John Carpenter

It's rare that I get a chance to talk to anyone famous, let alone one of my favourite directors. Last year I got a five minute chat with John Carpenter:


Me: Thanks for doing this interview Mr. Carpenter

John: Call me John, Mr. Carpenter's my father.

Me: Okay John, so out of all your movies, I gotta say Halloween is by far my favourite

John: You didn't like Assault on Precinct 13?

Me: Yeah, it's a classic, but I prefer Halloween

John: You're one of those, I see. I've done a slew of work, but you people only want to know about Myers.

Me: Don't get me wrong I do love all your work, but Halloween blew me away... So, what did you think to the remake?

John: Well Zombie did an interesting job with it, but you can't beat Donalds's performance as Dr. Loomis. I mean, you watch that film and he's scarier than Myers!! The bit where those kids go up to the house and he does a freaky voice... that wasn't in the script, that wasn't even on the set... we'd followed Donald home one evening and that's what he liked to do with his time. In fact, between you and me, Donald never even saw the script, he just made it up as he went along, he believed there really was a killer and that he was actually Dr. Loomis. Method acting fruitcake. When Michael disappeared at the end of the first film, Donald locked himself in his house for months, for fear Michael would come back for him.

Me: That true?

John: The last man to call me a liar was John Romero, and I killed that son of a bitch twenty years ago.

Me: John Romero is still alive

John: That's Stan Lee! You ever seen the two in the same place? That's why the last few "of the dead" movies sucked, what the hell does Stan Lee know about Zombies?

Me: Um... The music, from Halloween, you composed right?

John: Composed is a strong word for what I did. You even listen to that music. I was off my tits on crystal meth at the time. Debra, Debra Hill that is, was with me at the time and she'd puked all over a keyboard after she realised we'd just eaten her cat and put the Chinese takeaway outside. So I was cleaning up the mess and in my drug addled state came up with the tunes you heard in the movie.

Me: So... Michael Myers's mask, is it true that it's a Captain Kirk mask painted white?

John: Yup, it's all true.

Me: Why William Shatner?

John: Well, a lot of hippie's and commies will tell you that I didn't have a budget to get a decent mask made, but that's baloney. You see, you've gotta understand, that back when I made Halloween, people were scared of Bill Shatner. You think people watched Star Trek for the Sci-Fi? No, they watched it because they were scared of what would happen to them if they didn't. Shit, we were all scared of Bill. My original concept for Halloween wasn't about Michael Myers at all, it was about Bill Shatner killing people. When I went to the studio with it they were too scared to do it, so instead suggested I make up a character. But I made a compromise and used a Shatner mask, painted it white so he couldn't recognise his mug. I mean, Shatner's a scary looking bastard as it is, a pure white Shatner... now that's creepy. The amusing thing is the writers of Star Trek the next generation came up to me and wanted Michael Myers to be in it, I told em to go screw 'emselves, but they made Data anyway! Well kid, I gotta go, I've got a fight with Wes Craven in a pub car park in 3 minutes.

Me: Right, well thanks for talking John.

John: No problem, which magazine are you with anyway?

Me: I'm not, I do a blog

John: Oh for fuck sake, I've wasted precious Carpenter time on a wanna be fuck like you, get out of my sight before I write a film about killing you.

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Sometimes the people you most respect the most are the ones that deserve it the least.

Ciao for niaow.

I got me a trophy :D

Howdy to all 3 people who read this!

I know it's been an age since my last update, but please remember that I have other things to do during my day. Work? No, nothing as foolhardy as that, I'm speaking about my plans to destroy Coventry entirely, using an elaborate scheme involving several helicopters and a cunning plan that Shakespeare himself wish he'd come up with, if he were still alive, and if he had planned to destroy Coventry, which as far as I'm aware, he never had that particular ambition... he hated Slough.

But I'll save that for a day when I'm not as busy as I've been.

