Twice a year, you’re supposed to spread pre-emergent fertilizer on your lawn to prevent weeds from ever popping up. Someone should have done the same to THE RUINS, a terrible killer-vines horror flick based upon Scott Smith’s not-at-all-terrible 2006 book of the same name.

Two couples of college kids vacationing in Mexico meet a charismatic German guy who needs help finding his brother, from whom he’s heard no word since venturing out on a trip to check out some ancient ruins in the nearby jungle. Somehow, this seems like a viable alternative to another day of drinking and doing it, so our quartet of all-American students agrees to help the complete stranger out.

Bad move. No sooner do they arrive on the site — which looks like a stair-step stone temple — than locals speaking a foreign tongue shoot one of their new friend’s friends, via an arrow to the heart and a bullet through the nose. This drives our imperiled heroes and heroines to the top of the site, where they’re imprisoned by the growing armed throng below.

Then there’s also the matter of the ruins’ plant life: It’s, like, alive, dude. And it eats people by burrowing into their skin and moving around. With precious little food or water and seemingly no hope to get through the human gauntlet below, the collegians’ future doesn’t look so rosy.

It’s hard to fathom why THE RUINS is as bad as it is, because the talented Smith is also responsible for the screenplay. (He also pulled double duty on A SIMPLE PLAN, and both novel and film turned out splendid.) It follows his book rather closely, with a strange exception of letting things that happened to one character in print happen to another on film, and allowing one character who expired early on now survive to the end, while giving another the vice-versa treatment.

Your first clue at its quality is how ugly and cheap it looks, with the exception of a pair of beautiful location shots on the beach. Director Carter Smith makes his feature debut, having previously helmed a gay-themed dramatic short. How that qualifies someone for a big-studio thriller is beyond me.

Worse, it’s simply boring, which is weird, because what played out as gripping over 336 pages seems an absolutely tedious uphill climb at just 93 minutes, credits included. Part of the reason may be we’re given no insight into who the characters are, so we don’t really care about what happens to them. We know they like to pound back the booze, and that’s about it. All of them are like ciphers. The one thing the movie does better than the book is allow us to keep track of who’s who, but that’s only because of the visuals.

If anything, THE RUINS movie deserves a bravery badge for not diluting the shock moments of Smith’s original novel. Having missed this in the theaters (and now I’m glad I ditched the free screening), I’m unsure how this “unrated” DVD compares to what moviegoers saw, but it contains some sickening graphic scenes, most notably of an impromptu double amputation in grisly detail.

But it chickens out of presenting the book’s chilling ending, going for one of those insipid Hollywood “gotcha” moments — the cinematic equivalent to a middle finger hoisted toward the audience. (The alternate ending’s just as bad — yet another one that unimaginatively rips off CARRIE.) Don’t “ruin” your night with a rental. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

This week, my wife and I had our 14th wedding anniversary. My wife is awesome. How awesome? She doesn’t even expect anniversary presents, which is good, because I have no time to find one. But we did mark the occasion by taking a without-kids trip to Fort Worth, Texas. Why Fort Worth? Because that’s the end of the line for the Amtrak Heartland Flyer, departing from our Oklahoma home.

For a smattering of odd vacation photos with pithy, pathetic attempts at jokey captions, they await you after the jump.

Aside from kiddie rides at theme parks, I’d never been in a train before. I was surprised at how spacious, clean, smooth and relaxing it was. Except for the teen hoodlum wannabe sitting across from us who reeked of cigarette smoke, carried a guitar and listened to nü-metal on his MP3 player the whole time, occasionally busting out the ol’ devil-horns hand gesture at particularly rocking moments. I don’t care how cool he thought he was, because no one wearing pants like he did with so many straps, hooks, snaps and doohickeys is anywhere near the realm of cool. You suck, dude.

During a “manager’s reception” (read: free booze!) at our hotel, I took this photo of my wife’s green-painted toes. Don’t say I never gave you anything, foot fetishists:

After an awesome Mexican dinner at Mi Cocina (translation: “my little cock”), we walked around downtown. Tucked in an alley between two buildings is the Scat Jazz Lounge. The infantile and immature side of me laughed a little, knowing “scat” is a synonym for “poop.” My wife thought I was making this up. She is sheltered.

While downing a Jamba Juice the next day (energy boost, please!), I spotted these two men near the top of this skyscraper, washing windows. I only include it because just thinking about being up that high makes my testicles retreat inward. True story!

Just before boarding our train taking us home to Oklahoma City, we ate an early “dinner” at the Subway in the station. It is a Subway from hell, in that it attracts “all kinds,” including people who scream and people who have their underwear hanging out of their pants and people who are 9 years old yet eat like they’re 39 and get a dozen cookies to go (sad, but true). Then in walked this guy, so dirty and unkempt, I presumed he was homeless. I took his picture (not a very good one, admittedly) not because of his scruffiness, but for the disembodied zombie head tchotchke hanging from his backpack. Also note the sour disposition of the woman to his right, unhappy that I was capturing the moment.

—Rod Lott

Recently we saw the release of the latest Stephen King cinematic adaptation, THE MIST. It is trashy King done by a classy director and I loved every minute of it. It straddles the line between “good” Stephen King film and “bad” Stephen King film.

You know what a “good” Stephen King film is: THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE SHINING, CARRIE, STAND BY ME, THE GREEN MILE. While that’s all well and good, I have to be honest with you: I’ll take lousy, shitty Stephen King flicks anyday over any of those classy ones. No need to church it up for me. Give me the low-budget junk, the spectacular misfires, the ridiculously plotted storylines, the overwrought amateurish acting and the AC/DC soundtrack. Why? For the simple reason that the worse a Stephen King film is, the more entertaining it is.

Can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me that four kids on a summer search for self-discovery is more entertaining than a group of kids who stalk and kill all the adults in a small town because they follow the teachings of a demonic being known as He Who Walks Behind the Rows? No, you can’t. STAND BY ME may be the better film, but CHILDREN OF THE CORN is the fun film.

Here’s a list of my personal “bad” King faves that no matter what time of day, if it’s on television, I’ll be watching it …

MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
This is the only film ever directed by Stephen King, based on his short story “Trucks.” Hilariously enough, it’s also widely regarded as the worst King adaptation of all time. But, oh, how wrong they are …

Emilio Estevez leads a group of truck stop denizens the day that a comet’s tail passes over the earth and causes all mechanical equipment — from blenders and soda pop machines to gigantic semi-trucks and army tanks — to come magically to life and, even worse, carry on normal brain functions. They, the machines that is, trap and kill anyone who crosses their path, all to a soundtrack by AC/DC. Run me over and call me roadkill!

SILVER BULLET
I wish Gary Busey were my uncle. Not only would he be a constant drunken mess who offers wholly inappropriate advice to me at all times, but, if I were handicapped, he’d make me a high-tech, engine-powered wheelchair slash motorcycle slash death machine called, of course, the Silver Bullet.

