Originally posted: June 25, 2006 @ 9:44am PST

To celebrate Ring Week, I decided to postpone my usual Monster-of-the-Week column so that I could focus on the theme of the week, the Ring movies. Over the course of the week, I’ve seen some of the movies solely so that I can remain fresh for my reviews and I hope that I can do the three ladies justice in my article here. Unfortunately, time permits me to only cover their first appearances, but I’ll do my best. So, away we go!

Sadako: The original and, some say, the best of the Ring ladies. She’s the one that started it all, the one on which all Japanese horror seems to be tested against, which is amazing considering the small amount of screen time she actually has in Ringu. Her first appearance in the movie was at the psychic demonstration that her mother gave. We see a glimpse of her powers first, though, as the reporter who called her mother a fraud quickly died with a silent yell on his face. Her mother saw what happened and screamed, "Sadako! Was it you?" Then, Sadako steps out from the curtains and runs to Reiko, who’s seeing the flashback as if she were there. Sadako grabs Reiko’s arm (we see her fingernails ripped out even here) and Reiko jumps to the present, with smudgemarks on her arm where Sadako had grabbed her.

Pictured: Sadako from Ringu on DVD

Later, Reiko is in the well, trying to find Sadako in the water. When she finds her, we see another flashback scene, this time of Sadako’s father coming up behind her and hitting her in the head, then throwing her into the well. Reiko believes that their finding her body will beat the curse, a notion that seems to be reinforced by the fact that she still lives past the deadline.

However, this leads to the last Ringu appearance… the apartment attack. Ryuji, Reiko’s ex-husband, is working in his office when his TV flicks on to display a shot of the well. At the same time, Reiko tries to call him. Ryuji sees Sadako emerge from the well and approach the TV screen very slowly. When she reaches the screen, she climbs through (giving us another view of her nailless fingers) and slowly, jerkily, raises up to come after Ryuji. In the end, we get to see the infamous eye, as was shown in my Ringu review.

Pictured: Samara from The Ring on DVD

Samara: We definitely get to see more of Samara than we do of Sadako in her first appearance. Our first glimpse is during Rachel’s dreaming sequence, where she goes upstairs to Aidan’s room and sees a figure sitting in a chair, its back to the door. As Rachel approaches, the camera pans over to the figure’s shoulder… when Rachel’s right next to the figure, a rotted arm reaches up to grabs her arm, waking her out of her dream and leaving burnmarks where she was grabbed. Later, we get to see Samara in video from the psychiatric hospital, where she reveals that she wants to hurt people (though it doesn’t quite sound that way the first time we see it), and that she’s sorry. When Rachel’s in the well (not from her own doing, unlike Reiko), she finds Samara. Rachel sees how her mother had tried to suffocate Samara and drop her down the well. Finally, we see Samara strike at Noah in the end sequence, showing how vengeful she really can be.

Pictured: Tabitha from Scary Movie 3 on DVD

Tabitha: Tabitha is the Scary Movie universe’s analogy to Sadako and Samara, so as such, she has pretty much the same powers as the two. We don’t see her grab anyone’s arm during the movie, so we don’t know what her touch would do. When she first appears (outside of the opening few minutes where we get a glimpse of her), she emerges from the well then approaches Brenda through the screen. Brenda actually does a good job of fighting back at her, but Tabitha gets the upper hand and Cindy finds her friend dead. When next we actually see her (we hear her voice twice on the phone before the end), it’s at the farmhouse near the close of the film, appearing behind Cindy. She does a good job of staying exactly behind her, until Cindy catches her and she grabs Cody. Cindy and George appeal to Tabitha, telling her that maybe all she needs is a mother and a father who would love her. Tabitha morphs to a beautiful little girl who tells them, "Thank you, your love has broken the curse. I’ll never have to kill again." When Cindy asks "Really?" Tabitha morphs back into the rotted version and pulls out a knife, saying, "Nah, I’m just screwin’ with ya!" At that moment, the President pops in and hits Tabitha from behind with the door, knocking her back in the well. Then he tells the two, "I just want to tell you good luck. We’re all counting on you."

