Category Archives: Halloween

Malignant Is The Long Island Iced Tea Of Horror Films

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I spent some time as a bartender about 20 years ago. It was something I trained for, and I even got a certification in Mixology. During the two-week course I learned many different formulas for many different cocktails, some more exacting than the others. One of the least exacting, if not THE least, was the Long Island Iced Tea.

The general rule was to pour a big glass of sweetened iced tea, and then just dump a bunch of whiskey, vodka, rum, gin, tequila, or whatever else you happened to have lying around into it. As long as the tea was sweet enough to dominate the flavor palate, it really didn’t matter what sort of brain-melting, toxic brew you added to the glass.

Every time I prepared this drink for a customer, or ordered it for myself, the goal was never anything more or less than to get super f’n drunk. By and large, the Long Island Iced Tea accomplished this goal even if the flavor sensors had no real idea what to make of the elixir that had just been inflicted upon them. The sensation I felt while watching Malignant on HBO Max was very similar.

I’m going to get into big time spoilers below, so consider this your warning.

Director James Wan is most well known for his part in creating the “Conjuring Universe” and played no small part in the wave of small-budget-but-legitimately-good horror films beginning when he directed the first Saw movie. Yes, he also direct a Fast And Furious film and Aquaman, but his calling card remains these smaller films. When one hears that Wan was making a move called Malignant, one can’t help but group them in with his other films The Conjuring and – more specifically – Insidious. But, much like the first 30 minutes of this film, that is merely a smokescreen. Malignant is the Long Island Iced Tea of horror films, because it is a mash-up of at least three different types of horror movies.

The first act of the film plays like a ghost story, which is well-tread ground for Wan and his creative team. There is a prologue at a spooky asylum not dissimilar to a haunted castle. There is our main character, Madison, whose abusive husband is murdered by a shadowy figure that moves in seemingly impossible ways. The lights in her house begin flickering once she returns from the hospital after her own injuries are healed. And she begins seeing specters out of the corner of her eye. All traditional ghost movie tropes.

But the second act changes things. As more people are murdered, and these people have a common link to the asylum in the prologue, we can clearly see a physical entity is brutally killing them. Madison begins receiving threatening phone calls from a mysterious person who calls himself “Gabriel” at which time you, as a viewer, may begin to understand that this was not a ghost story. My interpretation at the time was that Gabriel was a psychic projection that Madison was unwillingly harboring. And, so I begin watching the movie more as a Jekyll & Hyde story than a ghost story. At this point, my interest was piqued, as there had been far fewer Jekyll & Hyde adaptations than ghost movies in the past decade or two. But that also only lasts for another 30 or 40 minutes before Malignant takes on its Final Form.

Act Three begins with Madison being arrested for the murders when a mysterious woman falls through her ceiling while she’s being interviewed by police detectives. This surprises her as much as any them or her sister, Sydney, who has been doing her best to help Madison cope with all the craziness. Madison is taken into custody, and locked inside a holding cell with fifteen or twenty other people. While a few of them being to smack her around, Sydney makes her way to the creepy asylum to grab Madison’s old medical files. Turns out, Madison was born “Emily” and committed to the asylum by her teenaged mother – the mysterious woman who Gabriel/Emily took captive and fell through the ceiling. And this is where the viewer hits the bottom of his first Long Island Iced Tea, and orders up another.

Turns out that Gabriel is real, he was a tumor/conjoined twin attached to Madison/Emily’s back who shared a brain with her and made her do bad things. Gabriel/Emily also has some sort of psychic power that explains how he can speak through phones and radios, and blow up the lightbulbs in the house. But wait, there’s more!

As revealed from old VHS tapes that Sydney finds, the doctors from the prologue – who Gabriel was murdering – performed a surgery where they removed Gabriel’s underdeveloped arms, legs, torso, and most of his head from Emily’s body. This is shown in an extremely gruesome montage. The problem was that, due to them sharing a brain, there was just a little bit of Gabriel’s face remaining on the back of Emily’s head. So, naturally, the doctors pushed that little bit into Emily’s skull, and somehow that left Gabriel in a dormant state until Emily/Madison’s husband cracked a wall with her head at the beginning of the film.

“That’s pretty nuts,” you might be thinking. And you’d be right, but you’d be wrong to assume that it couldn’t possibly get even more nuts when they finally show us the full transformation – werewolf movie style! While taking a beating in the holding cell, Gabriel (or what little is physically left of him) physically emerges out of the back of Emily/Madison’s skull. Gabriel, now in-control of the body, then snaps all of his (their?) limbs backwards to fall in-line with his face (more or less). So, now everything he does is contorted and in-reverse, which makes for quite the discombobulated viewing experience. After that brief foray into Cronenbergian body horror, Malignant becomes a Terminator or Predator movie in the home stretch.