That name would be especially ironic when I come face to face with our local werewolf, whom I proceed to shoot in the eye with a bottle rocket. I would also be played by a young, unsullied Corey Haim.

There’s still time, right? Right, Uncle Gary? Uncle Gary?

CHILDREN OF THE CORN
It’s a fear that we’ve all had when driving though a small town that’s strangely devoid of adults: that all the kids have killed the grown-ups and are led by a gravel-voiced boy-girl named Isaac, who has started a cult based around delicious, golden ears of corn — their god being a demon known as He Who Walks Behind the Rows. It’s completely rational and, for all intents and purposes, probably quite accurate. I mean, have you been to Kansas?

It’s also the plot of CHILDREN OF THE CORN, a movie that actually had my mom praying for the souls of my brother and me after viewing it, saying that we let “evil in the house.” Yep, when it makes your superstitious Mexican Catholic mom call for an exorcist, you known that you’ve done something right. I guess it didn’t help when I started talking in the Isaac voice, calling her an “interloper.”

THE RUNNING MAN
You know what a kick-ass flick is? Why, it’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner THE RUNNING MAN. Not based on a Stephen King novel, technically, but on a book by his alter-ego Richard Bachman. But, to be fair, the book and the movie share only a title in common and very little else.

Instead, the movie is about a disgraced futuristic cop who, after being framed by a corrupt government, is given the choice of either death row or fighting for his life on the game show THE RUNNING MAN, which is hosted by, in the most genius casting of all time, Richard Dawson. Yes, that Richard Dawson. Filled with classic one-liners, massive amounts of needless violence and gratuitous Jesse “The Body” Ventura, I can say with pride that THE RUNNING MAN is one of the greatest films of all time. Eat it, CITIZEN KANE!

DREAMCATCHER
This big-budget adaptation directed by Oscar-nominated director Lawrence Kasdan and starring Morgan Freeman as a bloodthirsty, crazed Army general, was supposed to be one of the “good” Stephen King films, along the lines of SHAWSHANK or MISERY. There was actually a little bit of Oscar buzz around it. It was going to be a classic King flick.

But somewhere along the way, people forgot that the book is about an alien that possesses people by going up your butt while you crap. Yeah: up your butt. They might has well of called it INVASION OF THE BOOTY SNATCHERS. The last time I checked, Academy Award-winning movies don’t have alien menaces entering your anal orifice. Let me make sure: KRAMER VS. KRAMER, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, PLATOON — yep, no ass-chugging aliens. But really, it’s their loss, don’t you think? —Louis Fowler

Buy it at Amazon.

Last week, my wife, kids and I packed up the Toyota Sienna and made our big summer vacation to Branson, Mo., despite the prevelance of $4-a-gallon gas. “But wait, Rod,” I’m sure many of you are asking yourself, “don’t you hate country music? Why would you go to Branson?”

Yes, I do hate country music, but we weren’t going there for the shows (sorry, Yakov Smirnoff), but for the theme parks. The town has something like three of them. Anyway, for a look at the highlights of the four days that was a half-fun/half-exhaustion jaunt, keep reading.

About halfway there from our Oklahoma City home, we stopped near Grand Lake, Okla., for lunch. The choices are tremendous: 1) starve, or 2) eat at McDonald’s. We chose the latter. At least it had novelty value, in that it’s built over the highway, so you can watch semis coming right for you at high speeds as you chew your McChicken. It’s kinda eerie, honestly.

Our first meal in Branson was dinner at a strangely named, high-end steakhouse called Texas Land & Cattle. Our waiter was friendly — a little too friendly if you get my drift. He gets an award for labeling our 3-year-old son’s take-home box, though, but is that really something you want on a résumé?

“Wow, kids, we just drove about 400 miles to experience new things. What do you want to do this first night?” Answer: “Miniature golf!” At least we found one with a fake dinosaur theme. You can’t really see it in this picture, but the poor sap on the volcano is missing a foot, which is in the prehistoric monster’s mouth.

Outside our hotel every night, there’s a “water show” that involves high-pressure jets of water and fire, all set to the tune of some Joe Walsh song. The tourists eat it up and actually clap when it’s done. It’s awesome … if your name is Joe Walsh and you’re collecting the royalty checks.

One of the big shopping draws in “historic downtown Branson” is a genuine (pronounce: “gin-you-wine”) five-and-dime. It’s easy to see why this store packs ‘em in, isn’t it, fans of Hannah Montana “art”?

This photo was taken outside the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum, which is actually pretty cool. They’ve made it look like an earthquake hit it. Those are my kids, reluctantly posing, and it’s worth pointing out that if the building didn’t already look this way, it would’ve when my spawn emerged.

Inside Ripley’s, I forgot to take a picture of the “African Penis Sheaths” (really) and the “Vampire Hunting Kit,” but here’s a two-headed calf …

… and here’s a battleship made of matchsticks …

You don’t want to see any of my pictures from Silver Dollar City, because I saw no point snapping image after image of the morbidly obese downing funnel cakes. Instead, enjoy this vehicle in our hotel parking garage. Some couples just know from the start that their union is doomed:

And finally, everything I disliked about Branson, in one compact image below. What’s that saying about a thousand words?

—Rod Lott

It’s hard to remember a time when Steven Seagal was actually cool. It was 1988, when nobody knew who he was, yet here he was, headlining a pretty good B-actioner called ABOVE THE LAW. It heralded the dawn of a new (stoic) action star, whose career would be packed with hit after hit … until it imploded.

Each and every step is chronicled, examined, poked and prodded by single-monikered Internet movie reviewer Vern in the exhaustive and exhaustingly hilarious SEAGALOGY: A STUDY OF THE ASS-KICKING FILMS OF STEVEN SEAGAL. Vern begins exactly where he should, with a dissection of ABOVE THE LAW that runs a staggering 16 pages. His love for the movie is evident, but that doesn’t mean he’s not above taking some potshots (”It’s obvious that the CIA is corrupt is they’re gonna hire a guy who looks like Henry Silva. I mean look at the guy’s face. Don’t tell me they didn’t know that motherfucker was evil”).

Seagal’s debut marks the start of what Vern terms his “Golden Era.” (For the record, the book is divided into that, plus the “Silver Era,” “Transitional Period” and “DTV Era.”) All Seagal fans know that the early days were the best, given the too-much-fun, mega-violent, ponytail-laden shoot-’em-up romps that were HARD TO KILL, MARKED FOR DEATH and OUT FOR JUSTICE.

Next came Seagal’s biggest critical and commercial hit, UNDER SIEGE, which heralded the beginning of the “Silver Era,” a time when the actor’s clout grew to such that he began exerting more of his influence into his films, like the environmental speech to the audience that closed ON DEADLY GROUND, also his directorial debut. It was a period that also saw his first sequel (UNDER SIEGE 2), his first death (a fraction into the incredibly underrated EXECUTIVE DECISION) and an attempt at gloomy serial killer/buddy cop films (THE GLIMMER MAN).

