Things I learned while watching “Phantasm”

1. Women of questionable repute that metamorphose into scary old men and then stab people to death, mid-coitus in cemeteries frequently wear garish blue eyeshadow. You have been warned.

2. Anyone wearing a long, black robe that wanders behind a headstone and then disappears is probably up to no good. And is probably also dead.

3. Don’t open doors in funeral parlors. If they’re closed, there might be a reason. And while I have no idea what it is, I can tell you that the end result is screaming. Lots of screaming.

4. Bars sucked in 1978. But evidently, they were bursting at the seams with loose women. Loose women wearing an ungodly amount of blue eyeshadow. Please see #1 above.

5. Running through a cemetery after your screaming kid brother with women’s underwear hanging out of your mouth makes you look like a total ass. In fact, anyone who would do this is a total ass, and probably has no redeeming qualities.

6. What’s little and brown and low to the ground? Yeah. I don’t know either, but whoever wrote the dialogue for this movie should probably be shot.

7. When you’ve become convinced that something supernatural is after you, don’t pack your knife and run to the cemetery to take care of business. Instead, take advantage of the fact that everyone thinks you’re crazy, and check yourself into a nice hospital with lots of security.

8. If you do go on a hunt for big evil at the funeral parlor, don’t kick in one of the basement windows to get into the building. That’s a total amateur move.

9. Some genius somewhere along the line decided to attach drills to metal balls, which could then be shot down hallways. Somehow, they hit the intended target right in the head. This makes for excellent mortuary security.

10. Evil creatures bleed yellow. No one is going to believe you when you share this bit of information later, so you should definitely steal a severed finger so you’ll have proof. And watch the dwarfs. They grab tennis shoes.

11. Actually, now that I’ve seen the future, it’s probably not the best idea to steal a severed finger. A demon bug from hell will attack you, and you’ll have to feed it to your garbage disposal. While stabbing it. This looks to be exhausting.

12. The mortician has been around since the days of horses and buggies. If you don’t believe me, just take a trip to the Old-Ass Photos section of the antique store. You’ll find all the evidence you need. Knowing he’s been around that long and hasn’t aged would make me hesitant to fuck with him, but I’m not in this movie.

13. The door to the “Dwarf Planet” is in the mortuary. Weak. I know.

Things I learned while watching “Stay Alive”

1. Milo Ventimiglia may be able to fly while Adrian Pasdar is around, but he definitely cannot fly with a chain wrapped around his neck. Possibly, it was the facial hair that was weighing him down.

2. It is a very bad idea to play a mysterious, unreleased video game which opens with a strange incantation and was last in the possession of a group of three of your close friends, all of whom were violently killed shortly after playing it.

3. It is also a very bad idea to create a video game for the purpose of resurrecting anyone that we might possibly be better off without.

4. Pausing a game does not necessarily mean that the game will not decide to play itself in your absence, if points two and three above apply to the game in question.

5. The nude zombie code will make game-play more enjoyable for at least two of your LAN party attending cohorts.

6. The police are not going to listen to you when you tell them that a video game is killing people, just because people are dying in the order in which they died while playing the game, in the exact same fashion in which they died in the game. This is primarily because even suggesting such a thing would be completely insane. You should try not to take it personally. And while you’re at it, you should try not to show up at all of the crime scenes before the police do. You know, to avoid being arrested.

7. Waving around or throwing roses or rose petals at nasty supernatural creatures causes them to disappear immediately after turning them into a dark, smoky substance. We should all keep rose petals around at all times.

8. If you happen to be walking through the house and grounds depicted in the game while one of your buddies is playing, he can help you out by dropping crowbars and other miscellaneous items in places where you will easily find them. Sometimes while you’re standing in the same spot in which he is standing in the game. This is fucked up, and will probably give both of you issues.

9. Should you ever find yourself in the situation described above, cell phones will save your life.

10. Frankie Muniz always comes through in the clutch. Go, Malcolm.

11. If you have to kill the resurrected, blood-bathing murderer brought back to life by the video game that’s since been busy killing all of your friends, you’re going to have to put three nails in her corpse and set her on fire. Knowing this now is going to save you all kinds of time. Thank me later. And for the love of all that’s holy, have your nails and fire-setting implements ready to go before you actually walk into the crypt and stumble upon the body.