Gabriel somehow has super-strong-backward-murder-ninja skills. How, or why, is not discussed or frankly relevant once you’ve gone this far into this batsh*t insane movie. Much like after chugging that Long Island Iced Tea, you’re now fully along for the ride, and there’s not much you can do about it. Gabriel slaughters the twenty people in the holding cell, breaks out, and then murders the twenty cops left in the police station with fairly minimal effort. Now, when I say “slaughter” and “murder” I want to be clear that these killings are both balletic and bloody. Much of the stunt work was done by a contortionist, and that honestly makes me appreciate the film more than if it had all be CGI. But Gabriel is a whirling dervish of a murder machine, and the fight scenes in the holding cell and police station are amongst the most original and visceral that have come along in quite some time.

Gabriel is eventually stopped when he tries to kill Sydney and Emily/Madison’s mother and Emily/Madison re-takes control of her body. She then locks Gabriel away in her mind, presumably until he’s needed for the eventual sequel where he’ll probably be used as more of an anti-hero. Which, by the way, is a movie I would definitely sign up for. Although, in another never-explained revelation, Gabriel was apparently feeding on the life energy of Madison’s unborn children, causing her to have several miscarriages, so maybe “anti-hero” is not really in his future.

Like the morning after a Long Island Iced Tea bender, you may not know what the hell happened in Malignant, but you’ll somehow know that you had a fun time. The benefit that the film has over the bender, though, is that it will surely return you home, safe and sound. You’ll also probably have less of a hangover.

Unlucky 7: The Most Notable Times WWE Failed Bray Wyatt

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Bray Wyatt (real name Windham Rotunda) was recently released from his WWE contract. This sort of thing happens all the time in the pro wrestling business, but not typically to a performer who holds the spot on the roster that Rotunda holds. Whether cheering or booing, the fan at-large never stopped responding to Rotunda. And, by all accounts, he sells a lot of merchandise, and makes WWE a lot of money.

This would lead one to believe that his release was due to less typical circumstances. One such circumstance is that Rotunda has always brought creative ideas to the table that are both complex, yet still clearly-executed. Vince McMahon has never been one to push a complex idea, and the only clear ones he cares about are his own. For the time-being, I’m going to theorize that Rotunda and WWE parted due to the ever-popular reason of creative differences.

But, the bigger question, is how did we get here? Rotunda has been over with the fans since his main roster debut back in 2013. For the most part, the audiences engagement with him never really faltered. Along with his creative storytelling, he is a very good in-ring performer with a strong, signature move set, and even stronger in-ring psychology. With that package, Rotunda should have have a decades-long run at, or near, the top of the card. The problem is that, no matter how great a package you present, McMahon needs to push that package the right way.

Frankly, Rotunda’s success seemed to come more in-spite of Vince McMahon than anything else. If you take a look back at the points in Rotunda’s WWE career when he was on the cusp of becoming a true main event superstar, you can can see a very clear pattern of Vince McMahon’s booking undercutting Rotunda’s momentum. The list I’m presenting below will certainly not tell the whole story, but I believe that it offers the highlights (lowlights?) of the problem. The list has been sorted in chronological order.

Bray Wyatt vs John Cena – WrestleMania 30 – April 2014 – The Wyatt Family, a cult-ish, backwoods crew who gained notoriety in the burgeoning NXT made their main roster debut in 2013 after that year’s WrestleMania. The fans were immediately interested in the Wyatt Family, and that was almost entirely due to Wyatt’s ability to spin a great promo, and perform like a badass in the ring. This was Bray Wyatt’s WrestleMania debut match. And it was against the man who had been at the top of the company for nearly a decade, but had one foot out the door and pointed toward Hollywood. A win here would have given Wyatt a massive rub, and set a new star rocketing toward a main event spot. Instead, Cena was booked to overcome Wyatt, and his Wyatt Family, as Cena had been booked to do to virtually every other previous challenge. The result here presented Wyatt himself as just another one of those challenges, thus sullying his credibility right out of the gate.

Bray Wyatt vs The Undertaker – WrestleMania 31 – March 2015 – Prior to what is popularly referred to as “WrestleMania Season” Wyatt has started calling himself “The New Face Of Fear” as a direct shot at the old face of fear. It seemed like a good angle, since that face was only showing itself on WWE programming two or three times per year by this point. The Undertaker’s legendary streak ended the year before in a loss of Brock Lesnar, and he was several years into the phase of his career where he really only had matches at WrestleMania to defend said streak. With the streak over, WWE was presented with a great opportunity to pass the baton, and give Wyatt the sort of win that could define his young career. With the streak over, the only real thing Undertaker had left to offer was his own career. A match between Taker and Wyatt at WrestleMania, where Wyatt could both retire the legend, and officially claim his New Face Of Fear mantle would have set Wyatt off on the path to great things. Instead, Taker wins, even though he was an aging part-timer who was no longer even defending a historic win streak.

