Jacob Kelly's Funeralopolis Vol. 3 Issue 1: Slip Inside This House

The Griggs House

16 years in the making. After a disastrous stint in big budget filmmaking Eli Roth has returned to a smaller more intimate passion project. Ultimately, what should be a throwback does feel a bit new school. Does the original torture porn King still have the tools? Our first trip is to The Griggs House. Finally, a little back story to the infamous house from The Man in the Maze, which exists somewhere between reality, popular fiction and the mind.

Those Bad Guys at Blumhouse

Assayas's Desert of the Real

The Fear and Cowardice Tour

Next up, a place we never like to stay: Blumhouse. Set up by the evil businessman Jason Blum at the turn of the century and quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen to horror. We take a look back at their slate of films from 2023. This commercial powerhouse continues to water down classic horror movies for the widest possible audience with no care for their actual output. Money, money, money. Business as usual. However, out of their 7 efforts, I must congratulate them on managing a single decent one. Still, that's worse than a Golden Sombrero. A horn as the baseball Mike Flanagan would say. And yet business is booming for the bastard. We lose.

It's about time this rag tag magazine got its act together. Enter The Highwayman, a real fucking critic. An unheard of thing in these ends. Call her the keeper of keys, the fixer, the cleaner. She's here to put a stop once and for all to the amateur antics of Funeralopolis. She's going to take us from The Bush leagues to the Majors. She will be keeping this place in line and making sure things don't get out of hand. For all intents and purposes, she's the boss. The Roberta to my Michael Findlay. The Michelle Clifford to my Bill Landis. Good to have you on board Mrs Funeralopolis. Her first review will be of Demonlover Check out of Blumhouse and journey across Assayas's Desert of the Real.

Oh, got to keep your appointment with the village idiot. Zack Snyders back in town. Hollywood's very own Leni Riefenstahl. Except, this would be giving him too much credit to say its intentional. He's more of an accidental fascist. How does one become an accidental fascist? It baffles us every day. Here's a review of his latest, Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire. Essentially a sci-fi rehash of Seven Samurai as though George Lucas never thought of putting Kurosawa in space. Afterwards, a space western of my own that serves as a straight sequel to The Happening. An unknown vehicle, known only as, "The Slicer", has broken out of Area 51 and is tearing across the country with an unclear destination as the world watches and tries to make sense of the occasion. Who is the unnamed driver and where is he heading? Place your bets now.

You might get what you're after

Before even mentioning whether Eli Roth's latest Thanksgiving is a good movie, we must first admire the career decision at play here. The doomed video game adaptation Borderlands began production back in April 2021 with Roth on board set to make his first big blockbuster with a budget estimated around $100 million. After some seriously poor test screenings, the initial release date was rescheduled and 2 weeks worth of reshoots were planned back in January 2023 with Tim Miller stepping in to the director's chair to finish the movie.

In spite of the blatant chaos, Roth has continued to remain on good terms with Lionsgate and has shown no hostility towards anyone involved. Reshoots are not necessarily a bad sign but taking nearly 3 years to complete production is not a good one. There isn't much way of excusing that part and it's not like the trailer, which has finally seen the light of day, has done anything to convince us otherwise of this whole project being a shitstorm. Evidently, it wants to be James Gunn but unfortunately it looks more like David Ayer.

Borderlands has all the signs of an auteurs lost battle with a studio and its sad to see. It is all the more tragic in that the studio, Lionsgate, were the studio behind Saw and to see them not supporting one of torture porns main players, Eli Roth, is in Funeralopolis's eyes deeply disrespectful. Bringing in a loser like Tim Miller too is like cleaning your toilet bowl with shit. It only adds to the problem! Do Lionsgate not know how to play the game by now? Rule number one. When things go wrong, you just call the fixer. The Ray Donovan of the film industry. The Mike Ehrmantraut. I refer to Stuart Baird. There's not a problem that he can't fix and he can do it in the mix.

Cannot praise Lionsgate's thinking on this one but we can completely understand Eli Roth's logic. What do you as a director when you make it to the big time and it all goes wrong? What do you do when you lose all your power and identity? You go back to square one and you make something small and intimate where you can regain that sense of control.

The Griggs House

After selling your soul to Hollywood, there's only one thing for it: personal filmmaking. You have to go back to your origins, which for Eli Roth is undoubtedly the horror genre. What better way to do that than to return to a mock trailer you made about 16 years ago and promised to make a feature for but never did? The fact he promised it for years and then went and did it in the short space of a few weeks is true exploitation filmmaking that we salute.

Originally, the mock trailer was sandwiched in between Planet Terror and Death Proof as part of Grindhouse Envisioned as a recreation of a night at one of the 42nd Street cinemas back in the late '70s and early '80s. Before, that prick Giuliani came and knocked them all down to build Disney shops, under this false guise of removing all the sleazy activities, but really just to bring in children because he is as Borat 2 proved, a god damn fucking nonce.

Therefore, it remains one of the saddest experiments in the history of cinema that Tarantino and Rodriguez aimed to bring back that kind of experience to a new generation of film goers but the whole concept of a double bill with scratched reels now is so forgotten about that it was completely lost on audiences and financially it proved to be a massive failure for The Weinstein Company. Not that we want to see old Harvey getting any more money but imagine a world where every year we got Grindhouse movies with two directors going back 2 back. Supposedly, the sequel was meant to be Edgar Wright and Eli Roth expanding on their shorts but it never came to fruition.

If Grindhouse's failure proves anything, it is that the whole history of exploitation filmmaking seems to have been erased from culture overnight. Now either you want exploitation back or you want to know more about it. Let me explain something real simple to you. Your father, he tells you to say your prayers. He tucks you in, warm within, keeps you from sin. Til The Funeralopolis comes! Welcome back for Volume 3!

Eli Roth's mock trailer of Thanksgiving is now considered a minor classic and is best known for nailing down the warped near psychedelic late night other worldly feeling of an exploitation film in both visual aesthetic and absurd tone. Who can forget the classic shot of the knife going through the trampoline and penetrating the vagina? The classic line where super cop Michael Biehn shows off his detective work by dipping his fingers in a red pool next to a dead body, licking his lips and confirms to us all, "it's blood"? The classic scene where the turkey comes out and yeah I don’t know what the fuck is going on there? Along with Astron 6s You're Dead, that infamous mock trailer is just about the only thing today you could mistake as being a once lost and rediscovered gem from the grindhouse era.

I guess shot compositions (the trampoline sequence looks different) and the actors in feature length years later were always going to be different (No Biehns on toast but we do have the recently voted sexiest man on the planet, Dempsey) but has too much been lost in the conversion? What we have here is a real battle between old school and new school genre filmmaking. New additions include a bland glossy make over (which really takes away from the mock trailers charming dishevelled appearance with the intentional scratches) and the incorporation of millennial satire. The former is disappointing but to be expected and the latter is always going to raise some eyebrows in the potential for embarrassment.

Whilst the satire doesn't have anything to match the memorable haunting and cursed image from the underrated Knock, Knock of Keanu Reeves buried in the grass with his head is sticking out and accidentally liking his own Facebook sex tape post, it's easily better than anything Scream has offered this side of Wes Craven's untimely departure. Having said that, there was this one worrying moment in the film when I thought they were going to make the one guy taking a sabbatical from social media the killer but thankfully it was only a red herring. Punishing the guy for getting offline for five minutes would have been too cruel and a bad message for the kids.

As for the whole look and sound of the film, this side is very disappointing and lazy given how much effort was spent on that for the short. Give me the poor lighting, mismatched audio, the shoddy editing and scratches. Perhaps, I need to buy a copy of the DVD version then maybe drum Phil Collins's In the Air Tonight solo on the disc with a pair of scissors a few times. That ought to take care of that problem.

The infamous torture porn King does have a few tricks up his sleeve such as using the history of Plymouth, Massachusetts, as a means to comment on America's complicated colonising history and his home state of Boston. Exactly the kind of personal filmmaking required after that horrific blockbuster experience. Every horror movie needs a good villain with particular killing tools and identity concealers, so the use of the creepy John Carver mask is the work of a genre expert. That has all the makings of being iconic in the years to come.

Roth's best mate and secret weapon, Rick Hoffman, is as hilarious as you'd expect if a tad underused. Soon as I saw his face in the new trailer for feature as the final shot, I was trembling with fear. Roth knew what he was doing with that little jump scare. He needs to be in more films him. Big Hoffman fans round here. We rate a guy that can do a lot with a little. A cameo master. Me and the boys still talk about his Oscar deserving performance in Hostel, in which he plays an overly enthusiastic torturer contemplating which twisted methods to use on his victim.

Throughout the entire movie, I was itching to see what happens in the much hyped family dinner scene. Horror fans will know there's some real standards for that. Stern competition that has gone unmatched since 1974. The mock trailer suggested the potential for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre levels of manic and surreal. Brings me no joy to say that the actual scene in the feature version is kind of flat, tame and well...somewhat boring. It's missing the what the fuck factor of the mock trailer. Loses the humour for some half arsed social media satire that quite frankly isn't worth the change.

This decision summarises a lot of the flaws of the movie in that it sacrifices the throwback fun for stabs at modern relevancy. Not necessarily a bad decision to for something of substance but when it isn't particularly effective and occasionally comes at a cost of the classic appeal, I question the point. However, unlike most modern slashers the meaning, purpose and fresh weight doesn't completely tarnish the body of the film structurally. It's still very much a slasher that stays consistently intact and behaves for the most part as it should. The big question then: is Roth to be credited for playing the modern game and doing a respectable job or should we disappointed that the visual aesthetic is a lot lazier, the humour isn't quite as manic, depraved, surreal or even trippy? You tell me, buster.

Can we really praise a once brilliant artist (and I say that with no irony intended, if 9/11 and its violent aftermath of civil rights violations of middle eastern citizens was the most significant event of the 2000s and Hostel is where the public consciousness of the era is most reflected on the screen, then Eli Roth is one of the most important directors of that decade) for slipping in to being a bit of a routine craftsman? Then again, this is so clearly made with such refreshingly personal love towards his home state that it can't be ruled as not being the work of an auteur. Can we forgive Eli just for having a bit of fun (the opening riot scene is nothing if not that) after a no doubt calamitous production on Borderlands and just getting himself out of film jail with something quick and easy? You can never underestimate the importance of fighting for survival in the capitalist industry that doesn't even support its own artists. Even the greatest of directors like Scorsese and Peckinpah have had to pull out some mad mind games now and then to stay afloat. It's a tough business.

When all is said and done, Thanksgiving is clearly an above average entry in the slasher genre. Not going to dispute it. Yet, it's no match for Ti West's X. That's the top of the class right now and despite being able to keep up with the majority of the slasher filmmakers, we have to admit Mr Roth is no longer a front runner like he was with his groundbreaking torture porn, body horror and hygienist films he burst on to the scene with. I'm trying my best not to be negative about Thanksgiving because in comparison with the low standards today, it's a real blessing and in its own right a good movie. Regardless, I can't hide my disappointment in the blatant lack of style.

Where's the guy that gave me Angelo Badalamenti whilst a bunch of hillbillies hunt down some teenagers, creating some of the finest Southern dread since Deliverance? What happened to him? I want the Eli Roth that pissed the critics off. Not the one who was praised by them. I want the Eli Roth that impressed Tarantino. I want the Eli Roth that blew Peter Jackson away so badly he stopped filming Lord of the Rings for a day to show the entire cast the next step for horror. If we can't find him in the present, then maybe we need to go back...