Things I learned while watching “Dark Harvest”

1. If you find out that you’ve just inherited land from a dead family member and the only thing you’re told about the land and the house in advance is that no one (except for one real estate appraisal man who happens to be damned lucky he wasn’t out appraising under the light of the full moon) has gone anywhere near it since the 1930’s, just don’t go. In fact, have the place demolished. And have napalm rained on the fields if at all possible.

2. If you go anyway, you’re probably an idiot, in light of everything I’m about to share with you. This is especially true in cases that involve a long-deceased relative having made a pact with the devil and/or having murdered drifters so to affix them to wooden stakes and use them as scarecrows, but probably applies in any one of a variety of situations.

3. If you go, and you wind up bringing your girlfriend and your four closest mutual friends, then not only are you an idiot, but you’re an ass, too.

4. There’s nothing wrong with a bunch of naked women drinking beer while alternately sunbathing and swimming. This is something I’ve always known, but it’s really good to reinforce these stores of knowledge every once in a while.

5. In the grand kill-the-minorities-first tradition of most classic horror films, and some of the not-so-classic ones as well, your lesbian friend is going to die first, and can expect to suffer beheading and dismemberment. It will be icky, and everyone will see it. You know. For effect.

6. This is only a temporary reprieve for your black male friend, who normally would die first, but has been bought a little bit of time by the lesbian. He will, however, suffer a catastrophic injury very early on, such as stabbing-by-scythe-through-door-by-zombie-scarecrow, just so that he can be dragged along by everyone else – quite obviously in agonizing pain and for a ridiculously long period of time when one considers the serious nature of his injuries – until he suffers additional mutilation and finally manages to kick off. This will suck for him. Make no mistake.

7. It is completely ineffective to jab zombie scarecrows in the belly with wooden objects. Seriously. It just seems to piss them off. This probably also applies to metal objects. In fact, fire is pretty much your first and last line of defense, unless you can find some way to dismember them, which isn’t nearly as much fun to watch. The occasional explosion doesn’t hurt. It just punctuates your righteous indignation.

8. Do not, under any circumstances, stand around in large groups with open doorways directly behind you. This is stupid, and will only lead to trouble. Especially if said doorway opens onto a dark room.

9. Zombie scarecrows do not steal car keys. If you can’t find the car keys, this means that they have fallen out of your friend’s pocket as her headless corpse was being dragged off toward the fields by the ankles. Check the drag-tracks through the grass.

10. If your great grandfather is the long-deceased relative that tortured drifters to death while turning them into scarecrows which have since become zombies, he is clearly a redneck asshole. You should definitely find a framed photograph of your great grandfather standing next to one of his freshly constructed homemade scarecrows somewhere in his former residence (check all shelves) and break the glass in the frame with your fist while shouting something about what a stupid, redneck asshole he was. It won’t change anything, but it might make you feel better about your eviscerated girlfriend, whose corpse is currently a glorified lawn ornament in one of the corn fields you now own.

Hole made me do it.

Earlier this week, I was issued a speeding ticket. I’m normally a somewhat law-abiding citizen, but since the ticket was issued in a school zone, I get to grace a judge with my presence next month. I’m not trying to get out of this. I broke the law. I did exactly what they said I did. I drove 30 mph. In a school zone containing no children. Because it’s impossible to drive 20 mph, school zone or not. I’ve tried it every day since, and it requires that I pay so much attention to what I’m doing that I think it’s actually more dangerous than letting me drive 30, which seems to be as slow as I can make myself drive without constantly watching my spedometer and wondering how a difference of 10 mph can be such a big deal.

In my defense, I wasn’t aiming my car at anyone, talking on my cell phone, sending a text message, planning my morning, or whipping around the other cars. I wasn’t even smoking, because I quit doing that three months ago.

I was, however, listening to Hole. And it is my belief that it was the combination of driving a mustang while listening to “Live Through This” that seems to have rendered me unable to obey school zone speed limits, which I freely admit are there for a reason. Hole made me do it. Hole and those awful bastards at Ford. And you know, I think that if we can blame random school shootings on Marilyn Manson, then my belief is completely rational.