The Wyatt Family Getting Clowned By The Rock & John Cena – WrestleMania 32 – April 2016 – You may notice a pattern forming here, but I promise there will be a few non-WrestleMania examples coming up soon. Though, the fact that there are so many examples of his at Mania makes the problem very clear. This was not even a match, other than The Rock beating Erik Rowan in an impromptu match that lasted all of seven seconds. The Rock was retired and, frankly, could have laid the smackdown on any undercard talent here while getting the same pop fro the crowd. Instead, they brought out the semi-retired John Cena, and the pair bounced Bray Wyatt, and his cohorts, around the ring for a few minutes. Hardly the best use of Bray Wyatt, and certainly not helpful to his credibility after losing matches in the two previous Manias.

Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton – WWE Championship Match – WrestleMania 33 – April 2017 – The match itself ended up being overbooked, and undercooked at the same time with silly moments provided by the WWE AV Club. Wyatt lost the match, and the title, after a single RKO in an era where no one stays down after one finishing move in big title matches. The bigger travesty in this case, was that they were so close to finally doing right by Wyatt.
Just two months prior, Wyatt outlasted John Cena, AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, The Miz, and Baron Corbin in an Elimination Chamber match that concluded with Wyatt, himself, pinning both Styles and Cena. Wyatt was still nominally a heel, but the crowd showered him with a “You Deserve It!” chant that clearly had its origins in the many previous mishandlings of Wyatt’s booking.
On top of this, Wyatt had been involved in a months-long program where Randy Orton joined the Wyatt Family, despite Luke Harper’s (portrayed by the late Jon Huber) suspicions about Orton’s true motives. Wyatt sided with Harper over Orton, only to be betrayed by Orton just as Harper had expected. The stage was set for an epic Triple Threat Match between Wyatt, Orton, and Harper for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania.
Instead, McMahon had Harper booked out of the angle a few weeks before Mania, and then booked a terrible gimmick match that was won by Orton, who was already a multi-time world champion, and did not need this win nearly as much as Wyatt did. A few months later, Orton dropped the title to Jinder Mahal, who went on to have an extremely forgettable title reign himself, and Wyatt had to get back to the drawing board to build himself up again.

“The Fiend” Bray Wyatt vs Seth Rollins – WWE Universal Title Match – Hell In The Cell – October 2019 – See? I told you we’d have some non-Mania examples coming up. Wyatt floated around the mid-card, and tag team division for a little while, before re-inventing himself with one of the most staggered character transformations in the history of pro wrestling. Leaving the cult leader persona behind, Wyatt became a creepy children’s show host who sometimes transformed into a horror movie-style monster called The Fiend. Again, he was working heel, but the fan were super into this new presentation. Only a few months after The Fiend’s in-ring debut at SummerSlam, he was given a Universal Title shot at the Hell In The Cell event.
One couldn’t imagine a more perfect scenario for the monstrous Fiend to claim his spot at the top. October. Halloween season. Hell In The Cell match. The Fiend took all of Rollins’ best shots, and kept coming after him. Until the end, when Rolling piled a bunch of steel chairs atop The Fiend, and then beat those chairs with a sledgehammer. No pinfall, no submission, a HitC match has no rules. But the referee stopped the match. Rollins retained, The Fiend attacked him after the match, and the crowd hated it all. This ending hurt Rollins as much as it did Wyatt to the extent that Rollins – who was running at an all-time high popularity – had to turn heel shortly afterward.
A few weeks later, at one of WWE’s ill-advised cash grab Crown Jewel Saudi Arabia shows, The Fiend did take the title off Rollins. But having the title change happen at such a controversial show, rather than in the perfectly-themed Hell In The Cell was another in the long line of booking mistakes for Wyatt.

“The Fiend” Bray Wyatt vs Goldberg – WWE Universal Title Match – Crown Jewel – February 2020 – Speaking of the morally-problematic Saudi Arabia shows, The Fiend dropped the Universal Title at the very next one to 50-something year-old Goldberg, who happened to show up a few weeks earlier and demand a title match.
If there’s one thing Vince McMahon loves doing, it’s feeding his current stars to relics of past eras (see the first three entries on this list). Goldberg speared and jackhammered The Fiend a few times, and then pinned him to take the title in less than five minutes. The Fiend stood up afterward, and dusted himself off like it was no big thing. But he’d already lost the match, and the title, so the damage was done.
Goldberg dropped the belt to former Wyatt Family heavy Braun Strowman two months later at WrestleMania 36, while Wyatt actually had his WrestleMania highlight in a Firefly Fun House match against John Cena. This Wyatt-Cena match was a lot more fun than their previous Mania encounters as both Wyatt and Cena were committed to making something really self-referential and interesting.
Wyatt himself won his second Universal Title from Strowman at that year’s SummerSlam, but then lost it in a Triple Threat Match to Roman Reigns only one week later at the Payback event. Honestly, that could warrant its own entry on this list, but I’m trying to keep it to seven.

