Fistula's As-Yet-Untitled Page of Hate!

That’s what happened to me earlier this morning when I heard the news that Rob Zombie is (allegedly) slated to man the new Halloween movie that will be, you guessed it, a reimagining of the first. Oooh, that word makes me twitch uncomfortably – normally. But, for some reason, I don’t feel like throwing my computer monitor against the wall the way I did when I heard about the (by the grace of God) mercifully aborted Friday the 13th reimagining.

Nor do I feel like throwing a fit and bitching about the endless spew of horror remakes that have plagued the world since Michael Bay dropped a Leatherface-sized Hot Karl in the mouths of the moviegoing public a few years ago. I’ve pretty much stopped going to movies completely since then – it’s like I’m hiding in a bomb shelter and have refused to come out until the big boom. In this case, the big boom would be some sort of new Constitutional amendment that makes it illegal for filmmakers to remake movies without express written consent from every major party of the original or, preferably, at all. Fuck, I’d even move to ban horror movie production completely to put a stop to all of this. I don’t care, by any means necessary. This bastard phenomenon has got to stop before every descent horror movie ever is reimagined and stars 50 Cents (as long as the roll didn’t call for him to speak coherent English) and Lindsay Lohan (as long as it didn’t involve much more than sucking off the producer).

But, this time around, I’m not throwing a fit. In fact, right now I’m completely torn on the news that Zombie will be behind the newest Halloween effort. So basically, my world has been torn asunder and I don’t know where to turn. So, with no one around to tell me what to think or to remind me that 2 + 2 = 5, I’ll sort this out myself. Even with a massive headache, I have been able to identify three major reasons why I’m not totally against Zombie reimagining Halloween:

1) If it were anyone else, aside from maybe Peter Jackson, I would freaking out right now. But I have nothing but faith in Zombie’s filmmaking abilities. So far, his work consists of two movies that I’ve seen and really liked: House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. Despite what a lot of people have said, I loved House. I thought it was a lot of fun and it was an enjoyable Texas Chain Saw Massacre update. But something was missing. That 1970s feel, perhaps. The next time around, Rejects was missing nothing. It was easily the greatest movie to come out in the last 20 years, if not ever.

Part of the reason Zombie’s movies are great – and part of the reason I’m not afraid of him tinkering with Halloween – is his ability to cast. I’ll say it: The Devil’s Rejects had the greatest cast ever, from top to bottom. Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sherri Zombie were great at the top, but it was supporting players like William Forsythe, Danny Trejo, Diamond Dallas Page, Ken Foree, Geoffrey Lewis and many more that helped make it truly special. Most movies would consider themselves lucky to have one of these guys. It’s that fact that numbs my first complaint about horror remakes – the people who cast these movies deserve to be savagely beaten. Just off the top of my head, The Omen will unquestionably suck because it stars Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles. And how could we forget worthless slut Jessica Biel’s bouncy performance in TCM? It even dips into other genres, such as the terrible Planet of the Apes remake. I like Tim Burton and all, but I just feel sorry for him having to direct Marky Mark in a starring role. But, back to Halloween, I don’t believe Zombie would ever commit such atrocities, because I believe he actually likes movies and knows that a movie cannot succeed with a deadweight cast.

2) The Halloween series has no place to go. I’m a fan of the series, having even enjoyed the lesser installments (Resurrection, Curse, Revenge – yes even Season of the Witch) throughout the years. But the current story has no place else to go because Michael Myers needs a nemesis to thrive and there are none. In the beginning, he had Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance in the triumphant first two movies. Then, for three sequels of varying quality, he had Pleasance. Then, for 1.5 movies, he had Curtis. Now that both are dead, one in the story, one for real, it makes no sense to keep the series going. Even the proposed sequel I heard about was centered on Michael’s asylum days. Let’s face it: nobody wants to touch this story anymore and for good reason. That’s why going back makes some sort of perverted sense.

As outspoken as I’ve been about remakes and reimaginings, I’d like to point out that I’ve never really been opposed to this kind of reimagining, the kind that keeps the fundamentals of the original storyline and merely goes back in time to slip a movie in between two distinct eras. Even in regard to my pet cause, the Friday remake, I’ve voiced support for the idea of taking the story back to Jason’s mortal killing days, I just hated the idea of Michael Bay having anything to do with it. Go ahead, check the archives and see. To draw parallel, what I’m doing her is like supporting the idea of Alice in Chains getting back together with a new singer, as long as that new singer isn’t Fred Durst (welcome back AIC!).

