Hey suckas,
Man, a lot of you writer people out there have told me a bunch of times that your favorite time to do your writin' is early in the morning. I have no idea how this works.
I guess it could be because I don't drink coffee, and people keep telling me about how this coffee crap is supposed to wake you up in the morning, but I can't figure it out. I haven't had any caffeine in years, and people always ask me how or why I do it.
It's pretty easy, actually. The short answer is that I don't want to feel like shit.
The medium answer is that I really don't feel like having chronic insomnia, persistent anxiety, irritability, depression, stomach ulcers, an irregular heartbeat, increased blood pressure,
serious delirium, hand tremors, headaches... and I'm totally fine without crapping my intestines out on a day-by-day basis.
At any rate, without all this caffeine stuff, I find it next to impossible to write anything before 1:00 p.m. I'm a complete zombie. Most mornings I mistake an alarm clock for my glasses, fart and think I must have left the oven on the night before, shampoo my hair more than three times in the shower (because I keep forgetting that I already have), put clothes on backwards, think I'm somewhere else and have a mild panic attack, crash through my window naked, run down the street, call my neighbor by the wrong name, hijack a garbage truck, drive it through a Sonic, steal the milkshake maker for later, flip off some cops, steal an ambulance, drive to the beach, drive it into the ocean, swim to China, hire a scientist to turn me into a cyborg, jump over a building, train a dog to read, create my own brand of toothpicks, build a spaceship, put myself in cryogenic suspension until I reach another galaxy, stumble into an advanced alien civilization, marry a hot alien chick with four boobs, learn to play the guitar, become the planet's first rock star by performing this awesome "Johnny Be Good" song in an alien high school gymnasium, grow old, come back to Earth, conquer it, and then use that milkshake machine to make this awesome strawberry shake before finally waking up enough to write a blog post.
In all seriousness (because most of that stuff above was a joke... but not the shampoo or four-boobed alien chick), I've noticed myself falling into this weird pattern lately. I wake up, and literally stumble and crash into my dresser unit every morning. I'm not sure if the wood under my floor is crooked or what, but it seems like I crash into that thing every morning. I think it's just from me sleeping really hard after a long night of fighting crime on the streets and dancing at that female strip club. (My stage name is "Lightning Jim" in case any of you ladies are out and about tomorrow night.)
I've decided that the best way to handle this "crashing into stuff" problem is to buy a massive foam-rubber shield and duct-tape it to my furniture. I'll probably re-enforce it with rubber bands and packing tape.
If I have to child-proof my own bedroom for the sake of me not breaking my collar bone on a shelf, how the hell am I supposed to write something coherent in the mornings?
But then again, maybe that's the point.
Anyway, you people didn't come here to hear about my inability to function in the morning, and to be honest, I have no idea why I started writing about it. I guess it's because I just woke up a little while ago and it's fresh on the mind.
It's also because the prostitute made a hilarious joke this morning about how I actually thumb-tacked her money to the giant piece of foam rubber encasing my night stand. It made sense to me, anyway.
Now that we've all had our coffee and woken up, my series of ongoing blog horror continues!!!
Last night I saw one of the coolest horror movies I've seen in years, and I have no choice but to recommend it and urge that you find it and rent it immediately.
I'm going to be honest with you here... it's ridiculously hard for me to write a review about a good movie. I'm so used to writing reviews about movies that are horrible, the first thing I do when sitting down to write is think about all the hilariously bad moments I could talk about.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to do that with this movie. At all.
This thing is good. It's really good.
Trick 'r Treat takes me back to the good 'ole days of horror movies. Sandwiched in between the truly terrifying movies of the 70's like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween... and modern horror movies that rock my socks off like The Descent, The Devil's Backbone and 28 Days Later... was this awesome era of fun horror.
(Editor's note: No, the fun horror era does not include Hollywood's incredibly lame obsession with making PG-13 horror films.)
You know what I'm talking about. They were the movies that had the scares, the gore, the atmosphere and the terror... but were all paired with laughs, campy dialogue and bigger-than-life characters. A lot of times they were these awesome creature features. Whatever they were, they were fun as hell. Extremely fun to watch.
List a few off... Child's Play, Critters, Troll, Fright Night, The Lost Boys, Gremlins, Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Creeps, Re-Animator, Evil Dead II, Dead Alive, Leprechaun, Tremors, Creepshow and even Jason Lives: Friday the 13th part VI.
While there have been more than a few horror films centered around Halloween, this one really stands out.
Wait, hold up, side note: If you're reading this right now and refuse to call John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween a masterpiece, then you've just tripped the wire, my friend. If you'll look down right now, you'll notice that you've stepped on a landmine, and any second there's gonna be some kind of gigantic spiked boulder smashing through the window while you're covered in gasoline and set on fire by the magnifying glass currently burning a hole through your shirt.
"But Matt," you might say, "I'm a super hot chick and right now I'm not wearing a shirt!" Well, that's totally forgivable. You can say whatever you want about Halloween, as long as you say it in the comfort of my apartment later this evening over some wine and candles that smell like chocolate chip cookies.
Anyway, aside from John Carpenter's masterpiece, Trick 'r Treat really stands out from the rest.
For starters, this thing is absolutely original. Rather than focusing on one terrifying creature, man, alien or runaway shopping cart, this film puts the entire night in focus. This movie is about Halloween and its important rules. ... And it's smart.
Just when you put on your "I'm gonna love making fun of this crap" hat, this movie will bitch slap that hat off your head. You really can't make fun of it, because it already makes fun of itself.
Then you'll be totally confused and reach for the "well, I might not be able to make fun of it, but I can still predict every detail of this crap because I've seen this kind of thing before" hat.
Well, I've got news for you, bud, I'd probably think twice about wearing that, because this film has a killer right hook. At least take a bathroom break and think it over first. No, drinking more beer won't help at all. You should take that hat off before this movie really gets mad.
Oh, what's that, Trick 'r Treat? Oh really?
Well, the movie just told me that if you don't take off that hat, you're entering into a world of pain. If you think you can predict what happens in this movie, Trick 'r Treat just told me to tell you that "it's gonna 'C' 'U' in the I.C.U."
Anyway, I could throw out a bunch of stuff here to tell you about the highly original plot or how wonderfully it's shot, or how impressive the script is or how impressive the structure of the movie is laid out... but I'll let you take all that in when you sit down to watch it.
It's the best new horror film of its kind that I've seen this year, by a mile. And actually... if you made a specific "fun horror movie" category, it's the best I've seen this decade. (However, I haven't seen Drag Me to Hell yet, and the close second place goes to Slither, which was awesome.)
So when you get the urge to scope out a spooky movie for Halloween this year, get the total package. This movie's got the laughs, the gore, the scares and the wonderful atmosphere... while being smart as hell.
Now I'm off to finish foam-rubbering my kitchen. It's going to be a late night tonight, and the last thing I need is to stumble into some paper towel holder, microwave oven or gigantic butcher knife rack in the morning.
And before you go, ladies... your money is tacked to the ingeniously well-protected coffee table.
My shins can take a beating at 8:00 a.m. if I don't take precautions.
Carving my jack-o-lantern to avoid a gory death,
-McClane