“The Fiend” Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton – WrestleMania 37 – April 2021 – And, just like that, we’re back at WrestleMania, and we’re back with Randy Orton. It makes sense that this would be the final nail in the coffin of Wyatt’s WWE career, as McMahon had used Orton and Mania to kill Wyatt’s credibility at his previous career peak four-years prior. This time around, Wyatt and Orton had a much less interesting story. Orton set The Fiend on fire in the ring some months earlier, so Wyatt’s new acolyte Alexa Bliss became a thorn in Orton’s side, until The Fiend returned to lay out Orton, and make their WrestleMania match official.
With fans in the arena for the first time in over year, due to the Covid pandemic, and chanting for The Fiend, McMahon again books Wyatt to be pinned by Orton after a single RKO. Sure, The Fiend was confused by Alexa Bliss’ make-up or some such thing, but this was still terrible booking, and the crowd let them know it.
Wyatt would make one more brief appearance on the following night’s episode of RAW, before disappearing for several months until his release was announced.

So, what’s next? No on can tell for sure, but Rotunda is a highly imaginative person, and I would certainly be willing to check out whatever he does next – be it wrestling, writing, or filmmaking. My personal preference, though, would be to see him show up in AEW. The rival promotion has been putting on a better wrestling product than WWE in every way pretty much since its premiere, and it certainly seems to be a place where where more creative minds can thrive as well.

AEW has a growing list of performers that Vince McMahon couldn’t (or wouldn’t) figure out how to use properly, that they have presented like the superstars they always seemed like they could be. Cody Rhodes, Jon Moxley, Miro The Redeemer, Andrade, and Malakai Black, just to name a few. With word that former WWE super-duper-main-even-stars CM Punk and Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson) are set to debut in AEW over the next few weeks, acquiring Rotunda on top of that would elevate AEW to a whole other level of relevancy amongst even the most jaded pro wrestling fans.

It’s exciting to look forward to whatever Windham Rotunda does next. But, looking back, it’s also pretty easy to see where things went wrong with WWE. Vince McMahon likely won’t learn any lessons from this, and one of the lessons Rotunda probably learned was that Vince never learns his lessons. Hopefully, whatever else Rotunda learned, will serve him well in what he decided to do next.

Taking A Nostalgic Stroll Down Fear Street

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SPOILER WARNING – This blog post contains massive spoilers for Netflix’s Fear Street Trilogy (1994, 1978, 1666)

I was fifteen-years-old in 1994, and I loved horror movies. I still do, but back then I was still in the process of discovering the classics and mainstays. I believe I had already seen most of the Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Halloween films. While I was still a year or two away from going back further to things like Universal Horror classics, and Hammer Horror franchises. It was around this time (1996) that the first Scream movie took it upon itself to deconstruct elements from a very specific type of horror movie: The slasher flick.

It was actually Scream that made me go back and find the deeper catalogue of slasher flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Prom Night, The Burning, Sleepaway Camp, Terror Train, The Funhouse, Madman, and the like. Scream then begat a era of similar movies that featured teenagers in some half-winking, slashery situations such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Disturbing Behavior, Urban Legends and, of course, numerous Scream sequels. But it was only a few years after Scream when I lost interest in slasher flicks, and that was due in large part to the fact that I was no longer a teenager myself. As such, I wasn’t really finding the lives (or deaths) of the characters especially relatable. So, I went off and expanded my horror movie palate in different directions.

But Netflix was very clever in their approach to casting out the widest possible net for their Fear Street Trilogy. Yes, the core characters are teenagers in-peril. But they are teenagers in the year 1994, and then in the year 1978, and then way back in 1666. Much like Netflix’s other retro hit Stranger Things before it, Fear Street ropes in viewers from my generation with nostalgia, while also appealing to the current crop of teenage viewers with teenage character who aren’t so very different than they are – even with 20+ years of history between them. However, unlike Stranger Things, Fear Street is very much R-Rated horror. Fortunately, for teenagers of today, no one is carding them on the way into the theater (give or take a Parental Lock Password). Personally, having been a teenager in the 90’s, while also watching slasher films of the 80’s and 70’s, Fear Street managed to double-hook me in.

But here’s where things get more interesting – The first entry, Fear Street: 1994, opens with a famous young actress being murdered in a mall by a masked killer. Which was very Scream of them. But, rather than playing the long game of “who is the killer and when will they strike next” the killer is immediately unmasked and shot by the local sheriff. So, Scream basically plays out in the first ten minutes of the movie.

