The Lifetime Network Presents...

What up, horror fans! Welcome to another edition of Will Twerk for Horror movies.

As teased last week, today’s movie is a page pulled from the library of one of my idols – Stephen King. (Just in time for the Pet Sematary remake, as it happens. Will I watch it? Yes. Will I enjoy it? Probably not, but that’s another rant for another day.)

Now, before we get going with this week’s movie, I have to tell you how deep my love for Stephen King’s work runs. One of his books was the first real grown-up horror novel I ever read (Thinner – the storytelling blew my mind as I did not know it was possible to create unlikable characters that you end up rooting for by the end), my Jeopardy-like brain has filed more fun facts about him than most other things in my life (can’t tell you what size pants I wear, but I can rattle off his first four books without blinking an eye), and I’m currently on a quest to read everything he’s ever written.



One of the fun facts about Stephen King’s work is that once upon a time, particularly towards the beginning of his career, there was a distinct continuity problem between his movies and his books. It used to be said (at least among my people) that when perusing King’s work, you must either watch the movie or read the book. Do not. Under ANY circumstances. Do both. You will become enraged. Guaranteed.



Why? Well, part of the problem was the simple fact that writers often do not have any control over the story once it makes it to the big screen and, as a result, the story is often changed. The severity of that change depends on who’s got a hold of it.

The other part of the problem (and this is just in my humble opinion) is that much of what goes on in a Stephen King book is all inner monologue and twists and turns inside of a person’s mind. Great to read (especially when you can turn the hell out of a phrase like King can), not so easy to put on screen.

Case in point:



A Good Marriage starring Anthony LaPaglia, Joan Allen, Stephen Lang, Cara Buono, and Kristen Connelly.



So, here we have Bob(LaPaglia) and Darcy Anderson(Allen) celebrating their 25th anniversary. They're doing it up big with their friends and family in a big hall with a DJ and all the trimmings and such. Darcy’s hot best friend Betty (Buono) is even there and she’s very drunk. So drunk that she talks about that one chick that they knew was dead and the police found her tortured to death, Darcy laughs her off.



So, anyway. Bob is an accountant, you see, and the two of them also have a nice little at home business where they appraise coins. They have a big pretty house and have awesome sex—

Side note – it wasn’t awesome. It was weird. Bob is a grunter. A starey grunter. (shudder)



Humdrum as it may be, Bob and Darcy love their little life. The next morning, Bob has to go on a business trip. Darcy merrily kisses her husband goodbye and goes about her merry life. As the day goes on, she finds little notes from him strategically placed to stop her from eating too much candy and so forth. When the television is stuck on a slasher movie and she tries to change the channel, she finds the remote is dead. She goes out to the garage to get new batteries.

In the garage, she actually comes across BDSM magazines and a little box with an ID of a woman that’s been reported missing in connection to a local serial killer by the name of Beadie.



So, Darcy’s freaking out. She gets back to the house just in time to hear the phone ringing. It’s her husband. He can hear that she’s upset, but she plays it off like “Oh, I was just thinking about my dead sister, that’s all. Heh.”



After talking to him, she looks up the information on the internet and finds not only the information on the missing woman, but also on several other Beadie victims. Putting it all together she realizes that her husband is the serial killer that everyone’s talking about.

Well, the subterfuge doesn’t work. By the next morning, she’s surprised by Bob who decided to come back home because he could tell that there was something wrong. Only he’s noticed his things have been moved. He’s also checked the search history on Darcy’s computer.



But it’s all cool, he tells her. See, it’s just him and his friend and his friend does all the killing. What friend? Oh, you know, his childhood friend. That one that helped him plan a school shooting and then got ran down by a truck before they could do it. That one. The dead one.



So, he tells her that after they were married, “B.D.” started coming around again and he’s felt the need to rape and murder women. Since he doesn’t do the killing – B.D. does – he pleads with his wife to understand. She thinks about it and she tells him that he can’t kill anybody else ever again and he has to bury the ID and information of his last victim. He agrees.



So, months go by of dry “Gee-I-hope-he’s-not-killing-anybody-maybe-I-ought-to-just-kill-him” stuff. All the while, Darcy notices a creepy man watching them from his car.



Life goes on and one day Bob finds a special coin that he’s been looking for since the beginning of the movie. He takes the coin to his wife and they decide to go out to celebrate. They have dinner and come home and she promises him a little nookie before bed if he gets her some fizzy water. Bob’s all like:



He gets the water and brings it up the stairs. Unfortunately, he doesn’t make it far because she pushes him over the banister where he plunges to the floor below. 

When she realizes he’s not dead, she suffocates him with a rag and a plastic bag, then calls 911 to tell them her husband slipped and fell.