Of that last one — a failure at the box office — Vern wonders about the reasoning behind Seagal’s character’s nickname of “The Glimmer Man” because when he served as an assassin, a glimmer of light would be the last thing his targets would see before death: “You can’t just assume they saw a glimmer unless there is some kind of evidence. Unless somebody carved ‘glimmer’ into the jungle floor with a twig as they gasped their last breath, this glimmer man story just does not hold water.”

Seagal’s “Transitional Period” includes his first two straight-to-video movies and two attempts at a box office comeback, one of which — EXIT WOUNDS — worked. But HALF PAST DEAD didn’t, and that gave way to the “DTV Era,” where he apparently has resigned to play for the rest of his natural born life. (Even the much-delayed THE ONION MOVIE, in which Seagal spoofs himself in a fake movie trailer for COCKPUNCHER, is skipping the multiplex for shiny discs.)

I knew Seagal had made a lot of low-budget flicks that bypassed theaters to premiere on DVD. Heck, I’ve seen exactly two of them: TICKER, which isn’t overtly terrible, and SUBMERGED, which is. But did you know that he’s made — at press time — 17 of these things? All of them have appeared within the last decade. Compare that number to his theatrical output: 12. That’s sad.

These DTV efforts sport terribly generic titles (BLACK DAWN, URBAN JUSTICE) that render them interchangeable. And that’s the only downside to SEAGALOGY: Because the films themselves are so repetitive, so be it the book. It may be different for those who’ve actually seen these movies, but the wide majority of us have not, and you can only read “ex-CIA” so often before your eyes gloss over. Still, Vern’s descriptions remain uproarious, and likely more entertaining than the flicks.

It is interesting that twice now, Vern writes, two of these DTV-era Seagal pictures were shot as ALIEN-esque sci-fi invasions — SUBMERGED and ATTACK FORCE — only to be shorn of those elements entirely in the editing room. Now that’s moviemaking! It also says a lot about the quality and care put into these flicks when, as Vern points out, one of them — FLIGHT OF FURY — was actually a remake of a Michael Dudikoff movie … and Seagal didn’t even know it! (Notes Vern, “Both versions have topless women in them.”)

In a stroke of semi-genius, Vern also reviews Seagal’s two CDs and his branded Lightning Bolt Energy Drink, which is the worst thing that’s ever been in my mouth.

Vern likes the beverage, but I won’t hold that against him. I also won’t hold his association with Ain’t It Cool News against him, because — unlike that site’s “pwesent”-begging, self-aggrandizing, well-connected leader, Vern can actually write. And SEAGALOGY not only made me laugh my ass off, but sent me to Amazon to buy some of the early Seagal DVDs I didn’t already own. This book is an instant cult classic. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

In 1985, when I was a 14, all I wanted for Christmas was Stephen King’s SKELETON CREW, then fresh in hardback. I got it, and the cold winter nights were perfect for reading “The Mist,” the eerie first of 22 stories in the collection.

But really, what were the Weinstein brothers thinking in realizing Frank Darabont’s THE MIST movie over Thanksgiving weekend? While it is mostly faithful to King’s original, 100ish-page story, its drastically different ending doesn’t exactly scream “holiday family motion-picture experience.”

Thomas Jane (THE PUNISHER) stars as David Drayton, an artist and all-around family man living the quiet life in coastal Maine until the night a freak storm tears the outdoors to hell. The next day, facing no electricity, he and his little boy head to town to pick up food and supplies at the Food House grocery store, leaving his wife back at the house.

Given the storm, the store is packed with people of all backgrounds, which will make for a real pressure cooker (mostly thanks to apocalyptic religious zealot Marcia Gay Harden) once the eerie fog envelopes the place and traps them inside. Despite attempts at escape, gooey tentacles and oversized insects from the mist thwart those desperate plans. But what’s really in there? And will anyone who sees live to tell?

It’s the third go-round for Darabont in King features, having written and directed THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and THE GREEN MILE prior. Hey, at least this one gets out of prison … or does it? People trapped in a grocery store – may as well be San Quentin.

Although this film is faithful, there are differences, but they are mostly subtle; trimmed from King’s text are a lot of fiddling around with the radio and a scene in which Drayton cheats on his wife with the Amanda character, played by Laurie Holden (SILENT HILL).

And then there’s the biggest change of all: the ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but it brings to mind a point Jeffery Deaver made in the introduction to his TWISTED anthology: “Authors have a contract with their readers and I think too much of mine to have them invest their time, money and emotion in a full-length novel, only to leave them disappointed by a grim, cynical ending. With a thirty-page short story, however, all bets are off.”

True, this is a movie, not a book, but its extended running time makes it the equivalent of a novel. And it’s worth noting that King didn’t take the cynical route in his coda. Darabont, however, crosses the line. Up until that point, I was with it all the way — a suspenseful, purposely paced thriller that delivers some old-school, B-movie scares. —Rod Lott

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It’s not for nothing Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I AM LEGEND has now made it to the big screen three times: 1964’s THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, starring Vincent Price; 1971’s THE OMEGA MAN, starring Charlton Heston; and now last year’s I AM LEGEND, starring Will Smith. The only one to retain the title, it’s this latest and greatest version that seems most faithful to the spirit of its source.

By now, even those who have never read the novel know its premise, which can be accurately summed up in a simple phrase: the last man on earth vs. vampires. But the reason the novel remains so well-regarded is the amount of heart and humanity built into its shack of shocks, and CONSTANTINE director Francis Lawrence’s film takes care to preserve this as well.

Will Smith isn’t the likeliest actor to take the role of the solitary Robert Neville, but he wears it well. Depressed and near-despondent, he drives through the weed-ridden playground of New York City by day, hunting deer and renting DVDs, with only his faithful German shepherd as a companion.

At night, he holes up like a prisoner in his own multilevel apartment so as not to become the midnight snack of the “hemocytes,” vampire-like creatures who are sensitive to light and travel at super-speed. They once were humans, but a cure for cancer mutated into a strain that changed all that, for everyone but the immune. The hemocytes have made mincemeat out of those precious few, but Neville has been street-smart enough to survive this long.

Smith plays Neville with a quiet intensity; it’s a grounded performance that never gets showy, even when the special effects kick in. He’s not an action hero, but a methodical scientific mind still at work, trying to find a cure – more actively than Matheson’s protagonist ever did.

In other words, this is not the kind of motor-mouthed role that made Smith such the box-office superstar he is today. Gone are winks to the audience, absent are supposedly witty catchphrases. (Ironically, the DVD begins with a trailer with a most egrerious counterpoint, with a wooden-implement-gripping Corey Feldman staring directly into the camera, asking the fanged bloodsuckers of the sure-to-suck LOST BOYS: THE TRIBE, “Who ordered the stake?”)

After a really strong first two acts, I AM LEGEND does come to a halt when – big spoiler here – Neville learns he’s not exactly the only human left (shades of Matheson’s Ruth character), and it derails the film for about 15 minutes, before picking up steam again for the expected slam-bang finale.

