"Day of the Dead"(1985)d/George A. Romero

I have to admit that I'm a little perplexed at the fact that we've never covered tonight's review here at the Wop, remembering how thoroughly amped I was the first time I caught it, with a couple of buddies in my old man's '79 Impala on a double-bill with C.H.U.D.(1984) at the legendary West Side Drive-In that night in 1985.Having been a hardcore Romero-ite for something like eight years up to that point, I was salivating like Pavlov's dog at the concept of a wrap to his wildly successful zombie trilogy(remember when it was merely a 'trilogy', folks?), and thus, denying Chevy-entry to any backseat-inclined brawds that might have had amorous designs on this momentous event.They'd have to wait patiently for a less pivotal double feature, like Gremlins/Ghoulies the following weekend(keep your eyes peeled for that particular ripper of a yarn in future posts), if they expected to get busted out by the kid himself, on the spacious bucket seats of his father's schooner-on-wheels.Gore guru Tom Savini provides the finger-chompin', gut-splayin', Saturn Award-winning splatter effects(his first coming on 'DOTD') that splash across the screen in bloody spurts between Romero's ambitiously scripted mouth offs and philosophical whimsy that make up the film's dialogue, in attempt to shed some light on communication breakdown and the ensuing anarchy born out of it, perhaps.Forced to scale back his original epic vision when the budget was bissected to three and a half million from seven, Romero's Day also faced a limited theatrical run in the States and opened to mixed reviews before grossing nearly thirty million dollars on the international market and earning lucrative bank in video sales across the globe since.Make no mistakes, this is classic horror we're looking upon...

"Whoa! Shouldn'ta dropped both those blotters before lunch..."
Sarah(Lori Cardille) awakens from a nightmare in the day of the dead, as the only female in a subterranean enclave of scientists and military hopelessly surrounded on all sides by ravenous zombies in the Everglades as they desperately race towards a cure for the zombification process and search the east coast for any potential survivors in a helicopter, as helmed by John(Terry Alexander), a self-centered patois-spitting pilot and his partner, McDermott, a brandy-swilling radio expert.Also along for the ride is Sarah's romantic interest, Miguel(Tony DiLeo, Jr.), a girly soldier in the throes of a mental breakdown.Touching down in Ft Meyers only turns up a shambling army of the undead, and a perturbed alligator.Underground, things aren't much sexier, as Major Cooper has just passed on, leaving the impatient skeptic Rhodes(Joe Pilato) in charge of the operation, which is rapidly dissolving into insults and threats when the head scientist, Dr. Logan(Richard Liberty), whom they affectionately refer to as "Frankenstein", fails to show any discernible progress in his experiments with zombie subjects, haphazardly rounded up on a regular basis by Rhodes' men from the surrounding mines.Sarah holds faith that a cure or reversal of the zombification process can be discovered, while Logan sees learned behavior modification for the pus-fucks as the only feasible option, with his star pupil being a zombie named Bub(Sherman Howard), who displays excellent manners for Frankenstein's company, indeed.The reanimated corpse clumsily shaves his dead skin with a razor, goes through the motions of reading a copy of Stephen King Salem's Lot, and even salutes Rhodes, who's disgusted by the whole display, to say the least.

...and a special cameo appearance by Mickey Roarke.
The problem is, Frankenstein's been secretly rewarding Bub's good behavior with a bucketful of soldier meat-treats, which earns him a short, controlled machine gun burst to the belly and a trip to meet his maker.Miguel gets himself bitten on the arm during one round up, managing to get one of Rhodes' men's throats torn out in the process, but Sarah quickly amputates the infected arm, cauterizing the stump with a torch, as Rhodes and co. make the scene at John and McDermott's place just outside the complex, demanding revenge for the increasing number of dead comrades, and resulting in an intense standoff between all parties involved.In the melee Rhodes wastes Fisher(John Amplas) and locks McDermott and Sarah inside one of the zombie corrals, demanding that John flies he and his soldiers off to safety, while an unhinged Miguel sneaks off to let all the zombies surrounding the complex in, getting dined on for his troubles.Meanwhile, Bub has broken free of his restraints, and shambled upon Logan's dead body, causing the ghoul to groan out loud in a burst of emotion, before picking up a gun and setting off on a course of...revenge?John manages to snag a pair of six guns in knocking Rhodes and one of his men unconscious, and he makes off into the darkened mine passages to search for Sarah and McDermott.Quickly trapped by approaching zombies, Rhodes sells his men out while trying to escape himself, and they're rended limb from limb by the rotting hordes, while the commander's path is blocked by a bitter Bub who shows some serious marksmanship for a dead guy in plugging Rhodes with several rounds before he's set upon by the horde who tear him apart."Choke on 'em!" he spits, watching as his innards are pulled out by the hungry ghouls.After Sarah has a repeat nightmare in the race to the chopper, she awakens on a beach where John and his soused buddy are relaxedly fishing from the shore.She crosses another date off on a makeshift calendar...

"Hold still!Do you want that eyelash outta there or not?!!?"
Look for fellow FX men Taso Stavrakis and Greg Nicotero among the military ranks here, both suffering fittingly horrible on-camera deaths at the hands of their pal, Savini, here.What keeps Day outta the running for the title of Romero's apex zombie opus, for me, is the number of irksome personalities amongst the survivors, especially Miguel, and to a lesser degree, the fake Jamaican, John and his comical dipsomaniacal pal, McDermott.Lengthy discourse from the characters as the story progresses doesn't gain them any advocate in me, I'm patiently waiting for the effeminate hispanic to get chowed upon by zombies by the time Dr. Tongue famously shambles in front of Romero's lens in the opening credits, and bummed knowing that the other two make it okay in the end.Don't get me wrong, I highly dug the characters of Sarah, Logan, Fisher, and Rhodes, especially, it was just a strange experience hating on any of George's roles, a first, really, as much as I ended up doing over the years and repeated viewings.And as much personality and realism the zombies and gore effects here exude, I think Day still could have used more of both in the end for that final boost into legend.Still, it remains one of my favorite zombie movies of the era, with much nostalgia enshrouding it's every aspect for me, and for that, it earns a well-deserved three Wop score on the scale; a must-see for every horror fan.

Rhodes(Joe Pilato) gets treated like the Minnesota Vikings did, on any given Sunday last season.