The world is recovering from the worst financial crash since the economic depression. My parents are still taking a hit on the loans needed to be paid back from the unexpectedly long time that was required to sell the old house in Manchester. An unstable economy is the last thing they would have wanted. These are times only John Steinbeck could have found the poetry in. The year is 2010.

Two young boys recently acquainted are discovering the music that would originally bring them together. The music of hip hop. Boom Bap is the bible. Rappening is what's happening. Uneducated but gifted teenagers are hoisted up on a pedestal and expected to behave like saints. Their violent and appalling but beautifully crafted lyricism is our gateway into another world far from our own. We are voyeurs seeking dangerous thrills our safe town cannot provide.

Homophobia is disturbingly ignored and the subject of rampant misogyny merely provides great amusement. These boys should know better but the truth is they do not. Naturally, it goes without saying they know little of the financial problems prevailing. To them it is summer and the only thing that matters is seeking that which should not be sought: Hip hop, horror films and Heineken.

This story does not start with some kids on bikes riding out to some '70s stoner anthem like Hawkwind's Orgone Accumulator. This story does not feature kids that build a tree house in the woods. This story is not set in Bangor, Maine. Although, West Kirby does have a few similarities in being a seaside town. This story does not have a plot about a bunch of kids seeking out a dead body. Yet, it does in its own way involve the search for the sick. No doo wop, just hip hop. Doggystyle and The Chronic are continuously pumping out. Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and James Wan are considered Kings to those who appreciate them. It goes without saying, every day is Dre Day out here.

We enter into this world via an outside garden. "You're back now at the jackoff hour, this is DJ EZ Dick. On WBalls, right now, somethin' new by Snoop Doggy Dogg. And this one goes out to the ladies, from all the guys. A big bow-wow-wow 'cause we gon' make it a little misty here tonight. This is DJ EZ Dick, on the station that slaps you across your fat ass, with a fat dick". Balthazar sits in a deck chair adjusting the speaker. Kelly is munching on a red hot burger only moments ago taken off the barbecue by Balthazar's father, Mr Marie. "So you got any more films for me?", asks Mr Marie. "Yeah. Man On Fire with Denzel", I say. "Denzel Washington? What a fine actor of the screen", states Mr Marie. I couldn't help but agree. "Well, apart from that God awful one Johnny D showed us last week at his", I add. "That's got the worst twist in I've ever seen. That one's beyond M. Night Shyamalan", retorts Balthazar. "Which ones this?", asks Mr Marie. "The Book of Eli. He goes on some epic quest and it turns out he's blind the whole time", I mention. "What a load of nonsense", throws in Balthazar. "Yeah, total nonsense", I agree.

After the barbecue we are left to listen to what we've been waiting to hear. Ice Cube's latest album, 'I Am The West'. Something of a late career nothing event to pretty much everyone else with any sense but to these two budding hip hop heads, it's the sound of the summer. "I've got more bars than the penitentiary, I wrote this shit without a rhyme dictionary", Ice Cube informs us. He is the west. We hang on his every word. Once, we've taken in this fine masterpiece of an album for the third time, we agree to go our separate ways and meet up tomorrow.

I slip my headphones in on my blue Ipod Nano and am greeted by the welcoming voice of Eric Wright, popularly known as Eazy E, who sings, "Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Cruisin' down the street in my 64". I put one foot in front of the other, showcasing the Kelly wheels, which continue to be a firm and reliable method of transport even after all these years: his legs. "It's like that and it's like this. I took her to the pad and we started to kiss. Now my dick's on hard, you know what I'm thinkin'". I smiled along as though I knew exactly what he was thinking. Eric, you're a genius. "Took the panties off and this pussy wasn't stinkin'. Pulled off the drawers and we started to begin. Now the pussys wet so my dick slides in" Tell me more, Eric!

Women didn't really exist at this age for us. They were more like a distant creature yet to be understood. A wild beast yet to be tamed. But there were rumours you could get yourself one of these things. Walk around with them in parks, take them shopping, that kind of thing. Yet, we were too distracted by Denzel Washington movies, Nirvana, pizza, minute quantities of alcohol and wrestling. Just the good shit. You could call us late bloomers. But we would make up for that... eventually.

When I turned up that evening to Balthazar's house, we were joined by the other members of our gang, Big G, Obie Trice, Johnny D, December '63, Shoeless Shawcross, SeeSaw, and Norman. Barely through the door and ODB's Shimmy Shimmy Ya is blaring and Big G is showing off his skills, downing a beer bong in one. He makes it look easy. He refills it and hands it to me. I forget how gravity works. I pour the damn thing too vertically and the weight of the bottom tips everything down my shirt. An action that is met with several jeers that are only interrupted when Big G gets Obie Trice in a headlock and RKO's him off the sofa. I pass the beer bong on and pretend it never happened.

The first movie on the cards is Shogun Assassin "Look at that boob there, guys. That's the best boob we're going to see all night", says Norman. He is not wrong. Each passing boob is weirder than the last as we reel in disgust at hairy breasts and mockingly yell at the screen but know full well we'd suck on all of them given half the chance. There's a carefully selected run of films, all handpicked based on IMDb parents' guide notoriety. Tokyo Gore Police shows us horrors we have never seen before and will never see again. Tartan Asian Extreme has us covered, showing us some sick twisted perverse thrills and perhaps not the best representation of the continent. But what the fuck did we care? We wanted the extreme, we wanted what our parents told us we couldn't have and we wanted it now.

It only takes a few more beers for us to make our way to the tent outside and to pass out. I barely even make it in to the sleeping bag. I'd already made a fool of myself by trying to eat a cactus and speaking utter gibberish about Denzel Washington being the mightiest thespian to walk the land. This is all I remember before the blackness comes in and my face plants the floor. My night is over.

When I awake the next morning, everyone is set up with a full English and all prepared for a double bill of REC 2 and The Descent. Horror round the clock, no breaks. "There has to be something that is the heaviest thing known to man. Too heavy for public consumption, right?", I ask. "We'll find it", answers Balthazar. Afterwards, Johnny D lends me a copy of a much loved video game Portal 2 and I spend the last of my money on a 2 litre bottle of Dr Pepper before heading back to my own house. The next day I go to work, controller in one hand, Dr Pepper in the other, I have the game pretty much completed in no time.

"Who's turn is it for camping anyway?", I ask Balthazar with the phone tightly pressed against my ear. "I believe it's yours", he answers. Turns out it's my week to host and so I get the garden all set up and ready. I wire up an extension cable so we can get a television rigged up outside. Tonight's double bill: Boogie Nights and Evil Dead 2. Beverages are limited and will not come out until after midnight when the parents are asleep. Late night conversation turns to an old abandoned house. One side road from China Farm Lane, a minor walk and you're there. What she looks like now I couldn't tell you, I've not been down that dirt path in many years but I still remember our visit one afternoon. Everybody has an abandoned house story and this is ours.

Some rumours. Some bullshit. We each tell the story of what we know about the abandoned house just off China Farm Lane. "It's registered to a guy named Jack Griggs". "How can it be registered to anybody if it's abandoned, you thick cunt?". "It is registered to him, my Dad works for an estate agents, he's seen the papers, dickhead" "That wouldn't be Old Man Griggs, right?" "Who's Old Man Griggs?". "You don't know Old Man Griggs?"

An old radio sits on a low lying tree stump. Aretha Franklin can be heard pumping out. "This was the land that he worked by hand. It was the dream of an upright man. There was the room that was filled with love. It was a love that I was proud of. This was a life of a love that he planned. On the love, the same old love". A few yards away Jack Griggs is chopping up logs and smoking on a Chesterfield. Just an ordinary man, if anything too ordinary. Too quiet. Too cold. Too disengaged. He hears all conversations and he never contributes. This is how he blends in.

He worked down at the Albert Docks. He did not love his job but he didn't have much of an opinion on anything. It simply paid and he simply existed. Once considered a steady job but with the unwanted shift from casualism to containerisation people were starting to be laid off in serious numbers. Essentially, between 1947 to 1989, the jobs of the registered workers were protected by National Dock Labour Scheme but once the new handling methods and equipment were phased in, this went out the window being replaced by standardisation. For poor folks without training in the changing world it was bye-bye. Competition substituted in for collectivism. And so went the spirit of solidarity. Replaced by cold isolation. The year is 1983.

Grigg's job had been used to support a family of four. When that went so did his little grip on sanity. He started by preying on the drunks that stray from the beaten path. Many evenings were spent in the legendary Liverpool nightclub, The State, listening to endless hours of cheesy synthpop and eyeing out potential new targets. "The grabbing hands grab all they can. Everything counts in large amounts. The grabbing hands grab all they can. Everything counts in large amounts", sung Martin Gore and a bevy of drunken women with atrocious voices that should never have made it passed the shower stage.

Waking up one morning, he realised he was caught in clubland and murder. He scanned his bedroom, gazing at the evidence of last night's mysteries. "Clothes and records on the floor. The memories of the night before. Out in club land having fun. And now I'm hiding from the sun. Waiting for a visitor. Though no-one knows I'm here for sure". Conversation with his wife had been reduced the occasional grunt and nod. His relationship with kids was non-existent. He preferred talking to his young women he repeatedly kidnapped and killed.

Down in the kitchen he sees an untouched ready meal his wife must have left for him. He picks it up and puts it in to the trusted rusty microwave. As he does, he thinks to himself, "I think it's time to cook a meal. To fill the emptiness I feel. Spend my money going out. I've nothing in I'm left without. Clean my teeth and comb my hair. And look for something new to wear. And start the night life over again. And kid myself I'm having fun"

Eventually, his wife began to suspect something and that's when he really snapped. One night he crawled in to bed with her whilst she was asleep and strangled her way beyond her final breath. His expression remained completely neutral as he maintained his grip. His heartbeat never went above 70. Straight after, he casually slipped in to his children's shared bedrooms and took care of them too.

When the police finally came to investigate the obnoxious smells reported by locals as they passed by, Jack Griggs was found sat on his bed in his room just to the left of the stairs. According to the first officers on the scene, he was singing to himself, "Give me time to realise my crime. Let me love and steal. I have danced inside your eyes. How can I be real?". The Grigg's House had been abandoned ever since, nobody wanted anything to do with the place after all the stories came out.

"Bullshit", calls out Balthazar. She Watches Channel Zero by Public Enemy roars on in the background. "Na, na. I heard he stabbed the kids 42 times and then sliced his own cock with a rusty tin opener", countered Obie Trice. "Now, come on, why would he do that?", followed up Balthazar. "What did he do with the bodies?", asked Shoeless Shawcross. "Basement", Big G quickly responded. "I don't buy that. That house is surrounded by a bit of land. They'll be in the fields. That's what I would do", I suggested.