It is the end that’s likely most responsible for so many viewers’ negative perception of the movie. People are so used to seeing Smith kick butt and succeed no matter what the odds that – even bigger spoiler here – they can’t believe that not only does his character die, but that his character chooses to die. Again, this is not the “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!” Smith they know and love; but a Smith whose character is true to the end of the novel.

Those who have a problem with that can rejoice in the two-disc set’s alternate ending, which gives you the Hollywood feel-good close. I’d argue it’s nowhere near as effective, and worthy of excision. –Rod Lott

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Who knew the works of H.P. Lovecraft would one day be so ripe for plundering by DIY filmmakers? Lurker Films has made a cottage industry out of primarily releasing compilations of these features and shorts onto DVD, and the fifth now is available in THE H.P. LOVECRAFT COLLECTION: VOLUME 5 - STRANGE AEONS: THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP.

The centerpiece of the disc is 2005’s feature-length STRANGE AEONS: THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP, based on Lovecraft’s well-known – but not always well-liked – 1937 story “The Thing on the Doorstep.” I was looking forward to seeing the adaptation, but that’s because I had it confused with “The Outsider,” for some reason.

Once that misunderstanding was cleared up, it was obvious that director Eric Morgret’s film follows the original plot pretty closely, even retaining the occasionally odd character names – Asenath, anyone? – despite being set in the present day. Its hero is bearded, mild-mannered college professor Dan Upton (J.D. Lloyd), whose graduate assistant Edward Derby (Erick Robertson) falls under the spell of the mysterious and beautiful Asenath (Angela M. Grillo).

And no wonder: He has magical sex with her, during which she implants all sorts of weird-ass thoughts and tentacled visions directly into his brain. That kind of thing tends to set a girl apart from the rest of the pack, especially when she does so while naked.

Seriously, though, this relationship marks changes in Derby’s personality, thus driving a wedge in his friendship with the professor, thus creating a bizarre love triangle that can’t end well. At all. (And you know that even without the appearance of that infernal Necronomicon).

While DOORSTEP has no shortage of freaky-deaky imagery, it also sports a few sound issues and performances that bend toward the amateur level. Its main problem, however, is even with the benefit of variances from the source material, there are simply not enough ideas to sustain it for an hour and a half.

It might help if its characters seemed more real. For instance, when someone shambles into your house on a dark and stormy night, saying nothing, their head tucked down and hidden under a hat, hell, yes, something is wrong! Be. Fucking. Scared!

AEONS’ strengths lie in the handful of bonus shorts. The German-language MARIA’S HUBRIS is a companion piece to AEONS, taking up the same theme of body transference, but in one-sixth the running time. Its narrator relates his friend’s telling him of “experiments” from a strange book that he and his gal Maria did. You can guess just what tome they’re referring to, can’t you?

Michael Granberry’s FROM BEYOND is a 10-minute stop-motion animation that’s absolutely cool, genuinely freaky and more effective than the beloved (included by me) Stuart Gordon movie. But even brevity can’t help the super-short preview for LET SLEEPING GODS LIE, which shows nothing but footage of computer-animated Lovecraftian creatures.

Also really brief and animated – this one via Flash? – is DON’T FEED THE BOOK, a comical short taking place in a bookstore. It’s not based on Lovecraft, but certainly couldn’t exist without him, as a customer browses at a tabletop copy of the Necronomicon and gets more than he bargained for. It’s a one-trick pony, sure, but nicely done.

In the extra features, there’s a trailer for an upcoming Lovecraft documentary, featuring notable talking heads Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Guillermo del Toro and Ramsey Campbell. And for more well-respected artists paying tribute to ol’ H.P., check out the interview with John Carpenter singing the author’s praises for about six minutes. (Too bad he couldn’t put that much enthusiasm into his Lovecraft homage IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS!)

Among the choice bits, Carpenter reveals he tried to set up a miniseries based on “The Colour out of Space” for NBC – shame on you, peacocks – and thinks that Lovecraft must’ve had a real problem with fish. If that observation doesn’t elicit even an internal, knowing laugh, this disc is not for you. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Throughout high school and some of college, I worked for a public library. While the hours were flexible and the rules lax (sleeping downstairs was a personal work habit of mine), it was during this time that I came to learn just what a travesty of public funding libraries really are – what antiquated hovels they’ve become.

You have to take two tests to get a driver’s license. You can’t drink alcohol until you’re 21. Hell, it takes a credit card and eight other forms of I.D. to get a Blockbuster card. But all you need to get a library card is your signature and a pulse — and even then, sometimes that’s not necessary. Yep, libraries are required to take in anyone and everyone, and it’s due to these ultra-easy membership guidelines that I started to hate the library. Loathe the library. Fear the library.

When our editor recently published his list of the nine most annoying bookstore patrons, it reminded me of my tour of duty at the library and why only very rarely, in the most extreme of cases, have I used them since. Unlike bookstores, which can refuse service to anyone because they are a business, libraries don’t have the same luxury, and here are the five kinds that ruin it for everyone:

THE HOMELESS
Let’s be honest: Even just walking down the street, the homeless are an eyesore. You do everything possible to avoid making eye contact with them, trying your best to avoid their dry-heave-inducing scent. But hey, it’s a city street and they have every right to drink themselves into a deathly stupor there. More power to them!

But given those free, wide-open concrete beddings, why must they filthy up my local library? And even worse, why have we becomes such a bleeding-heart, politically correct society that refuses to call the cops and throw those bums out as soon as they walk in through the automatic sliding doors? I don’t care if it’s freezing cold or sweltering hot – libraries are not shelters!

Libraries smell bad enough already, don’t they? The moldy books, the musty air-conditioner, the Fritos corn-chip-like stench that seems to emanate from every children’s section – add to that a dirty hobo who just shit his pants and I’m ready to take my money from that bond issue back! I would much rather spend that cash to construct a shanty-town of sorts, on the outskirts of town, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, allowing the homeless to form their own community, possibly with their own libraries. I’ve got a garage full of Readers’ Digest Condensed Books that I’d be more than happy to donate.

THE PERVERTED
I originally wanted to title this category “The Single Guys,” but really, who’s more single than the sexually perverted elderly man who hangs out in stacks all day long, hoping to catch a quick upskirt? They are usually easy to spot, with many either looking like Spider-Man’s nemesis The Vulture or, even worse, character actor Pruitt Taylor Vince.

They always act like they are “looking” for a hard-to-find book, but more often than not are instead peering through the shelves at their masturbatorial prey. They stalk, they hunt and, when caught, they quickly look the other way, as if to appear inconspicuous. But we all know what they’re doing.

And if this all weren’t bad enough, then they stay in the bathroom for long periods of time. I know that our esteemed editor is against “dumping” at the bookstore, but when you are working on a time-consuming project at the library, sometimes a dump is inescapable. But, instead, you have to keel over and squirm with poop-cramps in your chair as the pervo locks himself in the stall and has no intention of coming out. Not even the not-so-subtle, loud throat-clearing will drive this creep out of his makeshift sexual habitat.