3) If you want to get technical, Zombie is 1/1 reimagining movies, as you could easily make a case for The Devil’s Rejects being a reimagining of House of 1,000 Corpses. It feels a little different because he was reimagining his own movie, but Rejects took the same characters, ignored the events of the first movie – with the exception of the death of Sheriff Wydell – and went off on is own tangent. Even those same characters were darker, more evil, more real. Clearly, it wasn’t a pure sequel because it didn’t continue the events of the first movie in any way. Call it a reimagining or just call it a movie that stands on its own, if Zombie were to take Michael Myers and put him in a movie largely unrelated to the original “wants to kill his sister while crazy doctor chases him” plotline, it wouldn’t be that different, except for Halloween is considered an untouchable classic. But Zombie doesn’t have to, and at this point I don’t believe he will, try to erase the original. In this case, going back in time doesn’t have any butterfly effect unless someone wants it to.

Actually, writing this has been cathartic for me, as I’ve come to realize that it’s not really the idea of remaking movies – a few movies, it’s still okay to write new movies you asshole film companies you – but who has been remaking movies that pisses me off. So, at the risk of sounding like a flaming hypocrite, I think I’m actually looking forward to Zombie’s attempt to bring a dead icon back to life. Remember, it’s a good thing to admit when we make a mistake. So, movie lovers, choose your remakes wisely. Just because it’s possible that one guy will succeed with a horror remake, it doesn’t mean you should go out and start throwing your money at movies with Liev Schreiber or bands with Fred Durst. That would just be stupid. To see how stupid, go to IMDB.com and see how much The Omen grosses this week. Yep, that stupid.

"Finally, Some Good News..."
posted 05/14/06:
“I can change the world with my own two hands” – Ben Harper

I was introduced to this phrase back in 2003 at a Pearl Jam concert. As those privileged enough to have been to one will surely know, PJ often goes into a crowd chant-along of Ben Harper’s “With My Own Two Hands” as an extended ending to “Daughter” whenever they crank it out. As an awesome Chicago crowd and I held our hands to the sky and chanted those words over and over, I really believed that I could do just what the song claimed I could. Today, after hearing some of the most righteous news I’ve heard since darkness descended over the world in the form of the abominable Bush administration in 2000, I believed those words once again.

I’m sure I don’t need to recap for anybody that has checked this site before, but I was outraged and exceedingly fucked up when I heard that the Friday the 13th movie franchise, my Friday the 13th franchise, was being abducted and ass-raped by that worthless piece of shit Michael Bay and his worthless piece of shit Platinum Dungheep film-raping company. I cried to the far ends of the Earth for someone, anyone, to abort this bastard son of a film. Now, as if by divine intervention, the project has marvelously hit a snag.

According to the good folks at "Fangoria", the Friday remake is put on hold indefinitely due to internal problems, reportedly financial – translation, the greedy bastards behind it are arguing over how much of the inevitable cow pie they deserve once it’s all over. Check out the full article in this month’s issue or check it out on the website.

All delusions of grandeur aside, I realize that it probably didn’t have anything to do with the whole two, now three, editorials I personally wrote about the subject. And yes, the project will probably get rolling again at some point, reportedly after the conclusion of another, yes one more fucking, remake of a good movie, this one The Hitcher. I don’t know much about The Hitcher, so I say acceptable losses. But is this sacrifice even necessary? One of my first ideas when I heard the Friday remake was off went something like “Hey, what if this is the beginning of a chain reaction?

Wouldn’t that be great? Think about it, this could be proof that we can make it happen! If you’re pissed about Bay’s ass clowns fucking up The Hitcher (Brother R is still stewing over this one), pick up a torch and some kerosene and make a difference. If The Hitcher falls through and Platinum Dungheep tries to fuck with The Devil’s Advocate, blow some shit up Pacino-style! My God, if it went far enough, we might even be able to use it as a once-and-for-all cure for the festering cancer that is big-budget Hollywood remakes of movies that never needed to be harmed by anyone. So once again, this is a call to anyone out there who’s tired of Hollywood cock-gobblers who think that it’s acceptable to destroy someone else’s masterpiece instead of getting off their slothful asses and crapping out one of their own.