"Jason Goes to Hell:The Final Friday"(1993)d/Adam Marcus

After covering the eight previous films in the Friday the 13th series, tonight, we hit rock bottom like Paul of KISS's immortalized chick, who knows she oughta treat him good, yet never treats him like she should.Only a lot farther down than that.With the mushroom cloud of total fucking failure, as deposited into the atmosphere by Jason Takes Manhattan(1989) still hanging off the air five years later like a soggy Bukwas on a tanning bed of spent mushroom compost, New Line Cinema's supernatural re-imagining of Paramount's slasher king for yet another 'final' movie; a ham-fisted, boring segue into the horror nerd's nocturnal emission come true that would come from the studio a decade later in the form of Freddy vs. Jason, that won't really appeal to hardcore Jason fanatics(the iconic goalie-masked zombie is mostly unaccounted for here, even delivering a breviloquent bit o'uncharacteristic Jason dialogue, too, and the film is woefully deficient in empty-headed, sex-starved teenaged camp counselors, as well... what gives, Cunningham), and despite some skillful murders provided by the ever-stellar KNB troupe, doesn't offer much entertainment to the average genrephile either.I'm not knocking the producers for trying to steer the whole enervated mess into an overdue new direction, I'm questioning why nobody involved blew the whistle along the way, and said, out loud, "Dudes, this seriously sucks, everyone's gonna hate the fuck out of it.Let's start over...". Rivalling 'Manhattan' in suck-itude should be no easy task, but Marcus and Co. make it look effortless here, even serving up an embarrassing moment of hellish denouement geared towards eight year old wrasslin' fans involving that other iconic horror character with the bad complexion, corny wisecracks, foppish hat, and ugly sweater.

"Jumpin' Jeezus!This is some mellow hickory smoked BBQ sauce, I'll tell you THAT, Jack!"
After Jason Voorhees(Kane Hodder) unwittingly walks into an undercover F.B.I. sting in Crystal Lake where he's pumped full o' lead, then grenaded into pulpy smithereens(I guess the wire tap wasn't working, fellas?), his disembodied, black heart hypnotizes a black morgue attendant(Richard Gant) into taking a big nasty bite out of it, and thus, transferring Jason's evil essence into the soul brother, who takes it upon himself to murder his assistant(after he foolishly refers to Jason's pieces on the morgue table as “a faggoty, blown-up fuck.”) and two F.B.I. agents(one of which is Kane Hodder, in a cameo, minus the prosthetic retard-zombie head and hockey mask), before embarking on a journey to Crystal Lake, where he adds Alexis, Deborah, and Luke(they came camping here with the sole intent to fuck and do drugs "now that Jason's dead"...He's not dead, you fools, he's just gone black these days.) to his burgeoning list of victims with a scalpel, and, more spectacularly, shanking Debbie in the labonza with a tent spike, then ripping her in half, mid-tent sex, and stomping her boyfriend's head in, for good measure.Then, after smashing Josh's(Andrew Bloch) partner's dome in a car door, he kidnaps the deputy, straps him bare-assed to a living room table, lathers him up with shaving cream, shaves him down, then plants a passionate one on the helpless lawman's yap, earling some oily black slug down his throat for his troubles.I was already feeling queasy, having to watch the man-on-man shaving action, but thanks anyway, guys.Now, according to national tv celeb/bounty hunter/black cowboy, Creighton Duke(Steven Williams), Jason can only be truly killed by a blood relative, and it just so happens that his never-before mentioned half-sister Diana(Erin Gray, wtf are you doing here...), her daughter, Jessica(Kari Keegan), and her infant daughter, are all within walking distance of shaved cop-Jason, who can also be reborn into his original form through the same blood relative.What the fuck's with all this hocus pocus shit anyway?

This F.B.I. agent is through being Kane-n fodder for the system.
Eh, no matter.Josh/Jason hasn't been paying attention to it, either, or else he'd have possessed Diana instead of killing her and pinning it on her daughter Jessica's ex, Steven(John D. LeMay), who gets the skinny on the Jason mythos via some broken digits while jailed next to Duke.Diana's current beau, Robert(Steven Culp), is a smarmtastic reporter for American Casefiles, a show that happens to be exploiting the current Jason sitch for ratings, and he's surprised by an escaped Steven at the Voorhees house, as he's mapping out his latest exploitation stunt with Diana's stolen cadaver, an episode called "Secrets of the Voorhees House Revealed"(I'd tell you that the Necronomicon from the 'Evil Dead' series makes a cameo here, but you'll be snoring too loudly by this point in the film to notice, trust me).Josh/Jason breaks in and puckers up to Robert, his previous incarnation melting into a blecch-puddle afterwards, then attempts to transfer into Jessica, only to be thwarted at the last second by her persistent ex.The former couple rush to the diner where Jessica's friend, Vicki(Allison Smith), has been tending to the baby for her, but Robert/Jason makes the scene, whacking the gun-toting owners and BBQ skewering Vicki while he's at it.Meanwhile, Duke has Jessica's baby and an enchanted dagger, plus two vs. immortal homicidal mongoloids, waiting at the Voorhees' digs, where all sorts of The Hidden(1986)-inspired body switching takes place before Jason's heart becomes an embryonic demon that crawls up Diana's corpse's asshole(!), allowing Kane Hodder to finally clock six more quality minutes in his classic Jason getup, as he's reborn for the finale.Jessica manages to sink the magical dagger into Voorhees' chest, unleashing the souls of all the desperate actors who took Friday the 13th gigs to keep their electricity turned on, as some demonic prop-hands explode out of the earth to methodically pull the hulking fiend down to H-E-double hockey sticks.Walking off into the sunset, Steven, Jessica, and baby make three, but a dog shows up to dig Jason's goalie mask out of the dirt, only to have Freddy Krueger's razor-gloved hand appear and snatch it up, pulling it down into the abyss amidst his trademark corny laughter...

Sadly, reaching for that last white Power Ranger off of the Wal-Mart shelf on Christmas eve was the last mistake he ever made.
"Ayyyy-yo, Cunningham, conference in my office!", as that jukebox-beating rascal, Fonzie, used to say: Jason doesn't go to Hell, he sends the audience there, instead, ninety-one minutes' worth, by my calculations.It's not even the 'Final Friday' either, as the title also suggests, as that day probably won't arrive until people finally decide to stop spending dough at the theaters for this paint-by-numbers shit or somebody pops a cap in Ice Cube, one or the other.Jason X(2001) would follow, enraging many of the braindead mooks who were intent on seeing Freddy and Jason square off in their gimmicky 2003 feature, complete with Vegas pre-fight weigh-ins and press conferences.You'll have to stay tuned to see how either of those movies rate with me.I'll get around to them eventually, I'm sure.As for this particular turd...fucking GOOSE EGGS, baby.