In the alternate ending of the movie we see a different power manifest in a more direct parody of The Matrix than just Shaniqua earlier in the movie. In this version, Tabitha takes the place of the multiple Agent Smiths from the second Matrix movie, coming out of abandoned lots, copy shops ("Copies Made While You Wait" reads the sign), and a strip club ("Girls Girls Girls"). As they approach Cindy, a phone rings and all the copies feel for their phone, but only one pulls it out and answers with "Seven days." They then attack Cindy, who manages to beat all of them in a fight.

This concludes my look at the Ring Girls. Feel free to message me if you want me to expand on the girls’ second or later appearances and I’ll get to your request as soon as I can! Now, as for Ring Week, I have one more article planned out for later tonight, and I hope you enjoy it!  Until then, this is Red Hawk, signing out!

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Well, Merry Readers, we’ve reached yet another Wednesday and you know what that means? You got it - yet another episode of Monster Laboratory, our world famous weekly feature! I know a great many of you have eagerly waited all week to see the new monster and the mass madness that shall surely ensue following its unveiling. Fear not, for I have been in my laboratory whiling away the hours to create the most fearsome monster to date. Last week we saw Butcher Bears ™ and the brutal savagery of childhood treasures mistreated. The basic theme there? Revenge.

So, I figured this week we’d go ahead and play the good ole tune of revenge once again because it’s the sort of symphonic number I can dig on, royally. We’ll also be traipsing right back down memory lane for our chunks and pieces to build this terrible monster you’ve all anxiously awaited. Well, my memory lane, at least. Perhaps some of you remember what I do, though. Perhaps it wasn’t your first movie like it was for me, but I bet a good number of you’ve experienced the terror that is:

Stephen Spielberg’s E.T.

Oh, E.T. you say? Doesn’t seem scary to you? Ask Drew Barrymore what E.T. can do to a person’s life, then. Just you try being four years old and going to that [edited] up movie having no idea of what lies in store for you! Just you try being brave in the darkness while that [edited] little reject squeals and warbles in weird tones! You’d be lucky to only hide under your blanket, you might just add a bit more foul liquid to the theater floor!

Ahem. Personal experiences aside, I’m quite sure I know the reason Spielberg never made a sequel to E.T. and the reason why he never shall. Think about it: you got this alien down here teaching kids how to do Harry Potter shizz with their bikes and the feds step in to capture him for research. They cause the young alien great stress and grief, shortly before his ‘people‘ return for him. Know who that was in the flying saucers taking Elliott’s little play toy back to some other galaxy? His family! Do you have any clue what that means? Do you??

They’ll be back! Once they hear about how their precious, weird little offspring got treated here on Earth, they’re gonna get angry. Real angry. I don’t suppose you can guess exactly what they’ll be making a daytrip back to our planet for, can ya? Well, lemme give ya a hint, folks - not to bring gifts and tidings of interstellar joy, I can tell ya that. No, when ET’s fam gets the lowdown on how our government tried to probe him and take samples, they’re going to fly into a rage. Obviously creatures intelligent enough to man space craft that glows like theirs do know a thing or two. And maybe you missed this part, but remember the bit where ET’s little finger glows and all that? Yeah, cute. Guess what? It’s not cute at all, he’s simply a prepubescent alien without the full range of powers his kins possess!

Here’s what I predict:

E.T. is nothing more than a hatchling in the famous movie. He’s bound for the sort of mindblowing abilities that’d put the aliens in Alien (the movie) to shame. You see, that glowing finger trick only hints at the sheer awesomeness a full grown version of E.T. would wield. That gently glow, once they’re adults, becomes a superheated nuclear-level Incindiary Digit of Doom ™! After the final metamophosis they become E.T.P.’s, short for Extra Terrestrial Pyromaniacs. It’s not pretty. Once matured they could light you quicker than your mama’s Bic. They’d be out in the streets, shambling along, lightning anyone within distance into a halo of fiery death.