It was agreed that just Balthazar and I would do a reconnaissance mission. We would go down and check the place out from the outside. Look for structural weak points that could allow us to enter the abandoned property. As we walked down the dirt path that led to the house, I thought of the murders that could have taken place round here and as I did Mudhoney's Touch Me I'm Sick blasted over all the images that came to my mind. To test the noise but mainly for a bit of fun we threw some rocks through the top windows. The front door was completely locked and the bottom windows boarded up but after about 20 minutes we found our way in. One of the wooden panels was slightly loose, given a few tools it could be pulled apart. Following a successful mission, we were ready to return to the boys with our findings but I got a bit carried away and decided to throw one more stone through a window for good measure. When this was returned with a scream of "Oi!" somewhere in the distance, we grinned at each other and decided to get out of there sharp.

"Callin' from the fun house, yeah Yeah, I came to play and I mean to play around. Yeah, I came to play and I mean to play real good. Yeah, I came to play Oh. Alright, hey, lemme in!", rambled an irate Iggy on the speakers. We were all gathered at Balthazar's place to discuss with the rest of the gang when we would be exploring the abandoned house to reveal its secrets. It was to be next Saturday evening. SeeSaw would bring a torch. Balthazar a screwdriver and pliers. And December '63 would provide all the beers he could get hold of (which turned out to be disappointing 3 cans between us all).

"Higher worlds that you uncover. Light the path you want to roam. You compare there and discover. You won't need a shell of foam. Twice born gypsies care and keep. The nowhere of their former home. They slip inside this house as they pass by. Slip inside this house as you pass by", blasted out 13th Floor Elevators on my portable speaker as we waltzed on down the path to the abandoned house. We cracked open the cans and passed them round. When we were close enough, I turned off the speaker to minimise the noise until we were inside.

Balthazar pulled the screwdriver and pliers out his pockets and set about working us an entrance in the house. As he did so, we waited eagerly. Norman kept watch on the path for any passersby. "In every dream home a heartache. And every step I take Takes me further from heaven". It would be years before the housing and cost of living crisis would really impact us but it seems interesting that here we were as kids trying to break in to a home even before we were dubbed the rent generation. Did we know on some level the struggles we'd have down the line trying to secure one? Was this surreal escapade just a trial run at what life would be like for the future?

Once the wooden panel had been carefully removed, the window still had to be smashed. I did the honours. Big G, who as you may tell was no small man, was notoriously clumsy and nearly guillotined himself on a shard of glass still lodged in at the top of the window frame. He must have left with a slice on him somewhere or other. "Is there a heaven? I'd like to think so. Standards of living. They're rising daily. But home oh sweet home. It's only a saying...".

Having saved Big G from narrow decapitation, I get my first real look at the place. We appeared to be in what was once the living room. Needles scatter the floors. Nearly as many as Amanda had to crawl through to find a key in Saw 2. Blood stains are smeared across the wall. This was a real kind of horror and one that made even less sense to us than the paranormal we'd seen in the movies. It began to settle in that maybe we weren't alone in the house. "From bell push to faucet. In smart town apartment. The cottage is pretty. The main house a palace. Penthouse perfection. But what goes on. What to do there. Better pray there".

To us any squatters could well have been zombies. At that age what was the difference? Our minds filled in the blanks of whatever we didn't know. Who would be brave enough to open the first door? Since SeeSaw had the flashlight, we all agreed it had to be him. The regret was all over his face. We all stood behind him an edged towards the living room door, sliding through to the main hall one by one. "Open plan living. Bungalow ranch style. All of its comforts. Seem so essential. I bought you mail order. My plain wrapper baby. Your skin is like vinyl. The perfect companion. You float my new pool. Deluxe and delightful".

The stairs lay ahead of us and we each whispered to the person behind us that's where we going. Everyone tried their best not to bump in to the man in front of them but in the pitch black it was near impossible and so we all ended up looking like we were on the front cover of Madness's One Step Beyond. The minute beam of the flashlight was our only guide. I feel a slight scratch on my fingers, so I pull back off the stairs handrail, there is a small marking carved in it that looks like a circle maze. "Inflatable doll. My role is to serve you. Disposable darling. Can't throw you away now. Immortal and life size. My breath is inside you". We were all thinking the same thing, don't let my foot go through a hole in the stairs.

Everybody suddenly freezes. My eyes drift from the graffiti on the walls reading, "Hail Glasdou" and over to where the group's eyes are locked in on. The door at the top of the stairs, was it beginning to slowly open? Was it a figment of our imagination? I don't remember who first made the decision to turn and run but soon enough we were all darting back out the way we came. "I'll dress you up daily. And keep you till death sighs"

Back out the broken window, careful not to guilotine Big G again. We'd barely got the troop out before we had to run again. A car pulls up outside the front of the house. The back garden was the only option. We sprinted in to the fields. Can farmers shoot you in the UK? "Inflatable doll. Lover ungrateful. I blew up your body. But you blew my mind!". I ran until my muscles began to loosen and my strides widened with hope, I ran until I exhaled fire and my arms soared through the air like roaring blades, then I ran some more.

As I turned round, I saw the notoriously clumsy Big G, stuck on the barbed wire fence I had only moments ago leaped over. Behind him were two cops. They rugby tackled him to the ground. Those damn dirty pigs. We had a man down. And where I come from, you don't leave your man behind. I decide to stop and call back the others. The pursuit came to its end. We were done. It was all over.

Cue The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals. "See, when something like this happens, You know how things are gonna work out. As much as we liked him, the yank Shoeless Shawcross, he wasn't one of us. He wasn't a Wirral head. As far as we knew, he could have talked. Otherwise, Shoeless might still be alive. The first one to skip was Obie Trice. He found a nice, warm, secluded place in Costa Rica. He thought nobody would find him there". Gunshots ring out. "But then his kid got nabbed by the Feds for drugs. So, naturally, the bosses were afraid he'd come out of hiding just to save his kid and give them all up. So..." More gunshots. "But, anyway, they all had to follow. Everybody went down. Before you knew it, anybody who knew anything wound up gettin' whacked". Trigger a cacophony of gunshots and groaning.

In actuality, nothing really happened. The cops just asked us a few questions of how we got in and we mentioned how the wooden board was loose when we arrived. Thankfully, Balthazar had ditched his tools in the field when he had the chance so there was no possibility of that coming back on us. My mind drifts back to those weekends spent watching nasty horror movies, listening to hip hop and first discovering the lifelong obsession with beer. The search for the sick. Sometimes, I try to recreate those times with late night movies, pizza and beers. Nothing fully comes close to the feeling but many years later when I discovered Joe Bob Briggs and The Last Drive In that came pretty close. Come Monday morning after the brushing up close with the long dick of the law, we didn't see the inside of the cells but somewhere far worse, school. Summer was officially over...

"This is the final boarding call for flight 1259. Departing from Los Angeles final destination to St. Louis. Thank you". Finally, when the bell rings and I get out the school yard at half 3, Balthazar is standing there proudly brandishing a copy of Cannibal Holocaust saying he's found it. The heaviest of the heaviest. Too heavy for public consumption. The uncut kick that opens out instead of narrowing down like junk. Kick is seeing things from a different angle. Kick is momentary freedom from the claims of aging, cautious, nagging, frightened flesh. Maybe I would find in Cannibal Holocaust what I was looking for in my trash experimentations. Cannibal Holocaust may be the final fix...

Thanksgiving Overall Rating: 3.5/5

1 Insidious: The Red Door

Those Bad Guys at Blumhouse

Perhaps the most iconic aspect of Funeralopolis and a continuous joke that is brought up amongst its readers is the zines ongoing battle with the state of modern horror. Naturally, Blumhouse is a regular fixture in the debate, which round here is considered a poor substitute to the golden days of American International Pictures, New World Pictures, Troma and Full Moon Features. However, it seems somewhat appropriate and downright fitting to begin with Insidious: The Red Door, since the first film released back in 2010 is in many ways the beginning of the end when it comes to horror.

The 2000s is characterised in horror by a steady stream of torture porn, new French extremism and those adequately nasty studio remakes. We're dealing with some of the goriest films ever made and they are so because they actually have some pretty solid budgets to back them too. Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and James Wan are the three kings and the critics hate their pictures with a passion. Then all of a sudden, James Wan decides to do the one thing you probably never should in horror, listen to the majority of critics. His vision for the future of horror is to keep it at studio level but water down the violence for a more family oriented violence using films such as Poltergeist and The Omen as the framework. Commercial being key over artistic exploration. What a fucking loser. Instead of the great Saw, we get the completely average Insidious and in turn James Wan shifts from being a hero to Funeraloplis to its greatest villain like infamous sand hater Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith

Of course, the original Insidious will have its defenders. To some extent, I myself can respect any trendsetter no matter how annoying and repetitive the eventual later films. Unfortunately, too much of the defence of Insidious centres purely around nostalgia and there's very little actually worth celebrating outside of that. I can literally hear the people of my generation being like come on it was pretty harmless! Sadly, you can trace every problem today with horror back to Insidious. At the time it was deemed a breath of fresh air amongst the violence on screen during the 2000s and proved immensely popular. Whilst, I can admit those were some truly violent times in movies, what we lost is far worse. As extreme as the 2000s horror got, they had far more to unpackage about national trauma and xenophobia post-911 than anything the 2010s lighter family friendly commercial horror such as Insidious, The Conjuring and all their rip offs have to say about individual grief. When operating at its best, horror has always been considered the national nightmare so why in recent times has it shifted in to functioning at such a singular level? Why did we allow the scope to shrink? Why did we give in to appeasing the critics?

Here we are many years later receiving the fifth film of the franchise. I guess for those who haven't seen it, the question on everyone's lips is can series regular Patrick Wilson steer the ship towards something more respectable? Genuinely, there is something strangely likeable about one of its own taking the helms of the series, holding himself responsible and opting to take control from the director's chair in a purely auteur sense. He's surprisingly committed here and you can really feel the enthusiasm. It's easy to approve of the boldness too with making the decision of abandoning the detours of the previous films and putting the emphasis back on the father and son relationship this series began with. He even goes as far as to bring back the now fully grown Ty Simpkins. Dead or damaged parents is common territory in modern horror but what The Red Door strives for in being this metaphor for generational abuse and fatherhood has a greater depth at least in ambition than the current standard. Wilson doesn't do enough to suggest his themes in a more abstract sense and kind of wastes the further, much like every other film in the franchise. Focus is once again placed on drama over the actual horror set pieces and we're robbed of the visual pleasures that could be had. The continuous curse of modern horror. Overall rating: 2.5/5

2 The Passenger

And I ride and I ride! I ride through the cities backside. I see the stars come out of the sky. Yeah they're bright in a hollow sky. You know it looks so good tonight! Every now and then Blumhouse do the unexpected and actually release a half decent movie. Feel free to skip every single one in their 2023 catalogue but this one. If like myself you've barred yourself from Blumhouse, check yourself back in for a brief 98 minute stay. The Ruins director Carter Smith is back and has really caught my eye with The Passenger. An experience which has less in common with your typical Blumhouse bottom of the barrel drivel and more so with the outlaw exploitation fare New World Pictures used to excel at in the '70s. Hit the road, Jack and time travel back to the likes of The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Jackson County Jail and Crazy Mama. When movies were wanting to tackle the anti-hero and not present some lame society approved bore.

To those unfamiliar with the movies mentioned, consider Ridley Scott's now highly regarded feminist piece Thelma and Louise. Carter actually uses a lot of that film as the model for how to manage his more male oriented version. Although, it never explicitly mentions that its two lead characters are queer, given Carter's catalogue, which often focuses on gay characters, it is easy to accept this reading. Their relationship borders between brotherly and homoerotic. In this day and age, it deserves appreciation for being so subtle and nuanced in allowing you to draw your own conclusions.