"Pffffffffffffftttttt...", went the Cheez-Whiz can, finally empty at last.

"Leatherface:Texas Chainsaw Massacre III"(1990)d/Jeff Burr

By 1990, American moviegoing horror fans had fully passed over from the Golden Age of Splatter into an era which saw the studios franchising of popular genre icons such as Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees, in an unscrupulous duckat-snatch that had thus far defecated eight Friday the 13th's(Jason Takes Manhattan, the worst of the lot, was released a year earlier), five Nightmare on Elm Street's(I gracefully bowed out on the second one, thanks), and five Halloween's(any which way you slice 'em up, the fourth and fifth movies are crap-garbage) into the waiting faces of willing wanks.It seemed that the only horror classic that hadn't had the last millilitre of piss taken out of it McDonald's-style, was Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, boasting of only one (relatively well-done)sequel up to that date.New Line Cinema was about to change all that, hiring director Jeff Burr, an Ohio native who never met a sequel project he didn't like, to figure out a way to resurrect everyone's favorite buzzsaw-wielding, hog-squealing retard in human skin masks(if you've been keeping score all along, Bubba(now 'Junior') technically ate explosive shrapnel-death while skewered on a Poulan in the second movie).With the help of the effects wizardry of KNB and a cast that included a post-'Death Spa' Ken Foree and a pre-'Reflecting Skin' Viggo Mortensen, Burr does more than that.He somehow manages to find the formerly-dead, lumbering, homicidal oaf with a penchant for human taxidermy and ruining front doors an entirely new family of cannibalistic psychopaths(Plentiful as armadillos down in Texas, reader Misti tells me...)!Raped repeatedly of worthy splat-tastic content by the MPAA, Leatherpiece would make less than six mil at the box office, proving that, perhaps, the majority of the American horror community are sticklers for detail, afterall.What's that?Rob Zombie's Halloween(2007) grossed fifty-eight??!!Okay, take any credit I may have just given you, and fucking bung it right down the lavvy...

Don't blame Ken Foree, he's just paying the bills.
At the outset, we're introduced to a pair of brabbling California yuppies(you're supposed to like these two, apparently) named Michelle and Ryan(Kate Hodge, William Butler)as they drive across what's supposed to be Texas(it's not, it's California), listening to a radio jock relaying news about an alleged recently discovered pit o' dead bodies that's causing traffic to move like molasses in January.Cut to nighttime, where we find our doomed dyad driving past said corpse chasm's security checkpoint.The next day, they make road-DiGiorno out of a hapless armadillo that Ryan mercy-snuffs when Michelle doesn't have the cazzies to do it herself.It's at a bedraggled roadside gas station that Michelle finds herself being peep-tommed by Alfredo(Tom Everett), the Last Chance's greasy petrol-pumpin' pervert, who's cockblocked by a ride-thumbin' cowpoke who'd given them directions earlier, named...drumroll... Tex(Viggo Mortensen).How apt.Michelle and Ryan speed away just as Alfredo seemingly gives Tex a hot lead injection.The grease monkey named after one of my favorite sauces decides to give chase that night(nothin' like a good head start), teaching them a valuable lesson by slapping a dead coyote on their windshield after somehow catching up to them.At this point their flat-changing experience is interrupted by ol' Leatherface(R.A. Mihailoff) himself, and they drive off before the big galoot can do more than limply rub his saw against their vehicle.They're suddenly joined by a black survivalist with no back story named Benny(Ken Foree) when a sanguinary Tex jumps out and causes an accident, which in turn causes Ryan and his unlikely new ethno-pal to go back and look for Tex, instead meeting a hook-mitted tow truck driver named Tinker(Joe Unger) who offers to set down some road flares.Benny notices a suspicious chainsaw in the back of Tink's truck, and grabs an automatic rifle from his own overturned jeep.Shit gon' be jumpin' off now, baby.Benny joins forces with a girl named Sara, who's entire family ended up as makeshift Ben Cooper Halloween masks for the homicidal lummox, who later pins her to a tree and dissects the bitch with his trusty Homelite for her troubles.

"Leath'-baby(R.A. Mihailoff), it's Beatrice...Yeah, from Custom Chainsaw Fabrications R Us?That antic eighty lb piece with engraved blade is ready for you to pick up, sugar..."
Ryan gets himself caught in a bear trap, his own misfortunes clearing an escape plan for Michelle, who stumbles upon a house in her panic, that...yeah, it's the wrong house to stumble upon in a panic.She gets shanked by a creepy little blonde girl(Jennifer Banko) in a room that's brimming with animal remains(always a bad sign in Texas), then crucified to a kitchen chair by Tex(yeah, he's one of 'em!) and introduced to Grandpa, who's dead, but still enjoys a regular sip o' the red stuff.Mama(Miriam Byrd-Nethery) and her electronic voice box make the scene, and so does Tinker, with mortally injured Ryan in tow.Tinker and Tex suspend the dying yuppie upside down from a doorway by meathooks, and when Leatherpiece shows up, Tex presents him with a nifty custom chainsaw with "The Saw is Family" engraved on the blade, as fabricated by Tinker.Meanwhile, Benny finds the admittedly less yummy version of Alfredo outside, and sinks him in a bog where he'd been dumping corpses when interrogation proves fruitless.Inside, the little girl, who's Leather-puss' daughter(!), creams Ryan into the afterlife with a swinging sledgehammer contraption, while Leath' moves towards dispatching the ball-gagged she-snob, just as Benny busts in with guns a-blazin', shooting up Mama, Grandpa's corpse, and fingers n' ear off of Tinker, allowing Michelle to pull herself loose(ouch) and shank Tex in the labonza, before escaping.The ensuing goosechase leaves Tex doused in gasoline and burnt to a crisp, and Leath' and Benny in a righteous bog-brawl where the black man's head is somehow sawed by 'Face's bog-proof implement of Hell.Michelle manages to bash the killer's dome in with a rock, leaving him to sink unconsciously into the mire, and reach the main drag as dawn breaks, only to be surprised by a still-breathing Benny, who's driving Alfredo's pick up.Oh yeah, that guy.Well, he ain't exactly coffin material either, as he springs up with a sledge only to get blasted by a shotgun-wielding Michelle.She remarks about all the roadkill in Texas as they drive off to safety, unaware that Leathergrill is still alive, revving his chainsaw in the distance...

