From Zombos' Closet

Mexican Lobby Card: La Bruja

Movie Review: Final Destination 5 Ode On A Deathly Turn

THOU 5th installment of gory loudness,

Thou oft repeated script of messy deaths in time and time again,

Cinema horror fan, who canst thus express

Such bread and butter tales more bloodily than our rhyme:

What bowel-fringed tissue fragments haunt about thy screen

Round loose heads or flopping appendages, or of both,

In air flying or across floors smearing, outside or in?

What victims are these? What maidens quartered thus?

Which death pursues? What struggle to escape when sequels beckon?

What screams and entrails? What wild ecstatic gore?

 

Seen terminus's are sweet, but those bleeding reddest

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft impalings, gut on;

Not to the sensual eye, but, more endear'd,

Slice to the entrails, tear the eyes, these messy ditties:

Fair youth, beneath the car, thou canst not breath

  Thy song of fear, nor ever can these scenes be fair;

Bold victim, never, never canst thou live,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

You cannot fade, though thou hast not thy stomach nor other bodily parts,

For ever wilt thou die, for Death be not fair!

 

Ah, happy, happy fans! that cannot shed

  Your quest for gore, nor ever bid the grue adieu;

And, happy dramatist, unwearièd,

For ever piping scripts for ever over and over again;

More happy death! more happy, happy death!

For ever breathing warm, and wet, sopped to overflowing,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human misery far above,

That leaves a heart bursting forth, and cloyed over rest,

On burning forehead, a dislodged tongue, or cleaved breast.

 

Who are these critics coming to the sacrifice?

To what film altar, O mysterious critic,

Lead'st thou that review lowing at the tale,

And all its slimey flanks with gorelands drest?

What nestled town by river or sea-shore,

Or home-built citadel in city or temple,

Is emptied of its victims, this pious morn?

And, nestled town, thy streets for evermore

  Will no longer silent be; and not a soul, to tell

    Why thou's art's so desolate, can e'er return,

Till sequel plays havoc once again.

 

O terror shape! fear attitude! with dread

Of creature men and bosomy maidens overwrought,

With frightful branches thick with the trodden bowels;

  Thou, noisome form! dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold tableau!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, to kindle other woe, more

  Than ours, a fiend to all, to whom thou say'st,

'Horror is truth, truth horror,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,

Till the next final destination.

 

by John M. "Keets" Cozzoli

Movie Review: Final Destination 5 (2011) Murder By Death

Zombos Says: Very Good (but no surprises)

First, Final Destination 5 is slick slacks franchise-pressing, albeit drenched in body tissues and glistening blood most of the time. Second, because of this, there are no surprises. I don't recall the take a life, live a life gimmick used before, but everything else is the same: pretty people die horribly, the END. The ways they die is the kicker that brings us back again and again. But for how long?

We all ready know you can't cheat death because Coroner Bludworth (Tony Todd) tells us so in every installment.  But an important question is brought up by Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto). He's the one who sees Death's de facto dire predicament ahead of the appointed departure time and warns everyone. He's confused. Why get a glimpse of doom if you can't change the outcome? My simple answer is it would kill the fun of watching people being mashed, mushed, and medlied in escaltingly convoluted ways. But is that all there is to it? Will Final Destination xx be the same formula setups, the same befuddled victims, and Tony Todd's (hopefully) Coroner Bludworth repeating the same dictum: Death will always crash, crush, spindle, mutilate, and amputate your pajama party? I hope not. That would be worse than death.

A company retreat brings a busload of employees to their rendevous with a bridge collapse. Sam's frantic warning after hearing Dust in the Wind saves his boss (David Koechner) and his friends Molly (Emma Bell), Peter (Miles Fisher), Candice (Ellen Wroe), and Nathan (Arlan Escarpeta). He also saves Isaac (P. J. Byrne), but Isaac is a cretin, not a friend. Seeing the collapsing bridge and how everyone is supposed to die will make gore fans happy. Personally,  I don't think computer- generated gore is as viscerally pleasing as the old fashioned, hand-turned variety because it shows up too 'succinct' on screen, especially with how entrails burst out and splatter. Am I wrong? 

Death's cheekily  improvised ways for gruesomely killing off escapees from the precipitating mayhem are succint also, but Steven Quale manages to build adequate suspense around each personally constructed building-blocks-for-quietus and red herrings by muddling the how of what we all ready know must happen. The imaginatively messy demises include a very spirited gymnastic body split, an acupuncture misadventure, and a laser eye surgery flop-plop-squish I'm sure will annoy medical professionals. Then again, acupuncturists will not be happy, either. I'm sure the very long and rediculously thick needle Isaac pulls--nice big closeup here--out of his chest is definitely not one used by any acupuncturists I know ( or want to). If it's metal fatigue tiring, electricity shorting sparkily, water puddling deeply, wrenches left around carelessly, fan blades whirring ominously, or flames licking closely, Death is sure to capture the anticipated moment.

