Novelist Scott Sigler's horror column appears every Thursday.

There's one thing built into any story involving the undead: They can't really die, because, well, they are already dead. That means their decomposing posteriors always come back for more, and in Hollywood, "coming back for more" means sequels. A first sequel is no big whoop. It's mandatory, and you can still evaluate each movie on its own merits. But when you hit that all-important second sequel, then you've got yourself a trilogy, and that brings on the opinionated analysis of the entire franchise as a single entity.

Case in point: The third installment in the Brendan Fraser Mummy series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which hits theaters in August. We're out of Egypt and into China, moving from the Pharos to the well-preserved remains of a Han Dynasty emperor (played by Jet Li). 

So, welcome to Uncle Scotty's Highly Scientific School of Franchise Measurement™. Here at Uncle Scotty's, we score a franchise on an 10-point index based on:
• Actors
• Overall Story Continuity
• Monster Factor
• Special Effects
• Movie Plots
Give each element a 10-point rating, average it out, and you've got your index score. This was developed by people at NASA, using computers and other advanced technologies. There might be some alloys and biotech involved as well -- it's technical -- you wouldn't understand... so just trust Uncle Scotty.

We will need to re-calibrate this score after Part Three hits the screens, but let's take a look at a pre-emptive rating of The Mummy franchise.

Actors: 9
Fraser (as Rick O'Connell) is pretty kick-ass at his version of Indiana Jones. Arnold Vosloo was absolute perfection as the High Priest Imhotep in the first two movies. For the third movie, can we give an early score? The baddie is Jet Li. Jet Li. Mummies are bad-ass enough as is. Now throw in a spin kick and you're queuing up potential greatness. Now, could a spin-kicking mummy also be totally retarded? Sure. We'll have to wait and see, but did I mention, it's Jet Li?

Continue reading "With a New Setting and a New Director, Will The Mummy Franchise Hold Up?" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror column appears every Thursday.

Many people feel that Stephen King is the "King of Horror." He's royalty, don't get me wrong, but would he have that title if his last name was something like "Lipshitz"? Uncle Stevie is the goods, no question about it, but if I were to crown a true King of Horror, I wouldst bequeath that title upon none other than Sir Bruce Campbell.

You gasp in shock. You snarl in disgust. You think me an imbecile (which, to be sure, is nothing new). But if you're looking at individual actors, there's really only two people so utterly iconic that their face brings up instant association with a horror franchise: Sir Bruce and Robert "Freddy Kreuger" Englund. Sure, you've got your Jasons, Michaels and Chuckies, -- but those are the characters we identify with -- not the actors. You could, maybe, count that Candyman dude if you could name him... Name him quick! No looking at IMDB! Don't know it? Ha, I have made my point and made it well.

Sir Bruce is on my mind because of the impending release of My Name is Bruce. A movie where Bruce Campbell plays Bruce Campbell. A small town thinks he is actually the demon-killer Ash from the Evil Dead series, so they bring him in to do what Ash would do best ... which is kill demons. I know, I know, kind of a Three Amigos plot, or a riff on that God-awful Julia Roberts crap from a God-awful Ocean's 12. But this is Bruce Frickin' Campbell, man! It's like Smuckers -- it's got to be good. This is going to be the best B-Movie juiciness!

Why is Bruce the King? Just look at this classic body of work, which speaks for itself, and is arranged in order of coolness and campiness.

Bruce Campbell's Top Movies 

Continue reading "Step Aside Stephen, Bruce Campbell Is the Reigning "King" of Horror" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror column appears every Thursday.

What is "real" horror? Can you define it? Measure it? If you can't measure it, is it like one of those cats-in-a-box quantum physics questions? I don't know about such things, but I'm willing to take this concept and make it my own. Therefore, dear readers, welcome to the first installment of: "Yeah, but is it Horror?"

So is there any real horror these days? Stuff like Night of the Living Dead or even Night of the Lepus? Granted, this is a just a step away from what you might hear at a Star Trek convention when two geeks fight over who is the best Enterprise captain. But it's also fun. So put on your black clothes, hang that cross upside down, turn your nose up in the air and let's get elitist about horror.

Continue reading "Predator Will Always Qualify as Real Horror; Blood Noir Never Will" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror columns will appear every Thursday.