"Nostril piercing??!!I was looking for a grill with a hella choice metal-skewered septum, goddamn it."
As overwhelmingly un-good as this chopped n' garbled incoherent mess no doubt is(the alternately edited, falsely advertised 'uncut version' on laserdisc and dvd is like a less sizeable turd with a Glade Plug-In sitting next to it), the next entry in the series, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre:The Next Generation"(1994), makes it look like Dances with Wolves, ferchrissakes.Seriously though, fuck Kevin Costner, and motherfuck Waterworld, too.While Mortensen has familiarly spent his time distancing himself from the stink of his TCM stint with good roles in decent movies like Petey Jackson's Ring trilogy and Cronenburg's A History of Violence(2005), Hodge has gone on to prolific television work in tv movies and soaps.Mihailoff has stayed put in genre films, scoring roles in fare like Pumpkinhead II:Blood Wings(1994), and Hatchet II(2010).You might remember Jennifer Banko as young Tina in Friday the 13th Pt VIII:The New Blood(1988), and you might not.Foree has been recently spotted toiling away in Rob Zombie garbage and that unimpressive Dawn of the Dead remake by Zack Snyder in 2004.At least he's working.Burr is also responsible for Stepfather II, the aforementioned Pumpkinhead direct-to-video sequel, Puppetmasters 4 and 5, and Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy.Orson Wells he isn't.On the scale, Leather scores a single wop.Avoid it, trust me.

Hey Leathergrill, what's with the fucking leg brace, anyway?

"Scream Greats Volume One:Tom Savini, Master of Horror Effects"(1986)d/Damon Santostefano

If you happened to be watching a movie during the late seventies/early eighties where one of the characters dies violently on camera, chances are, this guy had a hand in making it happen.Despite the occasional chaffing I administer to Pittsburgh's groundbreaking gore effects wizard, Tom Savini, he'll always be one of my adolescent heroes of elephantine proportions.One need only throw classics like Dawn of the Dead(1978), Friday the 13th(1979), or Martin(1976) into the dvd player to see why an aficionado of genre cinema such as I would hold the former Vietnam combat photographer in such high regard.To a gruesome little kid like I used to be(insert the heartiest of snickers here), Savini's attachment to a film project is all it would take to guarantee my seeing it multiple times.Other kids watched Herbie go Bananas or Boba Fett's misfiring rocket pack as it sent him plummetting into the waiting yap of the Sarlacc.Me, I was queued up for Maniac!(1980), and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way."GOTTA see this one, Dad, SAVINI did the effects!", and my father'd shake his head the way fathers often do, drop a few of his trademark wisecracks, and take me to the movies, god bless him.
So when Paramount released tonight's entry on VHS, a documentary about Terrible Tommy that features discourse from director George A. Romero, "Uncle" Bob Martin, the original editor of Fangoria magazine(which effectively replaced Famous Monsters of Filmland as my most important read), and a gaggle of other cult personalities that includes a pre-KNB Greg Nicotero, it automatically became my next purchase, hands down.The fact that we're still waiting for an official dvd release, Blu-ray or otherwise, is a glaring umbrage on the final scorecard of humanity.Let's travel back to the days of yesteryear then, shall we, to when the face of modern horror sported an unapologetically boisterous porn-stache...

I rock the party that rocks the body, Tom rocks the party that rocks the (half)body.
Over a montage of cinematic wounds he's created, Tom Savini likens himself to an assassin, who packs up his bag of tools, travels to another city, and kills people for a living.I'll buy that analogy.We watch Savini drop from the upper level of the Monroeville Mall for a dramatic DOTD stunt/death scene that receives applause from the crew.George A. says Tom doesn't flinch in always going for it.Actor Taso Stavrakis sums him up as simply, fun.Greg Nicotero relates Tom's love for spraying fellow crew members with a soaker full of stage blood to the camera.Nancy Savini, Tom's wife, divulges that her husband loves to scare people."Uncle" Bob Martin says that he's more than a makeup man, he's a personality.Clips from The Burning, Creepshow, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and Dawn of the Dead are shown as Romero explains that you wouldn't understand why people laugh at such graphic violence unless you're into it, yourself.Savini cites Hitchcock and DePalma as influences upon his work, while we see the similarity between the unmasking of Jason Voorhees and the unmasking of Lon Chaney, Sr.'s Phantom of the Opera.We learn that Chaney, Sr. was Savini's first inspiration for a career in makeup as he walks past the Plaza Theater(with his own Day of the Dead on the marquee) and, as a twelve year old formerly lazy Italian kid, saw Man of a Thousand Faces in the very same theater, later being the only white kid shining shoes(Billy Batts:"Now go home and get your fucking shine box!") in Bloomfield in order to buy makeup supplies.He mentions that his son's name is Lon, in tribute to the silent film star.His brilliant work on Romero's Martin is discussed(and wrongfully named as his introduction into special effects in film:Ormsby's Deranged and Clark's Deathdream pre-date George's vampire opus), including the razor blade cuts and stake-through-the-heart finale.Next, he discusses weapons over sequences from The Prowler, including the machete throat-slitting, and head impalement.He admits that "...It's a sick business."

