Movies: The best worst plan in horror bad guy history.

Shark Night 3D contains more than one shark and takes place over the course of more than one single night. That's really the only sense in which Shark Night can be said to exceed expectations.

Almost nothing works in this flick. The plot revolves around a completely stupid idea and the only way to redeem it would have been to simply go gonzo with it. But, in fact, Shark Night disappoints in its lame timidity. Okay, I'm not one of those bloggers who thinks every horror flick need be some battle of endurance wherein the viewer is pitted against the red syrup budget of the SFX department. I'll take smart plotting, rich characters, engaging themes, and genuine emotional impact over schlock any day of the week. But - and let's be honest with ourselves - what did anybody firing up the streaming (ha, I originally wrote steaming!) version of SN want or expect from this flick. Ain't nobody turning to their partner and saying, "Dear, I know we intended to watch Tarr's Autumn Almanac tonight, but I've heard that Shark Night captures the spiritual malaise while pushing the project of inventing the self-conscious experimentalism of remodernism even further than Tarr by placing it within a post-Guattarian framework. Plus, it's got the dude from Grounded for Life in it. We like him."

No, of course they didn't. If they did, they got exactly what they deserved. In fact, whatever happens to somebody like that is completely deserved. Even if it is worse than Shark Night.

What anybody who watched this flick expected to see was nubile flesh, sharks, and death. See pic above.

Problem is, Shark Night is kinda afraid of girls when it comes to the skin show and it's remarkably bloodless when it comes to the killin'. It's got sharks, granted; but one out of three does not a champion make.

I will say that Shark Night does feature what is probably the most hilariously stupid villainous plan ever committed to film - or digital memory, as the case may be. I don't think you can spoil a rotten film, but if you're one of those obsessives, skip the rest of this paragraph and jump straight to the next one. Okay. They're gone. Here's the dilly. We're going to bide time here so it looks convincing that I'm dropping a spoiler on you. Then, in the next paragraph, I'm going to drop a spoiler on them right in the first sentence. Because we can. Are they looking over here? Look cool, look cool! Just act natural. Now, like, nod like I just told you all about the film. And . . . 

The sharks are in the lake because some baddies thought a good way to make money would be to catch and maintain a large stable of the world's most deadly creatures - including what appears to be two animals (great whites) that have never been able to survive captivity before - so they can make Internet shark snuff films. Oh, um. End spoiler.

The sheer awesomeness of this idea is almost enough to redeem the film. Imagine the chain of logic that led three backwater hicks to this plan. "You know what people love watching: shark attacks."

"True that. I bet you could get rich if you just, like, had a ton of recorded shark attacks to sell."

"Yeah. Shame you'd have to figure out a way to make 'em happen regular like."

"Yeah. Shame there . . . Hey, wait. Here me out. What if we, you know, bought a boat. Then tricked it out with sufficient material and tech to capture sharks live. And I'm talking big sharks. Plus, you know, we should probably all get degrees in marine biology, 'cause I understand that keeping them things alive in captivity, especially the big ticket fellas, is a serious challenge for even the most well staffed and equipped aquarium."

"Yeah. Like, even the Monterey Bay folks couldn't keep that baby great white contained and alive from more than few months."

"Exactly. That's what I'm sayin'. We'll need some real specialized skills and knowledge."

"The old boat shed probably won't cut it neither."

"Naw. And there's going to be a major outlay in underwater recording equipment."

"And we best hope the sharks just don't eat each other."

"Right. Sometimes, you just got to trust to God right? But anyway, I figure, for a several million outlay for training, equipment, labor, facility upgrades, and such, a fella stands to make a few bucks."

That, my friends, is entrepreneurial thinking.

"The lesson for everyone else: Never attempt to engage in any kind of outdoor physical activity, because traps are everywhere."

 

As a horror blogger, I don't get a lot of opportunity to link to Gawker, but said site has taken a break from its normal flow of "President Garfield still dead" recycled news and breathless speculation about the mental life of James Franco to finally post something worth linking to.