So, you ask, what HAVE I been doing recently? except for my long suffering lady wife ;)

Well I have been rehearsing for a play that my father wrote from his padded cell, and last saturday we performed it at the Tamworth Drama Festival. Along with my evil brother Kristofus, who you may recall was last seen impaled on Royston's shaft if you followed the Zombie Blog :P

Well, we had a good run at the festival, and in the end, out of the ten possible awards we could have won, we won five of them!

The awards we missed out on were "Best dressed nun", "Most likely to become a prostitute", "Will do anything for fame", "Best use of the word 'Oxymoron" and "Best sex scene"

We however picked up Best Male Lead (me), Best Female Lead (Cheryl), Best Supporting Actor (Kristofus), Best New Play (my pa) and Best overall play of the open festival (my pa)

So finally all that money I invested in mind control paid off, and I was able to jedi mind trick the adjudicator into giving me the trophy! Hazar! :D

Indian Restaurants

Out of all the cuisines you can dine upon on a night out with a beautiful lady or with some good friends, an Indian Cuisine is low down the list for me.

Top, would be Italian as I lurve pasta, pizza and most things begining with P. I like to try new things at an Italian Restaurant, sure I have my favourites, but I'll be experimental now and again with the food. Getting a side order of bread with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dip is just a great treat for my pallet and the wine and deserts are always top notch.

An Indian meal however is a different experience alltogether. Firstly, the encyclopedia that they call a menu, only has two meals I am interested in. Korma and Massala, and I'll always get a chicken version of those meals. Starters? Well, I'll have a popodom, but I'm not that fussed about them, it's just a giant crisp with dips.

I can never finish an Indian meal, my plate always looks like I've not touched it! No one likes to spend 30 mins mastercating and have nothing to show for it. I'll always have a beer the size of a small rocket, and be drunk after my 2nd sip, meaning any food I do taste I won't appreciate.

The main problem I have is that I am aware that I am whiter than the tablecloths and am very paranoid of being seen as racist! What an absurd thing right? It's just one of those really odd things to add to the assortment of odd things I have about me.
But because I try overly hard to not be racist, things I say sound wrong, or could be interpreted as racist!

So, in short, if you ever bump into me and want to go for a meal... please please, choose anything other than Indian, as it makes me more akward than Luke Skywalker getting off with Princess Leia only to have Chewbacca walk in and say "Raaaar Raaaarrr Raaaarr, dude... that's your sister."

Movies of Games

Uwe Boll, the man is a pestilant piece of shit on the world of cinema.

This man singlehandedly destroyed any hope of a decent Alone in the Dark movie or a good Bloodrayne film. He sucked the life out of those franchises and delivered very poor movies, Alone being one of the worst movies I've seen, and I've seen a lot of bad films.

Movies of computer games are generally shit, as are computer games of movies, and some games and movies of the same franchise are both shit.

Not all are bad, for instance Silent Hill was a great adaptation in my opinion, and although I didn't like the stories, the Resident Evil films are pretty good.

Now an old franchise will be out soon on film for the first time, and that's Prince Of Persia. Now it's helmed by the same guy who did the Pirates movies, so that gives this some credibility... however the badguy is played by Ben Kingsley... shudder...

It's not that I don't rate Ben Kingsley... it's just... he's done a lot of bad movies. His portrayal of The Hood in Thunderbirds will always ruin anything I see him in. So his villanous status needs a proper overhaul in this movie or I just wont buy his performance.

I'm not sold by the trailer for the film, and I just hope that it does a decent job and not do a Super Mario Bros. < Worst. Game. Film. Ever!

Jeremy Kyle

For anyone who has ever skived a day off of work, or who has been ill or unemployed, there's a 93.6% chance that you've caught a glimpse of The Jeremy Kyle show. For those who've luckily missed this show, let me explain.

The Jeremy Kyle show is a talk show, where people can and do air their dirty laundry. The type of people that go on this show are one strand of DNA away from being an Amoeba, and would not look out of place being the monster of the week in an episode of Doctor Who. Infact I think some of the guests on this show went on to star in The Hills have Eyes.