Greg Nicotero, fearful of tarantulas, but not the Flowbee, apparently.Oh, the eighties...
Ned Eisenberg relates his collaboration with the effects master on 1981's The Burning.Savini tells that teenaged actors were spun on the idea of being served up as gory death scenes in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter which segues into stories of his work on the 1979 original, his designs for Jason, and the Final Chapter updated makeup.The bloody and violent stage shows of 1800's influential Grand Guignol are discussed.The parallels between splatter movies and real life horror are also touched upon.Tom and company administer bloody squib shots to Nancy, much to the glee of the neighborhood kids, who are all watching.Tom and Greg discuss their gut-chomping work on Day of the Dead(including the headless brain zombie, the disembodied Greg-head zombie, and the shovel-split head effects), and Savini shows off some latex intestines.Savini remarks that his nightmares involve having glue in his armpits and on the backs of his knees(!).Poor Joe Pilato's time around rotting animal entrails for his graphic death scene is also spoken upon.Bob Martin tells of Savini's strong rapport with horror movie fans, who hold him in higher regards than any of the other makeup men of the day(Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, etc.), symbolizing "a fan who made it", as Tom gives the ten cent tour of the mountains of glorious horror/sci-fi stuff all over his house.E.G. Marshall's cockroachy death in Creepshow is recalled.Nicotero talks about his fear of tarantulas, and how Tom bought him one, just because!Savini discusses his time in Vietnam, and how photographing the horrors that he saw actually helped him put a face on death when it came to his work later on.Infant daughter Mia does a stunt for the cameras.Tom's own body of stunt work is touched upon, while he hangs from gravity boots.He fences with Stavrakis, and his acting, specifically in Romero's Knightriders is discussed.He displays a puppet he created for Tales From the Darkside, prophetically claiming, "one day computers will do all this stuff!"(how right you were, TS)and that should all of his creations and people he's killed in movies one day seek revenge, he'll be ready for them...

Congrats, Uncle Bob, your very first Wopsploitation© screencap.
Rather than drone on as per usual about what Savini's done after being the focus of tonight's entry, I'll instead direct you to his official website here, where you can score all the very latest in photos, journals, videos, complete filmography, and even Android apps dealing with the Italian horror icon from the greatest state in the country(Oh yes, it is).Tonight's review is indeed hard to come by these days, but well worth the hunt, even if you only snag a fuzzy vhs boot until we're finally served up the long overdue special edition dvd someday.It's a time capsule of everything that was choice about horror movies in the eighties(and the premier mag that covered 'em) that guarantees to satisfy.On the scale it scores a perfect four wops, and comes with my highest recommendation.Find it!

Ground control to Major Tom: Take your blood capsules and put your grav boots on.

"Vampires"(1998)d/John Carpenter

I didn't think we'd ever get to March here at the Wop, between a week of brutal flu symptoms leaving me sweating and shivering in bed like Regan MacNeil in need of a cruci-fix, and half-assed local DSL connections effectively keeping me off the interwebs when I was coherent enough to get outta bed.Well, that's all behind us now, kiddies.Tonight,we'll take a look at the movie that genre god John Carpenter followed his ill-advised reload of Escape From New York with, already treading dangerously upon the waters of mediocrity with such non-impact fare as Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Village of the Damned under his recent belt at the time.Carpenter, as you'll already know, had a streak of amazing movies not many directors have ever gotten close to, from around 1976 to 1987 or so.When he finally lost his grip on success, his descent from the top wasn't as instant or constant as one might think, as tonight's review should illustrate.He helmed some pretty uninspired pictures during his dry spell, but Vampires wasn't one of them.
Based upon the 1990 John Steakley novel of the same name,Carpenter's Vampires offers some witty dialogue, inventive grue, and much needed new life breathed into the all too familiar(by now,dontcha think?) vampire legend.Two crappy unrelated direct-to-video sequels not withstanding,I have no complaints at all here.My old man, a guy with one of the healthiest fears of fanged bloodsuckers I've ever seen in my life(here's a guy who'll start to backpeddle and shout for help if I pretend to lunge towards his neck), actually took this one in with me at the theater and volunteered for rewatches when I snagged the dvd.Now, that's saying something.If only Ghosts of Mars didn't follow.If only.

Valek(Thomas Ian Griffith) plants an inspired hickey.
Somewhere in a New Mexico dustbowl,Jack Crow(James Woods)and his merry band of vampire slayers have just eradicated a nest of "goons", or entry level vampires, from an abandoned farmhouse.While the team parties it up at a nearby motel that night, Crow ponders the missing piece to the sunlight-deprived, undead puzzle; there was no master vampire at the nest as per usual.That's because the master of this vanquished nest just happens to be Jan Valek(Thomas Ian Griffith), only the pioneer proponent of blood drinking, unwittingly unleashed upon Earth's inhabitants by the Catholic Church in a botched exorcism ritual centuries earlier.Valek crashes the slayer party that night, and at full lunar-powered strength, he effortlessly lays waste to vampire hunters, whores, and lawmen with equal,blood-soaked aplomb, leaving only Crow, Montoya(Daniel Baldwin), and a thigh-siphoned prostitute named Katrina(Sheryl Lee) alive in his vengeful wake.The decimated team scrambles to regroup, with Crow meeting with Cardinal Alba(Maximillian Schell, slightly less ridiculous here than his turn in "The Black Hole"), while Montoya holes up with the hooker who's now psychically linked to Valek as vampirism begins to take hold of her with each passing hour.Gripped in terror, she helplessly watches as he and a group of seven masters brutally slaughter priests and monks alike in search of the famed Berziers Cross, rumored to hold the power to allow vampires to walk unaffected during daylight hours.Yeah,you're probably gonna wanna stop him before he gets a hold of that one, guys.

I used to think I was pretty good at crashing parties...
Crow is paired up with a new priest(seeing as how Valek forced the last one to shotgun his own brains all over the motel room ceiling),Father Guiteau(Tim Guinee), who he indoctrinates as a slayer by wisecracking, punking him out, and kicking him up his ass on the side of the road a little bit.Bullying God's bullies always made perfect sense to me, I dunno.Montoya, on the other hand, is having a rougher time of it with the infected hussy, now having to conceal the bite he's gotten himself in the midst of a spirited melee with his new she-pal.This all culminates in a knock down, drag out showdown in a Spanish mission where we discover the Cardinal(ooh, you bastard!) is in cahoots with the vampire, using the Berziers Cross and the blood of a crusader(a captured Crow) to complete the ritual that would allow Valek to venture out in the sunlight in exchange for eternal life.Montoya gets himself re-bitten by a fully-transformed Katrina, while Guiteau is hemmed in at an abandoned bar, realizing that this game's players are jumping sides faster than you could croon "Someone to care for...to be there for...I have-James Woods" to the tune of "You Two" off the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack.Will Valek finally be able to update his Bauhaus video extra wardrobe on a daytime High Street shopping spree?Will Montoya run out of extremely painful and hot things to cauterize his vampire bites on?Will Father Guiteau rescue Crow from his current tight spot,and will Crow kick his priestly ass for his troubles afterwards?Snag a copy and find out for yourselves,kiddies!