There aren't enough monster movies these days. Sure, Cloverfield had one -- a mish-mash of a slug's tail, a Komodo dragon's arms and Art Carney's face -- but once we're done with that, what's left? (And as a side note on Cloverfield, how is it that no one can get a clear picture of a monster that's 10 stories tall? I swear, that thing had more "hide the hips" camera angles than any of Kirstie Alley's Jenny Craig commercials).

I'll tell you what's left, good ole' Mother Nature and her favorite death machine, the crocodile. That's right, the croc. This bad boy has flashed his big white choppers in front of the cameras more times than Julia Roberts. Granted, her teeth are bigger, but when it comes to sheer mass, the crocodile has Roberts by about 1,000 pounds.

And how can you go wrong? Every crocodile movie is basically Jaws with legs. It can kill you while you swim. It can kill you on land. It can get you on land, drag you into the water and drown you. It can give you the "death roll" so fast your arms spin out of their sockets. And, of course, it can bite off your head. Now I love Freddy, Jason, Chucky and the gang, but not one of them can bite off your freaking head -- that's an acting resume stuffer that's always going to get you a callback.

The Crocodile on the Big Screen
The latest entry into this solid slice of genre is Rogue, directed by Gary Mclean. Mclean also directed Wolf Creek, and word is, Rogue brings the same sensibilities in pacing and dialogue. That's the good news. The bad news is Rogue will be in a limited number of theaters when it comes out April 25. Still, it makes up for last year, which looked to be a banner year for Mr. Croc, starring in Supergator (aka Primevil) and Lake Placid II: Unrated. Yeah, Unrated, and Unwatched. And that's a shame, because the original Lake Placid (1999) is a solid contender, maybe the best gator/croc movie made.

Director Tobe Hooper took his turn on the reptile express with his 2000 movie, Crocodile. Hey, Tobe, maybe we need a more imaginative title? Maybe something like the other croc movie that came out in 2000, namely, Krocodylus? I don't even need to see a synopsis of that, I'm renting the DVD based on the name alone. At least the 2002 Crocodile sequel had a better I-know-it's-bad-but-I-gotta-rent-it title: Crocodile II: Death Swamp.

Far be it from me to mince species, so we have to throw in 1980's Alligator. How often do you get a monster movie set in Chicago? Not often enough. In this, a baby alligator flushed down a toilet turns into a Cubs-loving creature that has a hankering for deep dish pizza... after the pizza has been eaten by a Chicagoan, of course.

Continue reading "Crocodiles on the Big Screen - Nature's Favorite Death Machines" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror columns will appear every Thursday.

I was looking at the AMC movie schedule and saw The Omen and its sequel were coming up next month. And that got me to thinking -- What's the deal with all these bratty kids in movies?

Take, for example, Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens). Seriously. Will someone just discipline that kid? I mean, come on, he's rambunctious, he doesn't listen, he has a horrible attitude and a nasty proclivity to kill people by pushing them down the stairs. And how about Thorn's fourth-grade classmate, Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) from The Exorcist? Oh, you want to crab-walk and embarrass your poor mother in front of everyone? How about a size-10 boot in your little crab behind? How would that suit you?

Take Responsibility
Oh sure, I hear you talking: "It's not their fault," you say. "It's a chemical imbalance," you whine. "It's society failing our youth," you blab. Listen up: Stop blaming society for every problem our children have. And yes, that includes being possessed by the devil.

Continue reading "It's Not a Chemical Imbalance -- Disciplining the Wicked Kids of Horror" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror columns will appear every Thursday.

Time for some shameless grandstanding: My first hardcover novel, Infected, hit the shelves on April 1. While there were rumors of religious conservatives burning down stores that carried it, and some disturbing news of fans running around the stores screaming, "Buy this book if you hope to live," it's been a pleasant and calm process thus far.

This week's topic: A look at how horror movies influenced Infected. All you aspiring writers, get out your pencil and paper, and really, if you don't come sit in the front of the class, how is the teacher supposed to know you are serious about your education? Now I'd love to list Tolstoy and Gone With the Wind as influences, but I'm afraid my cultural reference points aren't quite so highbrow. But here are the movies and books that did inspire me. (Oh, and spoiler alert: There will be a few reveals in this post.)