Here’s a tip, though: I have found that if you pretend to talk on your cell phone in the restroom, saying things like, “Yeah, there’s this creepy pedophile dude walking around. … I think I might use the Internet to look up the local sex offender registry,” they clear out pretty quickly. Just wipe down the seat.

THE MOTHERS
We live in a day and age where too many mothers have become lazy, aging tweens, unwilling to take care of their own kids if it infringes upon their “me time.” Now, I can only imagine what their “me time” exactly entails, but I do know that it involves dropping the poor lil’ bastards off in the children’s section and leaving them there for hours on end. Sure, I’m all for children’s storytimes – a little Curious George and a Styrofoam cup of apple juice is good for the kiddie soul – but don’t desert them for six hours before the thing. How irresponsible are you? Oh, yeah: Very.

The bigger question is why, if your “me time” is so important, do you even bother to have children? Are they the human equivalent of Paris Hilton’s chihuahua? Are they nothing more than an accessory that you have to clothe and feed? Not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but I remember a time when not only did moms (or gay single dads, for you liberals) sit and enjoy reading time with their tots, but before and after, they also read with them themselves. It was fun family “us time.”

But, in this era of parental selfishness, those days are dead, and it is really showing, as more and more children are growing up to be “guyliner”-wearing emo assholes who wear extremely tight pants and cut themselves. Thanks, Mom!

THE MOVIE-RENTERS
I won’t hold back on this one: If you use the library exclusively to rent movies, you are human garbage. No other library patron causes me more anger than those who use the public library as their own personal Blockbuster. It has always infuriated me that libraries have video rentals to begin with; what better way to make sure people won’t read than to give them the movie instead?

When libraries started to carry videos, they opened up a whole new clientele to the system that guaranteed I’d never go back: white trash. They are so eager to get their tapes – just watch their grubby little, puke-stained brats run from the entrance right to the movies, stumbling and tripping over each other. “Y’all only get five moobies each now, you hear!” their extremely obese mother calls out as she walks to the counter to return her (of course, overdue) movies, upon which during checkout, she’ll fight the charges with every ounce of strength in her KFC Famous Bowl-covered heart.

What’s worse is that for a library to carry a movie, they no longer have to have any literary merit at all. In the past, all most libraries had was the complete 27-volume BRIDESHEAD REVISITED miniseries and maybe a couple of documentaries about traveling to Belgium. Now, most libraries do away with the education factor, instead stocking movies like THE MATRIX RELOADED, WILD WILD WEST, or, in the case of my local library, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S DORM DAZE 2. I shit you not. I say get rid of all VHS and DVD from public libraries and spend that money on better, more up-to-date books and reading programs.

Besides, poor people, we already have a library for those types of media: It’s called fucking Blockbuster Video! Sell some food stamps if you need a movie that bad.

(NOTE: This also goes for people who use the library exclusively for the Internet as well.)

THE MANNISH, BITTER 65-YEAR-OLD LIBRARIAN
Everyone – well, most dudes, at least – have this fantasy of the repressed-yet-ultimately sexually voracious librarian, who, once her hair comes down from its bun, is a Dewey Decimalized sex machine. Too bad this could not be further from the truth, regardless of what the Suicide Girls’ bios’ say.

No, most librarians are very bitter, very mannish 65-year-olds who hate you for your unwasted youth and vitality, and show it by acting completely resentful when you ask them to do some semblance of work. Like postal workers, I’m sure they got into library sciences for a cool summertime gig, but, when life continued to pass them by like out of a scene in George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE (picture it!), they found themselves on the brink of death and have nothing better in their lives than to take it out on you. It’s like living in a waking nightmare, I’m sure.

Luckily, in the next 20 to 30 years, through the use of computers, we’ll happily phase out the librarian and their sourpuss mugs. Electronic search systems will help us find the book, and, much like in many grocery stores now, you’ll self-checkout the book. Yes, at least in this respect, the future of your local library just got a little bit brighter.

But, like I said, that’s still a good two or three decades out. So while you wait, exclusively shop at local bookstores, buying the books you want. If you want them at cheap prices, order them from Amazon’s marketplace. The next time there’s a vote to increase funding for public libraries, vote against it! It’s up to you to shut these dens of literary inequity down. After all, they did bring it upon themselves. –Louis Fowler

Few things are as peaceful or enjoyable to me as just hanging out at the bookstore for a while. Unless you’re there. And by “you,” I mean one of the nine groups of people on this list, increasingly driving me toward Amazon. You are, in no particular order of annoyance …

COFFEE DRINKERS
Who goes for a bookstore just to get coffee? Isn’t that like going to an AutoZone for a Coke? I don’t do the java, so I’m more than a little put off by how fucking noisily you drink it. But, hey, at least you’re buying something to compensate for all those magazines you hauled over to your table to read while you suck down the joe. Just please stop smacking after every slurp. And since coffee moves the bowels, something tells me you’re part of the next group, too.

DUMPERS
If I’m going to be browsing at a bookstore for a bit, I’ll run into the restroom to pee so I’m not dancing around the aisles uncomfortably. But every damn time, you’re there sitting in the stall, voiding your bowels, offending my nose, ears and very being. Unless there’s some stomach virus epidemic, isn’t this something that could wait for the privacy of your own home? Did you have to have the Grand Slam Breakfast just before coming over? It’d be one thing if you’d just get your business done and get out, but instead, you smuggled in newspapers, magazines and even entire books to read as you poo leisurely, as if you were under your own roof. Once you’re done wiping, who will want to buy those things you touched? Answer: nobody. (I’m bringing my own LumaLight.)

OVERLY EAGER EMPLOYEES
No, I don’t need your help, but thanks. (Five minutes pass.) No, I still don’t need your help. I mean, you’re still shelving books in alphabetical order, right? However, I think there’s a first-timer coming in the doors now that probably only reads books recommended by Oprah. What’s a first-timer, you ask? Easy …

FIRST-TIMERS
Hey, you who stormed in. Have you really never been to a bookstore before, or do you just enjoy drawing attention? You remind me of the old people I see at the post office who make buying a roll of stamps a 10-minute process of discovery and indecision. You gaze around in faux confusion for a moment before making a beeline for the help desk – or, aggravatingly to those of us waiting patiently in line, the checkout counter – and half-angrily ask, “Where’s (insert title here)?” as if you just arrived at the hospital emergency room and were looking for your trauma-victim daughter. Hey, Magellan, see those big signs hanging from the ceiling that point out the subject sections? That’s where you’ll find it. You’re in a nicely organized bookstore, not a vast warehouse of a Sam’s Club or Costco.

AISLE SITTERS
I’d love to look at those books on that shelf right there, but you’re sitting in front of it, your back leaning against it, reading material in your hand, making yourself perfectly comfortable. Odds are, your coat and purse/backpack and whatever else you can litter about your person are. Can’t you at least be like our next group and get out of the way?