A Swiffer prolly shoulda been among the nifty doodads in Crow's(James Woods) armoured vehicle.Just sayin'.
Interesting usage of light filters, classic Carpenter-styled shot framing, heaps of inventive gore ladled on by the KNB masters,and some good performances throughout by a solid cast headed by Woods, who fits pretty naturally here as a master vampire slayer, believe it or not, and Griffith, whose fanged turn is adequate if not a little cliched in design, and a decent soundtrack make for an entertaining and original comic book-esque good n' evil sparring match that oughta satisfy most genre fans(that don't require sparkles or teen angst with their bloodlust).Just steer clear of Ghosts of Mars, whatever you do.Three biggies.

You've got some miserable looking sunflowers coming up out front...

"Survival of the Dead"(2009)d/George A. Romero

Spreading faster over the land these days than any meat-gobbling zombie epidemic,is the notion that the great horror directors of the golden age of splatter have all taken up residence over on Suck Blvd,where the rent is cheap,and Rob Zombie's your next-door neighbor.George A's no exception either.In fact,after squeezing out this latest cinematic turtle head to again cash in on his once mighty Living Dead saga,he may have secured himself a whole city block of rowhouses on said sorry street.I tried to avoid all outside influence before finally sitting down to this,the sixth installment in the series,to keep the empty fanboy praise and the snobbish skeptical dismissal out of any review I would do on the film,and afterwards,there's very little chance of me praising Romero for this shit-brick,believe me.The one positive I can pull out of this production,is that nearly every single aspect of the film blows.That's not an easy achievement for someone who once drew praise from critics and moviegoers alike for his masterful grasp of genre filmmaking.I'd categorize the main characters as cartoonish,except that's insulting to the average graphic novel.In 1968 having a black male protagonist was a brilliant move.In 2009,a hispanic lesbian soldier(named...wait for it....yeah,that's right."Tomboy".) just seems,I dunno,obvious and forced.What's next,George,a one-legged Serbian transsexual with a cleft palate(named Транссексуалац обогаљен perhaps?)?The special makeup effects,surprisingly produced in part by maestro Greg Nicotero,have taken a healthy stumble backwards,with more than one occasion where the end of a zombie makeup and the fleshy beginning of an actor is clearly visible,and the cgi headshots are not only plentiful,but downright embarrassing.WTF as interwebs-savvy peeps might type here,indeed.Poetically,the estimated four million dollar budget hasn't been CLOSE to paid for at the box office as the time of writing,grossing an anemic hundred grand in limited release.And then there's the half-assed story itself...

Back to The Drew Carey Show,from whence ye came!
It would seem,the band of rogue soldiers led by "Nicotine"(Alan Van Sprang) that jacked the makeshift Winnebago film crew from Diary of the Dead is still surviving the ongoing zombie plague that grips the world,with some new stereoty...uhh,characters along for the ride,like "Tomboy"(Athena Karkanis),Francisco(Stefano Colacitti),and Kenny(Eric Woolfe),deserting their posts and fending for themselves amidst the shuffling flesh-eating chaos.Meanwhile,off the coast of Delaware,on Plum Island,there's an Irish version of the Hatfield/McCoy feud going on between the two families that call the island home.See,there's the Muldoons,led by patriarch Seamus(Richard Fitzpatrick),who live by the word of the Good Book,and they think that loved ones,whether reanimated and hungry for guts or not,should be preserved at all costs.Then there's the O'Flynns,captained by Patrick(Kenneth Welsh),who puts down zombies on sight,and with a posse,patrols the island for walking stiffs with a posse,until a showdown between the two men and an intervention by Patrick's daughter Janet(Kathleen Munroe),who has open contempt for his stubbornness,gets he and his followers exiled off the island.The soldiers team up with "Boy",who finds an advertisement for Plum Island made by Patrick O'Flynn through an internet connection on a laptop,and after deciding to check it out,find themselves hemmed in by zombies and in an ambush firefight at the dock with O'Flynn and his followers.Francisco swims out to a ferry,being attacked by sunken ghouls along the way,biting one of their fingers off(swallowing infected zombie blood in the process)and securing the vessel for his group.Patrick's followers are all dispatched by zombies,leaving him no choice but to stow away on the ferry with the soldiers.Sound ridiculous?There's more.

"Sure and begorrah,ye'd best not be giving me one of yer hickeys,Molly!",protests Feargal.
On the isle,the group discovers that Muldoon has set up an ambush for arriving strangers,only allowing the undead visitors to remain in existence,and shooting the live ones.The bastards kill Kenny(sorry.)and wing Nicotine,before Patty sets off to round up remaining members of his family and have it out with the rival Celt,who's chained zombies up all over the place,forcing the corpses to lifelessly repeat actions they'd remembered from life,i.e. mailman zombie delivering the mail over and over again,woodchopping zombie flaccidly flailing at the same hunk of wood with an axe over and over again...you get the point,kiddies.We then see Patrick's daughter,a zombie,riding a horse freely all over the island,only it's not Janet,it's her dead twin sister,Jane.Uhhhh,yeah.This nonsense all leads to a final showdown between the soldiers and O'Flynn and Muldoon,with corralled zombies,who the good christian was trying to teach to eat meat other than human,escaping and chowing down on random unlucky bastards in both sides.Jane recognizes her live sister,who extends her hand in friendship,which the zombie matter-of-factly bites.Ah,sibling rivalry.Janet then sees her sister take down her horse and bite a chunk out of it,but before she can tell her father that Muldoon's experiment was a success,he shoots her,mistaking her for Janet.O'Flynn and Muldoon shoot each other and die.The remaining soldiers decide to leave the island,not exactly the paradise they had originally hoped for.Meanwhile,zombies have followed the dead O'Flynn girl's lead,and eat the horse she attacked.Then the O'Flynn and Muldoon zombies shuffle up to each other on a hill,drawing empty guns upon one another and pulling the triggers.Really.