Through the rest of FS: 1994, more killer are revealed. And these killers are very much supernatural in-nature. This first film lays out some details about a supposed curse over the town of Shadyside placed on it by a witch named Sarah Fier, wherein a person is possessed every decade or so, and goes on a killing spree. We are introduced some previous killers with effectively creepy character designs who were possessed in prior decades, as they rise from their graves. More specifically – they rise from a giant, gooey, black heart that resides in a cave beneath the town to kill anyone who sees a vision of Sarah Fier. In this case, the unfortunate target is Sam, who had the lousy luck to bleed in the wrong place, which triggered a connection to Sarah Fier.

The evil is seemingly defeated by the end of FS: 1994, at the very gory cost of the primary heroines’ friends’ lives. But then there’s a hook at the end: Sam becomes possessed in much the same way as the killer from the beginning of the movie, leaving her girlfriend Deena, and Deena’s brother Henry, to try and save her soul. It’s a cliffhanger much like you’d have seen in almost every Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, or any other slasher franchise. Happily, I only had to wait for a week – rather than a year or two – to see the next installment.

This was another part of the brilliance of Netflix’s release strategy. The same sort of near-instant gratification they offer by dropping entire seasons of TV shows at one time is emulated, only with movies. The story arc of Deena, the possessed Sam, and Henry actually forms a framing device around the next two movies. Yet another clever trick used by Writer/Director Leigh Janiak, and her creative team, to ensure viewers stay invested through all three movies.

Fear Street: 1978 begins in 1994, with our protagonists tracking down Ziggy, who was the lone survivor of the previous Shadyside massacre at Camp Nightwing back in 1978. This then launches us back to the year 1978, where we see how that all played out. Ziggy, the local “weird girl” formed a very sweet bond on the last day of camp with popular boy (and future sheriff) Nick Goode just before all hell broke loose, ending with Ziggy’s sister (and many other campers and counselors) being slaughtered by another counselor after he is possessed.

FS: 1978 might be my favorite of the three films, since it doesn’t really need to do the heavy expositional lifting of FS: 1994 or handle the job of wrapping everything up like FS: 1666. It’s honestly the most straightforward installment, and it has the emotional advantage of offering a tragic ending of Ziggy watching her sister being murdered, while her sister watches Ziggy being stabbed and believing that she failed to save her. But Ziggy does survive. Well, technically, she’s brought back to life by Nick Goode performing CPR.

But that brings us back to 1994, where Deena and Henry ask a grown-up Ziggy where to find Sarah Fier’s severed hand. They had found Fier’s body back in FS: 1994 but, according to the legend, they needed to bury the hand with the body to end the curse. So, they retrieve the hand, and Deena goes to bury it with the body. But, much like Sam before her, Deena gets a nosebleed from being too close to Fier’s remains. Unlike Sam, Deena’s mind is actually swept all the way back to 1666, when the curse is said to have begun.

Fear Street: 1666 actually only spends about half of its runtime in 1666, where Deena sees the town as it was when it was still just a colonial village. The kicker is that she’s seeing it all through Sarah Fier’s eyes. The time spent is 1666 moves quickly to the point where horrors are unleashed upon the village due to someone’s deal with the devil. The films uses the cast from the previous two installments to fill out the roles of the villagers. In an ironic twist, the actors who play characters that survived the previous films are killed, while the actors who play characters killed in the previous films survive. It caps of with the first possessed killer slaughtering a chapel full of children, and cutting out their eyes (as well as his own) before he is killed by Sheriff Goode’s ancestor Solomon.

This being 1666, a witch hunt is promptly launched. Sarah and her secret beloved Hannah are accused by the town asshole after he was spurned by Hannah. Hannah is captured, but Sarah makes a run for it. She hides out at Solomon Goode’s home, as he’s always been kind to her, only to discover that Solomon is the one who cast a curse on the village in order to attain power. Sarah is recaptured by the lynch mob, and hanged from a tree after she promises Solomon that she will expose his evils one day. That day, as it turns out happens in 1994.

When we get back to 1994, Deena shares her new knowledge with Ziggy and Henry, that the Goode family has continued this deal with the devil for more than 300 years. Every decade or so, the eldest son of the family allows a townsperson to become possessed, and go on a killing spree. This casts every interaction between Ziggy and Nick from FS: 1978 into a very interesting new light. If there’s one complaint that I have about the Fear Street Trilogy, it’s that the emotional payoff between the adult version of Ziggy and Nick is never really explored. At any rate, the key to ending the curse is to kill Sheriff Goode. Now, Nick’s brother is the mayor of neighboring Sunnyvale, so killing Nick doesn’t really end the bloodline. But, considering Nick is the one who cast the curse in both 1978 and 1994, I guess that offers as much explanation as we’re going to get.