Continue reading "Scott Sigler: How Misery and Evil Dead II Influenced My Novel Infected" »

Horror movies and toys. And by that I mean toys that are the horror in a horror movie. I'm not talking about your Freddy Krueger action figure. (If that's still in its original packaging and you haven't opened it up to play "Barbie and Ken get decapitated," then you're so far into Nerdland, they would point and laugh at you at a Star Trek convention). I'm talking dolls like in The Puppet Master. Psycho marionettes hacking and slashing their way through a pile of dim-witted actors? It got me to thinking: How did they come up with this stuff before crystal meth got rolling? Then I kept thinking and started to wonder... are toys scary? Let's take a look at the best examples in horror and figure it out.

Puppet Master:
• Movie quality: 4 (This will not rock your socks off, even those ankle socks without elastic.)
• Scare factor: 5 (When the one chick barfs up killer leeches? Not bad, but without that, this flick is about as frightening as a zombie Hello Kitty.)
• Doll quotient: 8 (There's a lot of doll loving in this one -- six killer puppets with a collective mean-on.)
• Total Scary-Doll Score: 17

Child's Play:
• Movie quality: 8 (This series was a mainstay of the '80s horror heyday.)
• Scare factor: 7 (I don't care how jaded you are. When Catherine Hicks picks up Chucky, and he goes wacko and calls her names, all snarly, head-tossing with his crazy hair, that is some scary crap right there.)
• Doll quotient: 6  (Come on, it's a "Good Guy." What, they couldn't get the licensing rights to make a CareBear rabid?)
• Total Scary-Doll Score: 21

Continue reading "Puppet Master, Child's Play and Poltergeist: Are Dolls Truly Scary?" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror columns will appear every Friday through the end of March.

Is originality overrated, or is it merely defined by the observer? No, I'm not going to start talking about metaphysics and bust out my Stephen Hawking voice box impression (which kills, by the way), but our beloved horror movie genre has never been a benchmark of originality. Horror films are the wholesale dealers of the movie world. Buy something that's already proven, re-sell it with a markup, and next thing you know you're bumpin' down Rodeo with a pig-pimpin' fur coat and a scream queen on each arm. Wait ... that's the rap game. Oh well, same thing, really.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than the time-honored horror tradition of turning a book into a movie. Back in the old days of VHS and Reaganonmics, you saw the book's name up on the billboard, you paid your $2 for the movie ticket, and you took your chances. Now, however, the complex series of tubes known as "The Internets" means that the forest is never empty, and someone is always there to not only hear it, but review it as well (or flame it, pw0n it, or Digg it down, for that matter). That brings us to a clash between the tradition of idea resale and the online owners of reputation...

Reviews Ruin The Ruins for Me:
How much faith do we put in online reviews? I was all fired up to see The Ruins when it comes out April 4, but when I went to buy the book on Amazon.com I had to read the buyer comments. Hundreds of them. It's not that people just dislike this book: They hate it, want to kill it, kill it's children, go back in time and murder its grandparents, then parade its tarred and feathered corpse through the town square. The people who hate it call the plot predictable and un-frightening; the people who love it say the people who hate it are just too dumb to understand "art." From the sound of the reviews, if you're an old-school horror fan, this might not be for you, but if you are amongst the oh-so-educated literati and are therefore fairly ignorant of horror cliches, you'll diggity-dig it. Why are the others so pissed? Because the book was lauded by none other than Stephen King himself, who called The Ruins, "The best horror novel of the new century." Whoa doggies, that's going to send a load of people hustling to their bookshops to snag a copy. And speaking of King and horror novels turned into movies ...

Shameless AMC Programming Plug: Christine
It's a freakin' possessed car. We all know Stephen King went through a major substance abuse phase when he wrote Christine. Because seriously... a possessed car? The fact that this plot sounds so ridiculous is even more stunning when you read the book or watch the movie, and you realize that both just flat-out kick ass. Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham is a great marriage of semi-spooky guy with semi-spooky role, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. High-horror-art? No. Good time? Hell yes. Not enough for you? Three words: John Carpenter directed. (And a few more words: It airs Friday Apr. 18, 10:30PM | 9:30C.). Was a possessed car an original idea? Have to say yes: An inanimate object that doubled as a Satanic hoopdie with flames shooting out the grille. Know what's not an original idea? Our entertainment devices showing us ghosties, which brings us to...

Continue reading "The Ruins: User Reviews vs. Stephen King" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror columns will appear every Friday through the end of March.