Since Isaac is a cretin and Sam's boss is a company toadie, we don't care about them much and--yes, I'll admit it--we enjoy watching them die. The piece de resistance is the Buddha bust finale, even if heads really don't easily burst open like watermelons. But Sam and his friends are young, hip, and darn cute. They even act well beyond the needs of Final Destination's Dr. Deadly's Monster Scenes requirements of victimization and terminus. There's a stronger story of desperation waiting to be emancipated in this franchise: and when will Coroner Bludworth make a stand?

Although Final Destination 5 is shown in 3D, I didn't get a strong sense it was entirely shot in 3D. The now standard pointy-objects-jutting-in-your-face are handled on cue, but the strongest dimensional effects are seen in the lengthy opening credits, shattering glass montage. The 3D effects in The Final Destination 4 are better.

Movie Pressbook: Picture Mommy Dead (1966)

Bert I. Gordon strikes again.

Movie Pressbook: The Food of the Gods (1976)

Movie Pressbook: Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

Well behaved kids? Christmas Eve spent in a big dark house? A creepy aunt and an empty nursery? Mysterious, perhaps, but the bigger mystery is why this movie's name was changed to Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?

Faces of Boris Karloff

Finding A Publisher or Agent Part 1 By Scott M. Baker

Author Scott M. Baker concludes his series on writing...

How difficult is it to draft a query letter? And how do I find a publisher or agent to send it to?

First things first. It’s not that difficult to write a query letter. Which is fortunate, because drafting a good query is the most important aspect (next to actually writing the book) of getting published. You may have written the next bestseller, but if you can’t garner enough interest from publishers or literary agents to look at it, your novel/story is just taking up space on your hard drive.

Let me preface this section by stating that there are numerous ways to write a query. Use the format that best works for your work or that you feel most comfortable with. What I’m offering are tips on how I draft mine, and they’ve been successful for me. Also, this format should be used only for fiction. Non-fiction guidelines are much different.

Start out with a brief introduction on how you discovered the publisher/agent. If a published author referred you to them, or if you met this person at a convention and he/she asked you to forward a submission, state that up front. It gives you a foot up to climb out of the slush pile. Otherwise, just say that you discovered them while researching potential publishers/agents, and you wanted to give them the opportunity to review your manuscript.

Next include a brief description of your novel/story. Keep it to one small paragraph, two at most. Make it just long enough to provide a general idea what the work is about and entice the publisher/agent to want to read more. How do you do this? Read a few examples from jacket covers or the back of paperbacks to get an idea. This is the make or break paragraph of the entire query. If you do not immediately snag the interest of a publisher/agent, they’ll throw your letter aside and move on to the next one. You need to get a hook into them so they’ll continue reading.

Your next paragraph has to sell the concept. The publisher/agent will receive hundreds of submissions for romances, murder mysteries, thrillers, animal books, or whatever genre you write in. Your work must stand out. Saying your mother or spouse thought it was terrific will not get you published. Nor will telling them that you’re the next Stephen King or Dan Brown. Publishing is a business, and your work will never make it into print unless you can convince the publisher/agent that it’s perfectly poised to take advantage of a new trend in the market, or brings a new and exciting twist to the genre that has not been seen before.

Follow with a brief paragraph noting what is attached to your e-mail (sample chapters or the entire manuscript), the final word count, and whether the novel/story is available for immediate submission. [NOTE: Don’t query publishers/agents with unfinished stories/novels. Usually they’re only interested in works that are ready for publication.] If your novel is part of a series, state that and, if known, offer an idea when the next book(s) in the series will be available.

Your penultimate paragraph should be about you. What makes you qualified to write this novel/story? Are you a police detective writing about a homicide unit in New York? Were you the victim of an abusive relationship, or a recovering addict, who has fictionalized your life? If you have no specific experiences you can relate to (I’ve never hunted vampires for a living, though I would like to), find a way to make yourself interesting. You’re selling yourself as well as your book.

This is also the paragraph to list your previous writing credits. Don’t list more than three otherwise you’ll look like you’re being pompous. List the most recent works, or those that are most relevant to your query. [NOTE: If you’re writing in a genre in which you don’t have relevant experience, I recommend trying to get several short stories published before you attempt to query on a book. Being able to say that you’ve been previously published bolsters your credentials. I noticed that publishers/agents showed more interest in looking at my novel after I had a few short stories in my bibliography.]

Finally, end with a closing sentence thanking them for their consideration and noting that you look forward to hearing from them.

NEXT: Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent, Part II (some useful tips on writing queries and a sample query letter).

Mexican Lobby Card: The Curse of the Werewolf

Mexican Lobby Card: The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao

The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao is one of those odd movies I find personally engrossing, but would be hard pressed to explain why. Perhaps it's the story mixture of fantasy and Wild West with old school stop motion special effects. 

Mexican Lobby Card: The Leech Woman

Black text and illustration on this pale orange background makes a striking presentation for The Leech Woman.

Mexican Lobby Card: Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers influenced so much of popular cinema, you wonder why they never did a remake and updated the adventure. Yes, I'm ignoring that horrid remake with Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless, with music by Queen (although I liked the music). I'm still waiting for a REAL reimagining and remake. Steampunkers, I direct your attention to the set, prop, and costume design.