In the end, we’re brought back to the mall, where the undead previous killers attack again. But our heroes manage to survive using some interesting tricks they picked up in FS: 1994. Deena chases Sheriff Goode into the tunnels beneath the mall, which are the same tunnels that were formed way back when Solomon first made the deal, and cast the curse. A chase ensues that ends with Deena stabbing Sheriff Good through the eye, thus killing him and ending the curse. The giant, gooey, black heart in the caves shrinks down to nothing. The killers in the mall disintegrate. And Sam is freed from the possession.

If we hadn’t been given a proper conclusion at the end of this trilogy, I’m sure my opinion would have soured on it. Happily, that was not the case. I’ve never read any Fear Street books, or frankly any R.L. Stine at all. By the time those came along, I was already reading the likes of Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Dean Koontz. I’m sure this means that I missed some Easter Eggs throughout. But it also means that I can recommend the Netflix Fear Street Trilogy to anyone, even if they are also unfamiliar with the source material.

All the installments are highly entertaining, with barely an ounce of fat on them. So check them out now or, perhaps even better, add them to your list for Halloween season viewing. It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a new teen slasher flick, and I’m very happy to have now found three of them. Fifteen-year-old me would absolutely approve.

Showdown In Screamtown: Frightful Four & Chilling Championship

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This is it, boys and ghouls!

Only four competitors, and two matches, remain for our semi-finals round.

The monsters who survive those matches will need to step back into the ring tonight so that our champion can be crowned.

Godzilla may be known as King of the Monster, but tonight we’re going to crown the World Heavyweight Champion of Monsters!

SEMI-FINALS MATCH ONE: DRACULA (1) vs PREDATOR (7)

VS

Predator has had some time to lick his wounds or, more accurately, pours that really unpleasant burning powder on them to expedite healing. But Drac, sensing weakness, wastes little time in transforming into Bat-Beast mode, and going right for the jugular (figuratively and literally).

He gets his fangs sunk in, but glowing green blood tastes a bit like the stuff inside of glow sticks to Dracula. This throws the vampire king off his game, allowing the hunter to become an intergalactic Van Helsing.

Predator thrusts his metal wrist-blades into Drac’s chest. Then with two big slashes, he uses the same weapon to take off Dracula’s head, and take his spot in our Main Event,

WINNER: PREDATOR (7)

 

SEMI-FINALS MATCH TWO: THE WOLFMAN (2) vs THE TERMINATOR (6)

VS

Even with just one useful leg and one arm (period) our resident Killing Machine is able to pound the taste out of the Wolfman’s mouth. However, unlike Leatherface, Wolfie heals up almost immediately and goes on the offensive.

The Howling Horror gets right to ripping and tearing wires and hydraulics out of every joint he can find. The cybernetic super punches eventually begin losing the power behind them, and the metal endo-skeleton is soon immobilized and rendered little more than a shiny lawn sculpture.

For the coup de gras, the Wolfman digs into the brain chip slot that has already been scratched and softened up in the previous rounds. Once that little piece of silicon is pulled free, it’s light out for the glowing red eyes of the Terminator. With a mighty howl at the moon, Wolfie charges into the championship match.

WINNER: THE WOLFMAN (2)

 

CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: THE WOLFMAN (2) vs PREDATOR (7)

VS

And now we come to our Main Event! The final clash of terrifying titans that we’ve all been waiting for.

This one gets bloody quickly, soon turning into a true war of attrition. Both beasts scour, stab, and tear with claws, teeth, and blades as the ring becomes a lake of gore. After a ferocious battle, both combatants fall to their knees and drag themselves off to separate corners.

But there’s one thing that Predator didn’t consider. A twist that he should have seen coming: Only silver can kill a werewolf. So the Wolfman heals up, and rises back to his feet.

He doesn’t move in for the kill right away, as even the most bestial of creatures can recognize a worthy adversary. Predator returns the respect, knowing this has been his last hunt. He rises back to his feet, stands on shaky legs, and nods at his opponent. Wolfman dashes across the ring in the blink of an eye, and makes the kill quickly.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE WINNER AND NEWWWWWWWWW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF MONSTERS: THE WOOOOOOOOOLFMAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

I hope you enjoyed reading about this tournament as much as I enjoyed writing it. Maybe I’ll try to come up with something similar in the near-future.

In the meantime, Happy Halloween!

And don’t forget to pick-up my latest novel: What Lies At Baelwood Manor

 

Showdown In Screamtown Round Two: The Evil Eight

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It’s time for our mighty monsters to get back in the ring and square off once again to decide who is the baddest of them all!

This group of eight have survived and advanced through one brutal round, now let’s see if they have enough left to move onto the Frightful Four semi-final round.