What can we do in a world where greed rules and regurgitation is all the rage? Maybe not too much, but with my two hands, and your two hands, we can change the world. We’ve already done it once.

"Funeral For A Friend"
or alternately titled, “Fuck No Fuck Fucking God Damn Shit Fucking Shit on a Fucking Brick”
posted 03/15/06:
To my friend,
You’ve always been there for me. It breaks me heart to know that you needed my help and I was powerless to save you. Though you didn’t say as much in words, I felt your cry for help in your eyes, and I sat idly by as you were stripped of your right to live. Though you’ve made mistakes, we all have, and I believe that you deserve to be judged for your best work. At your best, you made me smile and made me happy to know you. But even at your worst, you never deserved the fate that you suffered. Rest in peace, and know that you’ll never be forgotten because I will sing the world your elegy.
Forever your friend, advocate and admirer,
Fistula

Sometimes, you don’t truly feel the effects of a disaster until they hit close to home. Allow me to tell my story and feel my pain:

My name is Brother Fistula and I’m a Jason-aholic. Yes, the big guy with the hockey mask, or potato sack and hippy haircut for those who stopped going to movies in 1981. I’ve loved Jason since I first stumbled on his line of work back in 1989 when I was seven and watching scrambled HBO as my evening’s entertainment one Friday the 13th. I remember it well; it was love at first site.

I had been petrified of horror movies ever since my cousins terrorized me with Nightmare on Elm St. movies as a kindergartner. I remember sitting and watching at my aunt’s house as Jason picked up a spear (!?!), walked slowly up the stairs of a cabin and kabobed a pair of sweaty old-looking teenagers as they had sex. I knew that day that this would be my calling in life.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that Jason, in all his shapes, sizes and choices of headgear, has been in some pretty terrible movies. God-awful movies even. Witness…

Jason Takes Manhattan? I’ve hated that movie even though it should hold some nostalgia value for me because it was the first movie I ever rented and watched on my own. But, alas, it was terrible. But, I’ll save my venom for that movie for later, as there’s something I’ve always wanted to sound off publicly on and it is a subject that I would love to hear what someone else thinks.

The New Blood? Another one of those embarrassing “psychic link to the killer” movies. This one was different, though, because it was edited to shit and all of John Buechlers’ violence was edited away (if you haven’t seen the F13 box set, it’s got some rough cuts of what could have made this movie a pretty good one as far as violence goes).

A New Beginning? Let’s just say it’s a good thing that fake Jason didn’t get a recurring role.

So yes, I have as many problems with these movies as you do. But all these movies, even A New Beginning, have one enduring strength – Jason!

I’m never disappointed by Jason himself. Even the ones in which he makes merely a cameo – Jason Goes to Hell and A New Beginning, namely – it is always a thrill to see him in action for me, even if “action” in A New Beginning was him standing at the foot of a guy’s in a vision. Jason has always been there for me; that’s why I feel that he needs me now.

Any fellow Jason fan out there, I warn you: Jason is about to be gang raped ala I Spit on Your Grave, ripped open ala Hellraiser and dragged around till his insides cover the walls ala Nightmare on Elm St. No, the killer won’t be Freddy Kruger, or Pinhead or even the gang of faceless, poorly defined rapist hicks. The rapist is the world’s most loathsome filmmaker Micheal Bay and his band of shitheel pet filmmakers at Platinum Dunes Public Assraping and Movie Molestation.

The news came down about a month ago that Jason, my Jason, will suffer a fate worse than death or being shown on the USA Network when, sometime next year, he will be neutered, ass-blasted and dulled down to a new low as the unwitting victim of another “reimagining” from Bay the producer. If you saw Bay’s raping of Texas Chain Saw Massacre three years ago, you know just how dire the situation is.