Our inciting action that causes the two men to run from the law and hit the road is due to a violent outburst at their place of work. Bradley succumbs to a spot of bullying at the hands of his co-workers forcing the usually quiet Benson to explode with rage by blasting the entire staff away with a shotgun. Instead of putting as much distance between the crime scene and themselves, Benson decides to take Bradley on a more personal journey through his flaws and so this becomes his "experiment for the day". I half expected him to say at one point, "Todays a training day, coworker Bradley. Show you around give you a taste of the violence". There is that kind of dynamic between them. In the first two acts, there is a real hook in the suggestion of violent pasts linking the leads but once we get the actual truth of Bradley's past actions its somewhat disappointing in comparison to the stronger mythical connection of when it's held back. The back story needed to be darker and braver as opposed to the one they go with that does little to challenge the viewer. Still, it's hard to hate on a movie that's message is simply get back in the driver's seat. Goodbye Iggy, hello Sniff n' The Tears! Overall rating: 4/5

3 The Exorcist: Believer

The Exorcist: Believer was such a howler and all round horrific night that I'm yet to even call Ricardo Carvalho back since that night. To do so would be a reminder of David Gordon Green's betrayal in going from making Blumhouse's best offering ever, not Get Out but Halloween Ends, to making possibly their worst in The Exorcist: Believer. And so I haven't spoken to Ricardo for about 6 months but I wish him the best where ever he is. You can read all about why that is so in Vol. 2 Issue 9: The Man in the Maze. Smartly, in the weeks following this epic disaster Gordon Green has done his best to distance himself from the other two sequels, which technically by contract and for the hopes of profits from a bad investment still need to be made. Even Blumhouse have pushed back the rest of the trilogy only to hire David Ayer to direct a Michael Jackson biopic. Curious to see whether this will turn out to be an even dumber move. The thinking at Blumhouse remains completely illogical. Overall rating: 0.5/5

4

Five Nights at Freddy's

"You're not here to have fun", says a character in Five Nights at Freddy's and the truth is you're not. This would be a genuine crime round these parts. Consider me clueless even to whatever this is, all I know is that I didn't like it one bit. Get it off these streets. The purpose of such a movie in 2023 is extremely lost on me. Are we not tired yet of lousy 80s nostalgia? Pick a new decade, I beg you. Not that I'm against the idea of a horror movie involving dudes comedically beating the living shit out of animatronics (writes on back of hand: specifically not robots) but didn't the ever dependable in the face of all garbage Nicolas Cage already do this only the other year with Willy's Wonderland? It barely worked as a narrative there, hardly making it past the short film territory, so why are we getting more of this? My question is WHO wants this? Cause there is sadly a crowd for this in place.

Right, who watched Willy's Wonderland and went do you know what could make this better: Josh Hutcherson! If you ticked yes under this criteria, you are a sick freak and I cannot help you. You are way past disturbed and should seek help at the nearest available opportunity. I can see it now, the nerds will see my criticisms at a lack of originality and start firing off their guns, fighting to the death, screaming that Five Nights at Freddy's was already an established thing before Willy's Wonderland. Never heard of it, never cared. In fact, this is a slight lie, I did once encounter a man who possessed some knowledge of this game but moments prior to explaining it he'd gone shooting his mouth off, going on some rant about how he'd just watched Sinister because he had read an article about how people thought it was the scariest movie ever made and he agreed, so after that I kind of switched off when he described Five Nights at Freddy to me. The guy was clearly a moron.

This is the kind of film tailor made for idiots like that who allow such nonsense clickbait and amateur journalism to prevail. For those who need their shite spoon feeding to them. About the only defence I've seen of this film is about the "lore" and "easter eggs". Well, I despise easter eggs, it's a very cheap form of storytelling. Especially, the kind that has nothing to do with the story at hand and serves merely as a distraction for those with low attention spans. Either find a way to make it relevant or sack it off. Oh and those who want to talk about "the lore", it's a 90 minute movie about fighting monsters not Lord of The Rings. So, maybe grow up? The underused Shaggy is about the only real winner here. However, he could come out of any project strong so this isn't really saying anything. Originally, I assumed it would be a case of film bad, game good. Yet, I keep hearing that this is a near perfect adaptation of the game. I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess that the game is also a pile of shite. I'm going to conclude that this is a film for "they" who talk and talk a lot but no-one actually knows who "they" are and yet they make up such large numbers. Blumhouse has seen their highest profits to date with Five Nights at Freddy's. They've walked away with a big pile of cash from a wallop of handlebar moustache. I wish the movie Deliverance on those who have it made so. Overall rating: 1/5

5 There's Something Wrong with the Children

Undoubtedly this is a pretty poor effort but it's hard not to be interested in what the public deems to be a Blumhouse stinker considering I think they're almost always stinkers and a widely rejected failure suggests the possibility of a departure from the usual shitty formula. Therefore, this has to be interesting on some level, right? If the fan base disapproves, is it more likely I could like it? Well, let's find out.

Is that justification enough to call this acceptable? It's a sad state of affairs if I feel the need to champion a movie not because it's particularly good but because it doesn't bore me with the usual limited range of themes these movies explore. Don't be fooled by the title, There's Something Wrong with the Children puts the focus back on the parents and away from the standard immature storylines aimed at teenagers. It has some real fun with the idea of fresh parents and their only inability to grow up themselves. Those new to the game and making mistakes like its amateur hour. Exactly the kind of horror Judd Apatow would probably make if he ever decided to step in to the arena. Late on, There's Something Wrong with the Children attempts to be The Brood but fails drastically. There's only one David Cronenberg. Paedophobia films rarely do much for me. I maintain that any villainous child thinking he's 10 men could be vollied across grey skies. They're only for fucking foot now, come on. However, The Omen's pretty good and The Children isn't so bad either. For a doubter like myself, I was put a little at ease here with how they work this alternative angle, which is far more effective. It's not that the kids attack the physically superior adults but that they use sneaky tactics to turn them on each other. These often playing up on social and personal insecurities (fear of those with poor mental health and disabilities) as well as the expected parental instincts before rational responses. Tonally and pacing wise there's more to appreciate here than standard Blumhouse produce. The opening credits are great with some old school fonts and the use of Leeds goths, who love Leonard Cohen and waiting for trains, Sisters of Mercy. All this can be considered a step in the right direction. Some minor strong points in an otherwise weak movie. So yes, MORE of that please.

This next point though is indefensible. Time to talk about location based horrors with no care for location. Cause that's the real problem here: There's something wrong with the fog machine. For years people have been tossing around this undeserved shout that Lucio Fulci is some kind of fraud and even in this era of giallo acceptance massively inferior to Dario Argento. What I will say is at least he knows how to make a good fucking gateway horror, which is more than can be said about recent horrors such as what we're dealing with here. How on Earth can you make a movie purely based on a specific location and not take the time to build up that location with as much care as you do the characters. Where's the atmosphere? That more cerebral abstract approach? What happened to writing with the camera visually? Using architecture and set design to progress the story? Nowadays, there's too much emphasis on script and the writing simply isn't good enough to justify it. Have we set the standards too high with the likes of The Beyond, Prince of Darkness and The Keep? Fulci, Carpenter and Mann, these guys are always going to be artists and as a result top of the class but back in the day even a solid craftsman recycling familiar plot lines would at least put some effort in to the visual aesthetic. It was literally their bread and butter. These guys today can they pump a bit of fog in there or something? Overall rating: 2.5/5

6 Unseen

If only it could be. Jolene Purdy makes her long awaited return to cinema following a memorably weird role in Donnie Darko playing Cherita "Chut Up" Chen. I don't know where she's been the last 20 odd years (pointless television from the looks of it) but maybe she should have stayed there. Had Unseen been directed by a technically competent director such as the man who directed Unsane, one Mr Steven Soderberg, this might have actually come off better. Really we needed someone obsessive enough to play around with the technology at hand and the potential set pieces from using the equipment.

Instead, it's terribly written, terribly directed and features two of the dumbest characters you'll see all year. If there's a feature here, I don't see it. Perhaps it would have worked better as a short film because even at 75 minutes it feels stretched. Also, if someone could explain to me the appalling third act? Whereby it switches from the strict realism and rule based discipline of what normally results from situation thrillers and found footage movies to becoming this very over the top parody or satire. Did they suddenly forget what film they were making? A very confused film would be putting it lightly. For those who haven't seen it, keep it Unseen. Overall rating: 1/5

7 Totally Killer

Lighten up will you, they ask. And in the words of Caesar, leader of the apes: NO There cannot be any rest when pseudo intellectual takes on slashers continue to be pumped out on to the horror circle. Why? It's an absolute child's understanding of postmodernism made by people who neither understand slashers or the '80s. You can either be smart or stupid. What you can't do is fail to be smart, that's a real losers move. Sometimes, there's more nobility in stupidity. A valuable lesson that must be learnt in these parts of town.

I see no subversion of the genre for that you'd have to understand the form and routinely these films don't. When did these become so cringe inducing and quirky? When did they lose their rough unpolished edge? When did we put this genre in the hands of non-slasher fans who's main reference point of the '80s is a couple of John Hughes movies (and in this case Back to the Future)? I'm pretty sure slashers were originally made for those sick of Hughes's conservatism and wanting a more anti bourgeois alternative. So why are we now just bowing in to it? Obviously, the two kinds of movies are linked in many ways with their hard partying teens so what you should be doing is working towards subversion of the 80s teen comedy rather than simply remaking them, which is what I fear these newer movies are doing. Look at the tone of these recent horrors and you'll realise they're not subverting Hughes but replicating. Their acceptance and success amongst the critics is further proof of their pathetic non-challenging nature. Their attempts to appear woke and progressive for fear of disapproval is desperate and unsubtle. Gone is the element of surprise.

Another move that continues to annoy me is total lack of understanding of camp. Camp is not necessarily colourful. Camp is not just pretty outfits. Camp is definitely not just speaking in a high pitched voice and being cheerful. Camp is not to be confused with the characteristic often associated with the queer community. There are crossovers but they are not the same. Funeralopolis respects both but demands you know the difference. Go back to your Susan Sontag, Russ Meyer and John Waters. Unlearn what you wrongly learnt and re-learn it properly.

Those who back Totally Killer as a "cute" entry in the horror genre aimed at a younger audience, how do you look past its remarketing culture in a cheap way and shoving it down your throat? The 80s as some kind of shallow commodity. No respect, no research. Just shoehorning songs from New Order and Echo and The Bunnymen with no concern as to how they fit in narratively or stylistically. What a dead culture this is that merely replicates another time and rejects the much harder task of deconstruction and post-structuralism. I remain a staunch defender of postmodernism but this kind of lazy activity that fails to properly utilise it gives it a real bad name. It only serves to echo (and The Bunnymen) the current emptiness and hollow nature of culture in our times. Overall rating: 1/5

By The Highwayman

Assayas's Desert of the Real

A techno thriller with high aspirations about the world of online erotica. It's clearly very inspired by Baudrillard; Assayas's desert of the real. “It no longer needs to be rational”, as Baudrillard himself says, “It is a hyperreal”. The plot is almost secondary to the onscreen images; what matters more is the ideas behind it. It doesn't matter who is spying on who, it captures a kind of postmodern hellscape and I'd even argue it's intentionally confusing. Demonlover doesn't pretend to have the answers to the questions it raises, but instead showcases how artificial images can overtake realities, how in the world of late capitalism people will go to extremes in order to remain 'on top'. It was critiqued for the characters being cold and unlikeable; I'd argue this adds to it. Of course they are cold and unlikeable, their jobs rely upon a certain level of detachment. Not one character has a clear code of ethics as they partner with strange bed-fellows in order to make a quick buck.