MATCH ONE: DRACULA (1) vs THE THING (12)

VS

Top-seeded Dracula hasn’t had easy matchups in this tournament, first having to deal with the interdimensional horror of Pennywise, and now facing off with the cosmic terror of The Thing.

Thingie goes right to trick that helped him upset Jason V in Round One, this time taking on the shape of Drac’s long-dead love Elisabeta (for those who forget, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula the titular bloodsucker is super into Mina Harker because she is the reincarnation of he aforementioned Elisabeta). It’s all for nought, though, as Drac immediately sees through the charade, and he’s pretty pissed at his opponent for taking such a low blow.

The grandaddy of all vampires goes all-out, and starts tearing pieces off The Thing. This, of course, only creates more problems for Drac, as every piece he tears off now attacks him. He ends up reaching deep into his bag of tricks and calls upon the creature of the night in the neighborhood. After all the rats and wolves and owls tote every piece of Thingie out of the arena, Dracula is the one left standing in the ring.

WINNER: DRACULA (1)

 

MATCH TWO: THE WOLFMAN (2) vs PINHEAD (9)

VS

Our resident Cenobite is feeling irrationally confident, considering he defeated a little girl in Round One, but Wolfie doesn’t care about that. Pinhead tried to S&M his opponent to death, but every inflicted wound heals almost instantly.

The Wolfman start pulling every nail out of Pinny’s head with his claws and, suddenly, the match changes from a fight to something far sexier (at least as far as Pinhead is concerned). After turning Pinhead into Plain Old Head, Wolfie starts tearing chunks out of the senior hellraiser’s pale body.

Pinhead is loving every second of it. He’s long ago ceased fighting back and, by the time he’s lying on the ground moaning loudly, covered in blood and….other fluids…the ref stops the match. The ring crew are used to mopping up gore, but they didn’t really sign up for this. So Pinhead is politely, but firmly, asked to leave the arena immediately.

WINNER: THE WOLFMAN (2)

 

MATCH THREE: FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER (3) vs PREDATOR (7)

VS

This match is a completely different affair for both these guys. Predator faces off against the exact opposite of an inquiring scientific mind in The Creature, while Frank himself stands across from an enemy who – being unsure whether The Creature is a worthwhile hunt – doesn’t make the first move.

Eventually, Frankenstein’s Monster snarls and moves in for the attack, leading to Predator going invisible and stabbing away from all angles with his wrist-blades. Frank takes a lot of damage, but he’s able to take it in-stride until he gets his hands on P-Diddy. His tech takes the brunt of the attack, so the invisibility strategy doesn’t last much longer.

Frankie comes at the Big Game Space Hunter like a freight train, making the latter starts wishing that the nuke on his forearm wasn’t banned from the tournament (along with all firearms). Instead, he relies on his superior speed and agility to cut Frank down piece-by-piece. The Creature wants to continue but, seeing that his limbs are no longer functioning, the match is stopped.

WINNER: PREDATOR (7)

 

MATCH FOUR: LEATHERFACE (4) vs THE TERMINATOR (6)

VS

This would have been a quick win for the literal Killing Machine in round one, since a chainsaw isn’t much use against a cyborg. But the acid bath and claw massage that the Alien Queen gave him in Round One has left the T-800 in really rough shape.

Leatherface goes to work on the parts that are already damaged, and saws through the exposed gears and wires on every body part he can get at. With the Terminator on the ground, Leatherface really leans his chainsaw into the slot that hold’s his opponent’s brain chip. This ends up being a mistake for the Texas BBQ Master.

The inexplicably Austrian-accented robot manages to grab Leatherface by the throat with his lone functional hand, and snaps his neck with one good twist. He struggles to his feet, dragging one useless leg behind him, and gets that one remaining hand raised in victory.

WINNER: THE TERMINATOR (6)

 

That leaves our Frightful Four semi-finals bouts looking like this:

Dracula (1) vs Predator (7)

The Wolfman (2) vs The Terminator (6)

Since there’s only a grand total of three matches left, we’ll also cover our Chilling Championship match in the next post.

So tune in then to see who is left standing when the dust settles on the Showdown In Screamtown!

 

 

Showdown In Screamtown Round One: The Satanic Sixteen

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The competitors are in the arena.

The matches have been booked.

The introductions have been made.

The crowd is amped up and ramped up.

So, without further delay, let’s get ready to rumble!

MATCH ONE: DRACULA (1) vs PENNYWISE (16)

VS

A classic match-up of Old School Ghoul versus New School Ghoul. They would appear to be pretty evenly paired as far as physical strength goes, but it doesn’t take long for an old veteran to spot the upstart’s weakness.

The fact is that Pennywise’s power is predicated on fear, which is why he primarily hunts children. So, unless Pennywise can transform into a crucifix or a sunrise, Drac isn’t going to fear him very much.