Precious few moments of this kinda thing going on here,sad to report.
I'm not happy about having to post this review at all,droogies,believe me.It's never easy for the emperor to thumbs down one of his long-time comfort directors,but these days,more and more of those guys seem to be in cruise control lately,with little or no regard for the hardcore fans who put them there.I know,personally,rather than endure ninety more minutes of horseshit,I'll sooner turn to one of the newer genre talents(Vogel,Palumbo,Aja) for entertainment.Maybe if these guys realize their core audience isn't nearly as brainless as the quivering piles of flesh shambling in front of their lens,they'll actually put forth an effort which may result in an honest-to-goodness good movie again.Or maybe they're satisfied being the punchline for the latest round of movie jokes.I'd hope that's not the case,'cuz I'm a creative and very vocal motherfucker with a witty streak longer than "Death in Venice".In closing,I wouldn't wish this fuckin' mutt of a movie on the simplest of horror fans,who,despite having balls-taste in movies,would still hate everything about this.With zombies being this year's horror dead horse,maybe it's finally time to put one in the head of this whole franchise,then chuck it on the woodpile and let it burn before the putrefying stench gets too strong to enjoy the classics that came before it.One wop.

The zombie wrote the prompter cards AND the screenplay too,didn't she,George.

"Land of the Dead"(2004)d/George A. Romero

Phew,it's hot enough to fry Mumia on the sidewalk out there today,kiddies.Too hot to do anything but sit in front of the fan in a wifebeater and drawers,praying for a quick and merciful death while looking at the garish nudes your collective mothers filled my inbox with overnight.If my face doesn't melt a la Raiders of the Lost Ark in the process,ole Dub'll try and sweat out a decent review for you little fuckers,by hook or crook.Facciamo cosi'!
I missed out on today's entry on its theatrical run,bogged down at the time with domestic stuffs,and I think it worked out for the best that way.Though I've never sit through the theatrical cut of the film,I had heard nothing but complaints and disappointment from my boys who'd braved the ten dollar cover and six dollar jujubes to bear witness to the long awaited cinematic return of Romero to his flesh-gnawing undead stomping grounds only to get expurgated goods.I waited for the uncut dvd release,and truthfully,I'm glad I did.I can't stand the way studios tend to edit the nuts out of a movie,especially one that relies as heavily on cazzies as Romero vehicles usually do.With the ehhh Zack Snyder Dawn remake and Edgar Wright's brilliant Shaun of the Dead paving the way for George's horrific homecoming,he obviously spent a good deal of time deciding which angle he was gona shamble in from this time around.With 1968's Night,and 1978's Dawn,the horror came from seeing your loved ones transform into a shuffling pile of rotting instinct,eager to eat the shit outta you if you were stupid enough to get surrounded by them.With tonight's entry,he's further blurred the battle lines of the zombie apocalypse,with human beings becoming more instinctual,and zombies gaining a degree of intelligence,and even moreso,humanity.So who deserves to inherit the earth when all is said and done,you ask?Who,indeed.

Asia slinking around in a fishnet body stocking.You'd have to be dead not to dig that shit.
With the world immersed in a zombie pandemic,the city of Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania is disharmoniously divided into the haves,who live luxuriously worry-free in Fiddler's Green,a high rise overseen by Paul Kaufman(Hopper),and the have-nots,who subsist on the city streets just inside the military barricade and the three rivers that separate them from the flesh-eating ghouls.Kaufman has built a huge armored tactical vehicle called "Dead Reckoning" that his soldiers use on recon missions into zombie-occupied areas to gather necessary supplies,and occasionally luxury items for the chairman and his board members.On such a mission,Riley Denbo(Simon Baker)notices that the zombies seem to be communicating amongst themselves,and the "sky flower" fireworks the vehicle emits into the air don't seem to be mesmerizing the ghouls in quite the same way as they once did.Denbo and his scarrified sidekick,Charlie(Robert Joy),plan to retire from duty,taking a car and driving into the Canadian wilderness,away from the militaristic madness and zombies altogether.When Riley discovers his car is missing from the garage that was housing it,the two men are forced to infiltrate the city's seedy vice district for answers.Inside,they save a hooker named Slack(Argento),from being fed to two zombies in a cage,a punishment handed down by Kaufman for her involvement with an Irish dissenter named Mulligan,kill the midget named Chihuahua responsible for his car's theft,and eventually,get arrested by Kaufman's men.Elsewhere,Cholo(John Leguizamo),one of the Dead Reckoning team,has been planning on retiring from duty as well,aspiring to score himself a choice apartment in Fiddler's Green amongst the haves,but the pipedream is promptly pissed upon by Kaufman,who instead tries to have him killed.Cholo gathers some insurgents and steals the tactical vehicle,aiming its missiles at the high rise for ransom money.The chairman,not one to negotiate with terrorists(sound familiar?),gives Denbo and company a reprieve from jail instead,and hires them to retrieve Dead Reckoning in exchange for their car and absolution from future duty.

Oi,Simon,you've got some rot on you.
Meanwhile,a black zombie gas station attendant(Eugene Clark)has gathered an army of walking corpses to descend on the city in retaliation for the troops slaughter of zombies on their supply runs.Through rudimentary communication skills and example,he teaches his fellow zombies to arm themselves,and they discover that,being dead,they can simply sink to the riverbottom and walk across into the populated area.The melee that ensues finds the less fortunate city dwellers trapped inside the electrified fences,with most citizens becoming easy prey for the attacking zombies.Denbo convinces Cholo to surrender Dead Reckoning to him,with the latter taking one of his crew in a car and calling it a day instead.Cholo is bitten during their journey,and returns to Fiddler's Green,as a lone zombie,just in time to catch Kaufman trying to flee the high rise with an attache full of cash.The zombie gas station attendant who has also descended upon the parking garage,punches out one of the chairman's limo windows and pours gas into the vehicle.As Kaufman realizes his bullets are ineffective against his former employee,he is grabbed by the vengeful zombie and bitten,just as "Big Daddy" returns to roll a flaming cannister into the gas-soaked limousine,which explodes,destroying tyrant and zombie both.Denbo and company use Dead Reckoning's missile capability to save the lives of a small group of citizens led by Mulligan who are cornered by zombies,and as they prepare to drive off towards the north,Pretty Boy(Joanne Boland),the vehicle's driver catches Big Daddy and his zombies lumbering off in her sights,but Dnebo advises her not to fire,as they're only looking for a place to go,afterall.Dead Reckoning drives off into the night,firing the last of its ineffectual fireworks into the sky,signalling the beginning of their journey towards liberation.