When Good Movies Breed...

I'm fired up for Neil Marshall's Doomsday, which hits theaters today. Marshall brought us Dog Soldiers, a low-budget werewolf rocker, and creepy-crawly The Descent. But Mommy, where does a movie like Doomsday come from? Turns out that movies reach sexual maturity at about 26 years old, and then they start to breed a new generation. You're thinking: Genetic propagation of celluloid? Scott, are you just plain wacky? But I can prove it!

What happens if the Road Warrior, age 26, goes off on a bender and has a one-night stand with a 26-year-old Lady Liberty (aka Escape From New York)? Well blammo, there's Doomsday for you. Now Gibby was a bad-ass in that one, and Kurt Russell broke the mold with his immortal characterization of Snake Plissken (praise be his name), but can the Mandatory Beautiful Person Kicking Mutant Ass role be reprised by Rhona Mitra? Rhona Whotra? Come on now, Neil, you're not just filling filmography's most bad-ass shoes, you've traded them in for a pair of dominatrix knee-high spikes.

If you doubt that two movies can breed offspring, take a gander at this Maury Povich DNA paternity test. Let's see if Doomsday has:
   1. Mutants
   2. Mutants with mohawks
   3. Mohawked mutants who yell a lot, snarl, and hit people with axes
   4. An abundance of face paint -- despite the fact that all manufacturing and distribution chains are out of commission (i.e., WalMart didn't make it past the apocalypse)
   5. Tricked out, armor-plated, post-apocalyptic rides (skull hood ornaments nice, but optional)
   6. Mano-a-mano, hand-to-hand duels to the death before a crowd of yelling, snarling, mohawked and face-painted mutants (converted boxing ring nice, but optional)
   7. A proclivity for illumination via unsafe open flames

Sorry, Max, but Maury says you a baby daddy.

When Adolescent Movies Do Hard Drugs....

So movies breed at about 26. I just proved that. It's science, so back off. In 1982, The Thing From Another Planet turned 30 and heard that biological clock ticking.

Continue reading "Tracing Doomsday's Family Tree" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror columns will appear every Friday through the end of March.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about finding a signature style and sticking with it. General MacArthur without the corncob pipe is just some dude in a uniform, and James Hetfield without the trademark "Oh is this a 'candid' shot for an interview? Hold on while I get my snarl on" snarl is just some old guy that harshes on the kids for file-swapping his music. But come on, I mean come on, don't you think 30 years of the same pair of coveralls is pushing it just a little bit?

I think it is, and that's why it's time for Michael Myers to get a little makeover. Come on, homes -- you've already got the "tall, dark and handsome" thing down cold, so get some threads -- 'cause the ladies is waitin'!

I was checking out the AMC schedule (I'll be honest, I'm late for this deadline and I'm totally scrambling for a blog topic) and saw that Halloween and Halloween 4 were coming up for a hack-a-licious a.m. double-header, and that got me to thinking... Michael Myers, what is that damn set of coveralls made out of? That's 30 years of some serious wear and tear. I mean, 50 Cent gets shot in the chest a lot too, but the man gets some new clothes from time to time. So aside from the fact that you need to patent whatever fiber comprises that suit and sell it to DARPA for a fat piece of that black-budget pie, you need to check into Scotty's So Fresh & So Clean School of Good Graces.

The first step to any makeover is: Assess the current wardrobe. So Mike and I headed to his closet. As you can see from the picture at left, there ain't a whole lot going on in there. Just some old floral-print house coat from the Ghost of One Night Stands. (See, Mike pledged Kappa Sig, and it was one hell of a kegger -- maybe he did one shotgun too many, so cut the brotha some slack on the size 27 romance artifact, will ya?)

In fact, the only non-coverall gear going on was Mike's Members Only leather bomber (which was already out of style around Halloween 5, but Mike still likes to think he can put it on and something will happen). Here's a candid of Mike when he wore it to Koi for the after-party for Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, showing the man-about-town saving a poor girl from choking on the asparagus & wheat germ torte! Word is Mike even hammed it up for the paps afterwards before hopping in his Jag for a late-night drive with Paris. I hear there's a bit more to the story, but you'll have to get that from Perez, because this blog is about hardcore horror, thank you very much.

Continue reading "Beyond Tall, Dark and Handsome: The Michael Myers Makeover" »