From the opening shots, of the business suite of an airplane, the focuses of the film are made clear. Transnationality, neo capitalism, anonymous locations - what Deleuze would call 'non spaces' - the presence of women, and the inhumanity behind business relations. These themes continue and they twist and turn and it can get a little confused - who, exactly, is spying on who? Nobody is safe and nobody is innocent. Even as the viewer we're made to feel culpable in the corruption, as we're shown a variety of uncomfortable pornographic images from the animated sequences to the torture porn of the Demonlover website itself.

A bold, brave and I'll say it - misunderstood film. Instead of a narrative it captures the condition of the contemporary world and its effects upon the individual. Even the film is a victim of this corruption, a style that is also a product and a reflection upon the condition of our times. Also, a quick note but I absolutely love Chloe Sevigny.

"To denounce monstrosity is only a form of hypocrisy, because we are all fascinated by the monstrous and distressing. We are all responsible for the times we live in, for better and for worse.” wrote Serge Kaganski for Film Comment

There's been some ignorant shouts from a small corner about Dune: Part 2 being a fascist film. Nonsense it uses Nazi imagery to represent its bad guys, which last time I checked was perfectly fine. Those who believe that endorses fascism need to check for some serious brain worms. If you want to see a director struggling on how to use fascist imagery to progress a story, look no further than Zack Snyder. Nearly all of his films feature fascism to some degree or another. The man's clearly fascinated by it. Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? Let me go through each film tracking the developments in Zack Snyder's fascist ideology.

Although, I haven't seen his debut, a Dawn of the Dead remake, in a long time, I cannot recall it being overly political. Based on memory, if anything it tones down the originals consumerist satire to just be a dumb late night action movie. Many people (and possibly even myself) would consider it to be potentially his least flawed work to date and the reason may be that possibly he is not the author of this work. Writing is credited to James Gunn, who I'm guessing politically is probably closer to the left than Snyder given his youthful days spent in a punk band. So, little opportunities for Snyder to develop his interest in fascism on film number one. His sophomore effort takes an even further dive in to pulp with an actual comic book, courtesy of Frank Miller with 300. Undeniably one of the best writers in the history of the medium after Alan Moore of course. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the two hate each other? But then again Moore is a firey figure who's beefed with everyone, probably including himself, at some point or another. Moore aligns himself with anarchism, whereas Miller sees himself as more of a libertarian. However, you could be fooled in to thinking Miller was further to the right and has definitely been accused of being overly conservative.

The Fear and Cowardice Tour

Miller's contributions to Batman reinforce the character as either a violent vigilante like Travis Bickle looking to reintroduce decent values in to society or in his later days becoming this withered down old man with a no nonsense attitude to crime to the point he's re-evaluated his methods and is more willing to use dirty tactics such as weaponry and murder to get the results. Moore believes that Sin City is misogynistic too.

I have always maintained that Year One and The Dark Knight Returns are fantastic explorations of the path of the vigilante over time. Time being a crucial concept too often missing from the superhero genre. They prefer this idea of a constant and endless serialised stream of adventures, which is great that you can always check in on your hero but where's the story in that? You need time for the progression of the character otherwise the whole thing just becomes meaningless and purely a money making enterprise. As for Sin City, it’s a damn bear perfect noir with a corrupted world. Any misogyny is inherent to the genre and its completely aware of it, positioning characters as antiheroes with not perfect but let's say particular moral codes to cope with living in the sleaziest town on the planet.

300 is a comic I'm yet to pick up but this one does seem uncomfortably fascist. It depicts the battle of Thermopylae, fought between the violent Spartans and the Persians. First off the Spartans are a warrior class, like the samurai, so there's always going to be some fascist ideology in there somewhere but there's also that inherent coolness making them perfect for edgy pulpy comic book fans. Naturally, Miller removes their tendency for man-boy love scenarios because that would be very 'uncool' and 'unmanly' of his warriors. In the film, the Spartans are highlighted as victims fighting against the oppressive Persians. When in reality, those Spartans were just as cruel if not worse than the Persians. All of this side is weirdly ignored to present the Spartans as total heroes with the odds stacked against them. A brave losers narrative.

As one would expect, Snyder is more enthralled by the battle sequences (and if they're up to Miller's usual standard, they're probably fantastic too, he's one of the best at detailing action since old Kirby himself). This is why we refer to Zack as more of an accidental fascist. Truthfully, he seems too stupid to understand the political implications of his texts, since, since he's enamoured by the potential for pure entertainment. Appearing cool is his only intention with no consideration for the ramifications.

The who or the why in battle is of little importance, only that the characters look cool while they're doing it. Essentially, this makes it harder to hate him because he's so laughably juvenile. Anyone would realise this within moments of meeting him. You know, it's kind of mean just hating on the dumb guy. So in some sense, he's possibly likeable rather than as insufferable as he first appears. Rather than evil, I think clueless fuckhead would be the more accurate term.

What is uncomfortable and unforgiveable though is people's total acceptance of 300 without question. There's an undeniable camp and the cast is sexy enough (Butler is a good looking bastard) to enjoy on a detached ironic level but 300 has always been weirdly approved of by audiences and is popularly deemed to be a great movie. It's reminiscent of some of Ridley Scott's dodgy epics like Gladiator and 1492 with their Roman empires and colonisers, which are hugely enjoyable but somewhat disturbing in both the filmmakers endorsement of the characters and the audiences lack of criticism. There's nothing more embarrassing than Scott trying to back up empires as a positive necessity.

Exactly the reason why I prefer the more recent Napolean because Scott clearly hates or is at the very least amused by the protagonist and so you're kind of in on the joke. Historical epics often have the issue that you're dealing with the past and so the figures will be morally grey in line with today's standards, hence why self-awareness is key. In a sense, it kind of makes Caligula the least offensive of them all cause most its played for debaucherous laughs.

For his third feature, Snyders switches it up with Miller's enemy Alan Moore for an adaptation of Watchmen. Prior to that it had often been agreed as difficult to tackle in enabling its leap to the big screen. Many would state its structural issues in the conversion to screen and how to cover the story as a feature length movie. Personally, I'd be more concerned with how to address Moore's anarchist message. Do you take that seriously or have a laugh with that side? Maybe it depends on your own politics.

I'm no expert in comics, having only really delved in to the classics from Batman, Hellboy, X-Men, Sin City and Swamp Thing but there's something slightly disappointing in that Watchmen, which I consider flawed remains unbeaten. Meaning, I don't think there will ever be a comic book out there that I will consider perfect. Don't get me wrong, I'm obsessed with Batman's journey from morally principled and disciplined hero to near psychopathic the end justifies the means antihero. I'm hooked on Professor X and Magnetos constant shifting over how far to take revolutionary violence against their oppressors. And I seriously want to know if Hellboy ever uses that red right hand of his to unlock the portal to the inferno!

However, it's Moore that has come the closest to legitimising the medium as an art form by having the strongest and purest vision. Comic books have this tendency of being endless and written in a way that’s about keeping a regular plot going in a manner that's even worse than most US sitcoms. Watchmen is so cohesive and such a beautiful response to the times it was written with all the fears of nuclear war. Yet, this annoys me slightly because despite Moore making a solid case for it, I don't fully agree with his political agenda (don't completely disagree with it either) and there is so much about the piece that is immature.

Then again, I have come to really like Moore more over the years. Unsure whether he has matured with time or if the more I've read about him he just seems so well intentioned. In the past, I'd have called V for Vendetta cringeworthy but knowing that it was written as an angry response to Thatcherite Britain with increasing surveillance, class divide and homophobia is utterly respectable. And as for the cringeworthy parts, they can be forgiven because Thatcherite Britain is enough to fry anyone's brain to start producing some degree of nonsense. The main thing is as I said, it's well intentioned if just a little misguided now and then. So how do you go about navigating Moore's form of anarchism, which was in all fairness still developing from slightly embarrassing first time political interest to fair argument across his work?

Evidently, this isn't a question that concerns Zack Snyder. Instead, he opts for the Robert Rodriguez method of directly transferring the panels to storyboard. Controversial in that I blurs the line between copying and adapting. Such a process ignores the fact that these are two different mediums and so this shouldn't work smoothly in a narrative sense. In defence though, it does lead to some gorgeous developments in the visual appearance of cinema. In particular, Rodriguez's use of digital technology envisions an entire new world for the viewer to get lost in. He's also either helped or at least inspired by Tarantino's talent for non-linear storytelling and so its assembled that always links back to the key themes by the end of each tale.

Somehow and this is possibly a feat, Snyder copies Watchmen near panel for panel and comes out with an entirely different conclusion. Part of the beauty of Watchmen the comic is that it opens you up to this possibility that the very idea of superheroes has been wrongly conceived and that it would mainly be this giant mess of competing ideologies where it isn't clear who the heroes and villains are and you have to be more involved in that decision making process. Causing the typically conceived juvenile nature of superheroes to expand in to being a political tool. As for all the masked vigilantes and outfits that's just camp to have fun with allowing there to be this wonderful potential for pop art.

Alternatively, Snyder's adaptation comes out championing the fascist character, Rorschach, and causing the audience to sympathise with him.

Proving the point that you can't adapt something literally. The closer you go, the more you lose. Therefore, you have to respect the two mediums differences and find a new means to get the point across. Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't obsessively study panels. I always wished this was an aesthetic we would aim for as opposed to the MCU's natural bland boring look.

What we need to be doing is keeping the stylish visual elements but understanding how to collect and unite the images in accordance with a smooth narrative that works for movies. There's some great irony in Watchmen the comic being this celebrated postmodern piece (that has definitely inspired myself over the years with its use of music, especially when All Along the Watchtower appears) and Snyder is guilty of merely replicating images with no understanding of how to reference them in relation to the story.

Having said all this though, there's one moment in Watchmen that would really contradict this and that's through sound. As ever, I remain impressed by the use of Phillip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi score for the watchmaker and Earth departure sequence. To this day, Koyaanisqatsi is the best documentary I've ever seen and arguably would be better described as a visual essay. Respectably and even boldly it avoids the common overused talking head interviews. Totally mastered by Errol Morris but they have generally plagued the documentary for too long. Visual over verbal to put across the environmental concerns and disdain at human contribution to the overall problem. In effect, this is how Dr Manhattan feels the moment he decides to abandon our doomed planet. Got to give it to that clown Snyder, it's a hell of a song choice and his smartest choice ever as a filmmaker.

His funniest moment as a filmmaker?

That comes in Watchmen too in the sex scene soundtracked by Leonard Cohen.

What was it Pedro Almodovar said about superheroes not being horny enough?

Generally speaking, he's correct though. These are very asexual and made for geeks that know what sex is, making the majority of them very boring.