COUCH SITTERS
But don’t think you’re immune to my ire, all of you who plop your fat ass on a couch, next to a pile of stuff – often manga, for some reason – you have every intention of reading and no intention of buying. This isn’t a library.

STUDY GROUPS
Didn’t you hear me? I said this isn’t a library! How can you study any way when all you’re doing is talking? Shouldn’t you buy something to make nice for that free wifi you’re using and all the space you’re taking up for hours and hours?

HALITOSIS CHECKOUT GUY
Dude, you really gotta do something about that. They have books on it, you know. You could get one cheap with your employee discount.

OL’ WHISTLENOSE
What’s wrong with your honker, old man? I can hear air literally whistling in and out of it as you breathe. The first time I heard you, it was so ominous as your two-note snout song grew ever so closer to me as you proceeded aisle by aisle. Now, I can’t escape you, because no matter where I am in the place, your repetitive nostril ballad follows. Please, at least work up a chorus. –Rod Lott

Here’s how little I understood BEOWULF when I had to read it in English class in junior high and again in high school: I thought the title referred to the monster, and that the monster was a wolf. Laugh all you want, but Anglo-Saxon epic poems of the 8th century aren’t the easiest things to decipher.

Luckily, Robert Zemeckis’ BEOWULF is different, and I don’t just mean because it’s animated. It’s his “no-bullshit” version of the epic poem, as he promises on the making-of documentary featured on the DVD’s extra features: “This has nothing to do with the BEOWULF you were forced to read in junior high school. It’s all about eating, drinking, killing and fornicating.”

Actually, as scripted by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, the movie doesn’t stray all that far from the story of its source. It’s just that it ditches much of the boring elements and amps up the saucy ones, leaving an action-oriented, sometimes ribald and unapologetically over-the-top experience. Should Beowulf really be shown punching his way out of sea monster by going through the eye? Sure, why the hell not?

Getting a CGI slimdown in the process, THE DEPARTED heavy Ray Winstone assumes the lead role of Beowulf, a hero – here, made flawed, in direct opposition to the poem – who arrives at the castle of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) to slay the monster Grendel (Crispin Glover), a giant deformed beast from a nearby village who doesn’t like all the noise their merriment makes.

Beowulf agrees, Grendel attacks and – while stark naked and opting to use no sword – our hero kills the creature. That doesn’t sit well with his serpentine mother, who takes the form of Angelina Jolie, whose breastastic reveal sent the tongues of Internet bloggers a-wagging when the scene was leaked just prior to its theatrical release. She offers Beowulf a truce: He can say he killed her if he promises to leave her be. Because she looks like a nude Jolie, he agrees.

Women are known to change their minds, however, which results in Beowulf having to engage in the fight of his life with a huge, fire-breathing dragon. Like much of the movie, this sequence is a thrill to watch. Even when the narrative lags – and at nearly two hours, it does here and there – the visuals are something to behold. While I’ve never been a fan of motion-capture animation, BEOWULF represents a huge leap for the medium; it’s difficult to imagine Zemeckis being able to make it live-action.

While I haven’t compared, I don’t have to see the theatrical cut to know that the unrated director’s cut is the one to watch. Laden as it is with violence, gore and nudity, it makes the ages-old story more exciting and accessible (Seamus Heaney or no Seamus Heaney) than it ever has been, or could ever hope to be.

For a more trash-oriented but still vastly entertaining take, don’t overlook 1999’s BEOWULF, from ALIEN NATION director Graham Baker. It plays fast and loose with the source material, as you’d expect a straight-to-video Christopher Lambert vehicle would.

Here, the inhabitants of a big, spooky castle are under constant threat of being made a meal by a ghost demon named Grendle. Their saving grace comes in the form of visiting mysterious stranger Beowulf, played by Lambert, the HIGHLANDER refugee and graduate of the Angry Whisper School of Acting.

Beowulf has a gift of sensing danger, so he knows when the monster is near. The beast is mostly a CGI creature given a wavy effect that looks like someone dragged a big magnet across your TV screen. The fight scenes – set to a techno score by Juno Reactor – alternately ape those found in MORTAL KOMBAT, THE MATRIX and EVIL DEAD II, and Beowulf himself busts out some GYMKATA moves. Assisting Beowulf is a foxy brunette (played by Rhona Mitra of HOLLOW MAN) who has a name, but I didn’t catch it because her boobs hang out the entire film.

How faithful is it to the poem? Again, it was a chore to read, but I’m pretty sure if the castle dudes were being visited in their dreams by a horny Playboy Playmate, I would’ve remembered, and maybe even aced the test. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Sometimes, there’s a lot to be said for keeping it simple. As undemanding as Steven Gould’s 1992 novel JUMPER is, it’s certainly memorable. Picking it up five years after first reading it, details came flooding back with ease.

While watching director Doug Liman’s big-budget adaptation starring STAR WARS prequel vet Hayden Christensen, I was forgetting plot points minutes after they were introduced – its can’t-miss conceit complicated by a need to muddle something so straightforward.

Both tell the story of a young man – Davy in the book, David in the movie – who suddenly and inexplicably acquires the gift of teleportation. As Gould conceived it, Davy’s power allowed him to escape an abusive father and a would-be rapist trucker before getting the bright idea to “borrow” considerable cash sums from bank vaults.

From there, Davy eludes police and NSA questioning while also thwarting terrorist acts for the feds and romancing a headstrong college student named Millie (but only after he’s devirginized by another girl, perhaps prompting some of the controversy this young-adult novel has courted in its history). He performs a lot of jumping between New York and Oklahoma.

But the movie diverges considerably after the phrase “bank vaults.” Oh, there’s Millie, alright; she’s now a childhood crush grown up to be a clueless barmaid played by THE O.C.’s Rachel Bilson. Most of the book is condensed into 15 or 20 minutes, then Liman and company exercise free reign, with more visually appealing but less interesting results.

David is chased not by the cops, but by the Paladins, a shadowy organization for whom Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) – sporting white hair that makes him look like a Fisher-Price toy, not to mention a knife he uses to kill David’s kind – works. Yes, that’s right: David is not the only “jumper,” as he learns when he meets the cocky Brit named Griffin (Jamie Bell of BILLY ELLIOT).

Neither Roland nor Griffin appears as characters in Gould’s book, but they take center stage in the film. (Gould has, however, smartly taken advantage of the loads of exposure the movie will afford his work by writing an original tie-in called JUMPER: GRIFFIN’S STORY, which serves as that character’s origin, continuity be damned.)

The joy of Gould’s source material stems from its childlike view of an amazing power. With Davy greeting his newfound skills with equal guilt and glee, it’s not unreasonable to view it as a thinly veiled tale of hitting puberty and discovering the magic of erections.