Her husband dead, she goes on with her life. One day, the man that’s been following her decides to pay her a visit. He tells her that he’s a retired detective and he’s been investigating the Beadie murder. He tells her that he knows her husband was the killer and he knows all about her part in his death. Darcy threatens him, but he leaves, giving her the impression that she’s not going to hurt him. He then goes to his car and promptly passes out. He’s found by a neighbor and taken to the hospital.



Later, Darcy visits him in the hospital and debates killing him. He tells her not to bother because he’s not going to tell. He also tells her that she did the right thing.



Hey. You awake over there? No? Can’t say as I blame you.

Knowing his writing as I do, I’m sure A Good Marriage plays out well on the printed page…at least I hope it does. I’m not that far in my readings just yet. This movie, however, was just so booooooorrrrriiinnngg. It's a nice story and, perhaps, if this came on the Lifetime channel and nothing else was on, I might find myself having a different opinion about it. It is slow and it never picks up and it goes on about thirty minutes longer than it should. If you want to watch this one with dear old grandma, go for it.

As I’ve said before in this blog, do what you like in a horror movie, but keep us entertained, please. There is no greater crime in a horror movie than boring your audience.

Does it get a jewel? Meh. I’ll give it an honorary jewel on the faith that the novella has got to be better than the movie.



So, Next week’s movie? A Criterion Classic - Carnival of Souls. See you here next week!



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Humanity Stinks

Hidey-ho, everybody! Welcome to another edition of WTFHM! Come here a second, let me talk to you about something.




You would think as a person who loves horror movies like I love horror movies, I would be the foremost expert on all things zombie.




I mean, I kind of am, but unlike most experts on things, I do not enjoy full immersion into all things zombie. Love horror movies – particularly a good zombie flick – but my fragile little psyche just can’t handle bathing in the blood of zombie movies.

Why? You ask? What’s my beef with zombie flicks? Well, as it turns out, I’m far too optimistic to engage in zombie movie after zombie movie. Yes, as misanthropic as I like to think I am, it turns out I’m actually all gooey inside and zombie movies tend to depress that sweet nougaty center within my cold, dead heart.

What does optimism have to do with zombie movies? Well, I’ll tell you, figurative person asking me a million questions. All zombie movies have one thing in common and that’s the idea that generally speaking, human beings are great big doody-heads.

We are. I mean, not to get too heavy, but if you look at it historically speaking, we really are the worse. We have our moments, of course, but when the chips are down and humanity is on its last legs, we’d sooner let the whole planet go up in blue flames before giving up the goods in our bomb shelters.

Case in point, this week’s movie:

The Girl with All the Gifts starring Sennia Nanua, Fisayo Akinade, Dominique Tipper, Paddy Considine, Anamaria Marinca, Gemma Arterton, Anthony Welsh, and Glenn Close.

So, picture it. It’s sometime during the post-apocalyptic future in an underground military bunker. Little Melanie (Nanua) is living her life behind a metal door in one of many cells in said facility. Despite the fact that she is strapped to a wheelchair under gunpoint every day before she’s wheeled to class, she’s got a pretty chipper disposition.

Her class is taught by Ms. Justineau (Arterton), a very nice, very “Ms. Honey” kind of teacher. Ms. Justineau reads the class a Greek myth (specifically the story of Pandora’s box) and the kids are all happy-happy, joy-joy.

Now, it’s worth noting that all the kids in the class are bound to their wheelchairs and wheeled into numbered spots on the floor. All the kids appear to be highly intelligent (especially Melanie) and no one seems to be over the age of around ten or so. Right. So.


After class, Melanie is taken back to her cell where Dr. Caldwell (Close) comes to visit her through the door. She asks her some questions, ending with a riddle for her to figure out. Then she asks her to pick a number. Melanie chooses four and Dr. Caldwell goes on her way.

The next day in class, Melanie notices that the little boy in the number four slot isn’t there anymore. She asks where he is, but Ms. Justineau doesn’t answer her and instead gives them an assignment. She asks them to write a story, which they do. When Ms. Justineau asks Melanie to read hers out loud, her writing moves her to tears. In a moment of pure “Ms. Honey” realness, she walks over to Melanie and touches her lovingly on top of her head.




The doors immediately open and the big, scary military dudes walk in and chastise her for showing a ten-year-old any kind of affection. The main military guy, Sgt. Parks gives her a demonstration as to why, in this case, that is a very bad idea. He wipes off his arm using spit, then puts it in front of one of the other children. In seconds, the little boy becomes rabid...in another second the whole side of the room starts going crazy with bloodlust.

Thus endeth the lesson, Teach.


K, so, Dr. Justineau isn’t deterred by this little display. She’s got all the feels for Melanie and the other children and decides, that she’s going to try to set Melanie free. She forgets to wear her special Zombie-be-gone sunblock and Melanie nearly kills her. Dr. Justineau manages to escape, but she drops her Zombie-Be-Gone in the escape.