Snyder gave us one of the horniest scenes in the genre and this is why I sort of like Watchmen the movie for being similar in tone to Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik or even James Bond.

Costume parody was an originally intention of Moore's in the comic but Snyder takes it to the next level bordering on total obsession and fetishism. Another amusing aspect is that this is how he falls under the trap of being fascistic again whether he means to or not. My guy was so concerned with costumes it contributed to him losing the overall narrative.

Who else do you know who was obsessive with their uniforms? Bit of trivia for you, for 2001, Kubrick put in these little jokes for himself. For example, he would have the dodgy companies logo show up in the background blurred and it would reference similar real life companies. This level of detail wasn't meant to be captured within the frame and noticed by the audience but due to updated Blu-ray copies, we are now in on the joke too. In years to come, will new technologies reveal the superheroes outfits in Watchmen to be sponsored by Hugo Boss? And with that so begins my linking of Zack Snyder with Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.

For some unexplainable reason, Zack Snyder's next project is a kids film about owls. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole is a real anomaly in his career that many forget exists and since I haven't seen it, we'll move on. After this, we get the even more childish Suckerpunch. Sort of like a video game version of Identity but somehow even dumber. Nazisploitation does feature but mostly in a mindless way. Mostly, we just get girls fighting to God awful Bjork remixes. Nothing much to report politically but it does continue Snyder's fascination with 'cool' over narrative. I'm no expert on video games but I believe the idea is that you work your way up to the boss at the end of each level. Snyder doesn't have the attention span for that and so every second is spent fighting the boss, losing any anticipation and the viewer too.

Right, now we get interesting again. Snyder decides he's hot shit and the next Christopher Nolan as he directs his very own Superman movie, Man of Steel. Weirdly, the best examination I have ever seen of the Superman mythos was in Kill Bill Vol. 2, when the titular Bill mentions Superman differs from most superheroes because Clark Kent is his alter ego to hide his identity and that's his representation of us to fit in: a fundamentally weak but caring man. Since, revealing character through dialogue isn't Snyder's style, he does it through a more preposterous visual means. Man of Steel marks the beginning of his serious focus on posture and poses. As inspiration, he delves in to Greek God mythology. Who else was obsessed with Greek God mythology.

That would be the Nazis! Leni Riefenstahl laid that out explicitly with her Olympia films. Reminiscent of Beau Travail in that they use the body as an avant-garde means of storytelling. Near homoerotically, they compare their characters perfect athletic bodies to that of the Greek Gods. Fascist art focuses on individual beauty and self-attention over collective achievement and driving towards a superior race with a perfect gene pool causing the Greek God imagery to have some significance in their goals.

Leni was a cunt and this is well known but yes in a purely historical/factual sense she did objectively create true fascist art. Claire Denis does it as parody, highlight the fascist, homoerotic and masculine nature of the military. Snyder uses it unironically and cluelessly. On the one hand, I nearly want to champion him because so many of the superhero movies are hopelessly empty and his are at least accidentally interesting showing some influence. Yet, praising fascism as an artistic vision over hollow emptiness sounds kind of stupid when said aloud.

Above all though, it does highlight the shallow nature of our culture.

Is Snyder alone though in his presentation of superheroes as fascist?

Sure, all superhero movies are dodgy to an extent since it’s a capitalist industry and they're the popular genre for Hollywood to reinforce its own politics but are they more inherently right wing and sinister than that?

Wonder Woman was raised by those Amazonians, that's a whole misguided history right there. A classic mistake of pushing feminism but overlooking other political problems. Plus, the sequel Wonder Woman 84 was hilariously Anti-Arab, as though Hollywood finally realised we're sick of Vietnam fetishism and now it's for Reagan's similarly dumb 80s foreign policies. In fact, I damn well nearly enjoyed it as a totally misguided boneheaded patriotism on steroids Rambo 3 type movie.

Black Panther continues to be praised as some kind of progressive classic by the black community but I only see fascism there. And it goes way beyond them being dicks in not sharing their one valuable resource with the rest of the world. Black art used to be highly left wing and revolutionary in the '70s with its desire to stick it the man. Nowadays, it's all about Lion King and Afrofuturism. I'm left confused why they felt the need to become their oppressors to beat them. Anyone who knows their history knows the links between futurism and fascism. As for The Lion King, I don't know what the meaning of all that is meant to be. All I know is that I blame Beyonce and her brand of corporate feminism and black excellence. She's done more harm than good with her influence on the younglings but that's a story for another day.

All along here, I can feel the Zack Snyder defenders, those nerds howling at my door, wanting to point out that that he is a VISUAL STORYTELLER. But this is in fact not true. Oh he's certainly visual alright but his visuals do not tell a story. A story is told through a progression of images. Snyder tends to focus on a single image (often referencing an iconic fascist concept) and does very little to expand on the idea being presented. Say a narrative journey is A to B, we have A but no B, hence no story. Moreover, his single image usually impacts the story in a completely negative manner not aiding but corrupting the narrative. Look at Watchmen again, for example why do we sympathise with Rorschach over his violent retributions and death when he is meant to be a fascist? Why does fascism win over Moore's anarchy?

Why is Superman some kind of Übermensch fascist Greek God when he's supposed to be a hero? With regards to Superman and all superheroes, maybe they are all inherently fascist if this is what so many of them deride from but this isn't the point Snyder is making. He wants us to worship these people as heroes. He's not challenging us to view their flawed history. He's just some moron obsessed with the inherent coolness of warrior classes and races without the ability to make the fascist link. If he was such a visual storyteller, he'd be making more movies like The Conformist and less like Triumph of the Will. That is to say he would use the nazi art and imagery to suggest why individuals would be drawn to fascism, rather than having his supposedly good characters turn out to simply be fascists. He'd be subverting it, rather than accidentally endorsing it.

After Man of Steel, Snyder doesn't develop his work much further past what we already know, only taking his obsession with posture and poses to the extreme resulting in some extremely overly long and dull movies like Justice League and Batman Vs Superman. Increasingly, he damages the narratives of his film for his obsessions (fascist art, Greek God Mythology, costumes, edgy violence, posture and poses), making him possibly some kind of artist, if not a very good one. I'll spare going in to further details because think this rant has by now covered my criticisms and fascinations with the man.

Finally, having covered his entire career pretty much, let's get to his latest, Rebel Moon Part One: Child of Fire. As you could have predicted, it's terrible. Unfortunately though, it's also boring. A common problem of his work that has come in to play post2010. I guess the prevailing issue is his obsessions have corrupted his narratives to the point they're too long and since he's not really expanded on his obsessions for a while now, it's also just pointless and doesn't justify it for the lengths. His material hasn't changed and he's not doing anything to grip you with it to warrant the hit on the expanded run times. The extended lengths suggest a passion but he has once again failed to get you on board with his passions.

It's so funny that he hasn't got his little panels to copy across today so he's beat for beat just copied Seven Samurai in space. The guy couldn't come up with an original story if you put a gun to his head. Anyway, Mr Lucas already put Kurosawa in space using The Hidden Fortress and it was far less derivative. Rebel Moon is comparable in experience to Suckerpunch in being the kind fascinating exercise that exposes the mind of a teenager in an adults body, allowing one to further understand the very concept of a man child.

Numerous edgy fight scenes almost qualify him for dudes rock status but all the uninspired talky scenes (that he puts not effort in to) in between make you want to catch some serious zzzs, if you catch my drift. This is exactly what hindered Army of the Dead and stopped it becoming one of his best movies. Batista does his best, Elvis never fails but still, it's a boring clunky narrative. Dropping the age rating of Rebel Moon to a PG 13 was not wise either considering Snyder's known for those daft bone crunching fight scenes made to get teenagers wet. Also, what's up with Zack's team saying the R-Rated cut is like nothing you've ever seen, it's R-Rated, grow up!

Above all, what disappoints me most with Rebel Moon is that Snyder's dodgy fascist imagery is no longer sexy. Normally, he does have that strange sexiness to the costumes and that borders on being Tinto Brass and his outrageously absurd Nazisploitation sex films but I can't even praise that here. He's put very little time in to the Lycra and spandex and instead he's got the AI assisting him now to make his fascist imagery. Not on my watch! Both ugly and cheating. I have no respect for it at all. Stop messing about lad, if you're gonna be such a moronic fascist fuckhead just get the Leonard Cohen on, suit up your cast in Lycra and have everyone fuck each other. I can deal with that. But the AI fascist imagery, that's minimal effort I won't abide. It's got to go.

After such an abysmal run of films over the last two decades, my advice to Zack would be if he really want to go all sci fi western wuxia whatever and show his love for Star Wars, he should do Starship Troopers as his next derivative project. Heinlein's novel has all the fascist elements he could really fuck up and accidentally do something interesting with. Even here the best thing he can offer is rows and tows of soldiers and Ed Skrein being the nazi looking type. Imagine your one greatest talent actually being replicating potentially fascist art, there's something really funny about that and it's kind of sad though as that's where it ends in the case of Rebel Moon cause there's nothing funny about this movie, it's one of the most tiring ways to spend 135 precious minutes. One of the most soulless and unoriginal things I've ever seen. It's kind of fun to check in on the village idiot from time to time but for his standards of stupidity consider me let down. This is lifeless. A real disappointment even for the clueless fuckhead himself. Cheers, Zack.

Sorry it's taken 3 months to produce a single issue but life's been very different for Mr Funeralopolis. I've often written about Miami Vice as being my personal relatable metaphor for the role of an artist, mainly in the detachment and the voyeurism but for the first time in my life I feel wholly engaged in everything I am undertaking in. Enjoying rather than observing. As though on the pitch rather than watching from the sidelines. The sting is over, this time it's for real.

Consequently, it's been difficult to take the time out and so I've mainly been riding out the experiences as they come. Enough's enough though, we must get back to work and the quality must remain the same level if not improve issue by issue. How the recent changes will affect the writing style, we'll have to see. Will I be less observant to some things? More observant to others? All I can do is embrace where things are at now and continue to write about what is happening around me. It's been my intention or rather goal, more so with each passing issue, to inject my consciousness into every review in a way that hasn't been done before to really address how films are received and their place within culture. To expand the form of the review from its still relative infancy. Therefore, I must continue to do this. To do anything else, like pretend things are still how they were would be false. To write as I was for the majority of Volume 2 would be a lie. I'm in a different place and have to accept it. My only hope is my writing doesn't grow sloppy, careless or susceptible in a bad way. Cause I'd really fucking hate that.

About the best place to start our final story of volume 3 issue 1 is with a follow up to The Happening. Right where volume 2 left off. I no longer felt the story was accurate and maybe I never fully believed in it but just wanted to. That was not the end of the story. I couldn't leave it alone. There was more to come. Sometimes, the tables turn and things go the other way. Hence, why I had to revisit my little space western and this time show the return leg.

It comes out of many late nights (or rather early mornings depending on your perspective) of listening to Leonard Cohen. When the resisting of physical intimacy for misguided notions of the platonic kind just came too much to bear. But we tried Goddammit. We tried. And as the finest songwriter of all time once said when asked why he never proposed to an important woman in his life, "fear and cowardice", there may be some of that in this story...