Police in Utah County, Utah, have busted two dudes who apparently booby-trapped the crap out of a popular hiking trail with stuff straight out of some "killer hillbilly" flick. The nasty bit of work shown above "was to be triggered via a fishing line trip wire; when crossed, it would send a 20-pound boulder, to which several sharpened spikes had been affixed with what looks to be just tons and tons and tons of rope, speeding at a victim's head."

Mercifully, they were complete idiots and bragged about their death traps on facebook.

Music: The Wolfgangs, "Cannibal Family"

So for the past month or so, I've been working on a entry pondering just how many people a cannibal clan would need to kill just to get the necessary calories in their diet. You'd be surprised at the amount of research that's been done on this question. While I continue to plug away, here's a song about cannibals. Enjoy.

Movies: The second worst thing Bin Laden has ever done to us?

What hath Kickstarter wrought?

It's possible that you were tiring of the zombie craze. Perhaps you've got no more energy for a fast vs. slow zombie debates. Maybe you think that context shifts - zombie strippers in space! - will no longer grab your attention by the shorties. "My God, just let this plague of zombie crap end!" you might cry in the long, dark lonely nights.

Well, this won't change any of that.

Somebody's made a zombie flick featuring Bin Laden as one of the walking dead.

Don't apologize and never explain.

I'm not going to follow the very good advice in the title. I'm about to become a first time father and thing are crazy absurd at work. I'll leave you to determine whether these are valid reasons for radio silence. I'll be back as soon as I can be. Thanks to all y'all that wait for me. For those that don't, godspeed, thanks for hanging.

Art: Is this a bust or something?

The It's Alive Project, currently on display at the City Arts Factory in Orlando, FL, is a show of 80 Boris Karloff busts, redesigned by contemporary artists. Some of the busts allude to Karloff's iconic roles, while others take Karloff's famous mug in some truly odd directions. Make with the link clickin' to check out a flikr set of the designs.

Mad science: The snuggle of doom!

The Psychologuist has a great info dump article on the psychology of horror that gives readers a nice survey of work in the field: from evolutionary developmental theories on uses of fear to theories on the popularity of specific monster tropes. One nice takeaway is the experimental evidence for what's commonly known as the "snuggle theory." Now you'll rarely see the snuggle theory brought into horror conversations when the horror blog pro-am get around to discussing the importance and meaning of horror. Why? Well, because it's main premise is that horror's just an elaborate pick-up gimmick. Also, what horror blog wants to drop the word "snuggle?" The snuggle theory holds that "viewing horror films may be a rite of passage for young people, providing them with an opportunity to fulfill their traditional gender roles." Basically, it's a danger free way for dudes to act brave in the face of fear and be a comfort to their scared potential mates. Not only is there some awkwardly heavy-handed bio-determinism all up in there, but who wants to take their cherished genre and say that its, at it roots, a kinda of half-assed way to impress the babes with faux courage? But before we utterly dismiss it, here comes the science:

A paper from the late 1980s by Dolf Zillmann, Norbert Mundorf and others found that male undergrads paired with a female partner (unbeknown to them, a research assistant), enjoyed a 14-minute clip from Friday the 13th Part III almost twice as much if she showed distress during the film. Female undergrads, by contrast, said they enjoyed the film more if their male companion appeared calm and unmoved. Moreover, men who were initially considered unattractive were later judged more appealing if they displayed courage during the film viewing. ‘Scary movies and monsters are just the ticket for girls to scream and hold on to a date for dear life and for the date (male or female) to be there to reassure, protect, defend and, if need be, destroy the monster,’ says Fischoff. ‘Both are playing gender roles prescribed by a culture.’

So, next time somebody holds a roundtable on what's so great about horror, have the courage to say "I like horror because it's a great way to fool horror chicks into thinking I'm awesome so I can bang them." I know at least one horror blogger who should be answering this way already, but let's all do our horror-blog host pal a solid and take the pressure off by "I am Spartacus"-ing the idea.

Random Picture #5: Zip lock.