Intelligent zombies prolly wouldn't go swimmin' with their clothes on.Sayin'.
Look for undead cameos from FX wizard Greg Nicotero,whose work here is stellar and gruesome as always,Tom Savini reprising his Chopper character from Dawn of the Dead,Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright and star Simon Pegg,among others.
Sure there's the usual dose of Romero's social commentary within the frames here,but to put a political spin in either direction on the film is downright negligent,despite some of the obvious satirical characterizations the director has fleshed out here.I've read some left-leaning pukes wrongfully draw parallels between the Big Daddy character and Che Guevara,a straw-grab so wincingly retarded it sears my brain.Sure,they're both dead,but the similarities end there,friends.The lead zombie had compassion for his fellow zombies,and nobly rose up against his living opressors to ensure survival of his kind,whereas Che was simply a power-hungry crap crook who frequently murdered his own people,driven by his own personal greed,before he was graciously wiped off the planet,ironically,to be forever remembered as a cheap t-shirt design worn by idiots worldwide.In your humble N's honest opinion,there never really was much difference between the living victims or their dead attackers in the first place,and in the end,all anybody really wants is to keep on keepin' on,and I think that's probably the only relevant message anybody should take away from tonight's entry.Let it be,droogies.It'll all make itself apparent by the time the smoke clears.Or not.Every day above ground is a good day,whether you're breathing,or aimlessly stumbling around looking for an arm to bite.As usual,Romero scores big at the Wop,which is no surprise by now,with three solid wops on the rating scale.See it!

"Zombies...they freak me out,man." R.I.P.,Hop.

Cursed(2005)d/Wes Craven

Wes "Last House on the Left" Craven directs,Rick Baker and Greg Nicotero/KNB handle the creature and gore effects,and adorable cutie pie Christina Ricci is the female lead.That's a pretty good lineup on paper.So why is this not a better movie?It's certainly a passable ninety minutes worth of light entertainment,but it really should have been so much more.I've racked my brain on this perplexing puzzle quite a few times by now,and this is what your humble N comes up with.Ricci does an admirable job with her material,and is gorgeous,as usual.The werewolves look good,if not a bit CGI-heavy a la Underworld.Nicotero is criminally underused on the gore end thanks to the inevitable PG-13 chop,but his crimson contribution is enjoyable,as always.Besides the myriad of problems Craven had to wade through just to have the film released(three years after production began),the movie suffers from Kevin "I Know What You Did Last Summer" Williamson's goofy,airheaded script.It feels like a horror movie made by people who neither enjoy horror movies,nor understand what goes into making a good one,and a thinly-veiled vehicle for hot young stars of the moment to strut attractively across the big screen,like the "I Know" series was nothing more than.What a shame...

That's nothing,Ricci,you should see the infernal thing when it's erect.Hahaha!
Two bubbleheads as shallow as a wading pool for kiddies enjoy a fair on the pier when they decide to pay the fortune teller(Portia de Rossi) a visit.The gypo sees moon-based danger in their palms,but the girls cluck disgustedly that the soothsayer fails to notice their Korean French-tipped manicures,or something equally vapid. Enter Ellie(Chistina Ricci) and her embarrassingly nerdy brother Jimmy(Jesse Eisenberg) driving home that night,only to hit some animal with their car on the winding mountain road,ploughing into another vehicle,causing it to flip over the guard rail and into the woods below.When the siblings try to rescue the airhead(Shannon Elizabeth)trapped upside down in the driver's seat,a werewolf snatches her up as prey and effectively puts the mark of the beast on both of them.Jimmy immediately believes they've been affected by a werewolf,trudging through his comic books and crypto websites to map out a course of action.Ellie works for the Craig Kilborn Show(!),and her increasingly wolfish traits become so apparent,she's soon catching Scott "Chachi" Baio's eye while scheduling his appearance on the show(!!).Meanwhile back in high school,it's the plight of the nerd for Jimmy.He's attracted to a girl,who dates the head of the wrestling team,Bo(Milo Ventimiglia),an abrasive sporto meathead who constantly accuses Jimmy of being a homosexual.Ellie is also having problems of the heart with her boyfriend,Jake(Joshua "Dawson's Creek" Jackson),who's opening a Hollywood club filled with horror movie-themed mannekins and a hall of mirrors right out of the New Scooby Doo Movies.

Leaving your dinner half finished when there are werewolves starving in Romania?Come on!.
After defeating Bo and his jock buddies in a wrestling match in the gym,Jimmy is visited by the defeated meathead,who confesses his own gayness to him(!!!) as they escape the attacks of Zipper the dog,who was infected with lycanthropy when he bit Jimmy on the night of their car crash.You following this?Soon the other member of the bopsy twins from the pier turns her toes up after clashing with a ravenous werewolf in the parking garage.Jake tells Ellie that he's a werewolf,but before he can explain further,she speeds off.At Jake's club,the two boys try to rendezvous with Ellie,but are foiled by a werewolf in the hall of mirrors.At this point I expected to see Shaggy and Scooby disguise themselves as barbers and set the wolfman up for a shave in the chair.But I digress.It turns out this skinny,sassy bitch with massive Vince Vaughn-esque bags under her eyes that Ellie works with completes the were-puzzle,infected with the curse when she herself slept with Jake,killing off female competitors for the alpha male of the pack.In full transformation,she flips the bird to cops before they blow her brains out.Not even Landis would have went there.The shaggy denoument finds Ellie shovel-blading off Jake's head after plunging a silver cake server into his chest,breaking the curse for the siblings and their pooch.Jimmy gets his girl,Bo is the homoerotic third wheel,and Ellie is left to clean up their mess of a house.Cue trendy music as the end credits roll.

So friggin' cute,even werewolves wanna smooch her.
Yeah,it's definitely the script.Personally,I don't think Craven's done much of anything merit-worthy since Last House on the Left(and that was a LONG TIME AGO,kids),and this furry Gilmore Girls episode didn't do anything to slow his artistic slide into the Hollywood septic tank.Overall,it succeeds as a Wednesday night time waster,if sandwiched between two movies you might have actually wanted to see.Chug several cautionary beers beforehand,and you may get your jollies from the always attractive Ricci and/or Nicotero's on-screen grue.A Wop each for those two factors alone is all I can award this yuk-fest in good conscience.The makers of this film should thank the heavens that the collective ghosts of Larry Talbot and Waldemar Daninsky haven't showed up during the lunar cycle and waffled them for this effort.

Baker/KNB's upright lycanthropic vision ultimately unveiled.