So, Dr. Caldwell later finds the tube and when she comes to visit Melanie. Melanie doesn’t snitch because she likes Ms. Honey, er, Ms. Justineau. So. Dr. Caldwell goes through her whole question process and asks her to pick a number again. This time, Melanie chooses her own number.

Now, here’s where the story gets pretty interesting. Dr. Caldwell takes Melanie into a lab to be dissected because that’s pretty much what happens to all the little baby zombies when their number comes up. As she and her assistant are preparing, Dr. Justineau bursts in and tries to stop Dr. Caldwell, but Dr. Caldwell gets the jump on her and the guards come and take her away...right at the same time that the base is becoming overrun with zombies.

So, Dr. Caldwell and her assistant are attacked by zombies. The assistant gets bitten and turned, but Dr. Caldwell manages to escape. This leaves Melanie free to just stroll on out the front door. Of course, all hell is breaking loose in the front yard.

Melanie sees Ms. Justineau being held by several guards in all the chaos. She goes all demon zombie baby and attacks and kills the guards and saves Ms. Justineau. Ms. Justineau, in turn, jumps on a passing military van and speeds off to safety with Sgt. Parks, Dr. Caldwell, and a few military red shirts.

Needless to say, Caldwell and Parks are less than happy about Melanie being there, but Ms. Justineau jumps in to protect her and Caldwell convinces the Sgt that they are going to need her since she holds the key to curing the whole plague. They muzzle Melanie and restrain her and keep it moving.

Okay, so, the next bunch of scenes goes down pretty much as you’d expect. The van breaks down, they all almost get eaten by the zombies - or “Hungries”, as they’re called in this movie. They lose a Red Shirt and end up in an abandoned hospital in London. There, Melanie learns from Dr. Caldwell two very important things - the plague was caused by a fungus in the brain and children like her were discovered when they found a bunch of newborns who killed their infected mothers by burrowing out of the womb.

It’s best not to imagine that.

So, pretty soon, we’re back to the zombie-pa-loosa when the group discovers that they’re surrounded. Melanie volunteers to go out, you know because she’s one of them and all. She finds a dog (and a cat. The cat becomes dinner) and uses the dog as bait to lead the zombies away from the abandoned hospital.

As they’re moving along, they come across a big tower of fungal seed pods. Dr. Caldwell casually mentions that if the pods should happen to break open, then that’s pretty much the end of the world and yes, that’s important information to know for later.

The group moves on and pretty soon they find one of the military pods. Caldwell explains that the pods were used to be self-sufficient for scientists in the field. When they go inside, they discover that they have everything they need...except food. Red Shirt #2 (Akinayo) volunteers to go out and find food. Melanie goes out a little later in search of supplies as well.

K, so, Melanie discovers a colony of feral zombie-kids...who’ve figured out that Red Shirt #2 is out there. After they leave to go get dinner, Melanie runs back and tells the group that they need to save him. Parker and Justineau leave with Melanie, leaving Dr. Caldwell behind. They eventually find the Red Shirt (dead, of course) and almost fall into the same trap he fell in when they find themselves surrounded by the feral zombie kids.

Melanie steps up and goes Lord of the Flies on them, killing their leader. The rest allow them to escape.

When Dr. Justineau and Sgt. Parker return to the pod with Melanie, they quickly find that Dr. Caldwell has gassed the room. They all pass out and Dr. Caldwell grabs Melanie with the intention of dissecting her in the hopes of using her for the cure to humanity. Melanie wakes up, (having the ability to hold her breath for long periods of time) like:

Dr. Caldwell explains to her that the fate of humanity lies within her. More specifically her blood. She basically tells Melanie that she is the cure to save them all from the fungus killing everyone and she has to die in order to save Humanity. Melanie thinks on it for a minute, then goes:

The misanthrope within me couldn’t even be mad at that logic.


So, she leaves, locking Caldwell in the pod and heads straight for the big pod tower, where she sets it on fire, thereby releasing the fungus onto the world. Caldwell gets out just in time to see the whole thing go up...and get eaten by feral zombie children.

Sgt Parker finds her as well, but he ends up inhaling the fumes. Melanie shoots him to put him out of his misery, then goes back and tells Ms. Justineau that she can’t leave the pod because the world’s all zombie-fungus now. Later, Melanie brings the feral children back to the pod where Ms. Justineau is now their teacher.

The moral of this story? Generally speaking humanity stinks and sometimes if a thing stinks for long enough, it’s better to just throw the whole thing out and start over.

Does this get a jewel from me? Hells yes. While this one is a one-shot kind of movie for me because of my nougaty center, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale through and through. It’s going in the collection, even.

Okay, so next week we enter my favorite section of the horror library -- the Stephen King section. And we enter it with a movie I actually have not seen before -- A Good Marriage.

See you next time!

-- O~
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