The TCM remake was an atrocity, it was boring, stupid and featured a laundry list of terrible actors that bored me within seconds of their arrival. What was good about this movie? Nothing. It had Jessica Biel’s breasts and bad acting in dual starring roles and there might have been a scene that was scary in that a glass jar fell and startled the audience. The remake was terrible and inferior in every way to the original. Let me give you a quick example of how this laughably this movie failed to improve or even hold a candle to the original: In the original TCM, Sally, Franklin and company were going on a trip to see if their grandfather’s grave had been desecrated. I can understand and identify with these characters, and I can even say I liked them and feared for them. In the remake, this pack of meat puppets was, and I cannot understate how despicable this makes them, SCORING DRUGS FROM MEXICO AND GOING TO A FUCKING LYNYRD SKYNARD CONCERT! That’s it, you lost me right there. The rest of the movie could have been the systematic butchering of these five fucks and I couldn’t have been happier. Jesus Christ, when Biel said something like “They’ve got to play Freebird” I nearly lost it right there and walked out, and there was over an hour of movie left to suffer through! How in God’s name can you ask me to feel any sympathy or fear for these people when that’s what they’re going to do. Mr. Bay, you poor talentless dick, how can you ask me to feel the power of a euthanasia scene when I’ve hated both characters for an hour and have been counting down the moments until terrible things happen to them? I liked Leatherface until I saw this movie. Now, I mourn his passing.

Now, with the fate of Jason all but sealed with Bay’s backing, the director of PG-13 crapfest Darkness Falls set to let his shit movie fans everywhere and a million actresses with perky breasts in place of talent ready to become stars, I can sit by and weep no longer. It’s time for action, baby.

I’ve thought it over many times and, since I can’t imagine that I could kill or pay anyone to kill Michael Bay out of fear of retribution (jail sucks, but even more scary, he might “reimagine” my life and make it into a movie, OOOHH!), the only thing I can do it put my faith in the democratic process and hope that enough people feel the way I do. Does Bay continue to get work because nobody out there knows just how much shit he’s forced on the moviegoing public? That’s my only theory. So, let’s recap what he’s done; don’t be afraid to take it personally if you’ve seen these movies and didn’t know who to be pissed off at:

As the demon that carries out the whim of devil Jerry Bruckheimer, Bay first harmed the public with the teaming of WHATUP! Martin Lawrence and FRESH PRINCE Will Smith in the awful buddy cop movie Bad Boys. The world still hasn’t recovered from Smith, though Lawrence has been isolated in Big Momma’s House purgatory and hopefully will be destroyed before long.

Bruckheimer and Bay teamed to assault America again with the brilliant teaming of Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage in The Rock. I felt like I had just pissed out an Alcatraz-sized kidney stone after my friend convinced me to watch this one.

Armageddon: There’s nothing I can say about this load that hasn’t been said before. But hey, on the bright side, it did inspire someone to make The Core!

Pearl Harbor: It takes a film of epically bad proportions to disgrace the memories of people that were actually part of the true events, but Bay and Bruckheimer somehow managed to make a movie that bad. Using the fact that this movie won an Oscar as grounds to discredit the Oscars is every bit as plausible as using Jethro Tull’s victory over Metallica for Best Metal Album category as a reason to never give a flying fuck who wins a Grammy ever again.

TCM: Bay pisses in the coffee cup of horror fans everywhere. But, there were breasts, you know.

Bad Boys 2: Yeah right, I’m not the kind of guy to stick clean my ears with a circular saw twice. I’m told Henry Rollins is in it, proof that either it’s cool or Bruckheimer and Bay are truly the devil’s hands. No matter what, Henry Rollins is one of the most talented performers in any field he chooses to go in. I’m sorry, am I gushing?

The Island: I didn’t catch this one, though I was fascinated by the fact that it allegedly ripped off Parts: The Clonus Horror. I think I might have liked that movie.

The Amityville Horror (2005): Ask Ragnorok about this one, he knows better than I do.

The mind reels at the sheer magnitude of Bay’s body of work. One wonders, is he trying to make bad movies? Are he and Bruckheimer the real-life version of Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank? Why is “CSI” on seven days a week when it’s so cartoonishly stupid? Does anyone out there even care?

Okay, so my plan was merely to point out what a terrible filmmaker Bay is and hope that the rest of the country’s moviegoers will do something about it. It probably won’t work, though, seeing as how Sylvester Stallone is still making movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger is somehow a powerful government official. Together, though, we can move mountains and change is possible if we all band together and…what? Pearl Harbor did over 75 million on its first weekend? We’re screwed.

My soul is having an especially dark night right now, so forgive me if I hide behind a tree and cry like little Lucy Pevensie as she watched the evil minions of the White Witch dance as they murdered a bound and helpless Aslan. Even though I’ve watched him come back time and time again, I’m afraid that Jason’s going to wish he’d stayed dead before this one’s over.

Now, on to the miserable fuck who’s remaking the first Friday…

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