I went as Hank Venture from The Venture Bros.
Only Scott actually recognized my costume (and deemed it “awesome”).
I’d considered simply not shaving, dressing all in black (which used to be de rigueur for me anyway), wearing one of my leather jackets, mussing up my hair a bit, and saying that I was Neil Gaiman, but ultimately decided that Hank was a better choice.
I had to settle for wearing a bandana around my neck, as I’m not aware of any place that sells actual neck kerchiefs (I said “kerchiefs.”).
While I was at the party it was decided, not entirely by me, that I would hold my housewarming party on November 13.
After I got home I sent on an evite, explaining that it would be a pot luck affair, but that I would provide snacks, drinks, and some sort of hot dish.
It occurs to me that I should have encouraged my guests to bring a different kind of “hot dish” in addition to whatever food they bring.
(Ideal housewarming gift: a hot chick with a lot of money and low standards.)
On the topic of low standards, after I’d watched that crappy Alien Abduction movie – or at least as much of it as my DVR would allow me to – I did a search for some pictures of the star, the relatively attractive Megan Lee Ethridge (to me she looks kind of like a younger, prettier version of Tilda Swinton). She’s got a very tight body and when she wasn’t nude or in a very short hospital gown in the movie, she was wearing a rather Tomb Raider-esque outfit that complemented her slender frame nicely (especially with how far up her backside those tight shorts were wedged), and I thought that any screen caps from it would be useful as *ahem* reference photos.
In the course of finding pictures from that movie I found some additional pictures from another movie in which she appeared nude, and, coincidentally, found that said movie was airing on Universal HD the next day, so I set the DVR to grab it.
Tonight I watched it.
I frequently encounter creative endeavors – movies, books, comics – in which I find myself wondering how it is that there’s no one involved in the process who, at some point, says something like, “You know, no human being would ever say anything like that or behave that way, ever. Maybe you should fix that.”
Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter’s Cove was one such “creative” endeavor.
While it had effects that were superior to those of Alien Abduction, it was, in many ways, much, much worse.
This was due in large part simply to the fact that it was a low-budge slasher flick, and as such couldn’t be anything better than what it was, but there was also that element of no one telling the people making it that most of what was happening just didn’t make any sense.
Obviously there’s a requirement for suspending disbelief with regard to the supernatural elements, but I’m not talking about the basic concept not making sense. Whatever you think of said concept, it did have a certain internal logic, but the problem was in the details.
Case in point:
In the course of the movie, the titular character takes his titularity to a titty bar. While there, he rips off a bouncer’s arm and proceeds to use it to beat him to death. Okay, fine. No real problem there – he is a zombie pirate, after all – and the effects were actually pretty decent.
But here’s the thing. I haven’t really been to all that many strip clubs, but I have been to a few strip clubs many times, and at no point have I ever seen a dancer get off the stage in the middle of a performance and spontaneously give a patron – zombie pirate or otherwise – a lap dance. At the very least, she would tell him up front how much a lap dance costs.
However, that’s a relatively minor complaint. Where the really big glaring issue comes into play is when he kills one of the other dancers by chopping her head off while she’s hanging upside down on the pole. The camera pans up to follow the spray of blood, and we see that, mounted on the ceiling near the top of the pole, there is a security camera. The position of the camera is such that all that would fall into its line of sight is the area around the entrance to the club, in front of the stage. It would not be able to record anything that happens on the actual stage below it.
However, when the police chief reviews the tape later on, we are provided with multiple angles that it would be utterly impossible for the security camera to provide. “Coincidentally,” said angles were exactly the same as the POV of the camera that was filming the movie. How would a camera that was behind the bouncer manage to record footage of the bouncer getting his armed ripped off from in front of the bouncer?
I understand that there were budget constraints, but how expensive would it have been to shoot that scene from an angle that would align with the security camera rather than re-using the same footage?
In another moment of brilliance, the two teen protagonists who have figured out who Roger’s next victim is going to be surreptitiously and are not in any particular state of excitement make their way to the victim’s house, quietly walk up to her front door, and then, rather than just ringing the doorbell and calmly – but forcefully – explaining the danger to her, start banging on her window and screaming at her like crazy people.
Oh, and as is noted in a review of the movie on IMDb, apparently if you have a pencil and paper and need to copy a list of names – not as any sort of keepsake, mind you, but simply for the purposes of getting a copy of the list – the best approach is to make a rubbing, rather than, say, simply writing them down on the piece of paper.
I know, I know: it was just a shitty movie and I’m over thinking it, but just because something is being made cheaply doesn’t mean that it has to made so shoddily.
After all, when you’re making a cheap movie, the odds are you aren’t doing so because you expect to rake in the cash. Your primary motivation is probably something along the line of bringing your vision to life. You aren’t doing it to get rich; you’re doing it because you have a passion for it.
Why, then, would you not at least try to do it as well as you possibly can? If you’re going to make a movie, why not at least try to not make it a bad one?
I suppose the fact of the matter is that in this case, as in so many others, the people behind it did try to make it as well as they possibly could.
Is making a shitty movie the actual goal? Do they set out not wanting to make a decent movie?
I mean, sure, even with their best efforts it’s unlikely that they would have made the Citizen Kane of zombie pirate movies, but certainly they could have made something better than what they did.
The Ed Wood Syndrome probably comes into play, and the people behind it probably just didn’t realize how bad it truly was, though honestly, I can’t see how they could not realize that, and again, my mind boggles at the thought that there was no one around at any point who bothered to tell them, “You know, this really sucks. You probably shouldn’t make movies, or should at least try a little harder. Or at all.”
Oh well; I already devoted more time to the movie than it deserved simply by watching it, so there’s no point giving it any more.
Addendum:
Supporting visual evidence for the tightness of Megan Lee Ethridge’s body:
Those abs are amazing.
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