Liman, a gifted filmmaker (SWINGERS, GO, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) reduces Davy’s story to a mere special effect. Although mildly diverting, there’s nothing all that innocent – or human – about it. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Although I check out the British music magazines every time I go to the bookstore, it’s probably been two years since I bought one. In the past, its cover-affixed free CDs were like catnip to me, but as they became less adventurous, so did my willingness to fork over $10.

But now here’s one worth having: OK_COMPUTER, “free” with the February issue of MOJO magazine. With a tip of the hat to Radiohead (which adorns the mag’s cover), the disc is a 15-track collection of futurist electronic music, spanning from the 1960s to today. It begins with a double-dose of New Wave – with less-obvious cuts from The Human League and Gary Numan – but really finds its footing with Fujiya & Miyagi’s buoyant “Ankle Injuries.” While I’ve never heard of this act before, this 2006 cut is a wholly infectious feel-good anthem.

I also haven’t heard of The Peppers, but their 1973 “Pepper Box” sounds like it could have been made for today’s soulful dancefloors. The ’60s-era The Sounds of Tomorrow is represented with “Space Child,” which will appease the Joe Meek fans. Boards of Canada remixes an act named Clouddead, while the always-reliable Tangerine Dream is on hand with “Rubycon (Part One),” from 1975.

Only a couple of tracks are duds, and its wide range of discoveries (with just a hint of kitsch) reminded me of a couple of my all-time favorite compilations: SYNTH ME UP: 14 CLASSIC ELECTRONIC HITS and WIRED MAGAZINE PRESENTS: MUSIC FUTURISTS. Drive down to your local Borders now to avoid paying eBay-inflated prices later.

LG YC SLC PCH 29Z
SARG SLC RF PROV
NY S&P CRTNS 5Z
PLS FDG BRWNE
JD PEP GRVY MIZ
PTNT RSTD GARLIC PAR
MINI MPL CINN PIT
OORCH APL RSP
OM LT BF FRNK
OORCH CLCM OJ12
SOBE LIFE PSSN

… and one that’s not …

GREAT GUACAMOLE

Yet another retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s split-personality novella comes to the screen – this time with rockin’ tunes – in THE DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE ROCK ‘N ROLL MUSICAL. The title says it all.

It begins in classic movie-musical style, panning in to Stevenson’s quaint countryside home, as he awakes from a horrible dream and sees visions of the characters who populate his nightmares: our cast. For a $55,000 budget, this opening is admirable. Flash-forward to the present day – or 2003, when this film first was released – and Dr. Jekyll (writer/producer/composer/makeup artist Alan Bernhoft) is mixing up something special. He drinks it, and you know what happens next: He becomes Mr. Hyde, who kind of looks like a cross between Meat Loaf and a hobo, and embarks on a killing spree.

Oh, and the characters sing. A lot. It’s in the grand rock-opera style of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or TOMMY, with that exact 1970s vibe. The songs are competent, but not memorable. Often, the tunes make way for the filmmakers to throw in cheesy, ’80s Chroma key effects, where you’re left wondering whether you should laugh at it or with. As it went on, I still was uncertain how much of the goofiness was intentional, so I chose to laugh at it.

I’m afraid it has more ambition than to which it could live up, and the gimmick wears thin by the second song. But this film is a full 90 minutes, so prepare for many more of them, with Bernhoft giving it his all throughout. My attention quickly wavered, but did perk up later at a scene in a bar, where Hyde had his paws all over some whore in a black leather bra, singing about how he loves little girls. But my sudden reinterest had nothing to do with the bar or the song, I can assure you. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

As awesome as the four FILM CREW discs are, I got the biggest “original MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000” contact high yet from CINEMATIC TITANIC. After all, it’s a project featuring MST’s first trio of stars – creator Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein – as well as two later players in Mary Jo Pehl and Frank Conniff. Silhouettes, wisecracks and totally shitty movies – MST is pretty much back, kids, just minus the robots and network interference, and with the added bonus of a rhyming name.

The first CINEMATIC TITANIC project is skewering THE OOZING SKULL, aka BRAIN OF BLOOD, a 1972 mad-scientist cheapie directed by Z-movie legend Al Adamson. The roast starts with little fanfare and zero introduction; as it begins to unspool, our five principals take their spots on a stair-stepped balcony silhouette on both sides of the screen. Some are seated; others stand; all poke holes in this turd with razor-sharp wit.

There’s no “getting used” to it, nor “settling in.” So “on” is their rapport, it’s as if these guys never stopped working together in the first place. Rather than stop the movie as MST episodes did for transitionary host segments, Hodgson and company merely pause it to make some extended comment that requires more attention, such as bosomy starlet Regina Carroll’s horrendous makeup job.

I barely remember plot points from the mind-numbing SKULL, but that’s because there were so few. In a nutshell, an old coot of a scientist needs to transplant a brain ASAP – like, now – so he’s forced to pick the nearest body: his facially challenged mongoloid retard henchman. The (comparatively) smart brain doesn’t cotton to his new host body, so he takes advantage of his newfound brute strength and goes bonkers on everybody. And there’s a midget sidekick, who bears the brunt of many, many jokes … all merited, in my view.

There are no extras on the disc, but who needs ‘em? The feature alone is all you need for your humor RDA. Welcome back, guys; please don’t leave again. –Rod Lott

Buy it at EZTakes.

What’s in the water o’er at The Horror Channel? Their original programming continues to impress me greatly – first with SHADOW FALLS and now even more so with HEARTLAND HORRORS: SEASON ONE, another online series rounded up in its entirety for DVD.

Ten short films await you on HEARTLAND HORRORS, none of them related other than the behind-the-camera talent – primarily Patrick Rea and SHADOW FALLS’ Kendal Sinn. Once again, this proves you don’t have to have a big budget to do horror right – just the heart for the material (well, competence goes a long way, too).

It begins with THE THING ABOUT BANNON’S LOOKOUT, which may be the most predictable of the bunch. But from there, things get more original and better, starting with COPY, in which a Xerox warns a woman not to hire the guy she’s just interviewed for – and promised – a job. It’s original and clever. So is THE LAST LAUGH, with a clown torturing a mime to try and coax a sound out of him. The ending is creepily dark, and kudos to whomever plays the mime; he turns in a hilarious silent performance.

WOMAN’S INTUITION has a young lady visiting the doctor because she feels something is wrong. As revealed in the shocking ending, boy, is it ever! A FEW MILES BACK feels like an adaptation of an old urban legend. It’s decent, but goes on a big too long at just over 10 minutes, beating you over the head with the obvious. (OUT TO PASTURE and BITTER SWEETS also carry the ring of a strong folklore influence, but succeed more with less time.)

SMOKED is kind of a one-joke bit, but done well, subverting expectations, and SHED OUT OF LUCK (great title, that) has a guy being held captive in a barn by … well, you just have to see it. When he’s offered a bowl of dinner, I just about lost it. And if you like zombies (these days, who doesn’t?), CAFÉ AT THE CROSSROADS will be you cup of undead tea.