"Just a little lower, Jerry. Just a little lower, that'll do Jerry". A completely wired and caffeinated journalist sits in the cock pit of a local lunatics helicopter. He bellows out instructions, he's used to telling people what he wants to do. "Hi, I'm Robbie Logan, host of Nevada News, coming to you live from Amargosa Valley, where moments ago an unidentified vehicle is said to have escaped from Area 51. Leaving local law enforcement aggressively on the pursuit. Are we dealing with a disgruntled employee, an experiment gone rogue or something much more shocking... An escaped extraterrestrial? We will have more as it comes"

"There they are down there, get me closer, Jerry", says a frantically pointing Robbie Logan as he demands his pilot drop down to join the chase taking place on the road below them. "We've caught up now with the chase, which is believed to have been going on for the last 18 minutes across this long and winding highway. Where the owner of the strange vehicle is heading we do not know. Who the driver is we don't know. We haven't managed to get a good look at who's sat behind the wheel but my contacts on the ground inform me he is wearing some kind of mask or helmet concealing his identity. Could this be the new Stig? The emergence of a new anonymous celebrity and antihero the public can really root for?"

"As our unknown driver approaches the blockade, he's showing no signs of slowing down. He's going to ram them! Oh I've never seen anything like that. The vehicle he's driving must be from the future. Any cop cars that come near it seem to slide off with the thin design. It's tipping every car in front of it over. The law is not prepared for this. That's not a car. That's like a tent on wheels. They're calling it the slicer. Ford, Ferrari, if you're watching that's what kind of cars we need in this world. I just know every car manufacturer in the world is watching this right now and taking notes. The message is clear. Make that car and you will conquer the future. At the first hurdle it's mysterious driver 1-0 cops".

She's as beautiful as a foot She's as beautiful as a foot She heard someone say the other day. Didn't believe it when he bit into her face. Didn't believe it when he bit into her face. It tasted just like a fallen arch. She's as beautiful as a foot She's as beautiful as a foot. She heard someone say the other day. Don't put your tongue on the bloody tooth mark place. Don't put your tongue on the bloody tooth mark place. Her face changing now, a Guernsey cow. She's as beautiful, oh so beautiful, beautiful as a foot. She's as beautiful, oh so beautiful, beautiful as a foot. She's as beautiful, oh so beautiful, beautiful as a foot. She's as beautiful, oh so beautiful, beautiful as a foot. She heard someone say (she heard someone say) The other (day).

"Robbie Logan reporting to you live from just outside of Benton. The chase continues on, we're now well over an hour into the chase. We're going to take a break from it so we can take you back to how to this all began. We've got Charlie Dunway down on the ground by Area 51, who has been invited on to the site to give us unprecedented access by an at this time unnamed scientist. Charlie, take it away"

"Charlie Dunway, reporting to you live from Area 51. Always wanted to say that" "Stay professional, Charlie" "Yes, Robbie. But here we are. As you can see behind me, plenty of damage has been done to the site, leaving many scientists baffled as to how this could have happened. I will soon be interviewing one of those scientists to get the full scoop. For now I want to focus on the damage. At about 9.22 this morning, the unknown driver crawled through this shoot here, forced his way out using some kind of laser based weapon and then made his way into this, I think I'm going to call it a car park, hijacked the vehicle now being called the slicer. So many vehicles out here to choose from. Why do you think he chose the slicer? Oh no I've just locked eyes with a man in the suit in the car park. I'm not really supposed to be here. I'm going to go hide. We'll pick this up later"

"You're back with Robbie Logan and we're still on this beast's tail. The time is now coming up to half 12. The cops are edged back about 30 yards behind. They're scared to get in close. They're worried The Slicer will flip them. You heard me, flip them. So they're keeping their distance. I haven't seen anything like this since OJ Simpson. All eyes on what is happening right now. We're all involved in this chase. No idea where the unknown driver is heading but we're all just following him. Jerry, you're playing music. What song is this?". "Pearl of the Quarter, Steely Dan". "Jerry, are you high right now?". "I walked alone down The Miracle Mile I met my baby by the shrine of the martyr She stole my heart with her Cajun smile Singing, "voulez-voulez-voulez-vous". "Dammit Jerry, just keep control of the plane. This is Robbie Logan somewhere around Yosemite National Park just trying to stay airborne. We may need a new pilot..."

"Ok, so you're back with Robbie Logan and we have a brand new pilot, his name is Eric, everyone say Hi Eric. We got a wave. Let's hope this one isn't a no good Jackass like the last one. It seems that unknown driver of ours has got him some fans. Just up ahead there's some large crowds gathered ready to say hello. I don't know how they're so sure he's an ally but we're all intrigued who he is and what he's about nonetheless. We've got Danny Ingram down below who's been asking the spectators some questions and doing a sort of tally on the identity of the driver"

"We're going to bring up that tally now. Right at the top at 2:1 we've got a disgruntled Edward Snowden/Julian Assange type Area 51 employee. Yes, a whistleblower, that seems reasonable. At 3:1, we have a real life alien, well if they'd come from anywhere it would be there so let's not rule that out. At 4:1 we have rapper/producer Kanye West, not sure what that's about but ok. At 5:1 we've got Banksy or Dynamo doing a public stunt. At 6:1 we have Jesus back from the Dead. At 7:1 it's a crazy Marxist making a political statement. At 8:1 we have a closeted homosexual breaking free."

"At 9:1, another one I can't explain but we've got down Joe Rogan, Alex Jones or David Icke. I guess that means some sort of right wing podcaster, right? At 10:1 one of the founding fathers, come to reclaim this land. At 11:1 and this has to be a joke but we've somehow got Hitler on here. Somehow undead from world war 2, ready to meet his old unit at Reno at a secret nazi base and build another concentration camp. I mean that's a long shot but stranger things have happened. Get your bets in. Some serious money to be made here. Oh and I hear Danny Ingram is live from the scene now conducting interviews with the spectators down below"

"Danny Ingram here and I'm with the many spectators gathered today to support our unnamed driver. The Pixies hit from Bossanova, "All Over the World", has been playing on repeat. Record high temperatures are being felt and many are taking full advantage of the situation with picnics and blankets. I just saw one guy stuff an entire hot dog down his throat, then chug on a full can of beer and scream "For the unknown driver!". Everyone is here in peace and high celebrations. All different cultures united over a high speed pursuit across the country. America always loved a car chase. Will this event be what Ken Kesey thought acid could do for the world when he invited a bunch of Hells Angels and hippies to a gathering? The party is going strong and shows no signs of stopping".

"We're going bring you in close and try to get a hold of just who may be behind the wheel. Ok, you seem like as good a place to start as any. Who is driving that vehicle?". "Well, clearly we're dealing with a dissatisfied employee over at area 51. The sites always been known for its secrets and perhaps this was deemed by our unknown driver to be one that couldn't be kept. One that the public deserved to know and so this battle for information wages on". "Does the public have a right to know this information? Should certain information deemed harmful be kept from them?" "A government serves its people right? They should be acting within our interests. Not hiding back in the shadows making decisions that will later be deemed unconstitutional and even illegal. Whatever decisions they make, they make on behalf of me, supposedly, so I want to know what these decisions are. We're responsible for it. It's always the US citizens that have to deal with the mess".

"What about if they're operating under what they consider national security?". "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah".

"okay, so we're away from whoever that mad man was. Hopefully this person can provide us with some better answers. Who is in that car and where are they going?". "Well I can't answer where they're going but I can tell you who is behind the wheel. It's Banksy. Our friend from over the pond. He's made it big and now he's on his US tour". "I'm not really familiar with his work but doesn't he draw like pictures". "He's a master prankster and this is his masterpiece". "A masterpiece in what exactly?". "It's performance art. And this could be the finest joke since Orson Welles jumped on the radio and said Aliens were coming. It's Blair Witch 2.0 and once again we're the fools". "What's the point being made?". "Err maybe something to do with modes of manufacture, realism against the prospect of simulation, the nature of God and science. I don't know. No. Actually can I start that again? The point is there is no point. The point is fuck you!".

"Ah, now this is seems a respectable gentlemen. A boy in blue waving his blue rights sign. What's this got to do with blue rights, officer?". "I have always believed in military and law. It's the only way we establish order in this country. Now you may think I should be against this unknown driver given he's now got the national guard on his ass. But this is bigger than that. Every now and then something really ugly happens in this country like Rodney King or George Floyd. And it puts a real stain on this police force. A police force that I firmly believe in. I genuinely believe this is a force for good with a few rotten eggs in the basket. It's a basket that we must clean out from time to time. That's all the unknown driver represents is a counterforce working from within. His mission is to weed out the bad cops, to challenge the standards of policing in this country and I believe in America, I believe we will pull through. And once he's completed his mission we will all go back to our lives again and they will be better. A more efficient military, a more just nation".

"Time for the Jesus freaks. Let's hear from them. Father, why is this Jesus himself?". "We all know Jesus is the son of God, the bridge between us and the divine. And when that bridge is in threat of being destroyed, he must send down Jesus. He is the key to our salvation". "And why is now the time to bring him back?". "That's simple really. The franchise is failing and it needs it's biggest star back. Standards are falling. You can't see it all around us. We've forgotten how to help our neighbour. How to turn the other cheek. Degeneracy and public indecency is on the rise. It pains me to say it but the Devil is winning. This isn't something new. This is something we've seen before. This is the modern day Noah's Ark. An unknown driver, riding across the country in the slicer washing us all in God's good grace. They're going to write about this in the next bible".

"Moving on now to the queers, who have claimed him as one of their own. They wear T shirts reading: "I <3 the unknown driver". Tell me, why is the unknown driver gay now?". "Because all we know of them is that they are on the run from the law. As a gay man, I have always been persecuted by the law for my orientation. Since this is all we know about our driver then they are a stripped back story of gay struggle throughout time. With each new state he travels to he brings hope of peace, prosperity and progression. I wish more people were like them". "And what gender does the unknown driver identity as?". "That's why they wear a mask. They're a non-binary icon. I wish he was a man so I could suck his balls like a wired up rottweiler while he changes gears but alas they are non-binary. But on the off chance they are attracted to hot and sexy males like myself, they should call me". "And who is it they should call?". "Fernando!".

"I'm being told, people want more information on why this could be Kanye West. I've found a superfan here who thinks she has the answers. Why is Kanye West behind that wheel?". "Cause he's got a new album out clearly! He's got to promote it somehow doesn't he? And in this age of crazy promotions, it only comes more of absurd. He's got to come up with something and he's competing with the likes of Frank Ocean who spent an entire day cutting wood. Do you know how hard it is to promote an album these days? You can't just dress up like you're from Outer space any more. You've got to do something outrageous. Like really go out the box. He's insulted the Jews and he's destroyed half his contacts in the music industry. He's got to do something really outrageous this time". "And what is the meaning behind this act?". "Who can speak the mind of Kanye. Just Kanye isn't it? Whatever he's doing makes sense to him right now and eventually, if we're good, it may make sense to us".

"I've just seen an Icke was right sign, I must be by the right wing podcasters territory. Hello there sir, could you inform us why David Icke has his hands all over this one?". "He wanted proof that the reptilian overlords were controlling this world and it looks like he got it". "This drivers been pulling some solid moves out there. Could it not be Alonso or Lewis Hamilton?". "Wake up, brother. Even Icke has his limits. That's the vehicle. It's some sort of alien technology that we're not prepared for". "And whys David Icke heading up to Reno?". "That's a secret, I can't fully tell you. But we may have some of our own posted up there ready to make a hand off". "A hand off? Of what?". "A weapon or device, that's going to make us all see, it'll lift the human layers off the reptilians so we can see what these ugly fuckers really are. We're gonna strip the bastards naked". "and what's next after that?". "Next we take the moon!"

