heroes), Young Justice assembles a cast of sidekick characters in a way that allows for a different approach to the DC universe.

Along those lines, "Secrets" is a stand-alone adventure that places Artemis and Zatanna in Manhattan, where they encounter a bizarre sword-wielding villain named Harm who harbors a gruesome secret. "Secret" starts off as a standard superhero adventure and then grows into a memorable ghost story--a rare feat for any superhero cartoon. As an added treat to this nifty trick, "Secrets" also has a subplot featuring Superboy, Miss Martian and Kid Flash that makes clever references to Orson Welles' notorious Halloween prank of 1938 and to two cartoon Marvins--one a Martian, the other a superhero wannabe who's familiar to die-hard DC cartoon fans.

Rest In Peace 2 Review: The Chronicles of ChromeSkull

For as much as I love them, slasher films just aren't what they used to be. Naturally, it's hard to recapture the golden era of the slasher film when this horror subgenre was relatively new (at least here in the U.S., anyway), an era that started during the late 70s and began to wane during the mid-80s. Yet for a straightforward plot structure that revolves around a masked and/or disfigured psychopath with a perchance for killing sprees, it seems that the time where slashers can reach the iconic status previously achieved by the likes of Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger is largely over.

This is not to say that horror filmmakers have given up their efforts to create memorable movie murderers. Case in point: ChromeSkull, the resident killer in the Laid to Rest movies. When he first appeared in 2009, not much was revealed about this bald, hulking masked killer other than his real name (Jesse Cromeans), his passion for killing lots and lots of people with his big, serrated hunting knives, his preference to communicate through electronic means (such as text messages) rather than talking, and his need to capture all of his ghastly, gory deeds on video tape. (There were also very strong suggestions that he's a necrophiliac as well.)

A few months ago, ChromeSkull did what all killers who yearn for slasher stardom do: He returned in his first sequel, ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2. Picking up right where the first film ended, ChromeSkull continues his killing spree in the sequel--but with very mixed results. The best part about this sequel is that it mixes up the slasher formula enough to keep you guessing what will happen next (something that most slasher sequels never do); the worst part is that the story never congeals enough to build dramatic momentum or to introduce new characters who are genuinely interesting. Read on for the complete review of this fearsome yet frustrating sequel.

Since the first Laid to Rest movie received limited release, I had no idea what to expect from it. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed: It had a memorable killer with an insatiable and uninhibited blood lust, some genuinely chilling kills, and enough creativity to provide a unique interpretation of the slasher formula.

Instead of hinging the story on the mystery behind the killer's identity, Laid to Rest focuses its attention on the unknown identity of the killer's primary target. Known only in the credits as "The Girl" (played by Bobbi Sue Luther), the movie begins with this nameless woman who can't remember how she ended up inside of a coffin in a funeral home and why ChromeSkull (played by Nick Principe) was so hell-bent on killing her and anyone who gets in his way. This sense of anxious uncertainty permeates the entire movie, giving it the feel and narrative logic of a "Lost Soul" movie. (Read my review of the Silent Hill: Shattered Memories video game here for an explanation of what I mean by Lost Soul movies.) In fact, there were a few times in Laid to Rest where I expected The Girl to discover that she's actually dead and that ChromeSkull is a physical manifestation of death itself intent on bringing her and as many other victims as possible to the afterlife, a plot twist that would have been a mash-up of Carnival of Souls and Reeker. That didn't happen, and the final resolution turned out to be a moving (albeit gory) reflection on what it means to save another person's life, no matter who the person is or how steep the cost for such an act of compassion is. In a sense, Laid to Rest is a retelling of the biblical Good Samaritan parable, except in this version there's also a relentless killer with a really big knife who's determined to kill the traveler and all of the Good Samaritans who try to help her.

Even though Laid to Rest 2 begins right where the first film ends, the sequel goes off in a completely different direction from its predecessor, both in terms of focus and mood. Within the first few minutes, the plot breaks into three threads that tie back together in the finale. ChromeSkull receives extensive surgery to heal from the severe injuries he sustained at the end of the first film and while he’s recovering, he plots his next killing spree by identifying his next target: Jess (Mimi Michaels), a girl who is slowly going blind. ChromeSkull’s associate Preston (Brian Austin Green) is busy “cleaning up” after the events of the last movie so that the reign of terror can continue, while at the same time harboring his own desire of replacing ChromeSkull as the man behind the silver mask. Finally, ChromeSkull survivor Tommy (Thomas Dekker) reluctantly works with police detective King (Owain Yeoman) to help find the elusive killer and bring him to justice.

While the first film placed a lot of emphasis on The Girl and people who help her, the sequel is all about ChromeSkull; however, because the filmmakers don’t want to reveal too much about ChromeSkull (in case there’s a Laid to Rest 3), Laid to Rest 2 drops a lot of interesting hints about the killer without actually revealing anything substantial. For example, while the first film hinted that ChromeSkull doesn’t completely work alone, Laid to Rest 2 reveals that ChromeSkull has an entire organization to support his homicidal exploits. The nameless organization answers to ChromeSkull’s wishes, but who bankrolls the organization and why remains unknown. It could be that ChromeSkull set up and funds the organization himself, or that the organization secures its budget by selling snuff tapes of ChromeSkull’s kills to the highest bidder; the latter explanation could also explain ChromeSkull’s compulsive need to video tape the death of his victims. Preston’s desire to become the next ChromeSkull provides some interesting moments, but the backgrounds of both Preston and his organization are so vague that this character arc doesn’t add much depth to the overall story. Perhaps one of the sequel’s most frustrating aspects is that the most startling revelation about ChromeSkull’s past doesn’t appear until after the credits roll (!).

Further hindering the sequel’s effectiveness is its fragmented, unfocused story, which doesn’t compare well to the first film’s sharp focus on a single character and a specific mood. In Laid to Rest 2, the new characters don’t get much time to develop, the surviving characters from the first film are either dispatched too quickly or don’t have anything interesting to do, and the running time is padded by the activities of several dim-witted cops--so dim-witted that they make up the bulk of the sequel’s body count.

By the power of ChromeSkull!

Where Laid to Rest 2 doesn’t disappoint are in its excessive gore and aggressive kills. New weapons are forged, a new chain link chamber of horrors is assembled, and heads, faces, and torsos are graphically hand-sawed apart. The kills are also spaced evenly apart so that they maintain a level of intensity throughout the movie even though the story itself never finds its proper footing.

Laid to Rest 2 is one of those sequels that I want to like because it has enough interesting ideas to set it apart from most other slasher sequels, but I can’t really recommend it to anyone other than Laid to Rest fans and slasher junkies who are looking for something a little different. Whether ChromeSkull will join the horror hall of fame for slasher superstars will depend on Laid to Rest 3, where I hope they can expand upon the ideas from the first two movies to build a genuinely thrilling third chapter.