No big deal, right? You figure you’d outrun their pudgy lil butts? Wrong! They’ve got those space ships and the version we saw was the equivalent of a Ford Pinto in those aliens’ world. ET didn’t come from money, see? Now imagine they show up in their equivalent of Blackhawk helicopters and tricked out Hummers. Yeah, different picture, huh, Junior?

When the full scale retaliatory invasion begins, here’s a glimpse at what your homeland would look like approximately thirty seconds after their initial wave of spacecraft enter our atmosphere:

Take a good, hard look. See that orange stuff? Yeah, that’s fire. Alot of fire and it’s real hot and burny, too. You don’t roast weenies in blazes like that, folks, you roast to DEATH! We’re talking about a global cremation! Every last one of us crisped to ashes within minutes. No time for "we’re sorry" or "please, don’t hurt us we just wanted wanted to advance science so we could figure out how to enslave your people." No time for second opinions, second guesses or second chances. Just brilliant orange flamin’ death.

And that’s why Spielberg will never make a sequel. It’d drone on and on until finally the full-grown E.T.P.’s arrived and torched our homeworld. Everyone would cry, there could be no happy ending and a whole new generation would be scarred for life. However, Hollywood being as it is, they’ll propably try this because those wackjobs never can leave well enough alone. Due to that, I propose a title:

E.T. II: Ain’t Nobody Messes with My Baby!

In an effort to save lives, I’m providing the following resources so you may prepare yourselves, Merry Readers, for an alien holocaust. Study well:

E.T. - Escape from Planet Earth on the Gameboy Color, E.T. - Cosmic Garden on the Gameboy Color, E.T. Digital Planner on the Gameboy Color, E.T. Interplanetary Mission for the PC, E.T. Away from Home for the PC, E.T. Phone Home Adventures for the PC, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial for Gameboy Advance and don’t forget the all time worst game EVER: E.T. The Extra Terrestrial for Atari!

The motto here is: Know Your Enemy. Don’t let ‘em roast our world, people.

Until next time, this has been GlowStormLion, creeping through closets stalking the elusive trophy head of E.T.’s deadly kin and knowing full well not to tempt fate.

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Originally Published: May 22, 2006 @ 04:02am PST

Frankenfish

Released: 2004

Running Time: 84 minutes

I have the good fortune to have a friend who once suffered such a profound lack of judgement that on a recent trip to the video store - she rented Frankenfish (on DVD). I do love horror movies but any creature feature is going to risk sliding from creepy to corny rather rapidly. Suspension of disbelief is difficult to hold in our modern world where we tend to be more worried about fellow humans or diseases rather than nature itself.

The basic premise of the movie is, well, surprisingly simple but the plot is startling complex for a horror film of this nature. The story of Frankenfish was inspired by an incident which occurred in Crofton, Maryland in 2002. In the real life version, the invasive species of walking fish (yes, they have the ability to travel across land) were found in a local pond. These fish are considered to cuisine in some Asian countries, but they are also extremely aggressive predators capable of eating frogs or even rats. They were exterminated in short order.

Frankenfish is set in the bayous of Louisiana which lends it a truly unique flavor to its atmosphere. The actors, who include many names you’ve probably never heard of, do an extremely good job fulfilling their roles and the cinematography is sharp and clear so it’s very painless to sit through. I’ve enjoyed several Sci-Fi Channel movies but this has to be my all time favorite. There’s creepy backwater voodoo folks, bong-smoking Cajuns who walk around nude, floating housesboats, those fan boats that blast across swampy water and much more. Explosions, copious nudity and oh! I almost forgot: genetically-altered fish from the mouth of Hell itself. Even the music (performed by a rapper who goes by Hot Wheelz) wasn’t too shabby, considering the production values.

I believe there’s a primal fear all of us have for dark, murky water and the potential dangers that go along with it. Some of my earliest dreams were of alligators lurking in the water, so I feel one of the strongest nerves Frankenfish strikes is not the aversion to gore but the fear of the unknown beast that’s much more powerful in its environment than any human being. Just like Frankenfish outclasses so many other creature features.

My final verdict is that this movie is a 5 out of 5!

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