Don’t click around and watch just a couple; hit “play all” and treat yourself to what amounts to a surprisingly satisfying indie-minded CREEPSHOW. The production values are superb for this sort of thing, and these guys clearly know what they’re doing. I just hope they get to do more of it.

But, wait! There’s more! Four additional shorts appear in the extras. Being all comedy-oriented and less polished, they wouldn’t fit in all that well with the main episodes, but as bonuses, they’re welcome. THE CLICKER is concerned with a remote control with a mind of its own, while THE PIRATE P.S.A. decries the oppression of the salty seafarers. MULTI-TASK is a six-minute mockumentary about an DIY filmmaker so fed up with his crew that he clones himself, so he can serve as director, writer, actor, etc. – all at the same time. Lastly, MIME AWAY is a commercial parody that is exactly like what it sounds.

At under $10, this is really quite a steal. Indie horror is alive and doing very, very well. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

As if the name didn’t suggest such, Shadow Falls is a creepy small town. Located somewhere in the Midwest, it apparently died in the mid-’80s after something terrible happened at its local hospital. Now it appears to be all but deserted, but an evil still populates within its borders. Billed as the first horror TV series made for the Internet, the first eight episodes have made it to DVD as SHADOW FALLS: VOLUME 1.

With many strikes against it from the outset (ultra-low budget, shot on video, no-name cast and crew), I was as skeptical as anyone to check out this Horror Channel show, but it’s surprisingly pretty good. For one thing, it contains a great air of mystery. For another, most episodes are under 10 minutes in length, so they have little chance to bore. Each stands alone, but as becomes evident about midway through, there are threads woven and clues embedded in each that eventually will come to an all-makes-sense end (in episode 32, according to writer/director Kendal Sinn in the extra-feature interviews).

The first episode, “Jabberwocky,” seems utterly random: A little girl all alone in a classroom – except for her teacher – recites Lewis Carroll’s poem of the same name, and is rewarded with a disembodied human hand on which to snack. The end. On the surface, there appears to be no story, but stylistically, the seeds of the series have been planted.

Next is “Dead to Me,” in which a man is interrogated by someone unseen about a disastrous trip to the town; its final shot chills. “The Man from Lod” has a carful of teenagers stranded on its outskirts at night (car trouble will be a recurring theme of the series), and is the one episode I wouldn’t want to watch in the dark while home alone. Although initially humorous (”Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, FRIDAY THE FUCKING 13TH!”), it has a genuine scare and tension to burn.

“Daddy” brings a man to Shadow Falls, in search of his daughter who’s been missing for 20 years. “Crazy Joe’s Haunted Videotape” is the most overtly comedic, setting up a CLERKS-type scenario between two slacker store workers, but the enigmatic VHS they screen sets up a lot of mythology that gives you the most backstory thus far, and is creepy. In “My Pixie Valentine,” a girl is brought back to the town’s fields by the arrival of a letter from a past lover. But you just know she isn’t going to find roses awaiting her.

“Nurse Lemming’s Responsibility” concerns a dresser at a garage sale with a key hidden within its drawers, taking its discoverer to Shadow Falls’ graveyard, and “The Funny Scream of Nurse Karen” is an exchange between a seemingly insane doctor and his tied-up prey. Played out partly as grainy security-cam footage, this episode hints at more horrific things to come, but it’s also the season-ender.

The acting ranges from decent to amateurish, but Sinn smartly lets the silence permeate much of the running time. The shorter the episodes are, the better they seem to be, and that also goes for the ones with the least amount of dialogue. It’s the mood these create that makes SHADOW FALLS mildly addictive. Although I had better things to do, I couldn’t stop myself from watching “just one more.”

Season two was supposed to start running last fall; hopefully it’ll start soon, because I’m anxious to see what further secrets the town holds. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

The damned thing is that MASTERS OF HORROR: THE DAMNED THING has the nerve to call itself an adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story. In that 1894 tale, a group of men in a cabin hear a chilling account of the death of a man by an unseen force in the forest that ripped him to shreds. In this one-hour episode … well, at least someone gets ripped to shreds. Similarities, you end there.

This THING opens 24 years ago, when – shortly after black goo drips from the ceiling – a dad goes nuts, shoots his wife dead and almost kills his son, too, but he gets eviscerated and does whirly-loops as his guts spill out on the ground.

Surviving Kid grows up to be a small-town sheriff with a permanent limp, played by Sean Patrick Flanery (THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES), and his obsession with events of the past have driven off his button-cute wife (Marisa Coughlan of TEACHING MRS. TINGLE) and their only child. At least he has a right to be, because with the anniversary of That Night coming up, the people around town are starting to act crazy.

How crazy? Oh, like kill-yourself-with-repeated-blows-of-a-hammer crazy.

With a script by Richard Christian Matheson, THING errs in many ways, including trying to find a credible explanation for the monster. Bierce’s was ingenious, revealing only that it exists in a plane of color human eyes cannot see, but this show leaves nothing to the imagination, giving us a Sandman-style petroleum-based beast.

Director Tobe Hooper – responsible for two certifiable scare classics (POLTERGEIST and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, of course) and other flicks on the other end of the quality spectrum – is not at the top his game here, although production values are strong. His camera forever swirls about, scenes go on too long and – worst of all – it isn’t the least bit frightening. He gets off a couple of good gross-outs – the aforementioned toolbox murder and an encounter with a car-crash victim – but that’s about it.

Bierce’s story would be challenging for anyone to adapt without going into it knowing it’s all in the suggestion. But the MASTERS OF HORROR team has made so many alterations, the title no longer fits. Even if it weren’t based on a pre-existing piece of literature, the THING has little life to it. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Normally, presskits I receive for new movies are just a boring little book of boring production notes with a CD of stills that’s not good for much of anything. Exception: the box just that just arrived for WALK HARD. I shudder to think of the cost-per-piece of this one. Photos of what’s in the “Cox Box” await you after the jump.

The “Cox Box” resembles a guitar amp. It’s made of cardboard, but is fairly heavy, given all the treasures inside.

Open it up and there’s a fake album cover.

Inside is a fake album. The label is actually a CD with five songs from the movie, ranging from the title track to a Roy Orbison parody, a folky protest track about saving the midgets and a cheesy ’70s disco number. The back side of this fake album is a DVD with the title track’s music video, some clips and the trailer.

Foldout of the album.

A Dewey Cox tour T-shirt, made to look old and faded.

I’m semi-honored a crappy little town from my state (Atoka, OK) made the cut.

A keychain that contains a guitar pick.

A cocktail napkin onto which the “Walk Hard” lyrics are drunkenly scrawled.

A publicity photo of Dewey Cox. (Yeah, I know it’s out of focus, but I didn’t feel like retaking.)

A book of liner notes written by Rolling Stone’s David Wild. His commentary is also the fifth track on the aforementioned CD.

A 2008 calendar. Awesome – I needed a calendar for next year.

The back shows all the fake album covers that will adorn my wall for the next 13 months.

This one’s my favorite.