"So now I've caught up with a gang of Marxists all here waving communist flags and bearing hammer and sickles. Look at them trying to be all threatening. Alright, let's hear what these nutcases have to say. Starting to get the impression there is no normal people here, just maniacs. This unnamed driver could be be bringing out the worst in us. But let's hope here to prove me wrong, the Marxists..."."We do not know who is driving that car but we are pretty sure he's a Marxist". "How can you be sure he is a Marxist?". "Anyway you look at it, he's a Marxist. Either he's a radical gone rogue against this corrupt government of ours, that we loathe, and we salute him. And that's whether he's an alien or disgruntled worker, we salute him. We stand with any of our brothers opposed to this imperialist US government. Whether that be Hamas or the IRA, we support them". "What if the unknown driver turns out to be terrorist looking to threaten this country?". "Then we say good on them. There's a power struggle being fought out here between two classes, the rich and the poor, if you want to break down the elites a little using some secret Alien technology then good. But either way this is it. This is the revolution. Can't you see the revolution is happening before your eyes? Out here on our own soil. The moment the unknown driver broke our of Area 51 it triggered a class war. Yes, there's going to be a war and you will have to decide whether you stand with the people or against them. We've analysed every possibility here and have come to the conclusion the unknown driver stands with us and we will do all we can to protect him".

"Oh God and it's turned in to absolute chaos down here. Shots are being fired, bodies are falling and those left standing are running for their lives. All this stemmed from a pinko blowing away a cop point blank. The cops dead. Many are dead. Now it's every community against each other. I stand with noone. I'm getting out of here. As fast as I can. Back to you Robbie Logan, wherever you are".

"Ladies and gentlemen it's Robbie Logan here and I've got a beer. I've been playing Bob Dylan's I Want You on repeat for the last 20 minutes. We've lightened up a bit up here haven't we Eric. Just two dudes in the sky sharing a couple of beers. You see, I've finally realised I've been looking at this situation all wrong. I've been trying to be a passive impartial observer, you can't be a passive impartial observer under these circumstances. I still have a role to play in this grand event. After great thought I've decided this is all a new movie being made by the great HB Halicki. Our unknown driver, he's the star, I'm the buddy. The eyes in the sky. At some point my buddy is going to need me, I don't know when and I don't know how but when that comes I will swoop down and protect my buddy. He's now approaching Reno. Fucking hell, get that R.E.M song All the way to Reno on and get me closer to my buddy. You know who you areeeee, you're gonna be a star!".

"This is literally unfathomable but right now we are hovering only a few centimetres above the slicer. Eric's going to try and get us lower so we can see if the unknown driver speaks. Big moment in history this people. I'm going to reach out and tap on his window, I'm going to motion for him to roll his down and hopefully I'm going to see if we can have a conversation. Ok, here goes. He understands the gesture! We could be in here. And he's rolling down his window. Huge moment this. Colossal. There you are Mr unnamed driver, the man of the hour. So many questions I could ask you right now. I'll begin with why? Why do you keep driving on? Why all this? Why?". "Fear and cowardice". "He speaks! He speaks! That's it. That's all he's saying to us. He's rolled up his window. We don't know who or what he is as of yet. But we know he's driven by fear and cowardice".

"Leonard Cohen's In My Secret Life is playing across every radio station in the country. Candles fill the pavements. It is night time and still the unknown driver rides on. Support continues to rise. T-shirts and banners read, "Fear and Cowardice Tour". This event has a name now and everybody feels just a little bit safer. We've written out asking if you've ever been affected by "Fear and Cowardice" to get in touch. Larry from Los Angeles says, "there was a time when this country was impacted by fear and loathing. Now it's fear and cowardice that really speaks to the American people. Hate has been replaced by timidity. The 21st century is characterised by sheer gutlessness. A generation of wimps. Who quiver at the thought of true interaction. But it's not too difficult to understand and could be the only valid and mature response. How can one feel hate when they embrace how ineffectual they are with the problems of today? Anxiety is only natural". Larry, you may have a point here. I don't think I'm alone in saying the unknown driver is drawing our attention to the problems in our society and we're happy he's out there just doing his thing".

"Good Morning and it's a fine one at that. Rise and shine. It's a brand new day and the unknown driver is making us all that much happier to be alive with his brave act. I've got my coffee and that's Canned Heats Going Up The Country playing behind me. Eric's still at the controls. According to the map, we appear to be heading up towards Portland. Rumour is the national guard have been called in. They're going to try another blockade. The last one didn't go so well but it looks like they've learnt their lesson and are going to up the firepower this time out. Naturally, we're going to keep up with everything that happens as it happens"

"And it's utter chaos down there. Rockets are being fired into the dirt. Machine guns unleashing round after round. The road is lit with fire. The skies filled with smoke. We're sat here watching from above with Can's Mother Sky pumping out the speakers. Not since John Rambo has this area seen such a bloodbath at the hands of one individual. Not that we can blame the unknown driver for this. The national guard drew first blood, he's merely defending himself. They fired at him and found out the slicer has a few weapons of its own. Still, I don't know how much more of this our new favourite automobile can take. He appears to be slowing down. He must be taking some serious damage out there. I believe he's come to a stop. Is this the end of the line? No, no, he dodges another missile from uncle Sam's tanks and continues his battle with the man! What is keeping this guy up? An unprecedent level of resilience. This is going to be studied for years to come"

"The unknown driver is continuing to take heavy fire here. Are we witnessing the end of a dream? Millions watching in anticipation. Can he pull through? The slicers come to a full stop. The national guard has stopped too. There's a cease fire. What's going on down there? How much further does he need to go? What can we do to help him? One more missile could just penetrate the protective outer layer. Let's go through the facts, we know it's designed to flip vehicles it rams in to, we know it has a condom like protective outer layer, we know it can shoot out laser beams. If it has any more moves, any more tricks in it that vehicle, now is the time we need to see them. The unknown driver needs help. I don't know how. I don't know where he's going to get it from but he needs it now or we can all pack our bags and go home. Someone needs to do something. Oh fuck it, my buddy needs me. HB Halicki I hope your shot is ready, lower the heli Eric, I'm going in"

"Eric's getting in low. I'm suspended in mid-air. I'm holding on to the metal beam with one arm and holding the microphone in the other. This is Robbie Logan reporting to you live from the landing gear. We're going to try and rescue our man. The slicer door has opened. We can't let the unknown driver surrender. Eric is going to pull in front of the vehicle. The national guard isn't going to fire at news reporter. Otherwise they'll see me in court. I'll fucking sue their ass from the grave. I'm going to switch over the microphone to my other hand and use the other to grab the unknown driver. Ok, here goes nothing.

I'm stretching my hand out. The unknown driver has his out too. I'm reaching for it now. I've got him!

I've got him! He's given me a nod. Either to say thanks or that he's secure but either way we've pulled him out from the slicer and he's climbing in to the helicopter. A reminder that if any of the national guard try to attack us, this is a kidnapping not a rescue. The unknown driver now has a gun to my head and has seized the heli. He's asking the national guard keep their distance and do not follow. Do not fire. I repeat do not fire".

"Robbie Logan here now safely back in the cockpit having been kidnapped, definitely kidnapped, by the unknown driver. This is not a rescue mission. But the unknown driver says he won't hurt us if we follow his instructions.

So far he's given us a location where he wants to be taken and he's requested we play Gram Parsons Love Hurts. He's currently sat hunched over in the corner not talking to anyone. That helmet still conceals his face. But if we could see his face, I wonder what emotions he must be feeling right now. Mr Unknown driver, so what does fear and cowardice mean?"

"He's left me in suspense. He refuses to answer. He's keeping his cards close to his chest. We're getting close to the location he's pointed out on the map. It appears to be a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Obviously to keep him safe from the authorities, we can't reveal any more than that. Not exactly sure what business he's got going on down here. A place to lay low? A contact that will sneak him out the country? Your guess is as good as mine. We're lowering him down now. We are grounded, we are grounded. The unknown driver is stepping off the helicopter. The door is opening on the house up ahead. We can see a man and then a woman a few yards behind him. The woman appears to have a few children gathered round her. The man has turned back round to speak to the woman. She's taken the children inside with her and the man is walking towards us to greet the unknown driver. He's unarmed and does not appear to be hostile".

"Ladies and gentlemen, the unknown driver is reaching towards his head. The helmet is coming off. The helmet is coming off. We are about to reveal the identity of the unknown driver once and for all. My God, it's not a human face but it is one we've seen before. It's one of the aliens that came down to visit us for the happening. We always wondered whether they'd be back after their fleeting visit. It appears to be the ring leader of the three. He advised us to keep our distance but we're going to try and pick up as much of the conversation as we can".

"Ok, so here goes. The alien is saying he met the man once before many years ago. The man is nodding, he recalls their encounter. And judging by his face, he recalls it positively. The man is now asking why the alien has come back to visit him. According to the alien, he wanted to pay back the honour. He's now asking for the man's name. The man's name is Pike. Pike is now asking for the aliens name. The aliens name is Zu Lomy. Pike wants to know what the aliens been doing all these years since their initial meeting. Zu Lomy says after his initial meeting he was imprisoned and tortured at area 51 with his wife and colleague. Pike asks how that's possible, he saw them take to the skies and leave"

"Zu Lomy says their ship took off and then was blasted down. He says only in America could one be given Times Man of the Year then shot down, imprisoned and tortured all within the same day. Another backwards apology he says like JFKs name being leant to space centre in Florida. Pike is asking what happened to Zu Lomys wife and colleague. Dead, they both died at Area 51 following years of abuse and torture. Pike looks shocked to hear this. He apologises on behalf of his country. Zu Lomy wants to know what Pike has been up to all these years since their first encounter by the desert. Much more positive. After needing some time to figure things out, Pike ended up settling down with Laura, they spent some time in LA making music together then moved over to the ranch, where they've been for decades now. Pike is informing Zu Lomy there was many people in Vegas that day, how come the alien has chosen to visit him? Zu Lomy is hesitating, looking for answer. He says he doesn't know... Maybe to be reminded of something or other. Pike hopes its something good"

"What's that sound? I can hear cars coming. Our location appears to have been compromised. The national guard have found us. Pike tosses Zu Lomy his keys. We've got a getaway vehicle. Oh, I'm not invited on this one. He's going at it alone. Zu Lomy shakes hands with Pike and sprints over to the vehicle. He pulls the door open and slips in to the driver's seat. He's rooting through Pikes music collection looking for the right song. How much time does he think has? The national guard are closing in. He's got it. He's got the song ready. I can hear Depeche Mode's Home playing through car speakers. And he's off. A head start on the chase but only a small one. Where will he go from here? Will he find what he's looking for?

Robbie Logan bringing you perhaps the last footage we'll ever see of the alien known as Zu Lomy. I can see him now as just a dot on the horizon. Going... going... gone"

Rebel Moon Part 1: Child of Fire: Overall Rating: 0.5/5