Without being able to charge up on fear juice, the killer clown is just as doomed against one nosferatu as he was against seven preteens.

WINNER: DRACULA (1)

 

MATCH TWO: THE WOLFMAN (2) vs FRED KRUEGER (15)

VS

If this fight takes place purely in the real world, the Wolfman tears through Kruger as quickly as if the latter were nothing more than the slice of pizza that he resembles. But Fred is canny enough to find a way to take their battle into dreamland, where he’ll have home field advantage.

At this point, though, Fred runs into a similar problem as Pennywise did. He killed children in life and teens in post-life, and he was damn good at it. But Wolfie is a grown-ass man and his subconscious, where Krueger has found much success against insecure pubescents, has a grown-ass monster wolf prowling about in it. Old Freddy Knife-Fingers looses in both realms.

WINNER: THE WOLFMAN (2)

 

MATCH THREE: FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER (3) vs MICHAEL MYERS (14)

VS

Michael is far more aggressive, and has racked up a far greater body count that the Creature over the years. I mean, Frank would rather babysit a little girl than stalk and kill her babysitter and said-babysitter’s school chums.

So the murderous Shatner fanboy would come out swinging…or stabbing, I suppose. He’ll put a bunch of holes in the Creature, but Dr. Frankenstein knows how to construct a damn durable dude. It took a flaming collapsing windmill to put the Creature down once, and they had to explode a whole castle laboratory around him to stop him the second time.

Eventually, Capt. Boltneck will get fed up and toss Michael into the river like he was a little girl picking flowers.

WINNER: FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER (3)

 

MATCH FOUR: LEATHERFACE (4) vs ZOMBIE (13)

VS

In our shortest, and most lopsided, match of the night the zombie hungrily inquires “Brains?” to which Leatherface – thinking the undead a snob for only wanting to eat the caviar of the human body – fires up his chainsaw and promptly turns his opponent into rotten cold cuts.

WINNER: LEATHERFACE (4) 

 

MATCH FIVE: JASON VOORHEES (5) vs THE THING (12)

VS

Neigh-invulnerable and strong as hell, Jason would jump out on The Thing fast early on. He’ll be hacking and slashing his way to an early victory before Thingie figure our how to use his greatest strength to his advantage. In a stunning twist, it’s revealed that The Thing located Pamela Voorhees and absorbed her corpse prior to the match!

Since Jason is not one to chop up mama, he stops his attack. This allows all the pieces that JayJay already hacked off to attack him from all sides, leaving the primary mass of alien ass-kickery to finish the job. And, just like that, we have our first upset of the night!

WINNER: THE THING (12)

 

MATCH SIX: THE TERMINATOR (6) vs ALIEN QUEEN (11)

VS

With guns, the Terminator makes short work of our royal xenomorph. But, as laid out in our previous entry, no guns are allowed here, so the Austrian Android has to get down and dirty in this fight.

Queenie would scrape off much of Schwarzenator’s synthetic flesh with her claws but, as designed, the murder machine will keep coming after her. This one gets nasty, as Queen Xeno gets torn apart limb-from-limb. But she does nearly as much damage to the Terminator as her acid blood burns through flesh and metal alike.

In the end, the Bionic Bludgeoner finishes the job, but he’ll be in really rough shape for Round Two.

WINNER: THE TERMINATOR (6)

 

MATCH SEVEN: PREDATOR (7) vs BRUNDLEFLY (10)

VS

We’re rolling with the half-transformed Brundlefly here, so he’s still got much of his genius intellect intact. While one might think that’s an advantage here, it’s actually quite the opposite. Brundlefly has a very inquisitive mind, hence his ill-fated teleportation experiment, so he wouldn’t be able to resist asking Predator a million questions about his physiology, his homeworld, his likes and hobbies, and so forth.

The only reason Big P waits so long to tear out his opponent’s spine is because he’s not sure whether to actually consider him a threat. Ultimately, he decided that he may die of boredom if this continues, and so he adds a human/fly hybrid to his trophy collection.

WINNER: PREDATOR

 

MATCH EIGHT: REAGAN MACNEIL (8) vs PINHEAD (9)

VS

This is a tricky one because it’s entirely possible that Pazuzu – the demon possessing Reagan – is actually Pinhead’s boss. That aside, both take a keen interest in torturing poor Reagan and, as a result, Pinhead ends up victorious.

WINNER: PINHEAD (9)

And with that, our Round Two match-ups look like this:

Dracula (1) vs The Thing (12)

The Wolfman (2) vs Pinhead (9)

Frankenstein’s Monster (3) vs Predator (7)

Leatherface (4) vs The Terminator (6)

Tune in next time to see the results of Round Two: The Evil Eight!