A typical show has one of these mutants wheeled on stage, where they will complain that their partner has cheated on them with their sister/father/dog, or that they're not sure if they're the father/mother of their partner's son/daughter/dog for example. Next the mutant's better half comes out to a torrent of boos/cheers/claps from the audience and will tell their side of the story.

At any point Jeremy Kyle can and will shout at them about anything and everything. Other talk show hosts try and help their guests, but Kyle goes crazy and attacks anything that moves, like a foaming dog in Mothercare.

Watching Jeremy Kyle is not unlike going to a zoo... if the zoo contained only brain dead gorillas and a smug c**t of a zoo keeper who believes he is king of the apes!

The great unwashed love this bastard, and he knows it... and the thing that worries me the most is now he's got to the top of his field in talkshows... what if he sets his sights on 10 downing street!!

With his legions of supporters he'd get voted in no problem, and spend his time shouting at the UN or anyone and everyone else... we'd be nuked 3 minutes after he'd take the office, by everyone who owns a nuke... and even countries that don't.

Food for thought.

Half Arsed Review - The Un-Invited

I watched the Un-Invited last night, which after 5 minutes seemed really familiar, and after a quick look on IMDB my suspicions were confirmed that it was an American "re-imagining" of the Korean mind-fuck "A Tale of Two Sisters".

The Korean movie, was great. Had some pretty disturbing imagery in it and had an awesome twist I didn't see coming, and was a total mind-fuck to boot, as I mentioned above.

The Un-Invited has elements that are the same as the Korean movie but it's not identical like "Funny Games" or "The Ring". So I did enjoy it as a film in it's own right but certain things did seem predictable... and that was before I realised I'd seen something similar before.

This film, however, does get the coveted 10 point prize, of having the BEST opening line in any movie I have ever seen so far up to the point of me writing this sentence...

The main girl (who is played by the older girl from A Series of Unfortunate Events) is kissing some Emo kid on a beach, and they're getting a little hot and heavy. He looks at her and then uses the best line I have ever heard.

"I love you... I've got a condom"

Wow, this guy was doomed to die a virgin!

Anyway, check it out if you've not seen the original or if you have and want an american comparrison. It's got some decent acting in it and some jumpy moments. There are moments where you'll shout at the television due to stupidity of the central characters, but no more than any other mid-tier horror.

For a hardenend horror fan like me, it didn't bring anything new to the table, but differs from the original movie to become a film in it's own right.

If I had to give it a score then I would, but as this isn't Nazi Germany I wont.

Epic Fail Kelloggs

A while ago, I asked my long suffering lady friend Louise to come up with an idea for a breakfast cereal. It was actually one of the most serious conversations we had, and she came out with a great idea, including an idea for the design of the box and what the advert would entail.

I was suprised with how easy she came up with the idea, and thought that the breakfast cereal industry would be hard pressed to find someone with better ideas than her.

However, she has been trumped, by a guy working at Kelloggs who is thinking so outside the box that he's living in an underwater apartment on Pluto... I know that makes no sense to me either.

Pitcure if you will, a board meeting in early January. Mr. Kelloggs sits at the head of the table, looking at the sales figures for his various cereals for the previous year. He spots a problem, one of their products sells well all year round, but dips in december... he asks his idea men what they can come up with.

After months of research and development the top idea guy comes back to Mr. K and tells him that the best way to increase sales in decemeber is to incourage people to put HOT milk in their coco puffs.

What... the... F**K?

I jest you not, they spent millions on advertising that you put hot milk in coco puffs. What is the world coming to? Next they'll be telling you to try eating un-cooked chicken and to shake hands with french people!

I refuse to do any of the above!!

Never trust Kelloggs... their cornflake advert is voiced by the villain from lethal weapon 2, and that guy was a racist even if he did have diplomatic immunity!